Genuine question. Why are comics from online only publishers discouraged? What is the goal behind discouraging paid webcomics?

sorry for taking so long to answer this!

i got really excited about answering this but also am not very good at communicating things clearly, i often get lost in the details in my passion about stuff like this, so i hope this is still interesting to read and intelligible lol!

i dont think there is any one thing that inherently defines what is and isn't a webcomic, it's an amorphous category that i enjoy the ambiguity of. but for me, what first led to my wonder for them as an 11 year old, and what has been a major factor in my passion for them even as an adult, was their low barrier to entry in both making them and accessing them. if you have internet access and time, almost anyone can make a webcomic if they want to! of course, without editors (or often even full story plans) or sensitivity readers or more people on a team to collaborate and contribute to the comic's vision, and the huge effort that it takes to do all the tasks of writing, inks, coloring, lettering, etc. all on ones own often without professional resources to facilitate that, that means that a lot of webcomics are really rough in some way or another. but a lot of people have interesting ideas they want to work with, but don't have the technical skill, desire or ability to market themselves or be beholden to external work deadlines, or connections in some way or another to be able to share those ideas through traditional publishing. regardless of skill or ability, a lot of marginalized people are barred from having their stories accepted by publishers due to bigotry and expectations about what kind of story is profitable.

as a disabled lgbt kid, i definitely read a lot of really bad webcomics i wish i hadn't, but also some of the media i was exposed to that most represented me back then was in the form of webcomics from people a lot like me. and i could read so much of it easily and for free without having to risk much to access it behind my parents' backs!

obviously that isn't the case for every webcomic, but for me and my history with them, them being easily accessible to both publish and read has been really important.

there are absolutely a lot of good points to be made about how publishing free to read webcomics isn't always the most accessible thing for a lot of people, especially for poor and disabled people. making webcomics takes a huge amount of time and effort, and sometimes even if people are passionate about making a comic, they just can't afford to find the time for that around all the other responsibilities of their day to day lives unless it can be a consistent income source. thats why even if paid online comics arent my platonic ideal of webcomics, i absolutely would never exclude them. i want small creators making stories i want to read to get the money they need to survive and keep telling stories without burning out!

it could be argued that online publishers who specifically focus on webcomics don't always present the same barriers to entry as traditional publishers, and many don't restrict the scope of marginalized creators' stories at all or to the same extent as people have struggled in other more mainstream avenues. and from my outside understanding of publishers like hiveworks, i'd absolutely agree with that! i love a lot of hiveworks comics and think its an awesome thing! (of course literally my icon is from a hiveworks comic, tiger tiger!) nonetheless however, part of my goals with this tournament is to highlight lesser known comics, and as publishers like hiveworks help advertise and promote their comics, even if i still want everyone to read all my favorite comics published by them, and certainly there are limits to those advertising resources, they still don't need as much help as other comics without that support. so its not as much 'try not to submit these' and more 'as you submit stuff like this, try to submit stuff with less advertising resources and popularity too!'

going into this tournament i also had a similar sentiment for stuff like webtoons originals. there was an added element to me in how i feel like i know a lot of people nowadays who read webtoons but don't have much awareness of other forms of webcomic, but even if in my love for webcomics i want people to come to appreciate all the breadth of ways they can exist in, thats obviously not something to make a huge priority. it's incredible the amount of forms comics can take (sidenote but reading scott mccloud's "understanding comics" a couple years ago was really formative for me in cementing how much i appreciate that, i'd highly recommend it!!!), and the way infinite scroll comics like webtoon style comics more fully make use of their digital medium, using time scrolling to pace things in place of traditional gutters and panelling, is really really cool. of course they're becoming more popular in a world where more people have smartphones, where webtoon style comics are a lot easier to read than many other forms. i love a lot of webtoons, and id feel regressive to discourage stuff like line webtoon original comics any more than stuff like hiveworks comics, just to go against current trends in what comics people seem to prefer. they have a similar low barrier to entry (through contests) as other online publishers, and it's cool to see creators get the opportunity to get paid for their work and get help from professional editors and stuff

but in the past couple weeks of running this tournament, i ended up reading a lot more about the behind the scenes of what its like to be a line webtoon original creator. line webtoon's expectations for their creators are incredibly unrealistic and exploitative, with grueling deadlines leading to a lot of creators to get repetitive strain injuries, all while working for well below industry standards. obviously a lot of webcomic creators make an inconsistent poverty level income out of it as independent creators, and that shouldn't happen either, but it's absolutely inexcusable for a company to profit off this labor and then manufacture these same conditions. without any organized labor movement surrounding that issue, that of course isn't an argument against reading or promoting these comics on its own, creators are more likely to get more income if their comics get more popular, and despite the promise of popularity by becoming an official comic, they absolutely still aren't all promoted equally. what has made me want to slightly more discourage (but still absolutely not disallow!) stuff like line webtoon official comics has been the combination of that along with learning that much of the editing of webtoons originals carries less of the benefits of having experienced creatives collaborating with creators to elevate their stories to new levels, and very often instead ends up taking the form of 'simplify this plotline and make this character look more attractive and fit this archetype more fully so we can market this better and have readers easily consume each update while they're scrolling their phone without having to think about it too much'. while obviously there are a lot of amazing webtoon official comics in spite of what i've heard anectdotally, hearing that just really went against so much of what i've most valued about my experience with webcomics!

i want creators to be able to tell stories no matter how weird and unmarketable, where they'll never have to worry about pushback for making stories with characters and themes that resonate for them as a member of any oppressed group, and where there's as little pressure as possible pushing them to work harder or faster than they healthily can or want to! so for me, even if i still love a lot of online published comics and want them to be celebrated and want their creators to be able to make a comfortable living out of them, i still just want to highlight stories that had that level of freedom that has created some of my favorite experiences with webcomics just a little bit more.

My Dean Blunt Rotation aka High Fidelity Left A Bad Taste in My Mouth

For the past 2 to 3 months, my listening habits were teetering to an end; mostly via burnout by spontaneously listening to local artists daily and less likely of a musical discovery drought, whereas my interests of a certain artist or genre hasn't found its, sort of, "eureka", moment per se. I've been feeling less enthusiastic over the things i listen to since my friends have gradually lost their flare when it comes to discovering/exploring untapped parts of the music realm. Thus, in return, my enthusiasm not being reciprocated. It leaves an empty feeling from someone who has been yearning social interaction, may it be media being latched on the topic - it's a feeling that's been guilt-tripping me ever since I was stranded in the other end of the metro. I feel closed off, exposed to the crippling loneliness the lockdown has punished us: a defacto solitary confinement in a national level. Our act of staying online is also an act of staying alive outside.

To be fair though, it's a valid move to not boomerang compliments/gripes over an art you haven't consumed due to someone's autonomy. Your able body being to consume the art you wish to finish with free time is a luxury in of itself. The art is then failed to serve its purpose to reach its goal: You have squiggly lines heading straight to oblivion rather than swirling in the earlobes of a wandering cyber nomad. We, eventually, need to find something that could help us exit, rather than escape, from capital. We, in return, do not shut ourselves from the outside. Instead, we then tend to avoid the stress of protocols and outdoor fascism; Not avoid the indoor liberalism that is eating us alive and online. It's a capital punishment we never knew we signed up for ever since the onslaught of the virus and the state. Art for art's sake is nonexistent now, always has been, it seizes to ever since we went inside. Feeding off of a holographic meatloaf coming from a glowing screen. We have a real-life Karen acting as a nightlight in our rooms.

The COVID lockdown made us listen to music — both for better, for worse. For one, it made us pass most days. You could say the same for any sort of media: film, mixed media art, or whatever pre-Covid activity that sprung up during our time in isolation. For music, however, there was an uptick of new listeners that made others Wheel-of-Fortune the fuck out of their music discoveries in sites like RateYourMusic, Bandcamp, or even Sophie's Floorboard. We've continued to expand and became more open change of opinions and be less of a jackass towards someone else's opinions. On second thought, our opinions have been catalogued, leaving more notes than actual footprints of our previous listens. Our new discoveries made new bands and re-emerging bands, bands who faded to obscurity, crawl back in the surface with newfound interest from younger listeners (ie Panchiko, Jai Paul, and Dean Blunt) and this glowing, previously unseen and unexpected overwhelming support from fans of departed artists (ie SOPHIE, MF DOOM)

For the other, we've hogged gratuitous amounts of media, resulting into losing our primary direction as to how we want to consume our media based on the preconceived notions of what we want in our art. There is goodness in becoming directionless when you think about it, but there comes a cost to our identity as music listeners. Instead, we end up widening our tangents, falling in endless rabbit holes, having zero chances to emerge from the surface. In fact, i refuse to call it a "rabbit hole" instead i'd rather call it a "pipeline" of sorts — transitioning casual music fans into a full on, different, unique versions of themselves that would define them when laws and protocols have eased in the outside world. Our act of staying online has either made most of us break our character or enliven our past selves. The music pipeline is now more apparent, stretching the norms of what was once alienated by a silent majority, but now accepted as an acceptable form of expression. The more music we are exposed to has made casual listeners stranged out or react in ways that our personality have betrayed us or deemed not as acceptable to them. Still, not changing anything that was prominent pre-pandemic. Liberal cop behavior is stronger, now more dangerous than it ever was once perceived by the outside world.

HIGH FIDELITY? NO, THANK YOU.

Imagine a situation inside of a record, pre-pandemic of course, where you do not feel like lifting a record out from the shelf, instead, you window shop just for the sake of windowshopping. Capital and media made us think that going to record shops is a semi-productive activity. The age of discovery has died ever since High Fidelity romanticized and normalized the incelage of horny record diggers. Does this movie age well, yeah sure it does, for old 90s nerds at least. But did it translate well over in the past 20 or more years of events and tragedies that unfolded in pre-9/11 America? No it didn't. It was an age of free expression, only liberals would dream of whenever they take a sip of Guinness beer in their favorite dive bar.

Mind you, over a couple of months ago, it was my only chance in seeing why this movie was the talk of the town back when it was released. There's music, yeah, and attractive leading leadies, yeah, it has everything a 90s kid would love to salivate and drop their gonads over while they watch this movie. I obviously did not live to see the movie on opening day but i could imagine the scent that came out of that movie theater with attendees donning windbreakers and The Who shirts with popcorn dressing stains on their plastic cups. If there was a Filipino counterpart to this movie, i'd bet corporate champions Eraserheads and Rivermaya would soundtrack their music over and have either Tado or have Boy 2 Quizon, but i sense it to age like milk more than it could age like fine wine due to the senseless jokes one can execute in a Cubao or Cartimar record store.

John Cusack is obviously the incel in question here: a damaged, vengeful ex who constantly fails to live his partner's expectations and weaponizes his personality over the situations that has nothing to do with his interests. I spent the entire time being absolutely disgusted over the spineless responses of John Cusack's leading character. The movie then treads on flashbacks with John Cusack's failed relationships and what he could do to move on from each and one of them. If i could stand a SONA for 3 hours then I can't stand John Cusack being the dull entry point to incel, making more reasons why you should hate record store clerks who don't give an iota of shits to someone's inviting rapport. High Fidelity is opium for massive music circle jerks who can't take a single breathe of fresh air or a single quota of touching grass. There's more targeting weak and inferior guys and hot women who dump dumb overconfident dudebros more than the actual "music recs" in the entire movie. The more I think about this movie, the more I realize how our personality is in line towards Dick, the record store being unmercifully dunked on by the movie's two leading characters. He's an angel in the world of cynical bastards, witnessing both demons pitchforking record store customers in the ass while they're purchasing the latest Sonic Youth album.

I believe that Jack Black, the dark horse of High Fidelity, has a pleasing personality more than an irritating demeanor due to this behavior in the record store. In fact, outside of the record store, Jack Black doesn't seem to take the business is your pleasure act pretty seriously. Unlike John Cusack's character he brought his obsession over involving a record in an important memory/point of his life. There is so much stuff that has happened outside of the record store, so much for Rolling Stone and NME being the bible of music at the time, endlessly christening and shilling artists that believe to become the second coming of the Beatles. The music references here however are treated as fluff than it is a mechanism that would drive the senseless plot forward. If anything, there are events pointed out in the event that doesn't have anything to do with the life of the characters.

If anything, this movie did a great job at capturing the feeling of music bros being dumped on the wayside by a mature set of characters and how their current conditions aren't perfumed by the studios' liking of having to Cinderella story the shit out of a bunch of normal record store owners. The reality is in the reaction of one's social capital being invaded and we're here to witness how those reactions panned out in 2021. This is a villainous depiction of music nerds being the salt of the earth, the bane of all media discussion, still reflective of the insufferable salt of cyberspace found in music forums like 4chan and RYM. High Fidelity is a pipeline of 90s musicology, a dreaded fever dream of an owner waiting for the decade to end, trends ossifying and re-emerged by the hands of nostalgia-savvy individuals. It was, at its time, every music-movie nerd's excuse equivalent of Scott Pilgrim VS. The World. There are memories worth remembering and cherishing, and this movie isn't one of them.

DEAN BLUNT, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK

In the past two weeks I've been fancying myself into sitting down and listening to different projects from the ever elusive, UK-based sound artist Dean Blunt. The first time i chanced upon his music wasn't too long ago - albeit a recent one in the time of COVID - was when I randomly stumbled upon his records at a Spotify recommendations section under John Maus (yeah lol i know the implications whenever his name is mentioned) - but then i was enamored by his online presence so quickly I put everything down and dedicated an hour or two researching about this man's music.

Other than the fact that his album "The Redeemer" wasn't the best record to start off in journeying through his discography: ending up disgusted and borderline bored even and I was more likely to lambast this record's aimless, pretentious art-pop inflections. By the end of the day, it was a preference long solidified by his undying fanbase. According to his hardcore fans, the music isn't really music, evaluating it as a free form of sound art, rather than sticking to a structured and conventional cues; the genre is nullified by most analysts of the arts. The growing interest of the general public towards Dean Blunt's pranks and antics have long appealed to my tastes as a chaotic neutral individual. Pranks that are well executed to piss off UK gallery connoisseurs and entertain ironic attendees who'd shit on the art piece rather than participate in it.

More of the resources I've found about Dean Blunt online: numerous aliases and collaborations that lasted around almost 2 decades. The most notable of all them, at least for my money, are either Hype Williams, a duo consisting of Dean and frequent collaborator Inga Copeland, and Babyfather, an art performance parodizing the pirate radio culture in the UK. I have not delved enough in Blunt's body of work to evaluate everything and what i could synthesize from it. For now, I enjoyed it as a form of entertainment. Well, color me impressed because Dean Blunt isn't clowning around, he, in fact, makes blissful and transcendental music from left to right.

Dean Blunt was the only few artists that made me want to binge on their discography. His movements in his music has attracted this pesky listener who thinks that being mysterious is a plus. I mean, look at me who thinks The Paul Institute, Panchiko, and Burial are the greatest artists that have walked the face of the earth.

The most I've enjoyed from Dean Blunt's discography are his mixtapes and collaborations: preferably his Soul Fire and ZUSHI, both of which were packaged as B-sides or supplemental releases rather than major releases such as the Babyfather project or the Black Metal releases. His knack for blurring the lines between genres still fascinate me as of this writing, and it continues to amaze me how he doesn't seize to compromise his art, he's here to prove a point and it sells quite well despite the lack of direction in his music. Blunt's music has more aggressive and hazy texture than the hollow, wide, soulless structure of art-pop/hypnagogic pop released today. He creates terrains from the rubble of his country's current shortcomings. The music overlaps the actual intentions with abstract concepts, becoming deconstructed down the line. In Babyfather, noise music coincides with Blunt's amateurish rapping. In Black Metal, Blunt isolates himself along with the assisted skeletal guitar playing. Both projects throwing all tropes in a vaccum alongside Blunt, who he himself would sought to become a personification of a musical void.

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(Excerpt from the Babyfather album review in TinyMixtapes)

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Dean Blunt is an entity that wishes to become one person, but no, this isn't a figure in a specific art form; this isn't Banksy, this isn't Bob Ong, this is made by one person, clearly it is if you listen closely, and it's been entrancing me ever since his presence was felt on the horizons of the internet. Dean Blunt, what the actual fuck.

Lynn 51

This is from yesterday...

 I got there and Lynn open the door and said she thought she had heard me but hadn't seen me so I must've been in the bathroom. I laughed and said it's a long drive so I had to Pee and she agreed. She asked if she can get me any coffee or water or flavored water or anything and I had said no initially and she said that she had sparkling water and I was like well OK. She got out the sparkling lime water and then said that she had forgotten and was going to take her pseudoephedrine. I joked and asked if it was the real stuff for the over-the-counter stuff and she said are you kidding me of course it's the real stuff. I asked her if she was sick or if she was just dealing with allergies and she said sinus stuff whatever that means. She said she would be fine though.

She asked how I'm doing and I said I'm OK and she weirdly was like well that sounds very ominous. I was like OK well what I mean is I'm OK right now but that I had a terrible weekend. She was like what happened? So I proceeded to tell her about how this terrible weekend went but I said that I wanted to start by talking about the progress that I had made. I told her that my husband is actually in Vegas but I explained that he was all right and then I was glad that he had text to me before I even saw there was a shooting. She said she was glad he was OK and I agree. Then I told her about how my husband and I put the offer in on the house and I said that we didn't get it but then I was excited because we made the decision on our own. And she said that was awesome and she laughed when I said I haven't sent my dad the address. She thought that I was going to say that I ignored the message but I said no I straight up said no and I even told her about how I told my mom that I hadn't wanted to get in a power struggle with her over how much money we were spending on a house and that my mom had claimed she just wanted to make sure was a good investment but then my mom ended up admitting that she would worry more about my brother than me because she knows that I'm good with money so I'm like OK then why would you even say all that but whatever. Which Lynn was like because they want to control you lol. Plan also laughed when I explained that I did end up telling my dad the address of the house because I wanted them to still give me the money towards closing costs and then I had sandwiched it in with information like how the basement has a great guest bedroom for him and Mom when they come visit and what not. Lynn was like that's definitely what I was going to suggest if you were going to have to tell them the address. 

So then I moved onto telling her about my crappy weekend and how I didn't cope in the greatest of ways and how I really struggled. I told her about the caveat that I was also on my period and had forgotten to take Prozac. She basically explain town it is really important that I not forget the Prozac if it helps and that she would even say to put a reminder on my phone for next month that way I am I don't forget since clearly my body needs it. She pointed out that wall those things might normally bother me, it normally isn't that explosive on a regular day. I agreed and I said yeah those things definitely would have upset me even on a day that isn't my period. She was like well but even like the thing with your grandma, on a normal day you might have just been like well that bothers me it's something I'm going to process in there beam and then put it back in the box and zone out with Netflix or something. She asked if I like Netflix and I was like honestly not really because I get too emotionally involved with characters in with what's happening in the shows and then I end up really upset. And she was like what do you mean and I was like I don't know I just get really overly involved and I feel things to deeply and like I love breaking bad but at the same time I had so many nightmares so pretty much I need to watch like the cooking shows on him something happy like parks and rec.  she laughed and was like OK well on Netflix has a ton of options for fun and happy things so you should be good or you can always read a book series or something to distract yourself. I was like yeah. Then she pointed out that A lesson she learned a long time ago is that you never go shopping when you are feeling hormonal because nothing will fit and nothing will look good and you will end up unhappy. I was like OK well lesson learned, she was like obviously with the eating disorder stuff it was a little bit more than just unhappy, but in general that's a good rule of thumb that if you are hormonal, it's not a good time to go shopping. I was like yeah I guess I would've done better to stick with just looking for the ankle boots. Then she asked if I was shopping in juniors and I was like I mean yeah and she basically went on a tangent explaining that I need to be shopping in the adult section and it's not my fault that the clothes didn't fit because in general they don't make juniors clothes for women's bodies and I have a woman's body now. Which got me more upset and I was like I don't want to woman's body and she was like yeah you want to be a thin little kid and I was like I mean if we're being honest yeah. She explained how once when you hate your upper 20s it's likely that your body changes and it has nothing to do with you being fat. She pointed out that my body is not the same as I was when I was 17 which I started to tear up and I was like but I literally weigh the same thing I'm just not as fit. She pointed out that your bone structure changes and she can see even with her to 19-year-old daughters that they don't fit into their clothes from when they were 16 and that they got upset and we're like are we getting fat and she was like no you're not fat you're different. She said the same thing applies to me then I'm not fat I'm just different than how my body used to be and that's OK and it's a part of being a woman. Lynn was like when you become a woman you're going to get hips and boobs and a butt and that's just part of it. I was like I don't want that LOL and she was like well that's part of embracing reality. She said that she can see how her daughter's bodies have changed some but how they aren't that they are still fin it's just that their body has filled out some. I was like I just don't want my body to fill out. I want to stay the same. She said I need to switch to shopping at places like and Taylor or the loft and see the difference in shopping in women's clothing. I said I guess that made sense because I was surprised that I went to loft recently and a petite small actually fit me which is really odd. She was like exactly because you're not fat you're just not a teenager anymore and that's OK. I was like you just made me mad because normally I do fit into a junior medium and she was like well maybe those particular pieces of clothing were bad bad it's also OK to realize that you aren't a junior anymore therefore it's OK of junior clothing is small. She also pointed out that seeing the happy mom and daughter who is only a very small glimpse of their relationship and it may be that they go home and they fight. I literally have no idea what their relationship is like outside of shopping. She also explained that with having twin daughters she saw how one daughter and completely loved everything that she would pick out and enjoyed shopping with her and the other daughter absolutely hated everything that she would pick out and that if the only way she like to bond with her kids by shopping, she would realize that she can't do that with her one daughter and therefore she would have to find something new to connect with her about.  She pointed out when I have a mom that I will have that same option to choose to find a different hobby with my kid if they don't like shopping with me either, and that it wasn't my fault that my mom wasn't willing to do that. She pointed out how ridiculous it sounded that I had even had to say that I felt like it was my fault you weren't close because the only thing my mom wanted to do with me was shopping and it was something that I hate it. She said it should never be where I feel like it's my fault because my mom only wanted to go shopping with me. I explained that I was your stereo typical email high school kid who were band T-shirts and my mom liked really trendy things and I did not. She said that I need to go to Ann Taylor or the loft and I would probably be ecstatic because I'll probably be a size 2 in their sizes lol.

Overall she basically said that I need to make better choices LOL and take my medicine during my period. She asked if I wanted to do some EMDR on all of this and I said sure. She asked me where I think my perfectionism begins and I was like I'm not really sure because honestly I have a hard time figuring out but the first time that I remember being obsessed about my grades was in the third grade when I cheating on the spelling bee test because I was so anxious that I wouldn't do it perfectly. I explained that I was a good speller naturally and head always studied so I'm not sure why I felt the need to cheat but I knew that I felt really bad about it because I knew it was wrong to cheat. I pointed out that I was in the third grade so my brother would've been in preschool and maybe it was the first time that I was really getting some positive attention and maybe I was afraid of losing that since they spend a lot of time with my brother since he was a baby. I don't know that's just a guess. She said she wasn't sure how much time we had left but then she opened her folder and said that we had been working on that other memory and we forgot to do the future template. She laughed and said she always forgets to do Future templates. She pointed out that it was interesting that the positive believe was and I can handle difficult things sometimes and then she ask how that went for this weekend and I was like well obviously not very good. She made a comment about how it was odd because that was what we had worked on and I admitted that it just didn't feel very true and she was like well that makes sense why that didn't exactly go so well and I was like I just don't know how to explain it it just feels like it's not true and that I can handle certain situations well but definitely not others. She also pointed out that is interesting that after we had processed all of that in the perfectionism stuff came out that I ended up self sabotaging. I agreed and she asked me to just noticed that and be curious why I would self sabotage. I and up thinking about A few different things because we didn't have a ton of time. I pointed out that I wasn't sure but part of it as bad as it sounds is because without bad coping skills, it feels like it's hard to communicate that I'm actually struggling if that made sense. She said that it did and to notice. And also to see if that feels familiar. I explained that it really didn't feel that familiar because I don't think I've done that for very long. I explained how I used to have bad coping skills as a desperate Way to get any kind of response and then I realize now that maybe I'm trying to test the waters and see if people will stay but I also noticed that there is a shelflife on how long people want to deal with your shit and obviously I don't think my parents would do anything anyway if they knew I was coming bad that if I kept bad and we're to talk to my husband about it he would obviously be really upset and disappointed so I don't know where wanting to cope poorly would really fit in with that. She asked me to float it back and I said I don't know because I feel like as a kid I unintentionally push people away by being annoying. She asked me what I was doing and I said I was being annoying and she said or were you just trying to be loved and I said well yeah I guess that. She said the notice and I explained that I could see why they pushed me away because I was really annoying and makes me think of the foster kids that my mom had and I get it. I also noticed how mad I get when I think of my stupid second grade teacher who didn't put me in her class again and that I'm like well if I was really that annoying I guess, when I think back to how I was a student and I'm like I really wasn't that bad. I told her about how I had written a story about twins and that I had gone on and on and written like 15 pages even that was supposed only be like five and I was only in the second grade so I was clearly being an overachiever it but I remember that I really wanted her to like me and for her approval. She stop me there and said we have a lot of work to do LOL and I was like grade.

She said that next week she will be away on an actual vacation and I was like where are you going this time and she said Florida but it will be a real vacation and two will be going with a bunch of high school senior boys but she will be on the top floor and they will be below. And she was like I'm sure I'll have to shush them a lot that we are renting them bikes and they can go ride all over him and explore while I relax on the beach. I was like that sounds great. We scheduled for two weeks now and I headed out.