Oh, I had to set up a spreadsheet to make sure I didn’t pre-order from multiple places, or buy in-store while still waiting on the arrival of a pre-order (or, at least, KNOWINGLY buy in-store and accept that I was gonna have an extra).
It’s better to have forgotten candy in one’s purse, or at least as long as it’s well-packaged. Is there anything quite like finding a forgotten fun sized bag of M&Ms in Easter colors in your purse in June?
(Yes, that highly specific example did happen to me, and to make it even more confusing, I think it was June of 2020, so I really have no clue where or when I got that bag of candy.)
If you find a small bag of M&Ms while helping your mom clean up your recently-deceased grandma’s home, be very complete in reading the bag for clues as to which decade it was produced. Don’t ask me how I know.
When I think about ways I would change the past if I were rewound into my younger self with current knowledge, “getting WB to confirm Season 5 in time for JMS to *not* have to blow up any semblance of pacing or depth in writing the end of Season 4,” is actually on the list. (It *is* less of a priority than getting Florida to move off of butterfly ballots before 2000….)
First one’s college for me. Prospective job hirers at least take the paper that says “I Did A Thing” into consideration (even if they still want you to have 3-5 years of experience for an entry level position).
Second one’s video games and consoles. It’s not like I’m an avid collector – I just grab stuff I remember having or playing in my past.
1. Uhhh… Eat? I guess? I don’t really consider it though. I don’t make plans for myself really. Maybe that’s changing? Or maybe I’m just erratically making promises I don’t know if I can keep. Like how my marriage failed when I was struggling with the decision to divorce them or make myself dead.
Books on both counts. I’m waiting on delivery of the Wildseed sequels by Octavia Butler.
My library is 500 strong excluding comics. I also collect book-themed things like picture frames, coaster, cushions. I’m crocheting a big floor-cushion of one of my favourite books (same title as my username).
1. I don’t.
2. Collect? I have a lot of books and videogames. Wouldn’t say I collect videogames though, I just buy them because I want to play them. I recently met the guy who holds the Guinness Book of World Records for most PC games in the box. Nice guy.
1. I’ve never really thought about it in those terms, but I guess comics, especially since my local comic shop closed and I started getting them mail order.
2. Books. Doctor Who and Discworld merch, especially the stamps. Although I’ve got really far behind in actually putting the stamps in the album, which probably puts them in category one — every new Little Brown Envelope I buy increases my commitment to have time in the future to do something with them.
1 – Finishing university. 2 classes are left and this is pretty demanding because i’m working full time at the same time.
2 – I used to collect a series or horror book called ”Passepeur” (It’s a french canadian thing) and I have the complete collection (Only 27, but it’s the only series I have completed and physical.
I also try to get my Nintendo games in physical. It was first to be able to lend them to people, but now it’s more to have a good amount of them. I don’t have many, but I still go get them myself.
1. Transition. I know it’s a joke that trans people talk about nothing else once they make their realizations, but I’m finding it takes most of my energy and focus. Just all the random things I’ve had to learn that could easily amount to multiple diverse bachelor minors.
2. Gaming stuff? Dice? I’m not sure any more. Ah! Stories of food I’ve eaten different places
1 I suppose collecting video games to play in the future.
2. D&D dice despite the fact that the two campaigns i play in are done on a virtual platform.
1. I’m continuing to pay off my car in hopes that one day I’ll be free from the payments on it. I’m SO CLOSE and yet SO FAR. It’s not even terribly expensive anymore since I refinanced, but the economy and owning a house means that I keep spending more money than I intend to.
2. I can’t collect anything for the sake of collecting anymore. I get nightmares about packing or forgetting something. I still have a huge collection of Pokemon plushies, safely contained in the basement.
I was gonna say some needlessly depressing shit like “I don’t invest in my own future”, but y’know what? I’m teaching myself how to play both the piano and electric guitar by copying what I hear, and that’s just flat-out an actual skill, and it’s one I’ll be able to use for the rest of my life.
As for collecting, the only consistent thing is comic books. Except I actually read the damn things instead of hoarding them away because “They might be worth something later”. Fuck the stupid culture of “If you’re into something, make sure it stays immaculate for when you sell it in the future, which is Inevitable™”, books are made for reading, and if they take a scuff or stain because I was reading them in a careless spot, so fucking be it.
I’m warming up to them, now. Ethan isn’t seeing Asher as just some sexy thing in his self-desctructive path, and instead is bonding with him.
I hope this leads to Asher thinking of his situation with Jennifer and decide what he wants for himself, and while I hate the “you just need a loooove partner to pull you out of your depression” trope, Asher might do Ethan a lot of good.
to beat a dead horse a little, Ethan’s accidentally having a more emotionally intimate conversation than Walky and Lucy ever did. So many ways this can go wrong, but at least zero-chemistry isn’t one of them.
We saw it with Ruth! They just kind of stuck her in rooms with people to be vulnerable and sincere without judgment and she was already feeling better. Kinda nice seeing Ethan’s light come to his eyes again.
maybe i’m just numb to it but other than being concerned for a close friend, i feel like i’ve heard ppl their age and younger say ‘edgy teen’ stuff about wanting to die and only like a small percentage were serious. but at least they’re seemingly supporting each other and not going to actively encourage any more ‘destructive’ behaviors other than the cheating
I had suicidal ideation for a while (From 22 to 30, i’m 31 now) and joking about wanting to die was making me farther from the noose.
So thoses jokes can be only for coping with reality
There’s a difference between “augh, I have three different midterms going, I want to die”, and “contemplating my continued existence is awful and has been for a period of time”, though.
Yes! Uplifting, while acknowledging that they were in a very dark place indeed.
Also it kinda makes Asher not wanting to give up on him and Jennifer, knowing he thinks they can be better together, make sense, knowing he doesn’t mean “better than dropping his friend into a world of trouble” or “better than setting up scenarios for kidnapping/murder due to/to get out of blackmail”… He genuinely means “this person who is spiky and mean sometimes was HURTING and I want her to be OK and I know what that hurt feels like and we can help each other get better and be good to each other and support each other and be healthy, together and separately” and for him “getting and being better” means moving away from “aloof, brooding, loner biker dude” (because that dude was alone, brooding and aloof because he was depressed and isolated and MISERABLE) towards somebody more laid back, with a goofy side who can vibe with Walky easily.
For Jennifer, it means being able to maintain the status quo of cool girl-head cheerleader-problem solver. It means cracks not showing and people not seeing the messy inside. That means keeping people at a distance.
If she didn’t pretty much literally pick him up and THROW him at Ethan, and if Ethan weren’t simultaneously hot, also dark and broody, but also not fundamentally mean and he accidentally opened up about the thing he cared about and allowed things to be emotionally real here, and totally DTF, their ship would have no chance.
As it is..? Asher’s going to fall hard, I think, and then feel like a real dick when he allows himself to realise how much Jennifer didn’t think he was serious and didn’t mean to call his bluff. Assuming she and Ruth don’t end up hooking up/having a 3some with Jason in the name of helping Dorothy (I don’t think Jason would..? But ??♀️ Or possibly Ruth and Jennifer genuinely thinking that they should offer to hook up so he can hook up with Dorothy without any guilt, because she’s straight so it’ll work out better than either of them hitting on her and she clearly needs to fuck her problems out /s totally missing the bit where he’s about to maybe become her TA and accidentally getting him fired again…?
I wonder if part of the reason he’s so furious about Mike’s death isn’t just that his friend is dead but he realized he was in love with Mike and possibly reciprocated.
So there’s the “What if?” moment.
Even though Mike and Ethan would have been terrible together.
I lost someone at that age and I overly romanticized the bond we had after the fact. I think with Mike being dead Ethan forgets about a lot of the awful stuff and just focuses on the times they hooked up and imagines that it was some big love story.
It’s been a while since I’ve had suicide ideation, barring exceedingly fleeting moments on especially rough days, but I found it oddly helpful to tell myself, “I can always die later.” Like, that’s certainly not a longterm solution, but in the moment, it helped me feel like I had agency in at least one thing in my life, that I was the one choosing to continue to live and that no one but me got to make that decision for me.
And I think that eventually led to me realizing I didn’t want to die, exactly, that I needed to change my circumstances and to find ways to make life bearable. It took time, but it happened.
I watched a documentary about the Golden Gate Bridge, and the people who visit it to die, and they talked to a cop who had talked the most people off the bridge. Apparently, he tells them something similar, that if help or whatever he’s suggesting doesn’t help, they can always come back. It’s not what I would have thought to say (and I’ve been in that place myself several times, I just wouldn’t necessarily say this myself), but clearly it clicks. If it helps people, then fine, why not? Funny how many of us seem to work when we’re in that specific sad hard place.
115 thoughts on “Preordering”
Ana Chronistic
Every preorder is a gift for Future Me (which I always forget about, so it’s a SURPRISE gift, too!)
Dave Van Domelen
Oh, I had to set up a spreadsheet to make sure I didn’t pre-order from multiple places, or buy in-store while still waiting on the arrival of a pre-order (or, at least, KNOWINGLY buy in-store and accept that I was gonna have an extra).
Devin
This is me with crowdfunding
Cabbage
This. I have backed like 300+ projects and every time one comes or finishes from years ago it’s like christmas.
Hazel
Sometimes I forget candy in my coat pocket, which is a kind of fun surprise gift for future me. Unless it melts.
Tawdry Quirks
It’s better to have forgotten candy in one’s purse, or at least as long as it’s well-packaged. Is there anything quite like finding a forgotten fun sized bag of M&Ms in Easter colors in your purse in June?
(Yes, that highly specific example did happen to me, and to make it even more confusing, I think it was June of 2020, so I really have no clue where or when I got that bag of candy.)
ValdVin
If you find a small bag of M&Ms while helping your mom clean up your recently-deceased grandma’s home, be very complete in reading the bag for clues as to which decade it was produced. Don’t ask me how I know.
Pergola
Check for red dye #2. Could be worth something.
Daibhid C
Finding half a Dairy Milk bar I’d forgotten about in my pocket is fun.
Finding half a Wispa Gold I’d forgotten about in my pocket means it’s time to Google “getting caramel out of anorak fabric”.
Dave Van Domelen
When I was going through a rough patch, I decided I needed to hang on at least long enough to see the Avengers movie.
Slartibeast Button, BIA
For me it was seeing how Babylon 5 turned out. Good thing season 5 got uncancelled.
Dave the Inverted
When I think about ways I would change the past if I were rewound into my younger self with current knowledge, “getting WB to confirm Season 5 in time for JMS to *not* have to blow up any semblance of pacing or depth in writing the end of Season 4,” is actually on the list. (It *is* less of a priority than getting Florida to move off of butterfly ballots before 2000….)
Bogeywoman
Procrastinating death is a method that works for me. I order books online.
Clif
I am highly in favor of procrastinating death, but it’s a question of means and not motive.
clif
Though hanging on until in-comic nightfall with Carla still waiting in Briscoe is certainly a motivator.
Thag Simmons
That’s certainly a unique perspective on the act of buying Cigarettes.
Dara
It’s a compromise: a commitment to persisting and an installment on your payment plan towards death.
True Survivor
I am glad Asher at least seems to grasp the irony.
Nono
The counterpart to a sexy lesbian suicide pact is a… sexy gay existence pact?
Dante
Dude. I think you’re onto something here.
anon
it would be quite a a delicious dramatic scene if he dumped jen and told ethan “you’re worth liviing for” right in front other XD
skartling
Yesssssss
skartling
Ooh, avatar is correct
Slartibeast Button, BIA
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Aughties me for his prudent savings. and ‘Teens me for finally getting a sustainable exercise program.
Clif
I would like to thank earlier me for marrying well the second time.
NGPZ
How about another game it isn’t too early?
1. What’s something that you do that you consider an investment in your future self, akin to pre-ordering toys like Ethan?
2. What’s something you used to collect or still collect for it’s own pleasure?
Grayfinity
First one’s college for me. Prospective job hirers at least take the paper that says “I Did A Thing” into consideration (even if they still want you to have 3-5 years of experience for an entry level position).
Second one’s video games and consoles. It’s not like I’m an avid collector – I just grab stuff I remember having or playing in my past.
Decidedly Orthogonal
2. Forgotten Realms 1st edition stuff.
1. Uhhh… Eat? I guess? I don’t really consider it though. I don’t make plans for myself really. Maybe that’s changing? Or maybe I’m just erratically making promises I don’t know if I can keep. Like how my marriage failed when I was struggling with the decision to divorce them or make myself dead.
anon
i’d love some more comfy-cute/casual outfits to go out with/in with friends
Bogeywoman
Books on both counts. I’m waiting on delivery of the Wildseed sequels by Octavia Butler.
My library is 500 strong excluding comics. I also collect book-themed things like picture frames, coaster, cushions. I’m crocheting a big floor-cushion of one of my favourite books (same title as my username).
Also, pets are good futyre-investments.
David DeLaney
if you collect enough books, you won’t have room for the book-themed stuff
–Dave, ask me how i know
Regret
1. I don’t.
2. Collect? I have a lot of books and videogames. Wouldn’t say I collect videogames though, I just buy them because I want to play them. I recently met the guy who holds the Guinness Book of World Records for most PC games in the box. Nice guy.
Clif
1. Time spent learning Tensorflow.
2. Ebooks
Daibhid C
1. I’ve never really thought about it in those terms, but I guess comics, especially since my local comic shop closed and I started getting them mail order.
2. Books. Doctor Who and Discworld merch, especially the stamps. Although I’ve got really far behind in actually putting the stamps in the album, which probably puts them in category one — every new Little Brown Envelope I buy increases my commitment to have time in the future to do something with them.
Yeet
1. I don’t like to make bad investments
2. do memes count? I had pokémon cards in the 90s I guess.
Theluxland
1 – Finishing university. 2 classes are left and this is pretty demanding because i’m working full time at the same time.
2 – I used to collect a series or horror book called ”Passepeur” (It’s a french canadian thing) and I have the complete collection (Only 27, but it’s the only series I have completed and physical.
I also try to get my Nintendo games in physical. It was first to be able to lend them to people, but now it’s more to have a good amount of them. I don’t have many, but I still go get them myself.
morleuca
1. Transition. I know it’s a joke that trans people talk about nothing else once they make their realizations, but I’m finding it takes most of my energy and focus. Just all the random things I’ve had to learn that could easily amount to multiple diverse bachelor minors.
2. Gaming stuff? Dice? I’m not sure any more. Ah! Stories of food I’ve eaten different places
UrsulaDavina
1 I suppose collecting video games to play in the future.
2. D&D dice despite the fact that the two campaigns i play in are done on a virtual platform.
egg egg
1. I’m continuing to pay off my car in hopes that one day I’ll be free from the payments on it. I’m SO CLOSE and yet SO FAR. It’s not even terribly expensive anymore since I refinanced, but the economy and owning a house means that I keep spending more money than I intend to.
2. I can’t collect anything for the sake of collecting anymore. I get nightmares about packing or forgetting something. I still have a huge collection of Pokemon plushies, safely contained in the basement.
Taffy
I was gonna say some needlessly depressing shit like “I don’t invest in my own future”, but y’know what? I’m teaching myself how to play both the piano and electric guitar by copying what I hear, and that’s just flat-out an actual skill, and it’s one I’ll be able to use for the rest of my life.
As for collecting, the only consistent thing is comic books. Except I actually read the damn things instead of hoarding them away because “They might be worth something later”. Fuck the stupid culture of “If you’re into something, make sure it stays immaculate for when you sell it in the future, which is Inevitable™”, books are made for reading, and if they take a scuff or stain because I was reading them in a careless spot, so fucking be it.
Samniel
I’m warming up to them, now. Ethan isn’t seeing Asher as just some sexy thing in his self-desctructive path, and instead is bonding with him.
I hope this leads to Asher thinking of his situation with Jennifer and decide what he wants for himself, and while I hate the “you just need a loooove partner to pull you out of your depression” trope, Asher might do Ethan a lot of good.
HueSatLight
to beat a dead horse a little, Ethan’s accidentally having a more emotionally intimate conversation than Walky and Lucy ever did. So many ways this can go wrong, but at least zero-chemistry isn’t one of them.
Queezle
Steady social interaction is one of the things that can help with depression. Of curse therapy and if necessary medication are still recommended.
David DeLaney
curse therapy is one of the more interesting by-products of the Great Return of Magic to the world
clif
All of which makes me wonder if cursed therapy actually requires magic.
DashWallkick
We saw it with Ruth! They just kind of stuck her in rooms with people to be vulnerable and sincere without judgment and she was already feeling better. Kinda nice seeing Ethan’s light come to his eyes again.
Jo_cubstar
Oof this is dark.
anon
maybe i’m just numb to it but other than being concerned for a close friend, i feel like i’ve heard ppl their age and younger say ‘edgy teen’ stuff about wanting to die and only like a small percentage were serious. but at least they’re seemingly supporting each other and not going to actively encourage any more ‘destructive’ behaviors other than the cheating
Theluxland
I had suicidal ideation for a while (From 22 to 30, i’m 31 now) and joking about wanting to die was making me farther from the noose.
So thoses jokes can be only for coping with reality
S.R.
There’s a difference between “augh, I have three different midterms going, I want to die”, and “contemplating my continued existence is awful and has been for a period of time”, though.
justin8448
They’re both placing their darkest moments in their past though, while talking about making commitments to keep living. I find it kind of… nice?
Miri
Yes! Uplifting, while acknowledging that they were in a very dark place indeed.
Also it kinda makes Asher not wanting to give up on him and Jennifer, knowing he thinks they can be better together, make sense, knowing he doesn’t mean “better than dropping his friend into a world of trouble” or “better than setting up scenarios for kidnapping/murder due to/to get out of blackmail”… He genuinely means “this person who is spiky and mean sometimes was HURTING and I want her to be OK and I know what that hurt feels like and we can help each other get better and be good to each other and support each other and be healthy, together and separately” and for him “getting and being better” means moving away from “aloof, brooding, loner biker dude” (because that dude was alone, brooding and aloof because he was depressed and isolated and MISERABLE) towards somebody more laid back, with a goofy side who can vibe with Walky easily.
For Jennifer, it means being able to maintain the status quo of cool girl-head cheerleader-problem solver. It means cracks not showing and people not seeing the messy inside. That means keeping people at a distance.
If she didn’t pretty much literally pick him up and THROW him at Ethan, and if Ethan weren’t simultaneously hot, also dark and broody, but also not fundamentally mean and he accidentally opened up about the thing he cared about and allowed things to be emotionally real here, and totally DTF, their ship would have no chance.
As it is..? Asher’s going to fall hard, I think, and then feel like a real dick when he allows himself to realise how much Jennifer didn’t think he was serious and didn’t mean to call his bluff. Assuming she and Ruth don’t end up hooking up/having a 3some with Jason in the name of helping Dorothy (I don’t think Jason would..? But ??♀️ Or possibly Ruth and Jennifer genuinely thinking that they should offer to hook up so he can hook up with Dorothy without any guilt, because she’s straight so it’ll work out better than either of them hitting on her and she clearly needs to fuck her problems out /s totally missing the bit where he’s about to maybe become her TA and accidentally getting him fired again…?
C.T. Phipps
I wonder if part of the reason he’s so furious about Mike’s death isn’t just that his friend is dead but he realized he was in love with Mike and possibly reciprocated.
So there’s the “What if?” moment.
Even though Mike and Ethan would have been terrible together.
Regret
He’s also jealous of Mike. Why does he get to die but not I?
Bash
I lost someone at that age and I overly romanticized the bond we had after the fact. I think with Mike being dead Ethan forgets about a lot of the awful stuff and just focuses on the times they hooked up and imagines that it was some big love story.
Chaucer59
I’m still sensing a slight disconnect.
DailyBrad
It’s been a while since I’ve had suicide ideation, barring exceedingly fleeting moments on especially rough days, but I found it oddly helpful to tell myself, “I can always die later.” Like, that’s certainly not a longterm solution, but in the moment, it helped me feel like I had agency in at least one thing in my life, that I was the one choosing to continue to live and that no one but me got to make that decision for me.
And I think that eventually led to me realizing I didn’t want to die, exactly, that I needed to change my circumstances and to find ways to make life bearable. It took time, but it happened.
Dana
Thank you for sharing that. I’ve been having fleeting moments myself lately, and I like your idea.
pope suburban
I watched a documentary about the Golden Gate Bridge, and the people who visit it to die, and they talked to a cop who had talked the most people off the bridge. Apparently, he tells them something similar, that if help or whatever he’s suggesting doesn’t help, they can always come back. It’s not what I would have thought to say (and I’ve been in that place myself several times, I just wouldn’t necessarily say this myself), but clearly it clicks. If it helps people, then fine, why not? Funny how many of us seem to work when we’re in that specific sad hard place.
AbacusWizard
Funky Winkerbean, Book 17: I’m Happy I’m Living Long Enough To Get Lung Cancer
Thag Simmons
too optimistic
Username Taken
Revised title: “I’m Living Long Enough to Get Lung Cancer”
Thag Simmons
That’s the Funky spirit
AbacusWizard
Now that you mention it, yeah, the word “happy” doesn’t really go well with Funky Winkerbean.
BBCC
Asher no lung cancer is bad.
Needfuldoer
No lung cancer is good.
Lung cancer is bad.
eh, whatever
Commas are important people!
clif
That’s what Uncle Comma always said.
StClair
familiar, yes. not the specifics, but the outline(s).
JA
Getting lung cancer is better than being dead, right?
…Right?
Shade