#they should have stuck with the more normal real problems of couples

[khaotunng]

Once again, just because Flower Of Evil did the amnesia trope in the last episode really well and heartbreakingly doesn’t mean anyone can pull it off🚬🚬

[melanieph321]

Hiii!! Could you please write some more abt Joško?? Thanksss💘💘💘

Ofc ☺️

SEVEN DAYS OF REQUESTS 3.0

(DAY 3)

Joško Gvardiol x Reader - Potential Wedding Day

Reader and Joško are getting married. However, Reader is having second thoughts.

Enjoy!

It was now or never.

Joško's family was lovely, and perhaps that was the problem. He came from a big family, with plenty of cousins, uncles aunties and siblings. All here to celebrate your wedding day. You, on the other hand, was an only child, raised by a single mother who taught you how to fend for yourself in the real world, not how to play house with your future husband. Unfortunately, this left you with no clue on how to be the wife that Joško deserved.

It was now or never, you thought, as you ditched your heels and stepped into the Croatian sun. A beach wedding had been your idea since a wedding in a church felt outdated and quite frankly fictional. You had never been a costum to any religion or its many traditions. Perhaps this added to your list of reasons why you'd make a terrible wife.

"Y/N, is that you?"

"Fuck."

You hid behind some bushes. Joško's sister had spotted you. How could she possibly have missed the white cloud making it's way down the majestical beach?

"Y/N, is everything alright?"

You heard footsteps approaching and sensed no point of return. "Hey, Sarah. What's up?" Your head popped out from behind the bushes, a couple of twigs stuck to your hair. Trying to act normal about the encounter felt bold enough as it was.

"Erm...not much. Why are you hiding in the bushes?" The young girl bore a frightened look on her face. Especially as her gaze fell upon your bare feet.

"Oh, you know. I thought I'd take a stroll down the beach, clear my head before the big day."

"You mean the wedding? The wedding that's in fifteen minutes?"

"Right."

"I was supposed to bring you your flowers. Everyone's waiting."

"I get that, it's just that..."

"Should I get aunt Lina?" A strike of panic in Sarah's voice. Surely she was aware of what was happening, what you were about to do.

"Oh, no. I'm sure that won't be nessicery." You said and came around the bushes to stand before her.

"Your dress." She said, eyeing it with concern. You had ripped the bottom half of it and allowed pebbles of leaves to latch onto the fabric. "How about I get my big brother? Yes, I'll go get Joško."

Sarah ran off in the direction of the reception. And before you knew it, a trail of people were seen rushing your way. Joško, followed by his family.

"Y/N?" He was quick to approach you, checking for any wounds below your ripped dress.

"Oh my." The women behind him muttered. "She was about to runaway.

"What a shame." Another one said. "To leave our poor Joško at the altar."

The men regarded you with judging eyes. Most likely, I see you as a waste of time. A girl who wasn't Croatian nor knew of or respected the country's culture. They probably believed that Joško would have been better of marrying some girl next door. Now he was stuck with you, a gold digging WAG.

"Y/N?"

With a shrug of your shoulders Joško brought you out of your anxious daze. His eyes searched your face, regarding you with furrowed brows. "You're crying."

"I'm sorry." You squealed.

His face softened. "Everyone out of the way!" You were led back towards the house, Joško's hand squeezing yours.

"Ali Joško, vjenčanje?" (But Joško, the wedding?) Some in his family shouted.

"Daj nam minutu!" (Give us a minute!) He groand and made the glass doors come to a close behind you. The silence that followed was the most heartbreaking silence that you had ever experienced. You sat down in a chair, waiting, no, hoping for Joško to bring himself to look at you. However, as he did, you hadn't anticipated the sheer terror in his eyes.

"You're having second thoughts, aren't you?"

"Joško, I'm sorry."

He crumbled to his knees, approaching the chair where you sat. "It's okay. You're okay."

"It's not." Your voice trembled. "It's not okay and I should have told you before it was too late."

He laughed. A warm and rich laughed that was felt through your body. Joško pulled your chair closer to him. "It's okay." He whispered and kissed your temple. "I rushed you into marrying me. I should have known that you weren't ready. It's just....I want us to be a family before the baby comes." Joško lowered himself for his head to end up in your lap. There, he nuzzled his face against your flat belly, yet revealing the life growing inside you.

"I get that you come from a very traditional family." You nodded and traced your hand through his yet black hair. "But I don't, meaning I don't get why we can't be a family without getting married?"

Joško nodded. "We can...and we should. It's just my family that...." He stopped himself, shaking his head. "It doesn't matter. They don't matter. What matters is this, YN." He pointed between the two of you.

"You and me?"

He nodded. "And the baby."

You smiled. "Our family."

He raised his head from your lap, perking up to give you a lingering kiss. A kiss that calmed the last of your nerves.

"Don't get me wrong." You whispered against his mouth. "I want to marry you, just not today."

Joško chuckled. "Good luck explaining that to my mother."

"Or perhaps it's time we tell them about her." You stood from the chair.

Joško came up from the floor, joining your side. "Who?"

You grabbed his hand and placed it flat against your belly. "Her." You smiled.

His eyes widened. "Her? It's a she?"

You nodded, confirming it. "Yes, Joško. It's a she. We're having a baby girl."

A squelead, as Joško swept you off your feet, ironically picking you up and carrying you around, bridalstyle. Your laughter filled the room. He twirled you around in a heartfelt moment. One that you'd forever remember as your potential wedding day.

[obsessivelyloved]

Day 1: Monster

The prompt is from this list. Hope you guys enjoy!

__________________________________________________

There were scratch marks on your porch this morning—big, deep ones. You called out of work. You called animal control. There was nothing they could do.

A set of large footprints circled your house. They wrapped around it over and over, as if something was pacing. They stopped, deep, in front of your bedroom window. There were claw marks on your windowsill.

You had slept with your curtains open.

“Sorry,” The man from animal control had apologized, wringing his hands. “More than likely, it was a curious bear smelling food from your house. It’s long gone into the woods. But if you hear anything at night, hide up in your attic and give us a call.”

You numbly nodded your head. “Will do, thanks for- thanks for your time.”

The man left and all you could do was stare down at your porch, at the large footprints, with fear stuck in your throat. It wasn’t a bear. Bears didn’t have such large claws or feet like a coyote. Or the kind of feet bunnies have, whatever it was.

You didn’t want to stay home but you had nowhere else to go. You had recently moved to this dreary part of England, a little away from the city. It was in your grandmother’s will for you to inherit the house; you couldn’t turn it down. It was completely paid off, all you had to pay was the normal stuff like electricity and water. But now, well, maybe you should have waited until you your friend's lease was up. You would have been dealing with this stress better with someone.

Trees lined the back side of the house, but your grandmother had never been worried about animals. She didn’t even have a backyard fence, not having too many neighbors out here.

“I should go see if the hardware store sells cameras,” you say to yourself.

With a shaky breath, heart still hammering inside your chest, you gather what you need and head out. Thankfully, there’s a couple of stores ten minutes away. They’re mostly the necessities, anything but the basics and a few variety items, you have to drive to the city for. It’s a tad annoying but it’s nice to be able to own a house. Something you thought was going to be impossible in this day and age to do.

You feel as if you're in a fog, entering the small parking lot. Watching through a camera as you enter the hardware store.

Fuck you were so scared that the thing was going to come back. What if it turned out to be the Rake? That thing had haunted you for years. Stuff like that has always scared you even though you know it’s not real. Or, hope it’s not real.

“Hi! Need any help today?”

The cashier snaps you out of the fog a little, but you’re still freaked out.

“Hi,” you say, your voice cracking a little. “Do you guys sell cameras here? Like, the ones for outside?”

The lady, Jess, her name tag helpfully supplies, hums a little. She looks off to the side as she thinks.

“I um, have an animal problem,” you add. “The animal control services think it’s a bear, but I’m not sure.”

Jess lit up. “We should still have some trail cams leftover from hunting season. They’ll be right this way.”

She led you through the small store, the small aisles feeling suffocating. The cameras were on an almost completely bare shelf, the words 50% in bold hung on a banner above the shelf.

“Now that hunting season is over, we can’t really sell these. This-“ she grabs a black camera off of the shelf, “-model is the last we have. I’m not going to lie, it kind of sucks but it’s better than nothing if you really need it.”

You take a deep breath. The panic sinks in a little harder. “How does it suck? I actually really need something. I-I want to be prepared to call animal control if the bear comes back tonight.”

She gives you a sympathetic smile.

“It has a three minute delay. Most hunters hate these since their prey tends to scatter by the time they’re caught on the feeds, but this should work for you since bears aren’t too fast when they have nothing to do. I’d recommend trying to set at least one up further from your property, so you can catch the bear quicker.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you.”

“Of course! Let me know if you need help with anything.”

Jess sets the box back onto the shelf, leaving you to your thoughts. Even at fifty percent off these were expensive…..

In the end, you could only afford three. Jess rang you up and wished you well with your bear problem.

You didn’t want to go home. Somehow, you did. One moment you were sitting in your car, staring blankly at the woods, then the next, you were setting up the cameras as best you could.

One was set as high up as you could get it onto the trees behind your house. Another went next to your porch light. And the last, you put above your back door.

After you set them up, connecting them to your laptop, you waited. You waited and waited. Restless, pacing the house with your laptop plugged in and open. Night falls and you distantly think you’re going to be sick. You don’t make dinner. You hardly drink. All you can do is wait.

Eventually, you move your things up to the attic. You turned all the lights off in the house before moving some blankets and pillows upstairs. You’re so thankful there were plugins in the attic. Your laptop dying would have stressed you out more.

By 12 a.m., you start to relax a little. Nothing has triggered your cameras. Whatever it was probably won’t come back. Nothing of worth laid outside your house.

You blink and 1 am glares at you from the corner of your screen. You curl into your blankets and drift off to sleep……

Your laptop beeps.

You bolt awake, scrambling to pull your laptop close. The furthest camera caught movement. Something big was making its way past the tree line. Next, your back door caught it. The night vision didn’t help you at all in trying to figure out what the hell was out there.

If it didn’t have horns above its head you’d thought it was a bear.

Fear crawled up your chest as it sniffed the back door, pawing at the wooden steps. As it moves towards the side of the house, your brain starts to work again.

You scramble around for your phone, desperate to call animal control. But…. you left it downstairs.

Tears prickle your eyes as your laptop beeps again. The porch camera caught it.

You press your hands tight against your mouth. Tears and whimpers escape as you can only stare at the screen.

Sharp purple horns jutted out from its head, dark purple scales lined it’s body. And it’s face….. It had sharp teeth and one black eye.

.

.

.

.

.

It was inside the house.

[redpenship]

Many fans bemoan Sonic's characterization in issue 50. Why does he talk so much? they wonder. Should he be moralizing at someone he just met? they post on Tumblr/Twitter, the websites for moralizing at people you just met. As a comic fan, should I really be expected to read more than 40 words of dialogue on a single page?

All of these are valid critiques. However, I believe the debate around Sonic's characterization distracts from the issue's most problematic content: the destruction of gay men in the Sonic IDW universe.

The first incident is obvious: the relationship of Doctor Starline and Doctor Eggman. Despite being two men in a relationship, their relationship is very obviously lesbian-coded. As we all know, lesbians get divorced at higher rates compared to hetero- or m/m homosexual couples (source). This is sometimes attributed to the lesbian phenomenon of "u-hauling", in which lesbians move in together very shortly after dating. Now stuck in close quarters despite never truly testing the boundaries of their relationship, they are prone to discover love-breaking flaws in one another that ultimately destroy their romance affair. Eggman and Starline's relationship follows a similar cycle: they meet, move in together, and then tragically break up because they discover irreconcilable differences between each other. Their relationship is lesbian-coded, whether done intentionally by the writers or not.

This is the first affront committed against gay men. Lesbian-coding them is problematic, as lesbian and gay relationship cycles are unique and cannot be swapped around carelessly. Male homosexual romance is particularly distinct. Allow me to outline an example here: typically, the two men begin as rivals who dislike each other for a variety of reasons. This rivalry ebbs due to conflict or mutual interest in helping one another with a problem, such as figuring out what to do when there is only one bed in a hotel room or one of them is going through that "time of the year". Any intrinsic binaries dividing them, be they sociological or biological, play heavily into the flourishing romance--heteronormativity is what makes gay relationships exciting, after all. The two men then realize that they may be attracted to each other despite their rivalry, forgiving each other for past sins even as severe as trying to crash a space station into the planet. They are then free to comfortably fall back into the fictional gender roles ascribed to them, reflecting dominant and submissive positions, and--huh? Sonadow omegaverse doesn't reflect the complexities of IRL gay relationships at all? Weird.

Moving on, I have now established that the lesbian-coding of Starline and Eggman's relationship was one of IDW's first offenses against gay men. The next offense is even grander than the first, so hold on tight!

Within the Sonic universe, Eggman has always stood in defiance of gender roles. His insistence on wearing pants, despite bottoms being a degenerate garment for women only, has always set him aside from other men in the series. Issue 50 undermines his anti-masculine position by reincorporating him into the hetero-patriarchy via intimate violence.

It is common knowledge that drone operators are kinda gay (source). Real soldiers kill other men in close combat wherein their life is likewise in danger. A man killing another man, dominating him while sweaty and short of breath and tussled up, is a strictly masculine affair. Drone operators do not experience such a masculine version of killing. Queer theorist Cara Daggett asserts that the spatiotemporal disorientation of drone warfare emasculates drone operators, as they kill from afar without bearing any of the risks associated with normal combat. A hypermasculine designs and messaging around drones fail to disguise their reality as genderqueer bodies.

This theory can be easily applied to Doctor Eggman. In games and most comics, he does not directly engage with any foes--he prefers to fight with robots and mech suits. His badniks and other robots (such as Metal Sonic) therefore turn into genderqueer bodies as they deny him "masculine killing" by disorienting his spatiotemporal axis relative to his enemies. When this is combined with his insistence on wearing pants, it becomes clear that always operated in defiance to hetero-patriarchal norms. He is a gay man.

In issue 50, this becomes unclear. Doctor Eggman reorients his spatiotemporal axis by grabbing the platypus by his leg and smashing him into the ground. With this one action, Eggman openly embraces his role in the heteropartriarchy by engaging in close combat. The queer ideal of Doctor Eggman is dead.

Starline is gone. Eggman is effectively a heterosexual man. No one cares about Don and Nite. In one issue, the IDW writing team has destroyed the status of gay men in their comics and reduced them to nothing.

Remember this post next time you so proudly post about how many lesbians there are in the comics. Their empire has been manufactured by the systematic removal of gay men in the comics. Do not let the cute wlw or questionable Sonic characterization distract you from this fact!

a/n: sorry, this got away from me. big /j for everything here.

[ben-talks-art]

Trapped and Dreaming Freedom

So I've been reading these two webtoons lately about female leads stuck in very toxic and unhealthy relationships (while being aware of it), and I'm loving every second of it!

If you know me, you know I just love a badass cool female lead and I also love seeing characters stuck in very difficult situations and watching how they use their brains and/or skills to get out of it, and both comics excel at these aspects!

First series is "Trapped", a comic about this taxi driver who got tangled by accident with a vampire who develops an obsession with both her and her blood after she manages to outsmart him a couple of times, something that hasn't happened to him in years.

It feels very "Tom and Jerry" with both characters trying to get the upper hand on their relationship, and you would think it would be super one-sided but vampires actually have quite a bit of annoying rules on how they work that severely limit their freedom and our female lead exploits as many of them as she can to make him eat sh*t! It's just glorious!

"Dreaming Freedom" is... somehow less dark, and at the same time way darker of a series.

It's not as violent or gory but it deals with more realistic problems that hit closer to home for some like school bullying, abandonment, harassment, family abuse, and so on.

The premise is that our female lead teams up with a guy that has the power to use dreams to affect people in the real world, and they use this ability to get revenge on all the girl's classmates that harassed her, but the more our female lead does that, more the male lead gets obsessed with her and we later find out that he has some serious anger issues making him extremely dangerous.

Our lead basically goes from "I can use him to get payback!" to "Oh my God, I'm the only thing that's keeping this dude under control and away from people!"

It feels like you're being handed a living knife that you just pray won't run out of control or turn itself against you. It's so uncomfortable but at the same time so thrilling!

While I really don't like when unhealthy relationships are glamorized and used to send some kind of "Oh, he's kinda dangerous... But at least he loves you, so it's okay, right?" message, I do like it when the unhealthiness of the relationship is the focus AND is painted as a problem that needs to be fixed.

I like how both female leads always call the male leads on their bs and keep them in check whenever they start going too far, and it's fun to see how they use them whenever they're backed into a corner by the antagonists of the stories.

Also like the themes these series explore, about how when you keep dealing with people that act like monsters you see yourself slowly turning into a monster yourself and start to attract other monsters as well, eventually making you question how far can you go? How far should you go? Can you get back from it? And so on.

But most of all, I like that both series make sure to show that these "bad boys" were their last freaking options. Not the first, not the second, but the very bottom of the barrel. They went to them only after they felt they had no other choices and were sure that nobody else would take their side.

This isn't just "Oh, I went to him because he's a hot bad boy", this is "The world turned its back on me so I'm gonna use the only cards that I have left."

They basically made a deal with their devils and now the fun is watching to see how/if they're gonna get out of it.

This is how I like to see problematic relationships. You don't paint them as something normal or something good, you paint them as a hardship that needs to be dealt with and use it to do clever commentary on the worst aspects of humanity so we can learn how to be better and as a source for good and intense drama to make us worried for the main characters and invested in seeing them get out okay.

[sugoi-and-spice]

Do you think we can get a little snippet of shigaraki and spinners drunken conversation about mc? 🫣

Ummm, YESSS?!?!

(Side note, this ended up being a lot more poignant and plot-relevant then I expected so I'll probably clean it up a bit and make it an official half chapter or something.)

“She’s too good for me.”

“That’s true.”

“She should be with Mirio.”

“Oh fuck that!”

“No, she should!”

“Shigaraki.”

Iguchi and Shigaraki laid on the floor, bodies in different directions but heads side by side. They’d long abandoned their controllers, their drivers stuck against a fence and parked in a patch of grass mid-Moo Moo Meadows respectively, as they became far too engrossed in their conversation and intoxication to proceed. If Iguchi had been still holding his controller though, he would’ve promptly thrown it at his friend for the way he was talking.

“It’s true, it’s true! They have so much more in common!” Shigaraki whined, genuinely whined.

“Like what?” Iguchi demanded.

“They both swim. They both have muscles. They’re both pretty…”

“All superficial stuff, man—”

“—and their brains aren’t all fucked.”

“Have you seen the way she laughs during horror movies? I don’t know if that’s entirely true.”

“I’m fucking serious, Spinner. You know me. You know I’m never gonna get better. Not really.”

Iguchi frowned. Because that wasn’t true. He’d seen such amazing improvement from Shigaraki in the last couple months, such a vast development of care, self-awareness, and empathy. He’d come a long long way.

But also, it wasn’t entirely untrue either.

There was something fundamentally broken inside of Tomura Shigaraki. Something that went beyond the warped way he’d been raised and lessons he’d been taught, beyond the abuse and trauma he’d suffered as a child. This was something that had to do with the way he was wired, the way he was born and how he felt things. Iguchi was similar in a lot of ways. And it took a certain level of medical intervention and SSRI’s to get him to a point where he could even start to function. He’d needed serious help, Shigaraki needed serious help.

Iguchi couldn’t say any of that to him though. He couldn’t recommend therapy or medication or support groups, it’d all be rejected, just as it had been many times before. Because even if Shigaraki wanted it, that was a help that All for One would never allow him to find.

So, Iguchi back-tracked to a more fixable problem.

“You’ve said it yourself, Shigaraki. They’re not right together. He stifles her,” Iguchi said, “Even if she’s trying to make things work with Mirio right now, it’s not gonna last forever. She’s a smart person, she’ll know to throw in the towel eventually.”

Shigaraki snorted, “And then what?”

“And then you make your move.”

He shook his head, “No. No even if they break up, I don’t think I can.”

“What’re you, stupid?!” Iguchi demanded, the vodka redbulls shoving his fuzzy irritation to the forefront, “Why the hell wouldn’t you give it an actual try then?!”

“Cause she’s too fucking good for me!” Shigaraki drunkenly wailed.

Iguchi groaned, sitting up so he could take a LARGE gulp of his drink. Shigaraki often made him feel like he needed a drink, but he was testing his nerves now more than ever with this woe as me schtick. Especially since he knew that Shigaraki was gonna pursue her in some stupidly roundabout way anyway.

“She deserves someone healthy. Someone who’s not gonna hurt her,” he turned to look up at Iguchi then, “You should date her.”

Iguchi choked on his drink.

“W-What?! Me?!” he coughed and sputtered.

“Yeah. You guys have way more in common anyway. You like to game and workout. Your parents are both normal, but like, weird, you know?” Shigaraki looked back down to the carpet at his eye level, getting to the real point, “And you’d be good for each other. To each other. Better than I’ve ever been to either of you.”

“That could never happen.”

“Nah, nah, I think she’d go for you! You may be ugly, but she doesn’t care about stuff like that.”

“Dick! That’s not what I meant!” Iguchi snapped with an angry blush, wondering if he should even bother to comfort this bastard after saying something like that.

But then Shigaraki looked up at him with that childlike curiosity of his, and Iguchi couldn’t help but continue.

“I mean that I’d never do that to you. And neither would she.”

Shigaraki snorted, “Why? I’d do it to you.”

Iguchi cocked a brow at him.

“You sure about that?”

Shigaraki’s eyes narrowed, in a way that was clearly meant to be challenging, but was really more poutlike in his whiney drunken state. 

When Iguchi didn’t back down like he expected, Shigaraki just rolled over onto his side with some grumpy grumbling of something like “you don’t know. You don’t know what I’d do.”

Iguchi just chuckled and grabbed Shigaraki’s solo cup, filling it with water this time rather than vodka. 

“...I’m gonna miss those skirts of hers when she goes to college.”

“She wears skirts in her day to day too, doesn’t she?” Iguchi asked, waving the cup in front of Shigaraki’s face.

“They’re not the same,” Shigaraki whined, leaning forward to take a sniff, shaking his head when he smelt the lack of alcohol, “They should make those skirts mandatory at Todai!”

Iguchi nudged him with it insistently, “Yeah. Yeah they should.”

“I’ll get Sensei to do something about it!”

“If you remember to do that after this, I’ll wear one of those skirts.”

[lastoneout]

So my neurologist actually did something right for once and gave me some ambien to help me sleep while I'm on the steroid pack since I already have insomnia and steroids make it WAY worse, and I was really excited because this is legit what I've been wanting a doctor to do for like over a year now...but it didn't really help me sleep, at least not as well as the weed does.

I could possibly just need a higher dose(I am known to be very resistant to these sorts of meds, it takes like twice the normal dose of propofol to put me under) or maybe the steroid is just so powerful the meds can't make a dent in it(which I'd believe since I'm really sensitive to steroids and the weed ALSO doesn't help me sleep as well when I'm on them), and also it's really hot and humid right now which makes it hard to sleep in general AND I just got my bc implant put in which is making it hard to sleep since I have to be careful with my left arm and I like NEED to be able to switch what side I sleep on cuz my shitty arthritic joints don't like staying in one position for too long...but this is a bit of a let down ngl. I was really excited to be able to sleep and then maybe use this as proof that I can be trusted with sleep medication and I could finally stop having to spend damn near $100 on weed gummies every month and a half just to Sleep At All but like...hnnnn.....

Idk, when I see my primary I'm going to beg her to send me to a sleep specialist again bcs the weed is NOT sustainable it's already expensive and on top of that I am absolutely building up a tolerance which means I have to take more to sleep and thus spend more money and it's so fucking annoying. I've already made a lot of progress in the trauma department too and that hasn't really helped me sleep better which leads me to believe this is def a result of one of my other medical issues, I def think a sleep specialist is the best bet rn.

The plus side tho is she gave me 15 ambien and I only have three days of the steroids left, and my arm should be healed better in the next couple of days, so I should have a chance to test the ambien without the dual whammy of the arm pain and steroids wrecking my system, and if even that fails well that's a 15 day T break for the weed which honestly I really do need so like there's that.

Also since I have a bunch of new followers quick FAQ/rundown before anyone gives advice:

I have bipolar disorder type II and adhd and severe chronic pain from fibromyalgia, arthritis, and hEDS. The adderall for my adhd isn't the problem, I actually sleep WAY worse without it. I don't drink that many caffeinated beverages and I especially don't drink them basically at all when I'm on steroids so that's not it either. At least a little of my insomnia is due to trauma and not having a dog currently, but I can't adopt another one right now for numerous reasons, and EMDR has helped the trauma nightmares/anxiety let up quite a lot but that hasn't helped me sleep. I can't take CBD it makes my brain feel like I'm hooked up to a car battery. I also can't smoke bcs asthma so unfortunately I am stuck buying edibles which are very expensive. Insomnia isn't on the medical marijuana criteria in my state so I can't even make it cheaper that way. Melatonin does nothing. Benadryl also does nothing. Exercising before bed also does nothing. I can't do yoga(hEDS) or meditate(adhd). Cutting down on screen time before bed doesn't help and I already spend as little time in my bedroom as possible during the day so my brain keeps associating being in there with sleeping. Listening to music/a podcast doesn't help. Sleepy teas and nice baths and all that before bed doesn't help. I have a weighted blanket which does help a little, but sucks bcs it traps heat like a motherfucker, but I'd sleep worse without it so yeah. Also I can't make my house any cooler/less humid because I'm renting and it's old and shitty and doesn't have real air conditioning and the little portable ac unit + dehumidifier is trying but like...it's not enough I'm still hot and sweaty all night.

I am on hydroxyzine and nortryptraline and they don't make me even a little tired. I cannot take SSRIs or SNRIs on account of the bipolar and the fact that I'm just really sensitive to stuff that messes with my serotonin, even when I'm on a mood stabilizer, and the only med that I can stand that does serotonin stuff is the nortryptraline and it's also the only thing that helps my pain so switching it to something else isn't an option. I build up a resistance to seroquel really fast which makes my insomnia infinitely worse in the long run so I don't see the point in taking it. I have tried basically everything my psychiatrist can think to give me outside of narcotics, which led to her straight up telling me to my face she just can't help me before clarifying that apparently narcotics are somehow worse for me than not sleeping so she won't prescribe them even if they might help. I don't snore or wake up gasping for air so I know I don't have COPD or sleep apnea.

Literally the only thing that has ever made sleeping easy is weed(and opioids but those don't help my pain and have so many hoops to jump through so I don't wanna take them anymore), specifically indica with CBN, but it has to have THC in it I've tried pure CBN + CBD gummies and they don't make me tired they just make me feel weird 'cuz of the CBD.

So yeah. I am up shit creek without a paddle and I really quite desperately need to see a sleep specialist. I appreciate advice but like believe me, I've tried just about everything I can think of and none of it helps. I just naturally have really bad insomnia. And it sucks.

[brokenlovesong]

any idea on how to get motivation to write I’m dying here 😭😭✊✊

Dude, I’ve been asking the same thing😭 we in the trenches together.

But real talk, here’s a couple of things I sometimes do to attempt to motivate myself (I say attempt). Hopefully it’ll help you as well!

Ask yourself what you want to see out of your character. I find that if I know where I want my character to eventually end up, it helps me plan what comes before. So like do you what your character to learn a lesson? Or maybe achieve something? Or even lose something. Focus on building up to that point. Relationships are also incredibly important. Where is the relationship between any two character starting off vs ending up? Is one learning something from the other? Etc

Continuing with relationships, I find seeing how characters parallel and contrast with each other to help me be able to frame the individuals better. What makes the two characters alike and what makes them different. These differences and similarities help to define a character and write them more distinctly.

I find music helps me a ton to guide my stories when I don’t know what else to do. Pick a song that relates to your idea and then start trying to pair lyrics to moments. Don’t focus so hard on this that you lock yourself into it and can’t allow any creative freedom. But it’s a nice starting point

Engage in media relating to what you want to write about. When I was working on my senior project, a big theme was mental health and how one persons mental health affected someone else. I got really stuck and unmotivated but I put on a bootleg of next to normal and I found that gave me the push I needed to continue. Even if something isn’t a one to one on what you need to work on, often letting yourself live in a world similar to what you want to write for a moment will spark that interest you need. If it’s fanfiction you’re working on, engage in the fandom somehow. Listen to songs about it or if it’s a tv show watch and episode or two.

If you have someone else you can bounce ideas off of, do that! A second set of eyes and ears is always one of the most helpful things you can get. Even if you don’t take whatever suggestions they give, it may still give you an idea or two and if not, just hearing your problem out loud can still reframe it in your mind. They also may point out things you never thought of. There’s really no loss to getting a second opinion.

Finally, remember writing should be fun. If you aren’t enjoying it, write something else. Take a break. Especially if this is just fanfiction (not sure if it is but I’m throwing that out there). Fanfiction is literally zero stakes. Your writing for yourself. Your not getting paid. No one is going to fire you if you don’t put out that fic. You can’t force yourself to enjoy something.

And if it’s simply that you can’t get your ass up to actually start writing (because I know that feeling too well) THIS IS YOUR SIGN GO RIGHT NOW AND DO THE THING

I hope this made any semblance of sense. Feel free to dm me or send me more questions if you’re still stuck and if there’s anything you don’t understand I’d be more than happy to further explain it. I love talking about writing. It’s a big passion.

[greatwyrmgold]

Back to Factorio. Last time, I came within one inserter of setting up nuclear power before noticing that my other solutions had finally brought the factory to a decent equilibrium. This time, I'm making green chips. After some uneventful building, I throw together this prototype.

Very simple; separate train stations for the two inputs, and a belt of output that would go to its own separate station. But that single belt of output is kind of a problem. It can only carry a couple dozen assemblers' worth of green circuits, and if I want this one outpost to make a significant fraction of the circuits I'll need once I start plowing down the tech tree, I need way more. I think I'll aim for four belts of green chips.

Cool, but new problem: Input. Four belts of chips require four belts of iron and six belts of copper. Well, a little less with productivity modules, but not whole belts less. I can't build this as one big line. I have to build it as three little lines.

Well, "little" is perhaps not the right word here. Three sets of eighteen chip assemblers, compared to the five I had in my starter base. My bots are busy.

Wait a second. That's a lot of bots.

Oh, there goes my power again. But on closer inspection, this has less to do with bots charging than it does with coal vanishing, due to the coal train getting stuck at the mines.

After like an hour of messing around with train signals, redesigning intersections trying to figure out what screwed-up rail code is causing these problems...I realize a couple of rail segments in a curve are missing. Pretty much invisible to human eyes. Ugh.

...

That's where I logged off for the night, and thank goodness for this self-inflicted log forcing me to keep track of what I was doing, because a bunch of real-life stuff kept me from playing Factorio for several months. But now I'm back, and I have a log of what I was trying to do back in March. I started by making sure the coal-fired boilers were back online (getting there), and I noticed something I'm pretty sure is a visual bug.

I think the solar panels are casting shadows on the belt despite A. the presence of a light source on the other side of the belt and B. the fact that it's the middle of the night. Also the shadowed plastic looks too dark either way, especially with the normal plastic next to it.

Anyways, just two paragraphs after thanking March Me for his brilliant foresight, I have to curse him for his stupidity. Apparently he either never set up automated long-handed inserters and assembling machines, or tore it down when he started disassembling the starter base. Foolish either way.

Once I rectified that with a bit of spaghetti stapled onto the starter base, I realized I needed a lot of power poles for the new chip build, and also that I only automated the big ones. But that means I had everything for medium poles in one spot, and I just needed a little spaghetti to get everything into place.

Word of advice: Don't play with the Renai Transportation mod if you don't want to face constant spaghetti temptation. And if you do, make sure not to power thrower inserters until they're set properly.

Anyways, in the time it took to set that up and take the provided poles to power the new build, all the assemblers and inserters were pretty much produced. And in the time it took to figure out the Screenshot Toolkit, they were delivered.

All I need to do is get the trains set up.

Iron is easy enough; I've already got an iron train running from the iron mines to the starter base, so I just tweak its schedule so it switches between supplying the starter base and the circuit station.

I don't have anything like that for copper; the starter base is still running off the, um, two mining drills which still have ore. About 5,000 between them when I checked, one of which should last a bit less than an hour, the other almost two hours. Hm. Maybe I should have set up something for getting copper to the starter base.

I didn't, though. I didn't even get copper delivered to the circuits. That's because of a terrible mistake I made when setting up the copper mine's loading station.

Whichever way I curve this track, it runs into cliffs. That's what cliff explosives are for, but I never researched cliff explosives. And I tore down my starter base's labs ages ago.

Next time, I will do one of three things:

Find some fortuitous route between cliffs that gets me out of this mess

Set up temporary labs to research cliff explosives, and also temporary cliff explosives production

Move the station five meters to the right

I should probably also do something about our copper situation.

[smol-grey-tea]

I'm so fucking pissed off. I have good news that's also bad news at the same time.

I've been taking sertraline every morning since last Tuesday and have seen great results. First of all, I generally feel better and calmer. I do more chores more often and am just generally happy.

Something I noticed tho as I was diarying a couple days ago: I only paced that day for about 15 minutes. The whole day. In total.

I felt very proud of that and I decided that yesterday I would try not to pace for the whole day. I simply tried to focus on other things and the day went without pacing at all. I felt very proud of this because under normal circumstances this would've been a literally impossible accomplishment.

However.

Satisfied with my day, I got into bed and got ready to daydream something before sleep as I always do. But. I found that they didn't come naturally anymore. I had to actually make the conscious decision to daydream but I couldn't even do that. I tried but it didn't work: it just felt like I was looking at it through a window. Distant and painfully unreal.

A theory I've had about daydreaming is that the content of the daydreams is produced by the subconscious taking your emotions and filtering out the cause of them so it seems like you're getting emotional about the daydream instead of the original cause of the emotion. So, emotions you feel from daydreams aren't actually because of the daydream. You already have a real life problem or something that's making you feel that way that your brain doesn't want you to think about so it replaces the 'cause' in your mind with the daydream.

I hate that I continue to prove myself right.

Under normal circumstances, waking up in the middle of the night would lead me to have a scary/sad emotional daydream that may cause me to cry. And yet here I am, on sertraline, waking up and crying about an actual real life problem now.

I think I'm going to pace today because I need to experiment with that. I'm scared that even if I'm pacing I still might not be able to daydream. I remember the last time I was pacing I did daydream kinda normally but most of the daydreaming was stuff about real life instead of my paracosm.

And that pisses me off so. Fucking. Much. I've had a similar issue before where I wasn't able to daydream, like I was looking at it through glass before and it fucking disgusts me, it's the most wretched thing to feel.

I wouldn't mind if sertraline just made me stop feeling the need to pace. I could still daydream without feeling that horrible urge and I'd be ok, I just wouldn't need to rely on it. But I fucking hate to be completely robbed of that ability almost entirely.

I'm not totally sure how I'm going to deal with this... I think if I stopped taking the meds then the ability would come back but it's really not a reason to stop taking a medication because you should only do such a thing by a doctor's advice.

So now I feel like I'm stuck. It's great that I'm not pacing, I love that. But for the love of God do not take away my daydreams :( I am Faith, what's gonna happen to her? Who am I without her? I love her so much please don't take her away..

[nostalgicamerica]

True story:

Over a lifetime of pranking my friends, or being pranked by them, in my mind, one prank stands out. It may not have been the funniest of pranks I've pulled, but it certainly was the most impactful.

-

They - whoever 'they' are - say that 'revenge is a dish best served cold.' I can attest that the saying is as accurate as it is pithy. At least, on those occasions that pride and self-respect required retaliation, I have found that a delay in dealing said retribution always made it sweeter.

Imagine the scene. 10th grade. Late afternoon. Biology, or possibly Chemistry. (I don't remember and it isn't important to this narrative anyway.) It is late May. School is about ready to let out for the summer break. The classroom is stuffy. I am either trying to memorize what a zygote is, or Boyle's Law or, more likely, furtively gazing upon the wonder that is Isla Oja, the blonde who most recently had captured my heart and imagination.

In real life I haven't yet informed her of my budding adoration, nor even worked up the courage to talk to her beyond my normal sophisticated and suave courtesies; "Urfkle," and "Whaerdvcsh." In my feverish fantasies, however, I swept her off her feet, sang songs of passion to her, wrote syrupy sonnets, and kissed her over and over, leaving her recently developed bosoms heaving behind her school sweater.

My 'lunch' had consisted of a bearclaw and two Nehis from the corner store down the street from the high school. As a result, whatever I was doing was interrupted by a full bladder. I requested and received permission from whatever teacher was droning on in the front of the classroom to be excused to use the lavatory.

Rising to my feet, I tried to step into the aisle and found myself falling face down on the tan and brown tile that made up the classroom floor. I reached out to catch myself and caught the edge of Isla's text book, sending it, her pencil, her note cards, and a couple of bobby pins careening across the room.

The class erupted with laughter at my expense, probably relieved for the reprieve from whatever subject with which they were being tortured. The teacher inanely yelled at me for disturbing his lecture. I glanced up to see Isla laughing along with everyone else. My embarrassment was acute and I could feel myself blushing furiously.

As It turns out, one of my best friends, Jussi, had surreptitiously tied my shoelaces together while I was ogling Isla. He was grinning like an idiot in his seat behind mine, absorbing the well-deserved adulation pouring down on him from the rest of the class.

One might think that such a prank would be met with anger, and for a second, I was more than a little peeved, until I recalled I had played the same prank on a poor freshman only the week before. Albeit, I didn't do it front of the girl the frosh had his heart set on, thereby ruining what chances he may have had, miniscule though they may have been.

Sullenly, I untied my laces and slunk from the classroom to take care of nature's call and plot some sort of revenge. Proper schoolhouse decorum required a response. My classmates would be expecting a response. I expected it of myself.

Most of my friends pranked each other mercilessly. It was fun and mostly harmless and added a little joy into our lives. Not necessarily into the life of the one being pranked, but he then had the pleasure of planning a payback. And that was my dilemma at the moment; coming up with a suitable and equally humiliating revenge.

But what was it to be? There should be a proper amount of escalation. Various acts of retribution ran through my mind. While a baseball bat to the knee sounded good at that moment, I genuinely liked the guy, and didn't really want to maim Jussi. I could put a cup of sugar in the gas tank of his 'new' truck. The problem with that possibility was that I had been riding to school with him since he got it running and, if I sabotaged it we'd both be stuck riding the bus.

-

I still hadn't found a suitable response by the time the last bell rang. We both laughed and snorted over the prank on the ride home in Jussi's rusted rattletrap as he relayed what happened to my brother. I could tell Jussi was on edge, expecting me to do something, anything, to pay him back, but I sat on my hands until he dropped us off at our front door.

Every day I mulled various ways of exacting revenge on Jussi, without success. We were released from school for three months. The sting of my embarrassment faded, as it often does, and, on the surface, life continued as normal. Chores. Walk the dog. Clean up dog poop. A camping trip. Mow the lawn. Fishing. Rinse and repeat.

I just wasn't creative enough to come up with something that would pay Jussi back in adequate fashion. Until a flash of relative brilliance hit me like a bolt of lightning.

Roughly two weeks after school let out inspiration struck. I was hiding from Mom and her infernal chore list, perusing one of her Good Housekeeping or Today's Woman magazines (they were as close to bawdy magazines as you'd find in our house). I was flipping from page to page when one of the subscription cards fell out of the periodical and fluttered to the floor at my feet.

I absentmindedly picked it up and, as I slid it back between the pages, I froze. For many moments I felt like Albert Einstein or Niels Bohr. I felt brilliant as a plan fleshed itself out in my grey matter. Synapses synapsed. Neurons did whatever they do.

I was growing excited and couldn't help laughing to myself as I contemplated my revenge. The raucous noise I made gave my position away to Mom and she sent me out to fill the wood bin, but it hardly felt like work as I was laughing the whole time while I nursed my plan to life.

-

That night I began. I went through every magazine that my mom and dad and an older sister had in the house, removing all the subscription cards, and examining the back pages for ads that would fit my scheme.

As I gathered the first weapons in my arsenal, I established a few rules: I wouldn't do anything that would cost Jussi money (his financial situation was as bleak as my own). I would not do anything that would cost myself too much money (see above). I would not do anything that even hinted at being risqué (Jussi's parent's wouldn't like it). But other than that, all bets were off. Lastly, I would tell no one, not even my brother, despite his being my closest confidant and partner in crime. (it was going to be a long-term operation and I didn't want him blabbing).

By the time I had rifled through all the family's magazines I had a dozen blank subscription forms to such periodicals as American Weekly, Today's Woman, Journal, Glamour, Redbook, Teen, Woman and Home, and My Home. I had some order forms for Field and Stream and Outdoor Life but I opted to eliminate magazines aimed at men; the humiliation factor would be greater if I sent only women's magazines.

Each of the forms offered anywhere from three to twelve free copies of the magazines just for trying them, and all but one required no postage if mailed in the United Staes. What a deal.

In addition, I found a large number of ads with either order forms or phone numbers in the back pages for a variety of companies offering free samples, or information pamphlets and fliers, and I clipped the forms for which to place an order for said samples and pamphlets.

It was a good start.

I had known Jussi since my family moved from Minneapolis years before, and I had spent the night at his place countless times, but I had to look up his address in the phonebook. Of course I knew what street he lived on, but I had no idea what the house number was. Why would I know that information? I had limited space in my noodle, most of which was occupied by girls, and I never had a reason to know Jussi's address. I never had cause to mail him anything.

I filled out the order forms that night and used block print to try to disguise my handwriting on the off chance some of the subscription cards were returned.

Most of the order forms I clipped from the back pages did require postage but I had enough loose change to buy more than enough stamps at 4 cents each. It was a worthy investment.

The next day, while Mom and Dad were doing the weekly grocery shopping, I deepened my voice and made some phone calls, placing orders for a number of free samples to be delivered to John 'Jussi' Carlson, and why, yes, please send me information regarding any future products your fine company may offer.

It wasn't until after my last call, to somewhere in New Jersey, that I figured I'd be catching heck as soon as the phone bill came (and have to pay for the calls I made), but I'd cross that bridge when I got to it. I wouldn't lie about any charges, if asked, but I wouldn't voluntarily fess up, either.

-

I couldn't stop chuckling to myself. Even after my brother and I joined up with Skunk and Jussi to hike up to The Cliffs (because they were there), an occasional snicker would leak out causing the others to look at me as if I had been dropped on my head. Maybe my plan wasn't all that funny, but it sure seemed that way to me.

I imagined dozens of ladies magazines arriving for Jussi every week, along with the free samples of Kotex Sanitary Napkins, Westmore Cosmetics, and Fresh Greaseless Deodorant. I pictured his face opening a package of free incontinence supplies. I saw piles of pamphlets trumpeting everything from the Jehovah's Witnesses to self-stick shelf liner. I took great joy in what I thought was going to happen.

I had no clue.

-

Over the next two weeks I ramped up my campaign. Raiding the magazine racks at the general store and the local library, and swiping the subscription forms from every woman's magazine I encountered. One day I accompanied Mom and three of my younger brothers on a trip to Houghton for their dental appointments and had her drop me at the library. Ostensibly I was there to find books to borrow, but in reality I was after the Houghton County Library's massive trove of periodicals.

When we left Houghton I had more order forms than I had collected from all other sources combined. That was until a few days later when Mrs. Coulter offered me a dollar to clean out her garage. I told her I'd clean it, but I didn't want pay.

Agnes Coulter was the widow who lived across the street from us. She was a wonderful neighbor and as sweet a person as ever befriended our family. Agnes was close to 85 years-old and tiny - probably five foot even and about 90 pounds soaking wet. Her blue-gray hair was always perfectly set, and I never saw her in anything but a dress and - if she wasn't in church - her frilly yellow apron.

Because Dad valued being a gentleman above nearly anything else, he would always mow her lawn, shovel the snow from her drive, and ferry groceries for her. Or, if he wasn't available, Dad was never shy in volunteering his sons to do those things for her when they were old enough. None of us ever minded.

Among the things in Agnes' garage she wanted disposed of - besides the old water heater, the odds and ends of lumber, and the old screen door that had been replaced - were a dozen stacks of old magazines, all neatly bound together with twine and ready for the dump. My eyes lit up.

She offered but I didn't want to use Agnes' car. Her 1940 Ford Deluxe was as neat and perfect as her hair. I would have loved to drive it and I had my license, I just didn't want to sully it. Instead, I asked Dad if I could use his truck.

That afternoon I offloaded everything else into the dump - we weren't classy enough for landfills back then - and one by one, I went through the magazines, almost all of which were of the lady's variety. I limited my search to the issues that were less than five years old. By the time I was done I had probably close to 50 more unique subscription forms and dozens of ads.

I was pretty sure I had enough.

-

It was about three weeks after I launched my revenge that the deluge began. It started as a trickle; a magazine here, a sample there, and a couple of pamphlets to make things interesting.

One Sunday after church, my brother, Spud, Skunk, and I were waiting for Jussi on his back steps. We were all going to pitch in for gas and head to Cedar Bay to swim at Spud's parent's cabin.

The window to Jussi's kitchen was open and we could clearly hear his mom ask, "Why on earth would you subscribe to Modern Woman?"

Jussi was indignant, "I didn't, Ma, that's just insulting."

"Your name is on the label and it has our address," She snorted, "What am I supposed to think?"

"How the blue blazes am I supposed to know?" Jussi was practically yelling, "I'm just as mystified as you are, Ma."

Jussi joined us on the stoop, slamming the door behind him.

We were all staring at Jussi. I was biting the inside of my cheek to keep from breaking up.

Spud asked, "What was that all about?"

"I don't want to talk about it!" Jussi snarled, stomping to his truck. "Let's go."

-

It may be helpful at this point to introduce another character to the drama that was beginning to unfold. The United States Postal Service had one employee in our town. Mr. Kesti had been hired at the beginning of The Great Depression and had plodded the streets of town since, delivering mail and a rancid sort of gloom that wafted from his greyness. He was a bit of a sourpuss when at his happiest, and a cantankerous grouch when his corns were barking or the weather was inclement.

Mr. Kesti reminded me of a desiccated and disheveled Ichabod Crane; tall, lean, and bony, with large hawk nose that was constantly running. His gray uniform and hat were, like him, threadbare and weathered.

The post office, located approximately at the center of town, was a non-descript brick building with no windows other than those in the front door. There was a bank of boxes for those folks who lived off our postal carrier's normal route, or those who didn't desire home delivery.

The way I understand it, Mr. Kesti would spend the first half of each week day, sorting the mail and filling the boxes, chewing his WB Cut and spitting into an old coffee can. He'd then use the last half of his day in residential delivery, chewing his WB Cut and spitting on the streets.

Our town was not large, and although the volume of mail flowing through was probably about the same as any other town of comparable size, it wasn't too much for a crotchety old man to handle. Mr. Kesti was slow, but he always managed to get the mail delivered with an hour or so to spare.

Until I pranked Jussi.

-

By mid-July, the trickle had turned into a torrent. A white water cascade of mail that at times threatened to drown the Carlson family and the flow was only getting heavier.

A lot of the fallout I had to gather third-hand as I wasn't present for most of it, but I learned that from mid July of that year, every weekday the postman had to load the only vehicle the USPS had allocated for our town - a WW II era jeep painted white and blue that should have been put out to pasture along with Mr. Kesti - with the Calson's mail. After his normal route he would drive the load over to Jussi's parent's house and carp and complain while Jussi was forced to offload the mail into garbage bags and then take it into the garage to be weeded through.

-

Jussi's parents, normally as level-headed folk as you'd ever run into, were besides themselves. Jussi insisted that he had no idea why all the mail was being sent to him and that he had nothing to do with it. Despite his denial, the adults in his household had their doubts.

While Jussi's parents were not especially happy, I do know that his mother benefitted by the incoming flood of lady's magazines. There were lady's magazines scattered all over the house with Jussi's name on the label.

One evening when my brother and I were staying at Jussi's, his dad came into the living room where we were watching TV. He had a small bottle of Zonite Feminine Douche and gestured to Jussi.

"John," He didn't sound angry, exactly; he sounded tired more than anything else. "I believe you when you say you didn't order these things. Is it possible the publisher of your Popular Science magazine sold their mailing list to an ad or marketing agency?"

Jussi jumped up, excited, "Gee, Pa, do you think...I bet that's it! Maybe I can call somebody to cancel these things."

I didn't have the heart to tell him he'd be calling in the neighborhood of 150 companies. I almost felt sad for him. My sympathy faded when I recalled Isla Oja laughing at my expense.

-

So, nearly every week day for months, Jussi spent hours in the garage going through that day's postal delivery, pulling out his parent's mail, and tossing the rest into the box that his mother's new stove had been delivered in.

I helped Jussi a sort the mail a few times and I can assure you it was a daunting task. The box used for the garbage mail was easily five feet high and four feet wide and four feet deep. On one occasion that I helped my friend the box was nearly full and it was only the first week of August.

He asked me if I'd help him haul the box to the dump the next day.

"Of course, buddy," I slapped his shoulder, "That's what friends are for.

-

The next morning my brother and I showed up at Jussi's. While we were young and physically fit, my brother, Jussi, and I couldn't lift the box into the bed of Jussi's truck. We would have needed about eight more guys our size to handle it.

We wound up closing the tailgate, and backing the truck as close to the box as we could, and just tossed armloads of mail into the back. By the time we were done the bed was filled three-quarters full and the springs on the truck were getting a workout.

Initially, the three of us sat in the cab but by the time we'd gone a single block we knew we had a problem. Not only was the bed of the truck open, it was a breezy day. Coupled with that was the fact that the road was a washboard - like most roads in town. It was replete with ruts and pot holes and divots.

At normal speed, the truck bounced and shuddered and shook, and lady's magazines flew everywhere and flyers sailed like kites. We had to stop and spent a half-hour chasing pamphlets trumpeting the benefits of Lustre-Creme shampoo and Vi-Jon Oily Polish Remover. Afterwards, my brother and I sat in back of Jussi's rust bucket and tried to plug the eruptions. Jussi had judiciously slowed his speed to a crawl which helped immensely, but a 15-minute drive wound up taking more than an hour.

A bear was browsing the wares at the dump when we rolled up. Jussi honked his horn until the bear grudgingly ambled off into the shrubbery. After offloading the load, we piled in the cab and Jussi slapped the back of my head in affection, "Thanks, Orava. I really appreciate your help."

I grinned and shrugged, "No problem at all. Glad to help."

-

We had to empty the box again just before we started our junior year and the torrent of incoming mail hadn't abated at all. I hadn't sent a subscription form since the beginning of August and the way the junk mail was pouring in I figured any more would be overkill.

The first day at school before the first bell rang, I was standing at my locker when a delightful and melodious feminine voice sang, "Good morning, Orava."

I spun around clumsily to see Isla Oja walking past. She was smiling at me. She was stunning. She was also holding hands with a senior who was: a.) popular b.) the spitting image of Guy Madison c.) a linebacker for the football team and d.) much bigger than me.

"Whaerdvcsh." I gurgled with a debonair nonchalance as I dropped my books and my heart sneered at me as it felt squeezed by a giant fist, "Did you really think you had a chance with her? Ääliö!"

I have no idea how my heart learned Finnish.

Losing a girl I never had wasn't that big of a deal, but it still was less than optimum. I mentally shrugged and fell in love again by the end of my second class.

-

Occasionally winter eases it's way into Northern Michigan. Most times it jumps in with both feet while swinging haymakers. One day you are enjoying autumn's splendor and cool mornings, and then you blink and you're standing in snow up to your navel.

That particular winter was typical. The countryside snuggled in under a heavy blanket of white to hibernate, and the County Road Commission struggled to keep the roads clear.

In our town, back then, only the main street through town was paved. All other roads were au naturel; mud in spring, dust and dirt in the summer and fall months, and in the winter, thanks to constant freezing and thawing and the resulting frost heaves, they became an adventurous carnival ride. It was not uncommon to see cars stuck in snow banks, pulled there by frozen ruts.

That December (I don't recall the date) Mr. Kesti was driven to his snapping point by all the mail. Nearly every week day he was loading up the post office's Jeep and hauling it the three blocks to the Calson's and every day his anger grew incrementally until it could no longer be contained.

I didn't see it but from what I understand, the crotchety mailman was on his way to deliver a bag of Jussi's mail. The roads were snow covered and nearly impassable. A strategically-placed divot pulled the Jeep into a Maple in the Calson's neighbor's yard.

The accident didn't cause much damage to the tree, the Jeep, or Mr. Kesti, but the Jeep decided it was done. The postman, already irate, lost complete control when he couldn't get the vehicle started again. He got out and began kicking the vehicle ineffectively. He then retrieved Jussi's younger brother's hockey stick from where it had been stuck in a snow bank and proceeded to beat the car like a rented mule.

When I saw the Jeep a few hours later it was a sight to behold. The windshield was smashed in, red fragments from the Tail lights decorated the snowbanks, the door was dented, there were slashes in the soft top, and the hockey stick was sticking out of one of the holes. Jussi's mail was strewn up and down the street and one of the beige USPS bags was in a tree.

-

A few days later the news crept through town that Mr. Kesti had opted to retire and move to Green Bay. The US Postal Service announced a temporary and much younger - and presumably, less-easily agitated - replacement would commute from a neighboring town to deliver mail.

It wasn't long afterward the USPS created some buzz by informing our town folk that they planned a new and larger postal center next to the old one, which would then be razed. They then proceeded to generate ill-will with another announcement; when the new Post Office was completed, all residential delivery would cease. All residents would have to retrieve their mail from the new Post Office.

The District Manager for the USPS made a special trip to town to assure residents that the changes were long-planned modifications to their operation, and had nothing to do with Mr. Kesti's tantrum. In fact, he pointed out, centralized postal centers were being built in other small towns across the Upper Peninsula as a cost saving measure.

Regardless of what the USPS proclaimed, many folks in town laid the change at the retired postman's feet. For myself, I was happy to believe that my prank was not at all responsible for the alteration in how we received mail and packages in our town, but a part of me still wonders.

-

The mail to Jussi eventually did dry up to a trickle but it took almost a year to stop entirely. And he still occasionally received trial issues of Woman's Day and McCall's even after we graduated high school and headed off to college.

-

I never told anyone of my prank until some twenty odd years later when Jussi and his wife visited me and my family in Alaska. I took him out fishing for Grayling on the Chatanika River north of Fairbanks. Afterward, we sat on the bank and ate our lunch and talked of old times. We talked of the kids we ran with and some of the scrapes we got into. We talked of family and pranks we pulled.

I decided the time was right and confessed to being behind the flood of mail and why. He just looked at me for a long moment and then we both broke up laughing. We laughed so hard tears were streaming down our cheeks. We disturbed a couple of river otters who regarded us with some suspicion before resuming their gamboling.

"I knew it was one of you moukka," He wheezed, holding his sides, "I just couldn't figure out which one." He wiped his face with his sleeve and grinned broadly, "You know, of course, that now I have to get you back."

I was confident he would try. Decorum required it.

[locoforloak]

|Nobody Gets Me| Lo'ak x Metkayina na'vi|

Recommended song: Nobody Gets Me by SZA

warnings: swearing

context: Y/N is getting harassed by fellow Metkayinas. Lo’ak tries to stick up for her.

You were always an outcast. A freak as many people called you. A couple years ago, your parents died-leaving you with nothing but yourself. A nice family took you in. Calling you their daughter. Another family lived near you, the Sully family. They also treated you like family, inviting you over for dinner, hunting, everything. They made you feel as if you were... "normal". Sitting in the sand drawing little doodles in the grains of the warm sand, people whispered behind you. Pointing and laughing. Your ears turned into the direction behind you. You paid no attention, still carrying on with your activity. "Hey, hey you" Still silent. "What is she deaf?" "Must be. Now she's a real freak" "Can you guys go away" You barely got it out. "Sorry can you speak up skxawng" You slowly raised up, trying to get away from them and the situation, but they circled around you. Pointing at your feet, hair, skin, everything. "Please stop!" You pushed them away from you. As one of your bullies fell to the ground, Lo'ak came from behind. "You heard her. Leave her alone" He stood in front of you. You rolled your eyes. You could defend yourself perfectly fine. "Oh, who is this Y/N? Your little boyfriend?" You stayed silent. "just go somewhere. Clearly she doesn't want you weirdos here" "Oh we're the weirdos?! Say that to the girl behind you" You came from behind Lo'ak, "First of all, I’m not weirdo in any shape or form, but at least I'm not a complete fucking asshole" The bullies were silent. The silence was broken by laughter. "So now you want to talk?" Your confidence was shut down real fast. "Do we have a problem over here?" Jake Sully came over. "No sir" One of the bullies spoke up first. "Alright, you can leave now" They walked away while giving you dirty looks. You stuck your middle finger up in response. "Were those guys bothering you Y/N?" "Yes, but it's alright. Lo'ak came for me" Jake shook his head as he left. You thanked Lo'ak as you sat back down on the sand. He sat down next to you. "You should stick up for yourself more" "I don't have to when you always come and save me" You smiled at him. "You're right. Why do so many people bully you?" "Lo'ak, you know why. People are weird like that. Just because I don 't have any parents I'm quote on quote a freak" He listened to you, "Well I don't think you're a freak" You showed him a light smile. "I know, but nobody gets me, you know?" "I do" "Lo'ak no you don't. I know we've been friends for a long time, but nobody will ever get me" "Well if you let me, I could get you" He held your hands. “Thanks” You kissed him on the cheek. “What was that for?” “For always being with me and around” He smiled. “You know Y/N, I’ve always really liked you and you never noticed my signals” He blurted. “Oh I’ve never noticed. I’m sorry. But I do like you” “Really?” “Yes of course. Who wouldnt like you?” “I don’t know” “Exactly” You put your forehead against his, “Oel ngati kameie” [i see you] “Oel ngati kameie, my Y/N” You smiled. “I’ve never seen you smile this much” “I guess it’s only when you’re around” You got up, with Lo’ak following you. You took his hand as you two walked back. A/N: short but sweet to get posting ;(

[writerfae]

Hi!

Just imagine the day Callan and Henry officially started dating, Henry comes home smiling like a fool, with a skip in his step, red in the face, and Aiden's like: Are ok? Do you have a fever? Get to bed right now!

Henry: Aiden, I do not have a fever

Aiden: Then why are you red like a rose?

Henry: Ammm... allergies?

Aiden: Bed! Now!

(I love Henry and Callan so much (both as individuals and as a couple)😭❤️)

-

Petition to give Aiden a notebook to keep track of all the crazy things that get revealed about his family:

Cameron opens his mouth

Aiden: Hold it! Who's he?

Cameron:...

Henry: ...My birth dad.

Aiden, scribbling: ...birth dad. Got it! Do we like him?

Henry: No

Aiden, scribbling: ...we don't like him. Ok! I'm done! WHAT THE ACTUAL-

-

When Aiden and Henry reunite

Aiden: Henry?

Henry: Yes, Aiden, it's me- WAIT! Sorry, wrong person! There's no way he grew taller than me!

Aiden: I'm even angrier now!

-

You know how baby Aiden used to pull on Henry's ears?

What if when they reunite Aiden sees his ears for (to his knowledge) the first time, and he tries to pull on them to see if they're real or something?XD

Also, guess who's noticed another writing problem with their mc again? :D

It's fine, I'm working on fixing it, I'm just not sure how to yet (good thing I found the problem, though! I'm happy about that)

It's that I was writing some pre story fluff thing and I realized that when she's not thinking about taking care of Ákos, or freaking out about something, Adél's pretty "no thoughts, head empty", which isn't good!

The reason I'm worried is because for the others these things came maybe a bit more naturally, and I'm afraid of how it'll turn out if i try to "force it" with Adél, but I'll figure it out! (Tell me, I got this, please, I'm scared) (sometimes I'm sitting here, like: should I just erase Adél and start from scratch, and that makes me really sad! Please tell me not to do that! Who will give Ákos magical hugs then?)

Sorry for the complaining, i hope you don't mind

Yes to all of these!

After the story is done, Aiden could probably write a whole family chronicle and it would most likely be titled like What the Fuck Fae - a story of wild shit I learned about my family in the past few weeks

Your problem with Adél is really valid, though if I’m being honest, it sounds to me like it is pretty much the same problem we talked about before: you haven’t figured out enough of Adél’s personality yet.

Which is completely fine and normal and not meant as criticism. I just think that this is the core issue that leads to the “no thoughts head empty-mc” problem.

When her main traits are worrying about everything and caring for Ákos and these main traits are as dominant as they are, then of course that’s what she will do all the time when you write her. That’s why she needs more traits.

I mean I don’t know if she has developed more since you asked me about writing her the first time, so I don’t want to make assumptions. But maybe you really should equip her personality a bit. I think that’s the first step to improve writing her and “giving her thoughts” (for the lack of better words).

Of course there’s characters that come more naturally. And then there’s ones that are a bit harder to figure out. Those need time and care and yes, sometimes a little bit of force. Otherwise you’ll get stuck. Remember, developing an mc is a progress! There’s no progress if you don’t try!

So just keep writing her! If it turns out sounding too forced or you won’t like what you came up with, you can always cross it out. And even that will take you a step further to figuring Adél out, because then you’ll know what you don’t want her to be like/to think about.

Don’t give up! I know you can figure it out! And please, don’t erase Adél. We love Adél! And she’s already a solid framework for a good character!

You just need some more practice and time with her! Sometimes you have to lock yourself in a room with your oc and try to get them to talk to you.

[angelo-the-doctor-of-feelings]

Hiii Angel ^_^🌟🧡

It's moonie >.<🌙🤍

first of all hope you're doing well and you're happy:>

Ummm... How should I force and convince myself that I shouldn't get distracted by every living and non-living thing ????? """))))

It's like I'm super focused on something out of the blue and I'm working on that thing for over 7 hours and then boom 💥 my super focused is gone. And I'm betrayed by my own stupid brain AND you wanna know the funny part? Is there a funny part?...NO absolutely not. It's more like... Painful.

Any.way

Then I can't focus on a single thing and there are so many voices that they are talking to me but they are Actually talking with themselves but I'm commenting on their random rambling... And I'm stuck but at the same time I'm wandering through the subjects they are talking about while I'm also reading an article... And then I realise I am even mumbling the sentences but I'm not the one understanding it.... It's a bit .... Complicated?... And also I can't find the first subject that distracted me from the actual subject...and sometimes the actual subject is totally vanished and disappeared from my mind but I do remember the common points that connected those topics in my mind .... Ummm.... And also.... I'm like.... listening to a person talking to me and when I break the eye contact with them or I take my eyes off from what they are doing and what they are trying to explain to me .... Basically They lost me at the first couple of sentences.... yeah I'm zoned out. AGAIN*

And when I'm back to the real world I feel like that unfortunate and miserable kid who turned his head away from the board for one hundredth of a second in math class.... Confused/Trying to find an explanation for everything that happened in those five seconds(it was clearly more than 5s....) that i was zoned out/ and disappointed of myself because it happend AGAIN and And I can't do anything to help myself........

The worst thing is I was always like this.even when I was a kid (-_-;) And the times when I get stressed more than normal, all this gets worse and it's unbearable....I didn't know exactly what ADHD was until eight months ago, and now I understand that all the problems I have and they really bother me sometimes... are not normal things and don't happen to all people... And I thought that all people would have these confusions... Um..... do you have any advice Angel ")??.... It would be profoundly life changing for me and I would be deeply grateful 🥲🤍🧡🌙🌟🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂

Hiiiiiiiiiii, Moonie! 🌙

First: THAT IS A VERY LONG INBOX MESSAGE, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TAKING THE TIME TO WRITE ALL THAT. 🧡

Second: Sounds EXTREMELY EXHAUSTING but also VERY FAMILIAR to me.

💯 ADHD.

How can I answer all of that in a way that is NOT confusing??

I simply have to try.

First a summary of what you expressed & what I gathered from it:

You get distracted easily & you seem to have trouble focusing if you need to

You are able to hyperfocus on things you enjoy for a long period of time but you also loose the ability to do so (afterwards?)

You have a very busy mind, a constant chatter in your brain that is very distracting & hinders you from doing anything

You zone out in conversations (because of boredom, your constant stream of multiple thought-trains, distracting things in your surroundings?)

You happen to feel a lot of guilt around your expressed problems & I can read that you are sad (struggling with your mental health perhaps?)

As an ADHDler I can tell you: You are no burden. You are not stupid. You are not worthless. You are not bad. You are not lazy.

I know it seems that way sometimes & people are not very... understanding when it comes to ADHD. They always say we're lazy or not trying hard enough . Which is not true & I do not want you to believe that.

I am absolutely sure you're trying your best, Moonie.

*gets my googles out*

As Dr. Feelings I can give you the following advice:

If you have access to a medical professional, consider getting medication - it can truly help with focus, but it is not a must & don't feel forced. Some people are happy with medication, some are not. There are always some side effects. But that is also a topic for your health professional.

Work with your strengths. You have a lot of strengths as an ADHDler. Search of them & try to use them to your benefit. You know yourself best. For example, I have found my ways of staying on track with chores. It's not always working which is fine. It's normal to struggle.

Fidgets. They are life-saving for me.

Research. Connect with other ADHDlers, get to know what Neurodiversity is about. (You reached out to me, so yay, congrats!)

*takes googles off*

You are right. Most people do not suffer to the extend we do. They might say 'oh, I experience * ADHD symptom* too', but the intensity & frequency is completely different. They do NOT know what it's like.

I don't want you to feel 'abnormal'. You are normal. You are okay. You are neurodivergent. You are amazing & you have your own kind of normal which is definitely normal among neurodivergent people.

Imagine your mind as a computer.

Neurotypical people run with Windows while we run with IOS. Which is cool when we have our own tech (our own strategies) in our own IT-zone (in a neurodivergent friendly setting), but when we are forced to run our IOS computer (aka brain) in a setting made for Windows...

It is NOT really manageable without problems, is it?

You can try to emulate (mask your struggles, try to blend in) but at what cost (mental health struggles etcetera)?

Just some little food for thought!

🧡☀️🧡☀️🧡☀️

Also: No neurotype is better than the other! This is also true for the given example with IOS & Windows. I chose these programs because they're easy to understand.

[meowmeowbilly]

Billy Hargrove Bingo - C3 Fill

Bingo Fill for @billyhargrovebingo

Square and Prompt: C3 - Identity Erasure

Title: Billy Hargrove, The Lost Boy (Playlist)

Running Time: about 2 hours & 15 mins

Also created to accompany the playlist: Photo edit, brief blurb of writing; the blurb is below the read more.

Info for the Blurb

Rating: T

Word Count: 516

Ships: None

Major Tags: Canon Divergence, Vague Mentions of DPDR/BPD symptoms, Mentions of Child Abuse, Neil Hargrove, Vague Description of Suicidal Thoughts

Summary: A very tiny glimpse into the backstory of Billy Hargrove and why he's lost his identity.

People know Billy Hargrove, they see him, perceive him, and experience him, these events lead them to form an idea of who he is in their minds, so they believe that they know him. None of them know him, in fact, Billy doesn't even know himself. He hasn't known himself for a very, very long time. He's always been good at pretending, playing pretend was his favorite thing as a kid, now it's a constant, every day necessity.

He plays a different role, puts on a different costume, and reads different lines with different delivery for everyone in his life. He's done this for so long that he's not even sure if there's anyone under the masks he wears, inside the shell he calls a body. He remembers being a scared little kid, but that could describe a lot of people, it isn't who Billy is.

The story he tells to the people of Hawkins is far from the truth, but he's going to tell everyone what Neil tells him to say. He was a completely different person, his mother didn't let the abuse happen to him more than once or twice and she was fighting Neil for custody. She won, at least for a while. Things were alright, but he wasn't ever really allowed to be a kid. He was getting some chance to be a "normal" teenager, but then Neil started another custody battle and won, a couple moves and a few years later, he's in Hawkins.

"You've changed," Max will say, "I don't know what your problem is," and, "I think you were a lot different in California, it's like you're not even yourself anymore."

Billy knows that he should feel hurt or upset by her words, but he isn't, her words are true. He was a much different person in California, he had fun with Max, took care of her, he actually had friends, had real conversations, and enjoyed himself. Here? He doesn't have any of that. Hawkins is the town that he's stuck in, the prison he's been put in, and he knows that you've got to do what it takes to survive, even if it's shit you don't like.

He's been playing a character since the day Neil won custody, he's wearing a mask so frequently that he doesn't have much memory of who he used to be. He's missing chunks of memories, years worth of memories, and each day he pretends to be someone he isn't, he loses a little bit more.

He's not sure who he used to be anymore, he's not really sure who he is now, and he's absolutely terrified of who he's going to be in the future. If he was able to interact with his younger self, would the kid even recognize him? Billy doesn't even know if the 15-year-old version of himself would recognize who he's become. He's a player in the game, a piece on the chessboard, and an actor on the stage; Billy's ready for the curtains to close and the game to end, he's ready for it to be over.

[pbandjesse]

I am tired. I don't want to go to work at the nursery tomorrow. But I will. Because I know I should and also me and James had to take stuff from our savings to pay our rent. Stupid. I'm glad March is a 3 paycheck month. And hopefully the insurance payout comes soon.

I slept alright last night. I woke up with enough time to have breakfast at home. Which was an entire mango and also peanut butter pretzels. And then I headed to work.

I felt super cute today. Which had me in a great mood. But my energy level was all over the place today. I would be fine, I would be so tired, I would be talking a mile a minute. But I lucked out with just the best group.

When I got to the museum I took Jim to the second assembly line classroom to show him how to set that up and he helped me get everything together.

And for real I had the best group. Jordan and Rosia came outside with me to check the buses in. The other group had just gotten in and our group was a half hour early. So I got on the bus and let them know we were going to wait until the other group had cleared out and then bring everyone inside and do a bathroom break and drop off lunches and things. And my bus was so excited. They also hello to me and I asked the teacher if they were one group and then I was like oh you're going to be with me that's perfect. And they were so great. They did warm me that I had one child that I had ADHD and he's not able to get his medication because of the shortage right now so he was kind of bouncing off the wall. But he was super funny so it was fine and he wasn't very distracting to the other kids they mostly would just laugh and then get back on track. And they were all so mellow that made my life so easy.

after we did our bathroom breaks I took them to the classroom and I have them all sit down where I need them to and we got into our assembly line talk and it went great. It's hard because I was in the second assembly line classroom which is essentially a wasteland. There's nothing on the walls and I hated in there. But I did have some of the big printout pictures and I was able to show those to them and I got pretty close to my normal talk. I did trip on a chair and almost fell over. But beyond that it was a really fun time. They did a good job building the cars as well.

Overall they weren't very loud and they did a good job. There was some backup in the middle but parents jumped in and helped and we finished with a couple minutes extra. We watched the video and they were the quietest group listening to that video which was very funny to me. And when I told them that they all said thank you. Which was even funnier. And then we went and hung out in the car and got to see the rest of the exhibit and they seem to really enjoy that.

Next was lunch and then during that time I just chilled in the back and had my snack. I wouldn't talk to James for a little while. They order our stickers that I had designed. So they should be here sometime in the next week. I feel really good about all the products I've been making and I think my market table this year is going to be really fun. I still have to get bags for my pairs but everything else is going really good.

I got stuck in the bathroom for a few minutes. Because I had two aprons on for the cannery and I was wearing a jumpsuit and it was a whole thing. But I got out and everything was fine. I brought the kids to the cannery and we had a blast. Or ADHD friend was Mr Platt. By request. And everyone did great. No big problems at all. I did have all of my kids do an extra oyster because they were really enjoying it. And they had a lot of really good feedback and questions and comments. I really enjoyed my day with them.

At the end I gave him a little bit more information that I had forgotten about in the intro. About the railroad and stuff. And then I just told him that I thought they did such an amazing job and that they were really fun and they were just like super grateful and thankful and told me I was awesome and it just felt really good. I don't know I hope that they have a great rest of the day and that they would come back soon. The one little girl said she didn't want to leave and I told her she should just get a job here. And she's like I can't! And it was very silly.

I hung out the lunchroom with them while we waited for everyone to get together to get on the bus. Chatted with them about things that we collected and different things that they like to do. One of the kids told me that he had a very nutritious lunch of peeps, a soda, and goldfish crackers. And then it was time for them to go. I said goodbye and went to go work on supplies with my co-workers.

I sat upstairs with Jordan and Jess and Meril. And we just gossiped and talk shit and it was fun. We told stories about ships and talked about different things in our lives and worked on our oysters. It was a really nice hour. I was planning on leaving early but I didn't know the end because I was having a good time. Jessica would come up at one point to check in with us and she talked about how she played soccer when she was in college and how she still play soccer! And I didn't know that. I knew that she was in her the Hall of Fame for college though because she's very good. So it's nice to know that she's an adult league. I get excited when I hear people are passionate about things.

I would head out around 3:00. I said goodbye to James and went to the store. I just wanted to have some time to myself.

I went to value village and I had a great time looking around. I was mostly taking pictures of nonsense. Things that made me laugh. I found the egg gel and molds. I didn't buy them because Mom says that she has some for me. But it was funny to see them. And I ended up finding two more of the birthday bears that I collect. Which means I'm only missing January now and then I'll have the entire year. And I'm very excited about it. I couldn't remember which ones I was missing though so I had to spend a while going through my phone trying to find a picture of the collection. But I did and then I was able to get the two that I needed and that was really exciting for me. I also found two calico critter doll houses for $4. So I bought one of those. And then I found a rug that's from Venezuela that is very cool. And I only spend $11 for all of the things I got. But I was there for over an hour. I looked at everything. I touched every sweater. I had a great time just looking around and listening to my music. And apparently my joy was palpable because someone came up to me and he was really nice.

He was an older guy and he was signing and had a little bit of the deaf accent. But he told me he didn't want to bother me and he didn't want to worry me but that I just had a beautiful spirit and he wanted to let me know. And I was just like oh my God. Thank you. It was so sweet. It really brought a little tear into my eye. I don't know what he was seeing but that was really nice.

I had to wait in line for a really long time because there was something wrong with a couple of the self checkouts. But I didn't care. I chatted with the girl behind me. She said that I had some amazing vines. Specifically the Venezuelan rug. And I paid and went home.

My butcher was very low again. Doesn't happening a lot. So I ate crackers and vegetarian pepperoni while I was driving. Handful of jelly beans. And then I got home and James asked me what I wanted for dinner. And we decided on corn and vegetarian shrimp and stuffing. And it was a really good dinner. I have thoroughly enjoyed the last two nights of dinners.

I would work on a little art. Worked on my molds some more. And they're coming up better every time. I'm really figuring out the best ways to get the bubbles out. It's hard because this is not a vacuum mold and tapping it because it set so fast isn't really seem to help. But if I use a toothpick and kind of wiggle it around I can get most of the air bubbles out of three of the four molds. The one is still giving me trouble.

So much trouble that when I was trying to pour one and flick it with the toothpick it splattered and I got some resin in my eyeball! And it burned! James came when they heard me yell and gave me eye drops so I could wash my eye out. I don't think I need things in it and it doesn't hurt anymore but it was scary!

I would work in the studio on and off for most of the evening. My mom and Jess help me decide on some doc Marten sandals to spend my birthday money on. I ended up finding a pretty good deal on these pretty lilac ones with floral buckles. And James played a game with their friends on the computer. And eventually I went and took a bath and it was just nice and relaxing.

And now James is making me cookies because they're the best husband ever. And I love them so much. And soon we will go to sleep. I'm at the nursery all day tomorrow and it'll be nice. I'm going to be upload her and just be wherever they need me so that's a little stressful. But it's fine it'll be a nice day. I hope that you won't have a nice day as well. Send me as much energy as you can because I do not want to be tired. Let's hope I can sleep well tonight and that you can too. Good night everybody