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denkineptune · 3 years

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mha date headcanons- boys and girls :))

♡ request: “i love ur blog already, ur writing is so good!!! im so excited to see the content u’ll be posting !! :D since ur taking requests, how abt some date headcanons for the mha boys (or girls if u want!) ?” - @dianangels

♡ thank you for letting me write girls aaa i chose to do some as first date hc. it was kinda hard to keep jirou’s gn because i wanted to reference wlw stereotypes but i succeeded in gender-neutral because i want everyone to be able to enjoy

♡ dedicating part of this to @anxious-botanist because she’s the one who inspired the momo cuddles hehe sorry it took so long

♡ fic details: headcanons, fluff, gender-neutral reader, 2nd pov

characters: kaminari, amajiki, jirou, ashido, yaoyorozu

kaminari- arcade

↠AR C ADE DA T E

↠you hear me??? arcade!! date!! ideal man, right here, someone claim him immediately or else i will be forced to take ownership

↠he’s super laid back and chill, pretty childish at heart. he only means the best, though, so i think an arcade is exactly what he would go for when taking you on a date! he doesn’t have a lot of money but still wants you to go home with something to remember the date by

↠he buys like $50 worth of tokens and splits it between the two of you, making sure that he tells you which games give the most tickets, because he’s definitely been here enough times to remember

↠his favorite game is either crossy roads or the big bass wheel- he loves crossy roads because of how cute the style is, but also there is impending stress and levels of d o o m as you progress further. big bass wheel is basically just gambling, and i think he’s yumeko jabami.

↠he hacks games to make you win sometimes,, his quirk is bascially designed to do this. it’s like he was born just to take you out on this arcade date. he uses his quirk to short circuit the game and trick the computer into giving you hundreds of tickets

↠he just wants to make you happy and see you smile!! there’s not a feeling quite like succeeding at something as silly as an arcade game, but there’s a certain pride to it that he loves seeing on your face.

↠kaminari only does it a few times, since he knows that you should be earning your prizes ((not that you know when he does it, he’s really cheeky about it))

↠playyyy multiplayers with him! he loves DDR (dance dance revolution)- you do multiple rounds and are equally exhausted by the end of it akdflad you may not be good, and tbh neither is denki, but you still have fun, which is what matters

↠he also loves taking photobooth pictures, he puts on the most horrendous filters and does the dumbest poses, but it’s so adorable. he does the typical one smile, one “serious”, one silly face, one kith > <

↠kami gets cocky,,, it’s just how he is,, he gets overly confident whether or not he’s been on a winstreak

“heyy, y/n! look at my speedrun on this, i’m getting so many tickets, i’ll be able to get a house by the end of it!”

↠and then he CAN’T because he doesn’t get the jackpot eghgdhgeh

↠by the end of the day, you’ve spent hours at the arcade, laughing and screaming with denki as you terrorize the small children. yes, he’s that kind of guy

↠by “terrorize”, i don’t mean like a bully, but he’s unintentionally intimidating kids with his pockets overflowing with ticket chains, a crazed look on his face as he goes absolutely ham on the shooting games

↠there’s electricity coming off of him, kids sometimes have to dodge it when passing by

↠so anyways, by the end of the date, you’re basically being kicked out of the arcade, because, as kami puts it,

“we were here when it opened and i’ll be damned if we’re not here when it closes,”

↠between the two of you, you’ve aquired tens of thousands of tickets??? the employees probably hate y’all, they had to count those beasts of ticket rolls you’ve accumulated during the 10 hours the arcade was open

↠exactly 62,069 tickets (69 go brrr- kaminari’s brain), and you can basically buy the arcade with that currency

↠but here’s the thing: he lets you spend all of it. you heard me, all. of. it. he just wants to see you happy, and the best way he can think of to get a final glorious memory of your smile is to let you spend the tickets as you see fit, this generosity just to see you glowing as you walk out of the building, arms chock full of amazing junk

↠but of course, you’d feel bad if you spent all of it, especially since he was the one who took you out, so you offered him the half of the tickets that were won

“denki, you won most of these with your amAzINg gaming skills, it’s only fair you get to have something too,”

“my prize will be seeing you- your- your-- aw fuck, i forgot the line, it’ll come back to me, just give me a minute.”

↠he tried to be smooth and it failed, but you chuckled at the attempt, so all around, he considered it a success

↠denki gets a lot of dumb things that will probably end up being thrown away soon, but he also gets you a very soft bat stuffed animal that you should treasure and keep forever

amajiki- a walk and picnic in a japanese garden

↠tamaki is very shy, very socially anxious. he’s the kind to wait for people to leave a section of a store before he goes there, purposely do his errands in the early morning to limit social interaction, and find any excuse to leave a situation. which, tbh, isn’t that all of us?

↠let’s be honest here, if it wasn’t y’alls first date, he’d probably not go anywhere. as long as he’s with you, he doesn’t really care for anything too fancy

↠but he’s convinced himself that he needs to do something reasonably big for your first date to make sure you don’t regret your decision to go out with him. so instead of deciding to stay in, he goes somewhere that’s only slightly anxious for him, but where he still feels comfortable

↠so he’s decided on a japanese tsukiyama garden! these places are beautiful by design, not cheap but not too expensive, and people are obligated by rules to be quiet and keep their hands to themselves

↠nobody goes to a garden to socialize, in fact, i’d argue most people go just to look around, rest, and clear their heads. there’s usually not any screaming children, no quirk usage, no villains, it’s a little safe haven.

↠bonus: there’s butterflies :))

↠it’s so peaceful, and he gets to focus on you instead of whatever loud noise is making him anxious

↠he brings a picnic basket filled with all your favorite foods, and his! he makes a show out of displaying what he can manifest with different snacks, making a point to eat edible seeds so he can produce flowers for you 🥺🥺🥺

↠you walk around the garden for a few hours, marveling at the decor and how well-maintained everything is. there’s a koi pond, hanging wisteria trees, and multiple gazebos that create a really comfortable and calm environment

↠speaking of koi ponds, amajiki offers to buy you food so you can feed the fish! you stand on a bridge above the pond, sharing the container with him. the sMILE on his face when he watches you throw the food is so pure i’m-

↠he’s the walking embodiment of “uwu”- his face is so calm and his eyes are shining and he can feel his heart swelling with love i am GOING to cry my eyes out

↠but honestly, he wishes he could stay in this moment forever- you’re happy, he’s happy, and it feels like you two are the only people in the universe. right now, he doesn’t have to worry about school, villain attacks, his future, or anything that makes him anxious; all that he can see right now is how beautiful and at peace you look. he took you out today, and you’re enjoying yourself. this is one of the few things that makes him confident: knowing that he’s able to make you happy

↠tamaki is silently celebrating; you’ve had a good time and he didn’t freak out, so it’s the best possible scenario!

ashido- rollerskating! ((look at her she’s adorable the smile n the eyes aaa))

↠mina is a very energetic and bubbly person, its quite obvious if you’ve spent any amount of time around her

↠for your first date with her, she’d already have a location in mind!!

↠the atmosphere of rollerskating rinks is so electric, she can’t help but feel happy there, and she wants to experience that lovely feeling with you, too :))

↠you enter the rink, and mina is already borderline bouncing off the walls alskdfj

↠whether or not you’ve ever skated before, ashido is super cautious with you- multiple times she’s fallen on her butt while learning how to skate, so unless you’re a pro, she’s watching your every move to make sure you don’t get hurt

“y/n! please be careful- you’re not getting hurt on my watch!”

↠she jabs a thumb in her direction proudly, with the cutest bigass grin on her face awh 🥺🥺🥺she’s really enthusiastic about sharing one of her passions with you

“try to balance, alright? don’t put too much weight on your heel or toes, because then you’ll fall on your butt. here, take my hand and i’ll help you! hey, there you go, you’re doing great!”

↠she pays for everything and will WRESTLE you if you try to disagree aldkfa if you’re the type of person to pay for everything as well, y’all are going to have to fight; mina will not give up

↠ashido comes here a lot, so she’s friendly with all the employees, she has the uncanny ability to make friends wherever she goes ((i mean she’s friends with bakugou,, if she can do that,, she can do anything))

↠she takes one of your hands and backs onto the rink, watching for anyone behind her. once you’re balanced properly, she shows you how to move your feet so that the two of you are in sync

↠skating isn’t super hard to figure out, it’s mostly intuitive, so you’ll get the hang of it quite quickly!! maybe you’re not too fast, but it’s still fun, so it doesn’t matter

↠while you’re moving with care, making sure to focus on your footwork, mina will definitely take the chance to show off her skating skills! she’s moving like crazy, weaving around other people and nearly toppling them over but shh she’s trying to impress you and if i’m being honest??? she’s really fucking good aldkdf

↠it’s obvious that she loves this hobby, and the fact that she likes you enough to share it with you on your first date is so adorable aaaa

↠mina’s really agile- you don’t know if that’s all the hero training or just something that comes naturally, but the way she moves makes skating look like the easiest goddamn thing in the world-

↠she’s such a romantic, she’s definitely put in a request for the dj to play your favorite song, no matter if it fits the mood or not

↠heavy rock? sure!! as long as you’re having fun, who cares about what other people think? super vulgar rap?? w h y n o t ? !

↠she just has that extroverted, positive, charming energy that’s infectious

↠you can’t help but feel at ease around her, she’s a genuinely a great person, and what you think the epitome of a hero is

↠all ashido really wants here is to have fun with you- i mean she really likes you, and hopes that she’ll get to go on another date w/ you, so she’s doing everything in her power to woo u

↠and you’d be lying if you said it wasn’t working 🥺👉👈

jirou- hanging out in her room

↠kyouka jirou, being the more introverted person she is, wouldn’t really want to go somewhere super public, like mina would

↠i also believe that she’d want to be friends (or at least acquaintances) with you before asking you on a date- she’s easily annoyed by people, so i think that she’d need to be comfortable around you if she was to be romantically interested

↠and you’ve ticked all these boxes! you understand her sarcastic, blunt personality, and find it pretty amusing. beyond all that, she’s kind and caring, and deep down, she aspires to be a hero for all the right reasons. who wouldn’t love her for that?

↠so for your first date with kyouka, i think she’d want to be somewhere quiet and intimate with you. she wouldn’t want any interruptions ((specifically from jammingyay, who enjoys butting his head in other peoples’ business))

↠the most comfortable place for her would be her room, since it’s really just an extension of her personality, and since you’re quite close, she’d be okay with letting you in her private space. she trusts you.

↠just two guys bein dudes 🤠 ((if you’re a girl, it’s just sappho and her friend--))

↠music is one of the biggest things in jirou’s life, and i think she’d want to share it with you. that is, if you’d let her :)) she has dozens of different instruments, so if you want to attempt to learn something, she’d be totally down!!

↠please show her what kind of music you’re into! no matter what it is, she’ll listen to it. she wants to get to know what kind of person you are when you’re not around other people, and music is a great way to do that. even if you don’t have the same taste as her, she wouldn’t mind, since a) she’ll listen to pretty much anything, she’s not picky; and b) it’s something that you’re showing her, and that’s enough to make her happy

↠she’s not a very formal person, so i think she’d just want to talk to you and hang out. i’d think kyouka would be more of a fan of a gradual relationship, one that starts from friends and slowly evolves into more. and yes, as you can probably tell, i am a sucker for mutual pining and friends-to-lovers tropes-- im a simple hoe 😌

↠she’s super fun to hang out with!! her sense of humor is really snarky, she also enjoys talking shit about people she doesn’t like. if you’re not into that, she’s able to carry on conversation really well. there’s not a moment of awkward silence between you

↠jirou actually really likes talking shit about people hsahsh- as long as it’s someone that’s been mean in some way. she won’t say anything bad about someone who hasn’t done anything to deserve it. but if you’ve wronged her in some way, boy, do you have it COMING

↠by the end of it, i just know your cheeks hurt from laughing

↠she’s just a really fun person to be around, she may not be the most bubbly person ever, but she’s super easy-going and cool ((jirou bias incoming ekejke))

↠i do think she’d try to sneak some kind of affection if she thinks you’d reciprocate- if you’re really getting along well, she might snake her hand into yours when you’re sitting on the bed, laughing

↠honestly you might not even notice until she stops, because your hand feels empty and cold without her like your heart aa

↠if she’s really into you?? might get a smol peck on the cheek 👉👈 please try to get a smol peck on the cheek, it’s very cute and she gets so flustered

↠she goes up to you as you’re about to leave her room, grabs your shoulder, turns you around, and gives you an adorable if not slightly aggressive smooch

↠then she reFUSES to acknowledge what she just did akdfld- she turns away, beet red, and is completely silent

↠meanwhile you’re probably laughing your ass off because wow she’s so cute

↠kudos if you give one back to her, baby is on the verge of exploding ejkdjf

↠her heart just can’t handle what you’re doing to her

↠and despite what her appearance is, her heart is doing backflips- she’s whipped <33

momo: tea and c u d d l e s

↠she’s a very fancy person, obviously. yaoyorozu wants only the best for everyone she loves, and that, of course, includes you! she loves showing affection through giving things to others. her family status only magnifies this aspect of her personality, as being born into wealth gives her the means to spoil you rotten

↠and even though she’s bougie as all hell, she also somehow maintains an elegant and simple air about her. it’s impressive, really. it’s not like she tries to flex her money, it’s just a part of her life, and she enjoys using her privilege well

↠that being said, what’s more elegant and mature than going for tea? it’s a lovely pastime that momo would love to include you in!

↠lowkey,, she’s a whole sugar momma dfkdjla im not even joking- she doesn’t try to be, but virtually everything she does shows how rich she is

↠you arrive at the tea room, and by god is it fancy. there’s multiple chandeliers suspended from the ceiling, which is decorated with classic renaissance-style paintings. all the tables are set with white cloth, plates made of pure fine china, flowers and woven baskets set everywhere to create a cottagecore-like setting. the air about it is so sophisticated, from the patrons (wait is that a celebrity-) to the decorations

↠your face is kinda just,,, 😮,, because what in the world did momo get you into??

“momo, you’re so sweet, and this place is lovely, but don’t you think this is a bit much? not that i don’t absolutely appreciate it, it’s just that this seems really expensive, and i don’t want you to have to spend that much for just one date.”

↠she just chuckles, saying that it was “really nothing” (???? MISS GIRL???)

“don’t worry, y/n, this isn’t too much! i want to have fun today, and this place is so nice! let’s just find a table, alright?”

↠like, hunney, you’re so kind, but this is a LOT

↠but if you say so....

↠she looks at you with the most enthusiastic, wholesome eyes, and soon you’re following her like a puppy towards your table. the waiter sits you down, and leaves, giving you a moment to glaze over the menu to find a drink

↠and there’s so many types of teas, at least 30 on this page alone. you hadn’t even heard of half of these drinks, how would you know if you’d like them?

↠yaomomo seemed to notice your puzzlement, and said that you could get a pot of something simple, like jasmine green or earl grey, and she would get something fancier that you could try. why not?

↠a few minutes later, you’ve already adjusted to the sophisticated and intimidating environment, focusing only on the girl across from you, and how her eyes glittered with happiness

↠she orders a few normal tea foods, like scones with jam, lemon curd, and devonshire cream, and finger sandwiches. the fanciest thing she buys, though, is a blooming tea that arrives in a clear pot. it has an open flower inside of it, which is what the tea is infused with. it’s nearly 16,100 yen for one pot, though, and while you protest its expense, momo reassures you that it’s no problem (you just learned not to say anything about money, as it wouldn’t stop yaoyorozu from spoiling you)

↠ngl, it’s so fun to pretend to be fancy for a few hours at a tea room !! you acted as if you were a member of high society, using stereotypes to exaggerate your actions. it made some people only slightly irritated, but hey, it got a laugh out of a pretty girl, so who’s the real winner?

↠yaomomo taught you some classy etiquette that you should definitely use, it makes her so happy to think that you’re learning about new things while still enjoying your time with her

↠she makes really good conversation!! her intellect seeps through everything she says, anyone who talks to her would be able to tell that she’s extremely well-spoken and mature. momo is modest, and deflects a lot of the compliments you try to give her, so if you try to display your admiration for her, you’d probably need to be very specific about it. she doesn’t have the best self-image when it comes to her heroism and field work. spoken affection sometimes doesn’t get through to her, but you know what does? physical affection!

↠she loves cuddles, and will regularly take you back to her house after a date to cuddle in her bed. her mattress is legendary, and it’s comfortable as hell. there’s an abundance of pillows and the bed isn’t too soft or too firm, and it’s always somehow an amazing temperature???? mattresses are investments, and this was definitely a good one

↠momo loves the intimacy and trust of holding you, it allows her to escape from overthinking and only focus on you, her beautiful partner. she doesn’t care if she’s the big or little spoon, but her favorite kind of cuddling is when you’re on your back and she’s curled into your side, head tucked under your chin and hand on your chest

↠she can do this for hours, please let her. she feels safe with you, confident, because you’re choosing to spend time with her in this quiet moment instead of being off somewhere else.

↠in conclusion,,, 💕women 💕

-denkineptune

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jebazzled · 3 years

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it ain’t your muse! (shut up & write, ft. rihanna)

You nerds are always talking about your muse. My muse this, my muse that, I have no muse, my muse went the way of the dinosaurs, if my muse comes out of its burrow and sees its shadow I won’t be able to write for six weeks.

Shut up about your fucking muse!

It is true that you might go through periods where it is hard to find time and energy to write, or negative experiences in a writing community might leave you with anxiety surrounding writing. But by and large, writers block is something you can overcome!

Please, for the love of god, let me help you.

Writing is a muscle, and you’ve got to exercise it if you don’t want it to atrophy.

This tutorial is a bit of tough love about y’all and y’all’s diddly-darn muses, and some advice for snapping yourself out of it!

So here’s the thing about writing, my loves. You have to actually do it.

TERRIBLY inconvenient, I know.

I’m not here to tell you how to manage your work-life balance or how to manage your time. If you’re not writing much because you straight up don’t have time to write much, my advice is simple: pare down on your characters, focus on the plots that matter most to you, and spend some mental health juice on reminding yourself that there isn’t an RP Prom Queen, and even if there were, it’s better not to live or die by that bizarro crown.

But if you’re having trouble writing because of Your Muse... I’m cracking my knuckles.

We’ve all written with folks before - or been that folk before - who need a very specific set of circumstances if they’re going to write: they need time to Pinterest, need to listen to a specific playlist, need to get in the mindset, need the thread to scratch a very specific itch and need all of it to come together before the moon passes out of a waxing gibbous. As a fellow dev ho, I understand the appeal of writing to suit a mood, of vibing to a playlist, of prioritizing the stuff you’re going fucking feral for, of having the stars align while you do the thing. But if you’re like this when you’re writing for other people -

well, you’re making things difficult for both you and your writing partners! We can’t control the external constraints on our time, e.g. work and school, and we can’t always control the nonsense our psychology spins to keep us from writing. But some things are within our control, and by god, if there is any control to be had in the year of Mother Sappho 2021, don’t you want it?

At least some of your writers block is probably dumb as hell. So let’s beat the shit out of that part.

Anyway, if you’re yakking on and on about how your muse demands a bottle of red wine and a scented candle and fairy lights and soft socks and the blood of the servant, willfully given in order to spit out 200 words, or whatever...

it’s not that fucking deep.

Writing is a muscle. It’s like any other muscle: you need to exercise it.

If you’re training for a 5k, you don’t sit on your couch listening to “Eye of the Tiger” until race day. You get your ass off the cushion and pound the pavement. You probably start by alternating walks with short bursts of running. You probably don’t work your way up to actually running 5k at a time for a few weeks. And once you’ve run that first 5k, you don’t go sit on your couch to listen to “Eye of the Tiger” until the next race. You keep running to stay in shape for the next race.

Writing is like that.

What you write does not have to be perfect.

You can work on the post for six weeks and there will still be things you could change. You know what change your writing partner would have appreciated most? If you’d posted it for them three weeks ago. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.

Cut yourself the same slack you cut for your writing partners. Do you yearn to keelhaul them if their reply isn’t worth a National Book Award? No, because you’re not an asshole. They’re also not an asshole. Everyone is reasonable here. Write something that responds to what they gave you and that gives them something to work with. Not every single post has to be capital-I Inspired. ✨

What you write does not have to be a vibe ready for the Goop newsletter.

I was a creative writing major in college, and I was always having to turn stuff in for class that wasn’t exactly what I wanted to work on: a short story set in another country when I just wanted to write a play with puppets, an essay about food when I would rather write one about a weekend drive, etc.

Sometimes, you write what you write when you write it not because it’s getting you hot and bothered but because you’ve owed a reply for A While and you feel bad about keeping someone waiting. It will still be fun, because you chose to do that thread with your character and someone else’s character for a reason, and that reason stands, even if your monkey brain is yearning to play with that slime that makes fart noises when you put it away.

(Pro tip, here: don’t do threads you don’t actually have any interest in writing! It is less awkward to tell someone, “I am not interested in my character weed whacking your character’s lawn” than to waste their time with 10 posts of it before telling them, “I am not interested in my character weed whacking your character’s lawn.”)

The more you write, the easier it is.

Let’s talk about running again. A couple of years ago, I went on a bit of a kick with the running. I ran at least three times a week. I would bring my running shit with me to work so I could run in the park near my office. I would make running dates with friends. I would reward myself with a bagel from my favorite cafe if I did a run. And you know what? Once I got myself past the hurdle of pulling on my running clothes and lacing up my shoes, I enjoyed myself. When I ran 5k without slowing to a walk, I was proud of myself. When I told myself, “let’s do another loop at the park!” and stopped to take a photo of the sunset, I enjoyed myself. I would not have enjoyed myself if I hadn’t hit the goddamn pavement.

Put your ass in your fucking chair. I don’t care if you don’t have the right scented candle. Write 50 words. Right fucking now. I’ll wait.

Write another 50.

Now write another 100.

How long did that take you? Some days, it might take you 90 minutes to write 200 words. But that’s 200 more words than you would have written in 90 minutes of browsing Pinterest waiting for an angel to come down from heaven and write this post for you.

All that bullshit you do to Feed Your Muse? It’s stalling, you idiot.

The more you make yourself write instead of just thinking about writing, the easier it will be to actually fucking write.

I used to sit and stare at posts for hours and hours and hours before submitting them, so worried about the post being good enough. When I moved to a neighborhood with an aboveground train line, I was able to write on my morning commute, and writing every morning - even if only the 200 words I could crank out on mobile in 30 minutes before work - got me out of my weird writers block crutches and security blankets. It didn’t take as much effort to write, anymore. I wrote over 200,000 words in 2019, and over 300,000 words in 2020, when I had barely any commute at all to use on writing. I didn’t magically have endless hours of free time. I just wasn’t wasting my free time pretending that being on Tumblr counted as writing.

Tough love: doled out. And now:

TIPS & TRICKS FOR BEATING “””Writers Block”””

Stop acting like Writers Block is real. It’s not that it’s not real, but by telling yourself that you have Writers Block, you’re making it worse for yourself. You’re making excuses for yourself. I used Writers Block to stall writing my Topics in Creative Writing: Folktales portfolio for 3 months, and you know what happened? I still had to turn in the fucking portfolio, because the person I was writing for didn’t fucking care about my fucking Writers Block. And you know who had to sit her ass in a chair and write 30 pages of folktales in a 24 hour period? Me. It’s almost like my Writers Block was just PROCRASTINATION.

Set a timer. If you’re looking at your list of replies owed and you’re feeling like it might be easier to “do character dev” and “build a playlist” than to write your posts, break the task into smaller pieces. If your server has a sprint bot, use it. If not, set your own timer. Organize your list of threads with the ones you’ve owed replies on the longest at the top. Set your timer for 20 minutes and see how much you can write for the oldest post you owe. Not done? Set the timer for another 20 minutes. Keep setting that timer until that post is done and you can drop it in the tags channel. Now do the same for the second oldest. CRANK! THEM! OUT! If you find that it’s depleting your creative energy, that’s not unusual! When I get to this point in my own posting habits, my oldest replies owed are usually for Albus Dumbledore, a character I write specifically because I hate him. It is often easier to knock out all his posts in one chunk rather than shift voice, so this ends up working out nicely.

Don’t indulge your stupid stalling tactics. Do you typically get sidetracked by Pinterest? Put your phone away and close that tab. Do you get absorbed in lining up the perfect music for writing a post? Write in silence, asshole. Do you need to be in your favorite chair with the right lighting? Go sit on a park bench and write on mobile. It’s nice to write in idealized environments. I rented a treehouse last summer to write 10k on a novel! I get it! But you absolutely can write in other environments, if you have to. And if you can get yourself to write on a dark skin on your iPad at an airport in the Midwest while waiting for a flight - well, shit, think of how much you’ll be able to write on a laptop when your diva ass demands are properly met!

Don’t take on shit you don’t want to write. I fully admit that these tactics feel a bit like homework/chores/a to-do list for what is of course a fun hobby. You know how they say “love what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life?” If you don’t take on plots, characters, and threads that don’t have a lick of interest or excitement for you, this shit won’t feel like a hassle.

Hope this whips all you little miscreants (myself included) into shape! Now quit your yapping and start writing.

#rp guides #resources #writing resources #on writing #stop trying to make writers block happen. it's not going to happen.

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obssessivethorn · 4 years

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Homework, Anxiety, and Smiles

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A/N - Okay, do I don’t usually write fan fics that much since I’m not that great with finding the motivation and I’m scared for demying requests and not being able to keep up. So I don’t usually post stuff. But.. I really wanted to post this since I came up with this concept after a few friends and I were joking around about stuff and the idea of Eri doing someone’s homework came up. So I couldn’t help the itch to write. Hope you enjoy. I might occasionally post stuff like this, but don’t expect it too often please, I’m terrible with finding the motivation and when I’m under pressure eek!• (please do not steal or repost, I put a lot of work into this!)

Kaminari & Eri

Synopsis~ While struggling with homework, Kaminari finds himself lost in what to do. Maybe he can find someone in the dining area to help him.

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Gazing out the window, Kaminari Denki felt as if his brain had already begun to short-circuit. The words on the page just seemed to scramble and blend together into nonsense. It was basic japanese he’d been using all his life, so what was making it so difficult to understand now? Leaning back in his chair, he slumped down, gazing around his room for any form of mild entertainment.

With living in the dorms, things just didn’t seem to be the same as they used to be. Not just in bad ways, however. It was great to not have to walk as far to get to school or and to be living with all of his friends. The dorms were great, but it just never had the same feeling as home. To say Denki was a little homesick would be an understatement. Taking care of himself like an actual adult was hard. Who would have thought that doing his own laundry could take a whole day! Regardless of the difficulties he’d experienced with taking care of himself, Kaminari had become more independent within the past few months of living in the dorms than he ever had living with his parents. Though, his parents were much better at keeping him on track with homework than he ever would be. Wait, homework... Right, that’s what he was doing!

Denki looked back at the sheet of paper lying abandoned on his desk and sighed. Maybe he would work better in a different environment. Like the dining area, where he could hopefully run into someone who actually understands school stuff.

Picking up the sheet of paper and his pencil, Kaminari made his way to the elevator. Taking the lift down to the first floor, he headed to the dining area. As he entered the room, the emptiness sent a sense of slight dread through his veins. He’d hoped to have found someone enjoying a mid afternoon snack. Anyone, even Mineta would have been nice to see.Someone just to help him focus on his work. His grades were already bad enough, and he couldn’t let them keep dropping. How could he be one of the future top ten heroes if he didn’t do well in the hero course?

Letting out another sigh, Denki pulled out a chair from the table and sat down, looking back at the dreaded questions once more. Glancing back between references and questions, Denki felt his brain begin to fizzle out once more. How was he going to get this done on time? It was Sunday and the sun had already begun to set. There was no way he was finishing this.

Having already accepted defeat, Denki let his head fall into his hands and let out a deep sight. With all his pent up frustration sizzling away in his stomach, he felt hopeless. His mind swirled with wild scenarios of failure, when he felt a small tug on his shirt.

Looking down, Denki met two glowing ruby eyes gazing up at him with concern. “Eri?” he asked, “What are you doing here? Is Mr. Aizawa with you?” His confusion grew into slight concern. Why was Eri here? If she was here alone, did that mean something bad had happened?

Before Kaminari could continue his berade of questions toward the little girl, the small mass of silver hair shook. “He came to check on Deku and he brought me with him.” The young girl’s lips turned upward into a small smile at the mention of her father figure. It didn’t last long however as her grin was quickly replaced her previous concern. “Why are you sad?” Her eyes grew with worry at the thought of the older boy being upset.

Denki couldn’t help but smile at Eri. “Nah, I’m not sad.” His glance making its way back to the cursed paper before him. “But I am annoyed,” he muttered to himself as he glared burning holes into the paper. However, his complaint didn’t go unnoticed by the silver-haired girl. Turning his attention back to Eri, he softened his gaze, letting out a light chuckle. “So, what brought you to my amazing presence?” He played up his happiness as to not sadden the girl, however, his question seemed to fall on deaf ears.

Eri began climbing up onto the seat next to him, her focus on the homework sheet Denki had yet to complete. She stared curiously at the questions that still sat unanswered and pointed to the sheet. “Is this why you’re upset?” She asked, her gaze turning into a determined stare.

“Huh? Oh, that,” Kaminari’s voice was less than enthused, to say the least. “But don’t worry about that! It’s just boring school work stuff,” he reverted back to the more chipper attitude he’d put on for Eri.

“I can help you!” Eri exclaimed, her eyes now glowing with excitement. “I’ve been doing really good in school, so I can help.” By this point, she was standing on the chair, now at eye level with Denki who’s initial reaction to the little girl’s sudden response was shock.

Denki’s face quickly melted into one of joy, chuckling at the girl’s excitement. “Thank you, but I’ll be alright.” His hand moved to ruffle her hair, messing up the top a bit. “Nothing your good ‘ol pal Denki can’t handle.” He said proudly, smilingly as brightly as he could for the girl.

Eri seemed unconvinced, placing her hands on her hips and dawning an even more determined expression than before. “I want to help you so you don’t do bad so you can still be a great hero,” She pouted, her stance strong and her words firm.

Chuckling, Denki couldn’t help but fall for Eri’s tricks. He let out a sigh and glanced back at the paper. “Okay, fine,” he said, sliding the sheet closer to the girl. “Where should we start?” He inquired, looking up with a mixture of amusement and genuine curiosity. Denki had already given up with completing the homework, so how bad could it be if he let Eri help him on it? In the end he could probably just keep the assignment and come up with some excuse on why he doesn’t have the sheet anymore.

Eri gave a quick nod of affirmation, proud of herself for convincing Denki so easily. She sat back down in the chair and grabbed the pencil, beginning to scribble down random answers to the questions.

Denki watched, amused as the girl scratchily wrote and explained to him her responses. All of which were complete nonsense, Denki knew that much, but damn if he wasn’t going to listen to what she had to say with such interest.

Only minutes later, after watching Eri write out his homework, Denki finally had a completed sheet. Whether it was correct in any capacity, was a completely other topic. The only thing that mattered at the moment was that Eri was happy.

Eri slid the assignment back over to Denki with a bright smile. “I hope you can do well now,” she exclaimed, her pride shining off of her like rays of light.

Denki smiled, looking over at the silver-haired girl. “Yeah, Thank you so much!” he projected his gratefulness as best he could. “I finally understand it all thanks to you.” Denki chuckled as the girl before him lit up with joy, knowing she’d helped him.

Eri jumped up from her seat and into Denki’s arms, both proud of herself for helping and overjoyed that Denki was no longer upset. Denki having to quickly catch the girl, preventing her from accidently falling. The two stayed holding each other close in celebration of their success for only a few seconds before the young girl pulled herself from his grasp and back onto the chair before climbing down.

“Eri?” a deep and tired voice called into the dining area as a very worn-looking Aizawa Shouta rounded the corner. “We’re leaving now.” He grumbled, his gaze quickly panning from the young girl to the electric boy. “Kaminari,” he addressed the boy, masking his slight confusion was his typical unamused gaze.

“Ah!,” Kaminari jumped, his hand moving to hold the back of his neck. “Mr. Aizawa, what are you doing here?” He knew Eri had told him, but he couldn’t seem to remember. Information usually just went in one ear and out the other. After he had asked, his mind scrambled to remember what the little girl had told him earlier, but came out empty handed, as was usually the case.

Skeptically, Aizawa looked at the electric boy who appeared seconds away from short circuiting. “I was just checking up on everyone, making sure none of you had burnt down the building already.” Kaminari noticed the small amusement his teacher showed, chuckling on the inside at his own joke.

Before either male could continue the awkward exchange, Eri skipped over to Aizawa. She grabbed his larger hand in her smaller one, rubbing her eyes lightly with her other. “I was helping Kaminari-kun.” Her words were light, floating in the air like a feather drenched in drowsiness.

Aizawa couldn’t help the miniscule smile which plagued his lips. “We should get going, it’s too late for you to be up right now anyway.”

“But I’m not-,” Eri’s objection was cut off by a yawn. “Sleepy..” She once again attempted to rub the evident sleep from her eyes. Perking up in a tired excitement, she tried to convince the man before her that she didn’t need to sleep.

“Of course you’re not,” Aizawa sighed, giving a half-hearted acceptance of the girl’s objection. Looking over to Kaminari, he bid him a good night, telling him to get to bed at a decent time, and left the Heights Alliance dorms.

As the two left, Kaminari let out a sigh he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Looking down at the paper now covered in answers even he knew was wrong. Remembering the smile the shone on the little girl’s face, he couldn’t fight the grin that quickly took over his previous frown. His peace was broken by the sudden awareness of the ticking coming from the clock on the wall. In the dead silence of the dining area, the ‘tick tocking’ of the circular object hanging in front of him, took over his senses. The noise must have been a sign, seeing as the boy had only now noticed how truely late it was. At this rate, if he didn’t go to bed now, he was going to be even more tired than usual in class. He shook his head, picking up the piece of paper and pencil, marching himself back into the elevator and to his room.

Once he was in the comfort of his dorm, he changed into his p.js and got ready for bed. That night was one of the more peaceful nights of sleep he had gotten since moving into the dorms. The joy he got from seeing Eri smile was enough to relax him, lulling him into a sweet sleep.

The next morning, Kaminari was woken to the sound of knocking at his door. After a few seconds of silence, the door opened, revealing an already dressed Ojirou. Kaminari looked up, still in a drowsy state.

“Kaminari, we’re leaving soon,” the tailed boy stated, slight worry in his voice at Denki’s unaware state. He let out a chuckled as the boy, still in bed, grumbled an indiscernible response into his pillow. Walking over to him, Ojirou picked him up out of bed and wrapped his arm around the boy’s shoulders. “Come on, you should probably get ready.” He let go of the tired electric boy before leaving the room. Though, the still half-asleep Denki missed the look the boy had given him before exiting.

Since he was already standing, Kaminari got dressed, following his usual boring routine which repeated the same way every morning before school. He got dressed, brushed his teeth and hair, went down to meet the others for breakfast before gathering his school things and heading from the dorms. However, today seemed more sluggish. His mind was wandering even farther than usual. By the time he had finished his breakfast, he headed back up to his room to grab what he needed for the day. He stared longingly at his bed, silently weeping an apology for having to leave the inanimate object so soon.

As he grabbed his backpack, Kaminari shoved his homework into the bag, forgetting about Eri’s work still being in the pile. He shrugged his backpack onto his shoulder, checking his phone, deciding that racing down to the ground floor would be the best course of action at that point in time.

Once Kaminari had finally joined his group of friends, his typical energy restored back to normal. All sense of drowsiness was out the door when he had begun joking around and talking with his fellow classmates. It seemed like it would be a good day for Kaminari Denki.

Everything seemed to run as normal. Kaminari had arrived early enough with his friends. Waiting for their teacher who was once again late, Class 1-A was acting as per usual. The girls had talked about plans after school, hoping to send some much needed relaxation time together. The Bakusquad continued to goof around, causing the most ruckus. The Dekuquad peacefully and joyfully enjoyed each other's company, talking calmly about whatever came to mind. Iida psetered others to sit in their seats. Everything was just as it was any other day.

Aizawa slumped into the classroom, introducing what they would be doing in homeroom for the day. Seeing as he’d assigned them homework the prior day, he requested for everyone to pass their papers forward.

Kaminari moved to pull out his assignment when he was greeted with the light scribbles of Eri’s handwriting. He hadn’t done his work, or rather, he wasn’t the one to complete it. He was about to shove the paper into his bag once again for safe keeping, but he couldn’t get Eri’s bright smile out of his head. The way her face lit up at how she had helped the boy. He would feel guilty if he didn’t turn in what she had worked so hard on. It was evident that night how doing his homework tired her, so how could he not turn it in?

“Kaminari?”

Denki looked up to see Kirishima with his hand still holding his, Koda’s, and Sato’s papers. He gave the boy a questioning look, concern weaving its way into his expression. “Did you not do the homework?” he whispered.

Denki quickly glanced between Eri’s work and Kirishima. “No! Of course I did.” Nervously chuckling, he grabbed the assignments from the spiky haired boy, placing his own paper underneath in hopes of hiding the scratchy words quickly scrambled onto the page. Passing the last of the papers to Ojirou, Kaminari finally sat back in his seat with a sigh. Eri would probably ask Aizawa how Denki had done on the assignment. He couldn’t just not turn in such a sweet gesture that the girl felt so proud of herself for. All the boy could think about was how happy Eri was, hoping to see her smile again soon.

After school, Kaminari was beat. While his energy around his friends was still high, all he could think about was cuddling up in his bed to recharge. So that’s exactly what he did.

Once he’d returned to the dorms, he made a b-line to his room. The closer he got, the more difficult it was to keep his eyes open. He didn’t understand why he was so tired. All day had been nothing but fighting to keep his energy up. He’d gone as far as to try charging himself with a portable charger during lunch. While it did help a little, the boy was still left drained.

He thought back to the night before. He’d stayed up later than intended, though not by much. Eri had brought a light to his dull evening. She’d made him feel happy in a time when he was beginning to fall into hopelessness. School had never been easy for him. Ever since primary school, he’d always been seen as the trouble maker. When his quirk had manifested, it seemed to only add air to the flame. He cared about school, really he did, but he was just never good at academics. He struggled in maths, felt completely hopeless in history, and just barely understood science. But he still managed to hold the same smile that Eri did. He managed to laugh through the trial and error. He may not have been strong academically, but he was strong willed. He’d made it this far already. He was in hero-training at one of the best schools in Japan. He had friends who were there for him. People who cared and saw him as more than just a trouble making electrical fire like many others had in the past. He was happy, and he wanted to make Eri feel just as much joy as he did since joining U.A.

Collapsing on his bed, Kaminari allowed himself to reminisce on the dumb and fun things him and his friends have done. Thinking of how Ojirou had helped him with anxiety and stress. Or how Kirishima has made him more manly and less like Mineta in the sense of perviness. Or breaking down Bakugou’s walls enough to become friends with him. Mina and Sero joining him in creating dumb chaos. Memories and thoughts of his friends drifted him into a peaceful sleep.

Waking up the next day to the sun shining in his face, Kaminari felt refreshed. Whatever weight was weighing him down the day before was no longer there. He could lift his head up high and feel just as great as he usually did.

With Denki’s homework, surprisingly, done, he put together everything he needed for school that day and proceeded to get ready as he did everyday. Whatever funk had attempted to bring him down the day prior was no match for the upbeat and fully-charged Denki who continued his usual boring morning routine. He did the same thing every morning. Got dressed, brushed his teeth and hair, gathered his things for school, and went down to meet everyone for breakfast. However, today was different. He was the first one in the dining area, first one to wake up it seemed. He checked his phone to see that he had indeed woken up much earlier than he usually did. Odd. Shrugging off the seemingly once in a lifetime occurrence, he made his way back up to the floor his room was on to see if anyone else was awake.

Luckily he wasn’t the only early bird that day. Iida had just exited his room, a look of surprise dawning his face at the wide awake Kaminari who was bouncing down the hall. Waving it off, both males exchanged small greetings, starting a conversation as per usual. While they didn’t necessarily talk much, the two enjoyed each other’s presence. Talking with Iida about loose topics or things they both enjoyed always seemed to calm the electric boy’s anxieties a bit. When they had first met, Denki had no idea how much they had in common. While their personalities may differ, their interests align surprisingly well. He knew he could rely on Iida if he ever needed help, or just needed a quick distraction from something. Though, he never wanted to be a bother. Having someone coming to him so often that he’s potentially distracted from properly training to be a hero isn’t something Iida needs. That’s why he didn’t seek out Iida’s help that night when he was struggling.

The two boys continued to chat, making their ways down to the ground floor to begin breakfast for the others. Time passed by fast as others joined, Kaminari burned more than enough food, and everyone ate. Soon enough, it was time to leave for school. Everyone had cleaned up, grabbed their belongings and walked to school in their different groups.

Once in their classroom, things continued as normal. The girls talked about plans after school. The Bakusquad caused the most ruckus. The Dekusquad talked peacefully about whatever topics arose. Iida pestered everyone to sit in their seats. Just as usual.

Aizawa was once again late, picking up homework, and quickly diving into his yellow sleeping bag to nap for the rest of homeroom. Everyone was left to either chat or do work. Another boring day for Denki to let his mind wander.

School had, once again, gone smoothly. Nothing seemed to differ from the usual schedule of things. Kaminari had turned in his assignments, dozed off, and trained along with his classmates. The day was normal. Well, it was. Until school ended.

The bell had finally rung, signaling the end of the school day. Everyone had packed up their things and joined back with their friends to walk back to their dorms. Kaminari was no different. He couldn’t wait to hang out with his friends for a while before finally being able to fall asleep in his bed. He joined his friends and started leaving the classroom, only to be stopped by his teacher.

“Kaminari, I need to speak with you for a second.” Aizawa’s voice was deep and strict. His usual tired stare unwavering.

Kaminari looked between his friends and Aizawa. He sent the others an apologetic look as he turned around to face his teacher. As the boy swallowed the anxiety he felt bubbling over in his stomach, he felt the sympathetic and worried looks from some of his friends. His anxiety only worsened as he heard Mina and Sero poorly suppress chuckles and giggles.The looks and laughter fell distant as his friends went on their way to the dorms without him.

“Yes, sir?” He finally asked.

“I wanted to talk about the homework I assigned the other day.” Aizawa began shuffling through the pile of papers stacked on the podium in front of him.

Denki felt as if he could vomit. Oh what this boy wouldn’t give to have Iida there to distract him or to play with Ojirou’s tail. Was this about him trying to take credit for Eri’s work? Or maybe this was about having Eri do it in general. Or was this about a completely different assignment he’d bombed? Kaminari couldn’t keep his mind from dizzying. If Aizawa hadn’t ripped him from his thoughts, he swore he would have started to sway.

“Do you think I don’t know what Eri’s handwriting looks like?” Aizawa held up the paper in question, looking down at the electric boy.

Before he could even begin to think, Kaminari started to sputter out a reply.

“I swear I didn’t mean for her to do it!” he stuttered. “I just went out to the dining area to finish my homework since I couldn’t focus in my room, but when I went out there Eri came along and I was just so frustrated that it was obvious so she offered to help and I told her she didn’t have to at first and that I had it covered, she still wanted to help, so I let her because she just looked so happy and I couldn’t let her down like that! I didn’t want her to stop smiling since she's been through so much already so I just let her help me even if she got things wrong or I got punished for not doing my own work. She just looked so happy helping me and being a hero to me in her own way. She reminded me too much of myself because she smiled so brightly even if she didn’t actually understand what she was saying or writing! Eri was just so sweet and I meant to just keep the paper as a memory of her helping me but I brought it to school that day on accident and I couldn’t help but think that she’d want you to be proud of her or helping someone who was struggling, even if she got everything on the assignment wrong and she’d probably ask you about how I did, so I figured I couldn’t live with the guilt of not turning in something she worked so hard on and tired herself out doing. So please Sir, if you’re going to give me any punishment for not doing my own work then I’ll take it, but please just make sure that Eri is happy and doesn’t know about it. I can’t bear the thought of seeing her frown because I know what it’s like to smile for others and to feel proud of yourself for small things you do. I see some of myself in her So i guess that I just couldn’t help but let her help. Just please, make sure she knows you’re proud of her and-.”

“Kaminari!” Aizawa finally cut the teen off from his rambling.

By now the boy was in tears, his voice cracking and heart in pain. How has one little girl affected him this much? He hadn’t noticed the older man trying to stop him. Trying to keep him from falling further into his ramblings. Once he was stopped, however, he could only gaze down at his shoes, hiding his face in his now disheveled hair.

“I’m not going to punish you,” Aizawa sighed. The man ran a hand through his hair before placing it on the younger boy’s shoulder in comfort.

Kaminari looked up at his teacher, shock swirling in his irises. “What?”

“I’m wasn’t going to punish you,” Aizawa repeated. “I’ve noticed you’ve been struggling in classes lately. I was going to offer to set you up with a tutor.” Sympathy for the boy flashed through his features before he handed him the paper. “I figure you’ll probably want to show her the score.”

Kaminari looked at the man in confusion as he grabbed the paper, looking down at the perfect score written at the top of the page. A comment complimenting the great work accompanied the score. With a small chuckle, Denki felt his smile grow again.

“Now, you still have to redo the assignment.” It was only then that the boy had realized he was passed two papers. The second being the blank assignment ready for him to fill out on his own.

Denki’s eyes sparkled with determination just as Eri’s did that night. “Right! Thank you, sir!” His gaze was now set on Aizawa with a huge grin plastered over his mouth. “I’ll make sure to show her this as soon as I can.”

Aizawa couldn’t help the small grin which sat on his lips as he shooed the now excited boy away. He really did resemble Eri in that way. Excitable and determined. He could see Kaminari Denki going far. There was no doubt in his mind that he would become a great hero.

The week had passed by quickly, things following the same usual boring routine like they always did. Kaminari had luckily not had any other interruptions to this cycle. Finally, though, the weekend had come. He was finally able to relax and sleep in.

The weekend had come and gone smoothly with Denki hanging out with his friends, goofing off, and being a dumb teenager. Not a hero-in-training who had big bad villains after him, but an actual normal teenager. It almost felt like forever since he was able to get ice cream with his friends and hang around the mall, using cheesy pick-up lines on random girls. Things were normal. His anxiety was very mild with Ojirou and Iida there to help him and he was able to finally breathe since being tutored by Momo. His life finally felt like it was clearing of the foggy mist and storm clouds.

Kaminari Denki could finally see the sun again.

So, as per usual, there he sat. At his desk. Hunched over homework. Struggling to understand fewer questions than before. He was, thankfully, almost done with his final assignment, when a knock on his door broke his focus. Who would be knocking on his door this late?

As Kaminari opened the door, he was attacked by a small mass of silver hair. Looking down, he thanked any god that would listen for not letting him set off an electric current out of shock.

“Hey Eri!” He said as he bent down to properly hug the girl close.

“Aizawa said you had something you wanted to show me and I wanted to come see you again!” The girl’s face gleamed with pride and joy. Her body seemed to radiate sunshine from how happy she was.

Kaminari’s face instantly smiled as he looked at Aizawa who was still standing in the doorway of the boy’s room.

“Right! Here, let me get it.” The boy moved quickly to his desk where he’d been keeping the paper of Eri’s work in hopes of showing her soon. He walked back over to the pair and bent down once more to present the girl with the marked paper.

Her eyes grew as she saw the perfect score marked on top. The comment underneath only seemed to add to her excitement.

“I don’t think I would have passed if you didn’t help me.” Kaminari rubbed the back of his neck as he saw the girl shine brighter than he’d ever seen her before.

Having no words, the girl jumped onto the boy before her and engulfed him in a hug. Tears started to well in her eyes while she held him, his own arms holding her securely against him. Her entire life she’d been told she was a curse. How everything she did got someone killed. But this. This moment. It proved every word of that wrong. She could help people. She could be a hero. Even if she had only helped on a small task. She was able to help nonetheless.

Aizawa let out a happy sigh, warmed by the scene in front of him. “As much as I hate to break this up,” he said, sounding every bit sarcastic, but meaning every word. “But we do have to go. You both need to get some rest.”

The two pulled apart, looking at each other with matching grins.

“Right!” Kaminari chuckled, “We both have school tomorrow.”

“But I’m not-,” Eri’s protest was cut off by a big yawn. “Sleepy.” Her voice held an evident drowsiness as she mulled her way happily over to Aizawa, who picked the girl up and carried her now half-asleep form.

“Good night, Kaminari. Get some rest.” Aizawa walked off with the now sleeping Eri, her energy had drained quickly from her previous emotional state.

Kaminari shut the door after his teacher and younger friend walked away. He quickly went back to his desk with a new motivation to finish his homework. His occasional glances at the paper dawning Eri’s work seemed to give him more encouragement to finish and do better in school.

Once he had finally finished, he changed and got ready for bed.

That night was the most peacefully he had ever slept and the closest he felt to being at home in months.

#mha imagines #mha kaminari #bnha kaminari #kaminari headcanons #kaminari denki #denki headcanons #bnha eri #eri my hero academia #mha eri #aizawa being a caring teacher #denki had anxiety #slight add #homework #denki and Iida are friends #slight denki x Ojirou #fanfiction #bnha fandom #bnha fanfiction #mha fanfiction

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benscursedkid · 4 years

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jdkdkdn okay so i accidentally deleted this ask, but since i always take a picture just in case i am still able to post this. hope you enjoy!!

p.s. i am still working on those follower specials, but school is virtual and it’s kicking my ass right now, so please stand by. i’m working on it. 💗

tulip

okay i hope we can all agree that tulip has some killer cheekbones

they’re just so pretty and always earns her a few second glances

not that she really cares but still

also i have this weird and unexplainable hunch that tulip is really good with latin

her best class is transfiguration and mcgonagall wishes she would put half her effort that goes into her pranks into the rest of her schoolwork

dennis has his own room at her house

there’s this decently sized coat closet that they don’t really use and so she took her allowance (because no magic over summer break) and used it to get decorations and such

dennis loves it

her parents always keep red tulips around there house and tulip doesn’t know why exactly but she doesn’t like them

she likes to hide her roommates things

not like important stuff that would give them a heart attack if it went missing but like.

rowan’s nightstand is very spick and span with everything in its place?

oh would you look at that, one of her quills is gone? yeah and now that i look at it, isn’t that my charms homework? what is it doing over here?

just little things to entertain herself

she also plays pranks of course but i don’t have enough brain cells to get into all those

tulip, tonks, and jae are the school’s trio of pranksters

if you ever see the three of them together? just lounging or passing by? run

if they aren’t in the midst of a prank already, then they’re planning one

either way you probably don’t want to be there right now

neither of her parents have siblings or cousins either so she’s really just been itching to get out there

she hates the holiday breaks

sometimes she doesn’t even go during Christmas as there’s only a 50% chance her family won’t be working anyway

she loves giving gifts to her friends on the occasions where it calls for it

it’s not normally something she likes to do

but she loves giving... interesting gifts

something that is so undoubtedly tulip that twenty years from now they’ll still remember it

but she’s not evil so most of them are still useful

she’s versatile and her gifts reflect that

she loves working in silence so that she can hear herself think

sometimes she does her best work alone, only dennis for company, and the only sound other than his croaking is the little ramblings she’ll allow herself to say out loud

but that’s typically when she’s creating something

she has an entirely different process than, let’s say, when she’s planning something

which is basically just lots of racket and a vivid and lively environment

it gets her ideas flowing

also she’s definitely the type who either takes her coffee black or with lots of syrups

end of question

she was really fond of chester even if she gave him a rather hard time

in her mind, that was the best way she could come up with to say as much

lastly I imagine she’s the kind of person who loves using psychology tricks on people for fun

really likes it when strangers get confused around her

half the school thinks she’s a little off her rocker but she’s also strangely? cool? like that’s her reputation.

a cool, eccentric ravenclaw you don’t want to be caught in an enclosed space with.

I think that actually says a lot

erika

so I know most people call her rath but I’ve just always said erika for whatever reason so we’re going with that

i imagine that, for no reason other than just because i can, that the name erika is actually a recycled name within her family

by that I mean she was named after a family member. maybe her grandmother.

I also don’t think that it was her who originally initiated the switch from erika to rath

I can see other little kids who she interacted with growing up calling her rath because maybe they thought she was a little scary

and after being told what wrath is and learning of her surname it just kinda fit?

also, don’t come at me for this pls, but i know canonically speaking she’s a ravenclaw, unless you’re mc is a ravenclaw in which case she’s a slytherin

but I’ve always just placed all the quidditch kids in separate houses even though it totally fucks with the story

I’ve said this before in my skye hcs but I’ve always seen her as more of a gryffindor than anything else

orion gives me big ravenclaw vibes

murphy strikes me as the opposite of your stereotypical hufflepuff

and rath radiates slytherin energy to me

I didn’t plan on them all being in different houses but I realized that it just kinda fit?

besides, rath does face against both skye and orion here anyway and it gives all three of them the chance to be their own respective team’s captain

she just comes across as very competitive, ambitious, and determined to me but she also has her own code of honor that applies strictly to her specific morals which is also a very slytherin thing

she’s a bit on the tall side too

I’d say maybe 5’7

5’9 maximum

(idk what that is in cm very sorry)

she’s very respectful of her teammates as well as her fellow housemates

she has a sort of comradery/brotherhood pride about her

not a big fan of sweets

if she eats chocolate, it’s usually the dark or mint chocolates

has abs

but that’s a given

no allergies, 20/20 vision

no pets but she secretly wants to get a dog

also, she’s a capricorn

i don’t make the rules

her hair is naturally very curly and she just uses magic to straighten it

she doesn’t like all the upkeep that comes with containing her natural hair

so she just doesn’t

loves oranges but I couldn’t tell you why

she has two siblings

an older brother (Ayden, by 6 years)

and a younger sister (Ellery, by 10 years)

again, I don’t make the rules, okay?

also, don’t ask me why I feel the need to name them bc idk either

obviously they can’t be sure about Ellery yet by the time Erika is in school, but thus far she’s the only person in her family who has shown an interest in professional quidditch

Ayden played on the hufflepuff team while he was in school but didn’t think to make a career out of it

very close with her father

not that she’s not close with her mother, she’s just always gotten along swiftly with her dad

she’s irish, have fun ;)

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hamlets-ghost-zaddy · 5 years

Text

it happened during lunch period

Babe Heffron x Eugene Roe

Summary: (Teacher AU) Bill is a hardworking math teacher with few wants in this world: eating the taco salad made by his wife for lunch in peace being the most reasonable of them (in his humble opinion). However, his best buddy, Babe Heffron and his spiraling panic over the new anatomy teacher, Eugene Roe, would disagree.

The door to the classroom eases closed after the final pack of kids, tottering off in a slow-moving herd to stuff their faces with the cafeteria’s consistently mediocre food, and Bill watches it inching closed slowly, slowly, just a few more millimeters and he can safely reach for his taco salad, it’s almost there—

“Bill!”

The door swings open, banging against the outside yellow lockers outside, and admitting a fast-moving orange-haired blurred into the sanctity of Bill’s classroom. Bill’s eyes don’t properly register the blur or its hair (though Bill has a ground total of two friends in this school who have enough disregard for their own wellbeing that they’d interrupt his lunch hour, and only one of them has red-hair) until Babe Heffron has his palms splayed on Bill’s desk, leaning over to emphasis the seriousness of his declaration: “Bill, we have a serious problem.”

Bill’s not sure when Babe started to use plurals when talking about his personal issues. He can’t say he likes it.

“What?” Bill asks before shoving Babe’s hands off his desk adding, “Remove your grubby mitts.”

Babe doesn’t let Bill’s tone—equal parts exasperated and annoyed, and no parts concerned, which would be truly ideal—deter him. He slumps into a recently vacated student’s desk, dropping his forehead into a hand. “We got to do something. It’s Eugene Roe.”

“Who?” Bill grunts, opening the lower drawer of his desk and fishing out the Tupperware container of taco salad Fran sent to school with him. They traded who was on lunch prep duty every other day and, while Bill is mighty proud of his chicken salad sandwiches (thank you very much), he also will be the first to admit Fran makes a bombass lunch.

“You know, Eugene Roe, the anatomy teacher?” When he’s met with a blank stare from Bill, Babe expands: “The new one?”

“Ah,” Bill grunts, prying the lid off his lunch before fetching out his fork (real metal because Bill loves the Earth, double thank you very much). “Why didn’t you say that to begin with, huh? Expect me to know the science department’s names, Jesus fucking Christ.” The rivalry between the science and math departments—crammed into the same wing of the school the majority of last semester after the Physics teacher, Speirs, allowed his students to catapult a Barbie (a Barbie on fire, no less) into a pipe of the water main thereby flooding the science halls—is well known. And, really, English teacher or not, Babe knows better than to mention a science teacher to Bill.

Babe’s expression is decidedly unimpressed. “Bill, you wanna hear the problem or not?”

Bill considers saying ‘no’ as he crunches into a bite of lettuce, tortilla, and ground beef. Then again, his only other lunchtime entertainment would be grading quizzes, and Babe’s problem is bound to be less depressing than fifth period’s attempts at trigonometry. “I mean, if I have to,” Bill replies.

Encouraged, Babe lifts his face from his hand, only to use to it to wave and illustrate his story. “I’ve gotta say something to the guy, Bill, I just don’t know what; I mean, he’s a new colleague, I can’t—”

“Babe, you’re spiraling,” Bill observes. He learned the term from his buddy, Lewis Nixon, the psychology teacher, during a faculty meeting the other week (in true form, neither were paying actual attention to what the school district’s superintendent, Sink, was saying) and Bill is probably, admittedly, using it wrong. Still, it feels right.

It does seem to do the trick because Babe cuts himself off to heave a sigh. He gets to the point: “The dude has been dropping my packet copies off in my room—like, he even came in during the middle of one of my classes! Like, yeah, he apologized and everything, but it was so unprofessional! And then he showed me these notes he took during the faculty meeting—”

“Wait,” Bill interrupts, mouth full and ranch dribbling down his chin. What can he say: he’s a man of refinement and culture. “He took notes during the faculty meeting?”

“I know,” Babe nods, vindicated. A spark in Babe’s eyes, a spark Bill associates with discussions of Sunday night football, bottomless wing deals from Buffalo Wild Wings, and first editions of Steinbeck novels, lights in Babe’s eyes. “Like, seriously, who the fuck does that?”

Stuffing his face with more taco salad to disguise the slow-growing, shit-eating grin curling his mouth, Bill echoes: “Who the fuck.” (Though, it’s around food, so it sounds more like the caterwauling of a minorly inconvenienced cat).

“It made me look like I wasn’t paying attention,” Babe adds.

“You weren’t paying attention,” Bill corrects, because he can’t let the implication stand: if Bill or Nix—or math department head Joe Toye, or chronically grumpy Johnny Martin—weren’t paying attention, there was no way in fuck Babe Heffron was paying attention. “Plus,” Bill drawls, “He did save your ass; Webster would have dragged you if you couldn’t come up with the name of the new book they’re wanting for Common Core. And he’s insufferable enough as is. Remind me why the fuck we decided to invite him to Tuesday morning coffee?”

Frowning and looking uncharacteristically thoughtful—Bill wonders if smoke will start pouring from Babe’s ears, his brain is working so hard—Babe mutters, “We wanted to give Liebgott someone to fight with, remember?” Pause. “Can’t believe they’re replacing The Great Gatsby with John fucking Green.” Another pause. “Like, seriously, if that’s the administrations idea of author diversity and representation than—”

Sensing a brewing literature rant that will ruin any enjoyment he’ll have eating his taco salad in all statistical probability (especially as he is getting to the guacamole layer), Bill hastily prompts: “Babe, you were griping about Roe?”

“Oh, right,” Babe says, shaking his head as if to physically clear his brain of any further mutterings of ‘manic pixie dream girls’ or ‘romanticizing sicknesses.’ “So as if the copies, the interrupting class, and the notes aren’t enough, this little twerp—” Bill’s eyebrows furrow: twerp? Really? “—goes and fricking—! I mean, get a load of this: I let him use one of my whiteboard markers and instead of giving it back, he buys me a new pack! It was one of my good markers, too!”

“What happened to the original one?”

Babe shrugs. “Roe said some kids exploded it over a Bunsen burner.”

Bill opens his mouth to ask, decides he doesn’t want to know, and instead settles on, “Let me see if I got this straight: he delivers you copies of your lesson material so you don’t have to walk to the copy room way over in the BFE, he helps you not make an ass of yourself by filling you in about the meeting, and not only replaces your shit but gives you more than what you gave him to begin with?”

Nodding furiously through the whole summation, Babe declares a heated: “Exactly!” when Bill finishes, punctuating it. Red has risen in Babe’s cheeks, fiery enough to rival his hair, and his fists have clenched tight. “He’s making me look bad, Bill! Like I can’t function by myself as a teacher or grown-ass adult! I know he’s new and we have to create a welcoming work environment, but, seriously—”

“Babe,” Bill intones, because for all that his friend’s an idiot, this—by Bill’s estimation—is Babe really outdoing himself. He can’t stand how embarrassed he is for him. “Babe, you’re mad because Roe is being nice to you.”

“’Nice?’” Babe echoes, spluttering and choking over the word. The eloquence of an English teacher. “What? ‘Nice?’”

Bill nods gravely. “Nice.” To emphasize his point, he crunches into some particularly crisp lettuce.

“I—uh—what—?” Babe squawks. “Bill, ‘nice?’ What do you mean?”

“You’re an English teacher, Babe, you tell me what ‘nice’ means,” Bill retorts, casting his eyes to his classroom’s ceiling as if asking for divine intervention—or maybe Carwood Lipton’s intervention, his classroom directly above. When he returns his eyes to Babe, he finds the red, formerly staining his skin, drained, leaving Babe gaping like a gutted fish. Taking pity, Bill sighs and tries a different tactic, “Kid, he’s not trying to undermine you. He’s trying to be nice.”

“But, Bill,” Babe protests weakly, “Why would he be that ‘nice?’” The implication of Babe’s dubiousness over if it truly is niceties compelling Roe’s actions heavies Babe’s words. “I mean, he’s not that ‘nice’ to anyone else.”

“I don’t know, Babe,” Bill says, though he knows full well why. “Have you done anything nice for him?”

“Well there was that one time I bought him coffee, and I, uh, I told him his tie is nice, and…” Babe trails off. Bill watches with perhaps too much interest as Babe grows yet paler. He hadn’t thought it possible and, if Bill didn’t want the entire science department to drown in a Second Great Barbie Tsunami, he would have reported this preternatural phenomenon to them. Babe’s rambling thoughts, meanwhile, only allow him to get out a single: “Oh. My. God.”

Shoveling more ground beef into his mouth, Bill intones: “You’re spiraling again.”

Babe drops his forehead into his hands—both of them this time—and lets out a long groan. “Oh my god,” he repeats, “Do I have a crush on Roe? Does he have a crush on me?”

Eating the last of the taco salad, Bill confirms: “Definitely spiraling.”

#should I continue?#let a girl know #hbo war #band of brothers #band of brothers imagine #band of brothers imagines #band of brothers fic #bill guarnere #babe heffron #eugene roe #teachers au #/low Cajun voice/ Babe #Eugene Roe/Babe Heffron #Babe Heffron x Eugene Roe #my writing #baberoe

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asterinjapan · 5 years

Text

Museum day

Good evening again from a rainy Tokyo!

Well, I think it’s dry now, but it’s been raining for most of the day, I assume due to whatever remains of tropical depression ex-typhoon number 20 of this year. And of course, there is a very easy option to do on a rainy day: visiting museums! Or well, just the one today, haha.

On a rainy day and a national holiday, I for sure wasn’t the only one with that idea, but since Ueno Park houses a ton of museums and a zoo and what not, the crowds still spread out.

So, follow me into the Tokyo National Museum of Nature and Science today!

Actually, I’ve been sort of intending to visit this museum since my very first visit in 2010, when a trip via school let me see a glimpse of the giant blue whale statue (life size!) that marks the entrance. However, visiting a museum is never first on my list when I go to Japan, simply because I want to do so many things. With today’s weather, I didn’t think one of my planned side trips into the mountains was such a good idea, so it was finally time.

As it turns out, entrance for the permanent exhibitions (there was no special one at the moment) was free today! Today is the enthronement of the emperor, so it’s a national holiday, and apparently also a reason to call off entry prices, haha. Once inside, I did get myself a tablet with audio guide, because with this being a broad museum on eh, nature and science, I was already fairly sure my limited vocabulary wouldn’t save me here. The tablet (or plain audio device, you could pick) was 320 yen, and it was extensive. It also offered you guides through the complex, so I picked out the longest one that would lead me through all floors. This was my day plan, after all!

First, I visited the Theater 36◯ (yeah, a circle, not a zero, they’re too cool for a simple zero). True to its name, it’s a movie theater with a screen in 360 degrees all around. You get a free audio device here for languages other than Japanese, and since only 60 people can be inside at once, it’s a wait until you can get in. I killed time by checking the introduction movies on my tablet (featuring a very cute animated triceratops girl), and then I was allowed in.

You stand on a bridge that features glass on both sides, so you can watch underneath. The theater has rotating screenings, and for October, the movie clips are the deep sea and the mantle dynamics and evolution of the Earth. I was actually most excited for the former, but ended up being most impressed by the latter. I think the deep sea clip has been here for longer, because the quality was slightly pixelated at some points. The mantle dynamics movie took you to the center of the earth, and zoomed in and out to a degree that I suddenly understood the warnings that some people might feel light-headed or motion sick here, haha. It’s not that bad, but this screening definitely tricked my brain.

After that, it was time to explore the museum proper! Actually, it consists of two buildings: the global gallery, with 3 floors in the basement and 3 floors on top, and the Japan gallery, which has 3 floors with two wings each. The route I had picked sent me to the first floor of the global gallery first, going up and then starting back down on the third floor basement, and then leading me through the Japan gallery from top to bottom.

The first floor of the global gallery immediately featured the skeleton of an Allosaurus, the first dinosaur to ever be exhibited in Japan, back in 1964. This hall features the history of the planet since the very beginning until, well, now, so that’s a lot to cover and gives a starting point for the rest of the building. It showed off biodiversity, an interactive Tree of Life display where you could follow the lines to see which organisms were linked to each other, and the development of human kind starting with the very first primates to go bipedal. It was a lot, and I noticed my guide skipped some numbers here, but I quickly found out that was on purpose. If you want to listen to all the audio guide points, you need at least two full days here.

I made my way up following the guide to the third floor, where there was an absolutely massive exhibition of specimens of all kinds of mammals and birds, including the in the wild extinct Japanese wolf and tons of deer, bears, other predators, you name it. This was overwhelming and a bit creepy (these animals did die at some point, quite probably due to hunting), but very interesting and it was pretty cool to see these animals that close. There was a play corner around the, eh, corner, for which you need to make reservations in advance, and where kids can play in a climbing construction that seemed to be littered with specimens as well (I assume replicas), so they could get a hands-on approach.

The second floor was dedicated to Japanese inventions starting in the 1600s, and the interaction with other countries that brought this around. There were direct comparisons between Japanese and European measuring devices, which was very interesting, because similar museums back in Europe wouldn’t do something like that due to the distance. Also featured here were the first computers, a replica of the Himawari satellite, Japanese clocks (which are distinctly different, because the time during days and nights was measured at a different pace) and a Global Environment detector, featuring a giant screen that you could interact with to draw up measuring results on all kinds of topics, sometimes even being the actual measurements of that moment. It’s a pretty interactive museum, so there is a lot to see and do.

At this point I took a break, to find out I’d already been wandering around for two hours! And I was barely getting started, oops. So I quickly went down to the basement to find an exhibition on ‘exploring the structure of nature’, or ‘that part where I’m really happy I rented a tablet in English, because I barely even know these terms in English’, haha. It was super interesting though, showcasing a model of a particle accelerator, and a ‘cloud chamber’ in which you could observe cosmic radiation hitting earth, and actual moon rocks and the periodic table with all elements (except the radioactive ones) on display.

Another floor up is one of the more impressive ones, as it houses tons of skeletons of animals throughout the ages, including the biggest mammoth and the earliest human. They had some scarily realistic reconstructions of early humans, so lifelike that I was almost fooled into thinking they were actually people dressing up, haha.

One more floor up is one of the more popular floors, for a very easy reason: dinosaurs! There were quite a few on display, and I never fail to be impressed by the sheer size and variety of them. Not much to say here I guess, except me having a good time because dinosaurs, haha.

I made it back to the Japan gallery (the building I had started in) and after some latte, I carried myself to the third floor. I must confess I started rushing from now on, since it was already 3 PM, but this building is considerably smaller and the guide has fewer, if longer, audio spots. This building is, of course, more dedicated to the Japanese natural history, and guides you through the animals found in Japan’s waters until you find yourself facing a plesiosaurus, Futabasaurus, the first of its kind to be found in Japan. It’s reconstructed as if it’s swimming over your head, very impressive.

One floor down showcases the variety of animals found on the Japanese islands, and one of my favourites: Japanese people throughout the ages, starting in the Jomon period and ending in the Edo era (or the present, if you choose to go stand in the last spot, haha). These featured mannequins in daily life situations that were very realistic, I assume they used the same techniques as in wax museums, because I was seriously impressed, wow.

Near the end of this hall, a group of people had gathered to take pictures. You see, there was another very popular display: Hachiko. Yep, the same dog whose statue sits outside Shibuya station and of which I take a picture every time, so naturally I had to take a picture of the real deal. It’s almost weird to see him in white, his actual color, because the statue is cast in bronze. Hachiko is famous enough to get 2 plaques in English, rather than just a single line translated, haha.

On the first floor, you’ll find instruments from Japan used to throughout the ages to observe nature, including the very important ones of observing seismographic activity, rather vital in a country this active.

Finally, I was back in the basement, which has Foucault’s pendulum and uh, not much else, but I was kind of glad, because I was seriously tired and overwhelmed at this point. I learnt a whole lot today, and actually feel this is a museum you might want to visit in two trips rather than trying to stuff it all into one. I had a great time, though! I took a lot more pictures than I usually do in museums, there was just so much to see.

Of course there is a museum shop, and of course it has a special corner for Hachiko, and uh, now I have a plushie Hachiko, haha. He’s very soft and a very good boy!

It was almost 5 PM, though, so I rushed out and took a quick picture of the whale statue outside before making my way back to the station. The rain had stopped, so I walked from Ikebukuro station to Tokyu Hands to browse until dinner time, which meant I found their origami paper section, so I had a good time here, too, ahem.

Back at the hotel now, and time to go to bed, because it’ll be a long day tomorrow! It should be dry and even sunny, so fingers crossed, haha.

I’m not sure if I will update tomorrow, so for now good night and see you soon!

#report #report: japan 2019 #japan 2019

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cbk1000 · 5 years

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Hi! So I need to learn a new language in like 5 months. Its a language with the same roots as my own so I can understand and read a bit. Still do you have any advice on own to best learn a language?

You already have an advantage in learning a language from the same family as your native tongue, so you’ll probably pick it up faster than you imagine.

Immersion is really the best route when you’re trying to learn a language, especially when you’re trying to learn it quickly. I’ve always focused mostly on reading in Russian because the whole point of learning it was to read some untranslated literature. I read intensively for 2+ hours a day for the better part of a year to reach fluency. If your goal is just to be conversational and you’re not necessarily worried about being able to read complex literature, you won’t need as large or as varied a vocabulary, but using a language actively is trickier than sitting and passively consuming it.

There’s no Russian community here at all; I wouldn’t be shocked to learn I’m the only person locally who knows any. I don’t know if you have the opportunity to speak/hear this language locally, but obviously that’s ideal. However, sometimes it’s just not a possibility. So here are some things I do to simulate a Russian-speaking environment where I am exposed to it as often as possible:

Watch Television: Lately I’ve been watching a couple of Russian shows regularly with the Russian captions on. Since I don’t hear Russian very often but can read it fluently, this helps me with my listening comprehension. If you’re a beginner in the language this likely isn’t yet an option, depending upon how much of it you can understand. You have to be able to read the captions quickly enough to follow what’s going on, and of course read well enough to understand what the hell’s going on. But watching with English subtitles (or your native language, which I assume isn’t English?) will still get your ear accustomed to hearing your target language, which will help with pronunciation. You also may find you can pick out a fair amount of it when you start listening to a lot of it, if it’s really close to your native language. Another option: Let’s Play videos on youtube. These are videos of gamers playing through their chosen game and commenting on it as they play. There’s usually hours of feed. I play these in the background while I’m cleaning or doing something else that doesn’t require a lot of conversation. It not only allows me to hear the language and tweak my own pronunciation, it exposes me to casual everyday language instead of the formal phrases you tend to learn in language courses.

Change All Your Devices To Your Target Language: My Kindle is set to Russian. So is my tumblr. The more you surround yourself with your target language, the faster you’ll start recognising it. Change everything that has the option to switch languages.

Play Games In Your Target Language: I got a European copy of The Witcher 3 specifically because it had a Russian language pack available. Playing a game puts you in a more active role than just watching a TV show; you have to make choices (sometimes timed ones, in this particular game) in your dialogue, understand where the hell you’re going and what the hell you’re supposed to do when you get there. This is a massive game with a complex story and tons of side plots, so obviously not a beginner option (but damn if you’re a gamer and haven’t played it, play it; it’s fucking fantastic), but you should be able to find games in your target language online. There are lots of games aimed at learners that have simple rules and simplified language. Also: flashy lights. Which makes everything better.

Read: Reading might be a passive activity, but it’s still one of the best ways to improve your vocabulary. Read everything. Read news articles, read books, read forums. As a beginner your vocabulary will be small (though again you have an advantage going in if you can already read a bit in this language), so start with easier material. News articles are short, so even if you have to look up a lot of words, it’s not nearly as overwhelming as trying to read a book or even a short story. They’re also written in a straightforward style intended to convey as much information as simply as possible to the average reader, so no fancy literary tricks. I personally started in fanfiction; it’s usually written in a much simpler, more conversational style, and AO3 has quite a few language options. Do a search in any of your fandoms for fics in your target language. The grammar may not always be perfect, but you will definitely pick up some new vocab. Bonus: sex terms in a new language.

You might also see if you can find adapted classics in your target language. These are versions of famous classics that have been extremely watered down for the language learner. I read several of these when I was starting in Russian. They are essentially long summaries of the book they’re based on; the highlights of the story are all there, and written in simplified grammar so you can learn new words without trying to wrap your brain around complex sentence structure at the same time. I read versions of Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina, Huckleberry Finn, 50,000 Leagues Under the Sea and a few of the Sherlock Holmes stories this way when I was only a couple of months or so into my studies. Graphic novels are also a good option, if you can find translations in your target language online; I read The Walking Dead plus some Captain America comics on a Russian website I found a couple of years ago. Much simpler than reading a book, plus you have pictures to help you with context.

Five months is not a lot of time to learn any language. I assume you don’t need to reach a native level of fluency in this language by that time, but if you want to be somewhat proficient in it, you’re still going to have to throw yourself in head first. I wanted to read fluently in Russian as fast as possible because of course the faster I reached proficiency, the faster I could hurdle the language barrier separating me from my books. When I say I read 2+ hours a day in it for the majority of that first year, I’m not exaggerating. I missed very, very few days; and only those because of illness. While it’s a lot more fun to read books and play games and watch TV shows rather than podding away over some grammar textbooks, it’s still work; I used to get pretty bad headaches from concentrating so hard when I first started reading in Russian. And of course there are the frustrations that come with trying to comprehend any language that isn’t native to you.

I don’t know what your target language is, but depending upon the similarities between it and your native, you might be able to jump between the two fairly easily. When I was in London, I had a hostel roommate who was from Argentina; she spoke English like a native, but her actual native language was Spanish. Another roommate was Italian, and his English was really broken. She would often talk to him in Spanish and he would reply in Italian and then she would translate for me; and I could occasionally make out a bit of what he said simply because I took Spanish in high school (it is very, very rusty, though, so I could only pick out some things here and there). I’ve been able to pick out things in other Slavic languages thanks to my Russian. So it’s really going to come down to how closely related your native and target languages are, and how motivated you are.

#languages

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elenaescribe · 5 years

Text

Shame: A Brief History of Self-Harm

Two years ago, I found myself digging through old writings and personal essays. In a certain piece from 2013, I found a quote that sparked a lot of interest in me:

“I can promise now that everything I write is honest… or at least correct through the eyes of my imagination”

This applies perfectly to the subject I will be tackling today. Why? Because pain and trauma can severely alter the clarity with which we view our memories.

***

It must be some time around 9:15am. I know this because I am rushing to the bathroom, putting on my contact lenses with a deep sense of desperation, scrambling to get ready for the first day of my second year in college. My body aches like if someone had brutally beaten it with a baseball bat. I am not myself nor am I anywhere near being fully present in the moment. Enraged, I race to my parents’ room and vomit all the words chewing me up from the inside out: “I cannot go to class; I am afraid, tired and lonely; I feel out of control; I need to feel numb; I want to gulp down a handful of Xanax; I hate you; I hate myself and the person I’ve recently become” Gasping for air, I continue. “Why aren’t you helping me? Why can’t you see how dead I am? Why are you judging me? Why am I going insane? Help me! Help me! Help me!”

My parents try to calm me down through softened voices. They reach for my wavering arms to try to hug me; my mother’s eyes fill with tears. The hurricane inside roars and off I go to my room, throwing the door and locking it immediately. Hunched over and with my fists curled into trembling spheres, I search for an item- a weapon. Something sharp enough to kill the beast standing over me, breathing hot air against my neck and hissing demonic sentences in my ear. It tells me to reach for the glass cup on my desk. It encourages me to stare at it wildly and imagine a life without my own shadow in it. I can feel the smooth surface against my fingers, a fast solution to temporarily end everything. The beast places its claws over my hand and, together, we throw the cup against the wooden floor.

The glass shatters like thunder against the ground, clear fragments surrounding my bare feet. My eyes widen at the sight of the numerous opportunities of agony beneath me. Without thinking about it twice, I step over the ridged pieces, making my way to the sharpest one my eyes can spot. A loud thump marks the moment in which I fall to my knees, pull down my pajama bottoms and reveal my legs. They feel hollow like the inside of a large trunk. My fingers grip the glass and begin to devour my skin with it; blood pools in new wounds and slowly drips to the floor. I attack my thighs once, twice, three then four then five then six times. There are too many gashes to count. Imagine squeezing a bottle of red food coloring over a crumpled piece of play-dough, that is what my legs look like.

As I release the jagged piece of broken glass, loud voices begin to flood my brain- it’s my parents, banging on the door and begging me to open it. I hadn’t even realized that they’d been there the entire time. My mom’s voice shakes as it tells me to stay calm down and not hurt myself; her tears are somehow visible through the walls of my room. By this point, I’m wailing, and it doesn’t seem possible to move my body. The surface of my skin stings like hell, but I know that the slashes bring me much more relief than pain. My father manages to unlock the door, he sees the mess and lets out a worried sigh. Offering me a hand, he stares at the crimson stains on my thighs.

The first time I self-harmed was in the fifth grade. A boy in class expressed his disgust after learning I had a crush on him. “Her? Gross!” he snarled to a friend. That exclamation was enough to send me down a spiral of self-hatred and despair. Before I knew it, I was on my way to the girls’ bathroom. That year I´d been mercilessly bullied, so I was perfectly used to hiding there when things felt unsafe. Bursting through the door, I glared intensely at my reflection in the mirror: a small girl with hair slicked back into an awkward pony tail, wearing a pair of brown glasses caging her two very disappointed eyes. She looked as if she were drowning in the middle of the ocean, hopeless and terribly afraid.

I angrily kicked one of the stalls open. Young and ignorant, I rolled up my sleeves and began to scratch at my left wrist until it became raw. The skin peeled up to reveal a tender, strawberry-colored layer of flesh. The sight and feel of this should’ve scared me, it should’ve warned me of the consequences of being impulsive. Instead, it made me feel curious and strangely powerful- like if I had just discovered a new way to survive. In a matter of months, I became the girl with bandages around her wrists. The other children murmured and whispered; rumors spread about me being insane. The next year they were about me being in the hospital with tubes going into various points of my body… like a horror villain. A science experiment. An unknown creature to healthy kids.

The scratching continued for three more years. It followed me from one school to the other and became a solid part of my identity. I understood it was a horrible habit; my parents were growing increasingly worried and various therapists threatened to hospitalize me if my tendency persisted. Occasionally, I would vow to stop clawing at myself and spend months without needing to cover up any scars. Redemption would feel so incredibly close. Then came the eighth grade, the year I decided to stop eating and start justifying my self-harm with delusional mantras: cutting myself makes me stronger, I’m beautiful when I bleed, hunger is equivalent to success, being healthy is boring.

Wearing tight, black leggings and a huge thrifted sweater, I’d lie down in an empty bathtub and expose my ribcage. Under the pull of a sharp object (a small knife, scissors, etc.) my skin cried as new scratches appeared all over. The pain was practically unbearable. I didn’t mind, though, I´d expertly tricked myself into appreciating it. Every streak of the knife was falsely loved and thought of as the graceful movement of a paint brush, creating fascinatingly disturbed images on a blank canvas. How elegant to be sick, how wonderful to waste life, how amazing to punish instead of investing time in self-love and forgiveness. This is how I functioned for a very long time, this is how I dealt with things that were in and out of my control; this is how I finally died before having to snap out of it and rescue what was left of me.

Zoom in to the future, I’m twenty-one and getting back on my feet. Film school tore me down, blowing fire into my face with its hostile and heart-breaking environment. I needed to take shelter for a while so, in the end, I dropped out. My mother later confessed that she believed I’d eventually die if I kept going to college. After a few months of desolation and thinking I had ruined my future, it became obvious that leaving school was the remedy to my hysteria. I needed to clean my surroundings in order to restore my sanity. The beast still haunted me for a while, creating the largest and most profound wounds on my body. I guess it felt exasperated, frustrated by the lack of chaos, and had decided to beat me for it. It has now been five and a half months since I last self-harmed; I’m looking into studying journalism and focusing on my passion for writing rather than suffocating in toxicity. This is my accomplishment, my pride, my triumph: not indulging in tendencies that bring me nothing but suffering and shame.

#writing #female writers #personal essay #selfharm #healing #mental health #writers on tumblr

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aaliyahhill · 4 years

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Can Nerve Damage Cause Premature Ejaculation Jolting Tricks

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Premature Ejaculation Ncbi

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ashaboveshobelow-blog · 5 years

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An open letter to my abuser,

Thank you.

I know that seems like a weird way to start a letter to someone who fucked me over as bad as you did.

If I had sat down to write this letter a couple months after you stopped being in my life, I wouldn’t have been able to write anything. The emotions you left me with were so raw, so deep, so debilitating, that I couldn’t begin to process them. I spent a year and a half, emotionally numb. Afraid. For the most part, I didn’t even leave my room – not without that smiling mask at least.

I kept a smile on my face day by day. I didn’t want to let you have the satisfaction of knowing you destroyed me. I didn’t want anyone to see me as weak...because honestly...being strong was all I had left. You took….everything else I had away. My confidence – gone. My self worth – abandoned. Goals, ambitions, dreams – destroyed. Any security I had once known, anything I had once received joy and self fulfillment from had been ripped out of my hands and burned in front of my eyes and I couldn’t process it. So I just smiled.

I had even convinced myself that I was okay. But I wasn’t.

My light was gone.

My world was dark.

My passion was dead.

If I had written you a letter back then it would have probably said something along the lines of: “I won’t be back. Bye.”

Plain and simple.

That’s how I felt, and how I lived: plain and simple.

Jump ahead to a year and a half later.

I still hadn’t processed what happened to me. But I knew logically that if I continued to stay at a stand still, if I continued to soak in my depression, that eventually I would draw negative attention to myself. Then people would worry, and I’d have to talk about what happened. That was the last thing I wanted. So I enrolled in collage. I put in the effort to move on. I told myself it was okay to find a new dream. I told myself I could accomplish anything if I sent my mind to it.

I was lieing to myself of course. I was telling myself what I needed to hear even though I didn’t believe it.

Bring on the panic attacks.

If you’ve ever had a panic attack, then I don’t have to describe them to you. But I’m going to. I want you to know every detail of what you caused for me. I want you to know how much I suffered and fought through because of you.

Panic attacks are interesting. You feel them throughout your entire body. For me it always starts with a little bit of sweat on my forehead and the back of my neck. It doesn’t matter if its hot or cold, I start to sweat. After that, I start to loose my ability to process sound. I am aware that there are people talking. I know exactly what the person speaking is saying, I can hear it all, but I can’t process it. The words don’t seem to add up to anything. They are just strings of meaningless sounds that once made sense and now...don’t -- kinda like how I was starting to feel about my life: it once made sense and now something was missing. Something didn’t add up.

After that comes the panic part of the panic attack. My heart starts racing. My lungs start to convince themselves that they aren’t working. I keep on breathing in more air, but my brain isn’t processing that we have it. So I start to breathe harder, faster. I’m embarrassed. I don’t want to be seen as weak, so that just adds shame and humiliation as bonus gift to the already amazing experience I am having. The room starts to spin. I start to feel like I am going to faint. Everything around me feels like its moving in fast forward and I’m in slow motion...or at a stand still. I can’t will myself to keep up. I can’t…. I can’t do this. Whatever it is I’m doing I can’t do it. Somewhere in the deepest pits of my brain I start to question if I can do anything. Everything and everyone feels far away and all I can hear are my thoughts. Your words come back -- coursing through my veins like ice. I feel hot and cold at the same time. But I don’t care about any of that, because more than anything…..I feel like a failure. I feel like my biggest fears are coming true. You were right: I can’t do anything. I’m not good enough.

It was a huge step for me to go back to school. To try. I hadn’t tried in a very long time. Looking back I am so proud of myself for that step. Looking back, that took so much strength. I couldn’t see it at the time of course. All I saw was a pathetic girl who couldn’t make it through a day of class without having a melt down and crying in the bathroom. All I saw was someone who wasn’t going anywhere. All I saw was the failure you painted me to be. I saw the version of myself that you fought so enthusiastically to convince me I was.

I didn’t see at the time that I was a powerful warrior pushing past abuse, holding my head high...and fighting. Alone.

I did write a letter to you during that time. Not one to send, just one to try to process what I was feeling. It was for an English project where we had to write a letter to the person who hurt us the most. I really wish I could find it. I still hadn’t fully processed what you did to me yet – I couldn’t – but I had finally aloud myself to feel emotions again. I felt hurt. I felt anger. I felt resentment. I felt hatred.

Deep in the core of my being I felt hatred – a hatred that burned away at everything. A hatred that left me feeling barren.

And if I’m being honest, I don’t know who I hated more at that time – you, or me.

I don’t remember much of the letter I wrote. I remember comparing you to Hitler. I remember telling you that you destroyed my happiness. I think I even told you that I hated you and that I wished I had had the strength to tell you to fuck off.

I’m paraphrasing there, I didn’t use the F word back then. But you get the idea. I felt like you had taken away any chance I had of happiness. I hated you. I hated myself. I hated the world. I didn’t know how to feel anything else. But at least hatred was better than the overwhelming pool of sadness that was always just an inch or two away from swallowing me whole.

I closed myself off from the world. I had finally allowed myself to be a part of it again -- to leave the safety and comfort of my room -- but I coasted. I refused to care too much about anything. I refused to open my heart to anything. I refused to feel any emotions too strongly. I numbed myself to everything. I kept everything at a distance. I felt lonely and I couldn’t figure out why. But I continued to reject any chance to be around people. I couldn’t remember how to feel anything but numb. I couldn’t remember how I had felt before I met you. I couldn’t remember what it felt like to be alive. I only remembered how to be the corpse you made me into.

I graduated, and threw myself into my work. I put all of my energy into one thing. I became the best damn employee you could find. I became the most supportive and encouraging friend you could find. I put every ounce of energy I had into the world. I was determined to create joy in others, even if I couldn’t have it myself.

But I didn’t put any energy into myself. I put so much love out to anyone I thought that needed it, but I ignored my own needs. I still was refusing to process anything from my past. I put a mask on my face of a happy successful person, and I had tricked just about everyone including myself once again. But something was still missing. After all this time, after these long, hard, painful 6 years...I finally understand that what was missing was my passion.

After six years, I’m finally realizing that I’ve been avoiding things that make me happy, because you made me afraid to loose things. I’ve been minimizing myself out of fear that if I allow myself to think I’m actually worth something, someone else will come along and tell me I’m wrong.

How sick is that?

I haven’t let myself feel truly happy -- I haven’t let myself peruse something I REALLY want -- in six years...because you made me feel like I didn’t deserve it. You made me fear that it wouldn’t last. You made me fear that I wasn’t good enough. You made me afraid of anything other than the safety of isolation and apathy.

You took away my happiness. You took away my passion. You took away my safety. You took away my self worth. You took away my confidence. You took…..everything I had.

And I let you.

And I’ve continued to let you.

That’s the part that hurts me the most. The part that makes me sick. I am disgusted by the mere thought of you, yet I let you destroy me. And I continue to let you have power over me. Even after walking away, I continue to hang onto your words.

Not any more.

Not one more god damn second.

So why am I thanking you?

That is a damn good question.

Cuz let be clear. You don’t deserve thanks for what you did to me.

You don’t deserve to be on my mind. Ever. Period.

You damaged me in a way that I thought I could never heal from. You hurt me, more than anyone ever has. You made me feel smaller that I can begin to describe.

But that kind of pain creates growth.

I read somewhere that sunflowers are really special because they can grow in the most toxic of environments, and as they grow, they help heal the earth. They remove the toxins from the soil, so that other plants can grow there too.

And that’s what I did.

I grew.

I took all that toxic waste that you funneled into my head and I used to the forge steal armor to keep myself safe. I built a foundation of long, carefully crafted roots for myself. Out of the pain and war you created inside of me, I built a new life for myself. And when that armor stopped being useful – when it started doing more harm than good, I forged it into a blade, that I could use to defend myself and others. I shot out of the ground – running from that degrading sludge of a soil that you planted me in – reaching with everything I had in me towards the sun, towards life, twoards light, towards happiness. I bloomed as bright and as colorful as I could. I turned your words of hate and shame into the words that I needed to hear, and I spoke them to others. I used my pain to build others up. I turned my pain into beauty that I could use to lift up people in need.

I grew.

I’m not thanking you for bringing about that change.

I was always a beautiful person, and I was born to bring that kind of light into people’s life.

What you did, was heinous, inhumane, and awful and I can’t emphasize that enough. And I know deep down, that you do not deserve any praise or any thanks.

But because of you, I learned how strong I am capable of being. I learned that there is nothing that I can’t handle. I learned that I am an indestructible warrior.

If I can survive you, there is nothing in the world that can tear me down.

And if I can do all that – if I can overcome all that – without letting anyone help me. Imagine the things I can do now that I’ve surrounded myself with people who love me and support me. Imagine what I can do now that I realize that the fear you created is the only thing keeping me from letting them in, and I’ve let that go.

No one, and nothing, will EVER make me feel the way you did again.

So thank you for helping me discover that about myself…..

And also….. because I didn’t have the ability to say it back then: Fuck you.

I hope one day you are able to grow out of your toxic nature. But whether you do or not: Stay far away from me. I’m busy building, growing, and thriving as far away from you as I can be.

This soil is finally clean and I will not let it be contaminated again.

This garden has no room for you.

#abuse #abuse tw #mental abuse #trauma #healing #growth #text post #long post #peronal #my og #open letter #this was so freaking therapudic #writing

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thespacelizard · 7 years

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its time for another one of muse's semi-regular gender crisis posts!!!!

this is a mess but idc

like every time i try and figure out what i am i just. help? bc i try and think well, have i always been this way and didn't realise it? (like all those posts about thinking back and realising how fucking gay you were all along and its so obvious now you think about it) but like.

argument: as a kid i was always tomboyish. always played with boys, got on with them better. once got told it was clear i belonged with them bc i must have been a boy in a past life and that felt good.

counter argument: i played with girls and mixed gender groups too, esp. when the play was imaginative, not just tag, or sitting around talking, or kiss chase (which. what bullshit game was that did any other schools have that? also that was the beginning of my realisation that i Wasn't Pretty bc no one ever wanted to catch me. i mean they werent wrong i was a weird lookin kid)

so was it a 'i really belong with boys bc im closer to one/am more of one' thing or a baby internalised misogny thing where the girls weren't encouraged as much to rough, imaginative type play and thus i didn't engage with or connect with them?

(can you even have interalised misogyny when you're like. 7?)

argument: i was again friends more with boys in secondary school, always one of the guys, more comfortable in that environment.

counter argument: but! again bc they shared my more 'nerdy' interests, and 'other girls' which i was 'not like' were more 'girly'. but that's society right? so it cant have been a gender thing bc i was friends with the few girls who were openly nerdy too?

(the point i keep circling back to is: was any of my youth 'evidence' of a vaguely trans narrative or was it all just variations on a theme of internal and external misogyny?)

college & uni - when i felt the LEAST connected to my classmates. spoiler: the time when my classes were majority female for the first time. but was i just being an anti-social nerd? (i went to rp societies (AGAIN THERE'S THE IMAGINATIVE PLAY CONNECTION) which were, ofc, majority male, bc d&d and larp are still HUGELY male dominated spaces). and i felt more at home there.

bc of dudes? or imaginative escapism?

i just.

i know the answer is you're supposed to just 'know' that you are your gender, whatever that might be. and it should be that, right? the way i know im bi?

(but i always get paranoid about that too, bc am i REALLY bi or am i just attracted to ladies bc media pushes a very attractive-ladies-you-should-be-attracted-to kind of stance? am i bi bc the world is constantly shoving lady-attraction in my face or am i actually attracted to ladies? the cons of having no close straight girl friends: i cant ask them if they ever watched music videos to see the half naked girls when they were a kid.)

i just want a litmus test. i hate not knowing. i hate being 'questioning'. i just want to know. i dont want to declare and then trick myself into that being my identity.

(and then the brain goblin starts up again with: 'you're only thinking you are THIS bc you watch a lot of trans/gnc youtubers now. remember when you watched a lot of gamers and wanted to make games? or watched a lot of vloggers and wanted to be a youtuber? THIS IS THAT ALL OVER AGAIN ONLY WORSE BC YOU'RE A TRANSTRENDER)

and i can remember being comfortable being seen as female, i think? or at least being fine dressing feminine and being ~sexy~ but now i cant. do it? i feel weird putting on a dress, i feel weird when my breasts are obvious.

i feel fine naked. clothes are the problem.

i know (mostly) that im not a boy. like thats fairly certain. i dont have any huge amounts of dysphoria or anything. im fortunate enough to be small chested so i wont ever know if breasts are really a big issue for me. i could care less about my genitalia.

can gender just. not be a thing please. i dont want to deal with it. im opting out.

#gender shit #nb things #personal #HAHAHA I LOVE A GOOD MONDAY MORNING GENDER CRISIS #im gonna go not think about it and work on this commission instead

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ecotone99 · 5 years

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I bought my daughter an iDog... and I think it's hunting me

My name is Guy Mullen, I’m a robotic science professor working at the Boston Institute of Technology in Massachusetts. I was once a proud father of a six year old girl named Hope, who, sadly, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Despite fighting like the total champion she was, Hope died not too long after her 6th birthday. Before she died, she asked me to buy her a weird little toy that was currently popular on the market called an I-Dog, a simplistic robotic toy dog that did tricks. My daughter was 6 years old, so it intrigued me that she wanted a tech-toy rather than the usual doll or teddy bear girls of her age would want.

At the time, I thought nothing of it, because me, a professor of robotics, thought it was like a chip off the old block kind of thing. It made me proud. I went into the store today and happened to pass the toy department. I noticed that the same toy dogs were still on the market and selling like hotcakes, so I bought one. The stores around my area for some reason sell old toys. Guess people still like the classics.

And if you’re wondering why I got her this toy now rather than she was alive, let me explain. My daughter, being 6 years old, I didn’t want her to follow along in my footsteps. I wanted her to have a normal childhood. Like I said, teddy bears and dolls. As I got home, I opened it up and started holding the toy in my hands. It was just a cheap toy. But I guess the guilt of not getting it for her while she was alive was eating at me too much. I had no idea why my daughter would be so interested in this toy. I wish I knew then what I was in for, I never would have bought this toy. But as a father, you always want to get your child what he or she wants. It’s one of the joys of being a parent. It’s one of the joys I wish now was never part of being a good parent.

Today is the 8th anniversary of Hope’s passing. I’m going to the cemetery to visit her grave, like I do every year on the anniversary of her passing. But instead of the usual flowers I bring, I’m going to bring this toy dog, to show her that I never forgot. The I-Dog I got for her at the store supposedly played various songs from an mp3 player. Which was a good thing, because she had an extended list for a girl of her age. I would often let her use my mp3 player to play all her favorites. I’m glad, because I still had my mp3 player with all her favorite songs on it. It brought back memories of her and I singing together to her favorite songs on the car radio. Each new one she heard in the car, I would put it in my mp3 player and let her listen to them while she did what little homework she had in the 1st grade. Such a smart little girl. She should have gotten her chance to finish school. It would have been nice to see what her life would have turned out to be.

I took the small toy, the batteries, and the mp3 player from my handbag. I unscrewed its belly, set the batteries inside, then it made that robotic barking that it would make. I set the mp3 player by it, and it played the last song we ever listened to, “What is Love” By Haddaway, while doing that silly robotic dance it does. I watched as it danced a while longer, then left for home to drown my sorrows in tears and liquor. She deserved better. She deserved to be alive.

The next morning, I woke up with such a hangover, I made myself a cup of black coffee so strong that the spoon had a caffeine rush, in hope to kill the now massive headache I had. I remember leaving the music channel on tv. It just made the headache worse, so I shut it off. Minutes later, I nearly choked on my coffee after hearing an oh too familiar song. Her song. It was coming from outside my front door, but seemed to stop once I took notice of it. “What on earth?” I asked myself. I opened the door and looked outside. I didn’t see much, other than the usual. Houses, cars, birds, sunlight, even the local paper boy delivering newspaper. I noticed he stopped at my house when I stepped on the paper. I might as well pick it up. See what’s new in Boston. I picked it up, then turned around, then turned a pale white even whiter than snow. In the doorway of my house sat that toy. That music playing childs toy. The very same blue one with the fake purple jewels around it’s head, the one that I had bought not even a day before left at Hope’s grave.

“What in the hell…?” I looked around to see who would play such a cruel joke, then quickly picked up the toy, went inside the house and got dressed, and immediately went back to the cemetery. When I got there, the toy I had left there was gone. Engulfed with rage, I asked myself why someone would do something like this and proceeded to call the police. The police arrived and asked the usual, “do you have any enemies?” or, “why would anyone want to do this to you?” questions. I had no answer, for I had no enemies. All my friends knew Hope, and loved her as much as I did. It was a mystery.

By the time I got back home, my brain was tired from trying to figure out who would do this to me. Did someone see me do this? Did they watch me put this on my daughters grave? Did a bunch of teenage hoodlums desecrate my daughters grave, and add insult to injury by bringing this toy back to my doorstep? I couldn’t make sense of that though, because no one was around me when I was in the cemetery. And if they were, they were damn good at hiding. Exhausted and furious from the day’s events, I decided to give it no more thought and go to sleep. Or so that was my intention.

In the middle of the night, I was awoken by the sound of music. Not loud music, but loud enough to wake me out of my sleep. I looked at the clock. 3:30 AM. The music that I

heard sounded muffled, yet close. I pulled my blankets off to get out of bed, and as I did the music got louder. It was then that I noticed the toy was next to me, under my sheets. Which was impossible, considering the police had taken it as evidence. Not only that, but the toy had my mp3 player connected to it. Which was playing her 2nd favorite song, called Butterfly Kisses by Bob Carlisle.

Now I’m afraid, because the only person who knew that was her second favorite song was me. It was our song. We sang it only to each other. Not even her mother knew. How is this possible? I immediately called the police to ask how something they took from me as evidence is now in my bed. I also asked if I was being investigated for something, considering how the only way anybody could have known that was our song was if they bugged our house. Immediately I was hit with ridiculous notions of some kind of technology war scenario were maybe a disturbed colleague might be playing some kind of deranged joke. All these questions and not a single answer. What the hell is going on here?

Confused and disoriented, I grabbed the toy, disconnected the mp3 player, and proceeded to take the toy out to the trash. The special meaning that it once held, now desecrated by someone’s twisted mind. I have to get some rest. The morning will be here quickly and I have to work in the morning.

That morning had an eerie chill about it. I couldn’t place it, but I attributed it to my recent episodes of neurotic paranoia. I got to work. The environment felt suspicious. Like I was being watched. I said nothing to no one, and made a straight line for my office. I opened my office door, walked in, shut the door quickly, and took a deep breath of relief. I had made it to my office without being asked a single question, as I was in no mood to talk to anyone.

I went to set my briefcase on my desk, and to my horror, the toy was on my desk. Not only was it on my desk, but my mp3 player that I placed in my briefcase the night before was connected to it.

Surprisingly enough, and for reasons I don’t yet understand, my first thought was one of morbid curiosity. I was anxious to know what song was selected to play this time around, because at this point, I was starting to think maybe this isn’t someone trying to play a joke. But what if it’s her. What if it’s Hope in some miraculous way trying to visit me. to let me know she hasn’t forgotten me either. But I’m a man of science. And in my world, things like this don’t happen. I’ve always been a skeptic, and found myself judging those who’ve claimed to have these experiences as kooks.

Is that what’s going on here? Is this a punishment? Am I going crazy as punishment for judging those people? Was I having a midlife crisis?

After work, I rushed home, locked myself in my home office, and found myself doing something I thought I, never in a million years, would find myself doing. I started talking to the dog. Reluctantly, I asked, “Hope, are you there? It’s Daddy, sweetheart. Are you trying to show me something?” Then for a moment, I snapped back to reality, laughed at myself, and asked myself, “What the hell am I doing?” At this point, I started to question my sanity and wondered if I should check myself into a mental hospital for evaluation. That was the only logical explanation left. I was losing my mind, and no one could see it but me. On top of everything else that ever happened to me, me going crazy was the icing on the cake.

I really didn't want to, but I was sure that this was the only way I can get some closure. I'm going to check myself into a mental hospital to ensure that this isn't making me crazy before anything gets worse. But first, this toy. This god damn toy. It has to go. I'm gonna make sure of that. I picked up a hammer, and smashed the thing into bits. I put the pieces into a plastic bag, and watched the garbage men take it away the next morning.

A week later, I checked into the mental hospital. I’m much better now. I was just having a mental breakdown and needed a vacation. It’s finally over. No more stress, no more heartbreak, no more I-Dog. Because the nurses were so nice, they all pitched in and bought me a plane ticket to Florida to relax. I just checked into my hotel room. And as I set my luggage down, and getting ready to plop onto the bed and let out a huge sigh of relief, I noticed in the room, there was that thing. The I-Dog. And the song it chose was “Nowhere to run.” By Arnold Mcculler.

submitted by /u/pro-gamer-move1 [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/shortscarystories/comments/cg7lnk/i_bought_my_daughter_an_idog_and_i_think_its/ via Blogger https://ift.tt/2Y1j2gw

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meanwhileinoz · 6 years

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20+ Times Reddit Taught Me A Valuable Lesson About Anxiety

Having anxiety can seem truly scary and terrifying at times. When you’re in the waves of the panic attacks, the fear, and the mind-numbing thoughts we can’t shut off, we can sometimes feel pretty alone–especially if those around us don’t understand what we’re going through.

Luckily, there are several sites online where people support each other (sometimes better than our own family). Reddit, of course, is a place where users are always offering advice and support to people going through similar situations. After searching through forums and AskReddit questions, I learned a lot of different mechanisms for coping and dealing with anxiety–especially when it’s at its worst.

34.

Keeping busy. I notice my anxiety gets pretty bad when I don’t have a job (I’ve just left uni and am travelling now so haven’t had a steady career yet) or anything to keep me occupied. Exercise is great, as a lot of people have said, but having a solid routine is what keeps me settled.

–lanadeathray

33.

50mg Sertraline, no caffeine & no alcohol. Also, acceptance. Once I actually accepted I had a disease and saw my doctor for treatment, I felt so much better. You can make your anxiety so much worse by questioning why you have it, and even wondering if you’re making it up.

–Livishes

32.

Find ways to consciously control and slow your breathing, and cool yourself down. I associated my own anxiety attacks with uncontrollably increasing breathing and pulse along with hot flashes, so counteracting those were very helpful. I daresay it worked; the frequency of my attacks decreased over time and I’ve been about half a year now without incident. There are still times when I feel the potential for one to start, but I now have enough control where it hasn’t escalated to the point of actually being an anxiety attack.

–RocketTasker

31.

Meditation, even if it’s only for 5 minutes a day. Also, spend time visualizing what it is that you want to do. For example, if you’re nervous about going to a party, then spend time visualizing yourself being relaxed and comfortable at the party. The mind if a powerful tool, learn to make it work for you instead of against you.

–lusirius

30.

I have panic disorder. If I’m at home, watching a good TV show that isn’t too dark/tense often helps.

–Yerwun

29.

My breathing technique: 5 seconds in, hold 5 seconds, breathe out 5 seconds. I learned this trick in DBT, and while there are some variations that lower your heart rate even more (4-7-8 is good for getting to sleep), doing this 3-4 times in a row always gets more oxygen to my brain and helps me sort out my thoughts a little easier.

Prior to discovering this, I tried everything. I have about four anxiety disorders diagnosed and have experienced anxiety my entire life, so I like to think that if this works for me, it may work for most people.

–muchadance

28.

For me it depends on the situation. If I’m having a rough week I tangle up two necklaces and keep them in my pocket and when my anxiety picks up I take them out and detangle them. And repeat untill I’m just focusing on untangling the neclaces. Also if I’m sitting in class doodling helps me. It helps me focus on what the teacher is saying. And if it gets really bad like on the verge of panic attack and I don’t wanna leave I draw circles in the same spot over and over. Repetitive stuff works good.

–orangejuiceis2good

27.

when I’m alone I need to breathe fresh air outside because I feel trapped, counting your breaths helps, if someone’s with you I make them tell me a story something funny to get my mind off of it but hate being touched or talk about food. gum helps me a lot too if I’m in class I know highschool can be hard and you can’t just get up and leave keep gum and a type of cold drink so you can feel it when you drink it.

–picklesa

26.

Getting a dog. Funny thing is I didn’t even want to get one, I’m a cat guy and had a bad experience with a dog when I was younger. However my wife put up with my 2 cats for long enough so it wasn’t fair of me to refuse her when she wanted a dog, so here we are. Having something that both loves AND depends on me makes a huge difference – no offence to my wife or cats, but they’re pretty independent!

–beasty4k

25.

you need to maximize the amount of moments where you “lose yourself” and live so completely in the moment that you are no longer self-aware.

–SubzeroNYC

24.

For a period of time I try to reduce coffe and other stimulants.

–seeking-n-knowing

23.

Staying off social media seems to be overlooked but it helps me a lot. It’s not the total cure but a piece to the puzzle. You’re subconsciously comparing your life to a bunch of fake portrayals of other people’s happy lives which can make you feel down.

Also if you’re on it a lot you become way more productive when you delete it which lifts your mood.

–vemon_1

22.

Definitely exercise. If I get super anxious about something, I start to get very jittery and I feel like I just have way too much energy. Then when I go for a moderately strenuous bike ride, my mind feels so much calmer and I can think much more clearly.

–getsugablitz

21.

I’ve learned a lot of breathing exercises and progressive muscle relaxation. Square breathing is so simple but has helped me a lot. Seeing an excellent therapist and being on a low dose of an SSRI has also helped.

–latche

20.

Mindfulness meditation/Cognitive behavioral therapy. Realizing that you are still in control of what you consciously attend to, the thoughts and feelings that run through your mind do not have to consume your identity. Observe them without judgement, let them pass without indulging in them and they will fade away.

–UndecipherdMoonrunes

19.

For me getting a new kitten tugged me out of depression. I’m a huge cat person and this kitten just chose me like we got home and she came out of the cage straight to my lap to nap. Two years later her just being here loving me has made me a totally different person.

–Diddlydarnfuck

18.

I chose self meditation instead of self medication.

I pep talk myself in my head and control my breathing by saying over and over…

“It’s not life or death, you CAN do this.” “Take it one breath at a time, you GOT this.”

And I make no excuses for moving slow or eating slow or accomplishing tasks slow. I refuse to let anyone control me anymore or dictate to me how I should behave, including society.

There’s only one me, and I have to live with me, so only me can make or break — me.

One breath at a time.

–PookaShellTourGuide

17.

Alright, I work in politics so I pretty much have to give speeches and talk to random strangers on a weekly basis. I also anxiety problems and self-esteem issues that have plagued me since middle school. Most people are pretty shocked when I tell them that, so I guess the following ways of dealing with it are pretty (for me at least) effective.

But before we get there, here’s what you shouldn’t do if your anxious:

Drink: It’s guaranteed to bring you back to earth. Like its a depressant, it’s chemically ensured to do that. The problem is that it’s too good at bringing you down. You will become reliant on it when you feel like the problem is too insurmountable to fix, which most anxious people know is pretty much everything. It took me a long time to stop drinking guys, trust me don’t fall into this trap.

Spill Your Guts: For a while Hollywood convinced me that a sudden, expository and usually emotional reveal of information to the cause of your problem is the key to fixing your said problems. Just tell your boss that you’re super stressed out and your dog just died! Your tears will convince him to take pity! It might. Once or twice. But if you keep doing that when your anxious (which is all the time) you’re going to develop a reputation and the cool job assignments are going to magically start appearing on your co-workers desk. Anxiety makes you want to fix shit right the fuck now. Resist that, take a deep breath and do what I do:

1. Nature

Nature is not stressed out. Nature moves slow. No matter what small stuff is freaking you out (and in retrospect its all small), nature doesn’t give a shit. Unless your a rabbit being stalked by a wolf, nature will very rarely try and kill you. Even if you are a fat, monstrous blob, evolution has still deemed you the apex predator of your environment. So of all the places in the world you can hide and be safe, it’s the woods. I once had a pretty bad arguement with my boss on a Friday. I had an anxiety attack, packed a suitcase and took off to Maine for the weekend. By Monday I was ok. Why? Because I had enough alone time to realize we really didn’t have a relationship destroying argument and we could still have a positive relationship. It took time in complete stillness for me to really get that through my head. But sometimes being alone is the exact opposite of what you need, sometimes you need a-

2. Venting Friend

Find someone who understands you have anxiety and how you get when you are under that influence. Then, if you are on the verge of an attack, call said person and vent. Remember that “don’t spill your guts” rule I made up earlier? This is the one exception to that. Find someone who will listen to you and then just come back and tell you everything will be alright. Usually for me this is my girlfriend or when I’m single just a very close female friend. For you it doesn’t have to be. It could be anyone who will listen. I just find that when you get the thoughts out of your head and into reality via speech, they tend to become apparent to you that they are in fact ridiculous. Ok but say you live in New York and don’t really have access to great woodlands or you don’t have a friend who wants to listen to you bitch all the time? What if you do both and neither work?

3. Don’t be afraid to get help

I don’t see this so much on reddit, more irl. But whatever, I’ll say it anyway. There are those among you who think that seeing a therapist or a psychiatrist is akin to throwing your hands up and surrendering. Your brain will tell you that you are He-Man and whatever problems you probably don’t have can be solved with sheer force of will and a powerful mustache. To the brain that thinks that I say this: shut the fuck up. Listen, I’ve shook hands with presidents, I’ve been on TV for good reasons and I’ve seen double D’s in real life. It was the hardest thing in the world for me to admit that I had a medical issue I needed to see a doctor about. But I’m really glad I did.

I’m on meds now and honestly between that and therapy it’s really improved my quality of life. I’m not ashamed of it, and neither should you. Anxiety never really goes away, but it can definitely be controlled to make life easier.

–urgehal666

16.

This app called SAM. It has a bunch of cool features, like it tracks your anxiety levels, gives you different exercises and techniques to control your anxiety, has you think about the thing that causes your anxiety to raise your levels, then it helps you shift away the focus. My favorite part is it has a paragraph for you to slowly read while you’re having an anxiety/panic attack. It helps a bunch.

And if you’re currently in therapy, having it track your anxiety levels helps a ton so you can show your therapist exactly what happened to cause it, how bad your anxiety was, etc.

–Courier-6

15.

I drink water or tea. The time I spend doing that I focus on just doing that. Nothing else. It helps me regain my thoughts, and its a moment where I can’t speak.

–ShotekSaint

14.

I go to the library by myself. Turn off my phone, pop in my music and get a good book. Can stay there for hours.

–Pichus_Wrath

13.

Force yourself to do the thing you don’t want to do.

After you do it a few times the anxiety goes away, and it becomes routine.

There’s really no secret to this. At the end of the day, you just have to pick yourself up and do the thing. Whatever your reasoning, whatever your motivation, you still just have to do it.

–IlluminationRock

12.

Being active helped loads, along with eating right. Honestly, small and simple daily routines knock out most of my anxiety. Disorder is a huge trigger for me, so the more I keep to a schedule, the calmer and more rational I am.

–shazarava

11.

I bought an adult coloring book (“The Enchanted Forest”, I don’t remember who the author/artist is off the top of my head) and try to exercise regularly (I take spin classes at least 4x a week and I’m trying to go every morning). Honestly I think coloring and exercise are the only things keeping me sane anymore, and ever since I started doing both of these things, my anxiety has calmed down considerably.

–supermarketsweeps95

10.

I look back to the most stressful/worst time I have ever had before and say “if I can survive that,I can survive this.”

–cm4ever

Working out and eating healthy. Friends dragged me into it. Changed my life.

–Preroyalty

I usually just don’t… Overcome the anxiety. I end up channeling all that energy into what I need to do, ya know? I’ll get super jittery and nervous and I’ll tell myself “ya gotta do this ya gotta get it done c’mon lets go let’s go let’s go” and I’ll just fuckin.. Do it, I guess. It doesn’t always work, but it’s my go to strategy, especially because I feel a lot more releived when I’m done with the task(s).

–TexasSmashMyAss

This will get buried but I have some solutions that no one has mentioned:

Avoid caffeine. Caffeine aggravates anxiety especially in people diagnosed with anxiety/panic disorders

If you are in the middle of an anxiety attack, eat something. When you eat, you signal to your body that you’re okay. This goes way back to our ancestors who ate only when they had hunted enough food and felt safe.

Your body is there to protect you. Most individuals who experience an anxiety attack have a sense of impending doom or just think they might be dying. But have you ever noticed that during an anxiety attack you always question your symptoms? Are they really that serious? No. Do you think you should go to the hospital? No. Chances are after thinking about it, you’ll realize that the symptoms you are experiencing are not that serious. This means you are not dying and you are okay.

–Obi-Wan_Cannoli

Deep breathes expanding your tummy, not your chest. Expanding your chest can actually increase the feeling of tension.

–vaginadeathsquad

My anxiety tends to start physically– it can be triggered by events or thoughts, but my first indication of an episode is generally felt in my gut. At this point, I tend to start filing through my mental rolodex of things I should worry about, and if I can’t find an immediate one, I’ll search through recent memory and see if I can’t figure out something I need to be freaking out about. Then I focus on that, and the vicious cycle starts.

So what I try to do, and it’s certainly helped me manage, is say to myself, “this is a physical event, and it will pass; don’t feed the troll.” While I’m still in an anxious state physically, I don’t allow that state to metastasize into a mental one. Therefore it passes much more quickly.

Sometimes I can even convince myself to redefine the state entirely; I’m not anxious, I’m excited! They feel the same physically, so why let your brain turn it into a negative? This doesn’t always work, but it’s certainly allowed me to perform better in social or professional/academic situations.

–HalfAGoonAndHalfAGod

Daily yoga practice.

–RamenGirl13

i have rare anxiety attacks, but when they happen. i put myself in a relaxing environment, breath deeply and calmly and tell myself, “although it feels differently, nobody ever died from an anxiety attack.”

–ukyah

Watch a funny video on Youtube. Seriously.

Panic attack during lab?

Step out, go to the bathroom, watch a video on the toilet. Generally helps.

–AndrewFlash

My therapist once taught me this extremely effective method that I still use to this day.

In your mind, or out loud name: 5 things you can see 5 things you can hear 5 things you can feel

It always instantly made me realize how physical my presence was and how my mind was not the only thing in the world happening. It helps you step back and see the bigger picture of the goings on around you. If you are ever overwhelmed, stressed, anxious or on the verge of a panic attack, try this method once and let me know what you thought. Really meditate on the 5 things you observe.

–sassypeanuts

The post 20+ Times Reddit Taught Me A Valuable Lesson About Anxiety appeared first on .

https://postaddict.com/2018/04/13/20-times-reddit-taught-me-a-valuable-lesson-about-anxiety/

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sherristockman · 7 years

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Too Many Children Taking Melatonin Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola Melatonin is an important hormone produced by your body's pineal gland. One of its primary roles is regulating your body's circadian rhythm. When it gets dark, your brain starts secreting melatonin (typically around 9 or 10 p.m.), which makes you sleepy. Levels typically stay elevated for about 12 hours, then, as the sun rises, your pineal gland reduces your production, and the levels in your blood decrease until they're hardly measurable at all. When your circadian rhythms are disrupted, such as from shift work, jet lag or nighttime light exposure, your body produces less melatonin. It's these instances when supplementing with small amounts of melatonin can be most useful, as it may help to reset your internal clock.1 However, a growing number of children are reportedly now taking the supplement to help them sleep, which could be associated with long-term risks. Melatonin May Help Children With Certain Sleep Disorders If your child has a unique medical need that makes nighttime sleep difficult, melatonin may be helpful and is likely safer than prescription sleep aids. One example would be children with autism, for whom sleep disorders are common and may intensify autistic symptoms. Melatonin has been found to help synchronize circadian rhythms and improve sleep quality and behavior in individuals with autism.2 Among children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and chronic sleep onset insomnia, melatonin was also found to be an effective therapy in 88 percent of cases even when used long-term, with no serious adverse events reported.3 Further, behavior and mood also improved in 71 percent and 61 percent of the cases, respectively. Most Children Should Be Able to Get a Sound Night's Sleep Without Melatonin For children who are otherwise healthy but struggle with bedtime on occasion, however, melatonin should be used with caution, if at all. "Most pediatricians know little about sleep or melatonin. For non-autistic children it is a fashionable treatment for parents wanting 'perfect' children," Dr. Neil Stanley, former director of sleep research at the University of Surrey, told The Guardian.4 While melatonin is thought to be relatively safe when used for short or even medium periods (up to 18 months), some children are taking the supplement for six or seven years. The long-term effects of melatonin on children are largely unknown, but there is some research that suggests it could interfere with the production of hormones related to puberty. According to one study, caution is warranted even in children with ADHD and chronic insomnia:5 "Very little systematic research has been done into the possible impact of melatonin intake on puberty and the endocrine system. Therefore, treatment with melatonin in children with ADHD and (C)SOI [chronic sleep-onset insomnia] is best reserved for children with persistent insomnia which is having a severe impact on daily functioning, particularly in cases where [there] is an obvious phase-shift of the endogenous circadian rhythm." There are, however, those who support its use, even among healthy children — 25 percent of whom are said to suffer from insomnia (this rises to 75 percent in children with neurodevelopmental or psychiatric conditions).6 According to a review published in the journal Canadian Family Physician, "For children with otherwise undiagnosed insomnia and healthy sleep hygiene, melatonin use should be considered. While melatonin seems to be safe, there is a lack of evidence for its routine use among healthy children."7 Proper Sleep Hygiene Should Be Addressed First There are concerns that a synthetic form of melatonin is being overprescribed to children who could improve their sleep using other methods, like adopting a regular bedtime routine. This may be as simple as pulling down your window shades, putting your child in pajamas, reading a story and turning on some white noise, followed by a hug and kiss.8 Behavioral modifications and attention to proper sleep hygiene should always be the first line of treatment if your child is having trouble sleeping, even before trying a natural supplement like melatonin. In particular, Canadian Family Physician suggested: 9 ✓ Napping during the day should be avoided ✓ Dinnertime should be at least two hours before bedtime ✓ Screen time (watching television, playing computer or video games) should be discontinued at least one hour before bedtime ✓ Regular bedtime routine including routine sleep and wake-up times should be maintained ✓ Children should sleep in their own beds ✓ Sleep environment should be dark and quiet; room should not be too hot ✓ Caffeine, nicotine and alcohol should be avoided Attention to light and darkness, at the appropriate times of day, is also important. Your body requires exposure to bright daylight, especially in the early morning, to produce healthy amounts of melatonin each night. Getting sunlight in the morning is one way to help reset your circadian clock daily. Ten to 15 minutes of morning sunlight sends a strong message that it's time to rise and shine. In this way, your body is less likely to be confused by weaker light signals later in the day. My rule of thumb is, if there is enough light in your bedroom at night to see your hand in front of your face, then there is too much light. Your body requires light during the day to produce healthy amounts of melatonin, but at night light inhibits production. So, it's difficult to get too much light during the day and easy to get too much at night. In addition to installing blackout drapes in your child's bedroom, avoid exposure to blue light at night and have your child wear blue-light blocking glasses after the sun sets. At What Age Should Your Children Sleep in Their Own Room? In 2016, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released their newest sleep guidelines for infants, intended to reduce the risk of SIDS and other sleep-related infant deaths. In addition to putting babies to sleep on their back until 1 year of age, they also recommend both a firm sleep surface with no other bedding or soft objects and breast-feeding. In addition, AAP recommends that infants sleep in their parents' room, close to the parents' bed (such as in a bedside portable crib) for at least the first six months and ideally for the first year.10 In contrast, a study published in Pediatrics in June 2017 found that room-sharing at ages 4 months and 9 months was associated with worse sleep outcomes.11 Instead, babies who slept in their own rooms at prior to 4 months of age slept 40 minutes more a night than babies still room-sharing at 9 months.12 There's much controversy in this area, however, and how long your infant stays in your bedroom may depend on practical matters and personal preferences as well. Further, while health officials typically advise against bed-sharing with infants, some experts believe the practice of bed-sharing, when done safely and with a breast-feeding mother, may actually reduce the risk of SIDS and provide a safe sleeping environment.13 In case you're wondering how much sleep your child actually needs, here are the latest guidelines from the National Sleep Foundation (NSF): ✓ Newborns (0-3 months): 14 to 17 hours ✓ Infants (4-11 months): 12 to 15 hours ✓ Toddlers (1-2 years): 11 to 14 hours ✓ Preschoolers (3-5 years): 10 to 13 hours ✓ School age children (6-13 years): 9 to 11 hours ✓ Teenagers (14-17 years): 8 to 10 hours Sleep Tips From Fellow Parents Sometimes fellow parents have insightful tips to help children get to sleep. In an article posted on Growing Slower, one mom shared what finally helped her toddler get a good night's sleep, and it involved a long process of trial-and-error to find the right combination of "tricks" that worked for their family. Among them:14 ✓ Organic cotton sleepwear in lieu of synthetic and possibly irritating fabrics ✓ Immune-system support in the form of vitamin D, vitamins and omega-3 fats ✓ A teaspoon of coconut oil before bed, to curb hunger pains during the night ✓ Epsom salt baths prior to bed ✓ Magnesium oil, massaged onto the belly before bedtime ✓ A breast-feeding elimination diet as well as addressing food allergies and sensitivities in the child ✓ White noise (in the form of a fan) ✓ A predictable bedtime routine It's important to remember, too, that children sleep better when parents take an active role in creating a positive sleep environment. According to NSF, "When parents set and enforce sleep rules, children sleep longer."15 For instance, setting and enforcing a set bedtime and limit on how late your child can watch TV or use the computer may boost sleep by more than one hour a night. Being a good role model is also important, including limiting your own exposure to electronic devices and blue light at night and wrapping up your work prior to bedtime. Even doing homework too late at night may make it difficult for your child to fall asleep. "Make sleep a healthy priority in your family's busy schedule," NSF states. "Set appropriate and consistent bedtimes for yourself and your children and stick to them, and talk to your child about the importance of sleep for health and well-being."16 Boost Your Child's Natural Melatonin Before considering melatonin supplementation for your child, it makes sense to engage in habits that will increase your child's natural melatonin production and improve overall health. The tips that follow apply to both children and adults. ✓ Sunshine during the morning Melatonin is affected by your exposure to light and dark. When it is light, production of melatonin naturally drops. Getting at least 15 minutes of sunlight in the morning hours helps to regulate the production of melatonin, dropping it to normal daytime levels, so you feel awake during the day and sleep better at night. ✓ Sleep in the dark Your body produces and secretes melatonin in the dark, helping you to go to sleep and stay asleep. Sleeping in a completely darkened room, without lights from alarm clocks, televisions or other sources will improve your sleep quality. If you get up during the night to use the bathroom, it's important to keep the lights off so you don't shut off your production of melatonin. Also, wear blue-light blocking glasses after sunset to avoid blue-light exposure. ✓ Turn off your computer and hand-held electronics Although these are light sources, they deserve special mention as the type of light source from digital equipment may also reduce your body's production of melatonin in the evening when you need it most. Brightness and exposure to light in the blue and white wavelengths appear to affect the production of melatonin, exactly the wavelengths of light emitted from tablets, laptops and computers.17 To protect your sleep, put your computers and digital equipment away at least one hour before bed. ✓ Reduce your caffeine intake Caffeine, found in coffee, dark chocolate, cola and other drinks, has a half-life of five hours. This means 25 percent remains in your system 10 hours later. For a better night's sleep, cut out your caffeinated foods and drinks after lunch. ✓ Lower your stress level and your cortisol level The release of melatonin is dependent on the release of another hormone, norepinephrine. Excess stress, and the resulting release of cortisol, will inhibit the release of norepinephrine and therefore the release of melatonin.18 Stress-reducing strategies you may find helpful before bed include yoga, stretching, meditation and prayer. ✓ Increase foods high in magnesium Magnesium plays a role in reducing brain activity at night, helping you to relax and fall asleep more easily. It works in tandem with melatonin. Foods containing higher levels of magnesium include almonds, avocados, pumpkin seeds and green leafy vegetables.19

#VitalityPath

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symbianosgames · 7 years

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The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include a GDC talk on 'the aesthetics of cute', the hidden story of TOSE, & the return to car wrecking of key Burnout developers.

Another interesting week of longer-form 'things', and I've been ruminating a bit on how these videos and articles intersect in weird but neat ways with 'breaking news' or 'hottest games'. Seems like you'll get at least _some_ bleed-through - for example, this week we have Battlegrounds, Signal From Tolva & Night In The Woods again, all of which are newish or interesting releases.

But many of these pieces are evergreen & exist separately of the 'hot reactions' grind. Which is good. Exist too close to the 24-hour hype cycle, and you'll miss trends and more thoughtful takes like some of these good folks. VGDC aims to reverse that. We hope you think we do a good job.

- Simon, curator.]

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Guild Wars 2’s art style passes from father to son (Philippa Warr / RockPaperShotgun) "Recently I had the chance to talk to ArenaNet (and thus Guild Wars 2) art director Horia Dociu about his work at the studio. One of the interesting things about his promotion to the role is that he succeeds his father, Daniel."

We’ve been missing a big part of game industry’s digital revolution (Kyle Orland / Ars Technica) "Last year, the Entertainment Software Association's annual "Essential Facts" report suggested that the US game industry generated $16.5 billion in "content" sales annually (excluding hardware and accessories). In this year's report, that number had grown to a whopping $24.5 billion, a nearly 50-percent increase in a span of 12 months. No, video games didn't actually become half again as popular with Americans over the course of 2016. Instead, tracking firm NPD simply updated the way it counts the still-shadowy world of digital game sales."

Warren Spector believes games 'need to be asking bigger questions' (Alex Wawro / Gamasutra) "Gamasutra sat down with Spector at GDC last month to catch up on how the process is going, roughly a year into his full-time gig at OtherSide. It was an interesting conversation, especially if you're at all interested in where games are at these days, where they came from, and what sorts of stories they're best at telling."

A Rare Look Inside Nintendo (Otaku / Game Escape / YouTube) "This clip is an excerpt from the French documentary film "Otaku" by director Jean-Jacques Beineix from 1994. It appeared dubbed on German TV some time later, which is the version you are seeing here. It has, to my knowledge, never been released in English. The subtitles are my own. Content is the intellectual property of the original rights holders."

An Interview With One of Those Hackers Screwing With Your 'Black Ops 2' Games(Patrick Klepek / Waypoint) "He's not there to ruin your stats. He's there to sell you software that'll let you launch a DDOS attack from your Xbox 360. [SIMON'S NOTE: this is crazy - modded Xbox 360s that find other player's IP addresses and can DDOS them?! I had no idea.]"

Put a Face on It: The Aesthetics of Cute (Jenny Jiao Hsia / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 GDC session, Hexecutable's Jenny Jiao Hsia explains why cuteness as an aesthetic may be worth exploring for developers who want to push against current trends in game design."

Proc. Gen. and Pleasant Land | Sir You Are Being Hunted (Robert Seddon / Heterotopias) "It was a perfect rustic idyll, in its way. Perfectly lovely, nestled between the grassy fields. Perfectly quiet, as only dead places can be. Perfectly still, because a player careless enough to create a disturbance might attract the robotic hunters. Big Robot’s Sir You Are Being Hunted had, through the digital governance of its landscape generation algorithms, somehow perfected the British countryside."

How video games were made - part 3: Marketing and Business (Strafefox / YouTube) "In this final chapter we cover the business side and marketing of 8 and 16 bit games. [SIMON'S NOTE: Lots of archival footage in here & SO much work cutting it all together - and the other entries in the 'how video games were made' series look pretty good too!]"

Video Games Are Better Without Stories (Ian Bogost / The Atlantic) "A longstanding dream: Video games will evolve into interactive stories, like the ones that play out fictionally on the Star Trek Holodeck. In this hypothetical future, players could interact with computerized characters as round as those in novels or films, making choices that would influence an ever-evolving plot. [SIMON'S NOTE: lots of responses to this all over the Internet - here's a couple of good ones from the Waypoint folks.]"

'Burnout' Series Creator Talks Remaking Crash Mode for 'Danger Zone' (John Davison / Glixel) "Spend longer than a few minutes talking with fans of driving games about which series they'd love to see revived, and invariably someone will bring up Criterion's Burnout. Unlike contemporaries that were leaning harder into realism and officially-licensed cars as a response to games like Gran Turismo, the first Burnout – released by Acclaim for PlayStation 2 in 2001 – was unapologetically action-focused."

Famitsu Special Report – The Mystery of TOSE (Famitsu / One Million Power) "This is the real story behind TOSE: The game development company that’s been making games for nearly 38 years (since 1979), but hardly any gamers know. [SIMON'S NOTE: Brandon Sheffield covered TOSE for Gamasutra back in 2006, but by and large, they've been PRETTY vague about what they work on - which is fascinating.]"

How Three Kids With No Experience Beat Square And Translated Final Fantasy V Into English (Jason Schreier / Kotaku) "One day in the late 1990s, Myria walked into the Irvine High School computer room and spotted a boy playing Final Fantasy V. There were two unusual things about this. The first was that Final Fantasy V had not actually come out in the United States."

Night in the Woods is Important (HeavyEyed / YouTube) "An analysis of the recently released game - this video contains very minimal spoilers but watch at your own discretion.."

Designing the giant battle royale maps of Playerunknown's Battlegrounds (Alan Bradley / Gamasutra) "For Brendan "Playerunknown" Greene, the creator of Battlegrounds, the vision for his game world was born from extensive experience creating and manipulating environments that direct players to play his games the way he intends them to be played."

All We Have Is Words (Matthew Burns / Magical Wasteland) "Sometimes I give the impression of knowing Japanese, but I really don’t. I have no claim to it. I never made a real study of the language, I don’t know kanji and thus can’t read at all, and even in speech I can’t exchange more than pleasantries or the most rudimentary logistical information. [SIMON'S NOTE: I believe this is a subtle 'subtweet'-style article response to the recent Persona 5 translation furore? Maybe?]"

Changing the Game: What's Next for Anita Sarkeesian (Laura A. Parker / Glixel) "Anita Sarkeesian’s talk at this year’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco falls at an unfortunate time: 10am on the last day of the conference – a Friday. Most attendees – a mix of indie programmers, mainstream publishing teams and media – are still bleary eyed from the night before. And yet, at five-to-ten, the small room on the third floor of the Moscone Convention Center is standing-room only."

The quest to crack and preserve vintage Apple II software (Leigh Alexander and Iain Chambers / The Guardian Podcast) "Why has the quest to hack old Apple II software become the best hope we have of preserving a part of our cultural history? How do these floppy discs – still turning up in their box-loads – shine a light on the educational philosophies of the 80s? And do a new generation of gamers risk losing whole days of their lives by playing these compelling retro games in their browsers?"

Video Games Help Model Brain’s Neurons (Nick Wingfield / New York Times) "Since November, thousands of people have played the game, “Mozak,” which uses common tricks of the medium — points, leveling up and leader boards that publicly rank the performance of players — to crowdsource the creation of three-dimensional models of neurons."

Longtime 'Star Citizen' Backers Want Its New Referral Contest to Die in a Black Hole (Leif Johnson / Motherboard) "Developers of multiplayer video games often host referral programs encouraging existing players to recruit their friends for a boost in cash flow, and in that regard, the new referral contest from Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games isn't much out of the ordinary. The same can't be said of the reactions from the players themselves."

Localization Shenanigans in the Chinese Speaking World (Jung-Sheng Lin / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 GDC session, IGDShare's Jung-Sheng Lin discusses a wide variety of possible issues that can arise when undertaking Chinese localization for your game. These problems include grappling simplified vs. traditional Chinese, naming problems, UI & fonts, and China-specific policies that may relate to localization, political implications, and more."

Good Game/Tech/History Youtubers (Phoe / Medium) "[SIMON'S NOTE: this got birthed after a conversation I had with Phoe in the Video Game History Foundation Discord chat - he watches a lot of good retro/interesting YouTube, and there's a number of recommendations in here I was unaware of!]

Red Bull TV - Screenland (Red Bull TV) "Plug into the fresh stories within the world of video games and game design. The personal tales, wild new developments, and unexpected genres shed new light on what gaming means in the world now and what it could mean in the future. [SIMON'S NOTE: this is an entire _season_ of gaming documentaries, including with Frank Cifaldi (Video Game History Foundation), UK cult classic Knightmare, and lots more.]"

Tim Schafer tells the story of Amnesia Fortnight (Philippa Warr / RockPaperShotgun) "“I started feeling a little bogged down by the scope of [Brutal Legend],” says Tim Schafer, founder of Double Fine. “It was really huge and I felt like the team had been doing it for a long time and had a long way to go yet. I felt like they needed a break.” That break was Amnesia Fortnight, a two week game jam during which anyone at the developer can pitch an idea and, if it’s selected, lead a team to turn it from concept to working prototype."

The Signal From Tolva: The Best Game Ever (Matt Lees / Cool Ghosts / YouTube) "New video! Matt dives into a spooky robot world, to talk about some of the cool design aspects of The Signal From Tölva. [SIMON'S NOTE: Can't emphasize enough that Cool Ghosts has some of the best game criticism on YouTube. Please patronize them! (On Patreon, not by talking down to them.)"

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[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to [email protected]. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]

#IFTTT #Blogger

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