caffeinewitchcraft

[caffeinewitchcraft]

This is kind of what I'm looking at right now!

Total word count is around 43K words currently but I haven't revised any of the posts yet, I could see it getting up to 50K. So a short and sweet little reference guide! Maybe $10 for a paperback if I set up my page count correctly and KDP gives me a correct estimate or a cheaper ebook?

[caffeinewitchcraft]

well yeah i have a pet hydra and it only has one head. i'm not going to cut its head off just to make it look cooler, you asshole. that's seriously unethical. and i'm not letting you cut its head off either. if you really want a hydra with multiple heads, you should go for a rescue- but if you want your pet to look cooler at the cost of its physical health, maybe you shouldn't get any kind of pet at all. no, the hydra's not for guarding my evil tower, it's my pet. have you ever heard of a pet? like a puppy or a kitty? you think i can't defend my evil tower by my self?

[caffeinewitchcraft]

well yeah i have a pet hydra and it only has one head. i'm not going to cut its head off just to make it look cooler, you asshole. that's seriously unethical. and i'm not letting you cut its head off either. if you really want a hydra with multiple heads, you should go for a rescue- but if you want your pet to look cooler at the cost of its physical health, maybe you shouldn't get any kind of pet at all. no, the hydra's not for guarding my evil tower, it's my pet. have you ever heard of a pet? like a puppy or a kitty? you think i can't defend my evil tower by my self?

[caffeinewitchcraft]

Doctor: $140,000 a year

Furry artist on Patreon: $160,000 a year

[caffeinewitchcraft]

Current writing advice I'm seeing on TikTok and Insta is telling authors to stop using em dashes in their work because, "AI uses em dashes so people will think you've used AI."

Y'know, the AI that was trained on the stolen work of real authors?

Anyway, I will not be doing that. What I will be doing, however, is adding a note at the start of all my books that no AI was used in the creation of my work because I, the author, did not go to university for four fucking years to study English literature and linguistics only to be told I can't use proper grammar because someone might think a robot wrote it.

Fucking, insane.

[caffeinewitchcraft]

My friend and I are trying to decide between going to Thailand next year or visiting Every Medieval Times in North America. Please help us choose

[caffeinewitchcraft]

I’m considering changing careers into something more stable so that I can commit to my writing schedule, but now I’m seriously considering emergency dispatch and that’s likely just exchanging an unstable schedule and stable mental state for a stable schedule and unstable mental state

[caffeinewitchcraft]

Superheroes need media training

The first video that loads when you open the app is of a woman sitting on a park bench. She looks like a university student, with an open tote bag filled to the brim with books and folders. Her head is bent over a book and heavy black headphones sit over her ears. The sound of children playing and cars zipping past fill the background in a not unpleasant drone. Then the man holding the camera starts speaking.

“It’s important to always remain vigilant when in public,” he says. He circles the camera and the view shudders as he props his phone up on a picnic table. He’s wearing a striped mask that looks like it came out of one of those generic hero costume boxes. His hair looks like he blew dry it straight up into the air. He checks the view as he talks. “Today I’ll show you why you should never wear headphones in public.”

The man jogs out of frame. You’ve got a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach. It doesn’t look like she’s in on whatever skit this is. She’s enjoying a nice day at the park, reading her book on her break. The man reappears behind the line of benches, approaching her from her blind spot. He’s got rope in his hands and is tiptoeing with cartoonishly high knees.

These sort of pranks have been really popular lately. You hate them. Your grip tightens on your phone as he creeps closer and closer, raising the rope above his head. Oh shit. He’s going to try and wrap it around her neck. That’s going too far, that’s an actual threat—

The man shouts out as he drops the rope around the woman’s shoulders, yanking it so hard that her head whips when her back hits the bench. Her hands fly up to pull at the rope around her chest and you can see terror on her face. He’s not intelligible to the camera from this far away, but you think he might be yelling “Be aware!” over and over again as he fights to keep the woman trapped.

The prank is going on for too long. You think you might hear someone shout from the playground. Maybe for him to stop?

Before anyone comes to her aid, the woman gives up trying to get out of the rope. Instead, she twists in it so she can look up into the face of her attacker. Before he can shout anything else, she breathes out a cloud of icy mist that swallows him instantly.

Oh.

You set your phone down and flush the toilet. What an idiot. Not only did he plan an assault disguised as a prank, but he tried to pull it on a super-powered individual. You don’t know what her ice breath did to him, but did it matter? He was asking for the worst by surprising someone in this day and age.

After you wash your hands, you Google the aftermath. You’re gratified to see a picture of her standing in front of the courthouse, her headphones around her neck, and an icy NOT GUILTY spelled out in the air in front of her.

The next video is of Strongwoman’s last battle. It’s rare for you to see footage of the DC heroes, and even rarer to see her. You stay to watch. She’s one of the few heroes that don’t wear a mask. Her strength means that, civilian or not, there’s precious few that can hurt her.

She slaps a chunk of concrete out of the air with one hand. Her hands are up and ready to fight for a good few seconds until the dust begins to settle. Her head cocks and you see her press one finger against her ear. Probably receiving the all clear. Strongwoman’s shoulders drop and she goes to re-tie her hair.

The video freezes on her with her hair tie in her mouth, brown eyes focused on something in the distance, her hands tangled in her wild mane of hair. A thirst trap song starts playing and the creator of the video clips in close up shots of Strongwoman’s biceps, her steely gaze, the way her muscles tense and jump in her thighs when she catches debris–

You’ve spent too long on SuperTok now. You scroll past a woman rattling off the current graduating class at the Hero Academy. You don’t care where people think a Hero will be placed. You only care what they do when they get to their city and that city happens to be yours.

Speaking of which, a video with Hero Cowboy pops up. You hold your thumb over the screen, frowning. The western-themed hero has on his cowboy hat, sure, and his tasseled leather vest, yes, but there’s something strange about the video. After a moment, you realize what it is. This isn’t a press conference or the aftermath of a battle. There’s a kitchen table with fruit in the background and the light catching on his stubble is from cold overhead lighting.

The username at the bottom of the screen confirms your suspicions. Hero Cowboy has a Tiktok.

“Morning routine of a superhero,” he says and winks at you. “Because super or not, we all wake up the same!”

You nearly choke on your coffee when the video cuts to him sleeping shirtless in bed, still wearing his hat and leather mask. The time scrolls across the screen as he stretches provocatively.

 4:30am. Because crime isn’t a 9-5.

He gets up and the camera switches to show his back as he looks across the city.

You check the comments. They seriously doubt he got up at 4:30 considering the sunrise for the day was at 5:30 and it was already cresting the horizon.

4:32 am. Push ups.

Yep, there he is doing shirtless push-ups.

A commenter wants to know if he’s trying to get her pregnant. Another one wants to know if pushups even do anything if you have enhanced strength.

4:37 am. Pull ups.

Hero Cowboy uses his doorframe, apparently, and not the state-of-the-art gym kept in Headquarters.

The comments are wildly in favor of him pulling up to their apartments anytime.

The rest of the video is Hero Cowboy spending more time setting up his shots than actually doing what he claims to do. He makes an omelet that looks very similar to the one served at the canteen, washes his face in ice water, and prints out an email for the day’s patrol.

It’s when he shows how he plots out his patrol based on villain activity on a giant map of the city hanging in his living room that you actually have to do something about this. You download the video and send it to your boss with “security breach lol” in the subject line. You let her know you will be billing for the off hours work.

She calls within thirty seconds. She doesn’t waste time on pleasantries. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Uploaded an hour ago,” you say.

“A map?”

“Yep.”

“Of his team’s actual patrol schedule?”

“Yep.”

“The one they’re meant to be executing today?”

“As we speak.”

“Why are you the first one to catch this?”

Because you’re twenty years younger than the second youngest in the department. Half-jokingly you say, “Maybe you should put me in charge of socials. I think I found the last one too.”

 “You know what? Yes. Until we get actual media training scheduled for these assholes, this is your job.”

You pause making yourself a second cup of coffee. “Like actually? Billable hours actually?”

“Don’t go crazy.”

Holy shit. You’re getting paid to scroll now. You’d thank Hero Cowboy,  if the guy wasn’t such a psychopath. How many times did he realistically need to wash his face in ice water?

You swipe to the next video.

----

Thanks for reading! The next post is already up on my Patreon:

Summary: You are a retired villain. It feels like the villains are winning a lot lately. You decide to do something about it.

I appreciate all the support :)

[caffeinewitchcraft]

do you like cyberpunk 2077

it's been recommended to me but I've actually never played! I do play irl DnD (mentioning purely on the roleplay aspect)

[caffeinewitchcraft]

"yes, it does come with benefits...college assistance? I don't see why not?"

Your parent is a world famous Supervillain. When your best friend reveals they have powers and don't know what to do, you have to be veeeery careful what you reveal to them.

[caffeinewitchcraft]

Being a manager is actually hilarious because I am many people's first experience with The Man which can already be confusing and overwhelming, but I like to complicate matters by answering their questions with "this is what policy says, but ask me again when I'm off the clock" which now turns a stressful situation into a Riddle they did not ask for

[caffeinewitchcraft]

Your parent is a world famous Supervillain. When your best friend reveals they have powers and don't know what to do, you have to be veeeery careful what you reveal to them.

[caffeinewitchcraft]

Book rec: Thornhedge by T Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon). Think, "what if Sleeping Beauty was sealed away for good reason?" Kingfisher does lots of horror-adjacent fantasy, often inspired by fairy tales, and occasionally fantasy-adjacent horror. Highly recommend all her stuff. Also did webcomic Digger at diggercomic.com if you want something free to check out. It won a Hugo!

I'm a big Kingfisher fan! Her books "A House with Good Bones" and "The Twisted Ones" are some of my favorite horror rereads (100% for the goth barista in both).

I'll check out Thornhedge!

[caffeinewitchcraft]

five nights at freddy's premise but the security guard is my OC Grady Pace who's fucking addicted to eating ghosts

[caffeinewitchcraft]

Found footage movies that get turned into a series of found footage movies are always so funny. We keep buying cameras and the guys keep getting eaten by ghosts and I said well its seems like you're just feeding journalists to the monsters and then my producer started crying

[caffeinewitchcraft]

The way necromancy works is this: Everything in your body — meat, bones, skin, blood — has something like a memory. They remember, in their own way, what it’s like to be alive. Skin remembers the sun. Bones remember what shape they’re supposed to be in. Muscle memory is more than just an idiom.

The way necromancy works is that the caster puts a little bit of their willpower into a corpse to order it to remember how it functioned in life and obey. This is easiest to do with bones, which are easy to trick, and becomes increasingly difficult the more of the original body remains.

To reanimate a full body to your command, you have to have a lot of willpower.

The necromancer checked the map. She checked the map again. She squinted up at the stars, lips moving silently. Then, taking the lantern off its hook, she peered over the side of the little sailboat.

There wasn't much to see. The sea was dark and still as glass, except where the lanternlight turned a patch of seawater a yellowish-green. A tiny fish flitted into the gleam, attracted to the light, and then vanished into the murk again.

The necromancer chewed the inside of her cheek. She sat down again, the boat bobbing gently with the movement, and checked the map one more time. Then she opened the little wooden case on the floor of the boat, which unfolded into a neat arrangement of drawers.

There were. Things. In the drawers. Some wriggled. Others twitched little beetly legs into the night air. A few of them made noises, which ran together into a squeaky, wheezy squeal of horror.

The necromancer twiddled her fingers over the display as she considered her options. Then she grabbed a few of the twitching, wriggling things, held them in her palm and squeezed her hand into a fist as tightly as she could with a squelching noise.

She opened her hand to inspect her work. She breathed the spell into it, and then, holding her hand over the edge of the boat, dropped the spell into the sea.

And that seemed to be it. She sat back in the boat and closed the little wooden case. After a moment she started looking over the map again.

There were a lot of handwritten notes on the map. Each one was connected to a mark and some coordinates; some of them said, "Storm 1457," or "Struck a rock 1483." Others said "Total failure," or “Completely dissolved.”

The note the necromancer seemed most interested in was the one that read, “Battle of Salzstein, 1501.”

The necromancer checked the map. She checked the map again. She squinted up at the stars, lips moving silently, and then she was suddenly thrown down to the floor of the boat as though a giant, invisible hand had crushed her.

Her mouth opened in a noiseless scream.

Two minds were fighting for control of the corpse; on one side was the mind of the caster, and on the other was the memories of bones, of flesh, of skin, trying to drive the caster out.

The weight of that mind was incredible.

Sweat poured off the necromancer’s brow; darkness whorled across her vision. Then slowly, every movement a bone-breaking agony, she pushed herself onto her hands and knees, lungs straining.

The trick was that this mind knew how to obey.

The necromancer stood, wobbled, steadied herself and poured her willpower into the sea. She tried to make hers the full willpower the thing had obeyed in life, the will of the wind, of the sea, of the rigging and the wheel.

Because of course it had been alive. In a sense, they were all alive. Sailors talked of them like they were alive, gave them names, called them “she.”

Sailors knew they were alive.

It was the cessation of that life that interested her.

The necromancer reached out with her power, seized the mind in her hands and pulled, blood and foam flecking out the corners of her mouth as she ground her teeth together with the titanic effort and ordered it to obey.

The sea roiled, hundreds of tons of water moving fast as something deep below boiled to the surface.

A bowsprit sprouted from the water. Then a wood-rotted figurehead of a mermaid. Then inch by inch, yard by yard, the huge barnacle-encrusted bulk of silt-stained timber rose out of the deep, seawater streaming out of every gunport.

For a moment the warship hung in the air like a monstrous fish held by the gills of a colossal fisherman. It dropped into the sea with a sound like a depth charge; the little rowboat lurched in its wake.

The necromancer released the spell. Then she threw up, and passed out.

———

Later, once she had woken, gathered together the tackle box, the lantern, and the map and had scrabbled aboard, the necromancer inspected the undead ship.

There was a hole in the hull where a magazine charge had exploded. This was, admittedly, fine. Undead men could walk with a hole in their bellies; an undead ship could sail with one as well.

Really, she thought, despite the discomfort the spell had worked masterfully.

It was a perfect start.

She unfolded the map on the soggy floor of the quarterdeck, sucked the end of a pen, and next to the last marker wrote “Total success.” Then her finger began to trace down the page to the next.

And the undead ship — unbidden and obedient — shifted its sails and began to move south.

[caffeinewitchcraft]

Side note, if anyone offers to rewrite your work, stop sharing your work with them. They may offer with the intent of helping your development, but what they're really doing is going "look how much better I can do that."

Consider a theater teacher who wants to correct your monologue. Which would be a more impactful teaching method? One, the teacher takes the script from you and performs the monologue in front of the entire class then asks you to copy him.

Or two, the teacher coaches you a few times (more energy, more annunciation) and then assigns you to watch some examples from other plays to demonstrate what your monologue might be lacking.

Having someone rewrite your work for you is kind of like them giving you the fish and then telling you that even if you did learn to fish, any fish you catch wouldn't be very good, would it?