Rapid Independent Fire Commence Commence Commence!

The first run was five hardbacks of progressively increasing girth. The stack is hefty, but the books are comfortable. Each chapter has chapter art too, which I consider a plus in all fantasy books.

I still think the 5-volume split was the best option.  It’s a big damn story.

Original Fallout Equestria was written by someone known as Kkat who I’m 90% sure is a woman and the story only has some PG-13ish scenes at worst (you know, aside from the violence and gore that comes with a Fallout setting.) Project Horizons was written by a guy known as Somber, who I remember him mentioning in the post-chapter notes that he got fired for failing the wrong student once and the fic itself includes multiple explicit sex scenes.

ID: A youtube comment with 11 likes by Niceone, it says "I've lived 46 years without knowing this. How nice of life to save some of the best bites for later." End ID.

Example:

As a kid, I constantly lived in fear of damaging shit in my parent's house. The walls. The floors (especially the floors. The wood was beautiful. Shiny. But so easy to scratch). The cabinets.

As a sixteen-year-old, I once took my car to the dealership after work and paid a very dear sum of $250 ($10/hr cashier salary) to fix a slight scratch in the paint because I knew if my father saw it there would be hell to pay. It didn't matter that I parked far out, like I'd been taught, and someone scratched it anyway. It was my fault. I failed in my duties as a steward of my vehicle.

Every time I scratched a rim on a curb while parallel parking or got a door ding or, god forbid, didn't wash and vacuum that car every weekend, it was treated like some sort of moral failing.

Last year, when my husband and I first moved into our house, he scraped the side of our car when parking in our (Very Narrow) garage. When he told me, my first instinct was to be afraid for him. Like something terrible was going to happen to him because of this mistake. I urgently reassured him that it was okay, it was an accident, I wasn't mad. Baffled, he was like, "Yeah? I know? Like, thank you for the reassurance, but I'm only a little annoyed, I'm not upset. It's just a car." And I had to take several minutes to process that. It's...just a car.

We keep the car tidy. We maintain it. But we wash it maybe 4x a year. We only vacuum it after dirty road trips or when the dog hair starts to get annoying. It has scrapes and dings and the leather seats have stains. But that's ok. Because it's just a car.

This morning, I realized that a small rock had gotten embedded in the felt foot on one of our bar stools. Neither of us had noticed. There are now scratches on our beautiful hardwood floor. My immediate response was fear accompanied by a heavy measure of paralyzing guilt. "I'm so sorry," I told my husband, "I should have noticed. I'll figure out how to fix it, I swear. I can probably sand down that section and match the stain and--"

"Whoa, hey," he said. "It was an accident. And it's fine. Floors are going to get damaged. They're floors. We live here. There was damage in places before we even bought the house, remember? It's not a big deal. It's just a floor." Right. It's just a floor. Right.

My husband's mom is visiting and this afternoon, as I was sitting in the kitchen looking at the scratches on the floor, I offhandedly asked her if my husband had ever broken or damaged anything as a kid. "Of course," she said. Household items. A TV. A wrecked car during his teen years. I asked how she punished him.

"Why would I punish him for things like that?" she said. "They were all accidents."

Canes come in a HUGE variety of colors, styles, materials, and ways to decorate it. As long as it's the right length, sturdy enough for your weight, and has a non-slip tip there's a good chance it'll do for you*.

Additionally: there are a lot of assholes that don't want you to take care of yourself this way. People who use accessibility aids despite the social pressure not to and their own internalized ableism are powerful people.

Additionally additionally: You are not taking anything away from anyone else when using your own personal cane or rollator. You're just making it easier for other people to exist while using them.