#'a book sale a day keeps the soul-sucking job away!'

[marlynnofmany]

All right, what's on the ol' professional to-do list for this morning? Ah yes, a photoshoot with Stabby the Roomba. Naturally.

#gotta make the Patreon tiers look interesting #living the dream #I don't miss retail #and that's an understatement #'a book sale a day keeps the soul-sucking job away!' #crossing my fingers that all this is as promising as it looks #anyways I'm off to tape knives to my Roomba again #then work on editing other people's writing and do a bunch of other things #never a dull moment #Stabby the Roomba #Patreon #it should be coming back soon #stay tuned #and if the cat comes down to join the photoshoot in entertaining ways #I will be sure to share #writer life

[foxys-fantasy-tales]

Arigale: Spite in the Spirit Ch. 2 - Blood

Since the first five chapters are up on Amazon as a free preview anyways, I may as well bring them on here to remove the middle man and have it up to promo myself. I will not share more since the book is for sale and this is my job, but there is other free content for the series and more on my website at ArigaleFantasy.com. Now, here's the second chapter! (Keep in mind this is copy/paste from google docs and not my final pdf since it's taking away all my breaks doing that.) You can find the first chapter here.

“Ugh!” He grunted and coughed as he lay in the dry earth he was knocked against. His spear lay within reach, but though he grasped it, he couldn’t find the strength to raise it again as his arm shook. His forehead felt warm, and his free hand dabbed at it and came back red at the fingertips. Vision was blurry at best, but he could make out the glinting sword his opponent was wielding and hear his quiet chuckle. The gray, weathered brick walls that surrounded them were so high that it only seemed to focus the rays of the sun down on him.

“Up! Now, Chit!” A whip cracked the stones that their teacher stood upon at the edges of the training area.

Chit struggled to raise himself as he watched a few drops of blood spoil the sand. He managed to get back on his feet, but his knees were buckling as his head swam. His loose, deep blue curls stuck to his forehead where he’d been injured. A foot slid back in the sand and raised a cloud of dust as he settled back into a low stance and rushed toward his opponent. The other boy was shorter but more stocky. Chit’s spear strike was deflected as his sparring partner held up a shield, then bashed him in the head with it again on a downward swing that rang his ears and left him in the sand again with his eyes squinted at the row of weapons along the wall of the church.

“You’re never going to get anywhere that way. You’re fast, but you don’t try to dig into someone you know? Use that beast-like strength you got there.” The other student looked at their teacher, who just groaned and wound up his weapon to place at his side. They both gave up on waiting and walked off together into the shady archway while Chit found his way back up again. When he could finally stumble into it, the wall of the entryway was a blessing, as the cool stone soothed his bruises and bumps while he turned his body against them wherever it hurt worst. He touched his head again and sucked the air in through his teeth in a sharp hiss.

“I’m not going to be able to deal with this on my own this time, am I?” He sighed as he walked back inside, one hand pressed against the wall the whole way just in case. The halls were dimly lit with torches, and not a single window cast any light from the sunny day most were enjoying just over their walls in the city square. He took slow and careful steps in his state on the uneven stone floor. These floors were also likely laid out in the dark. The thought made his mouth twitch to a near smile. He passed many men and a few older women in the halls, but not a soul saw him, not really.

Not until he crossed the threshold of the other side of the Order did the sun finally find the interior of the church. Bright yellow rays intermingled with the silks of the same shade strung around the grand circular room. The windows stretched from the floor to halfway up the walls and were tinted with cheerful and warm shades of color. The room was large enough to house an army and held a kaleidoscopic array of couches, cushions, daybeds, and glittering tables of gold dispersed between them. It was like being inside a noble’s goblet, the way the glass windows shone all around flaked with gold reflections in this high rising and circular room. This space was crafted to hold such lavish and, dare he think upon it, perverse events on a daily basis.

Chit thanked Yani that today seemed to be a slow one, as only the priestesses of the Order’s light side were present. They flitted about in their bright yellow and orange robes of various fashions, each suited to their body in ways that made heat rise to his cheeks as he walked by them. They chittered at him with fleeting looks ranging from passive to concerned. One of the older women waved him down and tsked at his wounds.

“You know you aren’t to bring blood here.” She took off her sheer scarf and wrapped it quickly over his head after cleaning off his fingers. “Come on. Chinea is in the back.”

“I’m s-sorry F-Freena.” He mumbled and bowed his head forward until he stared at the ground as she led him by his hand through the pillows and hanging veils.

“What in the world…” He felt a tender touch at his temple. The blood must have stained through the wrapping. There was no way he could afford to replace that cloth, and the realization made him wince as much as the sting from the air as his makeshift bandage was removed. He heard the veils ripple again as Freena went back to work.

“I’m sorry. I tried to do better this time. I know I can’t keep showing up each time I get knocked around, but there’s a demonstration tomorrow and I-”

“Shh.” Chinea pressed a cold, wet cloth to his head. “It’s alright, child. I was the one who told you to come if you needed help, so don’t you dare start apologizing to me for it now. You take the gifts people give you, alright? Yani knows you’re short on them.” She shook her head, and even with his eyes downcast, he saw the long, thin ponytail sway past her knees like the threads that made up those pricey silk curtains above. Her plump arms worked fast as he felt himself pushed back into a large cushion on the floor. The magic always made his muscles go limp in relief, and within minutes all that remained of his wounds was the bloody cloth in her hands. She tucked the fabric into a small bag at her side.

“Thank you so much.” He smiled earnestly at her from his reclined position as she handed him a glass of water.

“It’s the least I can do with how they treat you. It’s barbaric. If I hadn’t sworn an oath and could get my hands on that old moth bitten bag of bones, then I’d-”

“Chinea, please. No talk of the Dark here. I rarely have a chance to show up at all, but they just left me in the sandpit this time. Frees up my schedule some.” His sharp teeth flashed in a grin, belying a hint of vindictiveness.

“You’re right.” She sat on the edge of a velvet chair that looked like a cloud the way it ruffled and rumpled at its borders, her round form all puffed up like a mother hen as she drew in her arms. “I haven’t seen you but in the dining hall for the last month. What have they had you doing?”

“Looking through a ton of old scrolls. Anyone who isn’t in the top percentage of the fighters in class has been tasked with researching the old archives for information on Yani that may have been lost over the centuries. They refuse to tell us why, but it gets me out of the extra lessons Silas is giving those not reading, so I’m fine with it.” He sipped from the glass still in his hand. Even the water carried a sweetness here, though it was probably laced with some sort of sugar or soaked with berries. He couldn’t tell the difference.

“That’s a relief at least, yet of course, it doesn’t excuse you from your regular lessons.” She said as she looked him over again and wiped a smudge from his cheek. The pleasure of seeing him faded from her face. “I am attempting to convince Master Brenner that you deserve a place here. It’s much more suited to your personality. Those caves they live in are suffocating you even more as you get older. I see it. I see it changing you all the time, Chit.”

“You know that’s never… Men aren’t allowed.” He sighed and pulled at the long points of his ears as he set the bejeweled cup aside.

“I know that, but I’m the Mistress of the Light side of the Order, and there is a first for everything. Why, up until a short while before I was born, they still had rules against interracial mingling.”

“A lot of those still hold weight.” His mouth formed a hard line, and he looked away from her just as Freena returned. She opened her thin lips, but before she could speak, Master Brenner pushed past her and struck his staff down hard on the floor to mark his point.

Chinea rose and bowed at a slight incline to him, which was overshadowed by the way her hands hit her hips and she glared at him after the formality. He nodded at her without returning the favor, and between the two of them, Chit wished he knew a spell to disappear. The older man was tall and languid. His jowls hung low, and his brow was high above a pointed and short snub nose. Like Chit and all others of the Dark side of the Order wore, black robes enshrouded him but were ordained with edges of silver and gold with a bright red broach clipped to his high and stiff collar. Light reflected off his head from the large windows, and he scoffed in Chit’s direction. “We had a meeting. Why did you see the need to bring the riff-raff in question to it?” Chit folded in on himself, but Chinea looked two feet taller.

“His name is Chit. You had the gall to give him a name sounding so close to a slur, so you can at least use it instead of coming up with new ones. Our meeting was supposed to be at six. You’re early, my Master.”

“My Mistress, surely the wine here has addled your brain. I suggested four strokes past, not six. I have more important matters to attend to then.”

“Of course. Please.” She gestured for him to sit, but Chit could see from where he was how she clenched her other hand behind her back.

“No need. I won’t be here long. Now, exactly what makes you think that this young man deserves to break all our rules and traditions by joining the Light? That he be allowed to do so at his age? He’s spent nearly twenty years training to be a valued member of the Dark half of our Order. How would he possibly be fit for this transference when his whole life to this point has been trained to fit his proper role? Would you allow someone from the street to leap into serving the people who come to you in dire need?” The elder’s deep and slow tones rumbled through the room as he spoke. Chit flinched away as the staff the Master held struck the ground again near his ankle. “Do you understand my confusion at your request?”

“I understand that he hasn’t been trained, but if you would give me just two years, I can educate him on all the secrets of the Light. I am sure of it. There is no mistaking the kindness and intelligence he has displayed the more he ages.” Chinea looked down at him with a smile, and Chit’s shoulders relaxed, but it didn’t last long as the Master scoffed and grabbed one of Chit’s horns to lift him to his feet. Chit yelled and shut his eyes while Chinea stared with horror. The wrinkled hand wrenched at the ivory ridges of bones that curled around his grip, which sent the cobalt-skinned boy reeling.

“This demon flesh that was left on our door, this is what you want to train to serve you? Who in their right mind would come to him for comforts and healing? Do you expect he could even learn your arts? With his blood? Just because you have helped raise him, do not fall prey to your womanly instincts. This is clearly not your child. This is someone’s burden we were left to deal with until the proper time he is set on his own. We both know of why, and that fact alone makes this beyond sacrilege for you to even suggest.”

“You want to talk about sacrilege? How about how you are hurting him in MY domain.” Chinea gripped the Master’s wrist, and he dropped Chit to his knees. “No harm is to come to any who enter these doors. You forget yourself.”

“Then I’ll light a stick of incense on my way out.” His expression didn’t shift at all. “You will no longer make such requests of me. These pointless endeavors only harm your standing the more you retreat to such folly. I would hope for better for you by now. Chit has his home, and it suits him well.” Chinea helped Chit to his feet and dusted off his robes.

“You will offer up your prayers here in front of all my maidens and mothers present, and you will do it on your knees. Truer repentance than I’m sure you are capable of, so at least it will look honest.”

As Chit rubbed his head and found the nerve to look upwards, he caught a glint of anger in the man’s eyes. His heart leaped, but it was hard to hide the mix of joy and fear the recognition gave him as his large, smooth tail began to tap at the floor. Chinea hauled it up into one arm to act like she was looking him over for injuries as she held it still.

“As you command, my Mistress.” The Master turned away, but just as Chit began to breathe again, he had to stop. “You will be back in your room with new research to keep you busy by the time I finish this exaggerated rite. It would be in your best interests to hurry.”

“Y-Y-Yes. I will m-my Master.” Chit stammered and took his tail back from Chinea in both hands before he let it fall limp to the floor along with his gaze.

The master nodded and pushed his way through the heavy curtain as his staff raked along the floor with each pronounced stride. The two waited until they heard the footfalls cease, and Chinea turned Chit around to face her. Her burgeoning wrinkles seemed a lot more present in the way she stared at him with so much concern watering in her amber eyes. Words fell short as she shook her head low and hard. Chit patted her shoulder and tried to quiet the trembling in his hands.

“It’s alright. I t-told you it wouldn’t w-work.” He winced at hearing his stutter and sighed. “I need to g-get b-back to w-work now. The a-archives aren’t f-far, but…”

“If you don’t make it back, he’s going to make sure you pay for that and more. I know, dear… Please, hurry and be careful. I’ll figure something out. I’m not letting you rot down there for the rest of your days.” She touched his cheek and beamed up at him. “You’ve gotten so tall I barely reach your collarbone. You’re well old enough to choose on your own.”

“There’s n-no exit to the D-Dark. He’d never let me l-leave.”

“The only end to the days of pain and toil is death itself. I’m well aware of the rites.”

“I do not believe those are the exact w-words.” He scoffed with a light smile.

Chit kissed her cheek and parted the curtain to leave her quarters. He dragged his feet as he walked back through the enormous room. Each twinkle of sunlight was as bright as the golden tables to him, and it struck him like always how the velvet and silks his hands caressed as he pushed through the drapery were likely the softest things those damned blue hands of his would ever touch.

The walk across the street to the archives and back allowed him to warm himself by the sun’s gleam more directly, but it came with more hazards. The eyes of the townsfolk were all on him, even with his hood up and his tail tucked as well as he could manage under his robes, he was still clearly different the second they saw the color of his face and the way the thin, ragged cloth fell over his horns and dipped down to his head. Some of the looks were frightened, others were disgusted, but each one cut the same way as he decided to make his way in and out as fast as possible. He broke into a sprint up the spiraling central staircase surrounded by shelves that reached the ceiling. It was all owned and controlled by the church, but the men of his order had access to materials on the highest floors barred from standard entry. He passed through the thin, blackened barrier at the top of the stairs and crammed a bag full of any scroll his eyes met that had something to do with Yani.

Chit reached his room just before the dinner hour, but there was no way he was going to risk heading out to eat and being caught out of his room by the Master, no matter how his stomach grumbled in protest. He dumped the pile of scrolls onto the one desk in his room with no chair or adornment, just flat oak wood stained by repeated use through decades. A couple of scrolls rolled off and onto the damp floor, but he picked them up quickly with his tail and dropped them back onto the desk. The last one he grabbed with his tail was snatched up in his hand as he sat in the corner of the tight space and opened it up. Focusing on the words was difficult, as each time the name and nature of his god were brought up, he couldn’t help but imagine the lines he saw so much more clearly on Chinea’s face and hear her promise that he wouldn’t spend the rest of his days down here. Here, in this tiny room with one flickering candle and no windows. The ceiling that dripped and was never going to be fixed would be hanging over him for decades more to come. The bed in the corner, which was only slightly better than sleeping on the floor, was to be his for life. The age on his only friend’s radiant face made him want to see his own suddenly, but there were no mirrors allowed; of course, it would be too vain to wish to see oneself.

Rage bubbled beneath the surface until he realized he wasn’t even reading the scroll any longer, just staring at the ink. He threw the paper onto his bed before laying his head down upon his knees. Chit’s tail constricted around his thigh until he could feel it start to throb and ache, but he just kept tightening the grip more and more until his leg went numb. The room had disappeared from his consciousness, even if for only a moment, but a bright rush of purple light that overwhelmed the dinky flame of his candle caused his head to jerk back up fully alert again.

“You are going to need those legs. Try not to lose one.” A stranger’s voice called to him.

“What?” Chit scrambled to his feet as his tail swished in the air behind him. It would hit harder than he could in a pinch.

“Good. They still work.” The whole room was now bathed in a bright purple, and he had to squint to make out the face of a man, or rather an elf, with long white hair that fell straight as a blade over his shoulders and dark skin. “My name is Maleth. I have something I need to ask of you. Please, come to my tower outside town. I know you have never been far from here, but go west and you can’t miss it.”

“W-What!?” Chit said louder and even more confused. “I-I can’t leave. T-Tomorrow is a special t-tournament, and I-”

“I have already spoken with your Master, and he has granted permission, albeit not entirely willingly.” The tone in the elf’s voice struck him as somewhat full of himself about it all.

“I-I have no idea how y-you… or even who you…”

“I introduced myself. I am certain of that. I did not want to make the same mistake twice.”

“S-Same mistake?”

“Oh. You are not the only one I am calling on, Chit. I may have jumped into things too soon and forgot to tell her my name. You know, my commands used to carry a lot more weight around here…Now I have to stoop to mostly empty threats.” The face in the light was sulking if he wasn’t mistaken, but it was so bright it was hard to look at the details.

“You even know m-my n-name.” It was clear this Maleth was plenty powerful and persuasive if he could convince the master to let him out at all. “Is… Is this a-a matter of importance?”

“I am not calling you all the way out there to recover and read some dusty old papers I already know about if that is what you are concerned over.”

“Then what use w-would you h-have for me?”

“I can’t talk about it in detail, especially not in this place. I can promise you though, that my offer will be of even more significance to you than it is for her. It will change things forever if you choose to take on my request.” Chit stared as the confusion subsided at those words.

“Nothing ch-changes for me.”

“Come to my tower, and I think you will see things differently. I cannot linger here any longer. Come, please. It is of the highest importance that you both meet with me immediately.” The glow in the room was snuffed out all at once and left Chit rubbing his eyes at the sudden darkness.

#writeblr #booklr #indie author #arigale #writers on tumblr #book #fantasy #epic fantasy #writing

[angelicichor]

Okay, here we go again, hope y’all ready.

Slashers dealing with their S/O having a mental break down pt.2 in which I’m a horrible person and Bubba baby I’m so sorry.

TW: self-degradation, mental trauma, mental break down, depression

Michael Myers (OG):

♦ The very moment the infamous Shape of Haddonfield had spared your life on that fateful Halloween night you knew that your existence would get a whole lot harder.

♦ You’ve read Doctor Loomis’ book, it created a clear image of this being before you in your head, this devil, who took people’s lives to satisfy some gross urge inside himself, some repressed emotions, some perversion, who knew.

♦ Yet as the man with the devil’s eyes moved into your house and you got to spend time with him, willingly or not, you learned there was more to him than the psychiatrist claimed. It was hard to tell what exactly you saw in him, it might’ve been pure Stockholm syndrome after being forced to stay indoors for a week just after meeting him, but you grew a bond with this murderer.

♦ It clearly wasn’t love, but rather adoration, maybe friendship, it was impossible to decide, really, somehow you doubted there was a title for what you two had, so you just decided to call it a voluntary hostage situation.

♦ It was stupid and Michael just sighed heavily through his mask when you’ve told him about the name, but it was SOMETHING.

♦ And you needed a lot of somethings to deal with him, with who he was and what hiding you at your place made you. 

♦ You’ve suffered sleepless nights because of it, all too aware what was going on when Michael was gone, noticing all the missing knives, the axe from your shed, the rope, even the blade from your lawnmower. You’d stand up in the morning only to find his bloody coveralls on the top of your dark clothing, ready for washing, while he was walking around in your ex’s pants.

♦ But even though your mind told you of all the atrocities this man committed, you couldn’t pull away from him. Something keeping you in place and you feared it was the anxious awareness that if you betrayed him, he’d know, he’d find you and he’d end you in a heart beat.

♦ Each day your sane mind told you to call the police and get under witness protection, get away from this soulless monster, start anew and once you’re old and already satisfied with the life you’ve led, you can write a book about it and live the rest of your days in luxury from your sales.

♦ But it wasn’t that easy, because the twisted part of your self was attracted to this now familiar danger. His body, his touch and his voice, only sounding for you, dark and raspy, making you tremble whenever he called out your name.

♦ You craved his dark affection, his toxic touch and those piercing eyes gazing into you with a primal possessiveness to them. He had marked you his way too many times.

♦ And within the walls of the house you used to feel at home in you felt lost, starring into the pool of red beneath your feet, still shuddering from what happened, your gut clenching at the realization that it had been the second time, too.

♦ He killed someone in front of you. 

♦ Yet this time you felt nothing, an empty, raging void sucking your heart in, as you zoned out of everything, not even able to think, an empty husk.

♦ There was some distant sensation, something dark pulling forward, a part of you tried to push it away, but it was weak and as you heard the floor boards behind you creak, it lost.

♦ “Michael… Can you… kill me?” you asked, voice devoid of emotion, cold and distant, lost, without purpose and sitting before a window you didn’t notice his reaction, the way his body stuttered, head tilting and brows furrowing under the mask. He never had it in him to take it off in front of you for longer than a minute.

♦ And you noticed it starring back at you, unmoving and that brought a tired half-smile towards your pale face, a breath of a broken laugh leaving your chest, but not mouth, giving your body a single shake. 

♦ Of course he wouldn’t take it off, why would he, for some stupid play thing like you? You were too stupid to even understand why he wore it in the first place, with his looks he could have anyone he wanted, but he settled for you, why? You were pretty sure it was only because you hadn’t annoyed him that much when he tried to kill you, he just thought you were simple and stupid, perfect to use and throw away once he got bored, but now you wished so hard that he’d get it over with and move on.

♦ “Michael, I’m tired.” you murmured, and if listening to your words your brain let the wave of exhaustion wash over your face, body and soul, letting that one feeling go, your hands grasping at your hair, again blind to the twitch in his hands.

♦ “I’m grateful that you let me live then and… I adore you in a way I guess, though don’t ask me why, I don’t really understand myself.” you didn’t see him, but heard his footsteps, coming closer, but slowly, almost hesitantly. But you were sure he was just mocking you for being weak in front of him, drawing out your anxiety, the other feeling that slipped through the iron curtain your mind had set.

♦ “I just can’t handle it anymore, I know I’m pathetic, a coward, but I’ve been bearing with your… tendencies for so long… I’ve accepted you because there’s some fucked up part of me that wants to be with you but… I can’t handle being your toy, Michael… not anymore. I have feelings, too many of them, and they just… “ you didn’t get to finish, as The Shape pulled at your shoulder harshly towards him. 

♦ His throat clenched when you didn’t even make a sound, your tired, blank stare welcoming him instead. “Please, Michael. I can’t risk everything for someone who can never care for me.“ you spoke still, the darkness in your heart leaking, drop by drop, filling you to the brim as you smiled still, letting tears run down your cheeks. And at the angle he held you at you couldn’t even see the anger his eyes conveyed, but you could sense it. “I know this isn’t your fault.” And all too suddenly it was gone. “But I need you to let me go now. You’ll find someone better, prettier, maybe smart enough to give you enough stability to take get rid of this mask… Because god, you know I’m just a dumb little thing.” you huffed a laughter and yet he was still, unmoved, just like he always was, so you risked it, grabbing his hand and pushing your neck into it, anger overtaking your eyes. “Just fucking finish the job, Myers.” you cried, closing your eyes the moment his fingers tightened around you neck, squeezing tight. 

♦ And the feeling of relief in your gut was just sickening.

♦ Yet as you waited for your pipes to close, for a snap of your neck, for the stinging pain of his knife, nothing came. Instead your head spun with the sudden sensation of both of your cheeks being grabbed, painfully, but almost gently.

♦ You dared to open your eyes and froze instantly.

♦ “No.” Michael spoke from above you, digging his nails into your soft skin, his expression fixed into pure rage and you gulped. “You’re mine.” The growling of his voice made you tremble, eyes tearing up once more, landing on his rough fingers. “And you will be till the day I die.” He pressed his forehead against yours, his blue eye making your very souls shiver as it’s gaze connected with your own, letting you soak in the pure obsessiveness of it’s nature.

♦ And you nodded gently, struggling to catch air, clawing at his dark shirt in a desperate attempt to ground yourself to something, anything.

♦ And for once, Michael reached out to you without the intent to harm, pulling you into his chest and sitting still, letting you steal just of tiny bit of his emotion.

♦ And you whimpered in joy, realizing just how horrible of a person you were.

Bubba Sawyer:

♦ You didn’t mean to scream.

♦ Or at least not at the person you did.

♦ Both Drayton and Nubbins looked at you appalled, as their sweetest family member let his head lower, taking in your words.

♦ This whole day was horrible from the start, you waking up with a headache, no motivation, the old man calling you down to trick you into feeding grandpa, then Nubbins came, insisting on showing you his knife and attempting to cut you with it, much to Drayton’s disapproval. 

♦ You’ve been walking around irritated as all hell the whole day, but once dinner rolled on, everything was just too much. Four screaming, kicking people were shoved towards the table and sat down, much to their protest, muted by the duck tape around their heads.

♦ Then Nubbins decided that it would’ve been a great idea to rip the gags off! With a knife! Laughing maniacally through the whole thing and the screams that mixed in with it soon after really didn’t help your migraine, neither did the ceremonial smashing heads in with a hammer, as Drayton missed on purpose to scare the poor, poor girl that was chosen to be first.

♦ And of course somebody had to wiggle out of the rope and hold a knife to your back, not realizing that you could, in fact, defend yourself by grabbing a plate and smashing it in his face.

♦ Then there was that chainsaw, oh, it was family, alright.

♦ Family of loud, annoying noises swearing to rip your poor brain to shreds, because there were no pain killers ANYWHERE in the house, of course there wouldn’t be! Drayton took them almost every day to ease his back pains, even though everybody knew damn well he was just tense and needed to find somebody to massage him, because neither you nor Nubbins would do it and Bubba… was a wild card.

♦ The poor boy.

♦ He just caught you at your worst moment, when you were about to tip over, having noticed that you were agitated the whole day and babbling to you in his sweet, darling voice, asking if you wan”ted to go rest.

♦ And that high pitched series of noises was enough for you to raise your voice.

♦ “CAN’T YOU FUCKING SHUT UP?!” You shrieked, not even pointing the complaint at him, but with the whole situation, it landed right at his heart.

♦ And you were god damn heart broken the moment you realized what you’ve just done.

♦ “Oh no…” he shook slightly, eyes focused on the ground as you stood up from your chair and fretted towards him. “Bubba, baby, I’m so sorry I-I didn’t…” you started, reaching out towards his masked face, but his sudden hold on your hands stopped you, making you look up at him in worry.

♦ He was pouting, but in that way that let you know he was angry and this time it was your turn to hang your head, pure shame flooding your heart.

♦ Bubba’s big, meaty and incredibly warm hand shifted to somehow fit into yours and with annoyed grumbles he pulled you to follow him and you did, ignoring Nubbins singing about you being in trouble.

♦ The big man brought you to your shared room and lightly pushed you onto the bed, making you exhaust a small huff as you hit the springy mattress. You sat up and to your shock you found Bubba kneeling down in front of you, lips still pouting, but head forcing it’s way onto your lap with a dissatisfied whine.

♦ You immediately started stroking his head, giving him small kisses in the process, calming him down as you explained your day to him, hoping he could forgive you.

♦ And when he took his boots off and climbed on the bed with you, pulling your small frame into his strong arms, you felt your whole body soften and tears ran down your cheeks, your whole being getting pulled into the worst crying fit you’ve ever had, even as a baby.

♦ And being the sweetheart that he was, Bubba was soon joining you in your messy love confessions and needy attempts at cuddling, which just ended with you sitting up, legs wrapped around each other’s waists (which was mostly just Bubba’s body making your disappear, like a true magician) and falling into a fit of crying, kisses and mumbling.

♦ When Drayton finally came to check on you, you were both asleep, eyes red from all the crying, but grinning like damned fools even while deep in dreams, hugging as much of each other as you could.

♦ And somehow three hours later your migraine was just a thing of the past, your new found motivation leading you to stand up and make everybody a tray of cookies.

♦ They deserved it, those beautiful bastards.

#michael myers x reader #bubba sawyer x reader #slasher x reader #slashers x reader #slasher community #virgo writes #halloween #texas chainsaw massacre #bubba sawyer #michael myers #break down #I AM A DAMNED FOOL #AND THIS TOOK SO LONG BC I'VE BEEN DISTRACTED BY WONDERFUL PEOPLE #Bubba is baby ok #and mikey is bastard #angst #fluff #angst to fluff

[kraysenford]

——  [ kraysen ford, cis male, thirty seven. ] hailing from prada verde, this farmer was at his wedding when the sudden departure happened and lost his fiance, sister, mother, father & best friend. People tend to associate him with an Old Farm House, Old Worn Down Books & Blind Willie Johnson Records. He is at risk of being followed by the guilty remnant and will recite different paragraphs of scripture and or monolouges when they encounter them.

Penned by Angie.

BIOGRAPHY

TRIGGERS: Death, Cheating & Single Parenting

May my mercy prevail over my wrath.

Men with good hearts were always hard to come by in this day and age, those who portrayed themselves to be usually just hid their agenda’s better than others. But there was no man like Kraysen Ford, the boy next door, the man with intergrity and respect.

Brought up on a farm in Prada Verde; he was a country boy through and through. Growing up in the house with his Mother, Father, Younger Sister, Older brother and Grandma; a close family who were always found laughing around the dinner table at night, cards lay out and jokes being told. They were a genorous bunch, always thinking of others; whether his mother was running a charity food drive for those less fortunate in the community or his father was out helping his older neighbours with the chores they’d grown too weary to do in their old age.

Kraysen spent his years growing up seeing all these acts of kindess, in and outside of the home. The way his grandmother talked about the long marriage she had to his grandfather before he passed, when they decided she should live with them so she wasn’t alone. The way his mother and father were together, so effortless, yet still so compassionate and tender all these years on. Each and every moment, Kray took from it, he learnt how to be a real man. Not the kind of man that women loved in the movies, a bad boy. Sure, he had his traits — but he was far from it.

In High school he met his best friend, the person who he knew got him. Although he was kind and sweeter than the usual popular lads in high school, Kraysen made his way to the top by being one of the most liked people due to his nature. He was a favorite of not only the students, but the teachers and was academic, although not that interested in it. His favorite class was music, always taking the time to sing, play the piano or guitar which he showed a natural ability with.

But knew he’d never be able to persue it, his job was to take over the farm from his dad. And while some people would say that it was unfair to put that burden on a child, Kraysen knew it was not only the right thing to do but also the smart thing. It was a steady job, music never would be and Kray saw a wife and children in his future; he saw them on that very farm where he’d grown up, playing in the fields while Harp and his wife would sip cold punch in the summer time.

Throughout school Kraysen dated an array of girls, he wasn’t a heartbreaker, in fact, they ended up breaking his. Whether it was cheating, saying he was too nice or it just wasn’t the right time — he found himself always wondering if there was something wrong with him, or maybe it was only the bad guys that ended up with the girls in the end.

It was only in his last year of high school, as a Senior, that he began to sneak out to parties; he was sure if he asked his parents they’d be fine with it, but it was more fun that way. His Grandma caught him a few times, saying it was their secret — their bond only grew. But those nights he realised that he struggled to find the one, no one ever stood out to him anymore, he was a man that still appreciated the woman’s form, and the woman he wanted he couldn’t have. That was his problem, and he knew it all too well.

After high school he began working at the farm immediately, as a graduation gift he was given a red truck; like the one he’d always dreamed of, which Kraysen and his father worked every day to restore; it was their thing, something he cherished. But he knew he wanted to do something more, he wanted to be more — Help people, but just in a different way to his parents.

With the grades and the right attitude, Kraysen attended Savannah State University where he studied Psychology, so he could become a therapy and eventually, after completing all the courses — he graduated and after speaking with his father, they set up Ranch Therpay; Kray was aware that most people found it daunting to go into someones office and talk to them, so he decided to use the farm as a tool. Each patient would walk with him through the farm, ride the horses, feed the animals and that’s when therapy would commence. He believed it was better to get a lot of his patients out of a room and into the open, a lot of people didn’t get to do that. Depression kept them couped up, or they were too afraid to go out alone, only two reasons among thousands.

And it worked, a sucess that was reported on the news, the papers all around Prada Verde. They were known as the family of givers, those who were happy to help others and wanted to keep helping as much as they could.

He his older brother, Bash, also named Bazen. But he was older, married and had a family of his own.  He’d decided the family business wasn’t for him at a young age and ventured into property sales, he was amazing at it and was grateful for what he had. They saw each other most Sundays at church or when they had family meals, in honour of their family traditions. But the questions were always asked as to when Harp would settle down; when he’d finally meet the girl of his dreams.

So he started actively looking until he met her, like a whirl wind she came into his life and ripped him apart like a tornado set on a path of destruction. She was everything he never usually went for, a seductive, maipulative and soul sucking creature who he’d end up falling in love with. 

And then she was pregnant.

While Kray was happy, he could tell she wasn’t. It was like being punched in the stomach, each day became painstakingly long as he wished for their child to arrive, in hopes it may fix the clear void that had become present, but instead she flew deeper into a void of anger and annoyance. And the day their beautiful daughter, Dotty Andrews arrived, she was gone. Left without another word, and from that day on he vowed he’d do anything and everything for his daughter.

However, he did what he had to, to win her back. But it was short lived, the day they were marrying on his farm, they all just dissapeared.

Like a light went out. And then there was no one.

Just Kray and his daughter, his entire family had almost been wiped out, and left a man completely torn apart. What would he do? Where would he go? How would he live? A man who was amazing dad, but had always had the love of his parents to help him when needed. But that had been ripped away from him, and he had no answers as to why. 

Now he’s a solitary man, who lives on his farm, still loving and happy, but keeps himself distances as to not get hurt again. He just prays nothing comes to take his daughter away, for that would be the worst thing that could ever happen to him.

PERSONALITY

POSITIVE: Disciplined, Kind hearted, Reliable & Romantic. NEGATIVE: Jealous, Over Sensitive, Stubborn & Over Thinker.

#pradointro #bio #kraysen ford

[fc5holidayexchange]

FAR CRY 5 HOLIDAY EXCHANGE 2019 FIC

‘How the Tea Saved Christmas’

Female Rook/Joseph Seed, Joey Hudson, John Seed; when local barista Rook learns that the holidays are a not-so-great time for one of Hope County’s families (and her favorite customer), she takes it upon herself to learn a new skill to bring him a little Christmas Cheer.

@bintangy

“Here is my gift for the wonderful Tangy! I hope you like it and it brings you a little joy during this holiday season :)

If there was one thing Rook lived by in life, it was that if she was gonna do a job, she was gonna do it right. So when she’d gotten the opportunity to sling lattes part-time back in college, Rook decided she wasn’t going to give it the half-assed attempt most baristas gave it: instead, she spent her free time learning that foofy-foam art nonsense to take her skills to the next level. It had been entertaining to whip up frothy drinks decorated with all sorts of dumb phallic images for her friends, but the skill really hadn’t become important to her until she’d graduated and found herself with exactly zero job offers in her field.

With nothing else to turn to, she’d dipped back into the reliable work for the chance to earn the modest monthly rent for her apartment. And thankfully, instead of working for a soul-sucking corporate chain, Rook ended up at The Sheriff’s, an adorably simple coffee shop situated right in the downtown of Hope County suburbia. The owners, a perfectly darling family with a girl her age by the name of Mary May, had been graciously open to her idea of introducing art back into caffeine and were more than happy to let her produce her latte art for customers that specifically asked for it.

While not everyone was interested in the art form, some customers were more than happy to wait for whatever random art she decided to produce for them that day. Those that did ask for it were great tippers and had been vigorous at spreading the word about the girl creating painstakingly beautiful foam art in the idyllic little family business. Sales took off for the shop and Rook made more than she needed to get by in tips alone most days, but more importantly than that – she actually enjoyed what she was doing. It certainly hadn’t been what she expected to do with her life out of college, but the town had quickly absorbed her into their collective family, her employers especially.  

“Rook! Got another one.”

Joey Hudson’s voice sailed across the shop and into the back where Rook was taking stock of the morning’s supplies. With a grin, Rook headed through the double doors and peered over the counter. A flash of blue hair caught her attention immediately. “Nadine, hi. What can I get for you?”

True to form, Nadine Abercrombie flashed a brand-new comic book proudly as she placed her morning order. When the enthusiastic young woman first began coming to the shop to ask for art of the newest comic book characters, Rook had been woefully under-prepared and un-researched on even the most ‘basic’ of characters by her standards; since then, Nadine had taken to bringing examples in hand.

Rook did an exemplary job of copying even the most ridiculous of superhero symbols if she did say so herself and jumped at the chance to replicate today’s choice character. She grabbed a large ceramic cup and tossed a quick, “Coming right up!” over her shoulder as she set to her task.

Nadine was more than happy with the work and eagerly delved into the pages of her comic with her latte in hand. Because of the small-town atmosphere, there were lots of regulars that kept to pretty consistent schedules. Sometimes, strangers passed through during peak tourist season which provided Rook with her greatest challenges, but for the most part Rook’ work was pretty consistent.

Joey eyed her from the register. “Think that poor girl will ever get out of this town?”

“Come on, Hudson.” Rook wiped down the espresso machine and turned to toss the rag at her coworker. “At least she didn’t have a choice in starting out here. Better than making the choice to move to a small-ass town like this.”

“Hmm.” Joey paused. “Touché, Rookie.”

With a roll of her own eyes, Rook countered, “Quit calling me that.”

The chime of the front door’s bell interrupted their banter. Rook felt a quick prod to her side and met Joey’s salacious grin before she turned and saw–

Oh.

It was her newest regular. From what she’d heard from the town’s gossip, the Seed family had remained largely reclusive though not unfriendly during their stay in Hope County. At the beginning of December and therefore the holiday season, Rook had taken it upon herself to up her game with the cutest possible holiday art. It was at that time that the newcomer had first entered the shop and Rook was taken by the way his eyes seemed absolutely enchanted by the perfectly outlined snowflake she’d etched into the foam. Now, the signature Seed-blue eyes were recognizable from a mile away and Rook felt rooted to the spot when she met Joseph Seed’s gaze across the counter.

A smile tugged at his lips as he stepped up to order. “Hello, Miss.”

Though there was no malice behind it, Joey rolled her eyes and backed away from the register. For as many times as he’d been in the shop, Joseph had always asked for the latte art and had, since the beginning, maintained that he would like the pleasure of giving his praise directly to the artist. His gaze remained steady even as Rook took her place at the register.

“It’s Rook, please. I promise there’s no need to be formal.”

A mischievous glint entered Joseph’s eyes, one that told her he had no intention of breaking that tradition of theirs. Joseph had been a very quiet and agreeable patron prior to the discovery of her art. Now? He preferred making his orders directly through her and with an air of humor Rook was surprised to hear from him. The way that their banter brought a smile to his handsome face and brought out the lines around his eyes suited him. “But I thought the customer was always right, Miss.”

There wasn’t much Rook could say to that, so she instead focused on trying to tame the heat rising to her cheeks and asked, “What can I get for you today?”

As Joseph opened his mouth, another face suddenly peered from over his shoulder. The family resemblance was clear in both the eye color and the way that they lit up with mischief upon seeing her.

“Oh, Joseph, you never told me that the barista was as darling as her art.”

Joseph’s cheeks immediately flushed. “John.”

“Sorry, sorry.” What could only be the youngest Seed brother leaned his heavily-tattooed arms on the counter. “I’ll just have two shots of espresso. Need to stay awake through some horrendously boring briefings. Joseph?”

Almost shyly, Joseph asked, “Just a small cinnamon holiday latte.”

Despite the fact that John’s sudden appearance had taken her by surprise, Rook could practically feel her heart melting at the way Joseph always asked for the art as though he was bothering her. She’d make a whole fleet of art-stamped foam lattes if he asked for it. She set to the task at hand, putting up Joseph’s cup first to create her canvas before grabbing a smaller mug for John.

To her surprise, the younger of the two remained as Joseph walked the crowd in search of a table. John watched her with an air of badly-disguised disinterest that was shattered the moment he murmured, “You know he doesn’t actually drink caffeine, right?”

“Ow–” At the sudden remark, Rook jerked her head up and managed to catch her head on the cabinet above the steamer. “What do you mean, he doesn’t drink caffeine? He’s here almost every day.”

A smirk grew until it threatened to overtake John’s handsome face. “Of course he is.” And, with a conspiratorial wink, he leaned forward and whispered, “But have you ever actually seen him drink it?”

“No…” Rook was usually (and understandably) too busy to study Joseph while he sat in the shop. The most she got to experience was the way his features lit up at the recognition of whatever she’d made for him, but that in and of itself was more than enough for her. She absent-mindedly put the finishing touches on the edges of the ornament she’d etched into the foam and slid it across the counter.

“Hmm.” Without another word, John collected both his and his brother’s drinks and headed to their tables.

Now, Rook’s interest was piqued. All this time, she’d assumed that the holiday art had been keeping Joseph here; after all, he hadn’t started showing up in the line until she began the recent brand of holiday-themed latte art. She kept moving orders out and conversed conversationally with her regulars as they cycled through the line, but she kept a discreet eye on the pair of them sitting in the corner. To her absolute dismay, as time stretched on and the two of them moved from their spot, Joseph failed to lift his mug to take a drink even once.

She was immediately crestfallen. A small part of her had been excited about the idea of Joseph enjoying his drinks for her, and the thought made her feel stupid. As Rook kicked herself mentally behind the counter, John suddenly parted from Joseph with a touch to the older man’s shoulder and headed back to the counter.

Under the guise of handing her his used mug, John murmured, “The caffeine – it’d keep him up at night and he doesn’t sleep much as it is. Especially with the holiday season rolling around. It’s… a difficult time to say the least. For all of us.”

Oh.

So he’d noticed her sulking then, but rather than make fun of her, the lawyer with the sharp observational skills was trying to make her feel better. With a smile that almost didn’t match his abrasive nature, John added, “He likes herbal tea. Though I’m sure he’d miss out on your art and I can’t imagine you’d do as well with tea leaves.”

And with that, the two blue-eyed men were gone, leaving Rook stunned at the turn of events.

The coffee-fueled mogul of a family that ran the coffee shop was perplexed when she brought up the suggestion, to say the least, but they were thankfully willing to give it a shot. As shipping orders arrived with the usual holiday fanfare and the shop’s shelves began to be overtaken by the standard shades of red and green, Rook kept an eye out for a specific order and when it arrived, it did so with the air of Christmas arriving early.  

She tried to tell herself that the excitement was because of the opportunity to learn and to expand business, not because of him alone. The mantra repeated itself in her head even as she lined up the first tins and placed the kettle on the range in the back kitchen while imagining Joseph’s face at his first cup. If the holidays were a tough time for him, the least she could do was teach herself how to make a decent cup of tea while incorporating a little art on the top still.

“What in the holy hell are those little shits?” Of course, Joey poked her head in at the exact moment Rook began reading through the first article.

With a sigh, Rook set her reading materials aside. “Tea.”

Joey fiddled with one of the tins, though thankfully, she didn’t move it far from the organized stack. “These tins are cute, but why are they here?”

“We’re adding tea to the menu.”

The squinty look Joey gave her wasn’t helping to fuel her resolve that this wasn’t just for Joseph. “You wouldn’t happen to be turning this place into the new hipster tea shop of the town because of a certain hipster-looking man?”

Rook sputtered indignantly but her denial fell flat. “The man-bun isn’t that out of control.”

The smirk on her coworker’s face faded as Joey dug through the next box and then peered out at the loading bay to the awaiting others. “You’re… you’re serious about this.”

With a sigh, Rook abandoned her current task and leaned against one of the stacks. Though the folks of Hope County were lovely people, she couldn’t help but feel that a real, genuine connection with another person was something she’d been lacking since she’d moved to the county all those weeks ago. That was, until the first night Joseph had come across the coffee shop looking every bit as exhausted and sleep deprived as John had said. The slightly offended look he’d tossed at their holiday display made more sense now. It was probably a fool’s errand, but she clutched to the moments she was sure she felt between her and her favorite patron. “Yes, I am. After all, we’d be stupid to sleep on expanding to a market that may very well do well in this town. For business, you know.”

“Mmn hmm.” With a humph, her coworker picked up a particularly large teapot and scrutinized it before settling it next to the other. “And when do we begin unveiling this newest product for the desired target ‘customers’?”

Rook scoffed, though she turned to her friend with the semblance of hope. “We?”

“Yes, we. Can’t let you venture out on the owner’s capital on your own.” Joey tossed her a grin that barely passed Rook’s own glee as the elder woman started on the work. “Besides, we’ve only got – what, a few more days until Christmas? If you’re gonna master how in the hell to make foam art on top of tea, you’re gonna need all the help you can get. And believe it or not, I’m a sucker for a good holiday romance story.”

With a grateful snort, Rook passed the nearest tin over. “Operation Herbal Holiday is a go.”

Keeping the tea secret under wraps became more and more difficult as the days passed, especially with the introduction of even more decorations and holiday-themed events at the shop. Unsurprisingly, Joseph was noticeably absent the day that Mary May’s parents hired actual Christmas Carolers to serenade the night-owls for their usual midnight cups of joe. Rook could only imagine what John had meant when he said that the holidays were an especially difficult time for the family; after all, she hadn’t had the opportunity to speak to either of them since that fateful encounter.

She was surprised when she straightened her obnoxiously-patterned holiday sweater at the chime of the door only to meet Joseph Seed’s apprehensive expression across the counter. It couldn’t have been past 7pm, but the poor guy looked exhausted. The pale-brown sweater that clung to his frame was noticeably absent of the cartoonish holiday imagery that all other patrons appeared to be wearing.

“Hi.” Rook surprised them both further by being the first to speak up. “I, uh, I’m sure you’re probably here for latte art, but can I make a different suggestion?”

As formal and quiet as ever, Joseph smirked, apparently more than happy to let her take the reins. “Of course, miss. I’m sure you probably know the coffee better than most.”

Rook set about grabbing the necessary supplies as Joseph slid to the other end of the counter, out of the way of prying customer eyes. With a nervous glance over the steamer, she prodded, “So… not getting much sleep this holiday season, I take it?”

If he was startled at all by the question, Joseph didn’t show it. “It is that obvious, huh? Well. As I’m sure you’ve heard by all the rumors by now, the holiday season is not one my brothers and sister and I usually partake in.”

“Rumors?” Rook was genuine in her confusion. Of all the stories she’d heard of the Seeds so far, none of them had detailed any specifically bah-humbug behavior from the quartet.

Another sound of surprise escaped Joseph. “The four of us all shared an equally difficult upbringing, and for various reasons, we’ve never really delved into the holiday spirit this time of year. Old habits, and all.”

“Ah.” With a swoop of nervousness settling in her stomach, Rook carefully slid the cup across the counter to him. “Well, I hope this helps. On the house. Happy Holidays, Joseph.”

Joseph glanced down, and the soft smile that had settled over his lips vanished immediately. He studied the little ornate Christmas Tree, complete with a small poked-out star designed on top, and appeared only more bewildered when he inhaled and noted the absence of the scent of espresso.

“It’s tea,” Rook offered as she twisted a towel in her hands. Joseph cocked one brow up as she continued, “I uh, may have heard one teeny little thing – that you prefer tea over coffee.”

“How-” With a pained groan that only came from the experience of an older sibling, Joseph rubbed a hand across his face. “John. I should have known.”

“It’s okay!” Rook exclaimed quickly. “I didn’t even notice all this time that you weren’t even drinking them…”

Long fingers settled around the warm mug as Joseph pulled it closer to him. “I’d hoped you wouldn’t. I would not want you to think I disliked the art.”

It was her turn to scoff. “You paid and tipped far too much not to be able to really enjoy it.”

Joseph blinked in bewilderment. “Not drinking it didn’t mean I wasn’t enjoying them. You make beautiful art and you are willing to share it with the rest of the world. That, in and of itself, is a gift that we are all very blessed to enjoy.”

“Yeah, well.” Rook tried to shrug off the heat that rose to her cheeks at his praise. “Now you get to do both. You know, enjoy the drink and enjoy the view.”

He sipped quietly at the tea before that playful smirk emerged, and Rook was again caught off-guard. “I may do just that. If, perhaps, the real view here is available for dinner sometime later this week? Assuming you do not have plans for the holidays.”

Rook barely contained the squeak that threatened to escape from thFCe finesse of the compliment. “Uh, no holiday plans for me.” With a grin of her own, she added, “That would mean we’d be making holiday plans together. Assuming you’re okay with getting into the holiday spirit suddenly.”

“Hmm.” Joseph savored another sip from the steaming mug before he settled the ceramic on the counter. “That would mean so, yes. I, like an unfortunate number of souls today, had forgotten that the holiday season is all about giving until you reminded me with how thoughtful and genuine your willingness to give was. Thank you, Rook.”

With a smile that only made her heart swell further, Rook risked a reach across the counter to brush his warm hands with hers.

#joseph seed/deputy #fluff #holiday theme #coffee-shop AU #no-cult AU #joseph seed #deputy oc #fc5holidayexchange #gift: fic #bintangy #submission

[space-blue]

The Dreglund

Fourth competition win

Juni 32nd

At last, a new notebook! Hydrophobic paper is incredibly hard to obtain here, despite the city being so close to the Dreglund and all the rainfall that feeds it. The locals make a cheap pulp paper from the ocean of grasses that surround them. Logical, if unpractical for me. I was growing anxious after I placed my finished travelogue and books in storage, having nothing safe to write on. I will have to limit sketches, lest I run out of space in the wild. Already I feel the strain, not being able to document my stay in Ikurstuk as I wish... Ikurstuk, city of salt! As far East as any Explorator has gone, and mostly unchanged since Damasia and Edolan's visits. Both did a great job at sketching the city, yet it feels like they hardly scratched the surface! I keep my resolve, however, and have taken rooms only for ten days, by the end of which I fully intend to have finished my preparations to cross the Dreglund desert.

Julli 2nd

Almost ready. I'm glad now for all the iddle time on the caravan, with nothing to do but learn Kush. Ikurstukies speak enough Imperial to sale their wares and count their money, but the rest is Ikkurie, a blend of Kush and Arandi. The promise of news from the Empire and the Salt Road opens any door, and people gladly answer my questions (once they're done stuffing me into a coma, that is. Ikkies (as they call themselves), consider that any herald of news should be fed and housed for as long as they desire. Had I known as much sooner, I'd not have taken rooms. I've made good friends with several people (see portrait of Etti and Karluk in annexe), which has helped a lot with my purchases. Better prices, better quality. Mind you Ikurstuk has no tourist traps, having no tourists to fool. Only caravaners come this far East. Etti keeps trying to discourage me of going further. She doesn't understand my interest for the Dreglund. I tried to explain, how uncharted land is the life blood of Explorators, that turning around where others stopped defeats the entire point of my trade. Whatever I say, she doesn't think that meeting the Dalai people is worth facing their homeland and risking my life.

Beliefs/facts on the Dreglund, as Ikkies tell them:

- No water can be drunk in it, not even the one that falls from the sky. - The desert will lose you in it, and only star navigation allows its crossing. - Salt bogs will turn you into a salt-mummy and preserve you so well your soul will remain trapped within. - Akambo bloodsuckers will drain you dry. - Dalai people will kill you if you reach the other side. (This one has many variant, with Dalai killing you on sight, eating you, or keeping you as slave. They have a broad back.)

Even the herders and grass-cutters I've met with, who often venture in the Dreglund for a day trip harvesting blue bladed tuft (annexe 2), have all tried to discourage me. Damasia did report the Ikkies' superstitions around it were strong, but I didn't expect this much resistance.

Julli 4th

Went to say farewell to Bank's caravan. Etti came with me. They were loaded with salt and took my letters and the copies of my travelogue I redacted during our trip together (ah, the endless days swaying under the sun with nothing to see but grasses swaying to a different rythm). It was the last thing I had to take care of. I am done packing, and leaving tomorrow morning at dawn. Etti and a youngster called Meluk braided my hair in a fashion they say will bring me luck.

Julli 5th

Finished setting camp, if you can call "sitting in your fibrococoon" setting camp. Everything is as bleak as was described to me, and as amazing as I expected it to be: the endless shimmer of the water, broken by grasses of colours my pens can do no justice to. The noise of bubbles and insects giving the place a constant hum, besides my splashes–and I seem to be the only creature making splashes here! I've seen no fish of any size, no amphibians either, no salt spires, no Dalai... I'm commiting a lot of what I'm seeing to Long-Memory. No point in wasting paper. I have learned nothing new on this gorgeous, endless plane of poisonous water in which little ekes a living. But so far everything I have read about it turned out to be true, including the water never rising higher than my shins.

Julli 6th - Morning

May not have seen much wildlife, but the wildlife saw me... I believe I met the infamous akambo, which are much bigger than I thought. Red blazing eyes in the night, snorting noises and the liquid sound of limbs accustomed to moving smoothly through water... They didn't get to me, but I understand how Ikkies without an Explorator's fibrococoon would be threatened. Tired from the broken sleep but moving on. Loads of ground to cover again.

Julli 8th

Today I've learnt two things. I guess I can only blame myself for not figuring this out sooner. I woke to find my bag gone. It was over twenty meters away from me, and shredded through. All my water was gone, yet the bag was still pegged against the same tuft of blue grass. So. When the Ikkies say Dregl ik svafar – the desert will lose you – they mean to say the desert moves under your feet. I've looked closer and seen the signs, the rising silt along hair-thin fault-lines. I am standing in an ankle deep ocean coating tremendous plate tectonic. The persistent buzzing sound, I wager, may even come from this permanent shuffle. And when Ikkies say akambo will suck you dry, they don't mean that they're exclusive bloodivores, but that they'll drink any fluid they find, from my water reserves to, eventually, my blood. I'm getting thirsty, but only have my standard water purifier. Using it in the notoriously foul water of the Dreglund could well sign my end.

Julli 11th

Was so thirsty. Burning pain and hallucinia–cination. Water purified was BEST thing ever ever. Until night. So sick. Like water from my bdy needed out, every pore, out out. Doing Akambo work for thm. Shame. I walked, so much. Sick and walk. Scared to it–eat more. It's horribe–ble, the thirst, with water EVERYWHERE, just there, but drink and die? No. Akambo stalking still. Where are the Dalai?

Andi 26th

Dear Enkor

Eloi says that when he found me, I looked like a salt-mummy, with my white Eastern-Empire hair, the shreds of my fibrococoon tangled around me, propped as I was against a salt spire. Yet I was clinging to life, with arms bitten, eyes sunken, and breath foul, smelling of old vomit I hadn't dared to wash away. He says I was clutching my notebook in my comatose sleep, and that he guessed at my profession after wrestling it from me and browsing through it. Though he did not understand the script, he marvelled at my drawings of landscapes, portraits, jewels, hairdos – documenting whole cultures – all the way to my last: a dead akambo, with its neck twisted. The hand there is shaky, the sketch rough. I was dying.

Please hold no hard feelings. Eloi did wake me. He spoke Ikkurie. I did understand his offer, though my addled brain thought he was a Dalai god, more than a Dalai man. Had I come all this way to meet them, to draw their faces, sketch their cultures? Yes, I said, I was looking for you, because no one ever found you before. He says he felt torn, that no matter what he did, he'd kill an aspect of my self. The person or the Explorator. You see, Dalai means "Of the desert". Because once he pressed his slashed wrist to my mouth, I would become Dalai, my entire body changing to adapt and embrace the Dreglund. No water now can nourish me but that which once almost killed me. It hydrates and feeds. In the deep wells, you can breath it. This is where the Dalai cities lay, Enkor: under poisonous waters. No wonder we only heard about these people through rumours! Maybe my presence will change things a little? More trading at the border? Enough for me to hear from you, I hope, and collect the fame of my discoveries! Please find attached all my notes, see them published and send me a crate-load of hydrobooks. You can make my speech at the Assemblies. Tell them I won't drop my mantle: Eloi is lovely, but if he thinks I will stop marvelling, learning and writing because I am trapped in one of the greatest mystery of our age, he has a lot to learn about me!

Warmest regards,

Ilkaria Explorator

~~ November 2017 – Theme : Water

#original story #original work #competition #win #fantasy

[itzsci]

The day started off like the day before, standing freezing cold in a line full of buzzing teenagers all waiting to get their assignments for the day. Only one girl, a seventeen year old named Amelia, seemed to appear nonchalant about this, having been cursed to do this over and over again. Annoyed about how everyone was acting, she rolled her eyes unable to comprehend why people didn’t see the seriousness of all of this. Surely they didn’t think it was like a holiday or something? Right?!

“God, I wish I was eighteen already.” She muttered underneath her breath. Her birthday was assumed to be only a couple of days away and if she did her assignment correctly this time she’d be allowed to turn eighteen and be free of her obligations. Then, she could get away this hell hole. It was a long time coming for Amelia and she just couldn’t wait!

Finally her number, 87006, was announced earning a few glares being thrown in her direction. Amelia, unbothered by this, quickly took her black sunglasses off before tucking them into her trouser pocket. Then, taking her sweet time to get there, Amelia sauntered through the crowd pushing people to the side if they got in her way. When she finally made it, she waved back to the crowd before getting shoved inside by one of the impatient guards whom stood at the door.

To be honest, she should have expected that.

Stumbling slightly, Amelia found herself finally inside and with a loud slam, the door behind her shut plunging Amelia into complete darkness. A sudden click was heard and Amelia realised she was locked inside.

It had begun.

 Quickly Amelia went through the steps she always did, making sure to be presentable and perfect for the Leader. She quickly tucked in her favourite red shirt, smoothing down the wrinkles that may have formed when she was pushed in. Next, she looked round for some light source she could use but when she saw none she instead let her blood like eyes to reflect off the walls in a effort to cheat. This didn’t always work, as the Leaders usually like to keep the building dirty to make it harder for the students to navigate through, but apparently luck was on her side today. Trying to ignore the whispers and pleading that could be heard if you cared enough to, Amelia carefully made her way to where she needed to be, letting her eyes and feet be her guide.

It didn’t take too long for her to reach her her destination and she was glad for that. She didn’t like this next part and hoped to get out of the building as quickly as she could. Knowing what was going to happen next, she winced as she automatically knocked on the door politely and waited until she was called. She was so used to knocking and just entering rooms anyway and she once more cursed out how timid she was, a very long time ago. Once she heard the gruff voice of ‘come in’ she quickly entered into the equally dark room.

“Ah, Amelia. You’re here.” a gruff voice spoke in front of her. The door slammed behind her, making her jump. 

“Y-yes sir-

“Very good.” The voice approved, interrupting Amelia from saying more.  

“Now. Let’s get straight to it, we need you to do the same job you always do and have done for the past seventeen years however this time we want it to be done correctly. We have decided to give you a little leeway though to make it easier due to your continuous incompetence.” 

Amelia winced at that. 

"So, choose five people and send them straight back here before the day resets. You have twenty four hours and if you don’t manage to get five, even if you are one off, it won’t count. This is your last chance though. Fail this and you’ll wish you’d have never been born.”

Amelia flinched, knowing full well what the consequences would be if she did. This was her last chance. She needed to get it right, no matter what.

“So let’s see if you can actually do your job right today.” 

“Yes sir, thank you sir.” Amelia said, silently thankful the stammer stayed out of her voice on that one. 

"Now go! Your twenty four hours begin now.” 

There was a flash and Amelia was gone. 

                                                              x x x x x x x x

Amelia hated Earth. Hated the people, the places, everything. But hopefully, if she did this right, it’d be the last time she would be here and that made her cheer up slightly.

She was six hours into her assignment with three people already written down in her little black book; a couple and an lonely, elderly woman.

She found it funny, how they seemed to leap at the chance to get away. The couple had explained it slightly, informing her this was the best time to recruit people. It made Amelia sound like a sales person and she had quickly took them before they annoyed her too much. The elderly woman whom claimed she was very lonely without her parents and friends, all but jumped at the chance to go for it without Amelia having to explain anything which was just perfect for her. She loved easy jobs.

Now, with only eighteen hours left and darkness quickly descending on what seemed like an empty town somewhere (she didn’t care enough to find out exactly where), Amelia was on the prowl to recruit quickly. For some reason, she couldn’t find many people around, though on Earth Time it didn’t seem to be that late in the evening. She would have thought more people would be out, enjoying themselves but it was strangely quiet. This worried her slightly.

Realising she needed a break, Amelia stopped at an alleyway to gather her thoughts. Before she could settle down though, in the corner of her eye, she noticed a boy who seemed all alone and crumpled behind some bins. She couldn’t see his face but his blonde hair seemed messy and had clumps of mud in it and his clothes seemed torn. He wasn’t even wearing any shoes!

This was perfect for Amelia.

Feigning concern, she slowly approached the boy in the hope she wouldn’t scare him off. When she was close enough she asked. “Are you ok?” But he didn’t reply.

“Boy, are you ok? Can you hear me?” Amelia repeated.

Nothing.

Amelia let out a slight huff at the non response she was getting. This was just plain rude! She thought humans were nicer than this but the fact that he hadn’t even acknowledged her when she was trying to reach out - even though Humans were no concern of hers and was a miracle she was even doing this in the first place - was insulting and she would not stand for it.

“Um. Hello?” She tried again, pleasantness having evaporated now she knew how rude he was being. She just needed a name! Any name! 

“You’re not going to get him to speak.” A new voice spoke up, to the left of where Amelia stood.

“I can and I will.”

“No, seriously. You won’t. I can give you his name though. That’s all you creatures care about really.”

Amelia paused at that. Humans were not meant to know what they were because it would sway their decision to agree with her. Usually, humans were easily manipulated to do their bidding anyway but if one of them found out who or what she was, what was to stop them from spreading the news to other people? She needed to a plan quick. Her soul depended on it.

“Creatures, really? Is that what you call human nowadays.” Amelia joked, turning round to see a man stood there. He wore a clean suit as if he had just come from a meeting though he had no briefcase with him. Perhaps a father?

“Don’t play that game with me, I know what you are . I’m here for the same reason-“ Amelia couldn’t help let out a growl at that. This was her find! “But I can let you have this one.”

Amelia scoffed at that. “Let me have this one. I found him.”

“Please. I was here before you even knew of this place.It’s not my fault you are not doing your job correctly. But I detest. Do you want him or not?”

Amelia wasn’t sure what to do. If this guy was giving the boy up so easily there must be some trouble with him the man wasn’t specifying. She also didn’t want his pity by just handing her one just because. But she needed him. With this boy, she would only need one more person and she was home free. No more meetings, no more assignments, no more Earth. She would be able to turn eighteen and go her own way. Something she had always wanted, something anyone would want really. So why was it hard to could she suck up her pride and just do it?

Eventually, after noticing the man kept yawning and glancing at his wrist, Amelia decided to do it. Just this once.

“Fine. What’s his name.”

The man grinned, like he just won a bet. “Daniel. Ten years old, came with a broken family. Won’t need to be persuaded so just write his name in your little book.”

Amelia nodded, getting out her book and writing his name with the tip of her finger letting the ink bled onto the page, a deep red. Great. One more to go. As she did this, the boy slowly faded out of existence, the man watching with a sort of wicked grin placed on his face. Amelia grinned as well. 

“Great. One more to go. Thanks-“ Amelia said. That was all she could get out before she was interrupted by a shove making her stumble onto the floor.

“One lesson your Mother should have taught you - never trust your own kind” The man declared, his voice now changed to a much deeper tone and eyes as white as the moon. 

Before she could respond, the man picked her up and threw her a good few feet making her land in a heap on the cold, hard pavement. Her head was starting to pound and stars were starting to form but she ignored this for now. She didn’t even notice black book that had fallen out of her pocket.

“Bu-but you let me claim him.” she wheezed. “You gave me his name.” 

“And now I’m gonna take my prize. That’s what you do, no? Be polite. Someone offers you a favour, you give them one in return. I gave you a name and now, all your names in your little book belong to me.” He responded, marching his way to her. 

Seeing this, Amelia tried to gather all her strength to stand up, managing to only get on her knees before he got there. Then, as he drew his arm back she hit him square in the stomach making him double over. 

“No.” was all she managed before attempted to hit him again; hopefully near the face area. Unfortunately for her, he managed to block her weak attempt, covering her fist with his own. He laughed pityingly. “That’s all you have, really? You don’t even know who I am do you.” He taunted. “But I know who you are.”

Amelia shook her head. “O-of course I know you.” She wheezed out, unable to breath properly. “Dad.” 

That made him laugh more. 

“You don’t get to call me that any longer. Now, to you, it’s just Trevor.” 

 Wait. Did he just give her his name? 

Unsure if he had made a mistake, Amelia waited a beat to see if he realised. When he didn’t and began fighting her even more Amelia focused all she could on the name Trevor. She needed to remember his name.

And write it in her book.

“Come on, fight.” Amelia thought to herself, hoping to encourage some strength. Surely, someone could hear them.

“Praying to the Gods?” Trevor taunted. “They won’t help you now.” 

#writing #My writing #writeblr #writer #freewrite #books #write #writers of tumblr #fantasywriters #hell #perhaps #writers on tumblr #writersoftumblr #finally back! #warning; this is a long one

[jasonnkane]

PENNY

TAGGING → Stacie Kane & Jason Kane LOCATION → Art ‘n’ Soul/Hospital

Stacie: 's due date had been quickly approaching and, while they had everything ready in Penny's nursery, she felt a huge sense of panic. What if something happened during labor? Complications were common, weren't they? Or, even scarier, what if labor went perfectly, but it turned out they just really sucked at the raising children thing and completely screwed up their daughter? It was just like Stacie Kane to overthink things, get anxious, and need Jason to calm her down, but he had been at a business lunch for the last hour and the last thing she wanted was to bother him over something so minor. Inhaling just as a customer entered her gallery, Stacie silently thanked God for sending her this distraction. Standing up from her desk, smile painted brightly on her face, she crossed the room to go greet the man. "Welcome to Art 'n' Soul, is there something in particular you're looking for?"

Jason had been counting down the days until their daughter was supposed to be arriving but wasn't taking the date as a certain thing. Babies had a tendency to be earlier or later than the expected date, so he knew there was a good chance she'd make a surprise appearance or keep them waiting a little bit longer. All he knew was that Penny would be making her grand entrance into the universe sometime very soon and he couldn't wait to meet her. Never having really been an impatient person—that was definitely Stacie in this relationship—Jason finally felt what it was like to have the shoe on the other foot. His mind wandered to all of the things they had to look forward to with their daughter, even at the most inappropriate times: like right now. Instead of listening in on what the customers had in mind for the cover of this one particular book, Jason aimlessly doodled the umpteenth sketch of a penny in the corner of his notes, completely zoning everything else out.

Stacie had been chatting with the customer for a while now, listening to his stories of being a great art collector and always looking for things to add to his collection. She could tell he was wealthy and willing to spend, which meant that Stacie had to seal the deal. After all, a big sale could mean great things for her and Jason and with Penny coming any day now, she knew they could use the extra money. "Well, I have a particularly unique painting hanging on this wall over here. Maybe you'd be interested in adding it to your collection?" Stacie offered, wandering over towards the painting with the man trailing right behind her.

Jason continued shading in certain areas of his drawing, having completely drowned out the chat that was going on around him. It was only when someone actually said his name a little louder than usual did he turn his eyes away from his work. Clearing his throat, he nodded his head a long as though he agreed to whatever the hell his coworker had been saying before sending him an apologetic glance; trying harder now to pay attention to what the hell was going on here.

Stacie was right around closing the deal (the painting had even come off the wall by now), when she suddenly felt something wet dribble down her leg. Raising an eyebrow, Stacie took a glance down at the floor and spotted what appeared to be a puddle just below her dress. Mortified, the woman looked back up at the gentleman in front of her, who was looking down at the floor himself now. "Ahem," he cleared his throat, drawing even /more/ attention to how awkward this exchange was. "I'm sorry!" Stacie blurted out, smacking a hand across her gaping wide mouth, unable to believe that she had just /peed/ on the floor right in front of this guy. Only, she would have known if she was peeing, right? And she definitely hadn't peed. Which meant... /no way/. /Not/ possible. Or was it? Lowering her hand, Stacie's eyes widened and she quickly grasped at her stomach. "Holy shit, I think my water just broke!"

Jason gave it his best effort and soon enough was back on track with the direction of the meeting. There was never any "lets cut right to the point"s like there was in movies. Oh no, business meetings were full day events sometimes. Just a /lot/ of talking about a bunch of crap Jason had no interest in. When his coworker opened the floor up to him, Jason turned his attention back down to his notes and began giving a few suggestions of his own.

Stacie within a half hour, Stacie had been laying in a hospital bed, already hooked up to any necessary machines to help ease her through pregnancy. The doctor told her she hadn't dilated all that much, so she wouldn't be needing an epidural for a few hours, at least. The epidural wasn't the thing that was on her mind, though. Instead, she was wondering where Jason was. Had the hospital gotten in contact with him yet? Did he even know she was there!? In a panic, Stacie reached out to the table beside her, grabbing for her phone. When she finally had it in hand, she typed away one text after another, all a bunch of question marks and "where are you"s.

Jason was kind of on a roll when his phone started making a ridiculous amount of noise. It was just one notification after the other and although he ignored the first few (business protocol) he realized this could have been a genuine emergency. Or...maybe Stacie wanted ice cream or something. After explaining to the people in the room that his wife was pregnant and he had to check, Jason took one look at the notifications before his jaw dropped open. WIthout so much as an explanation, he turned on his heels and head straight outside to his car before driving at a ridiculous speed to the hospital; cursing at every red light. By the time he made it to the right room, he must have looked like a mad man: eyes wide and out of breath. Rushing over to his wife's side, he glanced to all the machines and gave a worried squeak. "Wh-what's happening, are you okay? Is /she/ okay?"

Stacie had been basically falling asleep when Jason burst into her hospital room, stirring her awake. Her body shook when he came to his side, turning her head over to look at him directly. "I'm okay, she's okay, I promise," Stacie insisted, giving him a reassuring smile. "But it would be great if she could hurry up a little bit. I'm sick of waiting."

Jason let out a low breath as his wife assured him everything was fine and that this was all just a normal step of childbirth. With a relieved smile, he leaned in to press his lips against her forehead before sinking down into the seat beside her bed. "Talk about making an entrance," he smirked. "She already takes after you."

Stacie "Me!? I think that comes from you," Stacie told him, a bright smile spreading across her lips as he kissed her. "The doctor said it's going to be a loooong time before anything gets started. Do you think you could grab me a sandwich or something from downstairs?"

Jason had sat down for a grand total of five seconds before Stacie had a job for him to do and he wasn't complaining: after all, she had the hard job to do now. "Sure...can you eat, though?" Jason asked, getting back to his feet. "Don't get me in trouble with your doctors, Stacie Kane."

Stacie feigned offense at the idea of her sneaking a sandwich behind her doctor's back. "I can't once labor starts, but she told me it's a good idea to get some energy in me, thank you very much. Plus, it's late and I didn't get to eat dinner!"

Jason 's eyes widened and he held his hands up innocently, playing along with the blonde. It was good that she still had her sense of humor in all of this —something that he was well aware would fade away depending on how long this labor lasted. "Okay, okay, whatever you want, mama. You get it. Don't kill me."

Stacie "Do what I say and I won't have a reason to," she said, giving him the most innocent smile, though it was intended to come across as a threat regardless. He knew better than to mess with her, especially today of all days. Things might have been fun and games for now, but once things really got started, she knew they could take a nasty turn. After all, she heard Quinn's horror story.

Jason smirked and nodded his head along obediently; knowing that today was the one day he would have to hold off on teasing because he was pretty certain things wouldn't be so funny in here real soon. "I'll go grab you that sandwich," he assured her, walking backwards out of the door. "No child birthing until I get back, alright?"

Stacie "Thank you," she said, actually giving him a legitimate smile now that she was getting what she wanted. "I'll do my best," she agreed, resting her palms on her belly. Lowering her head just a bit so that she could speak directly to her stomach, Stacie continued. "No coming out until your dad gets back, okay, little girl?"

Jason heard her speak to her stomach as he stepped out of the room and felt a smile tug at his lips. Dad. He would be a dad from this day forward. He'd been many things before: son, brother, uncle, husband...but dad? That was huge. Life-changing. Nerve wracking. Jason was just thankful he and Stacie had each other throughout this whole thing, so that they both had backup embarking on this whole parenting thing for the first time.

Stacie An hour later, and Stacie had just started to feel her body contracted and writhing underneath the blankets. It felt /strange/, like a wave moving from the top of her abdomen down to the bottom of her uterus. She could feel a tightening and it came every so often, though she would have no idea how many minutes apart if it weren't for the machines. She wasn't screaming just /yet/, but she had no doubt in her mind it was coming soon. Looking over at Jason with sad eyes, she reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze. "Will you still love me if I say mean things today?"

Jason tried to settle in the room with Stacie but he was just too anxious, nervous, excited, all of the above? It was a strange mix of emotions but he wanted this part over with so that he knew his wife and his daughter were both safe and okay. His foot tapped against the floor nervously and his arms crossed over his torso as he kept his eyes on Stacie, feeling guilty for all of this pain that was coming on her. As she reached for his hand, he met her and squeezed it back gently. "Say whatever you need to, Evans. Lay it on me. I can take it," he assured her with a mischievous smile, bringing the back of her hand to his lips. "Love you no matter what."

Stacie smiled for a very brief moment, just as another contraction came coursing through her body. Why didn't her mom warn her about how painful this would be? She opened her mouth to speak, but only a scream came out. When it passed, she looked at Jason with a look of concern on her face, knowing fully well that he was standing over there feeling guilty for her pain. However, she also knew that it was worth it. Their precious baby girl would be worth the whole 9 months that preceded this birth. But she was still in /pain/ and desperate for an epidural, and she had no shame in admitting it. "I want the drugs," Stacie gasped out, her brow furrowing angrily. "Where's my freaking nurse!?"

Jason 's smile soon faded as Stacie let out an almighty scream and once more he was on the edge of his seat, looking on nervously. God forbid this process took hours and hours because he wasn't entirely sure he was equipped to handle the chaos that was childbirth. At Stacie's question, he jumped to his feet. "I'm gonna go get her," he assured her with a firm nod; heading over to the door to yell down the corridor. "This is ridiculous! My wife needs drugs!"

Stacie was incredibly grateful for Jason in this moment, considering he was doing all of the work for her and making himself look bad rather than her. The nurse came rushing in to check how dilated she was (apparently, she could only receive the epidural once she reached a certain centimeter). She hadn't been /quite/ there yet, but within the next couple of hours, Stacie /finally/ reached the place she needed to be at to receive the epidural. And, within mere moments it was like all of her pain and frustration had dissipated and she was left with nothing but euphoria. The contractions were still coming and she was still breathing heavily, but it wasn't nearly as painful as hours before. According to her doctor, Penny was making her way down and was ready to come at any moment now. All they had to do was keep waiting and hoping. In the mean time, Stacie had focused all of her attention on her phone, where she was heavily texting with her best friend who was just right outside in the hallway. Jason had called Phoebe and Zach once things got moving and they refused to go home at any point, having left Leah with Phoebe's mom who was visiting that weekend.

Jason flapped around like a headless chicken until the nurse finally decided to show up. It was actually pretty embarrassing how much of a mess he'd turned into and it was slightly concerning that the baby wasn't even there yet. The next eighteen years of his life would be incredibly sad and interesting if he fell to pieces on the regular this way. The nurse had nothing but bad news and Stacie had to soldier on through her labor pains like the trooper she was until the time came for her epidural. The change was almost immediate and it soon felt as though Jason could breathe again now that Stacie wasn't writhing in pain. The rest of the day would be a waiting game -- and not just for them, but for Phoebe and Zach, too -- and Jason remained by his wife's side, knowing Penny could show up any minute.

Stacie With the hours passing, Stacie continued pushing as necessary, only to be caught off guard when a nurse came rushing into her room. There was something wrong with the baby's heartbeat—it was dropping with each push. A look of concern washed over her face as she watched the nurse's face carefully, trying to determine whether something terrible was about to happen. She didn't deserve that, did she? God had nothing to punish her for, especially not with something like this. Chewing nervously on her lower lip, Stacie fought the desire to look over at Jason. She couldn't bear to see his reaction to it all. However, that quickly changed when the nurse spoke up once more. "We're going to have to do a c-section," she explained, causing Stacie's eyes to dart over towards her husband.

Jason felt as though the hours were dragging as time went on, causing them to be stuck in this awful transition period with his wife in pain, out of pain and following instructions to no avail. Yes, births could take a while but really? Penny would have a lot to answer for when she finally decided to show up. Jason's eyes were glued to Stacie for the most part, in fact, they only moved away when the nurse spoke up and let them know that there was a change of plans. Instantly, a sick worry took hold of him that made what he'd been going through so far today look like a joke. Something was wrong with the baby's heartbeat and they needed to get her out immediately. Squeezing onto Stacie's hand, Jason nodded along to what the nurse said and before they knew it, they were being escorted down to an operating room. Jason had to wear scrubs and sit by Stacie's side as the proceeded.

Though panicked, the fact that Jason sat by her side every single second that passed helped her remain calm. She was in good hands; her doctor knew what she was doing—she'd probably done this thousands of times before, right? And after it was all said and done, they would have a beautiful baby girl to show for it all.

Stacie wasn't sure how much time had passed between the time that she was rolled into the operating room and the moment she heard her newborn daughter cry for the first time, but none of it matter now that she knew Penny Kane was safe. The nurse held her baby girl up, smiling brightly as she announced that she had given birth to a beautiful and healthy baby girl. It turned out that her umbilical cord had been wrapped around her daughter's neck, causing her heartbeat to drop every time Stacie tried to push her out. Of course, Stacie felt guilty for causing her harm, but the important part was that she was here and she was safe now.

"Do you want to her hold her?" With tears in her eyes and a mesmerized look on her face, Stacie slowly nodded her head, reaching her hands up above her to take hold of her daughter. She cradled her close to her chest, using her finger to gently rub the skin of Penny's cheek. "She's so beautiful," Stacie whispered to no one in particular. She was riding her labor high, and simply cherishing every little thing about her baby girl.

Jason 's mind ran crazy as his surroundings and the whole process of what was happening became a total blur. He had absolutely no idea of the time that was passing, all that he could focus on was his wife's wellbeing and that of their daughters. Like a statue, he remained by Stacie's side throughout the entire thing. The words that the doctors and nurses were saying flew right over his head because he'd gone into some sort of blind panic about the whole thing upon hearing that they needed to operate. However, all panic ceased and everything else but love for this tiny bundle of joy faded away as they brought their daughter back to Stacie. Leaning in to get a good look as she was placed in Stacie's arms, Jason's heart felt completely full and he felt all kinds of emotions well up as he laid eyes on Penny Kane. Grinning brightly at Stacie's comment, he leaned in to press his lips against her forehead before placing another on his daughter's, feeling like he was complete.

#para #para: penny

[colleenmurphy]

New Muse

@writervega ( Couldn’t help myself. )

* Have yet to find a decent photo to make smaller* 

Full Name: John Patrick Boswell

Nickname: John, Jock ( by his siblings ), Geordie Boy ( by his wife as a term of endearment ) 

DOB: February 8th, 1968

Starsign: Aquarius 

Hair / Eyes: Dark brown / Blue

Body type: Slim & wiry 

POB: South Shields

Hometown: Newcastle upon Tyne

Parents: Clementina Doe & Nemuel Boswell

Siblings: Jebidah, Annie, Duncan, Bessie, Ezekiel and Florian 

Occupation: Brick layer/ builder ( during the day ) and rock & blues musician ( by night ) *set to change as the verse moves forward* 

Significant Other:  Mary Colleen Murphy 

Children: Joshua David Boswell 

Likes:

- The fact that between he and Colly they’ve amassed not only a collection of blood relations they’re tight with but have gone on to create their own little close knit family of friends throughout the years. The dearest ones? Helene and her fella as well as her father Harvey. 

- Strongbow Cider & Newcastle Ale 

- Sausage and chips / the occasional Saveloy from the local chip van down the lane. 

- Smokey blues bars on a Friday night. 

- Waking up on Sunday morning early to do the heavy bits around the house and winding down on Sunday evening to a roast dinner. Even if his father-in-law is there griping away. 

- The first big snow storm of the season and the shock of seeing everything coated in white. 

- That living with a constant source of inspiration that Colleen has made herself to be. 

- Newcastle United games. He’s looking forward to taking Josh to his first one when he’s old enough. He tried to take him when he’d just turning six months but spent more time shushing and trying to find spit out binkies.

- The fact that his wife is supportive of his musical ventures. Not many of his friends girls are like that but then again those that are are a rare breed and meant to be held onto.

- Blues, Rock and Blue Eyed Soul music.

- Dancing to Frankie Miller with his green eyed girl. 

Dislikes: 

- Overly rude people that try to strong arm sales people. His first job was as a sales clerk at Poundland and it’s alway stuck with him that rude customers suck.

- The fact that his father-in-law denied his girl’s hand in marriage over the fact that his father worked as a Rag and Bone man and his mother was a washer woman. Thankfully Jimmy Murphy bailed before Colly walked down the aisle and thank God Harvey Starling stepped up for her. 

- The dreaded hangover that comes after a rough night out. It’s not even the boys in the band he can blame. It’s his wife and her best friend that he tries to keep up with.

- There have been small festivals where he’s had no choice but be away from home for days or even weeks at a time and the fact that he’s missed a few milestones in his son’s life has weighed on him.

Vices: 

- Sovereign Superkings ( green only, thanks very much. )

- Strongbow cider or Brown Ale ( he doesn’t touch anything harder, learned his lesson. )

- The second Saturday of each month when he and the Mrs get to go out with friends and paint the town red then come back home and give into the carnal side of things.

Memorable Moments: 

Please don’t ask him to pick one moment over the other or organize them in a numbered list. It’d break his heart to do it. In no formal order here they are. 

- The day he met his Irish lass 

- The day he almost lost his Irish lass for acting a fool.

- The day he got married. ( although thank God for photos because he and his girl were both bladdered by the time they signed their names on the marriage license. )

- The day his son was born. ( actually took the tyke three days to make his entrance into the world but John kept everything jotted down for the baby book. ) 

- The day the band got an honest to God inked down on proper paper recording contract. 

#new muse #( the halfpenny dancer verse )

[mazethequeen]

Guys, I caved and wrote the Noir Detective AU. It was lots of fun. 

It was a cloudy Monday, and a slow day at work right until Lucifer Morningstar walked into my office wreathed in smoke and sin, and put out his cigarette in the homemade ashtray next to the door. He seemed to bring the clouds with him, and he smelled like the air right before a storm. We weren’t forecasted for lightning, but at that moment I swore I saw the electricity arcing off of him. He wore a hundred watt smile and Armani. A rich boy, trouble if I ever saw it.

I leaned back in my chair and looked him over. “The door says knock, sir. I could have been with a client.”

He smirked, cocky bastard. “They wouldn’t have minded. You’re detective Decker, aren’t you? I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“All good things, I’m sure,” I shot right back. People didn’t like me much, but they couldn’t deny that I did my job. I got results, even if they weren’t always the results they came looking for, and I always got my guy.

My father would have said that pride always came before a fall, but I was a fired cop. I couldn’t fall much farther without the help of a pit.

Morningstar flopped into the chair in front of my desk. He didn’t sit, he lounged, like some sort of cat. “They said you were the best. They didn’t say you were beautiful too.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “Cut to the chase Mr…?”

“Morningstar, Lucifer Morningstar,” he supplied helpfully.

What a name. I snorted and continued. “Well, Mr. Morningstar, I’d appreciate it if you’d restrict your comments to ones pertinent to your case from now on. I work for…” I surveyed his outfit again, appraising the linen with an amateur's eye. In this city you learned how to spot wealth fast. “A hundred dollars an hour, and that’s better than you’ll get anywhere else. I work until there’s nothing left to turn up, and I want a deposit up front. I don’t do Saturdays, Tuesday nights, or school mornings Monday to Wednesday.”

That had lost me a lot of clients, but Trixie came first. She deserved better than a mother with an office on the seedy side of town who came home from work smelling like steel and death. I was determined to give it to her.

His brow wrinkled, but he accepted it without any further comment. “Very well. In return I expect you to keep quiet about this. Discretion is of the utmost importance.”

“Are you guilty of any major crimes that I need to know of?” I asked him. This was the most important part. No one in Los Angeles was innocent of everything, but I had to have some standards. Murderers and their ilk would have no help from me. Embezzlers and small time thieves were judged case by case. I wasn’t inclined to give Mr. Morningstar much leeway. He looked arrogant, sounded obnoxiously British, and had a face that would make anyone act rash. Cheekbones like that deserved some sort of warning; “Keep away from children and easily influenced souls”.

“Sodomy, adultery, solicitation of almost everything and possession of more drugs than you could name, darling.” he answered, looking like the cat that got into the creamery. He was so damn proud of himself it made the mind wonder what could have him keeping secrets.

I mulled it over. A hundred dollars an hour was good money, and Trixie ate like a starving dog these days, and was growing faster than I could keep her in clothes.

Morningstar must have sense my reluctance, because he dug deep in his pockets and pulled out more a botanical garden worth of green. Neatly folded notes were pushed across my desk toward me, and I realized it was all one hundreds.

Hells with it, I could deal with the repercussions later. For now I had lawyers bills to pay, rent due next week, and a little girl to keep fed on a single salary. I took the money, counted it out, made a note of it in my book, and fixed Lucifer Morningstar with a solid stare.

“It seems we’re in business, Mr. Morningstar. What do you want?”

To my surprise he didn’t jump to spill out his woes. Something had been eating him since he came in the door, I could feel it in my bones like a sailor could sense the wind changing, but he kept his anxious energy held tight to his skin, a storm in a devilishly attractive bottle.

He leaned in, dark eyes fixed on mine, smiling softly. “Not yet. I’m sure you don’t mind, but I need something over you first. Insurance, let’s call it. So, Chloe Decker, investigator extraordinaire, what do you want? What is your deepest desire?”

Hypnotist's eyes stayed locked on me, and he seemed so honestly confident that I just stared for a minute. Then the shock faded and I stood, chair crashing to the floor behind me. It had been half off at a liquidation sale, and it had the balance of a one-legged elephant. Morningstar started at the noise, and whatever spell he was trying to case broke.

“I don’t know what sort of corporate power-play mumbo-jumbo that was,” I told him, stepping around my desk and a snowfall of discarded paperwork on the floor, “But it stops now. You want my help, you play by my rules, and that means no trying to charm me. I’m a professional, not a snake. Play your little games on your own time, Morningstar, not mine.”

He stood too and somehow managed to not loom despite the handful of inches he had on me. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, drawing attention to the line of his neck and the muscles that became his shoulders. I realized with an ache how long it had been since Dan. It was a damn shame, my ex was a dirty cop and here I was staring at a man probably wore a cologne called Disreputable. Fortune smiled on me, he was too confused that his failure to notice.

“I’m sorry, did that not work? Do you have contacts in or something? Do you want me to try again?”

“Yes, none of your business, and no.” I growled, and wished I was the sort of person who could work with a fifth of brandy in them. Half the other PIs on the strip drank like fishes, but I’d never gotten in the habit. It made you too sloppy, too confident, and besides it was as much a cliche as the trench coat. Maybe it worked for bestubbled boys who’d grown up on pulp novels and B-movies, but someone had to be the adult in the room. “Look, just tell me your case so I can solve it. I have a reputation to keep up, and frankly I want you out of my office as soon as possible.”

Morningstar considered me carefully, eyes roaming over my face and only stopping to rest on my bare legs for a second. Maybe getting out from behind the desk after a day working customer harassment freelance wasn’t the best idea. Despite first impressions, he wasn’t the leering type. Instead he just… smiled. A more impressionable person might have called it ‘cheeky’, I just called it frustrating.

“You really weren’t affected, were you?” he said, soft like the rumble of thunder from the horizon. Everything about him reminded me of a hurricane. I’d lived in sunny LA all my life, and this was an education in storms.

“If by affected you mean, ‘ready to throw you out’, then yes, I’d say I am.”

“Peculiar,” he whispered, then shook his head and righted himself. “Well, maybe it will prove useful here. You see, I’ve lost something of unspeakable value.”

If it was a woman, I was going to shoot him myself. I prodded the ambiguous mass he had laid before me cautiously. “What exactly did you lose?”

He sucked in a breath, exhaled low, and said with forced casualness, “Only my angel wings.”

It confirmed what I’d suspected since he walked in. This was going to be one of those cases. I righted my chair, sat back down, and popped a migraine pill.

“Explain it from the top.” I told him.

“Well, it all started when I fell from heaven….”

#lucifer fanfic #spoilers: i had to kill dan #i'm sorry dan but something had to set the tone

[markgottliebliteraryagent]

Kensington Publishing Editor-In-Chief John Scognamiglio

John Scognamiglio is a graduate of New York University with a Bachelor of Arts in English. He started his career as a file clerk in the Contracts Department at Pocket Books in 1986 while still a college sophomore before becoming a contracts assistant. After that, he worked for the assistant managing editor before landing where he always wanted to be: editorial. From 1989 to 1992 he worked as an assistant editor in Pocket Editorial. In February 1992, he joined Kensington Publishing as an editor and was promoted to Senior Editor in 1993. In 1998 he was promoted to Editorial Director of Fiction and in 2005 was promoted to Editor-in-Chief.  In February 2017, it was announced that Kensington would be launching his own imprint, John Scognamiglio Books, in 2018.  Among his authors are New York Times bestsellers Lisa Jackson, Joanne Fluke, Leslie Meier and Kevin O’Brien. 

In all of book publishing, you are one of the biggest buyers of fiction and debut fiction by volume. How do you find the time to read and what are the commonalities in your rather eclectic list of books?

I wish I could say I read all my submissions myself, but I don’t.  My assistant reads for me and I also have an outside reader.  Usually when a project comes in, I’ll give it to one of them (unless it’s something I decide to read.  If I could, I would read every submission that comes in myself, but then nothing would get done!).  I’ll usually give them a date I’d like the manuscript to be read by; it’s usually a month.  When their reader’s report comes back to me, there’s a plot summary, as well as their opinion on the manuscript:  good, bad or otherwise.  Obviously, if they like something, I’m going to take a look at it.  If it’s something they’re on the fence on, I’ll also take a look.  If it’s something they feel is a pass, I’ll go by their report unless I feel they may be off the mark. But they know my list and my tastes and I trust them.

I seem to gravitate to debut authors.  One reason is probably because the author has a clean slate and there isn’t any sort of bad sales history that might be problematic for our sales reps.  I also like the idea of starting out with an author at square one and hopefully helping them to build a career as we go from book to book. Being an editor is a job you can do 24/7 if you’re not careful.  I do a lot of my reading when I’m commuting and on the weekends.  For me, when I’m reading a submission, it comes down to the author’s voice.  I have to be sucked into the story as soon as I start reading.  I can usually tell by the third chapter if I want to keep reading or not.

What was it like when you were working at Simon & Schuster and how did you get your start in major trade book publishing?

I was an English major at NYU.  One day, during my sophomore year, one of my professors was out sick and our class was dismissed. There was a student employment office on campus and I walked over to see what sort of jobs might be available.  Listed that day was a job as a file clerk at Simon & Schuster in their contracts department.  I went for an interview and was hired.  I used to work part-time when I had classes and full-time during the summers.  I began as a file clerk and then became a contracts assistant, drafting contracts from the deal memos that  the editors sent down.  Of course, I always wanted to work in Editorial.  After I graduated I stayed in the contracts department and  I worked my way up to the managing editor’s office. The managing editor’s office is sort of the nucleus of a publishing house, where you work with many departments:  art, production, contracts, editorial.  So, I got an overview of everything.  Eventually, an assistant position opened up in the Editorial department at Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster’s mass-market imprint, and I was hired. When I started working in publishing in the mid-1980s, mass-market was still very big.  Hardcover was the other preferred format.  Publishers did very little trade paperback.  Now, it’s the reverse.  Mass-market seems to be fading away while trade paperback is the preferred format for many readers, as well as accounts.

Working at Simon & Schuster was a challenge. There was definitely a star system in place when I worked there.  By that I mean if you were an editor who had a roster of bestselling authors, then anything you brought in was given the red carpet treatment.  If you were lower down on the ladder, well, good luck!  It became very discouraging if you were trying to build a list of your own.

Kensington Publishing is one of the largest of the independent book publishers. What experience do you feel independent book publishing offers authors that a big five publisher cannot?

One of the joys of working at Kensington is that everybody here works together as a team and everyone’s books are important.  Our authors interact with many people from many different departments, all with the same goal of making that author’s book a success.  

Can you tell us about the elements you look for in a good story and is there a particular kind of book you are currently seeking?

As I mentioned earlier, it comes down to the voice.  I have to be pulled into the story as soon as I start reading it.  I’m a big fiction reader.  99.9% of my reading is fiction.  If I read any sort of non-fiction, it’s usually a memoir or biography.  I have a fondness for suspense thrillers, as well as historical fiction.  Horror, too!  I was a huge Stephen King, Dean Koontz, John Saul and V.C. Andrew reader when I was a teen.

There are various book publishing imprints at Kensington, such as Lyrical Press, Pinnacle, Citadel, etc. What did you set out to do in creating your eponymous imprint, John Scognamiglio Books? With my imprint, we wanted to shine a spotlight on new authors and new voices.  So far, most of the novels have been coming of age stories, although I did also acquire two novels of historical fiction from you!

You worked with Alan Hlad on his novel The Long Flight Home, the story of two people brought together and driven apart by World War II—later rekindled when the skeleton of a messenger pigeon, carrying a coded message, is discovered in a chimney. What was it like working with Hlad on this profoundly unique novel?

Working with Alan was great.  When I buy a book, the material has to be there.  I’m not looking to rewrite/rework an author’s vision of their story. All I’m trying to do is fine-tune it and make it the best that it can be.

You also worked with Diane McPhail on The Abolitionist's Daughter, a personal narrative dealing with the struggles of imperfect souls to do right in a time of bitter conflict—a view of Southern Abolitionism, a deadly civilian clash, and the emerging role of women in a world depleted by the bloody conflict of men. What was it like working with her on this incredible historical novel?

It was the same experience as working with Alan.  A pleasure.  When I send an editorial letter, the goal is to work with my author.  I don’t “tell” an author want to do.  I make suggestions in my editorial letters, not demands.  

What are you reading for pleasure right now?

The only time I get to read for pleasure is when I’m on vacation.  While I’ll read a lot of magazines and newspapers when I’m working – because the articles are short and don’t take up a lot of time -- I have to give the manuscripts I’m working on my full attention.  I don’t like starting a novel and then not being able to get back to it asap.  I’ll be going away vacation at the end of next month so my reading pile is growing!  I’ll be gone for a week and there will be travel time, so I hope to read at least four or five novels.  Right now on the “coming with me” pile are:  GHOSTED, by Rosie Walsh, AN UNWANTED GUEST, by Shari Lapena, NUMBER ONE CHINESE RESTAURANT, by Lillian Li, THE LAST TIME I SAW YOU, by Liv Constantine and THE SILENT PATIENT, by Alex Michaelides.

Do you have any advice you could share for hopeful writers eager to become published authors?

The hardest part of writing is getting that first draft done. Once it’s done, you have something to work with and revise.  Many of my authors have told me that they find the revision process to be the most enjoyable.

Can you finish this sentence? I love reading because...

It reminds me of when I was a little boy and my mom took me to a library for the very time and introduced me to the wonderful world of books.  Reading is a form of escape that you can do anywhere at any time.  There’s nothing I love more than walking into a bookstore and discovering a new story to read.  

[giancarlonicoli]

25 Basic Life Skills That Should Be Taught in School (But Aren’t) 

Editor’s Note: I know lots of you are homeschool parents. But please accept before reading this article that many kids are sent to public schools for a wide variety of reasons. Please do not turn this into an argument about homeschooling vs. public schooling or an insult festival toward parents who send their kids to school. That’s not productive. Let’s talk about what is taught vs. what is missing. And also, keep in mind that school is the only chance that some children have to learn new ideas because their parents are either disinterested or close-minded. While most of us try to teach our children these excellent skills at home, many young people are not raised in households like ours. ~ Daisy

By Meadow Clark

Think of the vast amount of time that students spend in school. But what do they come away knowing? They are taught very few life skills, so are they really prepared for the real world?

Here’s one of the glaring problems with public school: it’s designed to waste time.

Like a Weeping Angel from Doctor Who, school can zap your life away. It wouldn’t be half bad if you were being taught something useful. Sure, reading and math are important, but the bulk of those things can be taught in much shorter periods of time than are being utilized right now. Plus, reading skills are deteriorating and math was swallowed by Common Core.

Ideally, there would be myriad forms of trustworthy education that could suit any personality. And ideally many of these skills would be taught by family and imparted by experienced people – but that’s getting harder to do.

So in the list below, think of what it would be like if schools were ideal and actually preparing people to live meaningful lives.

Without further ado, here are…

25 Life Skills That Should Be Taught In School (But Aren’t):

#1 Individual Thought

Instead of regurgitating what the teacher says and mirroring their peers, people need to think for themselves only. That means no groupthink. Most people think they are unique but are only parroting. That’s why you can figure out who they are from just two of their beliefs. A lot of people struggle with who they really are but can’t even have a thought of their own. Life shouldn’t be so monochromatic and Borg-like. Calling all real individuals.

#2 Personal Finance, Saving & Budgets

The credit card and personal finance industry should not be the ones teaching us about money. And while I think Dave Ramsey’s advice from Total Money Makeover to start an emergency fund is golden; I’d like to nominate The Index Card by Helaine Olen as the curriculum. It is by far the best, most objective personal finance advice I’ve ever gotten. Takes all the confusion away. The name is from the idea that everything you need to know about finance fits on an index card – and the book even comes with it!

#3 Health & Nutrition

No fad diets. Just self-care and nutrition. Food selection and important information about vitamins, minerals, and bio-compounds. I know they teach health in school but c’mon… And why not include gardening and food prep?

#4 Resiliency & Failing Gracefully

The world can be crushing enough, perhaps resiliency and tenacity can be emphasized instead of measuring students against failure. Failure is inevitable after all, so people should be shown how to fall and get back up again.

#5 The Art of Conversation

‘Sup! Hav U taken this class B4?

#6 Logic, Reasoning, and Public Discourse

Did you know that schools have been rapidly dropping Logic classes? It’s time to stop the Idiocracy from spreading and revive Logic! Also, it would be nice if public discourse didn’t amount to two people rabidly screaming at each other.

#7 Character

You can’t legislate morality, but young people are eager to learn character. Instead of burdening children with global warming responsibility and punishing them severely for breaking unspoken social justice mores – how about letting them have fun but fostering a sense of character. Show them they have personal control/responsibility and that there are real-world consequences for their actions. Relationship skills probably shouldn’t be taught by government-run schools but ultimately those come from a person’s character.

#8 Negotiation

In order to make it in the real world and provide for a family, negotiating is crucial. It means being firm, having a backbone and the willingness to exhibit some disagreeableness.

#9 Cooking from Scratch

It’s a seriously needed lost art! And it overlaps with health, budget and survival classes.

#10 Survival & First Aid

All forms of survival, prepping and first aid, including wilderness first aid, should be taught to everyone. Survival without tech and during disasters or live shooting events – all of it. Gardening, self-defense, and firearms overlap with this class, too. The Dangerous Book for Boys, The American Boys Handy Book,  The Field and Forest Handy Book: New Ideas for Out of Doors would be a great, fun start! Of course, The Organic Prepper makes a great curriculum – hi, homeschoolers!

#11 Speed Reading (But with Deep Comprehension)

Speed reading is not the same as skimming. Many people have been taught to skim haphazardly because of the Internet, new gadgets and pressure to multi-task. This study shows that skimming is actually not a great way to comprehend more. Speed reading removes “subvocalization” while reading, and it can be done while maintaining comprehension.

#12 Self-Defense

Both with and without firearms. It would include boundaries, situational awareness, and improvisation.

#13 Crash Course on How Government Works

People are told to go out and vote but a lot of them don’t even know much about the positions they are voting on. I wish School House Rock had kept up the government songs! “I’m just a bill…”

#14 Creativity

Our linear-thinking and tech-driven world is rapidly extinguishing right-brain thought, and that is a travesty. Our creative force needs to be ablaze at all times and should never be downgraded or snuffed out.

#15 Household & Basic Car Mechanic Repairs

Why are these skills not taught to everyone? Learn to be handy and be independent from others while putting thousands of savings toward paying down a house. A lot of people are afraid to try, but only because they weren’t taught and may be afraid to ask for help.

#16 Time Management, Focus, and Productivity

Multi-tasking is a proven fraud. In a world driven to distraction, the art of focus is priceless in the working world. Maximized time is a maximized life.

#17 How to Read Literature With Deeper Understanding

Let’s face it: high school makes a lot of people hate books. Something tells me that’s the real reason why 1984 is mandatory reading. Who actually remembers the deeper message later in life? Curriculum: The Well-Educated Mind by Susan Wise Bauer is a straight-forward, wonderful guide through the classical education most of us never got.

#18 Entrepreneurship, Career & Starting a Business in a Gig Economy

This is a crucial skill desperately needed in a changing job landscape. It could teach sales skills for all different personality types. And hey, wouldn’t it be great to cultivate what your passions are instead of being wedged into categories by those career assessments?

#19 Etiquette

Seriously. Make. This. A. Class.

#20 Social Skills

Social skills are different than etiquette and manners. It involves picking up on cues and tone, and knowing how to appropriately respond in different situations. There is dating etiquette and there is also dating social skills. These are just as important as having social awareness on the job.

#21 Study & Deep Research

Why do 12 years of school without first learning this key element?

#22 How to Selectively Make Real Friends

An elective class to win GOOD friends and influence people. Networking. Watching out for red flags in relationships. School is basically a big bullpen where you’re with the same people every day for 12 years. And they think homeschoolers aren’t “socialized”? Sheesh! Plus, social media gives the false impression of connection without much selectivity.

#23 Effective Communication & Writing

So apparently this is being taught now, but…is it really?

#24 Resume & Cover Letters

Firstly, a lot of people do not know how to craft these. And secondly, most of them are thrown into the trash or get lost in cyberspace. The soul-crushing job application process needs a serious makeover, but until that happens, people need to learn how to write an attention-grabbing human-voiced resume that gets that foot in the door.

#25 Understanding Credit Cards, Bills, Taxes, House/Car Purchases, Student Loans, Insurance

This is a much-needed course, unfortunately. This class would help students avoid predatory financial practices instead of being ushered right into them. Day 1: teacher cuts up all credit cards in a class demonstration.

Last but not least….a bonus that is only being sort of taught apparently?

GEOGRAPHY!

If people want to let their government charge trillions to lob bombs into another country, then by Jove, they’d better be able to point it out on a map… I’m being darkly facetious, but seriously, geography is important.

It may even drive a wanderlust to explore, and the government doesn’t want that. We were always at war with Eurasia!

What electives would you like to see taught in school?

I was tempted to put some other electives on the list like “Relationship Skills by Interviewing Elderly Couples” or “Why TV Sucks” but I realize that these fall outside the realm of objectivity and belong in class #1: Individual Thought.

Would you like it if schools taught some of the skills above? Which ones are your favorites? Did I leave any important skills out of the mix? Leave your nominations below!

[refusemyreality-blog]

Doin’ Good, Anon

“I cannot even tell my boss I grew up in a mobile home,” she says to me. She’s my sister, not quite three years my junior.

She’s at the top of a large non-profit in DC. She still shops at thrift stores, buys groceries at Aldi, and drives used cars. Her thrift is #TBT. It’s a matter of pride to pare down our closets and pay five bucks for a nice jacket. It’s a gift from our mother who garage saled, goodwilled, resaled us through childhood and adolescence. We grew up “kind of poor,” like one pair of flip flops for warm months, one pair of quality mary janes for church during the school year. When we ruled the trailer parks, rugrats on bikes, we wore twenty-five cent knotty knit jumpers from garage sales or my hand-me-downs. It comforted me to be stacked three girls to a bedroom. 

My sister and I had one authentic Cabbage Patch to our names. The third one of us got one my mom made from a kit. Cute as ours but not the brand and it did have that funny nose- two little upraised handlebars instead of a pert little nose. My sister’s had a funny name though. She could have sent in adoption papers to have it changed, but she kept it. At least the sister with the handcrafted patch doll got to name her own.

We each had stuffed animals of our favorite type. She had a mother-child monkey set. The baby sucked its thumb. All other toys were in the shared pool: battered tin kitchen set, Fisher price put-together train, riding horse, mini-tupperware dishes, fake food and grocery cart, plastic record player, Muffin Family Bible storybooks, and a box of cast off dresses for costuming.

Mom cut coupons on Sundays after dad picked out the parts of the paper he read with us on our orange swivel chairs in the living room. We’d help her organize them on those rare occasions she let us. Every morning, mom brushed our long locks into tight ponytails and trimmed the ends in the bathroom of our trailer (Baby curls trimmed by yours truly in great-grandma’s white bathroom while our parents were visiting. My mother discovered it the next morning and never let me forget that the gorgeous sweat curls around my sisters’ faces had be shorn away by me. Like I’d absconded with their beauty and made them plain jane white girls too early.) 

I was the oldest of seven kids (eight if we count the one wasn’t born). Most of them came home to the trailer and several came in seventeen months succession. (Them winters was cold?) The big fat break between this sister and me is one of the longest. Almost three years, because mom was sixteen when my dad knocked her up. They married a few weeks after he graduated high school. While she finished up her junior and senior years, my grandmother babysat me. My parents cleaned up before this sister. They quit toking up, smoking, found Jesus and moved into a bigger trailer across the street. 

This sister has a MA in Non-Profit Development from a swanky Philadelphia private university. She’s newly minted on the board of an East Coast private college in her denomination. She keeps her hair in a bob that she never has to curl. She barely blows it dry. She wears almost no makeup except black mascara to emphasize her eternally thick long lashes. She looks exceptional in a scoop neck shirt because she has thin broad shoulders that make her clavicles stand out. That’s a white girl beauty standard.

She carries herself like a queen. She’s barely been in debt since high school. She’s a saver, not a spender. A half-glass of wine makes her tipsy so she rarely drinks. She’s never smoked. Her skin has always been flawless except for that one well-placed beauty mark. 

People say she and I are alike. We share traits. But not beauty. I’m thicker in the face. I have dad’s nose and everything about his side of the family. Bulbous nose, dangerous incisors (they’ve been ground to look more normal but still stand sentry in front of all my other teeth. We were too poor to get the traditional American braces. This makes me relate more to the Brits. Mind my gap.) I have narrow shoulders, thick bones, mousy brown hair that gets nappy on the underside. And zits, still. 

I’m over forty and I still get zits. In high school I slathered them in toothpaste all night (some brute pranked me and said toothpaste would dry those red bumps. They only grew.) During the winter I smeared orange foundation from Big Lots over them. In the summer I baked them in the sun, then slathered more orange foundation on them.

But it’s not the variation in beauty that matters. It’s her comment.

“Why? You raise money for poor mothers and children.” Her organization gets women off the streets, provides medical care, connects mothers and children to basic assistance along with housing and education. I thought our upbringing motivated, at least in part, or that it would give her cred.

Granted our poverty is not like the women of color she raises money to help. We grew in Rust Belt white urban poverty.  My mom organized and handled the church food pantry so she could work for the with government cheese and donations like endless pints of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey, dented cans of vegetables and freezer burnt gas station sandwiches that we ate once there were six of us. (Gardening to feed six kids? She’d have to crazy on caffeine. She gave up on gardens after two years of building a house while home-schooling the lot of us.)

We were never homeless. We had a safety net. My grandfather owned the trailer court. He gave my parents “free” rental space in exchange for tapping my dad for snow plowing, road work and cement laying on my grandfather’s schedule, of course. (Um, yeah, I’m gonna need all day Saturday to help me lay cement for.... Sigh. My father just wanted a day off. Maybe that’s why he volunteered to lead worship, Saturday night church school, the youth group and a crap ton of outings for our church.)

When dad got itchy to get out of the trailer life-- Quote: “I don’t want boys coming to pick my daughters up for dates in a mobile home park.” -- grandpa gave my mother her inheritance of five acres of land and we moved into a camper for nine months so my parents could build the house. Not have the house built. No. They built it. The aunts and uncles and grandparents and church folk kicked in so we could have a real house. 

So we grew up thrifty, boot-strappy, bleeding heart volunteering-types. Most of my siblings work with at-risk populations. Two work with addicts who have mental illnesses. My dead sister worked with high school girls in lock-up till she had kids and couldn’t afford daycare. Her husband works with teens on disability. One sibling is a nurse. Another sibling a programmer who adopted two kids with physical disabilities from the Philippines. 

I teach at risk high schoolers. Most of my students have failed so many classes or grades they are just waiting on eighteen and the right to drop out. The ones who stay have babies, parents who are dependents, crippling anxiety and depression or other mental illness, full time jobs, a history of missing thirty or more days of school most years, or physical illnesses or disabilities. Almost all of them grew up in need. When my assistant principal pitched the program, she recruited me because we both grew up white poor. I didn’t want to say yes. Teaching general education high schoolers is daily triage. And, I would be aiming right for the hardest luck cases. 

My other grade level teachers begged me not to go to the program. I tried some hang-ringing and soul searching and self-cajoling because this group of kids takes all my energy, but I couldn’t say no. I grew up around these kids, with single moms who have bad chunky highlights and don’t use the helping verbs before participles because they speak Hoosier. I might have been one, but I had what many of them don’t- a lot of breaks: my parents stayed together, my mom and dad kicked the TV out of the house and made music, talk radio and books our entertainment, then mom home-schooled us (with a rigor that surpasses most elite private schools, like “You will read the ENTIRE history textbook, answer all the questions and ace those tests. I don’t care how boring it is. Oh, and yes you will do thirty algebra-trig-geometry problems a day. I know you are cheating on the evens because the answers are in the back of the book and you didn’t show your work. Do you think I’m stupid?”). 

We had a healthy diet, mostly. My mom and dad gardened a big ass garden and my mother canned most of our vegetables for years. She sweated with the pressure cooker and the bulging veins of a constantly pregnant woman while shooing us outside to either A) shuck the corn so she could freeze cobs, B) ride your bikes and stop letting all the cold air out. Do you think we are air conditioning the neighborhood?, or C) swing on the swings, go the park or just disappear peacefully for a while because I’m canning while a baby is attached to my boob. 

Just after three pm, my father arrived from the warehouse. We’d spy his orange VW Rabbit coming down the road and run into the house slamming the aluminum screen door several times in succession and scream as we ran down the hall to “hide” so we could jump him as soon as he entered the house. Dad’s return highlighted our day. He’d shrugged us off after a lot of giggling and my mother chewing us out for waking whichever baby was sleeping. Saturday nights, after church, when we had popcorn and ice cream were the sanctioned “attack dad” nights. We throttled him with our pillows while he tried to tickle us. He laid on the ground while we beat him and he crawled at us threatening to tickle more than achieving it. Just the threat of his tickle made our sides hurt from laughing. Then he’d lay there, tossing us up and over his head in a twist, time after time until the butter brickle ice cream high, from servings the size of a tub of margarine, wore off. 

The next morning, he made us pancakes and fake maple syrup and took us to church where we slept off our sugar haze during a two or three hour song and sermon service. In the middle, we saw some Pentecostal action- flags waved, people dancing in the spirit, blowing a shofar (an animal horn), and getting anointed then “slain in the spirit.” In other words, we had extraordinary loving parents with a great work ethic and a network of friends who spoke ancient tales and metaphors to embed in us all the advantages that working poverty can offer. Most of my students lack those safety nets.Our poor life wasn’t perfect but it was good. I keep thinking it was a life worth living and one worth telling.

[iyarpage]

Why Design Is Bad For Designers (And How To Fix That)

If you’re like most talented designers, you have an eye for aesthetics. You understand beauty, design, and symmetry at an almost fundamental level. It’s not just a nice-to-have, it’s an essential component that shapes how you see the world.

That’s the problem.

Most of the people around you, the people you work with, don’t get it. They don’t have an eye for design. They don’t understand the principles of design.

Designers Are Often Punished For Their Talents

Many designers are abused, neglected and taken for granted. It’s not supposed to be this way. It doesn’t have to be this way, but for many creatives, it is.

Designing Is Amazing, When You’re In Control

Most of the time, you’re not in control are you? Most of the time you’re asked to create something you know isn’t very good. How many times have you heard a variation of, “Make it pop?” But, it’s more than that.

As a designer, you have an eye for aesthetics. You’re unconsciously aware of form, structure and layout in a way that non-designers are not. If you’re like most designers, you see the elements of design everywhere. If you’re a talented designer you’re orderly, observant and intelligent. You see and understand far more details than you share. It’s the hallmark of a brilliant designer.

Here’s why this is a problem.

Designers Are Consistently Required To Create Ugly, Poorly Performing Work For Incompetent People

When I say ugly I’m not just talking about work that’s visually unappealing. I’m talking about work that creates confusion, stress or anxiety in users. Work that pushes users and your employer further away from the goals they’re trying to achieve.

Non-designers have this bad habit.

They seem to believe they’re capable designers, that their expertise in one area, like say accounting, marketing, or investing, is automatically transferable to design. “It’s just design” they tell themselves. How hard can it be?

Non-designers wrap their awful requests in comments like these:

“I know you need four days to do this but it’s an easy project. You’re a decent designer so this shouldn’t be too hard for you to get this done in the next half hour. I mean come on, you should be grateful you even have a job. There are plenty of designers who’d love to have the opportunities you have. Just be grateful for the work you have.”

Maybe you’ve heard something similar?

Here’s the thing. Gratitude isn’t a cure for dysfunction. It’s a necessary and natural part of success.

Why design == suffering

Does design really == suffering?

It doesn’t, at least not in a healthy environment.

Okay, what does a healthy environment look like? It’s one where designers are given the freedom and constraints they need to create new things, to dream up new ideas. This typically includes a few essential ingredients.

Clear boundaries to work within. The do’s and don’ts. Clear instructions on the amount and types of risks you can take with your design. When to take these risks, why you’d go about taking them and when you shouldn’t. Boundaries can also include design philosophies (e.g. minimalism, simplicity) and values.

Frameworks to follow. A clear rationale that outlines the design process you follow on your team. Policies and procedures that outline how you go about creating consistently great work. Tools and resources used by your team to produce that work. Styles, samples and libraries (e.g. Zurb’s Foundation) used as a reference point.

Guidance and corrective feedback. Both inexperienced and experienced designers will make mistakes. As designers, we may run into a scenario where we’re happy with something that isn’t up to standard. Other times we may focus our attention on details that don’t move everyone towards their desired goals.

Ongoing training and support. Personal and professional development that increases your abilities and develops skills with new tools. Support when you run into trouble or need help. Strategic and tactical content that teaches you the when, why, and how concepts in design.

At first glance these seem pretty obvious, don’t they?

But they’re really not.

What happens when these ingredients are missing? Work shifts from a supportive environment to an oppressive one.

Oppressive environments create and maintain suffering

Your workplace runs on motivation. The more “engaged” people are at work, the better they perform. That’s the problem. Research shows most people are “disengaged at work.” That’s basically a roundabout way of saying most people hate their jobs.

Not surprising, is it? Here’s why.

Most Workplaces Rely On A Poor Motivation Strategy; The Carrot Or The Stick

Do what your boss wants (even if it’s horrible, soul sucking and tedious) and you get to keep your job. You receive some kind of financial reward. Resist and you’re punished. You’re hammered with more terrible work, placed on a PIP, demoted, or fired.

This is how we’re “motivated” at work.

Not very motivating is it? In fact, it’s this kind of poor motivation that’s created an environment of disloyalty.

In Drive, Daniel Pink’s bestselling book on motivation, Pink shares the secret behind motivation. Motivation, as it turns out, is based on three specific ingredients.

Autonomy. Our desire and ability to be self directed, to control our work to a certain extent.

Mastery. The ability to improve our skills as designers, to gain control and supremacy over our craft.

Purpose. The desire to create meaningful work that serves a greater goal.

As designers, how many of us actually can say we have this at work? If the research I shared above is accurate, not many. The question then, is why. Here’s a few of the most common reasons.

Design by non-designer. The designer’s work is consistently critiqued by non-designers who consistently ask the designers to violate their training, conscience, abilities. Their work is belittled, diminished or invalidated.

Dysfunctional management. Managers and clients make unreasonable requests due to their lack of knowledge, a misunderstanding of the basics and/or poor management. It makes sense then that 50 percent of employees quit their job to get away from a horrible boss.

Conflict between creating and selling. Many designers and developers despise sales and marketing teams. It’s hard to create meaningful work or feel you’re serving a greater purpose when you’re asked to lie, deceive, or manipulate users.

Doing trivial work that doesn’t seem to matter much to users, employers or yourself.

(This isn’t a comprehensive list.)

As it stands, designers hate their jobs for a variety of reasons.

“There’s nothing you can do to fix this…”

This is just the way things are. It’s a common objection that—fortunately for designers—is completely untrue. There’s a lot designers can do to fix a miserable situation. Why do so many designers believe their situation is hopeless?

Perception.

Many designers have been mistreated for so long, that they’ve simply accepted a lie. That this is normal, the way things are. But this isn’t the case everywhere. The good news, there is a way for designers to fix this problem. The bad news? Many designers will find a reason why the solution won’t work.

What’s the solution?

Creating results.

That’s it?! That’s the amazing solution I’ve been talking up all this time? It sounds like a complete waste of time, I know. While it sounds like generic and unhelpful advice there’s a whole lot more to this. When it comes to results there are two kinds:

Conventional results build trust and security. Being great at your job, going above and beyond, working well with others, etc. If you’re a designer whose work is excellent, you’re reliable and you’re someone your team knows they can count on.

Transformative results build trust and power. Results that make things better for your employer, the industry or users as a whole. It can be as simple as solving a unique problem for other designers, creating something helpful that others find valuable or creating something significant and meaningful.

Here’s why these results matter. Results give you more control. Remember earlier when I said, “designing is amazing, when you’re in control?” This is what I’m talking about. Giving those around you (your employer, clients, co-workers, users) what they want means they grow to depend on you.

When your employer depends on you they’re far more likely to give you the freedom and control you need to do amazing work. You know what conventional results, i.e. doing a good job at work, looks like. But what do transformative results look like?

Let’s look at three examples.

Shouldiworkforfree.com

Jessica Hische, a letterer, illustrator and type designer saw a common problem in her industry. Designers were being abused. Clients promise designers more work if they’ll do the first design project for free. New designers fell for it. Hische ran into this problem herself and finally decided to do something about.

She created shouldiworkforfree.com.

It went viral. Her simple flowchart hit a designer sore spot. Her chart was covered on AdWeek, Fast Company, LifeHacker and other top 500 sites. The change was transformative. It cemented her status as an “expert.” It also gave her a tremendous amount of trust and power.

Clients came to her with a “you’re the expert, what should I do?” attitude.

Ruby on Rails

David Heinemeier Hanson, designer and developer at 37Signals, used the Ruby programming language to build Basecamp. David extracted Ruby on Rails from his work on Basecamp and released it as open source. Ruby on Rails would be used by companies like Hulu, Shopify, Twitch, AirBnB and SoundCloud.

More than 4,500 people have contributed code to Rails. David has created transformative change by simply sharing his work. He’s created something that impacts the lives of literally billions of users every day.

TastyTuts

Gareth David had a simple idea. He wanted to create tutorials for the creative community. As an educreator, he creates in-depth, beautifully done tutorials and he shared them for free on YouTube. It’s something that lots of other people have done.


Gareth stands out because his quality is outstanding, his tutorials are comprehensive. He takes beginners, helps them progress to competent intermediate designers and builds them up to knowledgeable pros. He’s focused on giving to others and the comments on his videos show he’s making transformative change.

Here’s the thing with transformative change…

It doesn’t have to be difficult and it doesn’t have to be hard. The sky’s the limit. If you’re creating something valuable for other people, something that solves a problem in a unique way, it’s transformative. 

Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Write a book

Contribute guest posts/content [Ed: to sites like ours!]

Start a podcast and/or be a podcast guest

Create flow charts and infographics

Create helpful code

Design free templates, fonts, icons, or asset packs

Post helpful explainer and tutorial videos on YouTube

Create regular research studies on design topics

Offer free/paid workshops at libraries, community colleges, universities

Create helpful partnerships, meetups, or events

Bring helpful deals, ideas, or applications to your employer

Can you see the secret behind these ideas? It’s value. If you’d like to regain control over your work you’ll need to know how to provide value.

This is the big secret we aren’t taught in school

The world is driven by value. The more valuable you are to those around you, the more influence, power and control you’ll have over your work as a designer. 


What about you? You’re running around doing everything for everyone else. What’s in it for you? What will you get out of it? It’s a legitimate question with a wonderful answer. 

It’s up to you.

Want to work from home? Earn a pay raise or the freedom to try new things? To work on amazing projects and receive preferential treatment? Provide so much value that your employer, your clients simply can’t afford to lose you? Then use the value formula to get what you need.

It goes like this:

Create X dollars of value for your employer, co-workers and users.

Capture Y percent of X.

That’s it.

It’s simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

If you’re in a miserable place where you lack the autonomy, mastery or purpose you need, find a different job. Then, work on yourself. Can you fix a problem that gets you recognition in your industry? Get to work. Think you have the makings of a great teacher? Show us.

Is Designing Bad For Designers?

If you’re not exceptional it could be bad for you. Exceptional designers aren’t like everybody else. They’re not special. They’re not untouchable.

These designers are exceptional because they use the value formula.

Employers, clients – they fight to keep them. Users gravitate towards their work. They’re paid well – more than their co-workers. They have more control over their work and their environment, whether they’re freelance or employed.

This sounds like a myth, but it’s reality for many designers

You can have it too.

Being a designer doesn’t have to be painful. Your employers and co-workers don’t have to understand structure, aesthetics or usability the way you do. They just have to trust you. Trust, as we’ve seen, comes from value. The more value you create for those around you, the more freedom, control and power you receive.

Because designing is better when it’s focused on value.

Ratatouille 2: Delicious Scene Creator – only $14!

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Why Design Is Bad For Designers (And How To Fix That)

If you’re like most talented designers, you have an eye for aesthetics. You understand beauty, design, and symmetry at an almost fundamental level. It’s not just a nice-to-have, it’s an essential component that shapes how you see the world.

That’s the problem.

Most of the people around you, the people you work with, don’t get it. They don’t have an eye for design. They don’t understand the principles of design.

Designers Are Often Punished For Their Talents

Many designers are abused, neglected and taken for granted. It’s not supposed to be this way. It doesn’t have to be this way, but for many creatives, it is.

Designing Is Amazing, When You’re In Control

Most of the time, you’re not in control are you? Most of the time you’re asked to create something you know isn’t very good. How many times have you heard a variation of, “Make it pop?” But, it’s more than that.

As a designer, you have an eye for aesthetics. You’re unconsciously aware of form, structure and layout in a way that non-designers are not. If you’re like most designers, you see the elements of design everywhere. If you’re a talented designer you’re orderly, observant and intelligent. You see and understand far more details than you share. It’s the hallmark of a brilliant designer.

Here’s why this is a problem.

Designers Are Consistently Required To Create Ugly, Poorly Performing Work For Incompetent People

When I say ugly I’m not just talking about work that’s visually unappealing. I’m talking about work that creates confusion, stress or anxiety in users. Work that pushes users and your employer further away from the goals they’re trying to achieve.

Non-designers have this bad habit.

They seem to believe they’re capable designers, that their expertise in one area, like say accounting, marketing, or investing, is automatically transferable to design. “It’s just design” they tell themselves. How hard can it be?

Non-designers wrap their awful requests in comments like these:

“I know you need four days to do this but it’s an easy project. You’re a decent designer so this shouldn’t be too hard for you to get this done in the next half hour. I mean come on, you should be grateful you even have a job. There are plenty of designers who’d love to have the opportunities you have. Just be grateful for the work you have.”

Maybe you’ve heard something similar?

Here’s the thing. Gratitude isn’t a cure for dysfunction. It’s a necessary and natural part of success.

Why design == suffering

Does design really == suffering?

It doesn’t, at least not in a healthy environment.

Okay, what does a healthy environment look like? It’s one where designers are given the freedom and constraints they need to create new things, to dream up new ideas. This typically includes a few essential ingredients.

Clear boundaries to work within. The do’s and don’ts. Clear instructions on the amount and types of risks you can take with your design. When to take these risks, why you’d go about taking them and when you shouldn’t. Boundaries can also include design philosophies (e.g. minimalism, simplicity) and values.

Frameworks to follow. A clear rationale that outlines the design process you follow on your team. Policies and procedures that outline how you go about creating consistently great work. Tools and resources used by your team to produce that work. Styles, samples and libraries (e.g. Zurb’s Foundation) used as a reference point.

Guidance and corrective feedback. Both inexperienced and experienced designers will make mistakes. As designers, we may run into a scenario where we’re happy with something that isn’t up to standard. Other times we may focus our attention on details that don’t move everyone towards their desired goals.

Ongoing training and support. Personal and professional development that increases your abilities and develops skills with new tools. Support when you run into trouble or need help. Strategic and tactical content that teaches you the when, why, and how concepts in design.

At first glance these seem pretty obvious, don’t they?

But they’re really not.

What happens when these ingredients are missing? Work shifts from a supportive environment to an oppressive one.

Oppressive environments create and maintain suffering

Your workplace runs on motivation. The more “engaged” people are at work, the better they perform. That’s the problem. Research shows most people are “disengaged at work.” That’s basically a roundabout way of saying most people hate their jobs.

Not surprising, is it? Here’s why.

Most Workplaces Rely On A Poor Motivation Strategy; The Carrot Or The Stick

Do what your boss wants (even if it’s horrible, soul sucking and tedious) and you get to keep your job. You receive some kind of financial reward. Resist and you’re punished. You’re hammered with more terrible work, placed on a PIP, demoted, or fired.

This is how we’re “motivated” at work.

Not very motivating is it? In fact, it’s this kind of poor motivation that’s created an environment of disloyalty.

In Drive, Daniel Pink’s bestselling book on motivation, Pink shares the secret behind motivation. Motivation, as it turns out, is based on three specific ingredients.

Autonomy. Our desire and ability to be self directed, to control our work to a certain extent.

Mastery. The ability to improve our skills as designers, to gain control and supremacy over our craft.

Purpose. The desire to create meaningful work that serves a greater goal.

As designers, how many of us actually can say we have this at work? If the research I shared above is accurate, not many. The question then, is why. Here’s a few of the most common reasons.

Design by non-designer. The designer’s work is consistently critiqued by non-designers who consistently ask the designers to violate their training, conscience, abilities. Their work is belittled, diminished or invalidated.

Dysfunctional management. Managers and clients make unreasonable requests due to their lack of knowledge, a misunderstanding of the basics and/or poor management. It makes sense then that 50 percent of employees quit their job to get away from a horrible boss.

Conflict between creating and selling. Many designers and developers despise sales and marketing teams. It’s hard to create meaningful work or feel you’re serving a greater purpose when you’re asked to lie, deceive, or manipulate users.

Doing trivial work that doesn’t seem to matter much to users, employers or yourself.

(This isn’t a comprehensive list.)

As it stands, designers hate their jobs for a variety of reasons.

“There’s nothing you can do to fix this…”

This is just the way things are. It’s a common objection that—fortunately for designers—is completely untrue. There’s a lot designers can do to fix a miserable situation. Why do so many designers believe their situation is hopeless?

Perception.

Many designers have been mistreated for so long, that they’ve simply accepted a lie. That this is normal, the way things are. But this isn’t the case everywhere. The good news, there is a way for designers to fix this problem. The bad news? Many designers will find a reason why the solution won’t work.

What’s the solution?

Creating results.

That’s it?! That’s the amazing solution I’ve been talking up all this time? It sounds like a complete waste of time, I know. While it sounds like generic and unhelpful advice there’s a whole lot more to this. When it comes to results there are two kinds:

Conventional results build trust and security. Being great at your job, going above and beyond, working well with others, etc. If you’re a designer whose work is excellent, you’re reliable and you’re someone your team knows they can count on.

Transformative results build trust and power. Results that make things better for your employer, the industry or users as a whole. It can be as simple as solving a unique problem for other designers, creating something helpful that others find valuable or creating something significant and meaningful.

Here’s why these results matter. Results give you more control. Remember earlier when I said, “designing is amazing, when you’re in control?” This is what I’m talking about. Giving those around you (your employer, clients, co-workers, users) what they want means they grow to depend on you.

When your employer depends on you they’re far more likely to give you the freedom and control you need to do amazing work. You know what conventional results, i.e. doing a good job at work, looks like. But what do transformative results look like?

Let’s look at three examples.

Shouldiworkforfree.com

Jessica Hische, a letterer, illustrator and type designer saw a common problem in her industry. Designers were being abused. Clients promise designers more work if they’ll do the first design project for free. New designers fell for it. Hische ran into this problem herself and finally decided to do something about.

She created shouldiworkforfree.com.

It went viral. Her simple flowchart hit a designer sore spot. Her chart was covered on AdWeek, Fast Company, LifeHacker and other top 500 sites. The change was transformative. It cemented her status as an “expert.” It also gave her a tremendous amount of trust and power.

Clients came to her with a “you’re the expert, what should I do?” attitude.

Ruby on Rails

David Heinemeier Hanson, designer and developer at 37Signals, used the Ruby programming language to build Basecamp. David extracted Ruby on Rails from his work on Basecamp and released it as open source. Ruby on Rails would be used by companies like Hulu, Shopify, Twitch, AirBnB and SoundCloud.

More than 4,500 people have contributed code to Rails. David has created transformative change by simply sharing his work. He’s created something that impacts the lives of literally billions of users every day.

TastyTuts

Gareth David had a simple idea. He wanted to create tutorials for the creative community. As an educreator, he creates in-depth, beautifully done tutorials and he shared them for free on YouTube. It’s something that lots of other people have done.


Gareth stands out because his quality is outstanding, his tutorials are comprehensive. He takes beginners, helps them progress to competent intermediate designers and builds them up to knowledgeable pros. He’s focused on giving to others and the comments on his videos show he’s making transformative change.



Here’s the thing with transformative change…

It doesn’t have to be difficult and it doesn’t have to be hard. The sky’s the limit. If you’re creating something valuable for other people, something that solves a problem in a unique way, it’s transformative. 

Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Write a book

Contribute guest posts/content [Ed: to sites like ours!]

Start a podcast and/or be a podcast guest

Create flow charts and infographics

Create helpful code

Design free templates, fonts, icons, or asset packs

Post helpful explainer and tutorial videos on YouTube

Create regular research studies on design topics

Offer free/paid workshops at libraries, community colleges, universities

Create helpful partnerships, meetups, or events

Bring helpful deals, ideas, or applications to your employer

Can you see the secret behind these ideas? It’s value. If you’d like to regain control over your work you’ll need to know how to provide value.

This is the big secret we aren’t taught in school

The world is driven by value. The more valuable you are to those around you, the more influence, power and control you’ll have over your work as a designer. 


What about you? You’re running around doing everything for everyone else. What’s in it for you? What will you get out of it? It’s a legitimate question with a wonderful answer. 

It’s up to you.

Want to work from home? Earn a pay raise or the freedom to try new things? To work on amazing projects and receive preferential treatment? Provide so much value that your employer, your clients simply can’t afford to lose you? Then use the value formula to get what you need.

It goes like this:

Create X dollars of value for your employer, co-workers and users.

Capture Y percent of X.

That’s it.

It’s simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

If you’re in a miserable place where you lack the autonomy, mastery or purpose you need, find a different job. Then, work on yourself. Can you fix a problem that gets you recognition in your industry? Get to work. Think you have the makings of a great teacher? Show us.

Is Designing Bad For Designers?

If you’re not exceptional it could be bad for you. Exceptional designers aren’t like everybody else. They’re not special. They’re not untouchable.

These designers are exceptional because they use the value formula.

Employers, clients – they fight to keep them. Users gravitate towards their work. They’re paid well – more than their co-workers. They have more control over their work and their environment, whether they’re freelance or employed.

This sounds like a myth, but it’s reality for many designers

You can have it too.

Being a designer doesn’t have to be painful. Your employers and co-workers don’t have to understand structure, aesthetics or usability the way you do. They just have to trust you. Trust, as we’ve seen, comes from value. The more value you create for those around you, the more freedom, control and power you receive.

Because designing is better when it’s focused on value.

Ratatouille 2: Delicious Scene Creator – only $14!

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Hi everyone! We have just published an article on Failory written by Amir Rajan, in which he tells the story behind his mobile game, called “A Dark Room”, which hit #1 on the App Store and grossed over $800,000. Sit down and read his success story. I hope you enjoy it and if you have any questions, I will happily answer them below. Sit back. This is gonna be a long one. TL;DR:Did the whole "get a degree, get a job" thing. Ended up being incredibly well paid, but horribly empty because of corporate America. Decided to rage quit, downsize (sell pretty much everything I own), and take a sabbatical. After binge coding on random crap, I partnered with a guy in Canada and ported a web based, incremental, text based game to iOS (A Dark Room iOS). Welp. It went viral and hit the #1 spot. That let me extend my sabbatical for another three years. I built four more games, none of which succeeded. Now I'm back in Corporate America (luckily only part time now... I make enough off my games and other assets to not have to work all year). The Long Version: Frustration:There is such a heavy dose of luck in success. There are those that will give one thousand percent, and because the roll of the dice wasn't perfect, nothing materializes. They have as much love for the game development as I have... they've worked as hard as I have... but just didn't get a kiss from Lady Luck. And it sucks. It just isn't fair that they want to create more than their next breathe, but can't catch a good break to devote time to it. They have to look over at those that have the privaledge to take multiple rolls of the dice, eat their cake and have it too, and if everything still fails, they get bailed out by mommy and daddy.I was one of the lucky ones. I saved up for ten years, and was able to role once. I hit lucky number eleven. And even then, I still find myself having to grind in a 9 to 5 yet again. Sometimes it's fine. Other times I feel like I should have never taken that sabbatical and remained ignorant of the pure joy that comes from putting yourself in a creation. Before Sabbatical:I did what you were supposed to do. Did well (really well) in school. Went to college. Got a degree in Software Engineering and Computer Science. Did internships and landed a job as a developer for an insurance company right out of college. I did that for three years (two years of internships, one year as a full time employee). I then went to work for a company that build veterinary software. Did that for a couple of years. I really really loved coding. Lived and breathed it. I interviewed at a prestigious consulting company and got in on the ground floor. Spent three years there only to be scooped up by another consulting powerhouse. So here I am with a disgusting $140,000 in total compensation. A sea of cubicals, souless sheep that want nothing more than to do their time and go home. I didn't belong cause I actually cared about my craft. I tried to compensate for my unfulfilling corporate work with open source development after hours. This put a toll on my familial relationships (spending 45 hours a week working, then trying to get another 30 hours on nights and weekends, doesn't leave much time for anything else). I was at the brink of collapse. Lose my sanity, my wife, or my job. I decided to get rid of the job. I liquidated my 401k savings (took all the tax penalties up front), and said "alright, gonna live off of this for as long as I can until I figure something out". During Sabbatical:It was great to breathe. I was 178 pounds at 5'8 (a little portly). That changed during the sabbatical. It took me three months just to figure out what my routine looked like. I'd code on whatever my heart desired. It was wonderful. I didn't even know what day it was. I didn't miss my stuff. I didn't miss the anxiety attacks I got Sunday nights before having to go to work. All of that gone. By month four I came across the web based version of A Dark Room. I immediately connected with its sparse presentation. I reached out the Michael and asked his permission to port it to mobile. That night I lost track of time. I blinked and it was 3am. I had never felt that kind of loss of time before. Nothing around me existed, it was just me and my creation. After another four months, A Dark Room was done and released to the App Store. It got a whopping thirty downloads the first day. I didn't care. Cause it was my creation and it was awesome. I redesigned so much of the original game. So much of me went into it. Oh and I dropped 30 pounds too. Best shape of my life.I still remember one of my happiest days. It was early January. I was working on a stupid little multiplayer fighting game written in JavaScript and Pixi.js. I didn't care that ADR was barely getting 10 downloads a day, I didn't care that my savings was dwindling away. I found what I was supposed to do (build digital, evocative experiences). Savings Dwindling:The party was over at this point. My savings was dwindling down. A Dark Room was making its meager two thousand downloads a month (after Apple's cut, taxes, and splits, that's not a lot of take home). I started interviewing again for a job. I was better mentally, physically. And I never want my wife's quality of live to suffer (she was still in college at the time). Being the main bread winner of the home, I knew I had to suck it up and go back to work. I wasn't okay with it, but I knew it was my responsibility. I was interviewing again for those big salaries. I would save as much as possible given my now humble lifestyle. After I had enough cash tucked away, I'd quit and try again. Then. A Dark Room went viral. Out of nowhere it made $800 in one day. Then it made $1,200 in one day. Then it made $5,000. Then it made $8,000. Then it hit the #1 spot and I woke up to a $20,000 sales report. A Dark Room at #1:A Dark Room stayed at the number one spot. I was elated the first day. I was on cloud nine the second day. Then reality reared its ugly face with a sobering message: "this will come to an end."So I waited for it to come to an end. I didn't sleep for 18 days. My life: was hitting the refresh button on the App Store, seeing if I had fallen. I'd do it every 3 hours on the hour, day or night. I did it for eighteen days. I read every review that came through. I'd refresh the page again and see if I had dropped. This was my life. I was waiting for all this success to end. 250,000 downloads later, A Dark Room finally fell from the #1 spot. It was over. From there sales dwindled. After another four months, I was down to 100 downloads a day. I had recouped what I had "spent" taking the sabbatical (and then some). My wife was tired of living in a cramped one bedroom apartment. So, we put a huge down payment on a house. After A Dark Room Fell:I built a prequel to A Dark Room called The Ensign. It did okay (nowhere near as successful.. but not bad... this was around the time I did my interview with Indie Hackers). I wrote a book about Surviving the App Store too. I put my heart and soul into a game inspired by Edwin Abbot's "Flatland: Romance of Many Dimensions" called A Noble Circle. I created a digital Go board after binge watching Hikaru no Go. I built a touched based mobile RTS called Mildly Interesting RTS (MIRTS for short). Every game had "me" in it. I didn't do ads, I didn't do micro-transactions, scummy energy bars, and all those other bullshit monetization tactics. I ported A Dark Room to Android (which was almost not worth it). I did everything to keep building games. I wrote about all of my journey, presented, did podcasts, hoping to inspire others. And yet revenue kept dwindling. The writing was on the wall. Everything I did after ADR wasn't enough. And I got a job. Now:So here I am. Updating all my games to work well on iPhone X. Because I love them. I try to build what I can in my free time. But I'm back in Corporate America (it's been ten months so far). Two months in, everything became too real. My journey as a game dev was really over. I got so frustrated. I purged everything online. Took the book down, deleted all of my Reddit entries, my developer logs, my open source games. I removed all of it. All the content I created felt like a lie. Cause even with all this "success", I couldn't keep my dream going. I felt so much worse off because I got a taste of a fulfilling life that I wish I had been ignorant to. It has been eight months since "The Purge". I'm much better now. Mostly invisible outside of already established relationships. I stream occasionally on Twitch, keep my games maintained, and work on new ones as time allows.I no longer deal with anxiety attacks Sunday nights at the thought of "clocking in" Monday morning. I'm at peace with it. The people I once called sheep, aren't that. They just didn't have the means to roll the dice. All code I see is beautiful in its own way. It tells a story of the resonable programmers put in unresonable situations. Again, I'm one of the lucky ones. Because maybe in another year, I'll have enough play money saved up to role the dice again. ‍Silver Lining:My games provide a stable passive income (and I have a decade worth of an emergency funds in the bank). A Dark Room recently hit the #2 spot overall on Google Play (pro tip: stick to iOS, the revenue is almost an order of magnitude better). More importantly, I've very recently acquired the platform that helped me create my labors of love: RubyMotion. So between my games, subscription revenue, and my well paying contract gigs, I do alright for myself. Thank you Lady Luck. And my sincerest, deepest apologies for the 99.9999% that will never see the "failure" I've seen. I really do empathize with you. And I wish I had a better story. ‍Numbers?I'm sure some of you are asking about numbers. Do you remember the title of this post? Do you remember what I said about the 99.9999% failure rate? Do your remember what I said about privaledge, and eating your cake and having it too? What's the point of talking about the numbers I'm making now? So you can dream about one day making these numbers too? You wont. Start with that and work from there.But if you really want numbers, here are some of the numeric sacrifices I made to role the dice once:Have a 4.0 GPA through High School.Graduate #36 out of a class of 800+.Go to a community college cause it's cheap.Work two jobs in the summer to pay for college and save up.Go to university in 2001 when it was still possible to pay out of pocket and graduate without crippling debt.Get a degree in something that is valued. Even better if you actually like what you got a degree in.Land a job right out of school that makes you $55k a year.Live off of $15k a year. Don't buy a house. Don't buy a fancy car. Just save.Do this for a year.Land a job that makes you $100k a year. Save the rest. Max out your 401k contribution.Celebrate by living off of $30k a year.Do this for three years.Land a job that makes you $140k a year. Save the rest. Max out your 401k contribution. Get a Roth, put $5k a year into that.Celebrate by living off of $60k a year.Do this for three years.Don't have kids. Don't get sick. Don't have any catastrophic events that leave you bankrupt. Probably best to just not leave the house.Quit your job. Sell everything. Liquidate your 401k. Pay all the tax penaties.Live without insurance cause COBRA costs $2000 a month. Still Don't have kids. Don't get sick. Don't have any catastrophic events that leave you bankrupt.Now you can take a year and a half off and roll the dice once. Now you can read all the success stories online and dream that you'll get that too.But you probably wont. And that's okay. ‍Original article posted at https://failory.com/battle-scars

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