#i don't do pre-reads for everything but there are books where i find it necessary to prime my brain for absorbing them

[stuckinapril]

i love anthologies. anthologies are so sexy

#in an alternate world where im an english lit major the norton anthology of english lit is my bible #it's by no means an exhaustive overview but i really love how everything is in its neat timeline #and you get a general vibe for how literature was back then as opposed to just going in blind. u see how everything influences everything #a major (maybe a bit irrational?) fear i have is i come out of a book w superficial understanding #and while that has contributed to unfortunate reading slumps i do also like this trait of me #where i am actually focused on giving a book/period of time the respect it deserves vs just reading it flippantly #i like doing my silly little pre-read of a period of time/author before jumping into it #i don't do pre-reads for everything but there are books where i find it necessary to prime my brain for absorbing them #and anthologies are good for that #and they're also a good resource for investigating authors whose vibe sits right w u. #or for knowing the general quaintessential authors of a certain genre of lit #i also love poetry anthologies #the commentary comparing/contrasting certain authors is also rly interesting to me . ok i'll shut up now #p

[red-justice]

Out of the Abyss: Session 1 Retro

TL;DR: A retrospective on my first Out of the Abyss session, detailing what I prepped for session 1 + the campaign in general, what happened, and what I learned as a DM.

Table of Contents:

How I Chose Out of the Abyss

My Prep Process

Running Session 1

Retrospective

Conclusion + What's Next

How I Chose Out of the Abyss

Let's start at the beginning. I've been feeling itchy to run more games, and been playing with the same groups of people more or less for the past few years. My Friday Planescape game just wrapped up after 3 years, my Thursday campaign is coming up on 3 years, and I just started a new Sunday Auroboros campaign with my husband and some friends I know well. I need fresh meat players. So I turned to /r/lfg, as one does.

The group I found wanted to play an existing module, preferably one that was dark and difficult, in line with Curse of Straud, which they had just finished. I offered them Tomb of Annihilation, Descent into Avernus, Out of the Abyss, and Dungeons of the Mad Mage. They chose Out of the Abyss.

This is the first time I've actually ever tried to run some written module or adventure, so I've got a lot to figure out, and one of my goals with this game is to learn how I can most effectively use and adapt pre-written content to my games.

My Prep Process

I started where I usually start, which is the Table of Contents. Out of the Abyss is an older adventure, and has absolutely zero context. Each chapter is simply its own adventure arc. So I pulled up /r/OutoftheAbyss for some help and skimmed through some of the pinned resources to get a feel for the big picture considerations other DMs called out (such as having TEN NPCS TO RUN all game as they accompany the PCs everywhere).

I used that to create my usual Campaign Overview Doc for the players. I separately discussed some of the potential content warnings for this campaign to ensure everyone was onboard. After that, I started my normal campaign prep process (creating tables of potential monsters CR 0-4, creating rollable tables, collecting encounter and location ideas, identifying thematic treasures, etc). More on that another time.

THEN I actually started reading the campaign book.

Chapter 1 opens with- your players are captured by drow and want to escape the outpost they are in. The area seems fairly self-contained and like it might take a few sessions to escape, so I did not bother reading any further ahead.

Some things I picked up on from reading through the book + the posts on reddit from other DMs (in no particular order) were:

I need to get players to roll for resources based on the days they've been here at the start.

I need to review the NPCs and decide who I might want to get rid of quickly, and who I want to keep.

Other DMs pointed out that the chapter gives good background on the drow drama at the outpost, but it was hard to incorporate that into play.

Other DMs pointed out that the included map wasn't a good scale for a battle map at all.

Other DMs pointed out it can be quite deadly to start at level 1 as suggested, given how the area is designed and that the players start out with no weapons, armor, or magic.

There were some high level suggestions, but not a lot of help from the module on how to run the chores the players need to do as prisoners for RP interactions and seeing the outpost.

I ended up spending way more time than necessary creating a Map of Velkynvelve for session 1 because the few maps I could find weren't quite my map style (and it's kind of like the thing in school where if my blue pen ran out of ink half way through my lab report I had to rewrite everything in black ink from the start because I can't stand to have mismatched ink colors, nor can I stand to have non-consistent map art aesthetics don't come for me).

You may notice I did not bother making all the rooms in the Stalactites. I could not be bothered to make more bedrooms.

I told my players they could start at level three, because you're supposed to hit level three once you escape anyway, and even with their gear it would be a deadly series of encounters for them.

I also went through the NPC descriptions and other DM comments about them, and decided that Ront, Eldelth, Sarith, and Shuushar could go unless the players really glommed onto them for some reason.

I had already taken care of monster stat blocks previously but had to do a bit of a day-of scramble to upload the token art (this always happens to me) for the players and the monsters and the NPCs. However, with Token Maker + google, it wasn't that bad.

I also tried feeding ChatGPT the descriptions of each area, and asking it to create read-aloud text for me to give the players, which I placed on the GM layer of the map in Roll20 (more on that later in another post, I think).

Running Session 1

(Yes, we did my normal session 0 first).

I started by having each player roll the dice to see how many days they had been there, as the adventure module suggests, and had them introduce their characters (appearance + explaining how they got captured in that order). I added them to the Roll20 map as they were introduced, and then described the overall outpost (high up on the wall of a larger cavern, made of pocket caves and hollowed out stalactites, only accessible via the elevator basket which they were brought up in). From there, I described the cave they were being kept in, and the magical wards.

I then transitioned to "present time" in game, with the arrival of the daily serving of mushroom soup. It was a game time decision to say that Ront likes to push and shove everybody else out of the way to be in front of the line, and my brand new player (who never played any TTRPGs before), latched on. Ensue "Soupgate":

Soupgate (as explained to a friend):

The players and a bunch of NPCs are prisoners of the drow in a filthy cave, deep in the underdark. They are fed once a day a small bowl of mushroom broth ladeled into clay pots and passed through the bars to the prisoners. Renfri, a female high elf wizard with 4 arms (don't ask), got in a shoving match with Ront, a male orc who always bullies everyone and pushes to the front of the line. Miraculously she won and got the first bowl.

In a fit of petty bullying in response, Ront then proceeds to steal the bowl of soup from Stool, a baby miconid who is also imprisoned with them. Stool cries about it because he is hungry. Ront dares anybody to do anything about it. Renfri manages to swipe both bowls back from Ront with a lightning fast Sleight of Hand check (is now holding 3 bowls of soup), and before Ront can react, Caladan, a tall human bard with curly blond hair and unsettling blue eyes, intervenes. They get in a shoving match, and Anders, a white-haired male Aasimar fighter, and Prince Derendil, a quaggoth convinced he is secretly and elf prince who was polymorphed, join in. Everyone is throwing unarmed strikes, except Derendil, who has fucking claws and teeth, and manages to shred through 21 points of Ront's HP in a single round.

Ront runs away from Derendil as the drow captors intervene. Ilvara, the drow priestess asks Caladan who should be fed to the spiders in punishment. Caladan points at Ront, who has been paralyzed from crossbow bolts coated with drow poison when the guards broke up the fight, and he is unceremoniously dumped into the webs of the giant spiders the drow keep at pets outside. The players give Stool Ront's soup and everybody watches as Ront is eaten alive.

-

After this, I realized I had fucked up, as I had not had any of the players roll to see what goodies they had found in their time at the outpost, nor had I really mentioned or set the scene for the various chores and other areas of the outpost. I plopped them straight into the cave where they were being kept as prisoners (with dynamic lighting, so they couldn't see the rest of the map). I told the three players who had been there the longest they could roll to see if they had snagged anything, and they came up with: 1 gold coin, 1 living spider the size of a tarantula, and a piece of flint that could be used as a makeshift knife. The players also had two crossbow bolts that had been shot into the cave at Ront to paralyze him with the drow poison. So they were feeling optimistic about what they had!

They began to plot about how to escape at this point, and I had a few of the NPCs interact with them a bit more (I'd already had Jimjar make bets with people about the outcome of the fight with Ront, and Eldeth threw out a few comments about Ront as well) to give some suggestions about what was going on at the outpost and discuss the relationship drama between Jorlan, Shoor, and Ilvara (key drow NPCs).

I then followed it all up by saying that a few hours later, the drow on duty showed up again and called two NPCs and one PC, Esme, to clean up the kitchen. This happened to be the player with the spider (she decided the spider was chilling in her cleavage lol), and one of the other characters told her to "find more spiders". She took this literally and found two more spiders in the kitchen, but did not even think to try to steal any kitchen knives (LOL).

Meanwhile, the other players concocted a plan to have Renfri try to steal a key from the guard when they brought back Esme from the kitchen. The backfired spectacularly when the Sleight of Hand check, and then the Performance check to pretend it was a shove from another prisoner, got a 4 and a 6. The guard called for help, and now there are orders to be extra vigilant when opening the gates to the cave.

Realizing that I had fucked up the outpost interactions and not wanting the players to be stuck in the cave for several sessions, I had Jorlan, who one of the NPCs had previously told the players about, escort a PC to empty the chamber pots at the waterfall (this is the point where I remembered to tell the players there was a waterfall... whoops). The player took the bait and made a sympathetic comment about Ilvara and Shoor, who Jorlan has relationship drama with. I skipped straight ahead to Jorlan offering to break the characters out, as is suggested as an escape route option.

As soon as they were all reconvened, the plotting began in earnest for the next day's prison break. The players were primarily scared of the Giant Spiders outside, and spent a good amount of time debating the wisdom of jumping into the webs and then into the water below. They discussed the "whistles" the drow used to call them (I made this up in response to a player question about how the drow control the spiders), and decided they wanted to steal one and have the artificer enchant it to emit the sound so they could throw it in the opposite direction as a distraction. It seems like a decently good idea to me.

Roger the Pocket Spider

Because players, however, they decided they wanted to test if the Giant Spiders would respond to their "pocket spider" touching the web. I told them they could make an Animal Handling check to shoo their spider through the bars on the gate towards the giant webs outside, and with a roll of 16, that was successful. THEN they wanted to call the spider back. I told them it was a DC 20 (Esme had a +2), and to my surprise, she passed the check. Pocket Spider has been named Roger. The other two spiders have not proven their loyalty and are therefore not deserving of a name, but the players have vowed to put them to the test soon.

-

I called it there at just under 4 hours, and told the players next session they would initiate the prison break!

Retrospective

All in all, I think it went pretty well, but I had some frustrations and disappointments.

Firstly, I think I would have benefited from a bullet-point list flow of session plan. I tend to do this for logistics-heavy sessions with a lot of downtime, or at the start or end of campaigns. In this case, I would have done the following:

Have each character roll a d10 for days since arrival.

Have players introduce themselves in order (appearance and how they were captured) and roll a d20 to see what they've found in their time here.

Description of the outpost.

Scene 1 with NPCs (insert details I should have planned here).

Scene 2: split players into groups for labor around the outpost (insert details I should have planned here).

Return to cave and give players time for planning/discussion. NPC interaction as warranted.

Optional NPC scene ideas (insert details I should have planned here).

Close when players are about to initiate prison break.

Secondly, a narrative flow plan like the above reveals where I may need to do a bit of extra planning or description. Soupgate was pretty good, but unintentional. It was a riff off an idea I read on the subreddit where someone suggested having Serith stand up for Stool to Ront's bullying, because I realize I had nothing prepared. I wish I had planned a few interactions to show off the other NPC prisoners as well as lay the ground work for the relationship drama between the drow (versus what happened with Buppido just "telling" the characters).

I mentioned above I forgot to tell the players about the waterfall, because I didn't write out an outpost description ahead of time and was scrambling to put one together on the fly. This is a KEY FACT because the players need to use the water to safely escape 100+ feet down the cliff without use of the elevator into the pool below.

Thirdly, the players missed out on opportunities to explore the outpost and find more resources as a result of my lack of planning. As an alternative (and maybe even in addition) to having better scenes planned to explore, I wish I had set up with map WITHOUT dynamic lighting and left the tokens on the GM layer so they players didn't know where the enemy was. I'm finding with heist adventures (and that's what this is), giving the players the whole map is really helpful as a tool to encourage creativity and facilitate player (not character) planning.

I do think I did a good job letting the players know during character creation and in Session 0 that they would not have access to their equipment and magic in the opening sessions. I am glad I did this all ahead of time above table as it prevented people from feeling disappointed, frustrated, or upset they couldn't do stuff, and the players were focused on creative problem solving about escape, because they knew it was the focus.

I also successfully killed one of the NPCs I had flagged, and hope to kill the rest in the escape.

Conclusion + What's Next

All in all, I think it was a successful session and the players had fun! They are looking forward to next week, as am I, and there were two really standout moments of Session 1: Soupgate + Roger the Pocket Spider.

I ended up spending a lot of time rereading the material in the book however, and it didn't stick very well or get translated fully to the right tools I needed. This included the read aloud text I had on the map which was NOT helpful - I want to make a separate post about that entirely.

I want to continue to improve on my ability to skim and translate the key information I need from the module into the best format for me.

I need to sort out the best format for myself for NPC reference info. I found a great NPC summary sheet I actually really liked and referenced a lot during the game from /u/PurpleVermont on reddit, and I want to try that out for my NPCs in some of my other games to see if that's the right info amount for me.

I should probably learn how to do voices at some point. At least a little bit.

#learn to dm #ttrpg #dnd #dungeons and dragons #dnd5e #dungeon master #mypost #dm life #out of the abyss #campaign stories #retro

[nureyev-steel-institute]

Characters: Jonah Magnus, Peter Lukas

Relationships: Peter Lukas & Jonah Magnus, Elias Bouchard|Jonah Magnus/Peter Lukas

Additional Tags: Elf!Jonah, selkie!Peter, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Pre-Relationship

Summary: They met in his library.

Lonely Eyes Week Day 3: Fantasy AU

They met in his library.

It wasn’t an unusual location for Jonah to be in. He often spent his time reading there, researching all sorts of topics he wanted to be knowledgeable about (which was everything). After visiting daily for a couple of weeks, Jonah figured that the library itself was abandoned and that the only way the books were in decent condition was through the way magic wove itself through the pages and the walls of the building. So he eventually started staying longer and longer, no longer worried about finding himself at the wrong end of a librarian's patience. After spending so many years alone, rarely venturing out, taking care of the library and the library taking care of him, he was very much surprised when one rainy night someone stumbled into his library, dripping water all over the floor.

“Good lord, are you alright?” he rushed over to the stranger. They didn’t respond, staring off into the distance. They were absolutely soaked as well. Jonah gently laid a hand on the other arm, intending to guide him away from the door, but the man violently jerked away from his touch. Jonah stepped back.

“So no touch then…” He looked around, unsure of what to do. Jonah walked to the door and fully shut it so that rain wouldn't get in. He went to the fireplace he was sitting near earlier, stoking it and bringing a bit more warmth to where they were. Then Jonah sat down to wait.

It wasn't too long until the man seemed to become aware of his surroundings. He looked up from the ground and made a confused face, looking around the library. Jonah cleared his throat, and the man's gaze snapped to him.

"I-I'm sorry um. Who are you?" He asked, shivering. Jonah smiled in what he hoped was a calming way.

"My name is James,” he said, unwilling to give out his true identity to a complete stranger. “And you are?"

“I’m Peter.”

Silence. Peter didn’t move from his spot but seemed to be uncomfortable. Either with Jonah’s presence or the stilted start to a conversation. Well, Jonah wasn’t going to leave his library, and he wasn’t going to push Peter out into the rain either. He stood up and walked a bit closer to the taller man. Peter visibly tensed.

“Are you going to take off your coat?” It was a reasonable question. It looked heavy and underneath it, his clothing seemed to be wet. To dry off, Peter would need to take it off and hang it up somewhere. But as soon as Jonah finished the sentence, Peter took a step back and only wrapped it tighter around him. Gods above, how he wasn’t uncomfortable with all of that wet fabric clinging to his skin… Jonah wrinkled his nose in vague discomfort at even the thought of it.

“No. You can’t have my coat.” Peter cut through Jonah’s thoughts. He looked ready to bolt. Jonah stepped back. At that, Peter’s grip on his coat loosened slightly, but not by much.

“I’m not asking for it,” Jonah reassured him in a low voice, “However, you need to get dry. Having that coat on wouldn’t help.”

“You’ll let me keep it?”

Jonah frowned. What in the world...? “Of course. I do not want your coat. You can keep it as long as you like.” Peter relaxed almost completely at that, and he seemed to droop slightly from exhaustion. Jonah sighed. As much as he would like to feed his curiosity and question Peter all night, he seemed to be at least somewhat human. And humans had the very time-consuming need to sleep.

“I’ll take you to a separate room if you’d like? You can rest there.” Peter nodded, so Jonah turned around and led him out of the seemingly endless maze of books.

Jonah didn’t use his bedroom for rest. As an elf, he didn’t need to sleep and only entered a trance if he needed to. That, he often did by the fireplace at his usual seat. While lying down is more comfortable, it wasn't necessary, and Jonah found no need to constantly go back to that room. He did, however, find a hall of various bedrooms and claimed one to store his things. Various trinkets that caught his eye, clothes, and other things he either needed or wanted.

He led Peter to that hall, past his own door, and to the next. They opened the door. Inside was a simple bed, a closet, and a bedside table. Other than that, the room was devoid of anything. Jonah stepped back and let Peter walk in. He slowly walked around the room, as if making sure it was really empty. When he finished, he stood and stared at Jonah.

"Can you leave? Please?" Jonah made a small 'oh' face.

"Right, of course." And he closed the door.

_____

As soon as Peter heard James’s footsteps lead away from the door, he quickly scrambled to find a hiding place for his coat. He stuffed it in the very distant corner of the closet, vowing to find a better spot for it soon. No one will take it from him. Never again.

He dropped down on the bed. Peter felt all of the exhaustion he was putting off crash into him. When was the last time he slept? And when was the last time he actually got to rest?

Peter knew that James shouldn't be trusted. He only just met him after all. But he was so tired…

It didn't take long for Peter to lay back and melt into the covers and finally rest.

____

When Jonah returned from the market at around midday, Peter was still asleep. Jonah went up another floor to the communal space and the kitchen.

When he first started exploring the library fully, it seemed a bit odd that it would have clear living spaces. The bedrooms and the kitchen were the ones that confused him the most because it meant that beings didn’t just come here during the day to read, they stayed here for many nights at a time. As much as Jonah loved living in the library, he knew from experience that many thought otherwise.

That is, of course, until he found the historical records of the library itself.

About seventy or so years into his stay, Jonah found a new door. Of course, this was nothing new. He finds new doors relatively often, and with a library as large, as ancient, and as magical as this one, he expects to find many more doors and halls in the future. Regardless, every time he uncovers a previously unexplored part of the library he spends days, if not weeks, in that section. There is always something new to find. But the records….

They dated back over a thousand years. A group of scholars of various classes and races befriended each other and built the library to store their records of adventures they had. It grew as people began donating accounts of their own adventures, then began giving spell books, so on and so forth. As the library accumulated more and more information it began to attract more people who desperately wanted to learn. More sections were added. A living hall was built so that long-term residents and scholars from far away lands could stay comfortably within the walls to study. The library was very well taken care of at its peak. Charms were added to protect the books from age and dust. Experienced magical users wove protective spells into the walls and into the ground.

Jonah did not know what exactly happened that left the library so empty. The records stopped abruptly around 700 years after its opening, around 300 years ago. He itched to find out what happened, but so far there were no clues.

Jonah was harshly jerked away from his thoughts when he heard a throat clear behind him. He turned and found Peter standing awkwardly at the doorway, clearly unsure of what he should do.

"You can come in if you'd like. I'm going to start making food." Peter shuffled in. His tired air was still present but somewhat alleviated. It seemed that the long sleep he had did him well.

Peter waited patiently as Jonah made scrambled eggs, for which Jonah was grateful. It didn't take long for Jonah to plate the food and place a serving in front of the taller man. He hesitated, slowly grabbed his fork, and began to eat. Jonah did the same.

"So, Peter," Jonah said after the two of them were done eating. "How did you end up here?" Peter visibly swallowed, eyes darting to the side.

"I was just in the forest when it started raining. I got lost. Found a door. Next thing I know I'm in front of you."

Jonah frowned. "Is there a reason you were out in the forest so late? It was well past dark when it started raining, I believe, and even later than that when you arrived."

"I was…" Peter looked off to the side. "I was going somewhere."

"Where?"

"I don't know. Somewhere else."

"I can take you down to a nearby town if you want. There will probably be-" Peter shook his head sharply.

"No. No I- this is good." He said in a firm voice, standing his ground. Jonah studied Peter for a moment. The way he sat, hunched in on himself, making himself as small as possible. His hands were stuffed in his pockets, a contrast to when moments before he was fidgeting with them.

"You're welcome to stay as long as you'd like." Jonah relented. "It's been a while since the library had anyone other than myself in it."

Jonah might feel a bit less lonely with Peter around, after all.

#jonah magnus #peter lukas #tma #lonelyeyesweek2021 #my fic #lonely eyes

[guide-on-how-to-read-faster]

Guide on How to Read Faster?

Isn't it so much easier to get through school if you could complete your reading assignments three times as fast? Wouldn't it be more fun to jump right into a good piece of fiction and blaze through it in less than a day? Let's explore speed reading in more detail.

The two ways of thinking about speed reading may be familiar to you if you've already looked into the subject. It is said that speed reading is the essence of success and everything you have ever dreamed of. Others say speed reading is a myth and doesn't work. Truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.

When considering speed reading, the first thing you need to ask yourself is: "Why do I want to read faster?" While speed reading novels for pleasure requires a different approach than speed reading textbooks or research articles for understanding hard science, speed reading novels for pleasure requires one approach. When using RSVP tests or Rapid Serial Visual Presentations, individual words or blocks of two or three appear sequentially on the screen.

Reading Process

Before we move on to the techniques, it's important to understand the reading process.

Reading is the action of analyzing a piece of writing to understand its intended meaning. So, reading effectively requires more than just recognizing a series of words. You must also understand the relationship between the words and the unstated implications of the situation.

Compare this to skimming, which is the rapid consumption of text to gain a general idea of what you're reading. The gist of it will become apparent even if you don't comprehend the details. The goal of speed reading is to maintain skim-like reading speeds while maintaining reading-like comprehension.

An educated adult reads approximately 200-400 words per minute. It is claimed that speed readers can read thousands of words in a minute. To do so, they rely on peripheral vision.

The fovea, or center of your visual field, has the highest acuity, about 1° in any direction. The width of your thumb extended at arm's length is approximately this size. The parafovea has moderate acuity between 1 and 5° from the center, and the periphery is greater than 5° from the center. In peripheral vision, it is physically and biologically impossible to recognize and interpret the text.

Try looking at a stationary object, such as where the wall meets the ceiling. Keep your eyes smoothly moving from one side to the other of the line. Unfortunately, it is actually impossible. Multiple small, jerky movements of your eyes are called saccades. During reading, saccades allow the reader to fixate the fovea on a word by moving their eyes quickly.

When speed readers use their fingers to guide their eye movements, I initially thought they employed smooth pursuit. Smooth pursuit occurs when your eyes fixate on a moving object and can follow it smoothly. If you move your finger from side to side in front of you, your eyes will smoothly follow it without jerking. The finger technique speed readers use is less about the pursuit of smoothness and more about maintaining a metronomic pace as they read.

The saccades allow the fovea to focus on the next word. It is estimated that each fixation lasts around 250 milliseconds, but it can vary greatly based on legibility, difficulty, and whether it is proofreading or reading for comprehension or swiping. However, not every word is fixed.

In about half of the sentences, the word "the" is skipped. In certain cases, a word may be skipped even though it has been processed. The rapid serial visual processing (RSVP) technology is useful for displaying information (usually text or images) in which the text appears word-by-word in a fixed focal point. In addition to being a basic reading aid, RSVP is being investigated as a way to boost individual reading rates. Additionally, RSVP is being used for research in visual impairment, dyslexia, perceptual and cognitive psychology. There are many different languages and platforms available for RSVP.

Through these technologies, words are presented to the viewer in the center of the visual field in rapid succession, thereby eliminating the need for eye movements. In light of the aforementioned individual variations, visual processing physiology, and the way we comprehend language, I would argue that RSVP is an inefficient way to consume text. RSVP does not allow for regressions, which is another problem. Regression is a brief look backward in the text to return to an earlier word. The purpose of this is to correct errors' incomprehension. RSVP further reduces comprehension by eliminating the possibility of regressions.

According to proponents of speed reading, subvocalization, or using your inner voice while reading, will slow you down. Numerous studies have examined the effects of eliminating or minimizing subvocalization. Findings consistently indicated decreased comprehension. It makes sense that phonological processing is an important part of reading and comprehension, since all writing systems represent words, and since the primary form of language is vocal rather than visual.

What does all this mean? Perception of visual information occurs rapidly. However, reading is slowed down by linguistic processing. It has been demonstrated that language processing rather than the ability to control eye movements is the determining factor of reading speed in various studies. We are limited in our ability to read by our ability to identify and understand words rather than by our ability to see them. As a result, reading faster actually reduces comprehension, which may or may not matter depending on what you are reading.

Learn how to read faster

After we have clarified the science behind reading and speed reading, we will take a look at how to speed read faster. To read faster, one does not need to read the same way for every reading goal.

As a method of improving one's reading comprehension and speed, it is suggested that one practice more reading. Even though this does help, it's a very slow and gradual process that doesn't produce drastic changes.

To drastically improve speed, comprehension must be reduced. We need to read slower to increase comprehension. There's no way around that; you can only improve slowly.

In each case, we have to balance reading comprehension with reading speed. Is it possible to reduce comprehension minimally, while increasing speed maximally? I have found the following techniques to be the most useful over the years.

1) Determine the Type of Reading

Determine your reading goal and the type of reading you will perform first. It is not necessary to maximize comprehension for every reading task. Do you read nonfiction for pleasure? Do you proofread an essay for a friend? Do you read a textbook for class? Do you read high yield notes and bullet points for one of your classes?

Having a clear goal in mind will help you determine the minimum level of comprehension required and, therefore, the maximum speed that can be achieved.

2) Remain Flexible

Secondly, make sure your speed is flexible. During the reading process, you will come across sections of text that are easy for you. It's a simple language, you understand the concepts, and you can easily get through it. You don't have to focus on every word to understand it.

In other sections, you will be introduced to new words or concepts that require your attention. Often, this will happen, so you must be flexible with your reading speed to optimize your speed/comprehension balance. If you're not sure about the significance of a paragraph, focus on its first and last sentences.

3) Use a Pacer

Use a pacer, such as your finger or a pen. You can follow along with your eyes by running your pacer below each line from end to end. You will instantly increase your reading speed with minimal comprehension loss.

It is important to find the sweet spot between pushing the boundaries of your comfort zone and only slightly reducing comprehension. My opinion is that if you reduce comprehension by 10% but gain 50% in speed, that's not a bad tradeoff. The pacer will need to move faster in places and slower in others, as described above.

Different Types of Reading

1) Textbooks

There is often a lot of unnecessary text in textbooks. There's no need to worry if you accidentally skip a paragraph or a whole section. Pay attention to bolded words or sections that contain key information, and speed up while reading text that adds context to what you've already learned.

Identifying what is important in each section by looking at section headings and bolded terms will make it easier for you to read the section. It may take a few minutes at first, but overall, if you execute it properly, you should save time.

When I'm finished reading a section or page, I summarize what I've learned. Alternatively, I can write a few bullet points or speak out loud to myself. This greatly improves retention and comprehension.

2) Books for Pleasure

If you read for pleasure, you can do whatever you want. If you want to enjoy the nuances of language, then you should slow down. In contrast, if you only wish to grasp the gist, it won't be a problem if your comprehension drops considerably.

It very much depends on the book and what you hope to gain from it. Depending on the book, I read every word or skip sections. The majority of books fall somewhere in the middle.

3) Research

In reading research articles, which you will read a lot during your pre-med, medical school, and residency years, follow a systematic approach. The best way to gain a deeper understanding of the abstract is to read it slowly and carefully. Focus on those key points when you read the full article.

Spend a few minutes reading the abstract, a few introductory paragraphs, the methods and results in sections quickly, and then spend more time on the conclusion.

A Guide to Speed Reading

Problem – The amount of reading material available these days is so overwhelming that often it's impossible to keep up. In this way, we scroll headlines and teasers instead of reading content that will actually educate us. Our lives are often dominated by the pressure to finish our daily tasks on time or keep up with the latest developments in our areas of interest, regardless of whether we are at work or studying.

Solution – Today, speed reading is a highly valuable and essential skill. People who master speed reading techniques can read as much as three times faster than the average reader, who usually reads between 200 and 250 words per minute.

Benefits – When speed reading, the human brain is challenged to perform faster and better. With speed reading, your brain will be trained to absorb information much faster than it is used to. As a result, your memory and brain function will be improved. Additionally, you may benefit from increased general and specialized knowledge, improved problem-solving skills, or increased self-confidence.

A Final Thought

We have compiled this article to teach you how to read faster. This article will describe how speed reading techniques work and provide you with tips, information, and resources to help you read and learn more quickly.

#speed reading #guide on read faster

[bigskydreaming]

Hey, any comic recs to ensure that I get Dick Grayson character right? Other batfam included, if you're willing. I'm trying to make sure I don't write a character completely ooc, because that drives me up the WALL when I read that. However, since I dubbed you the #1 Dick Grayson person, I thought I'd ask you to make sure I do him justice rather than a smear campaign or something lol! Thanks! ALSO TELL ME YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THE TITANS SHOW! That's all xD

LOL thanks I appreciate it, but while I’m good for the rants, for actual comics recs I would go to the likes of @northoftheroad, @hood-ex, and @nightwingmyboi because they’re a lot better than I am at knowing where to find specific stuff and comprehensive reading lists! I tend to jump all over the place in terms of my go-to comics for Dick.....I’m always on about Robin: Year One but I’m like eh Nightwing: Year One is pretty trash tbh. I prefer pre-Flashpoint continuity overall but I did enjoy some of the early Nightwing Rebirth stuff and before that the pre-Forever Evil New 52 stuff had some good beats. But for the most part, my favorite Dick Grayson tends to be him as a member of teams like the Titans....he shines most in ensembles, I think, because his strengths ultimately are that like...he gets people, he knows how people work, and he knows how to get the most out of the people he’s with, how to make people gel and get in sync and become more than just the sum of their parts.

(Speaking of nightwingmyboi, haven’t seen them posting in awhile, anyone know what they’re up to? Hope everything’s okay!)

Which brings me to the problems with the Titans show. There’s a lot I like about it - Anna Diop and Ryan Potter in particular - and a lot I was never gonna like about it - I’m heavy on the Ugh why must Dick Grayson be a cop ever why is that a thing make it stop. And so while I don’t think Brenton Thwaites does like, a bad job with the role or anything, there was always kinda a ceiling on how attached to or invested in his take on the character I was ever gonna reach.

But Season 2. Oof. Let’s talk about Season 2, and how so many of the problems with it are identical to the problems that surround Dick in the comics, but also aren’t limited to just his character or DC and just as equally show up in all kinds of media. Like, I could have (and probably did) offer an identical rant about the role of Scott McCall in TW’s S5.

The problem is one I’ve kinda taken to calling in my head “The Ensemble Lone Wolf Effect.”

This is when writers have a character they nominally want to be part of an ensemble....but that they repeatedly go back to the well of “this character should however spend most of their time on their own, or are more natural on their own, or just wants to be on their own, or also sometimes they just deserve to be on their own cuz they suck for Reasons we decline to specify.”

But its that thing of wanting it both ways....believing a character honestly NEEDS to be a loner or off on their own for the sake of their story, but also still wanting to utilize them as part of an ensemble, not willing to actually MAKE them a solo character, and so it kinda creates this never-ending feedback loop wherein they pay lip service to the character being part of an ensemble, but that’s never really on display, which creates a lot of unnecessary conflict among characters that’s to NONE of their benefits.

(And honestly in the comics, you could apply this to pretty much all the Batfam at times...not just Dick. They do it with Bruce ALL the time, they’re doing it with Damian right now, did it with Tim with Red Robin, Jason most of the time he’s not with the Outlaws and Cass most of the time she’s not with Babs or Steph or the Outsiders. As well as Babs herself at times).

Basically what I’m talking about here is like....so much of the drama in S2....and specifically the parts that most every fan I saw had issues with....came about not organically, because it made sense for the characters to behave that way, but solely in order to launch a specific plot, that the writers clearly wanted for S2:

And that was Dick Grayson off on his own, at his lowest, facing his demons on a solo journey of self-discovery the writers clearly deemed necessary before he could find himself as Nightwing and rise to his most heroic self.

Now the thing is....this isn’t inherently a bad plot or a problem. The problem lies in how they went about it.

Because rather than looking at the overall story and saying okay, that’s what we want to do with Dick Grayson, that’s what we want for HIS story, now how do we get that and where do we take it from there, rather than looking at that as just a STARTING point, and engineering a plot that grows OUT of that.....

The writers just started out by viewing that as an ENDPOINT, and reverse engineered a way to get Dick TO that point first and foremost....at the expense of so many characters who then basically turned on him and held him solely responsible for the things many of them also had a hand in....purely to get him off on his own and isolated.

But that was never necessary!

Because Dick’s character contains multitudes when it comes to guilt and self-blame, everyone knows that. He never needed anyone else to blame him for what happened to Joey because he blamed himself. So the second they conceived of the plot “Slade wants revenge for something Dick at least blames himself for”.....they had all the ingredients needed for Dick to decide proactively that the best way to protect everyone was to put distance between him and them, that he should try and hunt down Slade on his own, solve this between just the two of them.

And that should have been the STARTING point, for that narrative journey of self-exploration, not that journey resulting as an ENDPOINT in and of itself from Dick being FORCED into a kind of isolation by the others all blaming him.

Because now see what ripple effects result:

Now, the other characters are just as able to focus on their own individual storylines as they were in the show, with the additional concern of wanting to ACTUALLY find Dick and figure out what’s going on with him or tell him they still want to help....without this in any way needing to distract them from their own storylines, practically speaking, or cut into Dick’s narrative alone-time, because as part of the equation you ALSO have Slade, who has his own wants and agendas, not to mention tactics. And Slade’s perfectly capable of and willing to work with others, or utilize the long game, or engage in a game of cat and mouse as a distraction...there are numerous ways that you could engineer a plot FROM these motivations that allows him to keep the rest of the Titans distracted and even targeted individually, without allowing them to group back up with Dick or Dick to even know that they’re in danger and that his attempts to avoid that backfired.

You want the characters isolated and divided? The PLOT can do that for you. You don’t need the characters to do that to themselves.

IMO, most if not all stories are meant to advance characters, first and foremost. Take Characters A-Z and leave them different from how you found them. Move them to a different position in their lives as much as anything else, from where they began. The goal is character DEVELOPMENT.

What this means, in my book, is that the plot should serve the characters, NOT the other way around. The plot should grow FROM the characters and what they would or would not do....the characters should never have to be forced to FIT INTO a plot.

That’s backwards.

There shouldn’t be any need to reverse engineer a certain starting point, characterwise.

Just like....start the plot, plotwise....and from the moment you first introduce a single plot element, prioritize how would the characters react and BUILD from there.

The only engineering you should need to do is how to get to an eventual END point....which is still all about the forward momentum, not backing your way into anything.

Its one thing to have an endgoal for your plot, a point in character or narrative development that you want characters to reach. But its all about perspective. About keeping that what you’re working towards rather than something that you like, have to reach before you can even really BEGIN.

Which is what Titans S2 did. The real GOAL of the season in terms of Dick’s storyline, was his solo journey of self-discovery. But there’s a million different ways they could have LAUNCHED that journey, without it having to be the forced and contrived outcome of events and character decisions that literally only existed to initiate a journey that never required a forced initiation.

And so all this narrative energy gets utterly wasted and expended on stuff that it just flat out doesn’t need to be spent on in the first place....instead of just putting that same energy to use building forward-facing storylines for ALL the characters, that don’t require contrived spats of disharmony when the goal of such moments isn’t even the disharmony but rather just that they’re kept apart, the end RESULT of the disharmony.

Imagine what S2 could have built if instead of wasting time, characterization and energy on getting to a point they could have simply started from if they’d simply looked at it that way and chosen to just....start. If they’d applied all that to building across the board, everyone’s story in service to their own character first and foremost, no tangled feedback loops making characters regress or cycle through the same behavior or narrative positionings over and over again in order to not get in each other’s way or cross paths at a time when the show didn’t want them to cross paths....because rather than make all these characters work at cross purposes, they’re all on the same page, they still want the same things....you’re simply engineering from their own natural characterizations and organic decisions and reactions, ways the PLOT can be utilized as a TOOL, to keep them moving forward in their own respective chapters, WITHOUT their characters having to be bent out of their natural shapes or forced into niches that don’t really suit them, just to keep them, PREVENT them, from more naturally or organically making a choice or action that would ‘get in the way’ of the plot.

Bottom line......the plot is supposed to be there to advance the characters, because the characters are what we come to stories for. The characters are who we invest in, relate to, ROOT for.

The characters aren’t there to advance the plot. We’re not here to yell yeah, I really hope the writers do whatever it takes with characters, no matter how backwards or unnatural it seems, just to get that sweet sweet and oh so specific ending we want that is in no way dependent on how invested or not we ACTUALLY are in the characters by the time it arrives, in order for it to actually be effective or not!

Lol. Y’know?

So yeah, that’s my biggest gripe with Titans so far. I’m still eager to see what happens between Kory and her sister, and although I’m not thrilled it seems to be becoming Batfam Straight Outta Gotham rather than like, Titans: The Show, I admit I am curious about what take they’ll go with for Babs. As I still pretty vividly recall that weird as hell Birds of Prey show the CW or UPN or WB or whatever it was at the time did for one season, where Babs was honestly not terribly adapted despite the show otherwise bearing like, zero in common with any existing DC property or character (do not even get me STARTED on their takes on Dinah and Helena, no, blehrrible, those were bad, those were like super bad)....anyway, I’m kinda curious even if it wouldn’t have been my choice for what direction the show should take. Not that I have a specific one in mind, just, yeah. And I also kinda would not hate if we got a new Roy Harper now, to replace the not!Roy of Arrow, because I don’t know him, no seriously, who is that, its not Roy Harper.

[serialreblogger]

some of your post/reblogs were so relatable to me that more and more I think I may have ADHD (I'm like, at least 70% sure of this and the 30% is me searching for a psychiatrist/therapist that I can trust/afford, anyway) so, since your how to essay post Im talking myself to ask if you have some study tips or tips to focus, anything to help, really. I'm in college and I can't focus to read 2 paragraphs which makes me anxious and makes me procrastinate because I can't study and I HAVE to study so I avoid everything but then I think NOW I have even less time to study and I got stuck in this circle. And because I can't read anything I also cant bullshit my way writing papers that I have to so I don't do this too, so I'm just spiraling more and more with this which also doesn't help with the depression. And I'm so, so SORRY to dump my problems on you (this isn't my intention here) but if you have some tips or don't mind talking about what you do to study I really appreciate it with all my heart.

oh friend, i’m so sorry to hear you’re goin through that, it’s EXTREMELY relatable tho. everything you just wrote basically sums up my entire first year of university (just add in a couple dozen spiralling panic attacks on the basement floor and you’ll be me), and while i wish i had advice i could promise would solve the issue, i don’t... know? that i would recommend doing exactly what i did? because while i made it through university with ridiculously good grades, i also exacerbated a pre-existing anxiety disorder to the point where i literally could not bear being alive for a while there.

but for whatever it’s worth, and bearing in mind that you need to prioritize your own well-being WAY above whatever grades you get on a stupid piece of paper, here’s some tips on how to get through course readings, based on what i’ve learned through blood, tears, trial and error:

don’t read the full two paragraphs, to start. ADHD makes reading academic articles hell, but (and i genuinely don’t know if this is possible for anyone else, the chemical cocktail of debilitating anxiety that was my brain at the time made me do things i otherwise couldn’t and definitely shouldn’t) i did manage to finagle a way to make it work for me.

See, the thing about academic papers is that they’re very nicely organized. every paragraph is dedicated to making an individual point, which is introduced at the beginning and summarized, more or less, towards the end. this means you can get a very handy-dandy trick, because here’s the thing about ADHD brains: we’re VERY GOOD at making connections.

so here’s the trick: you don’t actually have to read the paragraphs. Not the full ones, anyway.

Let’s break it down:

First, what is the overall reading meant to address? What’s the title of the book or article? Is there a heading or subtitle to provide you with extra information?

Second, what is the thesis statement in your paragraph? Yes, every essay has a thesis statement, but every paragraph also has a specific point to make, which is stated in a sort of mini-thesis, typically right at the beginning.

Once you know this thesis statement, the rest of the paragraph is just fleshing out and providing evidence for that statement. You can keep reading if you need more information to understand what the author’s getting at, but once you’ve got that thesis statement, the rest is just there to get in your way.

For neurotypicals, I think, it’s maybe necessary to read this stuff all the way through? I don’t know. What I do know is that, for ADHDers, we tend to be very, very good at making extrapolations from very minimal information, based on all the surrounding context.

You don’t need to do the full readings. You just need to read the first sentence, process what it’s saying, and skip over the rest.

(if the first sentence of the paragraph is nonsense to you, don’t panic. often the first sentence or even the whole introductory paragraph is intentionally confusing, so if there’s something you don’t understand, disregard it and move on to the second sentence, or the next paragraph.

this happens often, because a lot of academic writing is just a power play on the part of the writer. “Look How Smart I Am Compared To You, You Have To Work So Hard To Figure Out What I’m Saying,” etc. Don’t buy it, tho--the true measure of intelligence isn’t how thoroughly you can confuse someone else, it’s how effectively you can share the knowledge you have. Intelligence is useless if you can’t share it.

Do whatever you can to make it through essential readings, but don’t be intimidated by them. If you can’t understand them, it’s not because you aren’t “smart enough,” it’s because they’re badly written.)

Final notes: this process is meant to walk you through reading papers, but it also lowkey applies to a lot of insurmountable tasks in academia.

You look at a 5-page paper, look at your attention span, and immediately despair because yeah, that’s impossible. The solution is not to expand your attention span, because that’s also impossible. So, instead, don’t look at the 5 pages.

Look at an impossible task, and break it down into its smallest pieces.

Don’t look at the 5 pages, don’t even look at the first two paragraphs. Make a plan for how reading a single paragraph might be possible for you (in this case, break the paragraph down into its own components, and skim over most of them in favour of reading only the most necessary portions). Then focus on finding those one or two sentences you need in the very first paragraph. That’s doable.

You do that, and then you move onto the next.

It’s extremely difficult, especially for ADHDers, to limit your mental vision to the most immediate task and stop looking at the big picture, but it’s also necessary. If you can find a way to make the smallest tasks possible for you, you can break the big, impossible ones down until they’re made of tiny chores. You can do tiny chores. You can read one sentence, take five minutes to process it, but you can read it. That’s all you need to be able to do.

Read one sentence. Skip the rest. Move on to the next paragraph. Repeat.

That’s the real secret, the one that got me through university. It’s impossible to complete a biology lab, it’s impossible to read this entire interminable textbook, so don’t think about the impossible tasks. Think about the single step directly in front of you, focus entirely on that, and eventually, the impossible tasks will be done.

(The other thing I recommend is not taking a full courseload. Please, please, please make sure that in addition to getting your schoolwork done, you also have enough time left over for you to truly relax, and not feel guilty for doing so. If you’re getting intrusive thoughts halfway through an essay, but instead of terrible things you’re thinking about your latest favourite TV show and feel like your brain is thirsty to watch it? You’re working too hard. Take it from someone who ignored their own mental needs until it wrecked them past the point of continuing--burnout is not fun, and you deserve to protect yourself from it. Take it slow. Your wants are just as important as your needs, and both are way more important than your schoolwork.)

#again i genuinely don't know if this will work for you #adhd brains are above all nigh-impossible to wrangle #so if you can't get this method to work for you that's OKAY. you're already doing your best #if possible do get a doctor/psychiatrist you trust to provide a diagnosis bc that will open some avenues for learning assistance #and again. i really. cannot stress enough how little i recommend a full courseload with adhd #stuff takes more time for you! that's just how it works! #if you can get medication and/or extra accommodations from your school i don't doubt that would be 10x as helpful as anything i can provide #but for whatever it's worth #here's how i survived #linden writes an essay #adhd #academia #ask linden

[thinger-strang]

Singing in the Shower and Other Sins (aka three times Steve was caught singing and the one time he wasn't)

@gideongrace this is for you 😚

(link to the version on ao3 https://archiveofourown.org/works/21394876 )

i.

Steve sings all the time. Loud and off key in a goofy sort of lovable way. He jams with Dustin on their way to school, dances around Scoops and Family Video when it's slow, uses anything and everything as a mic.

Which made it so weird when Robin walked into work to find Steve singing like, good.

He had his back to her with an armful of tapes. His voice was soft and he was gently bopping (so he didn't drop all the videos). But his voice was so good!

Robin leaned against the wall and just observed Steve for a moment. It was weird, almost wrong, to hear the correct sound notes come from him.

"Having fun there, Springsteen?"

She shouldn't have scared him, she knows that. But his face was so funny when spun around, barely holding onto his stack of tapes.

"Jesus, warn a guy, Buckley!" He snapped, running his free hand through his hair.

"You can sing."

"What?"

"You always sing bad when I'm around, but you can like actually sing! Like sing really good!"

"Oh, no I wasn't singing? That was...that was definitely just the radio, I can't sing for shit, you know that--"

"Nuh uh Harrington, I know your dirty little secret now! You've got pipes!"

Steve rolled his eyes.

"Rob." He started putting stuff away again. "You of all people know I can't sing to save my life."

"I just heard you, don't know why you're denying it."

"Whatever, go get your vest before Keith gets here." Steve nodded towards the break room door but smiled at her knowingly.

"Fucking knew it!" She shouted as she went to put her vest on. "Why are you trying to hide this magnificent gift God herself has bestowed upon you?"

Steve shrugged and handed her half his stack once she got back.

"Don't tell anyone, don't need you messing up what little cred I have left."

She flipped him off.

He stuck his tongue out at her.

Life went on.

ii.

Steve made the mistake of telling Dustin where the spare key to his front door was. Under the ceramic frog in the planter left of the door. But the kid was basically his little brother and he'd shown Steve where his spare key was the week before. So they were even now.

So Dustin let himself and the rest of the party into Steve's house for an impromptu hang out sesh. Mike, Lucas, and Max made a beeline for the kitchen to drop off the arm fulls of snack they had while Dustin showed Will and Jane around.

Jane had started going by "Jane" full time since the Hopper-Byers move and the party was supportive as always. And since their move, the party had had three? maybe four hang outs at Steve's. So a tour was necessary since they missed the preliminary Casa de Harrington party.

"Holy shit do you guys hear that?" Will whispered once they got to the second floor's landing.

The other two stopped and listened. They heard a shower running and a radio going. Nothing special. Dustin strained his ears.

"No way."

"'No way' what?" Lucas asked as he, Max, and Mike joined them.

"That's Steve singing in the shower!"

"What's so bad about him singing in the shower?" Jane asked.

"Steve can't sing to save his life!" Mike said, incredulously.

"He's not that bad guys," Max tried to defend him.

"Okay, I love the guy like a brother but he drives me to school everyday and no, he cannot sing." Dustin explained as they crept closer to the bathroom door.

The shower shut off and his voice became clearer. The party continued bickering until the door swung open. Steam billowed out and Steve sang a line until he noticed the gaggle of teenagers in his hallway.

"What the fuck guys."

"What the fuck yourself Steven!" Mike shot back.

"Yeah, are you serious? For like, almost a year I've had to listen to you screech along to the radio when you've had the voice of an angel this whole time?! That's just plain rude." Dustin crossed his arms dramatically.

"Angelic's a little generous, Henderson."

"Your voice is really pretty," Jane said in awe.

Steve blushed and wrapped his arms around his torso.

"Thanks kid. Hey, how's Missouri treating you guys?" Steve pulled his shirt from the floor and put it on.

"Pretty good, the school has a huge library and Will joined an art club!" Jane said excitedly.

Will nodded along with her, putting his hands into his hoodie.

"Oh that's awesome! Glad you guys like it up there--"

"Can we get back to the whole 'Steve can actually sing' thing? Because that's still blowing my mind," Lucas interjected, flailing his arms a little.

"Yeah, can you sing Whitney? Because those were some pretty high notes if my ears don't decieve me." Max grinned evilly.

"No, I can't sing Whitney, I can barely sing, remember?" Steve sounded like he was talking to toddlers.

"Dude, none of use are deaf, we all heard." Mike gave him an unimpressed look.

"Yeah, and that was Queen and you definitely hit all those high notes. You can totally sing Whitney!" Max laughed and nudged Will when he stifled a giggle.

"I can't believe I'm being mocked by a bunch of 10 year olds!"

"We're fifteen, Harrington," Dustin said sarcastically.

Steve rolled his eyes.

"Okay, can you shits get out of my room so I can get dressed? Don't feel like spending the day in a towel while you make fun of my singing abilities."

He started to herd them towards the stairs as they protested, claiming they weren't making fun, just confused as to why he would torture them with a fake awful voice.

When Steve came downstairs, Max pushed play on the tape player in the living room. "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" started playing and Steve turned red.

"This isn't fucking karaoke night you dweebs!"

But he started laughing when they all started throwing popcorn at him and he proceeded to dump snacks onto everyone else, starting an epic pre-movie night food fight.

iii.

Robin's parents were going to be out of town for the first time in a thousand years so, naturally, she was throwing a party.

It wasn't a typical high school rager, more like a get together between friends and absolutely no children, Steve!

So really it was just Steve, Nancy, Jonathan, Barb, and Billy.

Steve and Billy came over early to help make food. Which translated to Steve making food while Billy sat on the couch and read, using the "I died for you bitches" excuse for the millionth time.

And ever since Robin had caught him singing at work, he became more and more comfortable singing around her. She didn't ask about him singing around Billy. So here he was, singing while mixing something together in a bowl. Like a goddamn housewife.

"If my parents were here they'd be so pleased I found a nice boy who knows what he's doing in the kitchen." She said as she measured some milk out for the brownies.

She could hear Billy snort from the living room over the "knowing what he's doing in the kitchen" comment.

Steve laughed and kicked at her shins.

Wham! came on and Steve's face lit up. And it was the yo-yo song, the best freaking one. And Robin was in band so her inntonation wasn't like awful, she definitely had the lungs for singing.

So they were singing along to George Michael in the Buckley's colorful kitchen while making brownies when the other three showed up.

"You can sing?" Barb asked with big eyes.

"You act like I've never sung in front you you before." Steve replied while hunching over, self conscious.

"Yeah but normally it's more...pitchy," Nancy offered.

"We're not judging your anything man, you've got a great voice," Jonathan filled in quickly. "Didn't really believe Will when he said Steve could sing."

He said that last part mostly to Nancy, but everyone heard it.

And Robin was kind of done. Because Steve told her, one time when they were hotboxing his car, that he sang bad on purpose because his dad thought it was "faggy" to be able sing that well. That he sounded like Freddie and George and Bowie in the worst way. And she knew he was bi, knew he got embarrassed when people started talking about him singing because of what his dad said.

She was about to call them out when Billy flipping Hargrove beat her to it.

"Leave him alone, you're just jealous your pipes aren't as good," Billy said in a monotone voice from the couch.

"It's fine, Billy, they're--"

"No he's right, lay off."

Nancy and Jonathan at least had the decency to look embarrassed. Barb walked into the kitchen to help out.

"Your voice really is good. Didn't mean to sound so shocked before. You were just...really good. And I totally remember you singing into a hairbrush that one time? And your voice cracked all over the place?" Barb bumped her hip into Steve's, wiggling her eyebrow.

"Oh my god, I almost lost my voice from that! God, that was forever ago, cannot believe you remember that."

"Yeah that's what made me realize 'King Steve" was like an actual human boy, not this entity the entire school and Nancy made you out to be."

Billy migrated from the couch to the counter when he heard the words "King Steve" and put his book on the counter top.

"When was this?" And thank god for Billy because Robin wanted to ask so bad what they were talking about.

"Oh Steve threw a little party back in junior year to woo Nancy and he was a little buzzed and was trying to make her laugh by singing along to, what was it?" Barb turned to smirk at Steve.

"ABBA, it's was ABBA."

Billy rolled his eyes and mumbled "of course" as Robin cackled.

"Very on brand, dingus."

"Yeah but he overexaggerated the awfulness and his voice cracked, like, painfully. Like, I felt it, it was so bad!"

Steve scrunched up his nose at the memory and laughed. Robin and Billy started laughing too and Barb continued telling embarrassing stories about Steve that the other two had never heard before.

+i.

Steve jolted awake to a loud clattering sound coming from the other end of his room.

"How many times do I have to tell you to clear off your fucking desk, Harrington," Billy stage whispered angrily.

"How many times do I have to tell you to use the fucking front door, Hargrove."

Steve hopped out of bed to meet Billy by the window. He scanned his face for bruises which made Billy rolls his eyes.

"Can't a guy just visit his boyfriend in the middle of the night without anything being wrong?"

"Yeah but you only sneak in through my window when you've had a bad night, you dramatic fuck." Steve cupped Billy's face with one hand and let him lean into it.

Comfortable silence enveloped them before Billy broke it.

"Couldn't sleep," he mumbled.

"Okay." Steve let Billy drop his head into his shoulder. " Do you wanna talk about it or go to bed?"

Because "couldn't sleep" is generally code for nightmares.

Billy shrugged, shoulder bumping Steve's chin a little, and Steve nodded, tugging him towards the bed.

He helped Billy get down to just his boxers and a tee before getting under the covers. Steve positioned them so that Billy was half laying in Steve with his ear over his heart and their legs tangled. Because Steve liked the pressure and Billy liked listening to the steady thrum of his heartbeat.

They laid like that for a minute, getting comfortable and used to each other's warmth.

And Billy had told him, a long time ago, that his mom used to sing to him when he couldn't sleep. And that was before Billy knew Steve could actually sing. That was what made Steve sing for real in front of him.

So, on nights like this, Steve sang.

He started humming the intro to "Going to California", moving his fingers in time up and down Billy's back. Billy let out a sigh and pressed himself closer into Steve's chest.

So Steve sang into the dark of his bedroom, chasing away monsters; the kind that live in your house and the kind that live underground, until Billy drifted off and pulled Steve with him into a warm and deep sleep that only comes when wrapped around someone you love.

#harringrove #fic #my writings #HOLY SHIT #guys pls read this i spent three hours frantically writing this thx #harringrove fanfic #this is kind of mean to nancy and jonathan but i dont like them so suck it #and theres backstory on ao3 but hopper survives and lives with the Byers and therefore moves with them and barb is here bc i said so #its a happy boys and supportive lesbians fic fight me

[punkscowardschampions]

Ali & Ro

Ali: One of your kids is here??? Ro: Oh no! Ro: I double checked everyone was aware of the cancellations and everything Ali: You know what people are like, probably received but didn't actually read/listen to the message, like Ali: I'll quickly get in before ma can be her charming self any harder Ro: Thank you Ali: [allow time for that] Ali: Done Ali: Why'd you have to cancel anyway? Ro: Sadly I have yet to master being able to be in two places at once, especially when one of those places is so ridiculously far away Ro: What's more surprising though is that you've remained at home for long enough shepherd my pupil in and out for me without assumedly cursing Tess Ali: Ugh, I feel that Ali: until we're blessed with time-turners, we'll all have to muddle through Ali: and I've been there enough myself to guess where you are, so I won't pout about any potential adventures you could've been on Ali: everyone is DOA and MIA today, plus if I let her shout at me for long enough she might not ground me forever 🤞 Ro: Indeed Ro: Well, I can't deny that would be very much appreciated as I've been subjected to plenty of pouting already as things stand Ro: You can let her know that I'll be making my grand return soon enough which will at the very least give her another target should she desire one Ali: You can probably ignore him, he's just feeling the ill-effects of a 3-day bender, like Ali: some hydration and vitamin c and he'll be over it Ali: can't say the same of mother but my sins definitely outweigh yours Ali: though the offer is appreciated 💚 Ro: He's very much fine in that regard I'd been assured prior to my arrival and of course did my part to truly make it so by making him a late lunch or early dinner once I got there Ro: Regrettably, that offer was taken very much not in the manner it was intended Ro: The tally of my sins therefore apparently exceed the number of yours, in Drew's eyes at any rate Ali: Sounds like Drew Ali: you spoil him Ali: Caleb's mum made him work today, as he was too sick for school Ro: All I've spoilt is his afternoon seemingly Ro: Yet again, I'm a waste of time Ali: Hey Ali: don't take on his bad mood just 'cos he's mad he didn't get what he wanted Ali: you know it's bullshit Ro: None of his grievances are unfounded Ro: I shouldn't break promises Ro: Even if I did make them for less than ideal reasons Ali: No, but you know Ali: you have those reasons regardless Ro: And he has his own reasons to be upset Ali: Which you're clearly giving a fuck about Ali: so he owes you the same in return, yeah Ro: Of course, but his anger is fuelled by how much he does care, obviously Ro: It's because he likes me so much that he wants to take things further than they are Ali: Partly Ali: but I don't think anyone can say that that's all it is Ali: not to discredit how he feels in any way Ali: if anything, it takes into consideration all aspects Ro: He is the only one who can address that with any degree of clarity but its a conversation we're unlikely to have for a while Ali: I'm sure it won't be anything like that long Ro: That almost sounds as if you are in fact discrediting how he feels but I have no desire to get into a disagreement with you about the one I just had with him Ali: No, I'm saying he's nothing if not persistent Ali: trust me, he'll get over it if he has any sense Ro: It's less about the sense he possesses and more about the degree to which my own has abandoned me Ali: Do you regret the fact you didn't or regret the fact you were considering it? Ro: Both regrets somehow exist side by side and I have no idea how that can be Ro: Or which of the many internal voices vocalising my many mistakes I should begin to listen to Ali: Sounds about right Ali: are you in love with him? Ro: Yes Ali: Yeah Ali: it's Ali: the worst kind of headfuck Ali: amongst many other things Ro: What would you do in my place? Ali: About what Ali: specifically Ro: My next move Ro: He says I won't lose him but I know it's more likely than not Ro: Especially now that Carly has her own caravan to host in Ali: You shouldn't do it if that's the only reason why Ali: doing it because you're fearful of any outcome is just a bad idea Ali: it should always be primarily that you want to Ro: I do want to but I also don't want to Ro: It's complicated Ali: It is Ali: it might stop being complicated Ali: or you might do it before it does Ali: either of those is fine and valid Ro: What if it doesn't and I can't? Ali: You will Ali: if you want to, then you will Ali: I said it was the most important factor but definitely not the only, not even close Ali: it's complex but you know, like most things, stressing upon it will never make it less so Ro: I suppose Ali: It's like all this stuff isn't it Ali: thinking you'll never get your period and then it just happens Ali: we've all got our own pace for all of it Ro: And my pace is several steps behind always Ro: Maybe next time I should just go to the party Ali: Well his is coming up so Ali: you will be at that one Ro: Oh my god, don't remind me I haven't even begun brainstorming gifts yet Ali: 😂 Ali: you do have time Ali: but it might distract you from this worry so have at it Ro: You're so fortunate that Caleb's is ages away Ali: I know Ali: so much of me cannot hack that, I'd actually die Ro: After emerging from Carly's mostly unscathed, you could be forgiven for believing yourself immortal, I'm sure Ali: It was pretty hectic Ali: not sure if I'd say life-threateningly so but keep that between us Ali: could tell ma though Ali: keep her from hysteria Ro: I'll use that as my conversational opener when I come in if you'd like Ali: Subtle, cheers Ali: tell her there were no recreational drugs or pre-maritial relations too, whilst you're at it Ro: Carly would appreciate the lack of, I'm certain Ro: More so than Tess would my attempts at such a clearly crafted lie Ali: Can't win with her, like Ali: don't lead with that though Ali: even if that's a truth Ro: It's the kind of day I'm having Ro: I'll simply wish on everything possible that the losses extend to calories as well Ali: Don't waste the magic Ali: I know you skipped lunch Ro: You know because I told you I was busy running around after Drew Ali: Exactly Ro: Nonetheless, I've spent more time on this bus than anything else Ro: It's a pity I can't transfigure my bike here Ali: it seems like a good idea until it starts chucking it down halfway Ro: True, I'd be unlikely to garner any sympathy or permission for more time off from Tess even if I caught my death Ali: Seriously Ali: if she has to see any of us tomorrow at all, she might actually lose it completely Ali: what with Bea and Fraze being their delightful selves all weekend too Ali: the only ones not on the shit list rn are Tommy and Joe and that's only through absence Ro: Precisely Ro: Much like how the idea of finding birthday gifts for Drew is favorable after the nightmarish pursuit we all have to endure in order to provide something that Bea will undoubtedly dislike and return where possible Ali: 😂 s'why I kick it homemade Ali: good luck finding any takers for my sentimental tat, babe Ali: bless Ro: Alas the memory of my childish homemade cards finding their way to the recycling bin earlier than I feel necessary haunts me still Ro: Did Carly like what you made for her though? Ali: 😞 Ali: Yes, thankfully she's far more receptive and forthcoming with her thanks Ali: and the caravan looks amazing Ali: looked, I HOPE everyone kept out Ro: It would be difficult for her not to be, Bea, of course, is without competition in that regard Ro: I was impressed by the pictures despite being well aware of your artistic eye and resourcefulness in gathering materials Ro: Perhaps you should take and utilise all the magic yourself immediately Ro: Protection spells have been employed and succeeded for less Ali: True Ali: and a good idea to boot Ali: I better do it remotely Ali: aside from me leaving the house for anything but school and work rn being a deathwish, I'm not sure of the state I'd find the residents in, like Ro: Hm, yes arguably that is an even better idea Ali: Obviously, I do not plan to be her prisoner for long Ali: but for a great escape, I need even greater plans on the outside Ro: It would be my pleasure to extend such an offer, dear sister, but my own flight of fancy earlier did little else but backfire so it's best I stay under lock and key until I feel suitably chastised Ro: Either by Tess or myself Ali: Self-flagellation is next to godliness, of course Ali: I'll think of something Ro: I have no doubt that you will Ro: But whilst the subject of faltering has been raised, can I ask you something? Ali: of course Ali: scientia potentia est Ro: I was just wondering if you spent much time with Drew this weekend, that's all Ali: Not a huge amount Ali: but I saw him about, doing his thing Ali: if I saw anything like that I would've kicked his arse and told you Ali: in that exact order Ro: Okay Ro: Well, thank you Ali: Of course Ali: sisterhood before everything Ali: especially boys Ro: My favorite religion and the one to which I've been devoted to for the longest and most faithfully Ali: 💚 Ali: What's your ETA? Ro: 13 and a half minutes Ali: Ooh precise Ali: that'll please the jailer Ali: tell her 15 and you'll be back in the good books when you're arse is up the table without her even having to shout up the stairs Ali: 👍 Ro: I already told her 21 minutes so I have enough time to fix my face somewhere that isn't a very full bus Ro: She doesn't need to know that I've been crying Ali: 😕 Ali: Cold water fixes all Ali: we can talk about it properly after Ali: feels like forever Ro: It's not too late to pray for a summer storm Ro: Though it seems everyone misses me until they get the opportunity to spend time with me, so I might be wise to adjust my prayers accordingly actually Ali: Not everyone Ali: just him Ali: and just because he's mad Ali: we'll tea and talk, promise Ro: As long as you share too Ali: I gotcha Ali: you wanna hear all the fantastical and sordid exploits Ro: Fantastical yes, sordid not so much Ali: 😂 Ali: I'll do my best to spin the yarn into something comfortable and befitting Ali: don't worry Ro: Being guaranteed one less thing to overthink about will forever be appreciated Ali: That's my job Ali: one of Ali: labour of love, really Ro: tá mé i ngrá leat freisin Ali: 💚💚💚 Ali: right, I got a table to set Ali: not gonna know what's hit her Ali: Rock even agreed not to throw any spaghetti up the wall Ali: providing I buy him sweets for a week Ro: I'm in awe of your power whether or not she will be Ali: whether a six-year-old can stick to a deal is another thing Ali: did threaten him with a broken pinkie so 🤞 Ro: I'll likewise threaten him with the type of hex befitting a 6 year old promise breaker if needs be Ali: 💀🐸🐀🕯🥀💀 Ro: Our minds have always worked in similar ways, that's a truth which deserves to be universally acknowledged Ro: But for now, go Ro: There will be plenty of time for talking later

[spiritroots]

Hi Yejide. Recently, I've been feeling a calling to explore root workin' and ancestral veneration. I've been raised Baptist and still maintain a relationship with Christ, but lately I've just been feeling this internal pull to honor my ancestors. I don't know exactly how or where to start. My entire life, I've been raised to believe that doing any kind of root work is witchcraft and inherently evil. How did you decolonize your mind and break out of that fear?

Hi anon (: Welcome to the struggle! I’m happy for you that you’re feeling the ancestral call, and I hope some of this very long response (+1.4k words, I counted lmao) is helpful in one way or another. 

First off, I want to emphasize a couple different things. For one, hoodoo/rootwork is NOT the same as witchcraft at all. It can be overlapped with witchcraft and/or it can be referred to as a form of witchcraft by black folks who wish to call it that, which is a perfectly valid, personal terminology choice. However, historically, rootwork/hoodoo derives from the various ATRs (African traditional religions) that were practiced by black slaves brought to the US. 

ATRs are not witchcraft either, they are traditional religions practiced by peoples indigenous to Africa that deserve the same amount of respect as any other religion in the world. The negative stereotypes about them are based on racism and attempts to dehumanize African peoples and their descendants in the diaspora who practiced their ancestral traditions. Any time you start to slip into that way of thinking about ATRs, remind yourself that they are religions as deserving of respect as any other religion.

Most African slaves in the US were forced to practice various denominations of Protestant Christianity and abandon their traditional religions or face severe punishments - even death. Hoodoo/rootwork is largely the result of many different practices and beliefs from ATRs combined together and syncretized with Christianity. It is a folk magic tradition that was developed not only during slavery but also largely within the black church. The ties between hoodoo and Christianity are very deep. You don’t have to be Christian to practice rootwork, but it’s not at all un-Christian to practice it either if that’s something you’re interested in doing. (Since you mentioned you still maintain a relationship with Jesus, I figured that might be something you’d wanna look into.)

The majority of traditional rootworkers in the US have always been and still are Protestant Christian. It’s traditional in hoodoo to pray to Jesus during workings, and it’s said that Moses himself was the very first rootworker in history. Why? Because the original Christian rootworkers viewed rootwork as powerful prayers, asking for the help of God to heal, protect, and sometimes issue divine judgment. Hoodoo wasn’t traditionally seen as witchcraft at all, and in fact, has long been used as a method for fighting against witchcraft. Many of the most respected and famous rootworkers in history were also preachers and pastors. Some consider being a good church-going Christian as a pre-requisite to being a rootworker. The Bible itself, especially the Book of Psalms, is traditionally viewed as a powerful source of hoodoo magic.

Now, I’m not sure if you were already aware of any of this or if this information is helpful to you, but I think it’s important for anyone studying hoodoo to understand this side of its history whether you want to connect with these aspects of it or not. If you’re curious at all about my personal journeys of dealing with Christian views on witchcraft and also decolonization within my magic and religious practices, see the mini-novel I ended up writing at 3 am for this ask under the read more line below 😂😂😂

[ Ask me anything ] [ Buy me a coffee ] [ Spirit Roots Shop ] [ About Me ]

It took me about a solid ten years to get to where I am now with decolonizing my mind and breaking out of Christianity-related fears around magic practices. I’ll still always be in the process of decolonization for the rest of my life, but within the past few years, I’ve made some big strides that I’m very proud of for myself. As I hope most of my followers know, I’m not a witch and don’t identify as one for personal and historical + cultural reasons within the context of Africana traditions. BUT that being said, for much of my life I did identify as a witch and actively study witchcraft for a very long time.

I declared myself a Wiccan at the age of thirteen, which was inspired by watching Charmed, yes, but that didn’t lessen the seriousness of it for me as being an actual religious path and practice I wanted to commit myself to. Being an only child who told my very liberal parents everything, I quickly confessed this to them expecting acceptance and happiness for me. Unfortunately, their Christian knee-jerk reaction alongside concerns about a thirteen-year-old learning about witchcraft, fertility rites, and sex-related rituals was enough for them to give me an ultimatum to stop being both a Wiccan and a witch.

That sent me deep into secrecy about it for around a solid 8 years or so - essentially all the way through high school until I had more independence in college. During that whole time, I always felt like I was genuinely a witch and Wiccan and no other religion fit me, but I was too scared to practice because of my parents’ reaction and them having “banned” it. I remember that constant longing mixed with fear of being a witch in my heart while feeling like it would never actually be accepted by anyone in my life.

During college, I finally realized that I could practice it more actively without worrying about my parents anymore. I remember going through all the stages of testing the waters with that, the ex-Christian pangs of guilt and intrigue, the concerns about what Drew and my friends would think and then being the cool and edgy witchy friend after finally mustering the courage to tell them. It was like I could finally be who I always knew that I was inside, but it had required a long process of unraveling the shame and the guilt and the fear, too.

Now, to be totally honest with you, I wouldn’t consider ANY of that decolonization. That was really just my journey of breaking away from a mostly Christian upbringing (my Jewish roots didn’t really play an anti-witchcraft role at all tbh) and finding the freedom to more openly be a witch and deepen my practice of witchcraft and of Wicca. Beginning to decolonize for me was a whole other journey that started soon afterward.

Fast forward to after I started studying Wicca in enough depth as a college student that I realized it really wasn’t for me and ended up converting to Buddhism instead. In a roundabout way, it was converting to Buddhism that sent me down a very different path. I was and still am a very devout Buddhist, but even though the buddha dharma is universal, Buddhism as a religion is deeply rooted in Asian cultures which is not a part of my heritage. As my Buddhist practice deepened over time, so did my longing for ancestral traditions and practices. This is what got me started with ancestor work and studying hoodoo, which is what eventually led me to an interest in ATRs and Ifá in particular. Even reconnecting with my Jewish heritage and identity was a part of this journey to tap back into my ancestral practices and spirituality.

The more I learned about these Africana traditions, the further away I got from Eurocentric ways of thinking about spirituality and magic. Converting to Buddhism from Wicca began my big push away from Eurocentric frameworks, and getting involved with hoodoo and Ifá only cemented that even further for me. Yes, witchcraft can be defined in whatever way one wants so I’m not saying people can’t practice completely non-Eurocentric witchcraft - some people absolutely do that. But for me personally, leaving the concept of “witchcraft” and the identity of “witch” behind completely was even more liberating than reconnecting with it in the first place had ever been. This was a huge part of my personal decolonization process for many different reasons.

That’s all a very long story and explanation, but that’s essentially my point. It can literally take decades to undergo the personal journeys necessary for unraveling and growing beyond what you were raised to believe and what society impresses upon you. Growing up in a very Christian household and in a Western society that enmeshes you in Eurocentric ways of thinking makes it extremely difficult because that’s all your surrounded by for most of your life. 

Unfortunately, there’s no handbook or manual guide for all this. It’s very challenging and difficult. One thing I wish I had had more of through all of it was support from role models and mentors to understand better where I was going and where I wanted to end up. Maybe if I had, these journeys might have been a bit shorter and smoother. If you can, find communities and mentors who can help you grow, but also always listen to your instincts and your own intuition. I wish you the best of luck on your way

#ask #personal #witchcraft #christianity #hoodoo #rootwork #conjure #psalms #buddhism #eurocentric #eutradtattoo #wicca #atr #ifa #aboutme #slavery #blackhistory

[redrobinfection]

Completely Roundabout, Pt 2

<<Part 1 (Tim’s Birthday)

JayTim - Freeform // Pre-relationship; enemies to friends to lovers; jumping straight into the “we’re not really friends but we kind of are?” stage // 2.9 K // Read on Ao3

Happy Birthday, Jason!! ❤

~*~

“Shit.”

“Hmm?”

“Dammit!”

“Uhhh, what’s up, Red?” Jason asked cautiously, raising an eyebrow at the red and black-clad vigilante sitting beside him on the edge of the roof.

“I just realized that today is September sixteenth,” Red Robin replied as he scrubbed a gauntleted hand over his masked eyes.

“Umm, and this is a problem because…”

“Because it’s been an entire month since August sixteenth.”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “And that date is relevant because…”

Red Robin stared at him. “Hood. That’s your birthday. Remember?”

Jason snorted. “Oh, that?” He reached around the rim of his helmet, deftly unlatched the complicated clasp, and pulled the ‘hood’ off. He ran a gloved hand through his hair and cocked an eyebrow from behind his domino as he turned and asked, “But why’s that a big deal? My birthday was a month ago; why’s that important now?”

Red Robin groaned, leaning back on his hands, surveillance of the precious metals depository in front of them long forgotten - that was okay; based on the intel they’d gotten, nothing was likely to happen that night anyway, Jason figured.

“I completely forgot about it, that’s why,” Red replied quietly, looking pained. Jason opened his mouth to put Red’s concerns to rest - who cared about his birthday, he certainly didn’t - but Red didn’t notice as he stared off at the twinkling skyline. “You remembered mine at the last moment and then were thoughtful enough to do something after the fact.”

“Tim,” Jason sighed, “look, I appreciate the thought, but we were kind of in the middle of dealing with, what, two alien invasions, and then chasing down, like, what, four different supervillians a month ago? Let’s be real, I didn’t even get a chance to think about my own birthday.”

Tim was so upset about the whole thing he didn’t even comment on Jason breaking the no names in the field rule. “Yeah, but I remember remembering it a week after the fact, and I meant to do something, but now it’s been three more weeks and I completely forgot.”

Jason grimaced. If he’d known back when he first came back how much thought his replacement put into beating himself up over every little thing he probably would have gone easier on the kid that first time they’d met. Maybe. He certainly would have aimed to plant more ideas to psychologically traumatize the newest Robin rather than spend so much energy beating on him physically; there was no one better at beating Tim up than Tim himself, he’d come to find out.

As it was now, Jason kind of wished a good pummeling could knock all the self-deprecating thoughts out of the younger man. It would certainly be easier than trying to convince Red Robin to go easier on himself.

“Little Red, you’re making too big a deal out of this.” Jason shook his head. “It was just a birthday. It would have been nice if you had said something, but I’m not upset that you didn’t, not given how overwhelmed we were these past couple of weeks.”

Tim frowned, looking uncertain. Jason leaned forward into Red’s space, huffing a laugh as he added, “I mean it’s just something we humans have made into bigger deal than is really necessary, right? What’s the big deal about a birthday, anyway?”

Red Robin backed away from the ledge and threw down his cowl. Tim’s eyebrows rose as he turned to face Jason, exhaustion melting away to incredulity. “Um. Only that it celebrates the fact that you exist and that you’re alive and that you’ve managed to stay alive for so many years! And, we of all people - you of all people - have the most to celebrate for the feat of staying alive in spite of everything!”

Jason ignored the backhanded reference to his death and raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You certainly didn’t seem to care all that much about your own birthday. You didn’t remind anyone, didn’t ask for a dinner or a party or anything, didn’t even cancel your work meetings or your patrol that night. So what? It’s only important if it’s not your birthday, if it’s not your life?”

Tim blinked then looked away, abashed. The silence stretched but Jason waited, determined to crack through Tim’s self-deprecation on this one. It was one thing that he’d thrown Tim around and talked like he was trash for trying to take his place, back when Jason was in that bad, bad place; and it was one thing that the demon brat had channeled his uncertainty and anxiety over his place in the family into misplaced aggression towards his older brother and predecessor, and repeated attacked him for it, back in the day; but it was another thing entirely that Tim insisted on throwing himself away even after Jason and Damian had both come to appreciate Tim for who he was and what he had to offer as a brother and peer.

He and Damian still had trouble admitting to themselves sometimes how much they admired and respected Tim, and they still gave him shit on a semi-regular basis, if only to hide their shame for how they’d treated him without thinking their actions through, but they appreciated the hell outta him now, so Jason would be damned if he let Tim appreciate himself any less than they did.

Tim fiddled with his gauntlets and shifted his legs restlessly, making Jason think he might try to jump up and run away from the questions - Jason would chase him down if he had to, so help him - but eventually Tim found the words to respond.

“No, it’s not… I don't… Everyone’s life is important, even mine, it’s just not something you’re supposed to make a big deal out of yourself, I think,” Tim explained, looking thoughtful. “I make a big deal out of everyone else’s birthdays, but I don’t make a big deal out of my own because that… it doesn't… I don’t feel like…”

Tim paused to swallow and Jason waited, knowing deep down what Tim was going to say next. “I just feel like it would be really self-centered to call attention to myself instead of letting other people decide if they wanted to remember and celebrate on their own.”

“So, by that logic, how can you really blame me for not making a fuss over my own birthday?” Jason asked, tilting his head towards Tim with a savage grin.

Tim gaped. Jason didn’t often pull out his quiet, rational side, so often it surprised people that he still had one, but he could still keep up with the best of them when he had to - Tim included. After a moment, Tim huffed a laugh and settled back onto the roof.

“Okay, point taken,” Tim conceded with a grin. “However, in that case we should both make a bigger deal out of our birthdays,” he added, surprising Jason. “They’re important. Yeah, other cultures will celebrate different days or celebrate in different ways, but the meaning is the same: we’re alive and we’re stayin’ alive and that means something. That means a lot to people like us.” Tim paused and looked Jason straight in the eye. “It means a lot to me.”

You mean a lot to me was the unspoken takeaway from that and Jason wasn’t sure what to make out of that sentiment. He had beaten this kid bloody, treated him like crap at one time. Things were better now, but he still really couldn’t understand why Tim cared as much as he did.

To be fair, he wasn’t sure why it bothered him so much that Tim beat himself up or didn’t give himself the credit he was due, so maybe there was something worthwhile between them after all.

Sometimes he felt like they both saw something in each other that reminded them of themselves, something that reminded them of who and what they’d always wanted to be. Something that reminded them that for as far as they fell, there were always ways to pick themselves back up again.

So, yeah, maybe there was something small, but meaningful between them, and maybe - just maybe - Tim meant a lot to him, now, too.

—

A week passed after that night and he and Tim ran into each other a few times, but the younger man didn’t bring up Jason’s birthday again.

Not until one quiet night when he showed up on the roof where Jason was taking a break, carrying what looked like a black and red box wrapped clothes box.

“Uhhhh, hey there, babybird. To what do I owe the honor?”

Red Robin approached, pressing the package against his chest with one arm so he could yank down his cowl with the other. He stopped in front of Jason and offered the package to him.

“Happy Birthday, Jay.”

Jason shifted and studied the package. It was roughly twelve by nine inches in size and an impressive three inches deep, and it was covered in black matte paper with shiny red foil bats all over it.

“Where did you get that paper?”

“I made it.”

“What, really?”

Tim rolled his eyes. “Yes. It’s not that amazing. Just take the gift already; I swear it’s not a bomb or a trap.”

Jason squinted at Tim appraisingly - teasingly - but reached for the package. The sides of it were firm under his fingers, so he grasped it tightly, but when Tim released his grip, Jason wasn’t prepared for how heavy it would be and he almost dropped the thing.

“Holy fuck, man, what is in this? Lead? Wait, you didn’t get me ammo, did you?” he joked with a grin. “I didn’t think you approved of anything other than the rubber kind.”

Tim shook his head with an abashed smile. “Shut up and open it already.”

Jason slowly peeled back the paper to reveal black cloth and gold embossed letters. Tearing away the rest revealed a book. A huge-ass book. Jason studied the sides of it.

“Holy hell, Babybird, is this a book or a weapon or both…?”

His voice trailed off as he read the shiny title on the cover then whipped the cover open to check the title page.

The Library Shakspeare

Jason was speechless. He looked up at Tim then back down at the book and then flipped through the huge pages numbly. Tim cleared his throat.

“I… Alfred… I did some research and figured out that you really appreciate Shakespeare’s works, so I tracked down a copy of this thing,” Tim explained awkwardly. “It’s all his works, unabridged, everything from his comedies to his sonnets. Everything of import he ever wrote, all in a single volume.”

“With illustrations,” Jason added, staring at an old-style lithograph on one page. Tim choked out a laugh and scratched the back of his head.

“Yeah, with some old crappy-ass pictures. Sorry. I always kind of ignored them in my copy….”

Jason shook his head and looked up at Tim again, stunned. “Man, no, this is awesome! Thank you.” He flipped through the pages again, tugging off one glove so he could run his bare fingers over the creamy smooth paper, stopping at one of the sonnets and mouthing the first familiar lines.

“I don't… I can't… This is amazing, man. Thanks for thinking of me. This is perfect.”

Tim smiled, looking relieved. “You’re welcome. I’m glad you like it. You went through the effort to give me such meaningful gifts, I really wanted to return the favor.”

Jason scoffed. “I got you a sticker and a bag of marshmallows; that was nothing. This… oh man… this is way better than the little things I got you.”

Tim shrugged. “Yeah, I guess they were small and inexpensive, but they were thoughtful - I don’t even know when or how you found out about the marshmallows - and, well, they made me smile.” Jason looked up in time to catch a small smile lighten Tim’s face as he admitted as much to him. Jason mirrored the expression and repeated his thanks.

“But really; thank you, man. Best birthday gift in a long time.”

Tim jumped, eyes widening. “Oh, shit, hold on I almost forgot the…where’d I…” Jason cocked his head as Tim rifled through his pouches. “Aha! Here.”

Tim offered him a small resealable pouch and Jason opened it warily. “I wasn’t sure what kind you’d like best - I’m more of a coffee person, you know - but Alfred said you had a soft-spot for oolongs and the shop owner said that this was one of the best and…”

Jason lost track of what Tim said after that, he was too consumed by what he discovered when he examined the gift. The foil-lined pouch was filled with loose-leaf oolong, just as Tim had advertised, and the moment he lifted the pouch to take a careful sniff, he was gone. That shop owner hadn’t steered Tim wrong - this was a top quality, classic oolong, and Jason was drowning in the multi-dimensional floral notes, dying in the mellow grassy undertones, and coming back to life again in how light and perfectly balanced the combined fragrance was. If it smelled this good, it had to taste amazing.

“-son? Hey, Jason? Did… did I do okay?”

“Wh-what?” Jason blinked down at Tim, who had backed up a step and looked uncertain as he gestured to the tea. “Is… is it okay?”

Jason stared. “No. It’s not.” Tim’s face fell and he blanched. “Holy shit, babybird, no, it’s not okay, it’s so much better than okay, this has to be the best tea I’ve ever held. Jeez, man, you’re two for two with this gift… jeez… I don’t deserve all of this… you seriously outdid yourself, man.”

Tim blinked then broke out into a relieved laugh. “Got lucky, I guess. I thought it smelled interesting, but most of the credit goes to that tea shop guy. I’ll have to let him know his choice went over well.”

“Dude, jeez, give yourself some fucking credit. This is amazing man - the book, the tea - just… thank you. Really. Thank you, Tim.”

“You’re welcome.”

They lapsed into an uncertain silence after that, Jason sealing up the tea carefully and pulling out cord to bind the book closed for the trip home. Tim edged towards the lip of the roof as if he was thinking of taking off immediately now that his objective had been achieved.

“Hey, why don’t you-” Jason started at the same time Tim said “Well, I should really-”

They laughed. “You first,” Tim offered, pulling up his cowl at the same time he pulled out his grapple.

“Tonight’s been pretty slow, and I know you’re not a fan, but you should really try this tea,” Jason suggested. “One sip and you’ll understand how you really knocked it out of the park with this one. I’ve got a place nearby that I was gonna head back to soon, anyway; you should come over and we can try it out.”

Red Robin shifted uncertainly. “Are you sure?” This was the first time he had invited Tim to any of his safehouses, Jason realized, but screw it, Tim probably knew about most of them anyway - he’d already proven he knew about Tim’s when he gave him belated birthday gifts two months ago - and if they were at the stage where Tim cared enough to track him down after over a month to give him gifts of Shakespeare and tea that was worth more than its weight in silver, then it was way past time to give Tim the chance to prove he could be trusted in Jason’s home space.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

Red Robin still looked uncomfortable, the lines of his body tense and his mouth downturned under the blank stare of his cowl. “I mean, I do have a few things I should follow up on anyway, so maybe…”

“You know what would probably taste like fucking heaven with this tea?” Jason cut in, sending Red a wink as he set down the book so he could get his hood on again. “Marshmallows. Really, Red, we gotta try it; you gotta try it with me. We can run by the mini-mart on the corner and pick up a bag of jumbo-puffed right now. Whaddya say?”

Red paused, then laughed out loud. Jason relaxed as he watched the tension bleed out of Red’s shoulders with the laughter. “Okay, you got me, now I gotta know what that tastes like. Let’s do it,” Red answered with a grin. He turned to face the street. “Lead the way.”

Red Hood pulled out his own grapple with one hand, balanced his new precious book in the other, and stepped up beside Red Robin, lining up his shot. “Try to keep up, Little Red.”

“Will do, Cinnamon-flavored Chewing Gum.”

Jason laughed and together they flew off into the night.

#my writing #christmasriverswrites #mine #jason and tim #jaytim #happy birthday jason #pre-relationship #the beginning of a long series... maybe #slow burn #bad jokes #there are always bad jokes #puns #long text post #long post #stupid read mores have been so stupid on mobile lately #fuck that

[thistherapylife]

Hi, I also grew up with an untreated BPD parent. I want to be a counselor but my trauma kind of worries me. This may be personal, but were you in therapy for a while to work through that? You don't have to answer. Also do you have any advice about it? Thanks! Also, love your blog

Heads up - this ask response may be a little hard for folks with BPD to read. It may not. Treat yourself gently. Let me be clear I’m talking about untreated BPD. Suicide/self harm/abuse mentions. This is my personal experience. It’s also the longest answer I’ve ever given so I’m pretty sure that no one will read it!

—-

Hey! Thank you for your kind words. I’m glad you enjoy your this blog! It’s really lovely to hear that people like my ramblings. 

You can absolutely be a therapist or a counselor coming from an abusive household or one with major mental illness. There are a lot of us out there. But it means that you need to do some heavy ass work on yourself so that you don’t harm your clients unintentionally. It’s actually good sign that you are concerned about the impact that your history may have.

Having an untreated BPD parent can make for a confusing and disorienting childhood. A lot of the things you are supposed to learn from your parent (in my case my mom) you end not learning because they haven’t learned those skills. My childhood was chaotic and abusive. My mom would do things like get mad at me and leave me place (the grocery store, the bookstore, etc.) from the age of 4 or so, then come back hours later stating that I had “wandered off.” She would tell me things hadn’t happened that had or vice versa. She would say I was overreacting when I was in pain from a chronic illness that she refused (and continues to refuse) to believe was real. Any emotion on my part or expression of desire was taken as an attack on her. She sent me to a really unethical therapist who would disclose what I shared in session so I learned to never share anything and shut it down (hiding a book in the bathroom of her office didn’t hurt). It wasn’t as bad when I was really young because there wasn’t any differentiation or individualization. She began telling me that she was going to kill herself and it was my fault in late elementary school after a supposed slight or rejection. This is the tip of the iceberg really. My way of coping with this was to internalize - everything really was my fault, I really was that horrible and to dissociate  - because that looked like compliance. Become quiet and small and maybe, maybe, I wouldn’t set her off. By the time I was in my teens, I was hospitalized for both suicidality, self-harm and an eating disorder. My treatment team and my custodial parent, along with the courts, decided to bar my mother access to me until I was 18 or unless I initiated contact. 

I was lucky. My other parent had been in therapy, was loving and supportive, consistent and stable, and got to me to all the therapy/psychiatry/doctor/nutritionist appointments that needed. They were able to coordinate with the school to make sure that I was still was able to graduate. I needed those years to grieve for the mom I didn’t have that everyone else seemed to. You may need to do this too. I also had to figure out what the fuck to do with these emotions. I was so angry and hurt all the time. I was so sad and overwhelmed. And I never got that attachment/attunement handbook that you are supposed to get from your parents when I was young so I had to figure it with my other parent, my therapist and my friends. The damage done by my mom (in addition to some other trauma) took my childhood and most of my adolescence so it makes sense that it will take some time to repair. I’ve noticed that most members of our dubious club end up in therapy intermentially. It’ll be important when you first seeing clients so you can see where your stuff pops up.

Now, you’ve made it this far and may you think fuck that sounds like a lot. I promise it’s doable - not necessarily easy but doable. When I went to graduate school, I went thinking I didn’t want to work with anything BPD related. Or teen related. Because I thought it would bring up too much counter transference stuff. It did bring up stuff but it wasn’t too much. I notice it most when I’m working with traumatized teen whose parent is obviously untreated personality disorder. I run the risk of over identification with the client or just unreasonable dislike of the parent. If the parent is involved and CPS has decided they aren’t a danger (whether or not I agree), you gotta work with the parent a little bit because being angry with parent won’t serve the client. I’ve told clients before - don’t mistake my desire for you to get appropriate care and treatment for a lack of anger or outrage that you were/are treated like this but my angry won’t serve you here. Because it won’t. You are going to have to learn what things upset you or that you struggle with. 

BUT you may have some skills in childhood that will work really well for you as a therapist. I’m really good at reading people and engaging emotions, because that skill was necessary to my survival. I can tell when a client will escalate and will usually be able de-escalate if we have an established relationship, because I used to have to manage my mom’s moods. I’m very good at boundaries because I need/ed them with my mom. I know how scary it is not to know what’s going on, so I am clear and explain what’s going on to my clients, checking in to gauge understanding and adapting to their feedback. Some therapists (especially newer ones) can have trouble separating themselves and the client’s outcome or feel bad when a client isn’t doing well. I don’t.  It’s what I love about therapy - it’s not about me. I’m super interested in knowing if something in the therapy is not working but clients are going to do their own thing. They are going to get mad at you or feel love or lust or like they want you to be their parent. But I don’t freak out about it. I deal with it appropriately, in session. Because I have a very defined sense of self that is outside of my identity as a therapist. 

I’m also very hard to read a lot of the time in session - pleasant, interested and engaged but my emotions, my countertransference are pretty hidden (another skill learned in childhood). It gives me so much versatility - I can really weigh whether or not modeling or expression emotion will help the client; whether what just happened in session needs to stop (most common - the case with language directed towards me) because it’s inappropriate or if we just need to talk about it; I can assess whether it’s my stuff coming up or not. Most importantly for the work I do? That neutrality makes me VERY calm in crisis situations. The client has big emotions? Okay. I’m not going to lose my shit. Client is dissociative? Okay. I can contain them. If it’s really intense, in the moment, I am calm and supportive, non excitable and enforce good boundaries and safety. If I’m going to freak the fuck out, it’s not going to be in the room. I may lose my shit in the car ride home or on the phone with my supervisor or with my partner. But if I did that in the room, it would be so unsafe for the client. Most of them have never had the experience of being well held in their emotions and I have that on lockdown. 

My experience prior to graduate school was that having BPD meant that you were going to be dangerous to me. That a relationship with someone with BPD would be intrinsically harmful for me. It’s not true though. I need boundaries sure. But people are people. You don’t develop BPD for a good laugh. It is birthed from survival and pain. And I can appreciate it and see that living with BPD is so fucking hard. And the people who are coming to my office for help, are struggling and in pain. I can see that in a way I never have been able to before. Interacting with people getting treatment for BPD and reading some of the stuff on tumblr has given me a much more nuanced, more adult view. So now I have empathy for what my mom experienced that meant she ended up the way she did. I’m sorry whatever happened, happened to her. 

But I can also hold that she was abusive, but not all people with BPD are. I have compassion the self that held a childish view of BPD = abusive because it was keeping me alive but that no longer serves me. I know it’s a distortion based on my history.  I also don’t want a relationship with her because she is toxic and will continue to be toxic if I let her into my life. We have transactional relationship around a specific series of issues that we’ll be managing until everyone is involved is an adult. I don’t have feelings towards her - I don’t feel affection or safety. When I’m scared or sad, I don’t want to call her. I didn’t tell her that I was having a major surgery until 30 minutes pre-op, because I knew that I didn’t want to deal with fall out if I didn’t. I called my other parent, my step dad and my partner when I was freaking out before surgery. I don’t feel anger anymore most of the time towards. I’ve been able to mitigate her damaging effect on other. I have a number of “moms” and mentors in my life to fill that role. I struggle with the idea that she’s a “bad person,” because I know she developed these skills to live. But I can see how my childhood/adolescence abuse put me in a position where I was victimized by others.  But I also know that she was abusive and I will not allow to happen to me anymore.

TLDR; yes you can. Go to therapy. Figure out what shit is going to come up for you. Don’t be surprised when it does and take care of yourself with your friends/family or therapist/supervisor/mentor. Journal or find your own way to explore your patterns. Learn to cultivate a diversity of relationships. Remember you can ask for help and not be ashamed about it. It’s possible. I promise. If you do the work. If you have any more specific questions - hit me up off anon. 

#thistherapylife #long ass post #ask a therapist #ask anything #childhood abuse #ptsd #therapy #therapists #anxiety #answering questions #bpd parent #bpd mom #BPD #for therapists #keep yourself warm therapy posts #personal #abuse #suicide #recovery from childhood #recovery from abuse #recovery #eating disorder recovery #therapist skills #other side of couch #surviving abuse #surviving a BPD parent #bpd parents

[sage-nebula]

A L A N • S Y C A M O R E even though you don't have a last name for him because quite honestly the more headcanons the better

mfw you picked up on the hint I was dropping:

Sycamore should be his last name, anyway, if Augustine would just officially adopt the boy already. Plus, “Alan Sycamore” just rolls so perfectly off the tongue, don’t you think? ;)

A —What are/were this character’s best subjects in school?

He was home-schooled by Professor Sycamore, of course, and to be honest Alan was always pretty good at whatever Augustine threw at him (as in, he at least had “good” marks, and there was nothing he seriously struggled with). If he had attended a regular school, he is no doubt one of those that would have been chucked straight into whatever that school’s gifted program was. As it stood, he was home-schooled, so he had none of that pressure, but all of the encouragement and nurturing necessary to learn at his own pace, study what was most interesting to him, ask whatever questions he needed, and never be made to feel stupid if he did need to ask a question or needed help with something. ♥

That said, to actually answer the question: In terms of traditional academics, mathematics was definitely one of Alan’s strong suits, particularly in regards to geometry. As proven in canon (“Aim your Flamethrower at 53 degrees!”), the boy can pick out an exact angle in an instant. He’s good at sciences, too; biological science—and in particular zoology, given where he grew up—is his strongest suit, but he has also studied various other sciences (e.g. earth sciences such as geology and meteorology, physics, chemistry, et cetera) because he finds them interesting, particularly in the ways they can be applied to training, caring for pokémon, and mega evolution research. History, too, is interesting to him (especially history that involves pokémon—he loves reading about different legendary pokémon, the lore surrounding them, and especially finding evidence that it’s true), and he enjoys reading in his spare time. So, again, he really has a good spread across all subjects, even if math and science are his strongest suits, heh.

But that said, that’s traditional academics. In addition to studying zoology for his work at the lab growing up (and I say “studying,” but let’s be honest: So much of it was stuff he simply learned by following Augustine around as his assistant), Alan also studied pokémon and battling techniques in his spare time even as a kid. Part of this is because Augustine’s father (Alan’s grandfather, lbr) had it in his head from pretty much the moment he met Alan that Alan was going to be a Champion someday. Augustine disapproved of this (only because he didn’t want Alan to be pressured into anything, especially when he was as young as five), but Augustine’s father persisted regardless, calling Alan “Champ-in-Making” as an affectionate nickname and getting him books that contained all sorts of knowledge about pokémon, their strengths and weaknesses, known abilities and moves, et cetera. Alan had quite a few of these encyclopedic books growing up (in-print Pokédexes is how they were often marketed), and he absorbed so much information from them without even realizing he was doing it (because he never really planned on being a trainer, officially—he just liked to read the books because he found the information interesting and, when he was little, really liked to look at all the different pictures of pokémon as he read about them) that by the time he did turn ten and get his License he could already give actually good commentary on battles he watched on television and the like. Of course, real world experience is something that can’t be replaced with books, but Alan picked up on the strategies he read about (and, at times, even critiqued them, getting information from different sources and questioning it just like Augustine taught him) to the point where, if learning to be a trainer had been a subject he was formally taught, it absolutely would have been one of his best.

(And yes, his grandpa was ecstatic when Alan won the League. “That’s our boy!” he said. “I always told you all, didn’t I? I told you he would be a Champ someday! I told you!!”

“Yes, dear, we know,” Alan’s grandma said, but she was smiling.)

L — What is their favourite board game?

Gomokunarabe (often times shortened to simply Go)! Augustine taught this game to Alan pretty early on, both because it’s one of Augustine’s favorites and (after he realized how bright Alan is) he figured Alan would enjoy playing it as well. He was right; Augustine and Alan play Go quite frequently, both before Alan leaves on his journey and after he returns. It’s relaxing and fun and Alan pretty much never says “no” to playing it.

A — What are/were this character’s best subjects in school?

Answered!

N — What do they usually eat for breakfast?

Something light. Alan has never been a big breakfast eater (just getting him to want to eat breakfast at all was something of a struggle when Augustine first took him in), because he’s pretty much never hungry in the mornings, and on some mornings even feels a bit nauseous. So his breakfast is always something nice and light, like a croissant (especially a chocolate croissant, which is really his preferred breakfast) and, of course, coffee. Always coffee. Once Augustine allowed him to start drinking it at age ten, he never looked back.

S — How stealthy are they?

Pretty stealthy!

When he was very little, and still living in Isolé Village, Alan became very, very good at making himself as quiet and small as possible. It was very, very easy for him to make the adults angry; he never meant to, he tried to be good for a variety of reasons (more on that in a second), but somehow he always ended up messing something up and making them mad regardless. For this reason, Alan did his best to stay out of the way and stay quiet. He didn’t consciously think, “I need to be stealthy,” and certainly didn’t think, “I need to sneak around,” because if he was accused of being sneaky he would have recognized that the adults were mad about that, and so he would have thought that he was being bad again and he needed to stop. But when you’re in an environment where everything you do is wrong, it seems like, and that you’re likely to get yelled at or punished if you’re being noisy or in the way, you subconsciously learn how to move so that you’re as inconspicuous as possible. Of course, he was still noticed sometimes, but Alan became rather good at staying quiet and slipping by. It’s no doubt how he managed to slip off to the mountains undetected in time for Genesis to take place. (Well, that, and the adults were pretty neglectful of him, but still.)

Once Augustine took him in, he didn’t really have a reason to act like this anymore (aside from one time he did slip off without permission, but … well, there will be a fic for that in due time), but some of the habits stuck regardless (i.e. he still steps lightly, just because that’s how he’s always been). But then he left on his journey, and then he was pulled into Lysandre’s service, and it wasn’t wholly unlike when he grew up in Isolé Village. Lysandre didn’t blow up at him for things—that was never Lysandre’s way of expressing anger—and he didn’t explicitly tell him that he needed to be quiet. But Alan had it ingrained in him in early childhood that he needed to pick up on subtle signs in a person’s behavior, little cues that they weren’t happy with things, and so he noticed when Lysandre was aggravated by Alan clicking his pens. He learned pretty quickly that Lysandre generally didn’t want him to say anything unless he was spoken to first. And though there were times when he pushed for information or otherwise talked back (not in a snarky way, even, but just in general) when he was told something, that usually ended in punishment (i.e. Lysandre using his pyroar to brutalize Lizardon in a “battle”). So he fell back into old habits and learned how to move quickly and quietly to wherever he needed to be. It pretty much stuck after that.

(Of course, upon returning to the lab, Augustine notices these things—notices how Alan hastily stops himself from clicking pens if he catches himself doing it, notices how he has to prod Alan to get his opinion or questions now, since Alan won’t speak up as freely. He notices, and it upsets him, but he doesn’t want to push Alan and so he usually doesn’t say anything about it.)

Y —What is one question they’ve always wanted an answer to?

Haha, oh boy. This one comes with some baggage.

If I was going to sum it up in one question, that question would be, “What is wrong with me?” But the thing is, something different is meant by that depending on the different areas of his life that we’re examining, even though it all comes around to the same thing.

When he was very little (read: pre-unofficial adoption, five and younger), he wondered this in the sense of, “Why don’t I have parents?” and “Why doesn’t anyone like me?” 

Alan was abandoned as an infant in the woods; he was found by the florist of Isolé Village and brought in, raised as an orphan who was passed from home to home. When he was very little, it took him some time to understand that this wasn’t normal; it took him a bit to catch on that he was the only child passed around like this, that all of the other children had parents who loved and took care of them year-round. He didn’t have that. He didn’t have parents. And he didn’t understand why this was; he hoped that he’d make his way back to his parents eventually, but it never happened. He never found his parents, they never found him. As far as he knew, they were just gone, or maybe never even existed (Maurice called him “changeling” sometimes, and so did a couple of the other villagers, and he didn’t know what that meant but thought that it was maybe why he didn’t have parents). And it went a bit deeper than that, too; he didn’t have parents, and he didn’t know why that was, and he didn’t know why his parents wouldn’t come get him (and thought that maybe he had done something wrong), but he also didn’t understand why no one liked him. When he was small, he would see that the other kids would be picked up and carried around, that they would be hugged, that they were … you know, loved by their parents. And Alan, being a small child pretty starved of this attention, was quite envious of this. He would try to reach out to some of the adults, sometimes, but even if it was just to tug on their shirt he’d find his hands swatted away, would be told to “go play” or “go sit down,” and he didn’t really understand why that was. So he tried to be good. He thought, okay, everyone’s always mad at me because I’m bad, but maybe if I’m very, very good they’ll like me, and they’ll be my parents. He always tried to be on his very, very best behavior regardless of who he was staying with, in hopes that they would like him enough to decide to keep him. It never worked, though he always understood when they were angry, and knew that it was because he had been bad, obviously, and he’d always get very upset with himself for this, because he messed up again and so no doubt they’d want to get rid of him again, why couldn’t he just be good?, and so that often led to him wondering “what is wrong with me” in the sense of “why didn’t my parents want me / why don’t they come back for me” and “why does no one here like me / why can’t I make them like me.”

Then Augustine took him in, and honestly, those next seven years were the happiest years Alan ever could have had. Literally, Augustine gave him everything he ever wanted … but it wasn’t official.

See, here’s the deal:

Augustine was pretty much the ideal father in Alan’s eyes. Literally, everything he ever wanted. But, that first night that Alan came home, Alan asked (in a really tentative, halting, roundabout way, because he was scared of asking and messing things up somehow) what he should call Augustine. This was Alan’s way of asking if Augustine was going to be his dad now. And Augustine (for reasons that make sense from his perspective, but that five-year-old Alan had no way of knowing or understanding), said, “Just Professor is fine.” To Alan, this was a pretty solid answer that, no, Augustine didn’t see Alan as his son. Alan was his assistant, and Alan was someone he was going to be nice to, and honestly, that was more than Alan could ever ask for, considering. But he didn’t want to be Alan’s dad. And that was fine! That was … I mean, it hurt, but again, he had been more kind in two days than anyone in Isolé Village had been for the past five years, so Alan was not about to complain.

More to the point, Alan thought, okay. For the past five years (or whenever he first realized things and was able to act on them) he tried really, really hard to get the villagers to like him enough to adopt him, and that didn’t work. Everything he did was wrong. But somehow he had managed to get Augustine to like him, right? Augustine seemed to like him. Augustine brought him home. So in Alan’s mind, the most logical course of action to take next was to apply the same logic: If he was really, really good, then maybe he could be good enough for Augustine to want to adopt him for real. He could graduate from “assistant” to “son” if he was on his best behavior and proved he was good enough. The perfect plan!

So in that sense, the question “what’s wrong with me” (or, perhaps better phrased, “why aren’t I good enough”) was sort of in the back of his mind even then. It sort of died down to a very low hum over time, something he only thought about whenever the fact that Augustine hadn’t adopted him was brought up (such as when someone asked, “Oh, is he your son?” and Augustine laughed and said, “No, no,” because he knew the person was asking if Alan was biologically his son, and meant that, no, Alan was not his biological son, but Alan took it the wrong way and always felt his mood / self-esteem drop because, god, he wants that more than anything, why can’t that be the case?). It was still something he wondered, as he laid awake some nights. He wondered what he could do to be good enough. But, because he was afraid of pressuring or pushing or being a nuisance to Augustine, he never asked. If he had, well … the official adoption would have happened sooner.

THEN (god this is a long answer, I’m sorry lmao) we move on to, well … canon, and everything that goes wrong in canon, and god if that doesn’t drag up a lot of this, because Alan has a guilt / shame complex the size of Prism Tower and thinks that everything awful that happened is his fault. Whether you’re talking about Hari-san’s coma (not his fault) or everything that happened in the Flare crisis (absolutely not his fault, but pointing out that Lysandre manipulated and used him doesn’t matter because, “Even if I didn’t know of the Director’s true goal, I still assisted him toward it”), he blames himself for it and thinks that it’s a direct result of him being a horrible person who made (at least in terms of the Flare crisis) “perhaps irredeemable” mistakes. In Isolé Village, everyone was always angry with him; they called him a little absol, bringing disaster everywhere he goes. And he knows that’s not true about absol, but this all makes him think that maybe it really is true about him. Maybe they were right all along. The Professor was always kind to him, always treated him with love and respect and care, and what did Alan do? Well, he was trying to protect the Professor, but then he ended up assisting toward a mass genocide. And yeah, it was an accident, but wasn’t it always an accident back in the village, too? He never meant to screw things up, but he always did. Maybe he’s the screw-up. Maybe there really is something intrinsically wrong with him, something really irredeemable about him, that no matter what he does or what he tries, someone gets hurt or something gets destroyed, because he really is just as bad as they always said. How does that song go? Ah, yes—

“I always thought I might be bad;now I’m sure that it’s true.‘Cause I think you’re so good,and I’m nothing like you.”

So by this point, the “what is wrong with me” question directly correlates not just to the fact that no one likes him, but that he thinks that he’s constantly leaving destruction in his wake, constantly hurting so many people, and he doesn’t know how to stop it because he never means to do it. “What is wrong with me,” “why am I like this” — at this point, these questions are directly related to his pretty much non-existent self-esteem, and, well, if Augustine doesn’t want to adopt him now … Alan doesn’t blame him. Not in the least bit. 

So, um, yeah. Orphan issues have always been pretty big with him, but they’ve evolved over time. Someone really needs to help him build that self-esteem back up, though. Lysandre pretty much completely destroyed it.

C — Can they swim well?

Well enough. He’s a decent swimmer; he’s not going to join a swim team any time soon, and swimming is really not his favorite activity, but he won’t drown if he needs to swim across a body of water. (He only swims free, though. He doesn’t know any other strokes.)

A — What are/were this character’s best subjects in school?

Answered!

M —What is their favourite dessert?

Dessert in general is pretty much Alan’s favorite meal, and it’s hard for him to pick a favorite. That said, he loves ice cream, and is especially delighted if ice cream is paired with warm cake (or a warm brownie—either-or). He loves chocolate, and especially dark chocolate (not white chocolate so much, though), and he likes coffee flavored things, too. (Like father, like son. ;D) Hazelnut chocolate is also really good, in his book. So yeah, something along those lines will definitely put stars in his eyes, hahaha.

O —What would it take to break them, inside and out?

Kill Lizardon, and especially do so in a way that makes him believe that Lizardon’s death is his fault. 

See, here’s the thing: If any of Alan’s loved ones died, he would of course be stricken with grief. His grief would be palpable; he doesn’t cry easily, but in this case he would probably be crying intermittently for a long while. He would eat less, sleep less (before sleeping a ridiculous amount), the works. In my immortality AU, he was even driven to near suicide after both Augustine and Manon died, though it should be noted that it was not just because they died, but also because he was immortal and that thought, the thought that he was going to have to live forever while everyone around him died, drove him to the point where he just wanted to end it. 

But you’ll remember (perhaps) that he didn’t follow through with suicide in that fic, and he didn’t follow through for one reason, and one reason only:

Lizardon.

Alan will be wracked with grief if his (human) loved ones die, but although it will take him time, he can heal, pick up, and move on. He can and will keep fighting. If he loses his other pokémon, again, that will hurt terribly, but he can keep fighting. Even if Gabby died, he could keep fighting. But if Lizardon died? He can recover from losing his father, he can recover from losing his step- / adopted siblings, he can recover from losing his qp partners if he has any. But Lizardon is different. Lizardon is in a different category altogether. Lizardon is his platonic soulmate. If Lizardon was killed, and especially if Alan was made to believe it was his fault (and honestly, given his guilt complex, that’s not hard to do, particularly if it was during battle), it would break him. It would completely and utterly break him. It’s not only that he couldn’t keep fighting after that (though in all honesty, if there is anything that could extinguish the fire within him, it would be Lizardon’s death), but it’s that he wouldn’t want to. If there is one thing that could honestly drive him to the point where he just didn’t want to live anymore, where he honestly wanted to die, that one thing would be Lizardon’s death (again, especially if Alan felt responsible). To sum it up with an excerpt from a WIP I’ve had in my drafts for about fifty years:

“You have to!” Manon cried, and Hari-san gave her ankle a consoling patas she thumped her fists against her thighs. “You have to let go of this—youhave to! You have to, because if you don’t they’ll never let you go—” 

“Like I’m missing much—”

“—and they’ll kill you! They’ll kill you, Alan, they’re planning tokill you! Lysandre said they’ll have to kill you if you don’t stop trying tofight them, and is that what you want? Do you want to di—?!”

“Yes.”

Although, that does bring up one small caveat.

If Lizardon is killed, and especially if Alan feels responsible, that will break him inside and out. But, if Lizardon is killed and Alan feels that someone else is also responsible, then he’ll want them dead first. In the fic that this excerpt is from, Lysandre wins and most of the people and pokémon in Kalos are killed. Relevant to this answer, Lizardon is killed specifically because Lysandre feels threatened by him (more specifically still, he knew from the start that Alan was not going to be okay with the fact that Augustine died as well, and figured that removing Alan’s teeth by killing his charizard was the best way to deal with that litlte problem … until Alan flipped out and tried to fight him anyway). Alan is devastated, and broken, and it shows. As he tells Manon pretty bluntly, yes, he wants to die. But before he does, he wants Lysandre’s blood coating his hands as Lysandre’s body cools on the ground. He wants Lysandre dead, and he’s willing to fight just long enough to make that happen if given the opportunity (which, handcuffed to a wall in a prison cell, he doesn’t really have the opportunity, but nonetheless). So in a case where Lizardon dies not only because of him, but also because of someone else, it’s more murder-suicide Alan would be after. Or even if he didn’t actively commit suicide himself, he’d call the police and report the murder after. Maybe he would even confess to a few crimes he didn’t commit to increase his chances of execution. Whatever, he doesn’t care. He literally doesn’t care anymore. Lizardon is dead, he died, he was killed, and it’s Alan’s fault even if it was also someone else’s, and he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care. Even if he’s not executed, whatever, he just won’t eat. (And he doesn’t, in the fic that excerpt is from, except Team Flare grunts literally force food down his throat on Lysandre’s orders to stop him from starving himself.) Basically, losing Lizardon—having Lizardon killed—would break him to the point where he literally would stop caring about being alive, wouldn’t even want to be alive anymore, and the only thing to get any fight out of him at all would be if he came face-to-face with Lizardon’s killer (provided someone else was directly responsible for his death). At that point, yeah, his hands are going for their throat, but otherwise? He just doesn’t care anymore.

And honestly? It’s not surprising, because just making Lizardon suffer is enough to hurt Alan deeply, especially (once again) if he feels he’s responsible for Lizardon’s suffering. I can’t say which fic it is because of #spoilers, but that’s going to be a pretty big point in one of the fics I’m currently writing. Even making Lizardon suffer hurts him deeply, so it’s honestly no wonder that he spent all of .01 seconds thinking before threw himself out of the plane in TSME 3, shouting Lizardon’s name about three times in the span of sprinting across the ice and throwing the ice chunks off Lizardon’s back. It’s no surprise that having Lizardon killed would break him. Alan can recover from most things, but this? However much Lysandre said, “You can get a new charizard” in that fic I took the excerpt from, there’s no recovering from this. He’s not bouncing back from losing Lizardon, just like Lizardon would not bounce back from losing him. If either one of them was killed before the other, they honestly would be irreparably broken. (Hence why, in the AU where Alan is killed from the Flare arc, Lizardon refuses to move from in front of his grave. He barely eats the food that’s brought to him. He waits there even though he understands what happened because … because that’s his boy, he can’t just leave, he can’t … !)

R — What are their hands like?

He has long fingers, and I actually headcanon that he’d be very good at piano if he ever learned. He’s certainly a very fast typist. His nails are usually short because he doesn’t want to risk accidentally scratching Lizardon too hard when giving him pats or scritches (of course, Lizardon is a dragon with tough scales, but nonetheless), and also because he has a bad habit of squeezing his hands into fists when upset, and longer nails can wreck his palms if he’s not careful. (Thankfully, gloves do help with that.) He does have a couple scars on his hands here or there, either because his nails did cut into his palms a couple times, or because various pokémon have scratched or bitten him over the years. (Some of them are absolutely from Gabby when he first wrangled her in Lumiose and brought her back to the lab—matching puncture scars on the back and palm of his right hand.) His palms tend to be free from callouses due to his gloves, but he definitely has some writing callouses on his fingers from pens, and the pads of his fingers tend to be somewhat tough as well since the gloves don’t protect those.

E — How are they with children?

Well, we’ve seen that in canon, haven’t we? ;) Alan is actually pretty good with children, normally (having learned from the best ♥). He’s patient, he listens to them, he gives good instruction and knows, generally, what to do to look after them. He doesn’t let them walk all over him (or at least he tries to set boundaries, whether or not they’re respected), but he is reasonable with the boundaries that he does set. At the very least, Manon and Bonnie both adore him, so he has to be doing something right, doesn’t he? (Even if Manon doesn’t always appreciate his teasing, and oh, does he tease her. He does it in the most serious way, too, so that she can’t always tell if he’s teasing or if he’s serious, and it drives her nuts … but she loves him anyway. He’s a great big brother, and she wouldn’t trade him for the world.)

#name headcanon meme #trainer alan #champion alan #my valiant dragon son #tofukitten #meta #so much meta

[lydiasmartin]

first of all i just wanted to say that you're super cute and i really love your blog ♥ i also have a little question: how did you get into dc/marvel comics? i want to start reading them, but i just don't know where to start and i hoped that maybe you could help me a little? (sorry for my english)

Hi lovely, i’m sorry for the late reply! Here are some things I thought were useful, although I am not an expert so if there is anything missing or wrong, anyone can add on to this or message me :) When it comes to actual comic books, I know a whole lot more about DC than I do Marvel.

DC COMICS

The hardest part about reading comics is probably the starting part, because it can be an indecisive process, especially when you don’t know any characters or story lines. I suggest starting with the Rebirth series, which is pretty much a refocusing of everything in the DC Universe, because it is began in mid-2016 and is currently being released, so it will be much easier to jump into! If not there is also the New 52 series, which is the relaunch they had in 2011, prior to Rebirth. Also, some of the Pre New 52 comics are really good too like Green Arrow and Black Canary and of course your Batman and Detective Comics etc.

WHERE TO START:

Start By Finding A Character You Like

This is probably the easiest way to get started, at least it was for me. Before even reading a comic I loved Harley Quinn, so when i decided to start reading the comics, I chose to follow her story line first. I found out that her first appearance in The New 52 was in issue #1 of the Suicide Squad comic, so I started there.

EXPLORE CHARACTERS (AND THEIR FIRST APPEARANCES):

EXPLORE CHARACTERS IN A COMPACT A-Z FACT BOOK:

Starting At Issue #1?

Whilst starting at issue #1 in whatever series you choose can be beneficial in that you won’t have much missing information, it isn’t 100% necessary. With comics, you can start with any issue, and eventually after reading a few, you will get the hang of deciphering which unknown information was in previous issues (which i always just research on wikipedia if necessary) and which information will be given to you in future issues.

HOWEVER

with DC Rebirth, start with DC Rebirth #1 (http://www.dccomics.com/comics/dc-universe-rebirth-2016/dc-universe-rebirth-1) and then you should start with the Rebirth #1 comic for each title (e.g. Flash Rebirth 1) before starting with the actual #1 of the title (e.g. The Flash #1).

with the New 52, you can start with the Flashpoint (http://www.dccomics.com/graphic-novels/flashpoint) comics, which explains how the New 52 timeline reset came to be.

Chronological Order

If you are really committed, and want to read an entire comic launch (e.g. the New 52, Rebirth) in order of when they were published, you can use this handy webpage, which lists all the DC issues that were released each week (start at 08/31/2011 for New 52 and 05/25/2016 for Rebirth).

NEW 52 LINKS:

RUNDOWN OF DC COMICS

FLASHPOINT EXPLAINED

KNOW YOUR UNIVERSE: THE NEW 52

JUSTICE LEAGUE EXPLAINED

MAP OF THE MULTIVERSE

MULTIVERSE EXPLAINED

ANOTHER NEW 52 READING ORDER

WHAT THE NEW 52 GOT RIGHT AND WHAT THEY GOT WRONG

10 BEST NEW 52 COMIC TITLES

REBIRTH LINKS:

RUNDOWN OF DC COMICS

WHAT IS REBIRTH: VIDEO

TOP 10 THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE READING REBIRTH: VIDEO

DC REBIRTH BASICS

HOW TO READ DC REBIRTH

THE COMPLETE REBIRTH STORY TOLD IN 9 MINUTES: VIDEO

DC REBIRTH EXPLAINED: VIDEO

TOP 15 BEST REBIRTH TITLES

MY RECOMMENDED CHARACTERS:

Harley Quinn (Harleen Quinzel)

A former psychiatrist turned mentally insane supervillain. Harley Quinn has some of the best character depth in the DC Universe, as a survivor of great physical and mental abuse by her “lover”, the Joker. With Harley, you’ll get great action/fighting, amazing humour and even better character development. She is also one of the canonically LGBT+ comic characters, with a fluid sexuality  (unknown as strictly bi, pan etc.) and polyamorous tendencies, as represented by her relationships with Poison Ivy and Mason. She is an unconventional symbol of hope, as she undergoes a great journey of self-discovery and independence, whilst continuing to demonstrate homicidal and psychotic behaviour.

Primarily Featured in ‘Suicide Squad’ and ‘Harley Quinn’ comics

For your life to be changed, read up on the Harley and Poison Ivy romance here.

HARLEY QUINN: PSYCHOLOGY, DOMESTIC ABUSE AND CHARACTER GROWTH

Black Canary (Dinah Laurel Lance) & Green Arrow (Oliver Queen)

So I put these two together because there are things I want to say about them as a pairing, as well as individually. Dinah and Oliver as a pairing (known as Green Canary) are without a doubt one of the greatest comic romantic pairings. Individually and as a couple, they are definitely near the top of my favourites list (and by that I mean they are literally in second place after Harley and Ivy). However to shit on my life, in the New 52, the Green Arrow storyline follows more closely to the likes of the TV Show Arrow, in which Ollie and Dinah no longer have a romantic history (what the fuck), and instead Oliver is involved in a team up with characters John Diggle and Felicity Smoak (who is sorta the replacement Oracle… which we’ll discuss in a second). Being completely biased here, i’ll say that the biggest mistake of the New 52 was not continuing the romance between Dinah and Ollie, as well as the friendship between Oliver and Hal Jordan (Green Lantern). LUCKILY, in DC Rebirth’s ‘Green Arrow’, Green Canary is back, with a reset of the timeline bringing us a completely fresh “first meeting” of Dinah and Ollie, and a whole lot of future potential.

Read about Dinah

Read about Oliver

Other awesome characters include Barbara Gordon (Batgirl), Diana Prince (Wonder Woman), Tatsu Yamashiro (Katana), Helena Bertinella (Huntress), Pamela Isley (Poison Ivy), Dick Grayson (Nightwing)

MARVEL COMICS

WHERE TO START READING MARVEL COMICS: VIDEO

MARVEL COMICS TO START WITH

MARVEL COMICS READING ORDER

MARVEL COMICS READING ORDER 2

CHRONOLOGICAL PUBLICATION ORDER OF MARVEL COMICS

13 MARVEL COMICS YOU SHOULD READ

10 BEST MARVEL STORYLINES

BEST MARVEL COMICS OF ALL TIME

MY RECOMMENDED SERIES:

Civil War

The Amazing Spiderman

Black Widow

Winter Soldier & Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain Marvel

Captain America

Young Avengers

Avengers

X-Men: Days of Future Past

I really didn’t lie when I said I didn’t know much about Marvel comic books. If anyone wants to add with some Marvel tips, you may! 

#long post #reaaaaaly long post #anonymous #dc #marvel #dc comics #marvel comics #comics #resources #recs #masterpost #dc masterpost

[peppak0pig-blog]

The way to Organize a youngster to see (Short-run) When You Don't Have Kids - How you can Plan for a child to check out (Quick) If You Don't Have Little ones - How you can Get ready for a child to go to (Short-run) Once You Don't Have Little ones

Tips on how to Plan for a Kid to see (Quick) After You Don't Have Kids

There was a part of time (a hundred years back? Fine, definitely only eight) whenever i thought to myself personally "why can't she simply make her kid respond and avoid breaking up my items?" I was thinking this about an excellent pal. Someone I had noted for several years ahead of that they had little ones. I just questioned her parenting methods (within my go, naturally). Due to the fact possessing young children I realize that in some cases you can find little you can do regarding your kids' conduct and quite often they are certainly not getting bad but alternatively eager, drained or have far too much strength and want an electric outlet. This information is focused on the pals without the need of young children, the grandparents who haven't had kids approximately for some time, the brand new aunts and uncles, and someone else wanting a concise word stop by coming from a infant. It is made to assist you to "newborn proof" your house for this small guests in addition to their grubby little palms that are looking to contact your glass miniatures and bring on Fluffy's tail.

Baby (newborn baby-1 12 months)

Pre-moving babies are quite easy to little one-evidence for. Make sure you vacuum your room you might be engaging in to make sure that all the little scraps and fuzzes are over the surface to limitation the volume of yuck the kid can placed into their mouth. Also i enjoy having a thoroughly clean blanket useful to put on to the floor that way it will be just a little milder, of course, if the structure in the said blanket is dazzling or appealing, it could possibly distract the child for a little. A diaper transform is likely to take place throughout the pay a visit to so planning that can prevent you from simply being on the spot in the future. Just laying out a towel with an absorbent pad at the top (feel puppy patches) on the spare sleep is ideal. Several other considerations that are very good to have on-palm is actually a couple newborn washcloths (the inexpensive very soft versions) or newborn baby wipes to remove confronts, noses, and hands and fingers. For little ones even closer to each year, rice puffs (or rusks) and applesauce are great wholesome goodies.

Furthermore, i ensure that my canines are put away. In both the lawn, garage area or maybe the downstairs room. My dogs Enjoy babies. There exists nothing at all such as a 110 pound German Shepherd laying around the quilt near the newborn slicking the baby's locks rear with puppy spit. Even if this sight warms my center, it offers triggered standard queasiness in certain of my girlfriends (I really like my dogs). I do know that my dogs would never purposely trigger harm to a young child, but probably none of my buddies (only S) experience the way I actually do about canines. Even your most dog-supportive good friends may have a unique mindset once a fragile baby makes its way into their lifestyle. The simplest way to stay away from any awkwardness would be to just keep the canines out from the mixture at this time. Plus if there need to happen to be a knock at the door you understand the baby won't be trampled during the mayhem that will most definitely ensue.

Young child (1-24 months)

This stage in the child's living may be harder to arrange for. Be certain that cords are beyond vision, electrical retailers are either not reachable or have plug covers on (these are definitely low cost, don't take a risk on this). Take away all breakable things through the bottom cabinets, this consists of publications and photo albums you don't want torn. The good thing regarding this age is you can commonly just position stuff earlier mentioned 3-feet (using a desk or counter-top) to keep them out of reach. Preschoolers use items to support on their own, so be sure that the home furniture in which they will be participating in is long lasting (healthy) where there aren't any products which could topple away with some wobbling (think tall lighting fixtures, crystal vases). My all time most severe example of this is usually a Television set tray. We obtained a single seated in between the chair and recliner to hold the remotes and drinks. My child (then 8 a few months classic) dragged themselves up making use of the dish. Seven years down the road she still has a L-fashioned scar on her forehead from drawing the dish in addition to themselves.

You may totally have to be sure that the child fails to run around unwatched, so be ready to be traveling! Young children get started climbing at this time and if left behind to their personal units experience an uncanny capacity to get involved with the oddest mishaps. Till they turn out to be acquainted with your property, you will probably have a number of bumps and bruises regardless of how careful you are (you have to have observed bad Mr. C when S first delivered him to our own residence). A child frosty load, mist antiseptic, and some entertaining bandages will probably get utilized if you have them.

Now bear in mind they are fixes for when you have a kid around for two hours. If you are planning to achieve the youngster around regularly then you ought to produce a place that is definitely kid risk-free. If both you and your close friend have espresso just about every Thursday then perhaps you would like to child-evidence the family bedroom while keeping it doing this so that you will not be transferring points around just about every Thursday a . m . just to place them again Thursday afternoon. If the cooking area is really a much better location you could position some rubberized rings or case tresses all around your reduced cabinets addresses then placed a newborn entrance to make sure infant does not walk off. Furthermore, i find it necessary to have a handful of age group-ideal Peppa Pig Portugues toy that hang all around my home. These peppa pig playthings then become something special to play with during visits.

Also, in no way ignore the effectiveness of a great goody. Select a thing they are able to supply by themselves. I enjoy Puffs as they are safe for younger eaters and shop properly, but other fantastic options are squeezable berry kits, Cheerios, string parmesan cheese, and grapes or strawberries. Always remember to ask a parent prior to supplying any sort of foodstuff to the little one (no it can't injured them should they don't obtain it but it can ignite a tantrum once they imagined they could and next don't). In case the check out will involve dinner most children this era can take in the very same food you need to do (enquire about allergic reactions your day just before) just minimize into compact parts and make certain it's cooled away. Developing a young children dinnerware established just for them will be a welcome big surprise.

Walkers (2-4 years)

This era turns into a tiny trickier. Once youngsters are strolling the earth gets to be their oyster. Everything will be explored which means while you do not have to be so cautious of sliding furnishings, you still need to keep close track of them at all times. I actually have found out that if they are calm signifies they may be into something. One time i discontinued by try to do 10-minutes or so of laptop or computer admission. I had my daughter (then 2) with me. She was correct outside the house my place of work; I was able to see her should i leaned my desk chair back. I was thinking she was okay because there were clearly half a dozen people at work with me. I covered up a few things i started in to carry out from the anticipated time period considering to personally how good she had been only to discover she obtained identified a marker and driven all over the wall. Give thanks to goodness it only included in my time a trip to a store to discover a Magical Eraser (enjoy this product) not a gallon of color! One of the obstacles I at present encounter is my aged kids' peppa pig completo toys. Anytime my girlfriends arrive more than I am just consistently picking them up due to the fact essentially every one of them appear to have small areas that happen to be choking threats for the kids within 3. Barbie boots and Lego's are my nemeses. I treatment this case by having the more mature kids shift all of their play doh kids toys in the household or dining-room and put them in their bedrooms. I allow my pal recognize that family members room an dining area are secure and utilize a newborn door. The non permanent kinds that strain in shape on the retaining wall are relatively inexpensive and you may use for animals and children.

Large Children (4 years and over)

This stage needs to be trick confirmation, appropriate? They aren't planning to choke, drop or poison their selves. It always is, although i simply want to add more a number of tidbits to help you out. Initially, I frequently forget that my kids can now read through. Normally i often keep this in mind as I am perusing Facebook or twitter, then one of my buddies has submitted an issue that is PG, and after that my 8-yr old want's me to define what that word indicates or my 6-years old really wants to the way that they created that puppy have a picture like this. After which I help remind them to not study above my arm and usually put the saying "I can't enable you to get to pay for consideration once i want, but once I want 5 minutes all alone I come to be exciting?" This is correct among all press I am just discovering. Not alone your computer, but the Television and books. The kids can all function the remote control and I have experienced to remember to never abandon my relationship novels laying all around. Even though you likely don't threat a meltdown from food cravings from young children this time, healthful snacks are normally good to get accessible. Most importantly, remember that whatever you they have will want (actually this commences at about two) and so the far more it is possible to steer clear of having or having what you don't want (or can't) talk about when in front of them the better.

A small expense of time when you tiny visitor arrives over will make your check out far less stress filled and you will (though not an assurance) be able to have a comprehensive talk using your buddy. More than anything else remember to benefit from the time together with your close friend regardless of whether it will require a little more efforts.

By Hillary Warner (Otherwise known as H of Beyond the Sippy Glass)

For a wide range of particular recommendations on era-correct goods (some are even pig toy), useful suggestions on how to ease your being a parent worries and unbiased news go to the Beyond the Sippy Mug blog site

Superb Advice On Peppa Pig Brasil toy To Help You Choose The Best!

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To avoid one thing from happening we have to recognize how it gets there to start with. Fungus varieties on shower peppa pig games once they aren't dried up appropriately or are left to sit down in h2o at the bottom of an safe-keeping container. All however this fungus doesn't genuinely have any significant health threats that you must be having to worry about, it's gross as soon as your kids find out it's there they most likely won't desire to use all those unique play doh videos toys any more. Enabling the bath play doh kids toys toys and anything they are stored in to free of moisture adequately is the key to reducing this unsightly mold from forming from the beginning.

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If you are considering learning more about bath peppa pig play doh kids toy storage area