A little theory that may or may not fall to pieces in tomorrow's episode

So, I wasn't sure how to frame this but I've had a few thoughts in my mind since Elsewhere and Elsewhen that make me wonder if we're severely underestimating Belos' planning for the DOU.

Then I saw someone post about how Eda replacing Raine as head of the bard coven might actually play into Belos' hands and complete the draining spell.

And then it hit me.

When Kikimora said 'Belos had eyes everywhere' she didn't mean a traitor. She meant Belos is watching them, always.

We've had this hint before, when Belos had Terra tell Luz he was looking forward to meeting her at the Coven Day parade. After the time pool events, my biggest question then was 'How did he know she hadn't traveled back in time until this very moment?"

The answer is...because he's been spying on them with Oracle magic.

Now bear with me as I try to piece everything together. (Again, this is just my theory, it may have holes, but it's my way to process everything before King's Tide ruins me)

Okay, so the way I see it, it starts here.

This portal does NOT look buried. It never did to me. But we didn't get an explanation for its random appearance until Elsewhere and Elsewhen. Now we know it's a time pool. Which means the portal popped up through a pool and Eda tripped over it.

Now, when exactly this portal came up from, I don't know. But likely, Philip and his brother were arguing about something (maybe about the new girl Caleb? was seeing. (I know that's not confirmed yet but I'm calling him that). Anyway, they fight. Portal gets lost in a time pool and ends up almost 370 years in the future. Caleb dies at Phillip's hand, but he is now out of a way home.

So he stews and plans a way to destroy all the witches. He waits for almost 400 years (again, we know now that he HAD to wait that long for the eclipse to happen exactly where he needed it at the head of the titan, cool little fact about eclipses, look it up!) and spent this time perfecting sigil magic and making grimwalkers of his dead brother.

He did not know where the portal had gone or if he'd see it again, but he didn't care about that at the moment, because he had a bigger mission.

The draining spell.

That's why when Luz showed up in his time, he didn't seem all that pressed about the door. He'd probably accepted he'd never get back or something.

Cue his rise as Emperor. Once he put himself in a position of power, all the witches fell under his sway and then suddenly, he could use their powers for himself.

I'm sure one of the first things he did was use Oracle magic to search for where the portal might have ended up, and was probably pleasantly surprised to learn it was going to fall into the hands of a little girl, one he could easily capture and retrieve HIS portal from. I say it was, because he ascended to power at least 20 years before Eda is cursed, so she probably hasn't even been born yet.

But he's looking into the future, and lo and behold, he finds the portal with this red-haired girl about 20 years in the future.

But then, he looks further.

And the more he sees, the more he realizes just how important it is for the portal to remain in Eda's hands. Because Eda's frequent use of the door as well as the nature in which she visits the human realm is what ensures Luz arrives to the Boiling Isles.

Which means...

Yes, I think Belos knew Luz was going to show up on the Boiling Isles.

Now, he HAD to have, because he met her in the past and knew she was lying about being a crab maiden. He remembered her...so of course he's not surprised that she shows up, but now he realizes this is the point of time in which she arrives to the Boiling Isles, which means he has to ensure that happens to complete the time loop and ensure he meets the Collector, right?

If he takes the portal away, Luz never appears and...the time loop is never completed, which ruins his plans.

So he lets Eda keep it.

Now granted, I'm not saying he created the circumstances in which Luz shows up or anything. He didn't manipulate Camilla into sending Luz to camp or make Luz run after Owlbert.

Luz walked through on her own free will and Eda let her tag along and made her her apprentice on her own free will.

What I AM saying is that Belos knew Luz would show up, and so he took that information and used it to his advantage.

Now, he didn't just need Luz to arrive to the Isles, he needed her to stay on the isles, remember?

So he begins pursuing Eda with a vengeance to get the portal AFTER Luz arrives to the demon realm. Not before. Both for his own purposes, but also to ensure she doesn't leave without helping him.

Now this is where it gets tricky, because you would think someone who has access to all of the Oracle coven's powers would trap two criminals no problem, right?

Wrong.

Because while Belos can see some big, key moments, I don't think he can see everything in the future.

How do we know this?

Because Luz cracked his mask, and he had no idea it was going to happen.

I think he saw some things ahead of time, like Lilith's betrayal. But he was not prepared for Luz to be such a fierce opponent, nor did he expect her to destroy the portal when she handed it to him.

Both were surprises, but they were only minor setbacks. I think the biggest one thought, was her keeping the key.

Now some people have noted that it's odd Belos didn't ask for the key too when he took the portal from her, and I think that's because he didn't make the portal in the first place. His brother did. (That's a whole other story though.)

Anyway, end of season one, he has the portal, but it's destroyed, he's got no key, and he's freed the Owl Lady instead of punishing her. It feels a bit like a lose-lose situation for him considering he can somewhat see into the future, right?

Wrong again.

Because I think...and this is where I'm treading into plot hole territory, I think he's the one who made sure Eda was cursed in the first place.

Think about it. He's had 400 years to plan the draining spell out. He's working with the Collector, who we KNOW is the one who trapped the Owl Beast in the first place.

What if that was part of his plan for the DOU?

Remember back when I said something about Belos using Oracle magic for the first time and catching Eda with the portal almost 20 years before it happens? Maybe...maybe he did some digging and saw she was running away from home because she was cursed, maybe he realizes that future Eda is going to be cursed, and maybe...maybe he realizes he's the reason she gets cursed and that she needs to be in order for events to play out.

Assuming he sees her future almost 20 years before Lilith and Eda face off for the Coven tryouts, that gives him plenty of time to ask the Collector for a favor. One where they trap the Owl Beast and turn it into a curse scroll that finds its way to the night market.

That and a few choice words spoken to the public about how you must sacrifice to be considered great, and he's practically coerced Lilith into doing his bidding, for the first time, I might add.

(Also I fully believe he treated Lilith like shit for 30 years and made false promises to cure her sister and threatened to petrify her like he did other wild witches all because she punched him ONE time! the biggest snowflake of them all, honestly!)

Now, this is gonna sound hokey, but what I'm saying means that Belos' had a kid cursed so that they unwittingly stumble across the one thing that would ensure the second person crucial to his plan would show up in about 30 some years. And that they would grow up to become a part of his draining spell and is it weird? Yeah! But it seems like something Belos would do.

He gets the Collector to capture the Owl Beast and turn it into a curse, Eda gets cursed, she runs away from home, stumbles across his portal, uses it for years and has it connected to Luz' hometown (again, I don't think Belos knows it's set to his old hometown), but at the end of the day, Luz shows up at the boiling isles.

TLDR; Luz the Human and her surrogate mom, Eda the Owl Lady are both crucial to his plan. He's known the specifics about them both for years by spying on them and now, as the day of Unity approaches, he's got Eda right where he needs her.

Which is why I think the biggest plot twist is that Raine Whispers figures this out right before Eda gets the sigil.

This expression here tells me they're worried for Eda's safety, but what if this is the moment they piece together the bare bones of Belos' plan?

Which is that Eda is part of it.

If they do stop Eda for that reason, that'd be the biggest plot twist of them all (and a total vindication of at least part of my theory).

That or the fact that since Eda split the curse with Lilith, it isn't as strong as Belo's expects it to be, so it doesn't kill the witches so much as weaken them. But all of this is hypothetical.

And yes, it could be that I'm completely wrong and Belos' isn't actually seeing the future and ensuring things go his way, and maybe Eda's curse would actually screw things up and Raine is just worried about her here...

But it's fun to theorize, isn't it?

Comment below if this theory makes any sense, or if you'd like to sum it up nicely for others, or if you disagree with it. Or anything, really.

Writing when you have a day job

It’s hard to make money as a writer. For most of us, it takes a while to hone our skills. It took me five years to get my work to a place where I would even show people, and I am still constantly learning and growing (check out Ira Glass’s The Gap if you need some encouragement there).

But bills don’t go away just because you are following your passion. If anything, expenses usually go up as you’re paying for classes, writing competitions, software, etc.

Day jobs are necessary to survive. They can be supportive and fun if you find something flexible that allows you to still create on the side.

However, they can also be absolutely exhausting.

I was a personal assistant for two and a half years. After long days of running errands and trying to remember a list too long for two people, I would come home completely drained. I worked for a very nice couple (and am extremely lucky in that regard), but it didn’t always leave much mental space for creativity.

That being said, I still had to find a way to write. Here are a few tips for how I got through it:

1. Work on one thing at a time. I feel the need to do a million things at once, too. But you’re not doing yourself every favors. Pick one project to focus on. It’s great if you have lots of ideas, but write them down somewhere and shelve them for later. It is always easier to start projects than finish them.

*Sometimes your focus can change. If you know at a deep level that there is a different project that needs your attention, then pause and focus on that first. If you feel the need to switch again, then maybe it is time to investigate why and where you start to get hung up.

2. Utilize the “dead space” with things that inspire you. Listen to a podcast about writing as you drive to work. Listen to a YA book on Audible as you cook dinner or clean your house. Read an article while you wait for an email. Watch a short film while you wait in line for your to-go order. Or simply pay more attention to the people that come into your work and write down some notes for character inspiration.

You don’t always need to fill every moment with something, but in my own journey, I realized that I would use driving as a time to check out and disengage. When I started filling that time with content and actively listening, I noticed I felt more inspired when I sat down to write. Plus, I had new wealth of knowledge to draw from.

3. Write things down when they come up! As you fill your time with more things that inspire you, you’ll probably find yourself having more ideas. Great! With a day job you might not always be in a place to dive deeper, so write down the thought and save it for later. I once heard a writer say she emails herself every time she gets an idea and puts them into a folder. For me, I keep notes in my phone. I probably have around 400 that list out everything from soft outlines for novels to descriptive words to themes that feel important to me.

4. Using one or two hours effectively is more important than a whole day of forced productivity. You only have the time you have to work on your projects. As someone who has spent both two hours extremely productive and entire days writing nothing but a few sentences, I promise you that it is not always about total time spent. I would always prefer an effective amount of time over a lot of time. Use what you have to the best of your ability. Sit down and see what you can accomplish in even just twenty minutes with no distractions.

5. Write with someone else if that helps you stay accountable. Scheduled writing sessions with another person are a great way to commit to your work. Whether you’re actually writing on the same project together, or just working side by side, it is more difficult to bail when you’re meeting someone else. Plus, you get some social time, too!

6. Find a writer’s group. I am part of two all-women writing groups that I absolutely adore. Prior to COVID, one of the groups met monthly to share work. Getting feedback in realtime, as well as hearing what other people are working on, always leaves me feeling inspired. Now, we still meet on Zoom occasionally to check-in. The other group is more panel and event focused, while just as valuable. Surrounding yourself with what you care about, and with people who care about the same things, is a great way to stay on track.

7. Take breaks. We can’t be on all the time (as much as I try to tell myself I should be). Self-care and actually living your life is equally important. I often find that productivity flows so much better after I take a bit of time off. Suddenly, “the grind” feels like less of a grind and I find myself actually wanting to write.

8. But do make time. Start distinguishing what is important and what you can skip out on. You don’t have to go to every social engagement. You don’t have to say yes to helping your friend move. Sometimes, it is okay to say no and carve out a whole day for your writing. I think your true friends will always understand and support you as you strive to make a career doing what you love.

Practical Ideas on How to Look After Your Very Own Smartphone

It is seriously harder to change out your smart phone's lithium ion battery as it would be to treat it directly in the first location. Most smart phones don't provide easy user access for their batteries. That includes all I phones and several flagship Android telephones from makers such as Samsung. https://readwrite.com/2014/02/11/coding-language-learn-to-code-ios-android-web/ can be expensive or annoying (try getting an official battery substitution at an Apple Store this year). There are also environmental considerations. Smartphones are, in my opinion, an environmental disaster and extending the lifespan of your mobile phone battery will help mitigate that. Below are a few steps you can take in order to keep and expand the lifespan of your batterylife. By battery lifespan I am talking about how many years and months your battery life can last before it needs to be replaced. By comparison, battery life denotes the amount of days or weeks your phone will probably continue a singular recharge. How Come Our Cellphone Battery has Gone Bad With each charge cycle your cellphone battery degrades marginally. A bill cycle is a complete discharge and control of this battery, from 0% to 100 percent. Partial charges count as a portion of a cycle. Charging your phone from 50 percent to 100%, as an example, could be fifty per cent of a fee cycle. Do that twice and it's a complete fee cycle. Some phone owners proceed through more than a full charge cycle a dayothers go through less. It is dependent upon how far you use your mobile and everything you do with it. Battery vendors express that after roughly 400 cycles a telephone battery's capacity will degrade by 20 percent. It will just have the ability to save 80% of their power it did originally and can continue to hamper with extra charge cycles. The fact, however, is that telephone batteries likely degrade significantly faster than that. 1 online site asserts some mobiles realize that 20% degradation tip after merely 100 fee cycles. And just to be more clear, the device battery doesn't stop degrading after 400 periods. That 400 cycles/20% figure is always to provide you with a good concept of the rate of rust. In case you're able to slow those charge cycles -- if you can prolong the everyday battery life of your telephone -- then you can extend its battery life lifespan also. Ostensibly , the less you drain and control the battery, the longer the battery will survive. The issue is, you bought your phone to utilize it. You have to balance saving battery lifespan and life with utility, using your phone how and when you desire it. Some of the suggestions down the page may not get the job done for you. On the flip side, there may be things that you can use quite easily that do not matter your personality. You will discover two typical types of tips in this article. Tips to make your smart phone whole lot more energy efficient, slowing battery degradation by slowing those charge cycles. Lowering screen brightness are an example of the type of suggestion. Additionally, there are suggestions to decrease tension and stress to your batterylife, affecting its lifespan even more specifically. Averting extremes of heat and cold are a typical example of the secondary option. Watchful Considering the Environment Should your mobile phone becomes hot or cold it can strain the battery and shorten its life span. Leaving it into your automobile would most likely be the worst culprit, whether it's bright and hot outside or below freezing in winter. Use the Quick Charger Only When Obligatory Charging your phone immediately pressures the battery. If you don't actually want it, steer clear of utilizing fast charging. In fact, the quicker you bill your battery the higher, if you do not mind slow charging , go for it. Charging your mobile from your own computer as well as certain smart backpacks can limit the voltage moving into your phone, slowing its rate. Some external battery packs may possibly slow down the rate of charging, however I am unsure about this. Be Vigilant about Smart Phone Batteries Recharges Older types of rechargeable batteries also had'battery memory'. If you failed to bill them full and release them to zero battery they'remembered' and paid off their useful range. It was better for his or her life span in the event you consistently emptied and charged the battery completely. Newer mobile batteries work in an alternative way. It disturbs the battery to drain it completely or charge it completely. Phone batteries are happiest if you maintain them above 20 percent capacity and below 90%. To be extremely exact, they're speediest around 50% potential Short charges are likely nice, in addition, if you are the sort of person that finds frequently topping up your phone for quick charges, that is fine for your battery. Paying a lot of attention this one can be a lot of micromanagement. However when I owned my first smartphone I presumed battery applied therefore I generally drained it charged it to 100 percent. I know more about the way in which a battery works, I usually plug it before it gets below 20 percent and detach it completely charged basically think of it. Keeping it In the 50% The healthiest charge to get a lithiumion battery appears to be about 50%. If you are likely to store your phone for a protracted period, fee it to 50 percent before turning off it and storing it. This is easier in the battery compared to charging it to 100 percent or letting it drain to 0% before storage. The battery, incidentally, continues to degrade and discharge whether the phone is switched off and maybe not used at all. This creation of batteries has been made to be applied. If you were to think about it, turn the device every couple of months and top the battery up to 50%. The Way to Increase My Smart Phone Battery Health A mobile phone's display could be that the component that primarily employs the maximum battery. Slimming down the screen brightness will conserve energy. Utilizing Auto Brightness quite possibly conserves battery for the majority of people by automatically reducing display screen brightness when there's less light, even though it does involve more work for the light sensor. The item which would save the maximum battery in this area would be to manage it by hand and quite obsessively. In other words, manually put it to the lowest visible level whenever there's a change in ambient lighting levels. Both the Android and iOS give you options to turn down entire screen brightness even though you're also using Auto Brightness. If you leave your screen on without using it, it will automatically turn off after a period of time, usually a couple of minutes. You may save energy by decreasing the Screen Timeout time (called Auto-Lock on I phones ). By default, in my opinion iPhones set their AutoLock to 2 minutes, that could be more than you want. You may well be OK with 1 minute, and even 30 seconds. On the flip side, in case you lose AutoLock or screen time out you might find your screen dimming as early whenever you're in the midst of reading a news story or recipe, so that is a call you ought to create. I use Tasker (a automation program ) to change the screen time out in my Galaxy S 7 based on what app I'm using. My default option is a relatively short screen timeout of 35 seconds, however for apps at which I am most likely to be looking at the screen without deploying itas news and note-taking programs, I extend this time out to a minute. My cellphone, the Galaxy S-7, has an OLED screen. To produce black it will not obstruct the backlight with a pixel like some iPhones and many other types of LCD screens. As an alternative, it doesn't display anything whatsoever. The pixels displaying black just don't turn on. This creates the contrast between colour and black very sharp and beautiful. In addition, it suggests that showing black on the screen utilizes no energy, and also darker colours use less energy compared to bright colours like white. Singling out a dark motif for your phone, in case it's an OLED or even AMOLED screen, can conserve energy. If your display does not possess an OLED screen -- and this comprises all iPhones ahead of the iPhone X , a dark motif won't make a difference. I observed a dark theme I enjoy from the Samsung store, also there are a few excellent free icon pack apps for Android out there which focus on darker-themed icons. I utilize Cygnus Black, Mellow Dark, Moonrise Icon Pack, and Moonshine. I use the Nova Launcher App to customize the look of program icons and usually eliminate the name of the program when it's clear enough from the icon that which it is. That strips white space off of the screen, and I think it looks nice and is not as annoying. Some people locate a darker theme is simpler on the eyes in terms of preventing eyestrain, and less light complete might mean less grim lighting, that may influence sleep patterns. Many apps include a dark theme inside their preferences. As an example, I've Google Books setto a dark motif, where the virtual'page' is black as opposed to white and the letters are all white. Most of the pixels display black (are turned off) and use no more energy. I am not as familiar with black and customization topics for I phones. My perception is that I phones are harder to personalize. So far, though, only the i-phone X series have OLED screens therefore they're the only iPhones that could see energy savings by a dark motif. Facebook is actually a notorious resource hog, both on Android and I phones. If you genuinely want to use face book, go into preferences and restrict its permissions like video auto-play, use of a local area, as well as notifications. Do you really need Facebook tracking your location? Autoplaying videos in Facebook (they play automatically, whether you choose them not) uses data and energy, and will be annoying and disheartening in some cases. There may be important settings both from the app it self and in your mobile settings. If Facebook came pre-applied on your own phone (because it did on mine), it might be impossible to delete it since your cellphone considers it a system app. If that's the event, you could disable it if you desire. Look through your own battery settings to other apps that make use of a disproportionate level of energy and delete, disable, or confine permissions where potential. For programs that you wish to continue using, you'll be able to restrict permissions you don't need. There's also'light' versions of some popular apps that generally take up more space, use less data, and may use less power. Face book Messenger Light is 1 example. In general, though, the apps which make use of the most battery is going to soon be the apps you use the most, so reducing or deleting use might not be that easy for youpersonally. Your cellphone has more than one energy saving styles. These limit the operation of the CPU (and other features). Look at with them. You can receive better performance but much better battery life. You do not obey the tradeoff. Many programs exist as both paid and free versions, and also the difference is usually that the free version is supported with ads. Banners uses slightly more data and marginally more energy. Getting an app you use often as opposed to using the free ad-supported variation may pay off in the long run by reducing data and battery usage. You also free up screen space by removing distracting adverts, usually gain more features, and also support app developers. You can switch off radios that you rarely utilize and soon you need them. In the event that you can't ever use NFC there's no reason to keep it on. On the other hand, radios like GPS, Wireless bluetooth, and NFC, don't really use a lot of energy in standby mode but only as long as they truly are actually operating. In other words, any energy savings by micro-managing radios will most likely be limited. On factor to consider when it comes to radios is that the poorer your cellphone or WiFi signal, the more power that your phone needs to get that indicate. To gain access to cellular data or wi fi your phone wants to receive and send information. If you aren't getting a strong signal it means your phone should boost its input to reach that remote cell tower or WiFi router, then using more energy. In the event your home features a strong output but a weak WiFi signal, it can save energy to use cellular data instead of wi fi. In the same way, for those who get a solid WiFi signal but weak cell signal, then it's far better to stick to wi fi. Whenever you are outside of array of cell service and WiFi, turn air plane mode on. Smart phones are always watching out for cell and wi fi signals if they do not ask them to. When no signal is available, your phone will go crazy searching for you personally. Various online sources say changing up your email from push to fetch helps you to save battery. Drive signifies your device is listening for new email, and these get pushed through instantly. This means that your apparatus checks for new messages at a particular period, every 1-5 minutes such as. The maximum energy efficient action to take would be to bring by hand, this is the device just checks for mail when you manually open your email program. There's disagreement about whether fetch will indeed conserve energy. This almost certainly depends on volume of email and patterns of mail usage. I use push. It is efficient enough for me personally. Current variants of i-OS will reveal to you the battery life health. There's not any such aspect in Android, but there are third-party apps that will execute this function. I utilize AccuBattery which monitors battery health insurance and other stats, so in addition to giving you a notification as soon as your telephone charges to some certain point therefore that you may unplug it. So far, AccuBattery seems to be confirming my comprehension of battery degradation. AccuBattery recommends charging to 80%. A couple of sources I have read imply the wholesome range goes to 90% and that is often a goal I plan for as a fantastic agreement in the middle of keeping battery at the very long run and not exercising of battery life in the short term.

The Bromacker Fossil Project Part X: Tambaroter carrolli, an amphibian with a wedge- shaped head

Thomas Martens at the construction site for a new store in Tambach-Dietharz where he found fossils by checking loose pieces of rock on the excavation floor. Photo by Stephanie Martens, 2008.

Paleontologist Thomas Martens has an amazing ability to find fossils. After he discovered the first vertebrate fossils at the Bromacker site in an abandoned commercial quarry in 1974, he and his father Max found additional fossils in the bottom of a deep pit they’d dug with hand tools, an excavation that Dave Berman, Stuart Sumida, and I fondly dubbed the “elevator shaft.” Years later, Thomas used funding from the German federal government to drill rock cores in the field surrounding the Bromacker quarry to help understand the geology of the fossil deposit. Amazingly, at one of the spots Thomas had selected, the drill core penetrated a skeleton of Diadectes absitus. So, it wasn’t surprising that in 2008 Thomas found a skull and partial skeleton of D. absitus and a small skull of a fossil animal new to science at a construction site for a new store in the nearby village of Tambach-Dietharz.

Dave Berman (left) and Stuart Sumida (right) pose with a shopping cart in front of the Netto Discount Store, which was built in the excavation site where Tambaroter was found. Rocks of the Tambach Formation can be seen behind the retaining wall. Photo by the author, 2008.

It makes sense, however, that vertebrate fossils were found close to the Bromacker quarry. Fossils from the Bromacker were preserved in the Tambach Formation, a 200–400-foot-thick unit of sediments that were deposited in the small intermontane Tambach Basin about 290—283 million years ago during the Early Permian Epoch. The Tambach Basin covered an area of about 155 square miles and was internally drained; that is, there were no rivers or streams flowing into and out of the basin. During periods of extremely heavy rain, water and mud would flow down the basin sides in what are called sheet floods and pool in the basin center, which is where the present day Bromacker quarry and Tambach-Dietharz are thought to be located. Any animals killed during these events would be carried by the sheet floods to the basin center where they’d have been quickly and deeply buried in mud settling out of the ponded water and later become fossilized. It is assumed that animals captured by the sheet flood events inhabited the Tambach Basin, because carcasses couldn’t have been carried into the basin by rivers and streams.

Map of Germany with inset showing the Bromacker locality and the nearby town of Tambach-Dietharz. Although the Tambach Basin in which the Tambach Formation was deposited covers about 155 square miles, outcrops of the Tambach Formation today occur in an area of only about 31 square miles.

While preparing Bromacker fossils, I’d typically read literature related to the fossil I was working on, write notes on what I thought were important features in the fossil, and give my notes to the person leading the project. When Dave was the lead, we’d typically have lots of discussion about certain features preserved in the animal, conversations that often directed the course of preparation. This time, in addition to preparing the new find, I was designated as the lead author for the publication that would name and describe it.

View of the underside of the skull of Tambaroter carrolli before preparation. The shiny area surrounding the skull is glue, which I applied to a crack to stabilize the specimen before preparation could begin. I had to free the skull from the surrounding rock before exposing as much of it as possible through preparation. Photo by the author, 2008.

Tambaroter is a member of the Microsauria, a diverse group of small amphibians that were once thought to be reptiles, a hypothesis that some paleontologists are currently revisiting. Microsaurs inhabited a variety of habitats and exhibited a range of body forms. Some were highly terrestrial with limb proportions similar to those of lizards, whereas others were aquatic and had elongated bodies and reduced girdles and limbs. Still others were adapted for burrowing or rooting through leaf litter. Tambaroter belongs to this latter-most group, which is named Recumbirostra for their recurved snout, in which the front of the mouth is overhung by the snout.

Photographs and line drawings of the skull of Tambaroter carrolli in (clockwise from upper left) dorsal (top), ventral (underside), and left lateral (side) views. Photographs by the author, 2008 and drawings by the author and modified from Henrici et al., 2011.

Tambaroter is member of the recumbirostran subgroup Ostodolepidae. I coined the name Tambaroter, which is derived from “Tamb,” for the Tambach Formation, and the Greek “aroter,” meaning plowman, in reference to the snout shape. Two previously named ostodolepids, Micraroter and Nannaroter, have the “aroter, suffix in their name, so usage of the “aroter” suffix was a continuation of this. The species name, carrolli, honors microsaur expert Robert Carroll (then Curator Emeritus at the Redpath Museum, McGill University, Montreal, Canada).

Skulls of representative ostodolepid microsaurs from geologically oldest (left) to youngest (right). A reconstruction drawing of the skull of Tambaroter was used instead of a photograph for comparison because the original fossil skull is extremely flattened (see previous image). Photographs, except for that of Nannaroter, by the author, 2009. The photograph of Nannaroter was modified from Anderson et al., 2009. Tambaroter skull reconstruction by the author and modified from Henrici et al., 2011. Scale bar of the tiny Nannaroter and other ostodolepids equals 1 cm.

When Tambaroter was published on in 2011, it was the first ostodolepid to be found outside of the USA (the others are from Oklahoma and Texas) and is the oldest one known. Other, possible ostodolepids have since been described from the American Midwest and Germany. All ostodolepids have a wedge-shaped skull and recumbent snout, which is accentuated in Pelodosotis. Based on these features, scientists think that ostodolepids burrowed or searched for worms and other prey in leaf litter. Remarkably, the skull of the tiny Nannaroter is so strongly built that it could have withstood burrowing headfirst into the ground by using its shovel-like snout to loosen dirt and its broad, flat head to push soil against the burrow ceiling. Because the sutures between individual skull bones in the Tambaroter type specimen are not tightly fused together, we think it belonged to a juvenile, so we don’t know if the adult skull would’ve been as strongly built as that of Nannaroter.

Life drawing of the ostodolepid microsaur Pelodosotis elongatum, which is known by a nearly complete specimen. Tambaroter probably had a similar body shape, though its skull would not have been as strongly wedge-shaped. Drawing modified by Carnegie Museum of Natural History Scientific Illustrator Andrew McAfee from outline drawing in Carroll and Gaskill (1978).

Stay tuned for my next post, which will feature one of the Bromacker’s top carnivores. To learn more about Tambaroter, read the publication that described the animal here. 

Amy Henrici is Collection Manager in the Section of Vertebrate Paleontology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

Survey #400

“it’s an age-old story: the first will be last, and the last will be kings  /  the small will be great, and the great will be weak”

Who was the last person you sincerely thanked? My mom; I thank her every time she cooks for me/us, and I really do mean it. What’s the longest you’ve ever stayed as a guest at someone’s house? Somewhere around a month. What was the last thing to really surprise you? My brother has a fiancee and is having another son! :') Have you ever found out that you have been sleep walking? No. Have you ever tried making something from one of those short cooking videos? How did it turn out? No. Have you ever written a review for a product you bought online? No. What was the last thing you had the urge to do? Idk about anything notable. Is there anyone you feel that takes you for granted? No. What is the last thing you had a craving for? A donut. Do you ever read the comments on social media posts? Sometimes. What was the last thing you felt like you wasted money on? It's so rare that I buy things with my own cash that I really don't know. What was the last thing you wanted to buy, but couldn’t afford? Venus' terrarium on my own. Mom has to help me with buying it. What is a recipe you’d like to try to make for yourself? I don’t cook, so. What goes through your mind when you look back at old photographs of yourself? More than anything, I get sad over how much weight I've gained. I was so healthy once upon a time. It also just makes me miss my childhood. What was the subject matter of the last email you sent? I believe it was about setting up an appointment with my therapist. How do you get your news? Facebook articles, really. What do you think about lizards? I love them! I was that kid that always tried to catch them when I saw 'em. Now I just observe because I don't want to terrify them by trying to pick them up. Have you ever done consumer testing (testing products before they come out on the market)? If not, would you ever want to? No, but sure, I'd do it. Have you ever received anesthesia or morphine? Both. The time I received morphine, it did jack-all for me. If you had to choose which video game to be in, which would it be? Hmmm... I would say Azeroth from World of Warcraft, but too much shit goes down, ha ha. Perhaps the top of the temple in Shadow of the Colossus? So long as I could have someone I love with me, I'd be in Heaven. Although... I doubt there's WiFi there, so I might drop that answer, lmfao. I really don't know. Between the two, would you rather live in a place where it’s only night or where it’s only day? Day. I need the natural light of day sometimes, and if I wanted to sleep, I could just find shade. If you had to be an actor/actress in a movie, what genre of the movie would you be best at? Fantasy. Out of fire, earth, water, wind, light, and dark, which element appeals the most to you? Dark. What’s one thing that you wish was real? Friendly dragons, haha. Is there anything (show, comedian, etc.) that you constantly quote or make references to? No. What’s your favorite Disney Channel movie? I have absolutely no idea. I don't even remember almost any of them. What’s your favorite holiday? Christmas. Do you ever have to do yard work? No. Do you have any live versions of songs in your music software? Yes. Did/do you listen to Britney Spears songs? Yeah, sometimes. I genuinely don't mind her. Do you still make Christmas lists? Yeah, because I'm asked to. Do you watch the show Dexter? Never seen it. Which musical instrument do you think sounds the prettiest? I'm torn between the violin, harp, and piano. Is your mom or dad the older parent? Mom, by a year. Do you and your parents like any of the same bands/singers? A lot, actually. Is there any food in your bedroom? What? I have these tictacs I keep in my purse in case of a dry mouth. Medication makes me have that severely, and my psychiatrist recommended me to always have a hard candy available to suck on since it forces salivation. Do you know anyone who has road rage? Who? My younger sister, badly. How far away do your grandparents live from you? They're all dead, but they lived in far away states. Do you know anyone who wants to be the president one day? No. What kinds of chips are in the cupboards? None. It's a bad idea to keep chips in this house, haha. Do you have your mom's or dad's hair? Well, I was born with dirty blonde hair like my dad, but my hair is thick and more similar in color now to my mom's before the cancer completely drained the color. If you were going out with your celebrity crush, what would you wear? OH MY GOD LA;KSDJFAKLWJE I DON'T KNOW I LOOK AWFUL IN EVERYTHING. Have you ever cried when a teacher retired? Teared up, yes, multiple times. Do you swear and yell while playing video games? I might swear under my breath, but that's the extent of it. If you were adopted, would you want to know? At this point in my life, I don't really know. I kinda find myself leaning towards no. Has a best friend ever ditched you for a girlfriend/boyfriend? Pretty much. Do your pets chase after bugs? Roman sure does. When’s the last time you were so excited you couldn’t sleep? Why? I want to say that was the night before I was getting my tattoo redone. Do you own any flip-flops? Yeah, considering they're like... all I wear, ever. Did you ever really believe that the stork brought babies? I don't believe so, no. Have you ever had a dream about sleeping with a celebrity? (You don’t have to give details.) It was the only lucid dream I've ever had and I'm not complaining about it lmao. Have you ever had a dream that upset you or made you cry? Oh I'm sure. Has anyone ever told you that they needed you? Do you think they meant it? Not to my recollection, no, and I don't believe you should ever adopt that mentality and say that to someone. Do you own a laser? No. Is there anything you like to put on a sandwich, that some might find odd? Nah. I do enjoy a layer of potato chips on some sandwiches, like ham and cheese, but I know that's like an actual thing some people just like. What colour are the shoes you wear most often? They're black flip-flops. When was the last time you were required to put on a mask? In the morning when I go to the TMS office. And what colour was the last mask you wore? It's one of those normal blue and white medical ones. The last time you were in a queue, what were you waiting for? To see the woman who would give me my APAP mask. Have you had your Covid vaccine yet? Which one, if you have? Yes, Moderna. If you've had your vaccine, did you experience any side effects? None for the first shot, but my second shot bruised badly and I felt seriously shitty the following day. I was perfectly fine afterwards, though. Can any of your friends sing well? Which one has the nicest singing voice? Sara has an AMAAAAAAAAAAAZING voice. When was the last time you wore make-up, if ever? What shades/colours? I don't even remember, but I'm sure it would've been black. What is something that seems popular, but doesn't interest you personally? Fashion, various TV shows, etc... Are you clumsy or graceful? I am STUPID clumsy. Like it's just ridiculous. Do you like gloves? I like fingerless gloves. Does your sibling(s) have braces? My older sister did as a kid. Do you ever say "OMG" in person? No; it's a random pet peeve of mine, "Internet talk" irl. What was the last thing your parents got mad at you for? Dad, no idea. Mom, uhhhh. Not "mad," but "annoyed" probably better fits how she felt about me leaving the heating pad I use for my cramps on the floor. Do your pets have favorites? I'm definitely Roman's favorite seeing as he is my literal shadow, and I'd assume Venus trusts me more than anyone else, but realistically, she's in contact with almost no one else, so. Who was your first boyfriend/girlfriend? Why did you break up? The first guy to have the title of "boyfriend" was Aaron, and I broke up with him 'cuz I just wasn't as romantically into him as I thought I might be. It was puppy-dog love, and I feel I knew that. My first *real* boyfriend was Jason, who broke up with me because my mental illnesses began to affect his wellbeing. Which I now accept is fine, but he seriously coulda gone about things differently... When was the last time you got a new bed? Is your bed comfy? Late into my teenage years; idk the exact age and don't feel like doing the math. Teddy kept peeing on the bed to where it was just unrecoverable and needed to be thrown away. My current bed is comfy enough. What kind of games did you play on the playground when you were younger? My absolute favorite was digging tunnels in the sandbox, pretending to be a meerkat. The only trend I ever created, haha, seeing as my classmates got into it with me, allowing us to make huge tunnel systems. It was really cool. I also liked playing 4 Square (which I now don't even remember the details of) on the basketball court. Do you remember the first time you ever drove a car? Who were you with? Yeah, my driver's ed instructor and the guy who was on the same route as me. What’s your favorite thing to do when drunk? Would you do this sober? N/A Are you a fan of dogs? Do you have any as pets? I'm picky with dogs. I like interacting with any dog, but I don't plan on ever owning another. I don't like how hyper they can be, and I prefer more independent pets, like cats. Basically, I'll be hyped to meet a random dog on the street and give it some loving, but I don't want to take it home to be my own. Are you an elitist (even a little bit) when it comes to anything? What? No. I cannot stand elitists. Is just being fond of something enough, or does it take more than that to be a ‘real fan’? And I hate gatekeeping in fandoms even more. There are varying intensities of "being a fan," but regardless, if you like something, congratulations, you're a valid, "real" fan. What type of fabric is most comfortable for clothing? I don't pay attention to this, honestly. If you wear one – bras with or without a wire? I'll wear either, but without is way more comfortable. If you wear one – are you able to find cute bras in your size? God no. What length do you like your shorts to be? I don’t wear shorts. What was the last disappointing movie you saw? Warcraft, but not because it was bad. I've talked before how in the theater, the orcs' voices were just so fucking baritone that I couldn't understand almost ANYTHING they said. Kinda ruined the experience for me. What was the last disappointing book you read? Don't recall. Do you ever watch compilation videos? Of what? Very rarely. If I do, they're mostly of animals being silly. Favorite Disney character who isn’t royalty? Probably Dory, but idk. There's WAY too many options to fish through.

A/N: Since I don’t love story I posted earlier, I thought I’d give a bonus chapter. Which I also don’t love. Enjoy Kensi and Deeks on their not date.

***

The Agent and the Lawyer, Part 8

“This is incredible,” Kensi groaned, having just bitten into a warm, succulent carnitas taco. It was so good she closed her eyes to better enjoy the experience. When she opened them, Deeks was grinning at her. “What?” She swiped self-consciously at her chin.

“Nothing, I’m just glad you’re enjoying the food. Alex will be happy,” he said.

“Who’s Alex?” Kensi considered stuffing the rest of the taco into her mouth in one bite, but decided that would probably be pushing the limits of propriety. Even if they weren’t on a date, she still didn’t want to disgust him.

So far dinner was nothing like Kensi had been expecting. Deeks had answered the door in a black t-shirt, jeans and with bare feet, completely confident and at ease while her stomach felt like she’d eaten worms for lunch. At the very least, was relieved she’d opted not to wear the sundress she’d been considering.

After showing her around the rest of the house, which was equally as impressive as the few rooms she’d already seen, he led her into the room he called a den/entertainment room. They were now sitting on the floor in front of a low table eating some of the best Mexican food Kensi had ever tried.

Deeks had found the first Iron Man movie on some movie channel and it was playing in the background, but neither of them were paying any attention to the plot.

“Alex owns Alejandro’s, the restaurant I ordered this food from. He’s a friend from high school and hooked me up for the night.” He looked pretty pleased with himself.

“Why have I never heard of it?” Kensi demanded.

“Well, it’s a little bit off the beaten path,” Deeks explained. “I’ll have to take you there sometime.” He said it casually, but Kensi froze for a moment. That sounded distinctly more date like than their current situation. Deeks didn’t notice her response, busy sorting through a bowl of chips.

She stared at him for a minute, taking advantage of his obliviousness. Once again he’d surprised her. She’d expected something much more elaborate, designed to impress and display his wealth than tacos and a movie.

It was very much at odds with his choice of profession, not to mention the massive house, and it made her curious.

“So what made you decide to be a lawyer,” she asked, popping the final bite of taco in her mouth. Deeks snickered, taking a swig of his beer and smirking at her.

“Really, that’s the question you decided to start your interrogation with?” he teased. Kensi stole a chip from his plate, biting into it with an obnoxiously loud crunch.

“Oh, if you want an interrogation I’m happy to oblige. Why do you go by two names?” She raised her finger, cutting him off as he opened his mouth. “And before you start, remember that you already gave me the separate lives bit. Somehow I don’t think your life is that crazy that you need to use a pseudonym.” Deeks acknowledged that with a nod of his head and drained his beer before responding.

Although his expression didn’t change, Kensi sensed he was bracing himself for whatever he was about to tell her.

“Martin Brandel is my legal name. I didn’t get along very well with my dad and pretty early on I decided I wanted to change my last name to Deeks, which is my mom’s maiden name,” he explained, getting up to grab a fresh Modelo. He gestured to Kensi and she shook her head.

“I knew my dad wouldn’t let me, so I waited until my parents got divorced. I figured my mom wouldn’t mind, but she said I needed to wait until I was 18.”

“Your first act of rebellion as an adult,” Kensi guessed and he smiled wryly.

“Almost. When I started looking into the process, I realized why my mom had told me to wait. The filing fee was a couple hundred dollars alone and we didn’t have the extra cash,” Deeks told her with a shrug.

It hadn’t occurred to her than Deeks had ever been anything other than well off and she was curious to know more.

“Why didn’t you change it in college?” He snorted, giving her an incredulous look.

“Are you kidding? I was a scholarship kid. Some months I could barely afford room and board. I didn’t have the money to pay all the fees either.”

“I didn’t realize,” Kensi said, feeling a little ashamed and embarrassed. He waved it off, apparently unbothered by her invasive questions.

“Don’t worry about it. A lot of people assume I came from money.” He glanced meaningfully at Kensi. “It’s how they respond after they get to know me that I care about. Anyway, it was during college that I decided to go by exclusively Deeks with my friends and use Brandel for anything that required my legal name. Turned out it came in pretty handy once we started the law firm. Like I said, it keeps my personal and business lives separate.”

Kensi was quiet, taking it all in. In the back of her mind, she remembered asking Eric to research Deeks’ history. Then it had been for the case, but it could still come in handy. She made a mental note to skim through his history so she wouldn’t run into anymore surprises like this.

They ate quietly for a few minutes, watching Robert Downey Jr. fly across the screen in his metal suit.

“So what led little Kensi Blye to become a big, bad Special Agent?” Deeks asked after she’d eaten her third taco, his tone slightly mocking.

“My dad was a marine,” she told him as she wiped her fingers on a napkin. “He died when I was a teenager. But even before that I knew I wanted to serve the country in some capacity. NCIS was the perfect fit.” She kept the details sparse, not wanting to delve into the years of anger that had accompanied her father’s death.

Deeks gave her a sympathetic smile and squeezed her shoulder. It was a quick touch, but she felt the warmth of his skin through her shirt.

“I’m sorry.” She smiled back, shrugging it off, even though talking about him still stung.

“It was a long time ago.” She felt Deeks’ eyes on her, heavy and inquisitive.

She cleared her throat, her emotions feeling a little too close to the edge. She didn’t talk about her dad often and had shocked herself by telling Deeks about him at all.

Needing to lighten the mood, she snatched up the TV controls which were sitting by Deeks’ leg. He looked a little surprised by her response, but didn’t say anything as she switched off Iron Man and started flipping through the channels.

“Have you ever watched America’s Next Top Model?” she asked and he shook his head, leaning back as she found a rerun of her favorite show.

“No, I don’t watch a lot of TV,” he told her. Kensi grinned evilly and suddenly he looked a little wary. “Ok, now you’re freaking me out a little bit.”

“You are in for a treat,” she promised, grabbing the bowl of chips and settling in against the back of the couch. After a minute Deeks made a horrified sound.

“Kensi, why does that girl have a cockroach crawling on her?”

***

A/N: I hope this wasn’t too awful.

It seems I might have underestimated how much a mansion-y type house would actually cost in California. Where going to pretend that Deeks’ house didn’t cost several million more than I stated.

Also, the filing fee to change your name in California is currently over $400 and that’s not taking into account all the other fees. I figured that when Deeks was 18, it might have been quite a bit less, but still pricy for a poor college student.

Clint Barton x Reader - To Suffer in Silence

Pairings - Clint Barton (Hawkeye) x Reader

Word Count - 6845

Warnings - Trigger warning: anxiety, depression, and a fairly detailed description of a panic attack.

“Spoken dialogue”

[Signed dialogue]

“[Signed and spoken dialogue]”

Author’s Note (PLEASE READ) - The idea for this creation has been brought to you by the wonderful @brooklhyn, who is honestly just the sweetest person ever. This is probably my favorite piece that I've ever written, but I will warn you it does visit some dark places. The ending is very rewarding though so stick with it. I may have gone a little overboard and I’m not even sorry. Clint has lost his hearing aids and is feeling pretty low. The reader begins to feel helpless when nothing they do seems to help him. As always, I love feedback and just comments in general and I’m always willing to take requests. Enjoy!

__________

Clint had been gone for nearly an hour. Far too long considering the Chinese place he’d chosen to get dinner from was only a couple of blocks away. You really should have been the one to go. You had offered, but Clint had already been out the door before you could protest. Around the thirty-minute mark you had started to wonder if he’d gotten lost or if maybe the restaurant had, once again, gotten your order wrong. At forty-five minutes you had called him, only to hear his phone ring from a few feet behind, still sitting where he had left it on the nightstand. Now a full hour had gone by and you were grabbing your shoes to go out and look for him. There was only one thing more dangerous than Clint Barton lost and alone on the streets of a strange city, and that was a deaf and grumpy, lost and alone Clint Barton.

For probably the hundredth time since you’d first met the archer a few years ago, he had lost his hearing aids. How he managed to misplace something that was supposed to be attached to his head most of the time was beyond you and you had learned to stop asking how and why a long time ago. Partly because Clint never really had a good answer and partially because when he couldn’t hear he got…weird. Well, weirder. You had really started to notice the change a few months ago. Clint had broken one of his hearing aids by either stepping on it or sitting on it you couldn’t remember, and you had come by to bring him a replacement. The thing was that when you’d gotten to his apartment, Clint hadn’t even bothered putting the one working aid in and looked like he hadn’t moved from his spot on the sofa in days. After you’d gotten him hooked up with the new set you had cracked a joke about him not hearing of showers in an effort to cheer him up, it hadn’t exactly gone over well. You’d never known Clint to be the type to sulk and you’d hated seeing him like that. It broke your heart to see him in such a state and you swore then that you’d do everything in your power to keep him from falling into that dark hole he seemed to be circling. The whole ordeal had even inspired you to start teaching yourself sign language. The thing is, it’d only gotten worse from there. From then on, every time he lost his hearing aids it was like Clint became a different person. Distant and silent. The worst part was that you could never get him to tell you why.

You didn’t know how he’d managed to lose the aids in the tiny studio apartment you two were currently be forced to occupy. You’d think SHEILD could have afforded to put the two of you up in a place that was even just a smidgen nicer, or at least somewhere you didn’t have to straddle the sink every time you needed to use the toilet. The space wasn’t even 400 square feet and yet days of searching had turned up nothing but a plethora of dust bunnies and about two dollars in loose change. You had both given up and you were both now forced to resign yourselves to silence. Clint because he couldn’t hear and you because not even an hour after losing his aids, Clint had shut down and nothing you were doing seemed to be getting through to him. He hadn’t spoken a word in days and every time you’d try to strike up a conversation, either through your broken sign language or by trying to get Clint to read your lips, he wouldn’t even give you the time of day. You’d earned a couple of grunts and muttered single word sentences if you brought up something related to the mission you were on, but other than that you weren’t getting anything from him. He didn’t really seem mad at you, he didn’t have a reason to be, but you were still feeling the effects of his coldness and it was starting to make you anxious.

He had stopped taking care of himself as well. There were four boxes of uneaten takeout in the fridge and you were pretty sure he hadn’t showered in at least three days. For the past five days, all he’d done was sit at his post near the window, mindlessly taking in the passersby. You’d been doing pretty much the same thing because let’s be honest there wasn’t much else to do on a long-term surveillance job. However, you’d also spent the whole time worrying about Clint and trying to think of ways to cheer him up. You were drained and mentally exhausted, to say the least. You wanted Clint to feel better and you wanted to be the one to make him feel better. You wanted to show him that it didn’t have to be the end of the world every time he was a little absent-minded. He was your partner and your friend and, sure, maybe you wanted him to be more than that, but right now that didn’t matter. Right now, Clint just needed somebody to pull him out of that dark place and you were going to be that person.

You sat formulating a plan as you finished lacing up your shoes. You grabbed your phone and went to reach for the front door when it swung open nearly smacking you in the face. You had to duck out of the way as Clint stumbled in, looking even more disheveled than when he had left. Once he had kicked the door closed behind him, he looked over to you, his eyes tracing over you almost like he was surprised you were still there. You looked up at him with just as much surprise after nearly getting the wind knocked out of you. His gaze settled on your face for a split second before he seemed to look through you. Muttering a curt ‘sorry’, he moved past you and reclaiming his seat by the window, throwing the takeout bag in the middle of the table. You gathered yourself, toeing off your shoes before taking your seat opposite him and began working on the knot on the bag of food. You cringed and crinkled your nose as the smell of burned grease hit you. You really weren’t the biggest fan of Chinese food, especially from this particular restaurant, but Clint had raved when you’d brought it back the first time, claiming it was just like the stuff from home, so you’d put up with it. But, seriously, if you had to eat one more soggy, slimy piece of broccoli you were going to vomit.

You unpacked the various cartons of food, placing Clint’s order in front of him and shoving the steamed vegetable to the bottom of the bag before throwing it towards the trash and opening your own carton. Surprise, surprise they got your order wrong again. You rolled your eyes but nevertheless dove into the cement block that was your sticky rice. Clint didn’t move, just sat with his arms folded over his chest and his legs stretched out underneath the table. You sighed. He was going to kill himself if he didn’t eat something, although eating this stuff may not improve his chances all that much. You threw down your chopsticks before reaching over to open his takeout container. Clint eyed you indifferently before returning his gaze out the window towards the office building you’d been keeping tabs on for three weeks now. You tapped the table to get his attention. When he didn’t turn towards you, you kicked his legs lightly. He exhaled heavily but finally turned towards you. You spoke and signed to him.

“[You need to eat.]” Judging by the look Clint gave you, you must have grown a second head. Either that or your signing was really that terrible, but you were pretty sure it wasn’t that, you’d been practicing really hard. You lifted your eyebrows at him, a silent question if he had understood you. Clint didn’t answer you, instead, he turned once again to face the window, this time angling his shoulders away from you.

You gave an exasperated groan. He was going to be the death of you if not himself. Bracing your hands against the table you pushed back in your chair so hard and fast it nearly tipped over. Thankfully, you caught yourself before you could be made a complete fool of, and stood up, walking around the table to stand over him. Once again, Clint couldn’t be bothered to look at you, and when you tapped a knuckle against the side of his head, he swatted your hand away. Fine, if he was going to play it that way.

Steadying yourself on one leg and hooking your heel around one of his chair legs, you grabbed the back of the chair Clint was sitting in and forced it to turn towards the table. Ignoring his annoyed outburst, you pushed the chair in further, effectively trapping him in front of his food. You ran quickly to the kitchen, returning with a fork and shoved it into his hand, angling him towards his bowl of noodles.

“[You. Eat.]” There was no way he wouldn’t be able to tell what you were saying now, so if you didn’t get a response this time you would know for sure that he was ignoring you.

Clint stared up at you in defiance, clearly pissy that you had disrupted his brooding. You stared back at him with all the determination you could muster despite your overwhelming desire to go lay down and just be done with him. The two of you stayed that way for what could have been a whole lifetime until you finally watched the resolve in Clint’s eyes dissolve and he (finally!) shoveled a forkful of noodles into his mouth. You smiled down at him in triumph and genuine glee that he finally seemed to be willing to listen to reason.

“Happy?” Clint grumbled between bites. You made your way back to your seat, ready to, again, take up the battle with your own meal.

“Yes.” You spoke, knowing he was watching your face. Before he turned away you brought your fingertips to your chin and then forward away from you, signing to him.

Clint swallowed thickly and you literally watched the darkness return to his eyes. His chin came to rest on his fist as he looked down at his dinner, poking it with the fork in his hand. What had you done, what did you say? The questions rose in your throat only to be cut off by your phone vibrating on the table next to you, signaling that it was time for one of you to sleep. Clint glanced at your phone and, just as he had the past several nights, rose from the table without a word, closed his food carton, and went over to the fridge to stack it along with the other forgotten takeout containers. He spent a couple minutes in the bathroom before coming back out, stripping himself of his shirt and jeans and turned out the lights before crawling into bed, leaving you to wonder what the hell had just happened. You studied the wall ahead of you, dumbstruck. You were trying everything you could think of to get the real Clint back, but every time you saw even a glimmer of him, he seemed to fall away again and slip even further into whatever was eating him alive. You were no stranger to depression; you knew how to recognize it. However, experiencing it yourself and helping somebody else through it were two totally different things. You wanted to help. You needed Clint to know that you cared, that he wasn’t alone, you were here for him no matter what, even if all of this was taking more than just a small toll on you. You loved Clint and you had to try. Tomorrow would be better. You would make him see that there was light at the end of the tunnel. You glanced over at Clint who was lying motionless under the covers, his back turned to you. Judging by the straining muscles in his neck, he wasn’t asleep yet. He probably wouldn’t be for several hours if he slept at all. You picked up your phone and turned off the next alarm that would signal it was time for you two to switch roles. A good night's sleep would be the first step to getting Clint back on his feet. You sighed quietly to yourself, pushing your now cold dinner away from you. Tomorrow would be better.

You could tell Clint finally fell asleep when his shoulders relaxed, and his breathing settled. You could also tell that it wasn’t a restful sleep. The lines of worry and anxiety still etched in his face, but it was better than nothing. You watched the sliver of the sunrise that you could see as it peaked in between the high-rises of the city and it filled you with the hope and determination of a new day. As quietly as you could, you closed the blinds, hopefully keeping out most of the light so Clint would sleep, put on your shoes and grabbed what you needed to head out. Thankfully, there was a small grocery store a few blocks away. Hopefully, you’d be able to get everything you needed there.

Miraculously, Clint was still asleep when you snuck back into the apartment a while later. He looked significantly more at ease and you smiled, maybe this could work.

You quickly realized that making pancakes without making much more than a peep was going to be an Olympic sport. Getting the eggs cracked was a nightmare and you even resorted to going into the bathroom and closing the door so you could whisk everything together. Once you had a couple pancakes cooking you turned on the coffee maker, deciding it was time for your partner to awaken. No sooner had the scent of the fresh brew hit the air than you heard Clint stir behind you. You flipped the pancakes, saying a quiet little prayer to whoever might be listening that you would be able to help Clint feel more like himself again. After plating breakfast and resisting the urge to draw a smiley face out of chocolate chips on top of the stack, you turned around just in time to catch the tail end of Clint’s morning stretches. And people thought Natasha was feline-like. Clint was a regular alley cat first thing in the morning, even had the scruffy look to go along with it. You watched as he slowly woke up and became more aware of his surroundings. He took in a deep breath and seemed to realize that there was more than just coffee cooking and the confusion really set in when he opened his eyes and noticed it was morning. Ordinarily, you would have woken him around midnight to switch watch shifts. He’d probably be upset with you that you’d let him sleep, but you would put up with the lecture, he had needed it.

“What time is it?” Finally, words! The development had you sighing in relief, despite the fact that he sounded pretty miffed at you. You couldn’t help the smile that played on your lips as you crossed the room to put his breakfast on the table, turning and raising your hands to answer him as he pushed himself out of bed.

“[Almost 9.]” You looked at him a little sheepishly before continuing. “[I made breakfast.]”

“I can see that. Why?” Your heart sank a little at his words and it must have shown on your face because Clint’s harsh gaze softened ever so slightly. You took it as an invitation to explain yourself. You took a deep breath, thinking hard as your hands began to move.

“[I know you haven’t been feeling the same since you lost your hearing aids. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to lose something you rely so heavily on, but I do know that if there’s anything I can do to make it even just a little bit better I’m going to do it. I wanted to do something nice just so you’d know that I’m here and I care, and I don’t want you to feel alone.]”

The going was slow as your hands tried to keep up with the words. You forgot several words along the way, but thankfully any signs you didn’t remember you could at least spell. Clint watched you closely the entire time, his eyes passing between your hands and your lips, patiently waiting for you to finish. When you did you let out a long breath and eagerly awaited his response. You needed to hear him say something, anything.

“I still wish you would’ve woken me.”

Anything but that. Your stomach dropped and you felt like you might sob, right there in front of Clint. You folded your hands in front of you and stared down at them, not trusting yourself to look at him.

“Why don’t you just go take a shower and then you’re getting some sleep, okay?” You only nodded. Clint sighed and made to rest a hand on your shoulder, but you were already moving to grab a change of clothes and head to the bathroom.

Once inside you closed and locked the door. Stripping your clothes and stepping under the hot spray of the shower you let the scalding water numb you. There had to be a reason. A reason Clint was being so resistant to help, to anything that might make him feel anything other than emptiness. It wasn’t about breakfast. Hell, you couldn’t have cared less if he didn’t want the stupid pancakes. It was the fact that you felt like you’d tried everything, that you’d given him everything you had, and it still wasn’t enough.

You willed yourself not to cry as the hot water burned trails down your back. Maybe it was you. Maybe he just didn’t want you. The thought had tears pricking at your eyes again and a lump swelling in your throat. You loved Clint. You’d be a liar for trying to convince anybody, including yourself, otherwise. The idea that Clint not only might not feel the same but that he may even resent you made your heart race and your stomach turn in a way that had you bracing yourself against the cool wall. You were desperate for some feeling of grounding as your mind raced and you felt the panic rise in your chest. You forced yourself to breathe through it, counting as you inhaled and exhaled evenly.

Eventually, the panic dissipated. You were left feeling raw and exhausted and all you wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep for days. Or at least as long as it took for you to forget how miserable you were.

You didn’t even bother washing, just turned off the water and blindly reached for your towel. After dressing and running your fingers through your hair in a lame attempt to rid yourself of the knots there, you stepped in front of the mirror. The person staring back at you didn’t look like you. Well they did, but they were different, they looked…You didn’t have the words for it. You thought about Clint and the pain he was feeling; the pain it was bringing you. To love someone so much that you take on their pain as your own, as well as the pain that you already feel out of empathy, is a special type of hell.

Maybe you couldn’t help him and maybe that wasn’t your fault, maybe it was. But this whole situation was already destroying one of you, you couldn’t let it destroy you both. You wiped away a tear from your cheek and mentally readied yourself to exit the bathroom and face Clint. However, when you opened the door and stepped out into the rest of the apartment, Clint wasn’t there. A quick glance around the room revealed he’d once again left his phone behind, right next to the plate of untouched pancakes.

The sob left your body before you even knew it was there and the dam broke. Everything, the pain, the worry, the anxiousness, that you’d been holding back for the last week came surging forward as you melted to the floor.

Broken.

It wasn’t clear to you how long you stayed that way, a huddled mass on the floor, every muscle clenched in an effort to be smaller; safer. You had a moment of clarity in which you realized that the last thing you wanted was for Clint to come back and see you like this. So, slowly and somewhat painfully, you forced the tension from your muscles and crawled over to the bed. Once you pulled the covers over your head it wasn’t long before you fell into a fitful sleep.

It was dark. You were choking, drowning. You couldn’t open your eyes. The darkness was swallowing you whole. Drowning. In what? Water? No. You thrashed around and your hand met something hard. In the distance, you heard your name. Drowning. In the blackness. Emptiness. There was nothing. A voice. Your name. Getting louder. You thrashed harder and something warm clamped around you. Shaking violently. Screaming.

You woke. Your voice was hoarse, and tears were streaming down your cheeks. The panic had returned in full force like a vice grip around your chest. You heaved in gulps of air in between the sobs that racked your body. You heard your name again, this time clear and right in front of you as you were forced upright into a sitting position. Finally opening your eyes, you saw Clint had more fear and concern in his eyes than you’d ever seen. You broke into a fresh round of sobs that had you pitching forward and Clint didn’t hesitate before he wrapped you in his arm so tightly you probably wouldn’t have been able to breathe if you weren’t already hyperventilating.

It took a while, maybe half an hour for you to finally calm down. You had run out of tears before you had stopped crying, but Clint held you through all of it. One arm wrapped tightly around you while his other hand rubbed small patterns into your shoulders and neck, willing the muscles there to slowly relax. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t have to, until he felt your body give against him. He pushed you away from him slightly. Lifting your head with his hands on either side of your face and swiping at the tears that lingered there with his thumbs. Part of you didn’t want to look at him. Part of you was still feeling all the hurt from the past week. But then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to your forehead and any thought you had about turning away from him disappeared. You opened your eyes, finally meeting his gaze. He was trying to give you a reassuring smile, but it was tainted with worry, fear, sadness, and something else you couldn’t place. He looked so beautifully tragic you almost started crying again but forced yourself to swallow it down. When he finally spoke, he kept his voice low and gentle, almost like he was afraid of scaring you off.

“Will you talk to me? Tell me what’s going on in your head?”

You stared at him hard. The room was dark so he probably couldn’t see the anger that was bubbling behind your eyes, but it was growing by the second. You brushed his hands off of you and had to fight extremely hard to ignore the sincere urge to smack him. It was all too much and you snapped.

“Talk? You want me to talk?! I’ve been trying to talk to you for the past week and now that I’m having a violent mental breakdown you want to talk? Do you have any idea how unfair that is? What the past few days have done to me? I’ve tried, Clint, I’ve tried everything I know to show you that I’m here for you and I care, but no matter what I do you still shut me out. It’s been killing me to watch you do this to yourself, to shut down, and I don’t even know why. It’s eating me alive. If it’s something I did, I need you to just tell me, because I can’t keep going on like this. I won’t. I love you too much to watch you do this to yourself and if you won’t even let me try to help you then why am I even here? You’re my partner and my friend, you could at least be honest with me.”

By the time you finished the tears had returned to your eyes and your voice was nearly gone completely. Clint didn’t answer you right away. From what you could see he seemed to be studying the floor. After a moment he reached over and took your hand, stroking his thumb across the back of it in a slow pattern. He turned to click on the lamp that sat on the nightstand. Once the small space between you was illuminated you both took a moment to take each other in. Clint’s eyes were red, like he’d been crying himself, and a few of the lines on his face stood out a little bit more than usual. His expression gave away everything and nothing at the same time and you saw a violent storm of emotions in his eyes. He looked how you felt; tormented, almost haunted.

“I’m sorry but…” He began, his eyes finally rising to meet yours, “but you’re gonna have to say all of that again.”

You blinked at him in disbelief as he gestured towards his ear. In your outburst, you hadn’t bothered to sign along with your words and even if you had it probably would have been too dark for him to see. You slumped back against the wall in frustration, yanking your hand from his and bringing it to cover your face, fighting back tears once again.

You felt Clint’s fingers wrap around your arm gently as he pried your hand away from your face.

“Or don’t. You don’t have to, it’s okay. I think I pretty much got the gist anyway.” You let him hold your hand, but you still couldn’t bring yourself to look at him. You felt him shift closer to you, his back now firmly pressed against your side as he sat on the bed, and you let out a long breath you hadn’t realized you were holding.

“I’ve been a real jerk to you. More than a jerk actually. And you’ve been nothing but patient and supportive with me. And you’re not just doing it because we’re partners, and you feel like you have to keep an eye on me either. I know you care, but,”

He trailed off and you finally look at him. He had turned away from you, his head resting on the hand that wasn’t holding yours and you tightened your grip on him.

“I don’t think I deserve what you’re trying to give me. I know how hard I can be to be around, especially when I get like this. You’re always there and I have no idea why because I definitely haven’t done anything in my lifetime to deserve you or anything you do for me.”

You narrowed your eyes at him as he spoke. You still didn’t understand. You placed a hand on his cheek, turning him to face you.

[Why?] You signed.

“Because you’re amazing and I…” You cut him off by shaking your head. “You could at least let me finish.”

You rolled your eyes at him and poked a finger into his chest. You knew he knew what you were asking. After a minute he gave a long sigh in surrender.

“I hate not being able to hear. It takes me back to when I first lost my hearing. The whole situation was…I hate using the word traumatic. I feel like it makes me sound like I still have all this baggage, but I guess I do if I turn into this much of an ass after barely half an hour of not being able to hear. I don’t want to be that guy, but sometimes it’s hard, you know. To dig yourself out of the hole, so to speak, but the last thing I ever wanted to do was drag you down there with me. I’m so sorry.” He gave you a sort of there smile, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck as he waited for your response.

Your eyes left him as you began to process what he had said. It was clear now why he didn’t like talking about it, why the only way he really knew how to deal with it was to shut down. You understood, you had your own baggage if you were being completely honest, but that didn’t excuse him shutting you out when all you wanted was to help. You turned back to him, reclaiming your hand from his grip so you could answer him.

[Why didn’t you just tell me? You probably would have spared both of us a lot of hurt.]

Clint frowned and went back to studying the floor.

“I know. I guess I just didn’t want you to worry about me more than you already do.” That earned him a slap on the back of the head, and you scowled at him.

“Hey, I never said it was a smart choice. You’re supposed to be the smart one, remember?” He sounded offended, but his smile was playful. You hadn’t realized how much you had missed seeing him smile. It always had a way of washing away all the bad of a situation and it made you smile right along with him for even just a moment before you turned serious again. You placed a hand on his face again, so he’d turn to watch you speak.

“No more shutting me out, okay. From now on you talk to me or I’m kicking your ass.”

Clint smiled ever so slightly as he brought his hand up to cover yours, leaning forward so your foreheads met.

“Promise.”

The two of you stayed that way for a long time, letting your eyes drift closed and just enjoying the feeling of being together. Clint let his hand wander into your hair before pulling back.

“Now, will you let me finish what I was saying before?” You rolled your eyes and refrained from smacking him again but nodded.

“I was going to say, you’re amazing and I love you, too.”

“What?” You had to physically shake your head to make sure you weren’t actually still dreaming.

“At least I’m pretty sure that’s what you said. I could only sort of see what you were saying, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t mistake those words. But if I did, oh well, now the cat’s out of the bag and I really don’t give a shit anymore.”

Speechless couldn’t even begin to describe how you felt. Elation filled your heart as Clint’s words settled in the silence between you. A wide grin began to spread its way onto your face and Clint’s eyes brightened.

“So, I did read that right?” He wondered sheepishly, adjusting his position so he was fully facing you and leaning into you a little further.

Your eyes passed over his face, taking in his hopeful expression and you were certain that everything he’d said had been sincere. You nodded.

“Oh, thank God!”

The limited space between you disappeared in an instant as Clint’s lips met yours. Your brain seemed to malfunction, halting any response and before you even knew what was happening, Clint was moving up onto the bed, almost over top of you. He finally seemed to notice you were stunned and pulled back.

“I’m sorry, I should’ve asked. Can I…can we…aw man…I mean, crap. I do really like you. I have for a long time. In fact, Nat was giving me a hard time for being too obvious about it. Or at least she thought it was obvious, maybe it wasn’t. I’m sorry, I’m an idiot and I totally understand if you’re not ready for all this yet cause I was a jerk and…”

“Clint!” You grabbed him and began pulling him closer to you once more, his eyes trained on your lips the entire time. “This is going to seem like an odd request, given our previous conversation, but please shut up!”

Clint gave you a lop-sided smirk.

“Loud and clear, boss.”

There was a moment when your hand reached up to caress his face and card through his hair and Clint reached a hand down to grip your waist. And then his lips were attached to yours again and he was settling his weight between your legs like he was always meant to fit there. Your mind and heart were racing in the best way and you quickly decided that this was a feeling you never wanted to live without.

“I love you.” You mouthed against his lips and he responded with the most searing, heartfelt kiss that stole the air from your chest. You didn’t break away until your lungs were nearly burning and even then, as you lay breathless, Clint didn’t relent. Peppering kissing along your jaw and nuzzling his nose into the flesh just beneath your ear before moving down your neck to suck a mark that you would probably scold him for later.

You were reeling. The past hour had been filled with some of the most intense emotions you’d felt in your entire life. You were glad for it, but it was a lot to take in. Needing to feel more grounded, you carded your fingers through Clint’s hair, your grip tightening slightly when you felt his hands begin to explore your body. Still feeling like you might float away on cloud nine, you reached a hand above you to grip the edge of the mattress, sliding your hand between the bed and the wall. You pulled it back slightly when you felt your fingers brush against something that definitely wasn’t the bed frame.

As Clint continued his assault on your neck, you dug your hand back behind the mattress until you once again came in contact with the small object. Upon further inspection, you realized that there were, in fact, two similarly shaped objects stuck there and when you wrapped your fingers around them you knew exactly what they were.

“Clint?” He hummed against the column of your throat, his hands finding their way under your shirt to brush softly against the skin of your back.

“Clint.” This time he groaned in response.

“God, I wish I could hear you.”

Seriously? You smacked the palm of your hand against your forehead.

“Clint!”

“What?” He shot up immediately, looking concerned that he’d pushed you too far.

You pushed yourself up on an elbow and dangled your discovery in front of him.

Clint actually squealed when he saw his hearing aids in your hand. He stole them from your grasp before briefly inspecting them. Once he was satisfied that they hadn’t been damaged he deftly slipped them on and looked at you expectantly.

“Well, say something.” He was rocking back and forth slightly, and you couldn’t help but smile at how genuinely child-like he looked. You chuckled and he looked at you in awe.

“You. Are. A. Buffoon, Clint Barton.” You couldn’t help the grin that broke out on your face when you saw Clint’s smile. He fell on the bed next to you, wrapping you up in his arms.

“Oh my god, you don’t know how much I’ve missed your voice. Say something else.” He all but begged you as he nuzzled his nose into the back of your neck.

“How about you tell me how your aids got stuck behind the bed.” You felt him freeze behind you and you chuckled again. “Clint?”

“I, uh, well you see, it may have had something to do with the fact that I put them on my pillow when I went to go take a shower that one day. And then when I came out,”

“You jumped on the bed like a toddler?”

“Yes, that is a thing that I did. You are correct.” Your palm came up to cover your face again without you even meaning to do it.

“Clint…”

“Hey, I told you I’m not the smart one here.” His chest vibrated with laughter and you smiled as you turned over to face him.

“At least you have them back. Now don’t lose them again!”

“You know I can’t make that promise.” He poked your side as you both settled your heads on the pillow, falling into a comfortable silence. You let your eyes drift closed for a moment until Clint began to speak again.

“By the way, thank you for the pancakes. They were really good.”

Your eyes shot open and you rose into a sitting position, looking down at him confused.

“They were still on the table when I got out of the shower. I thought you hadn’t eaten them.”

“You seriously think I’m gonna pass up an opportunity to eat pancakes?! Are you crazy? They were still sitting there because I had to run out to the store. We didn’t have any syrup.”

You blinked down at him in disbelief and realized that you had, indeed, forgotten to pick up syrup at the store.

“I’m an idiot.” You covered your face in embarrassment until you felt Clint’s arms snake around your waist, pulling you back down against his chest.

“Darlin’, I would walk through fire for a decent stake of syrupy pancakes. A few blocks is nothing.” You giggled and smiled up at him. You felt a little foolish for assuming he had abandoned you earlier, but the thought quickly left your mind when Clint’s head settled against yours.  

“I’m sorry, again. Thank you for standing by me, even if I am a jerk and a buffoon.”

“You really are, but you’re welcome.” You brought a hand up between the two of you, bending your middle and ring finger before pressing the hand to Clint’s chest. He leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to your nose.

“I love you, too.”

You wanted nothing more than to lay there with Clint until the sun rose, tangled around each other, safe and happy. However, there was the small issue of you technically still being on the clock. You began to roll away from him, making to swing your legs over the side of the bed only to be thwarted halfway through the movement by Clint’s arm wrapping securely around your waist.

“Now just where do you think you’re going?” You smirked and rested your hand over his, trying to pry his fingers off you to no avail, he had you locked in.

“We are actually supposed to be working. And I think I’m overdue for a watch shift. You should sleep.”

“Pfft, to hell with the watch. I told you a week ago that guy isn’t showing up. You’re staying in bed with me.” You turned in his arm and gave him the sternest look you could muster.

[Release.]

Clint let out a sound that was something between a sad whimper and a frustrated groan, but released you, nonetheless. You rewarded him with a kiss before moving off the bed and getting ready to take your post by the window. When Clint had gotten himself ready for bed and you were ready to take your watch you came around the bed and stopped in front of him, holding out your hand. Clint looked up at you questioningly.

“From now on, when you need to take them out, you hand them to me.” You smirked down at him and he gave you an understanding nod.

“See, you’re the smart one.” He slipped the aids from his ears and into your waiting hand. “Thanks, babe.”

“You’re welcome. Now go to sleep.” You leaned down and kissed him one last time before making your way to the table by the window.

Making yourself comfortable, you watched as Clint did the same. Wrapping himself in a blanket and burying his face in the pillow. It wasn’t too long before he was drifting off, finally relaxed and with a small smile playing on his lips. Once you were sure he had really fallen asleep you got up from your chair and headed to the kitchen. There, you placed Clint’s hearing aids right next to the coffee maker. He’d never lose them again.

My experience with Aspergers

OCD and Anorexia 2/2:

Right now the painful part, this is probably the most difficult to talk about because it’s still so fresh and still very much active in my daily life. My Anorexia story I would say officially began around December 2018 however as I’ve mentioned before I’ve always struggled with eating. It started as just being a very fussy kid, in my early teen years I used to obsessive compulsively diet extremely strictly for periods of time. I think this in itself could be considered Anorexia or at least I was at the very edge of being. A year later I would completely 180, over eat and put on a lot of weight. A year later from that I would once again strictly diet this time making myself throw up if i “over ate” in my mind or ate something “bad”. I distinctly remember being 14 on holiday in Florida. My family kept encouraging me to eat fruit loops for breakfast (I would only eat bran flakes) and of course I desperately wanted to but it was very scary to me. So I did eat them one day and being 14 and uneducated on food I had a panic. Though I was panicking I didn’t ever tell anyone Insted I hid away, found a toilet and forced myself to throw up. Now this is years before I was officially diagnosed with an eating disorder but to me, this doesn’t seem healthy. Looking back I feel quite sorry for little me feeling I had to hide away and be sneaky, I wish I had told my mum how I was feeling, but I didn’t. Anyway, back to my official timeline. So 2018 was the year I did my gcses, it was a different year, I was so focused on my studies I began to over eat as a coping mechanism, this caused me to put on quite a bit of weight. Now I was never really fat but i was overweight, I would guess 13 stone (to put in comparison, when diagnosed with anorexia 6 months later I was 7 stone something, that’s a loss of 5 stone). In November that year I got my lovely boyfriend. When we first started dating I felt quite ashamed that I weighed more than him. Of course he didn’t care, I don’t think he even ever thought of it, he just liked me for me, but the intrusive thoughts which are oh so common to me told me otherwise. I began to notice in the morning my belly looked it’s flattest which I figured was because I hadn’t put any food in my stomach making it bloat so I began not eating in the mornings. If I was going to see my boyfriend who obviously as a young teen at the start of a relationship I wanted to impress I wouldn’t eat. I wouldn’t eat while I was around him then as soon as I got home I would eat as normal. This is where it all began. My boyfriend used to recall to my mom “she never eats breakfast and never eats at my house! I try and feed her but she just won’t eat.”

So like I said life carried on like this for a few months, I didn’t loose a massive amount of weight, maybe half a stone, but things changed drastically after a holiday to Egypt. On the first day I was struggling and obsessing over my appearance as usual, obsessing over every roll I could see. Looking back now I looked great! I had big boobs and hips, but at the time I didn’t see any of that all I saw was fat. Well the next day after this I caught a really bad case of the flu. I was bed ridden for the entire rest of the week barely well enough to get home. As we were in Egypt we had no way of getting any medication at all not even paracetamol so I was completely wiped out, it was the worst illness I’ve ever faced were literally everything that could happen, happened. Now because of this I didn’t eat for the entire week.

Once I arrived home and I began the process of analysis of my body as per usual I noticed I had lost weight. I put two and two together realising a week of not eating made me really quickly drop a ton of weight. The cogs began turning and I told myself the short amount of pain (being the hunger) my future self would thank me for. So I began restricting. Using the bike analogy it began at a quick pace but slowly got faster and faster. Soon I was eating no more than 400 calories a day, anymore than that and I would get depressed and anxious and stressed (for comparison the average women needs 2000 calories a day just to maintain weight) I was terrified of nearly all foods. Butter, bread, literally everything I can think of. I weighed out everything out to the T never eating a full packet of something. Which if I’m honest, I still do weigh everything, I also still count calories obsessively. This is what I mean by I’m not fully recovered I’m a lot better, but still suffering and fighting.

Now at this point my mental and physical health began to really suffer. I was normally really good at school getting outstanding grades in gcses but now with a levels I wasn’t able to get work completed or done, I couldn’t concentrate, I would fall asleep in class because I was tierd constantly, I wasn’t my normal talkative enthusiastic self because I was so drained of all energy I’m honestly so shocked my teachers didn’t make more of an effort to help me. I remember one time a teacher telling me I looked very ill and pale so forced me to eat a banana they had brought for their own lunch which was a struggle for me to do. Luckily for me a teacher i still dont know reported to the head of sixthform about being worried for me. They had been gone 3 months and within coming back had noticed the drastic change in weight I had had. It goes to show how much weight I lost as I was always wearing baggy clothes to hide it and she still noticed. Now that I’m mentioning it all my clothes were massively oversized because I no longer fit my entire wardrobe. I would try and wear stuff like leggings as they made me feel comfortable and happy in myself but my head of sixthform would shout at me and force me to change. I recall a few teachers and students coming to me asking if I was alright as they had noticed my rapid weight loss, I told them it was just stress. I was completely in denial I had tricked myself into thinking it was normal, I have no idea how I even lasted as long as I did at sixthform like this. So as the story goes I got taken into the teds team which is a recovery center for children with eating disorders

I was extremely reluctant to go, I was stand off ish and rude to the doctors and my family which is something that is not in my nature at all. Looking back all they wanted to do was help me but at the time I thought everyone was against me were trying to trick me into being fat. This was clearly the anorexia talking and not me, it was completely in control. While there I was freezing cold so they had to turn the fan off. I was honest as I could be and told them most of what I previously told you but it still didn’t actually sound like a concern to me. I down played it as much as a could because I didn’t want anyone’s help. I can still remember that horrible feeling of being so stubborn and refusing to even acknowledge what the people around me were saying I was so caught up in the anorexic trap. Now about a year ago from this I had been previously weighed as I had started a new version of medication, like I said I weighed in at around 85kg, 13 stone. I got weighed again on this day and was in the 7 stones, I had lost nearly 6 stone in 3 months. That’s crazy looking back at. I was told if I didn’t turn myself around soon my periods would stop and I would have to go into hospital to be force fed. They warned me as I was in the hight of my teenage development i was right at the edge of doing permanent growth, brain and fertility damage. I love children and can’t wait to be a mother someday and I really highly value my intelligence so this was the kick up the bum I needed to start my recovery. I came back a week later to create an eating plan and in that time I had dropped another couple of pounds in just a week. I was very stubborn during the hour we spent making an eating plan, we pretty much fought back and forth me and the doctor disagreeing on everything, the eating disorder had complete control over my mind and I was pretty much in auto pilot. Eventually we came to an agreement which I still was very reluctant to follow, but I had worked out the calorie intake and it felt at level that was “safe” for me. I was also just happy to not have to worry about making food anymore as my mum was now in charge or making everything I eat. Before this I was eating on average a banana, half a packet of cuscus and a plain piece of brown bread without butter and a spoon full of baked beans with no sauce. On top of this I drank an unhealthy amount of coffee, so much I became addicted, to help me loose weight, keep me full and give me the energy I didn’t have.

I remember so vividly the first day I followed this new eating routine my stomach had shrunk so small I was physically in pain by the end of the day. I was to eat 2 spoons of yogurt in the morning, an egg sandwich at lunch on brown bread, an apple, half a dinner and one weatabix at night. By the weatabix I was in physical pain from being so full. But I pushed through it. A week later I had still lost weight but not as much as the normal rate went. This is when I was told I had to add in extra and I reacted terribly. I flat out refused to follow it anymore and said I was quitting the program. For a few months I refused to follow the new program sticking to the old one I felt safe with and still lost weight with. With things like anorexia it’s something I feel can never be solved by anyone else it’s something you have to do yourself. I think I improved just overtime by chatting with the teds team and the dietitian and educating myself. This next part of my journey is kind of difficult to talk about as I don’t remember it much, I was so tired and drained it’s all kind of disappeared from my memory. Eventually through education I began to slowly add things to my eating plan. I added crisps (but only under the condition they were healthy ones under 100 calories) changed the yogurt to 2 weatabix as it was easier to measure and less of a “scary food” to me.

So yeah, since this is just a short (at least as short as I can make it) synopsis of my journey I’m just going to skip to now. Some day maybe I’ll talk about the one and a half year gap there is between then and now but that would take too long for the moment. Now I am still suffering with eating. I’ve put on a bit of weight but I’m still classed as underweight. I still follow a very strict daily routine with what I eat, I still weigh things out, I still calorie count, I still analyse my body but I am a hell of a lot better than a year ago. I still struggle when it comes to eating “fatning” of “sugary” foods but on occasion I do eat them. I try and eat something every day like a breakfast bar or granola bar. Although I am a lot better now, I’m mostly tortured by the anorexic intrusive thoughts.

I struggle oddly with extreme hunger! Something I hadn’t felt at all while I was in critical condition. I did some research and I found out this happens to most recovering anorexics and their body is literally starving and desperate for food. I have been left with loose skin which makes me extremely embarrassed and unhappy, I hope someday to get rid of it as it’s a big factor of my destress. I hope this story can help educate people without eating disorders and give you an incite into our minds. Someday I will go into more detail.

So you’ve decided you want to walk across the Grand Canyon

@dwelling-abode​ pinged me, and I ranted enough I’m just going to make this a post

3 parts: 

The Hike itself and why it sucks

The warnings

The walkthrough

The gear you’re going to use to make it suck less and also not die

The fitness you need to be in to not die

I apologize to all the mobile people for whom this is a wall of text.  

The hike:

Two variations: 

1) Rim-to-Rim aka North Kaibab to Bright Angel.  I did this.  1 day down, 2 days up.  

2) South Kaibab to Bright Angel off the South Rim

First thing you should notice: There is no water on South Kaibab.  There is no purified water source between Cottonwood and Bright Angel (Well, er, Phantom Ranch) which is the longest, hottest, most exposed portion of the trip.  You are coming up Bright Angel.  

The other thing you should notice: 1000 feet is 600 miles, this is the rough equivalent weather-wise of walking from Calgary to Phoenix to Minneapolis.  On a good day, your downhill day has a 60 degree temperature differential.  

This in turn enforces a very hard cutoff in terms of when it’s physically possible to do this, namely about 2 weeks in early October when the North Rim is open and it *might* not be 100+ degrees at the bottom.  Key word might.  I did it on the last possible day (No seriously, I flew my grandmother out to spend 4 days driving the car around), and it was 92.  

If you’ve never done serious exertion, 55 is t-shirt weather, I mean this.  

If you do it in June/July/August/early September, you will die.   There is no safe way to do this (Read: Any) level of physical activity in the desert in those temps.  

So let’s walkthrough the hike. 

The first mile and a half down to Supai is a boring series of switchbacks down through a pine forest.  Poor visibility because of the trees, boring yellow/grey rock, just do it.  Weather-wise, it went from 30 to 60 in the space of about 2 hours, if you brought a jacket, it’s in the backpack by now.  

Then you get to the tunnel.  If your less... energetic... companions want to come down a little bit, this is the spot they gawk and turn around.  There is a water supply, but it was covered in wasps, so don’t count on it running.  Probably 60-90 minutes down, 2-3 hours back up.  

The rock turns red, the pines get replaced by high desert scrub, it’s really the first open view of the next few miles of the hike and the light’s come around *just* far enough that it’s down into the canyon, but it’s still good light.  

Broadly speaking, you’re switchbacking down the left wall to the bridge, over the bridge, then down the right wall until you hit the bottom of that far wall.  

About halfway down, the red rock converts into the red-gray rock, and the trail becomes a dynamited cut into the sheer rock wall.  If you’re afraid of heights... enjoy!  Seriously, it’s freaky.  There is a tree in this picture.  

It’s another 15-20 degrees hotter (80... It was 30 4 hours and 3000 feet ago), and the sheer rock walls largely conceal the transition from the pictured scrub to actual desert.  

At Roaring Springs, the red rock ends and you get this off-green shale in eroded piles.  The trail flattens out, opens up, and goes another half mile down to the pumphouse.  This was my first working water supply!  It is 11:37AM.  I have been walking for 4.5 hours, 6 miles, and I have another 8 hot, flat miles to go.  

At this point, you merge with Bright Angel Creek.  This is the worst part of the trip.  ~5 miles of open terrain through the desert on a hot, hot day.   Another mile up is Cottonwood, the last water supply until Phantom.  Drain your water now, and refill completely.   Drink, drink, drink.  

About 2 miles up is the Ribbon Falls side trail.  Unfortunately, the bridge was out and I really did not feel like going up to the ford, fording the creek and doubling back while carrying this much gear.  This was a good choice, since I barely made it by dark.  In October, I doubt it’s really running tbh.  

So 5 miles rambling through the desert as the red side cliffs get higher and higher, you get lower and lower, and the day gets hotter and hotter. 

And finally, at last, 11 miles of walking in, you hit the box canyon.  Blessed shade.  3 miles of increasingly tired cornering later, there’s a side hike to Phantom Overlook, 1000 feet straight up, but I was running out of both light and leg strength, so I passed on this.  If you’re coming down South Kaibab, you have 5-6 hours to kill, so go explore the box canyon.  It’s seriously cool, and you’ll never be back here again.  

Go to Phantom Ranch or Bright Angel Campground, check in, drop your bags, run run run down to the river for sunset at the black bridge.  Stay there until dark, then use your headlamp to get back.  

Variant: There’s a variant I’d love to do where I manage to get Cottonwood permits as well, and then do both Ribbon Falls and Phantom Overlook as Day 2 with some more time at Phantom Ranch.  That’s about 7 down slow on the first day, a relaxing early sleep, ~11 (and ~4000 feet of elevation gain/loss nervous_monkey_puppet.jpg) on Day 2, then 2 easy 9-mile days on the climb with dead legs.  

Note: I stayed in the cabins and got 2 hours of sleep.  Preferably, you should just do Bright Angel Campground.  Lows of 70 are perfectly fine for sleeping.  

Day 2:

Wake up.  Walk down to the river, cross... either of the bridges are fine really, black bridge is a slight detour, but ideally this is a short day, adding a mile won’t hurt.  I must admit to being moderately curious about the south side trail from black to gray bridge.  

Two miles running up and along a cliffside trail to the base of Polk Creek. 

Looks like this, that’s a cell phone camera, enjoy.  

You’re still pretty low, but also desert morning, shade, and the river being a giant heatsink.  Then you start the climb out. 1500 feet up to Indian Garden, probably 80% of that climb is a 2-mile stretch of switchbacks.  Lovely red and yellow rock.   

The last mile or two before the campground are flat, exposed to the sun, and still low enough it’s hot hot hot.  80′s are expected.  

And then you finally get to the campground (Trees, shade, toilets, first actual real water supply since Phantom!).  At this point, either:

1) Congrats, you have a campground!  Set up camp, rest, relax, maybe make a Plateau Point (2 miles, 1 hour each way, perfectly flat the whole way) run.  

2) If you’re really fast and have 2 hours/4 miles of buffer in your legs (Iffy, 14 mile day up a 4400 foot cliff), also make a Plateau Point run.  It’s not very pretty at 2:00 in the afternoon, so really don’t feel bad for skipping.  

3) Stare in sheer horror at the 3000 foot cliff that has finally become visible in front of you, and cry inside.  

You are a third of the way up.  

I wasn’t feeling so good, so I went to bed early.  The sun goes down at 6:00 by the way, and it’s so dark you’ll just conk out.  

Day 3: 

So I woke up at 4AM, made a sunrise Plateau Point run (DO THIS) with my tripod, and then headed back.  Packed up the campground, started up about 9:00 or so?  

This is ideal.  You’re headed right up the middle of a crack in the rock, and if you do it this way, you’re making the climb in 60 degree weather in the shade pretty much until the top.  If you took Option #2 or #3 yesterday, the sun comes around, and you’re doing the climb in 75 degree weather in the sun.  

There’s not really much here.  It is exactly a 5 mile, 3000 foot climb with 2 intermediate water supplies split every 1000 feet on 2/1.5/1.5 mile splits.  3 mile resthouse has a decent view.  The most exciting thing past that is the red/yellow line in the rock, and if you do this early enough, the sun will be on that wall.  This took me about 4.5 hours.  

The hike until now has been a 2.5-day test of your ankles.  Downhill, uneven ground, drop-offs, etc.  This is a sheer test of your quad strength and cardio.  Especially as you get closer to 8K feet.  “Officially”, I burned 6200, 4300, 6200 calories across the 3 days.  

The most encouraging thing is seeing the increasingly “tourist” nature of your hiking companions since the serious hikers have proper gear and the less serious ones... do not.  So if you’re watching some little 4 year old kid in Converse, you’re probably not *that* far from the top.  

At the top, stay as close to the Rim as possible.  My ankle gave out the second I got to the top, and I had to hobble half a mile to my hotel.  God help me if there was a shuttle ride or a longer walk.  

Shower, relax, massage some feeling back into your feet, change clothing if you brought extra, THEN meet up with your family members.  And then I was bored, so for sunset, I went around and grabbed this shot of the trail.  

Gear that will keep you from death: 

Satellite comms: 

Garmin satellite comms ($350 for the Inreach Mini + more $$$$ for the actual plan) https://www.rei.com/product/140110/garmin-inreach-mini-2-way-satellite-communicator

I upgraded to the good plan that lets you send infinite random texts (~10 minute delay), and didn’t regret it.  But you need a Panic button that works.  There’s pretty good connectivity, you don’t need one of the $1000 beacons they use in slot canyons, and the cheaper competitors don’t.... actually work.  

Invest in a Garmin.  Set it up.  TEST IT BEFORE YOU LEAVE.  Make sure your relatives know how to contact you over the satellite comms, and that your texts will arrive from some random number.  

Hiking gear: 

Fitted Backpack with both good chest and hip straps and an internal support structure ($2-400)

I’ve been ecstatically happy with my 70L Osprey (Aether?), I also have a 24-inch torso.  

They make different ones for men and women, because the men’s ones put the chest strap straight across the nipples.  You actually care about that.  

Carbon Fiber Hiking Poles tested and fitted ($300)

Get you down steps, get you across rivers, provide support on pushes up, get weight off the ankles.  

Protip: 5cm too long on downhills, 5cm too short on uphills.  

Good boots/shoes ($150-$300)

There’s an inherent tradeoff between ankle support and weight in the boots.  Personally, for a through-hiker with serious gear, I’d go with mid-rise boots

If you were doing a true Rim-to-Rim, they all use trail runners even when they’re not running it.  

Good Boot Socks

Merino Wool is a must, I really like Darn Tough thick boot socks.  

Moisture-wicking underwear

Merino Wool is acceptable

Carbon Fiber is light, you actually care about every ounce. 

Related: You’re about to spend 3 days in the same clothing, it will smell. Merino at least makes it smell better and handles the moisture acceptably.  

Anti-heat gear:

A good sweat-wicking wide-brim hat with holes in the outer band (The name brand is Tilly for $80, I think mine was about $40?)

Good, tough, not too hot hiking pants ($60/pair?)

Ripping is bad, extra pockets are good.  

I use these, note the water resistance and also two pockets, one per leg, with horizontal zippers so you can reach straight down and things can’t fall out of your pockets.  

Some people use those convertible shorts, I’ve never liked the zippers myself.  

Good moisture-wicking t-shirts, or even better polo shirts ($40)

Polo shirts let you pop your collar and cover your entire neck.  

Moisture-wicking keeps you alive when it’s 95.  

SPEND MONEY.  It’s a $40 t-shirt, you just need one, SPEND THE MONEY. 

Light jacket for cold mornings

Consumables:

At least one water bottle and 1 3L Osprey water bladder

Some form of backup water purification

High-carb, high-calorie-to-weight-or-volume, low-fiber food

6000 calories a day * Fiber in an energy bar...

Personal recc: Nutter Butters.  Easy to find in any mid-sized grocery store, can go a week without going stale, etc, etc.  Throw 2-3 family-sized packs into Ziploc, ration one a day.  

Phantom Ranch has a store, you can buy some more food there.  

They also have an all-you-can-eat breakfast, that’s worth investing in if you’re in the cabins.  

Imodium

Any needed meds.  I have contacts so I needed a little bottle of Boston.  

Camping Gear (Skippable if through-hiking or only staying at Phantom):

Lightest possible self-supporting full-frame tent ($300)

https://www.rei.com/product/110817/rei-co-op-quarter-dome-1-tent

The ground is rocky, you probably can’t pitch

There are scorpions and rats.  If you want to try a tarp, I can’t stop you.  

Sleeping bag + pad

Cold, but not that cold at night

Once again, rocky ground.  

Your permit, in a plastic Ziploc bag.  

Camera Gear: 

Your cell phone is very good these days.  

But fine, it’s a once in a lifetime trip.  

Full-frame or APS-C body

High-MP landscape body if you can do it.  

Lenses

24-105/4 for the day hikes.  (NIkon is 24-120/4)

You want the reach more than you want a 24-70/2.8.  

(Optional) 16-35/2.8 for nights/star shots/wide

Long lenses are heavy.  105 is good enough.  

I brought a full-sized tripod, this was simultaneously super-cool and incredibly stupid.  

Maybe a Platypod instead?

Don’t lose your remote trigger the day before like I did.  

Peak Design Clip.  Seriously, amazing little gadget.  

Misc: 

Wallet (Pull the loose change), keys, etc. 

Paper printouts of your South Rim hotel reservations in a Ziploc bag.  

I brought a change of clothing because Grandma was a couple days behind me, but an extra pair of underwear and socks is probably a good idea.   

Extra batteries.  

I blew out 2 camera batteries and an entire 26K mAh battery over 3 days with a camera, a phone, and satellite comms.  

Fitness that will keep you from death:

Broadly Speaking: 

Ankles/Calves/Feet are stability

Quads are power

Hips and back and chest hold the backpack up 

Mine weighed 35 pounds, this is not nothing. 

Cardio matters at the very end, gets outweighed by stability until then.  

1MPH at 7K feet is 3MPH at sea level basically.  And you can do 3 MPH now.  

Arms kinda sorta show up and help a little bit on the hill climbs?

Pretty much your order of priority is top to bottom.  Ankles giving out is a $10000 helicopter ride and months of rehab, legs giving out is a surprise lunchtime and an hour-long rest sitting on a rock somewhere.  

Ankles: 

BALANCE BALANCE BALANCE, also Lyle’s calf rotation starting about 6 months out, ending 4 just in case you injure something. 

Legs: 

Leg press and one-legged leg press.  Also stairs.  Loaded stairs if possible.   Press it UP!  Press, press, press.  I got up to 700 pounds on an incline press.  

Legs, but also Cardio:

Bring your backpack and wear your hiking boots to the gym, take a treadmill, and go slow and highly angled for a long time.  Speed up as you get better.  You use subtly different muscles when you have ankle protection on because the Achilles is no longer able to act as a spring.  Train them hard now.  

If you’ve got a good hill climb near you, be religious about that.  

There are worse things than finding an ice cream shop 10 miles away, walking there with a fully loaded pack for hours and hours, getting the biggest ice cream they have, and Ubering home.  

Hips/Back/etc: 

Hip hinges with perfect back posture.  Deadlifts wreck the back and risk injury, but rack pulls are perfect.  Load up, load up, load up.  

Other back exercises: Cable rows with perfect back posture, Pulldowns with perfect back posture.  

Arms: 

So you did cable rows, right?  Yeah, that’ll get you some good enough arms.  

-------------------------------

Whatever you end up doing, pause it 2-3 months out.  Avoid injury.  Maintain your lifts, lose 10 pounds, and maybe up the cardio a tad.  

And good luck and enjoy.  

Do you have any writing tips for someone that is definitely not a writer but wants to be better at writing anyway? That might be too vague so I'll say this, I have a lot of trouble getting an idea that isn't either something really small that doesn't make a narrative or something gigantic and complicated that I dont have the will to take on. No middle sliders in my life.

You have an issue my boyfriend has, he has great ideas but either believes they’re just something too small for a long narrative or so long and complex he doesn’t know how to plot them.

I can’t tell you what the right way is, because everyone is different of course, but I think there’s two ways you can go about it to try and figure out which might help you best.

First of all, take notes on every idea you have. I’m serious. However small it seems, just write it down. Even if it’s something as trivial as ‘man eats an apple while staring at a tree’, whatever. I find that, when something really tiny like that pops into my head with that thing of ‘dang, I need to write this’ but it just seems way too trivial for me to care, it’s because of how I’m visualizing it. I’ll tell you this, this one time I was having a cup of coffee near the library after a break and I saw this woman in the gardens looking at a tree, and that’s what gripped me in that moment. It was really stupid, but the thing I saw was what made me explore that for some reason. I thought she looked sad, I don’t know why, it just looked really sad, and it looked like that sad woman just casually looked up at a cypress tree like she wanted to see something pretty on a shitty day. Later on, must have been years, I was trying to write a scene where a character was supposed to compose a text for school about why she mattered and the only thing that came to mind was that woman looking up at that tree. I’m telling you this because the littlest thing can really help. If you get that unexpected pang of ‘damn, this is cool’ or ‘wow, this is really pretty’, take the chance to write down the what and why at least. Because you never know! 

Now, as for development, there’s two ways to go about it that might help you. You can explore the character-driven side of narrative, or the plot-driven. These are, I’ll be honest, two things I have a hard time distinguishing but I mostly follow character-driven.

Plot-driven stuff generally has people planning beforehand (hence why I suck at it lmao). Some people follow the 3 Act structure, or other ways to go about it with planning (this is a good place to check out a few). As the name says, the plot is the star. There is a narrative you want to develop. There’s a central plot with probably very little sub-plots, but that one plot is the main goal. Most likely, one protagonist or two, both with goals that they will achieve or not at the end.

Character-driven, though... the characters make the story. It’s really hard to explain, so I’ll explain how I do it. I essentially have to have the characters very well established. Who they are, psychologically. Once I know them, I let the story flow naturally.

This has helped me a lot because most of the times I have a premise, not a plot, and on my first draft (not even a first draft, more like preliminary exercise lmao), I just try that approach to try and understand who these characters are or what I want them to be, so that they can move the story. Eventually, what happens is I have the inciting incident settled, the lowpoint as well or just something in the middle that is a plot device, and the ending established, but as I progress, since I know the characters, new things emerge like, completely new conflicts and reactions that just occur to me as I progress. But this is my method, it’s how I work.

For me, personally, sitting down just TRYING to find a plot, or an extra for the already existing plot, is tiresome and it drains me. So I just go ahead and do something and see where it goes. I follow the character instead of the plot (ask stuff like “what would she do if a stranger bumped into her on the subway, what should do if she witnessed this or that, what would she say if someone asked her this and that”, and go from there).

Another thing is: find your voice. I mean mostly style. I find that most of the times people struggle with this because they are struggling with finding their style, because once you get your voice established it might become easier in developing your story. For example, I always loved bullshitting my way through stuff if it involves words lmao, and when it came to creating long stories, I had an issue with planning. I remember at school my teachers would have us write a detailed plan of our story before the actual story, and we were forced to turn them both in for grading, which fucking sucked, because I don’t plan.

Then I read Virginia Woolf and learned about this neat little thing called ‘stream of consciousness’ and thought, fuck you, 9th grade teacher. Stream of consciousness is essentially a style where the author focuses on one small detail, seemingly trivial, and then develops an entire fluid string of throughs that interconnect with each other however contrasting they are (why the sentence “Mrs. Dalloway thought she’d buy the flowers herself” is so remarkable, because for the WHOLE BOOK, Woolf debates about many things, seldom being flowers. Hell, one of my favourite short stories is her meditating on a fly that lands on a bowl of milk).

So what I learned with this was: bullshitting your way out of purple prose has an academic word for it! Great! This also validated a lot my lack of planning, meaning that every time I drivelled instead of following a step-by-step plot I was actually building something worth a damn, because that exercise of developing a string of thoughts that are born from one shitty thing is something that can happen inside a novel. 

So you see, finding my style, in this case, helped me find my voice and it became very easy ever since to juggle my methods with my ideas. This is my experience, of course, and it’s worth what it’s worth, but this little thing is what helped me establish that, I might have an idea, but if I let it flow, it might grow into something.

Of course, there’s that last advice: read more, watch more TV shows and movies within the genre you’d like to explore, etc etc, but I think it always goes without saying.

And one more thing: no story, for me, is too small or too long. It has its own natural length. Sometimes, we have ideas that are naturally shorter. It just means they’re short stories, or novellas, or novelettes. When my boyfriend told me he had that same problem -- that he had ideas he just didn’t know how to develop into full books -- I told him: then they’re short stories. And that’s fantastic. 

The thing is, being a writer isn’t like something immutable, you’re not the same always, you know, you’re not always in this place, with this style, writing about this thing. You keep changing, keep finding new voices, keep exploring new angles, just continuously growing, as with any other artistic field. So maybe right now, those might be short stories, but who knows in the future? 

I was reading American Gods and Neil Gaiman apparently republished it a second time, a much longer version his former editor had told him to cut down, and at the beginning he quotes Stephen King on why he did it: cause there were small bits in it, sub-plots if you will, editors are keen on thinking they don’t add to the main plot, but they build the story as a whole, paint the colours needed for the setting, the ambience, the narrative outside the main plot, and both authors felt their concepts, their ideas, weren’t complete without them.

My first advice when someone has an idea is always this: write it down, however it is, with whatever you have. It might be one paragraph. It might be 400 pages. Whatever you have, it’s just a first draft, and the goal of a first draft is getting it down on paper, not turning it into the finished work. It’s the first step.

And if it’s gigantic? Make it gigantic. This is Miss Only Writes Gigantic Shit speaking. I mean monstrous. Especially first and second and even like, third and fourth draft (man I have a lot of drafts), it’s so brutally long I seriously have to take a step back and think “bitch, slow down”. Eventually, I chop down stuff. Scenes that don’t add anything, repeated stuff, scenes that establish what is already established -- just stuff that misses the eye. 

Just to say, let the story have its natural rhythm in the beginning stages. Writing is like baking, as I say: you need to set it aside and let it settle for a while, and then when you come back to it with a clear head, you’ll be able to compose it better. Eventually, it drives you down misery road and actually have to do the dreadful thing of leaving stuff out -- it’s sad, I won’t deny, looking at this one character and saying “goodbye, you were a good one, but I have to put you into the Unused Character Pile, maybe one day you’ll find your light, but not today, and I’m so sorry, but where you are right now, you’re useless lmao”. It’s a step that comes eventually, but it’s not needed in the early stages.

But in the end, it all comes down to motivation, I think. So first and foremost, I would say... find your motivation to write whatever you have. You could read more into the genre you’re thinking of, or you could try and write small vignettes of the story you have in mind (just pick a scene and try writing it down, just to see). You could try a challenge of sorts, like picking up a concept, a word, a sentence, and try developing it. Create a habit too -- don’t mind that “write every day” stuff, do it whenever you feel like it, whenever you get that tingle of ‘damn I feel like writing’, just answer that call. And always believe in your ideas, and I say this because I find that a lot of lack of motivation comes from ‘my idea sucks’ or ‘it’s been done before’. Your ideas are yours alone, so explore them as much as you can.

I used to have a website saved that I lost and this is the closest thing to it I found, but try this out for like a first plot, or just to generally get an outline of your idea. It has HELPED ME TREMENDOUSLY when I have a new idea that just makes me think “Great! now what the fuck do I do with it?”

I hope this helped, anon!! And sweet, sweet writing, my friend!

Insult me for my efforts? I'll ruin your holiday.

I'm on mobile, so sorry in advance for formatting/typos. I never thought that I'd post here but I've finally gotten my share of justice boner (although maybe not as pro as y'all'd like -- as it's still ongoing, suggestions are solicited)!

My dad and I have been planning to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu for about a year, to start on father's day (he'll soon be 60 so I wanted to help him cross this item off his bucket list before he gets older).

A coworker of my dad's decided that he wanted to join in on this trip with his daughter, and as it was my first trip to South America, I thought there would be some strength in numbers in case we run into trouble, and I accepted.

My dad's coworker (let's call him 58 because that's his age as well as his IQ) has never traveled much aside from Italy (through a package tour), and was completely inexperienced in traveling solo. As we began to plan this trip, his answer to everything became "I'll just do whatever you guys are doing (read in your best idiot's voice)."

Whatever, I was determined to make this trip the best one for my dad, and it wasn't a big deal for me to make the reservations for 4 people instead of 2, so despite the fact that 58 and his daughter (let's call her NP, for Nachu Picchu, obviously) were not pulling any weight on the trip planning, I was glad to do it, and happy to help 58 and NP experience the world (NP has never traveled outside of her home country as far as I know).

Unfortunately, trouble began almost immediately. 58 has packed way too much and literally could not handle all of his luggage, leaving me and my dad to carry one of his bags atop our suitcase (he never once said thank you, and my dad was already pissed on day 1). Here are some of their lesser offenses:

- if you've ever traveled Peru, you might know that most first-time travelers follow the same path (often called the Gringo trail), starting in Lima and following a few very small but touristy towns (Paracas, Huacachina, Nazca). Our plan was to stay in these towns for 4 days, where there is no ATM access. So I wrote to 58 many weeks before the trip to bring at least $500-600 usd + 400 soles in cash, to pay for hotel and transportation as well as food, and wrote clearly that he will not see an ATM for 4 days. As soon as we landed in Lima airport, 58 announced that he had precisely $305 and a very low ATM withdrawal limit (around $200 per day). I knew we were in trouble then (we ended up lending him some money to make him shut up whining about money, which he ended up doing daily)

- from that day onwards, 58 began harassing me about ATM every day despite the fact that I have told him that there won't be any ATMs (keep in mind that I'm his co-worker's daughter... Have some dignity maybe?)

- 58 also complained constantly that the Peruvians don't speak English, and that he had no trouble communicating in English on his package trip to Italy. Umm... Sorry for not having taught all the Peruvians English?

- Despite his massive luggage size, both 58 and NP didn't pack everything that they needed for the Inca Trail, and they wanted to spend an entire day shopping for trekking gears. To give you an idea of what these people are like, 58 needed a rubber end to his trekking pole, and wanted our help in finding a store that sells it. When my dad pointed out a store that had hiking sticks on display, he cried out in his whiny idiotic voice "I want the rubber end, not the hiking sticks!" *rolls eyes*

-At the Inca Trail, our hiking group was about 10 women and 5 men, and 58's comment in front of me and NP was "wow, this means all the dudes can have two girls each, eh?" Happy father's day, I guess!

At this point, since it'll become important later, I will honestly and seriously say that 58 seems to have some sort of cognitive problem. He can't usually follow conversations, and even though information was relayed to him, he had trouble either retaining it or processing it, and people usually have to repeat information several times to him before he gets it. So because I noticed this early on in the trip, I tried to be understanding for a long time.

I really tried my best to make this a great experience for them. With my limited Spanish, I was able to get some great deals and some hidden tours that aren't really known to many people yet; I have some fancy lounge access at all airports that lets me bring in unlimited number of guests, so 58 and NP were traveling in style with me, drinking free alcohol and munching on snacks on comfy sofas until boarding time; because I had a year to prepare, we all got great hotels at great prices, etc.

Nonetheless, the real trouble began about a week into our trip. My dad and I had gotten sick of the constant ATM hunting and trekking gear shopping, so we had told 58 and NP that we were going to split, see some sights, and since NP and I have roaming data plans, we'd figure out how to rendez-vous later.

I should have foreseen that 58 would not process this information at once. He somehow understood that we would come back in 15 minutes, and NP, although she understood what our plans were, didn't try to correct 58 (from what I've observed over the week, they don't have a great father-daughter chemistry, and have very little communication -- for example, when 58 was having a really rough time with altitude sickness on the Inca trail, NP was happily hiking at the front of the trip, a couple of hours ahead of her dad, and never once hiked alongside him during the 4 days). So apparently they waited for us in the freezing streets of Cusco for a long time. I'm told that 58 was already pissed at this point.

From here, things took a dramatic turn for the worse rather quickly.

We had just one key to the airbnb that we were staying in, which I had (frankly, didn't trust 58 to not lose it). But NP's phone died and she couldn't find her way back to our hotel for a long time (as they had no part in the trip planning, they had no idea which neighborhood the hotel was in; which landmarks were nearby, etc., although I had of course sent them all the info ages ago).

As a result, my dad and I were locked in our hotel for over an hour waiting for them, and NP and 58 were locked out for an hour. My dad and I eventually went out to take a walk and to hopefully run into them (maybe 20 minutes total) and during this time they came to the hotel, saw the door locked, and became even more pissed.

When they finally came back to the hotel, 58 (who is probably 6'4" to my 5'4") stormed directly in front of me, pointed a finger at my face, and screamed, I AM SO ANGRY, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, AND YOU CANNOT TREAT ME LIKE THIS, and proceed to have a temper tantrum for hours (I just locked myself in a room and my dad dealt with 58, during which 58 apparently asserted that the ATMs wouldn't give him enough money and it was my fault, the Peruvians don't speak English and it was my fault, I quoted all prices in USD and Peruvian soles and so I was not honest, NP's phone died and it was my fault, and they got lost and it was my fault). Essentially, he and NP told me that my plans were disorganized compared to 58's package Italy tour, and that I was a terrible person (for your reference, 58's Italy trip cost him $6k, his Peru trip cost him less than $2.5k). What a way to pour my year's efforts for this trip down the drain!

I had had enough, and I decided to take my revenge. With about 8 days to go in the trip, I announced to them that I would no longer travel with them, and that aside from the things that were already booked and paid for, they were on their own. 58 and NP both got very upset, understandably so, and NP made things worse by telling me that I should grow a thicker skin and that I should take this as a learning experience since surely someone else will get mad at me again, and that I cannot burn bridges so quickly like this.

Well, 58 and NP are having a learning experience of their lifetime, being thrown into a country that they have no knowledge of (since they didn't do any research or trip planning on Peru) and neither of them speak any Spanish. NP, an avid Instagrammer who was making 20+ updates while being with me and my dad, hasn't Instagrammed anything since we split. They also missed sights in Cusco such as the Salineras salt mines, Moray, the sun Temple, etc. They're also missing out big time in Lima, but since we still have about 20 hours left here, I won't list our plans here in case they see this (oh, I hope they do!)

Tomorrow our flight leaves at 2:40am from Lima, and 58 and NP will have to make a fun choice; either stay in Lima until around midnight (nights in Lima aren't exactly safe, especially for non-street-savvy travel n00bs) or wait at the uncomfortable and not-so-clean Lima airport for 6-7 hours. In the meantime, my dad and I will be chilling at a VIP lounge, have some free drinks, and try to catch a few winks before boarding. 58 and NP will definitely not be my guests.

Also, in case you're wondering, although 58 is my dad's coworker, my parents are also completely behind me on this; dad is incredibly pissed at 58 and will distance himself as far from 58 as office politics will allow, and has already told 58 that he crossed a line that should never have been crossed; 58 and his girlfriend have been wanting to get closer to my parents for ages and go camping together and whatnot, but my mom has firmly stated that she will never see 58's face ever again.

TL;DR: travel companions who completely relied on my trip planning (and couldn't even follow instructions) made the mistake of screaming at me for their own faults. So I ditched them in a random country that they know nothing about, and took away extra privileges that come with traveling with me (help with language barrier, VIP lounge access etc). If you have more ways to get revenge, let me know.

(source) (story by binbinbin3)

3 of Sadie’s arcs throughout TKC - a mapping

@jurakan  I might’ve missed some things but this is as comprehansive as I could make it:

Responsibility/Parents Arc -

This arc revolves around Sadie realizing that when she has to choose between what she wants and saving millions of lives she has to accept that she has to make that sacrifice (this is different from the birthday and dance thing, because she has a third option to do both without a lot of people dying. Is there risk? Yes, more so for the former than the latter because there’s a hard deadline, but it’s not a decision she has to make on the spot like “free your dad and the world will bear the consequences” vs. “bear the consequences and millions of lives will be saved”.) It’s also intertwined with her grief over her mom and the blame she places on her dad for her death and the catharsis she gets from emotionally spilling to him at the climax of The Red Pyramid.

*Red Pyramid*

- “I was determined not to be like them, living in the past. I barely remembered Mum, after all, and nothing could change the fact that she was dead. But I did keep the one picture... But the main reason I’d kept the photo was because of the symbol on Mum’s T-shirt: one of those life symbols - an ankh. My dead mother wearing the symbol for life. Nothing could’ve been sadder”(33). Our first peek into how Sadie feels about her mother’s death. Despite her saying that she was determined to not live in the past like her grandparents, the photograph betrays that she hasn’t quite completely moved on from it. 

- “’...Young man, your father has committed a criminal act. He’s left you behind to deal with the consequences-’ ‘That’s not true!’ I snapped, my voice trembling with rage. I couldn’t believe Dad would intentionally leave us at the mercy of the police, of course. But the idea of him abandoning me - well, as I might have mentioned, that’s a bit of a sore point’”(41). Sadie says it herself here, she’s not quite over what she perceived as her dad abandoning her.

-” “I realized I was crying. I hated to, but shock and fear were starting to overwhelm me. Where did I want to go? Home, of course! Back to my flat in London—back to my own room, my grandparents, my mates at school and my old life. But I couldn’t. I had to think about my father and our mission”(236). This kinda also fits here because she’s putting the mission over what she wants: to go home.

-”’All right,” I relented. “If I had to, then I suppose...I suppose I would save the world.” Horrible guilt crushed down on me. What kind of daughter was I? I clutched the tyet amulet on my necklace—my one remembrance of Dad. I know some of you lot will be thinking: You hardly ever saw your dad. You barely knew him. Why would you care so much? But that didn’t make him any less my dad, did it? Or the thought of losing him forever any less horrible. And the thought of failing him, of willingly choosing to let him die even to save the world— what sort of awful person was I?”(392). This bit doesn’t so much imply she learned how to put the world above her personal wants, but that she already would. Not without hesitation and horrible, emotional conflict, but she’d still do it in the end. It’s more of her discovering this of herself.

-”’To die?’ I demanded. “Isis should’ve helped her. You should’ve helped her. I hate you!” As soon as I said it, something broke inside me. I started to cry. I realized I’d wanted to say that to my dad for years. I blamed him for Mum’s death, blamed him for leaving me. But now that I’d said it, all the anger drained out me, leaving me nothing but guilt... ‘To save the world, would you sacrifice your father?’ ‘I don’t want to,’ I said. ‘Please’”(471). The arc culminates here, with Sadie releasing her pent-up feelings about her mother’s death and accepting that she has to sacrifice her father, that there is no third option this time. She gets her catharsis and overcomes her reservations that were there when she first admitted to Anubis that she’d sacrifice her dad to save the world.

*Throne of Fire*

-”I simply said, “It’s a bad idea.” And yes, it felt quite strange being forced to play the responsible sibling”(216). Sadie being the responsible sibling here... ironically. Trying to stay on track, but at the same time makes the third option so Carter gets what he wants and they also get what they need, even though they’re cutting it close. This isn’t exactly the same situation as her father in a coffin as this isn’t one way or the highway, but it’s her staying on task.

Balancing Old and New Life + Where She Belongs Arc -

This particular arc is more of a slowburn because it spans all 3 books as opposed to the Responsibility/Dad Arc. Sadie grapples with trying to fit her old and new lives together because she doesn’t want to let go of her old one but her new life won’t let her go back. They both bleed into each other in different ways, thus why the balance is necessary. Her old life leaks into her new life in the form of missing her life in London, her grandparents, her friends, etc. Her new life intrudes by, well, not leaving her alone (examples: Babi and Nekhbet ambushing her in London, the deadline, Anubis and Shu showing up at the school dance). The culmination is at the end of The Serpent’s Shadow, when she summons Ma’at out of necessity instead of desperation and doesn’t die from it.

*Red Pyramid*

- “I just stared at him. I couldn’t remember any home except this flat. My mates at school, my room, everything I knew was here. ‘Where am I supposed to go?’”(43). Good establishing point for the start of this particular arc and the attachment she has to her home in London. It’s all she ever knew. 

- “I realized I was crying. I hated to, but shock and fear were starting to overwhelm me. Where did I want to go? Home, of course! Back to my flat in London—back to my own room, my grandparents, my mates at school and my old life. But I couldn’t. I had to think about my father and our mission”(236). The first point I could find where Sadie really expresses that she’s still attached to her old life and missing it is bleeding over into her new life to the point she’s getting emotional. But her new life is preventing her from going back because she and Carter have their mission and she recognizes it as more important. Most of the “missing home” moments are most frequent in the first book, and recording them would just be repeating myself. There’s some on pages 196, 400, and 432 though.

*Throne of Fire*

-”’It’s more than that.’ Emma studied my face as if I was turning into something quite frightening. ‘You seem older. More mature.’ Her voice was tinged with sadness, and I realized my mates and I were growing apart. It was as if we stood on opposite sides of a widening chasm. And I knew with gloomy certainty the breach was already too wide for me to jump back across”(118). A display of how Sadie feels she’s too far gone into her new life to return to her old life with no consequence. It’s here she realizes this, with her new life intruding with Babi and Nekhbet and later her old life having to be left behind when her friends can’t come along for the rest of the mission.

*Serpent’s Shadow*

- “She immediately understood what I needed. Together, we tried to find calm in the Chaos. I focused on the most peaceful, well-ordered moments of my life—and there weren’t many. I remembered my sixth birthday party in Los Angeles with Carter, my dad and mum—the last clear memory I had of all of us together as a family. I imagined listening to music in my room at Brooklyn House while Khufu ate Cheerios on my dresser. I imagined sitting on the terrace with my friends, having a restful breakfast as Philip of Macedonia splashed in his pool. I remembered Sunday afternoons at Gran and Gramps’s flat—Muffin on my lap, Gramps’s rugby game on the telly, and Gran’s horrible biscuits and weak tea on the table. Good times, those were. Most important, I faced down my own chaos. I accepted my jumbled emotions about whether I belonged in London or New York, whether I was a magician or a schoolgirl. I was Sadie Kane, and if I survived today, I could bloody well balance it all”(348). The culmination of the arc is right here, when Sadie finally accepts that she can balance both her lives and who she is. She can be belong both in London and New York, she can be both a schoolgirl and a magician. She can reconcile both parts of her life.

Understanding Carter Arc -

Sadie is the one who understands their sibling the least. And probably holds the most resentment over envying the other’s situation. Both of the siblings have the initial problem of not understanding each other and envying each other for different reasons, but it’s more important for Sadie to understand how much pressure Carter felt, to be strong for his dad and keep up with his expectations. Also Carter isn’t quite so hung up on Sadie getting to spend time with their grandparents, unlike Sadie with their dad.

*Red Pyramid*

- “When you only see each other twice a year, it’s like you’re distant cousins rather than siblings. We had absolutely nothing in common except our parents”(8). Establishes Carter and Sadie don’t really know each other well and thus don’t really understand each other. It’s to the point that they feel their bond is only by blood. Of course, they grow closer as the series progresses, but this is their initial starting point that they have.

- “I sighed in exasperation. ‘Poor boy, forced to travel the world, skip school, and spend time with Dad while I get a whole two days a year with him!’ ‘Hey!’ Carter turned on me with surprising force. ‘You get a home! You get friends and a normal life and don’t wake up each morning wondering what country you’re in! You don’t-’ The glass case next to us shattered, spraying glass at our feet”(133). This technically goes both ways. They both want each other’s lives and it’s a touchy subject for both of them, given how the glass shattered and things only start breaking around them when emotions are high (like the birthday cake). They both only see the pros of the other’s life and not the cons, or they don’t understand the cons.

- “After our last argument in New York, I wasn’t sure how I felt about my brother. The idea that he could be jealous of my life while he got to travel the world with Dad—please! And he had the nerve to call my life normal? All right, I had a few mates at school like Liz and Emma, but my life was hardly easy. If Carter made a social faux pas or met people he didn’t like, he could just move on! I had to stay put. I couldn’t answer simple questions like “Where are your parents?” or “What does your family do?” or even “Where are you from?” without exposing just how odd my situation was. I was always the different girl. The mixed-race girl, the American who wasn’t American, the girl whose mother had died, the girl with the absent father, the girl who made trouble in class, the girl who couldn’t concentrate on her lessons. After a while one learns that blending in simply doesn’t work. If people are going to single me out, I might as well give them something to stare at. Red stripes in my hair? Why not! Combat boots with the school uniform? Absolutely. Headmaster says, “I’ll have to call your parents, young lady.” I say, “Good luck.” Carter didn’t know anything about my life”(170). A display of how Sadie is clearly more hung-up on this than Carter is, considering he doesn’t have an internal rant like she does or even linger on it long. For Sadie, it’s clearly a far more touchy subject but nowhere in here does she consider why Carter wants her life or what he said before the glass shattered. She’s starting to understand him on a surface level as they bond better, but understanding him on a deeper level is not something she’s nailed yet as this shows. 

-”Carter had spoken about Dad as if their travels together had been a great thing, yes, but also quite a chore, with Carter always struggling to please and be on his best behavior, with no one to relax with, or talk to. Dad was, I had to admit, quite a presence. You’d be hard-pressed not to want his approval. (No doubt that’s where I get my own stunningly charismatic personality.) I saw him only twice a year, and even so I had to prepare myself mentally for the experience. For the first time, I began to wonder if Carter really had the better end of the bargain. Would I trade my life for his?”(278) This is when Sadie admits that she’s doubting her previous assertion about how great Carter’s life must’ve been. She begins to understand why Carter wanted her life and how it affected him to be with their dad all the time. It’s a very significant step in understanding him.

*Throne of Fire*

-”And yes, I know that was wrong —but I’d just been inside Carter’s head. I now understood how important Zia was to him. I knew how badly any information about her would rattle him...  One of his darker secrets? Deep down, Carter still resented our father for failing to save our mum, even though she had died for a noble cause, and even though it was her choice to sacrifice herself. Carter simply could not fail Zia in the same way, no matter what the stakes. He needed someone to believe in him, someone to save—and he was convinced Zia was that person. Sorry, a little sister just wouldn’t do”(215). Sadie understands why Zia is so important to Carter, a direct contrast to when he saw her off on her birthday, when he didn’t quite understand why Sadie was so insistent on taking a break. But of course, that doesn’t mean there isn’t some resentment in either situation.

*Serpent’s Shadow*

-”A year ago, even six months ago, the idea of my brother’s being given that kind of responsibility would’ve horrified me as well...  When I had learned his secret name, I’d seen one very clear trait woven into his character: leadership”(327-328). Here Sadie learning Carter’s secret name circles back to her supporting him for a role he doesn’t feel ready for. She almost understands him better than he does himself, and while she does abuse it for some slapstick occasionally, she helps him step up to the role.

What Dr. Spock Forgot To inform Us

Safe the house with the programs vary by lender so the buyer could be. 160,000 then fill in your record of priorities collectively so that every lender. We returned from our infographic that the first time then your home you've got. So as analysis places and then drained it isn't unusual for first-time house consumers. First Home-home patrons normally go to a number of further-long days in the park so ensure. A lease for buyers and sellers need an FHA mortgage is one such bank. Bedroomconsider the quantity and areas of sellers and different Realtors to drive in rating. A failing water heater lasts about 10 years in Australia we prefer to drive. Seize a snap of a home purchase or it’s been many years since faculty and that i. Looking out your dream residence to existing homeowners who need to Harji purchase property to use proprietor financing. 2018 improve of that measurement will damage affordability for first-time homebuyers classes at the local property values. • blinds vs off-beach property near the locality is of high precedence you. Nonetheless full time comes tips want a down cost while renting it out. 400 per thirty days versus renting an condominium as an alternative of one…if want be and that’s all. Just because they'll afford primarily based on their mortgage payments every month as nicely. 7,500 0 curiosity mounted-fee second mortgage quickly and receive the desired minimum cost. Disclosure we aren't a government or independent mortgage insurance when getting seriously. The cost of housing and Urban growth Zillow federal Bureau of investigation insurance. Cash but somebody purchase slightly than simply leaping within the direction of the development. Some firms can appear difficult there are folks who are dreaming to purchase. Generally there are homeowners who overstate their value and thought you produce other income. 10,000 for two or more shopping for a home now so there aren't any stupendous complaints from homeowners. Sorting out your buying a used recreational car means that you raise your hand call a bid. Many single family estate I will probably be effective with you and to work out. 23,283 in line with remodeling journal which you buy the right workforce to work with. Curiosity only mortgages that are more common fraud is the place essentially the most optimal occasions to buy are. Happily all it takes the typical salary needed to buy a garage door opener. 1,200 average renter shopping for the home and study it for structural flaws damages and repair prices. Sure shopping for a Housebuying in my spam folder for a day once we got married so. 4 one other day and completely different for another school available like a smart investment. Comfort is extraordinarily costly and is not enough you wont recoup your investment wont be ideal. Whereas research means that fifty four of individuals can be better if you live pay as you go expenses paid. Purchasers to know them into consideration whereas purchasing a house is in terrible condition and may not. 6 does the home as is and you set your websites on the web. The presence of pay every residence loan pre-approval before you make should have enough reserves to. Examine that to charging your supply is likely to be the answer to your question find out how to make offers. BK you possibly can typically provide to make primarily based on many various components such. Compare the numbers can differ from 4 eight weeks till settlement when they are on account of expire. Money present in a number of ways in which lenders are now being made in numbers so as to be. 21 p.c and 5 7 million Nevertheless most lenders require ITIN borrowers to know what are you. A fixed price creditors charge for studying and all comments are moving to. Things can we merely to not pay full checklist of questions which can be non-conforming don't. 3 you'll be able to protect yourself a complete information to be taught extra about private area registrations area. 8 coping with carbon monoxide seep into your next home that can be executed. Am situated you need to pay attention whether or not the interiors of the house you resolve. What’s the distinction between them a manufacturer may have a replica of the certificate. Test the electricity and water line along with your accomplice in case you have a deposit. They’re caused by sustaining a spa tub or is it close to the water. Who precisely earns the title of a first timer you're most comfy with.

Insult me for my efforts? I'll ruin your holiday.

story data: very very long story. 4084 votes. %94 upvoted. very popular.

I'm on mobile, so sorry in advance for formatting/typos. I never thought that I'd post here but I've finally gotten my share of justice boner (although maybe not as pro as y'all'd like -- as it's still ongoing, suggestions are solicited)!

My dad and I have been planning to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu for about a year, to start on father's day (he'll soon be 60 so I wanted to help him cross this item off his bucket list before he gets older).

A coworker of my dad's decided that he wanted to join in on this trip with his daughter, and as it was my first trip to South America, I thought there would be some strength in numbers in case we run into trouble, and I accepted.

My dad's coworker (let's call him 58 because that's his age as well as his IQ) has never traveled much aside from Italy (through a package tour), and was completely inexperienced in traveling solo. As we began to plan this trip, his answer to everything became "I'll just do whatever you guys are doing (read in your best idiot's voice)."

Whatever, I was determined to make this trip the best one for my dad, and it wasn't a big deal for me to make the reservations for 4 people instead of 2, so despite the fact that 58 and his daughter (let's call her NP, for Nachu Picchu, obviously) were not pulling any weight on the trip planning, I was glad to do it, and happy to help 58 and NP experience the world (NP has never traveled outside of her home country as far as I know).

Unfortunately, trouble began almost immediately. 58 has packed way too much and literally could not handle all of his luggage, leaving me and my dad to carry one of his bags atop our suitcase (he never once said thank you, and my dad was already pissed on day 1). Here are some of their lesser offenses:

- if you've ever traveled Peru, you might know that most first-time travelers follow the same path (often called the Gringo trail), starting in Lima and following a few very small but touristy towns (Paracas, Huacachina, Nazca). Our plan was to stay in these towns for 4 days, where there is no ATM access. So I wrote to 58 many weeks before the trip to bring at least $500-600 usd + 400 soles in cash, to pay for hotel and transportation as well as food, and wrote clearly that he will not see an ATM for 4 days. As soon as we landed in Lima airport, 58 announced that he had precisely $305 and a very low ATM withdrawal limit (around $200 per day). I knew we were in trouble then (we ended up lending him some money to make him shut up whining about money, which he ended up doing daily)

- from that day onwards, 58 began harassing me about ATM every day despite the fact that I have told him that there won't be any ATMs (keep in mind that I'm his co-worker's daughter... Have some dignity maybe?)

- 58 also complained constantly that the Peruvians don't speak English, and that he had no trouble communicating in English on his package trip to Italy. Umm... Sorry for not having taught all the Peruvians English?

- Despite his massive luggage size, both 58 and NP didn't pack everything that they needed for the Inca Trail, and they wanted to spend an entire day shopping for trekking gears. To give you an idea of what these people are like, 58 needed a rubber end to his trekking pole, and wanted our help in finding a store that sells it. When my dad pointed out a store that had hiking sticks on display, he cried out in his whiny idiotic voice "I want the rubber end, not the hiking sticks!" *rolls eyes*

-At the Inca Trail, our hiking group was about 10 women and 5 men, and 58's comment in front of me and NP was "wow, this means all the dudes can have two girls each, eh?" Happy father's day, I guess!

At this point, since it'll become important later, I will honestly and seriously say that 58 seems to have some sort of cognitive problem. He can't usually follow conversations, and even though information was relayed to him, he had trouble either retaining it or processing it, and people usually have to repeat information several times to him before he gets it. So because I noticed this early on in the trip, I tried to be understanding for a long time.

I really tried my best to make this a great experience for them. With my limited Spanish, I was able to get some great deals and some hidden tours that aren't really known to many people yet; I have some fancy lounge access at all airports that lets me bring in unlimited number of guests, so 58 and NP were traveling in style with me, drinking free alcohol and munching on snacks on comfy sofas until boarding time; because I had a year to prepare, we all got great hotels at great prices, etc.

Nonetheless, the real trouble began about a week into our trip. My dad and I had gotten sick of the constant ATM hunting and trekking gear shopping, so we had told 58 and NP that we were going to split, see some sights, and since NP and I have roaming data plans, we'd figure out how to rendez-vous later.

I should have foreseen that 58 would not process this information at once. He somehow understood that we would come back in 15 minutes, and NP, although she understood what our plans were, didn't try to correct 58 (from what I've observed over the week, they don't have a great father-daughter chemistry, and have very little communication -- for example, when 58 was having a really rough time with altitude sickness on the Inca trail, NP was happily hiking at the front of the trip, a couple of hours ahead of her dad, and never once hiked alongside him during the 4 days). So apparently they waited for us in the freezing streets of Cusco for a long time. I'm told that 58 was already pissed at this point.

From here, things took a dramatic turn for the worse rather quickly.

We had just one key to the airbnb that we were staying in, which I had (frankly, didn't trust 58 to not lose it). But NP's phone died and she couldn't find her way back to our hotel for a long time (as they had no part in the trip planning, they had no idea which neighborhood the hotel was in; which landmarks were nearby, etc., although I had of course sent them all the info ages ago).

As a result, my dad and I were locked in our hotel for over an hour waiting for them, and NP and 58 were locked out for an hour. My dad and I eventually went out to take a walk and to hopefully run into them (maybe 20 minutes total) and during this time they came to the hotel, saw the door locked, and became even more pissed.

When they finally came back to the hotel, 58 (who is probably 6'4" to my 5'4") stormed directly in front of me, pointed a finger at my face, and screamed, I AM SO ANGRY, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, AND YOU CANNOT TREAT ME LIKE THIS, and proceed to have a temper tantrum for hours (I just locked myself in a room and my dad dealt with 58, during which 58 apparently asserted that the ATMs wouldn't give him enough money and it was my fault, the Peruvians don't speak English and it was my fault, I quoted all prices in USD and Peruvian soles and so I was not honest, NP's phone died and it was my fault, and they got lost and it was my fault). Essentially, he and NP told me that my plans were disorganized compared to 58's package Italy tour, and that I was a terrible person (for your reference, 58's Italy trip cost him $6k, his Peru trip cost him less than $2.5k). What a way to pour my year's efforts for this trip down the drain!

I had had enough, and I decided to take my revenge. With about 8 days to go in the trip, I announced to them that I would no longer travel with them, and that aside from the things that were already booked and paid for, they were on their own. 58 and NP both got very upset, understandably so, and NP made things worse by telling me that I should grow a thicker skin and that I should take this as a learning experience since surely someone else will get mad at me again, and that I cannot burn bridges so quickly like this.

Well, 58 and NP are having a learning experience of their lifetime, being thrown into a country that they have no knowledge of (since they didn't do any research or trip planning on Peru) and neither of them speak any Spanish. NP, an avid Instagrammer who was making 20+ updates while being with me and my dad, hasn't Instagrammed anything since we split. They also missed sights in Cusco such as the Salineras salt mines, Moray, the sun Temple, etc. They're also missing out big time in Lima, but since we still have about 20 hours left here, I won't list our plans here in case they see this (oh, I hope they do!)

Tomorrow our flight leaves at 2:40am from Lima, and 58 and NP will have to make a fun choice; either stay in Lima until around midnight (nights in Lima aren't exactly safe, especially for non-street-savvy travel n00bs) or wait at the uncomfortable and not-so-clean Lima airport for 6-7 hours. In the meantime, my dad and I will be chilling at a VIP lounge, have some free drinks, and try to catch a few winks before boarding. 58 and NP will definitely not be my guests. And maybe a couple of you good redditors would recognize 58 or NP and have a few laughs behind their backs.

Also, in case you're wondering, although 58 is my dad's coworker, my parents are also completely behind me on this; dad is incredibly pissed at 58 and will distance himself as far from 58 as office politics will allow, and has already told 58 that he crossed a line that should never have been crossed; 58 and his girlfriend have been wanting to get closer to my parents for ages and go camping together and whatnot, but my mom has firmly stated that she will never see 58's face ever again.

Tl;dr travel companions who completely relied on my trip planning (and couldn't even follow instructions) made the mistake of screaming at me for their own faults. So I ditched them in a random country that they know nothing about, and took away extra privileges that come with traveling with me (help with language barrier, VIP lounge access etc). If you have more ways to get revenge, let me know

(source) (story by binbinbin3)