#I had to fucking spoon feed them information

[anotherhumanpet]

Your boyfriend is awfully violent. What if he loses it on you like that?

((Anon, I'm going to assume you genuinely mean well and just want to poke fun at the thread I'm having with Fox via my Shiro blog, especially since I'm writing/tagging Dennis in that thread alongside them. I don't want to believe that you're acting maliciously, stupidly, or some combination of the two at once. But I need to take this ask you've sent and create a moment to remind everyone:

If there's any kind of confusion on what exactly these types of abuses are and-or what they mean, please feel free to google them before approaching me with questions. I don't mind elaborating on my own needs around them because my personal and specific triggers are not a google-able thing (for a variety of reasons), but I'm also not agreeable to the idea of explaining the bare bone basics of these types of abuse to people who are perfectly capable of researching the topics for themselves. Like, genuinely, it's not hard and I shouldn't have to put myself in a vulnerable position and do your homework on this. Seriously.))

[lostlegendaerie]

So last night, a little after nine, my mom texted me a message that starts with "did you know that your dad wrote something called Stanford Prison Experiment: the Musical?" This was not the full message, but this was enough to stop me cold so we're gonna go line-by-line accordingly.

Here's a little context as to the kind of person my dad is; a prepper libertarian with a history of (child/spouse/animal) abuse, cheating on my mom with a teenager, and a absolute inability to take any sort of criticism for anything he's ever done in his life. Not really the demographic that I would trust to make a musical about one of the most infamous cases of scientifically enabled human rights violations and take the right conclusion away from it.

I looked up his blog out of curiosity (because, again, what the fuck?) and basically he rewrote some of the lyrics to music from the era to construct a narrative around the two real people who were instrumental in running the experiment (both described BY LEGAL NAME) and with only one original character that he described as, and I quote, "the “John Wayne” guard, an everyman antihero whose rise, fall, and remorse could befall anyone." Unfortunately, any information as to the plot is buried under a staggering amount of description of "systems thinking" - his wholistic solution to everything wrong with the world, emphasizing on cooperation, identifying the 'root' or a problem, and eliminating 'us verses them' thinking. This is the same man who got in a fight with me this Christmas that we shouldn't raise the minimum wage and everyone should just work harder, and who continues to insist the gender wage gap doesn't exist.

So we've confirmed that not only is the musical bad and bereft of plot, serving as a little more than a spoon with what she plans to feed his ideology two more people, but it is a staggering time bomb of legal issues regarding licensing of music not in the public domain and the use of likenesses of real fucking people who are still alive.

But it gets worse.

The next line of the text message informs me that he has asked my mother, who works at a place that will be hosting an A list celebrity known for their charity work (I'm trying not to dox my family here, be nice), to ask her bosses boss to forward his play to said actor and try to help him meet up with them.

This man is trying to cold pitch a work titled "Stanford Prison Experiment: the Musical" that has never been performed by anyone on any stage, nor has it obtained the licensing needed for two thirds of the primary cast or any of the music featured, directly to an A list actor.

Her current plan is to send it to her boss with a follow up email apologizing that she had to send it to him or he would pitch the worlds biggest fit like the baby that he is, and ask her not to forward it onto the celebrity because my mother is at least aware of the incredible social faux pas that would be involved in this. (Because if she just says no, he will scream at her for literal genuine hours about how horrible she is. You know. Like a 60+ year old toddler.)

The one positive thing I am choosing to take away from this is; at least I am not that obnoxious about my OWN creative writing endeavors, damn.

[heeseung-min]

[17:53]

Part 2 from [11:44]

I saw some of you wanted part 2 for this so here you are😁 hope you guys enjoy

"What do you mean there was only one body?! Two of my friends live here!!"

Beomgyu angrily said to the police officer. Soobin also tried to hold himself from yelling because frustrated. When they saw a news of murdering happened on your neighbourhood this morning, both of them rushed to your place only to find Karina's dead body outside the house while you were missing.

"I know you are frustrated right now but we also trying our best here to find Miss Y/n. The neighbours also told us they didn't hear anything."

"Bullshit. How can they can't hear their screaming?"

Before Beomgyu can continue more, the police stopped him and went to do something else. Soobin reassured him.

"I'm sure Y/n is still alive. She will not give up easily. Let's try to find her, gyu. Waiting for the police officer is just wasteful."

-----

-----

"You're going to act like this?"

Jungwon scoffed when he didn't get any answer from you. It's been a week since you got abducted and you've been so stubborn to them. Everytime they bring you food, you will either throw it away or left it untouched. Tired of your rage, Riki decided to tie your feet and hands so you can't throw the food away anymore.

You can feel your body become weak. Sometimes, you also feel lightheaded and thirsty so much. But, you don't want to give in.

"Let me go. I don't want to be here."

"We can't do that."

"I DON'T WANT TO BE IN HERE! LET ME GO YOU SICK FUCK! I WILL MAKE SURE BOTH OF YOU GET SEND TO JAIL!!"

Riki entered the room when he heard you screamed. To be honest, having Jungwon alone with you is better than Riki. At least Jungwon is not too rough with you rather than Riki.

You quickly backed away to the headboard when he came closer. Now, the braveness inside you just now completely vanished.

He didn't bring anything that can harm you. Instead of that, he went closer and sit near you and whispered to your ear.

"I have your parents address. Unless you want to see them here bloody dying, you can continue that."

That sure brought you to accept the fate. You can't do anything with your state right now. Riki took the bowl and spoon-feed you until it's finished and gave you water that you've been needing it for few days.

"See, you become a good girl. We will treat you better. If you want to be brat, you will face the consequence. Listen to us, okay? This is your home from now."

You nodded without saying anything. Afraid you will let out some words that will bring consequence. You waited for both of them to go out before trying to calm yourself from the panic attack you had just now.

________

________

"Are you really sure you asked all the neighbours? It is very impossible for them to not hear our friends screaming for help."

"Listen here, boy. How are you so sure they screamed that night? Probably your friend got killed first before she can even ask for help."

"BULLSHIT. HOW DARE YOU?"

Beomgyu punched the officer to the floor. Before he could do the second punch, he was pulled by Soobin and another officer.

"If you continue doing this, we will have no choice but to arrest you."

"You guys literally doing nothing to save my friend! Y/n is still alive!!"

"Let's go Beomgyu. There's nothing good being here. Let's find Y/n by ourselves."

That's what Soobin said before pulling Beomgyu out of the police station.

Both of Soobin and Beomgyu continue searching around your house area in case there is some evidence left or missed by the police. Soobin sighed frustratingly not finding anything after an hour. He stretched his body and moved around his neck until he caught something. Someone was staring straight to your house and quickly pulled the curtain when he noticed Soobin caught him.

"Beomgyu!"

"What?"

"I think we can get some information from the neighbour."

Beomgyu turned his head to look at Soobin who was staring at the upper floor of the next house.

Knock! Knock!

Both of the men watched a woman opened the door. She's quite old and looked very sweet as she smiled to them.

"May I help you, young men?"

"We want to ask about our friends which was your neighbour. Were you in the house at Wednesday ago?"

"I'm sorry but I was at my hometown. I'm sorry about your friends. They were so kind to me."

Her expression relaxed but Soobin noticed her smile now more to force. She must be hiding something. So, he wanted to try something.

"I heard from the police that the murderer might be two people. Is that true?"

"Oh! yes yes! There were two. I heard that too from other neighbours."

Bingo.

"You are lying."

Now, the smile on her face has changed to shocked. Beomgyu and Soobin sighed before questioning her again.

"Police didn't say anything yet about the murderer but you knew there were two person that night?"

"I- I was not.."

"Please help us find our friend. We will make sure to keep you safe if you help us."

The woman felt guilty when both of them started to begging her. She can see how frustrated and angry they were on their eyes. But, she closed her eyes and sighed before opening again. The guilt in the eyes were gone and replaced by the selfishness. She pushed the boys out of her house.

"Don't come here again and bother me. If you do it again, I will call the police."

Soobin and Beomgyu couldn't believe what just happened. When they thought they finally get some help, it just ruined suddenly. They went back to your house to continue searching. When they got back to their car, Soobin noticed a paper stuck at the windshield.

I'm sorry for my mom's attitude. She did that because she was scared. That night, only one girl got murdered and the other one got kidnapped by two persons. I didn't see the face since both of them wearing a mask. Hopefully this can help you to find your friend.

-Sunoo-

****

****

"Aren't you afraid of getting caught by the police?"

You asked Riki as he tighten the rope around your wrists. You winced when you felt hurt because of the tightness. Jungwon was going out to do some errands so Riki will be the one who took care of you.

"Afraid? Huh, do you think the police will find us, Y/n? After all, no one go out the night you were screaming aloud asking for help." Riki said as he smirked to you as a mock. You were clenching your fists trying to suppress the anger inside you.

It's been nearly three weeks or a month? You also didn't remember it and were slowly losing hope to run from them. The thought of the neighbours didn't help during the police interrogation scared you to death. You didn't want to spend whole life with these creeps.

"But, why me? What do I have that both of you decided to do this?"

Riki sat beside you and caressed your hair gently before he whispered something that made you felt creepy.

"Because we are curious how would you look when you are broken and helpless."

"FUCK YOU!!!"

You kicked hard at his left thigh and tried to throw the small vase on the nightstand towards him. The vase did break and you can see blood coming out frok Riki's head.

"You bitch!! Argh fuck get over here!!"

Riki didn't move for a while because he's busy holding the pain on his thigh and his head. The vase made his head hurt and you took that chance and started to run from the room with the sharp piece of the broken vase.

"You can run Y/n. Make sure I don't caught you cause you don't want to face the consequence."

What Riki said made your adrenaline rush and your speed on running increasing. You don't know which way to go cause you never get out and get familiar with the place so you just ran fast to get far away from Riki. You knew how bad it will be if you get caught and you don't want that to happen.

You keep running until you saw a road few metres in front of you. You started to lose your breath from the running. Your throat is dry and desperate water but you can't give up. Not when you finally can be free. You were happy when you saw a car from far. You decided to raise your hand as a signal for the driver to stop.

However, just when the car got near, someone grabbed you from behind.

----

AHAHAHAH HOW'S THAT🤣🤣🤣 i bet you all frust at the end right

Taglist: @stacey-stonem @duolingofanaccount @lamoons @obsessed1with1straykids @huggyuvita @marylalala @enha-stan

I tagged those who wants part 2 of this but some account cant be tagged idk why tumblr is so dumb so hopefully you guys enjoy this

[cyberphuck]

ROYAL ASSASSIN ABRIDGED: PART ONE My friend Razz wants to understand my shitposting about Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy, but they don’t want to actually have to read the books, so I’m summarizing it for them (and you)! When we last left Fitzy-Fitz, it was a really fucking long time ago, sorry, I stopped going to church and learned to chainsmoke (and this book is LONG, I mean it’s LOOOOOOONG, so I kept avoiding getting started on Abridging it, lmao). You can brush up on the frankly insane amount of different characters here at the Royal Assassin Cast of Characters post, or find the links to the rest of the Farseer Trilogy Abridged series here at this link here.

- Fitz awakens one fine October morning in a bed at Jhaampe hospital, where he's been recovering from being poisoned and poisoned and bludgeoned and kicked and drowned. At first he was having eighty seizures a day, but now that it's down to only twenty-five seizures a day, he and Burrich figure it's high time for the two of them to skedaddle before they get snowed in.

  Then, exactly like that scene in Attack on Titan where Eren reaches for a spoon and accidentally turns into a Titan, Fitz drops a spoon and accidentally turns into a seizure. It's a lot less cool. He wakes up hours later back in the same damn hospital bed with Jonqui the King's Sister and now healer sitting beside him.

  "This sucks," he whines.

  "Time heals all wounds, Pull-Out Fail," Jonqui says sagely.

  "Shut the fuck up. I'm fifteen and obviously know a lot more than you about healing, and I've decided I'm never going to get better."

  Burrich strides healthily into the room with a swanky new skunk stripe in his hair where his skull was recently cracked open. "What-ho, Lil Accident, are you ready to go back to Buckkeep?"

  "No. Everybody's gonna make fun of me. You go back without me."

  "So long as you wear that collar," Burrich says solemnly, "I must follow you."

  Fitz touches the black collar with the word DADDY on it in gold letters. "The way you followed my father?"

  "Yes."

  "Was it like, a sex thing?"

  Burrich, who has enough hidden piercings to set off a metal detector at twenty paces, asks, "Are we going back to Buckkeep or what? I'm getting kind of bored sitting here watching you do the Harlem Shake."

  "Also, I heard that Molly's candle shop was foreclosed on and she had to go live with relatives in a town that's about to be raided by Vikings," The Fool says from under the bed.

  "Gosh, I wish I could talk to King Shrewd or the Fool or find out what's happening to Molly," Fitz sighs, then sits up as the room fills with the wavy lines and harp glissando of a dream sequence.

  "Wake up, King Shrewd," the Fool says. He's sitting on a chair, not under the bed or in a hay bale for once, and Fitz finds it extremely disturbing.

  "Fool? What are you doing here?"

  "Oh, King Shrewd and not Fitz, I have to be here because you're sick and old," the Fool fools. "Here, let me fluff your pillows and feed you soup."

  "This is so weird," Shrewd-Fitz says. "I feel like... oh, the Skill line is ringing. What? Vikings are viking Siltbay so late in the fall?"

  "You know, it's creepy when you talk to yourself like that," the Fool mutters.

  But Shitz (Shrewd-Fitz) is already on a Skill video call, watching the Red-Ship Raiders pulling up onto the coast. Vikings run through the town, viking everything in sight. The raiders are wading through blood up to their knees, people are running around headless and on fire, it's awful. The raiders aren't even stealing anything-- they're just wrecking stuff, which anyone who's been to a Raiders game can attest to (go Cowboys).

  "Fool," Shitz says. "You can see the future, right?"

  "This is a weird time to reveal that particular nugget of information, but sure. Let's see... ah, yes. I see a bard who can't fucking read the room trying to find a rhyme for 'dismembered child.' That is not something Jaydee made up, it's a real line from the book."

  "Thank you, Fool, that's extremely fucked up," Shitz says. "Oh wait, who's this on the video call... It's Molly! Oh SHIT, it's Molly and Vikings are going to vike her!"

  But Molly wasn't called Molly Nosebleed as a kid because she's a trembling little violet. A Viking tries to vike her and she stabs him to death, whirls around and shouts "WHO WANTS SOME, MOTHERFUCKERS?!"

  Then a house falls on her.

  "Oh god, oh fuck," Shitz says, panicking. "Fool, use your future vision and tell me if Molly's okay!"

  "A bunch of women died in a bunch of horrible ways," the Fool says. "Do you want me to list them?"

  "No," Shitz says, and so the Fool doesn't spend two pages describing the graphic sexual assault, murder, and maiming of a bunch of townsfolk. Shitz sits back in his bed. "Run off and let Verity know Siltbay is being viked."

  Ever loyal, the Fool cartwheels down the stairs. Then Shitz sighs and says, "Man, being old sucks."

  "Yes it does, so quit your fucking whining about your little seizures and come home," Shrewd says, and ends the Skill call.

  The next morning, Fitz-Fitz packs up his stuff and heads out with Burrich and Hands to make the long boring trip back to Buckkeep.

The return to Buckkeep sucks especially hard because they have to take the 99 instead of the I-5 like last time, and Fitz is getting carsick. Along the way they keep having to stay in incredibly sketch Super 8s, which wouldn't be that bad (free soap and free weird smells!) but Burrich and Hands overhear someone standing out in the hallway talking loudly on their phone about how much King Shrewd fucking sucks.

  "Yeah he keeps raising taxes to 'defend our country' or whatever but Vikings are still viking the beach towns as much as they want," had said the Buckboi in the hallway. "You know who rules, though, Prince Regal!"

  "What towns did Buckboi say were viked?" Fitz asks.

  "A town no one cares about," Hands answers solemnly, "and the one where Molly had a house fall on her."

  After that incident, Burrich decides that they're gonna make the rest of the trip using surface streets and driving through people's yards. "If Regal finds out you're out here, he'll send someone to kill you," Burrich explains. "Verity's definitely not gonna protect you."

  "Is that because he consistently sees me as a tool first and a family member and human being second?"

  "Look," Hands interrupts. "I see Buckkeep-shaped lights in the distance." They ride up to the gates, which are guarded by a kid who was born a thousand years too early to be the squeaky-voiced teen working at the drive-thru. “Halt,” he squeaks. “Who the fuck are you?“

  Burrich scoffs. ”Who the fuck are YOU?“

  ”I asked you first!“

  ”I asked you sec—“

  ”All right, all right, who's holding up the line?“ The last book had a rich and exhausting cast of random extras murmuring in the background, but this one used all of their budget on talking CGI wolves, so they had to fire most of them and give almost all of their lines to Blade, The Guard Captain. His job is to appear at important moments and say things like 'hear, hear!' and 'how big WAS she?' “Holy shit, it's Burrich! Twitter said you and Chivalry's Post Nut Regret were dead!”

  “It's called X now,” Fitz says, emerging dramatically from the shadows.

  “Oh.” Blade says, while four of the other guards die of secondhand embarrassment. “H-hi, Chivalry's Pos... I mean... Fitz. You uh. Did you have a nice trip? Hey, you... did something with your hair, it looks... it looks good!”

  “Prince Regal was going around telling everyone I was dead, wasn't he,” Fitz says flatly.

  “Sometimes I can still hear his voice,“ Regal sighs from somewhere in the castle.

  ”What? No. What?? No! What?! No!“ Blade laughs as six more guards thud to the ground. ”No, of course not! It was just, you know, like, you know. YOU know. You know. I didn't really believe you were dead, I did retweet the link Regal posted but I commented with 'big if true,' so it wasn't really...”

  Fitz smiles. “Ho ho ho, Captain, don't worry your sweet little tits about it. Everyone falls victim to misinformation from time to time, and I accept the apology I assume you were about to provide me. Do carry about your business.”

  Halfway up to the stables, Burrich pulls Fitz aside. “Listen, Lil Accident, we're not at Grandma's house anymore,” he hisses. “You can't talk to people like you matter or Regal's gonna get his panties in a knot about it.”

  “And then he'll choke me,” Fitz agrees.

  “What?”

  “With his knotted up panties.“

  ”I'm also still alive,“ Hands offers after a long silence. ”Fitz, you're too weak and pathetic to wax your own horse, let me do it.“

  ”But...“

  ”Come on, Fitz, let Hands, my new favorite child, take care of the important work.“ Burrich takes Fitz's arm. ”Now go on up to the castle, that collar is making everybody question their sexuality.“

  ”What's a sexuality?“ Fitz asks, just before he's shoved into the castle, screen door banging behind him.

  Inside, Fitz looks around and notices that the place looks cleaner than it had before he'd left on the world's worst road trip. All the beer cans and ash trays have been cleaned up, someone's taken down the band posters and put up tasteful watercolors of succulents, and the 'NICE COCK' that had been scrawled above the toilet has been replaced with 'live laugh love.'

  ”Wrow,“ muses Fitz as he passes a sign on Verity's door that reads 'IF THE WARSHIP'S A-ROCKIN', DON'T COME A-KNOCKIN'. ”I'm kinda gonna miss the crusty sock smell. Good thing my room still reeks like teenaged boy.“

[perpetuallyexhaustedlibrarian]

Another Halloween movie rec!

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001)

I'm probably gonna make a lot of people mad here, but The Movie might be better than the original series.

Characters: Fans of the series of course know Spike, Jet, Faye, and Ed. This movie introduces them organically in a way that new viewers get a feel for them without needing more information, but doesn't feel like spoon feeding to series fans, or slowing down the story.

Plot: Spike's crew is dragged into a quest to save Mars from a man hellbent on releasing the literal apocalypse. A classic Bebop story type upgraded for the big screen, with huge stakes and a plot that moves at a breakneck pace.

And it's set during Halloween! Spooky vibes, lots of Halloween costumes, and a bit scary, but in a more existential way.

Soundtrack: Phenomenal. I love it so much. Every track chosen fits perfectly and really captures the vibe of the OG series without being redundant or playing on series nostalgia.

Art: Gorgeous. I wish I had the Blu-ray because my 20 year old DVD copy just isn't cutting it anymore.

Fight scenes: Beautifully choreographed.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Dub vs sub: I prefer the dub, as it's what I grew up with. Purists may have a different take, but I love the talent and personality of the English voice actors.

Best quote: "It's just that he was all alone. Always by himself. Never anyone to share the game. A man who lived in dreams, that's who he was."

Bonus: "I love the kind of woman that can kick my ass."

My rating: 9.5 out of 10. I fucking love this movie. My wife and I watch it every year around Halloween.

Trigger warnings: Transphobia in one small part if you squint, which is actually handled pretty well considering it was 2001. Threatened sexual assault.

Where to watch: Tubi (allegedly), 🏴‍☠️, your local library, my potato DVD copy

[escapedaudios]

If you want to get into writing plot-driven audio roleplays, please, and I mean PLEASE understand that the principle of economy of storytelling applies to audios just like it applies to movies and books. Don't waste time lingering on meaningless information, don't repeat yourself, don't sit around doing jack shit. Don't delay the plot to instead spend time spoon feeding the audience every crumb of lore you have. Fucking GO SOMEWHERE.

A lot of VAs looking to get into story-driven audios got their start making relationship experience roleplays, sleep aids, relaxation roleplays, and cuddle ASMR. Before you make the switch, you need to drop the bad habits you've developed. The first bad habit you need to drop is the belief that your scripts don't suck (your scripts almost definitely suck).

You may have had success in the past writing scripts for sleep aids, and if you have, you have to humble yourself and realize that even if you got a lot of views, it wasn't because of your writing ability. Sleep aids don't have to be interesting, their purpose is to bore people to sleep and for them to never actually see the ending. Sleep aids actively reward you for writing scripts that suck.

When going through your script, ask yourself where a movie or TV show would be after a certain amount of time. Ten minutes in a movie can be a whole journey, but ten minutes in a badly-written audio can be ten minutes of a dude with a very fake but oddly sexy southern accent whispering the same lore detail over and over in slightly different ways.

Cut your scripts down! "But my view time!" you protest, "I can't shorten my video!". Yes you can, coward. You'll make up for the view time by increasing your engagement per view. You can also fill the same amount of screen time with content that's actually engaging and advances the plot, but that requires you to write a script that doesn't suck. So write a script that doesn't suck.

[pancakeke]

urghhhhh

legitimately baffling how many people seem to have just accepted youtube's ad bullshit until posts started popping up spoon feeding everyone how to fix it by updating ublock origin. these posts have sooo many replies along the lines of "omg thank you for telling me there's a fix!"

also for the past day or whatever now people have been reblogging a post related to the youtube issue directly from me just so they can bitch at me for adding a "use firefox" comment onto it. they seem to think I'm a dumb fucking moron because the problem affects firefox now too (though few have also noted that there is also a fix).

apologies for not clarifying but I thought it was normal for people to pop a query into a search engine if they are having trouble with something. because doing that gives you the exact information needed to fix the problem a large percentage of the time. chrome has overwhelming market share yet openly stated that it is going to stop allowing ad blocking extensions so step #1 is to ditch it for firefox. if you still experience issues after this, how should you approach the situation logically? think that because you are currently unaware of a solution then no solution exists or could ever possibly exist? so there is no longer need for any thought or action?

you can not be telling me that people experienced a problem they considered significant enough to yell at me over it but did absolutely nothing else. did they really not even try to look it up? are they really lacking not only a desire to solve problems but also whatever exists in ordinary thought processes that makes you aware problems may be solvable in the first place?

maybe I am taking things at face value here. maybe the issue is more like, they heard this is a problem from a third party but it doesn't affect them so they had no reason to find a solution, yet still felt the need to repeat what they heard. or something like that. but this attitude of stubborn helplessness and anti curiosity is something I deal with at work so much.

the way people irl treat me like I'm just weird and stupid and the way they get hostile with me by immediately assuming I have no idea how things "really work" and that my actions are "wasting time" when I can't get what I need initially and try an alternative method. god it gets sooo exhausting and makes me feel like I'm going insane. because why else would I get so much anger and resistance? if this behavior is so widespread then I must be the actual problem right??

these people act like it's always better refusing to communicate, trying nothing beyond the bare minimum (which often means not trying anything at all), and then shifting blame elsewhere when the problem gets worse. admitting their first thought didn't work and pivoting is unacceptable because *huge list of vague excuses that are either bullshit or irrelevant*

I don't think this has anything to do with intelligence at all btw. it's gotta be ego related or a weird pride thing. or like how for whatever reason some people feel too much shame to ever admit they don't know something or aren't an expert at something. or they are too paralyzed by fear to attempt anything new if they might not become perfect at it immediately. but christ you can not let that kind of stuff fester amd become the normal way you live your life.

[noxsoulmate]

I FINALLY WROTE WORDS 🥳

It took a little bit, but I think I'm finally back 🥰 thanks to everyone who voted on the poll last week, and a big thanks to @heartstringsduet, @carlos-in-glasses, @bonheur-cafe, and @ravens-words for this week's tag, I love you, my friends 😘 also, shout out to @detective-giggles because one line in here is an homage to one of her fics.

I did not expect the Chef/Firefighter AU - Friends with Benefits catching feelings to win, but here we are 😁

When TK’s voice comes from the door, Carlos immediately grabs a clean spoon to fill before turning towards him, holding it out.

“Perfect timing. Open your mouth.”

Instead of just following the order, TK raises one eyebrow, the grin around his lips already spelling trouble before he even starts teasing. “I thought you said no sex in the kitchen. But if you insist.”

Carlos simply rolls his eyes, lifting the spoon as he closes the space between them. Apparently, TK knows when not to push his luck, as he indeed opens his mouth, letting Carlos feed him. It takes a second, TK obviously taking in all the flavors, but then his eyes fall shut and the moan that leaves him would usually be enough for Carlos to reconsider the ‘no sex in the kitchen’-rule if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s eagerly awaiting TK’s judgment.

“Good?” he finally asks when TK swallows and still hasn’t opened his eyes or said anything.

“Are you kidding?” TK replies, finally looking back at him. “That’s the fucking best mashed potatoes I ever had – and I don’t even like those, usually.”

At that information, Carlos pulls a face as he returns to the mixing bowl. “Seriously? Who doesn’t like mashed potatoes?”

“Uhm, someone with a childhood trauma?”

Looking back over his shoulder with a skeptical raised eyebrow, Carlos sees that TK has followed him. And not only that, he’s already reaching for a clean spoon (Carlos might’ve once literally hit him on the fingers with a wooden spoon when TK had tried to get a second scoop with his used spoon, so now he certainly knew better) as he steps next to Carlos.

“But this here might just cure me from my trauma,” TK muses, getting an extra big scoop out of the bowl. 

His moan is no less sinful as it was before and Carlos’ jeans definitely tighten at the sound of it. He’s intimately familiar with this moan and he plans on hearing some more of it tonight. First though, he has to feed the guy.

Chuckling, he plucks the spoon from TK’s hand, ignoring his protest and pushing him towards the little table in the corner.

“Go, sit down. I’ll put you a little bit of everything on the plate.”

Tagging list:

@chaotictarlos, @sgirl18, @firstprince-history-huh, @rangergurlgleek1211, @shadesofdeviant, @actuallysara, @paperstorm, @wtfuckevenknows, @lightningboltreader, @meditating-honey-badger, @just-inside-her, @alidravana, @morganaspendragonss, @lire-casander, @otter-love-asl, @ramblingdisaster73, @first-kanaphan, @xtltokio, @buckybarnesalways, @mangacat201

[azaleassence]

𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐲 ✓

❁ ― ship: katsuki b. x reader

❁ ― warning/s: none

❁ ― mha masterlist. main masterlist.

"Katsuki, open the door!" You yelled as you knocked profusely on his bedroom door.

"No, go away!" He yelled back, stiffling a cough.

"You're sick, I made you soup!" You continued knock, not backing down. Kirishima and Kaminari were also with you, holding bags of Bakugo's favorite snacks.

"I'm not sick! You can feed that to shitty hair!" He yelled once again, getting irritated by the knocking.

"Ugh!" You groaned in annoyance, he was being extra extra bitchy today, another onr of his sickness symptoms.

"We found him!" Mina yelled from the hallway as Aizawa was walking behind her.

"You brats better have a good reason why you're yelling at 5am on a Saturday." Aizawa scratched the back of his neck.

"Mr. Aizawa, Bakugo won't let us in, he's sick and refuses to eat." Kaminari whined, his arms getting tired from carrying heavy plastic bags of snacks you bought.

"What do you want me to do about it?" Aizawa grumbled.

"We were hoping you'd have a key to his bedroom and let us in!" Kirishima replied.

"Fuck no! Don't come inside!" Bakugo yelled as you and the rest behind the door heard shuffling and ruckus inside as if he was looking for something, it worried you.

"Katsuki?! Are you okay?" You asked, knocking loudly at the door.

"I don't have a key to any of your bedrooms, you can issue that with the principal. I'm going back to bed. If Bakugo doesn't want to eat, he won't get well; hence he'll miss trainings." Aizawa said groggily as he left, the statement made Bakugo's ear perk up, there was no way he'd miss training.

"Fuck-- Fine!" Bakugo walked to the door and unlocked it, he wasn't given time to adjust as you, Kirishima, Kaminari, and Mina pushed your ways inside his room, sounds of protests left Bakugo as he was situated on the bed by Kaminari and Kirishima.

They tucked him in like a kid, and he did not like that.

"Fucking hell-- I'm not a little kid!" He took the covers off of him. You noticed that he was sweaty more than usual which was confusing since his aircon was open.

"With the way you're acting?" Mina scoffed, Bakugo scowled at her in response.

You walked to him and handed him the tray with the hot food you had cooked for him.

"This will help you become better, careful, it's hot." You warned him.

"I could see that." He grumbled. He waited for you all to leave his room but you didn't leave at all, you all were just standing there, looking at him.

"Can you all fucking leave? I can't eat with all your gawking eyes looking at me." He spat.

"Right, right. Let's go, guys." Kirishima placed the plastic bags near his bed as you all started to exit.

"Except you, you can stay." Bakugo interfered, you all turned around to look at him to see who he was refering to. To your surprise, he was looking at you.

Kaminari let out a taunting 'ooh's', earning a slap from Mina at the back of his head.

"Let's go." Kirishima pushed the two out of the room, closing the door behind them; leaving the two of you alone his room.

You walked over to his bed and sat on the edge of his bed as he stared at his food then at you.

Your eyes were wandering all over his room, not noticing his gaze on you.

"What're you doing?" He asked, getting your attention as you turned to him.

"Nothing?" You replied, confused.

"Exactly, why are you doing nothing? Aren't you going to feed me?" He cocked an eyebrow. You let out a chuckle, thinking it was a joke until he wasn't laughing.

"Oh, you're serious?" You asked, stopping.

"I'm sick, do you really think I have the strength to eat?" He replied smugly.

You sighed as you adjusted your place to sit at and beside him with the tray on your lap, taking a spoonful of soup and blowing it to lessen the heat. bring the spoon to him as he ate it.

You notice his eyes widening.

"What... is that--"

"Your mom's recipe? Yeah, I called her to inform her that you're sick and asked if you specifically liked any soup whenever you're sick." You smiled at him, he felt his heart swell and skipping a beat.

His eyes softened as you took another spoonful of the soup and blew on it, you were so caring it made him almost feel too soft.

You turned to him, but before you can expect it, he grabbed your cheeks and kissed you on your lips, careful enough to not let the soup fall on his bed or your lap

Your eyes were wide open, surprised by his action.

He eventually pulled away, opening his eyes to look at you who already had incredibly red cheeks, it seemed like you were the one who was sick instead of him.

"W-what--"

"I like you." He confessed, looking deeply into your eyes.

"I-I think I got that." You breathed out, as you took the tray off your lap and placed it on the nightstand by his bed.

"You don't have to return it, I just needed to--" He didn't have time to finish his sentence as you pulled him in and kissed him on the lips.

He was caught by surprise like you did before and eventually caressed your cheeks and kissed back.

When you two pulled away from each other, your cheeks were burning and so did Bakugo's, he felt hotter than he was before.

"I-I should go, they might be looking for me--" You pushed yourself off of the headboard and moved to the edge of the bed to leave, only to get pulled back by Bakugo.

His arms were wrapped around your waist and his chin was resting on you left shoulder, preventing you to leave.

"Stay." He mumbled as he pulled you closer until your back was resting on his chest.

You didn't respond but you did rested your hands on his' and that was enough response for Bakugo to continue hugging you.

Bakugo's eyes wandered to the plastic bag of snacks you had bought for him and the tray of food on the nightstand, suddenly remembering something;

"Shit! I kissed you while I was sick!" He rushed out of his bed and grabbed the medicines from his desk and the water you had brought the tray with.

You chuckled at him, amused that he was worrying for you.

[sevenrenny]

Gonna vent about people not respecting my fucking space when it comes to my health and how people either genuinely do not care about my health when they bring it up or they just WANT to cause me pain by learning what they shouldn't do so they can purposely do it. It got long as fuck.

I remember when coworker asked me why sometimes, at the end of work, I just sit in my car while everyone else leaves

I explained to her I was waiting out a medical issue (from personal experience, it's pointless explaining the details of what my conditions are because verything I say goes in one ear and out the other even when I dumb it down like I'm talking to a five-year-old).

I was having migraine aura symptoms but just said I was having a dizzy spell because the former will only lead to an endless chain of questions from her and I was too tired and uncomfortable and in pain to spoon-feed her medical information she will not listen to anyway.

Of course she had questions anyway, even though I insisted I was fine and to just go home. It sounds like she has never known I have these conditions; she does know. I've told her multiple times before because I have symptoms at work and so everyone asks about them all the time.

I've explained it before, so she knows. It's just that nobody listens, and that's not an exaggeration. People prod me for my medical history, I use every strategy to make it clear I don't want to talk about it, they get more pushy because they're "Just trying to help", I tell them, they scrutinise every thing I do as the reason I have these conditions that I was born with, then give me unwanted advice, eat this or that, try yoga, try my doctor who specialises in the thing that has nothing to do with what you have. So on and so on.

Then the next day it's like they've all hit Erase in their memory slot, because they'll behave like I've explained absolutely nothing or act like they never knew I was sick, and the cycle starts up again. The number of people who retained anything I tell them about my health has been a total of three people, a two of whom have chronic health issues themselves, and one is my therapist.

So no, she's not in the dark, I've explained my health, on her demand, multiple times during the five years I've been working here.

I get aura symptoms with my chronic migraines. And unfortunately there is no public transit in my area, and my family does not want to help me get to and from work as they refuse to believe I have chronic health issues. I have to do everything myself. I'm on preventative medications (monthly injections) that leasen the severity but doesn’t stop them. I repeat, it does not stop them; everyone likes to ignore that part.

So far, because of my chronic digestive issues, most oral painkillers don't work. I've only found one that does anything and it only works about 50% of the time. I had cardiovascular side effects with a painkiller injection I tried so that one's off the table. In short, when I do get symptoms while I'm out of the house, there's nothing for me to do but wait it out.

The coworker wasn't happy about me waiting out my dizziness in the car in the parking lot and started berating me.

I asked her if she has a solution.

I dread every time a coworker approaches me, and especially at the moment I'm having health issues acting up, because I can't manage my health AND deal with people at the same time.

She had to think about it for a moment. Then, "Call your family for help." (Note: remember how I said people never listen? Yeah, that. Because I've been asked this before, by her and others, many, many times, and every single time I give them the same answer they will conveniently not remember in two minutes max. Keep in mind, this whole exchangehas happened multiple times already).

I told her, "They won't help. I've tried asking."

"Why not?"

"They don't believe anything's wrong."

"Did you explain it to them?"

"Yes. All the time for years."

She looked utterly stumped. "Then why don't they help."

"Because they don't believe it." Mind you, I have to keep this up while my body feels like shit and I have to not lose my fucking temper cause it just makes my symptoms worse.

"But why?"

"I don't know, you ask them if you want."

"Did you show them-"

"Medical papers, yes."

"...And they still don't believe it?" And she will forget I told her all of this because that's how it always goes. "Get your doctor to tell them then!"

"Tried it. Nothing."

"Not even when it came from the doctor?" (Reminder, this whole exchange has happened multiple times before lol idk why. I'm convinced nobody actually gives a shit, they just want The Tea. This is all happening while I'm in my car attempting to sooth myself while I have this lady from work standing next to my car talking with me through my window)

"Nah, they said the doctor doesn't know what he's talking about."

"...Okay, maybe you need a new doctor. He's obviously not good if youre still sick."

"It's chronic. There is no cure. I've told you this before. And my doctor is good. She found a preventative medication for me that works."

"But then why are you still sick."

"It's preventative. It's not a cure. I told you this before."

"There has to be a cure. You just haven't looked hard enough."

"The parking lot is empty. Are you going home, or...?"

"Not until you leave."

"Can't right now. Go home. I'll be here a while. Security guard knows that."

"It's fine, I'll wait in my car."

She didn't have much patience. She'd get out of her car and knock on my windshield every three minutes or so to ask if I'm leaving yet.

The whole time I just want and need to be left alone. Again, I do this A LOT. This isn't the first time. But it's the regular for everyone to act like it is.

She refused to leave and I ended up having to force myself to start driving when I didn't feel fully ready; I drove out and parked by some store instead and waited there until I felt stable enough to get myself home. Her staying with me in the parking lot meant well, but it put me in a situation that made it worse, because nobody actually listens to what I have to say.

Telling them I'm fine or that I know what I'm doing or to give me space has never worked. Because, as mentioned before, nobody listens. I had a panic attack in front of my old boss years ago, and I had to reassure her and instructing her to give me space while I trying to breathe.

Instead, she was all over me, shoved a fucking chocolate bar in my mouth for some reason, and kept repeatedly asking me in a panic stuff I couldn't understand because my mind wasn't all there. I did tell her it was just a panic attack and to please keep your voice down, and it was so fucking exhausting carefully giving this woman directions so as to not make things worse for me in the midst of trying to regulate myself like I was navigating a minefield.

Just yesterday, I've vented on here how my coworkers know that certain scents are migrain triggers for me. I've told them the least they could do is put a lid on their coffee cups, and to please not light incense, or light it somewhere other than in tge office where we work. They choose to not listen. They do both, open coffee cup and incense, multiple days a week or every day. And I have no choice but to walk out of the office. I re-explained it again yesterday. Before they went ahead and lit incense an hour later. Today, both coffee withoit lid and incense. So uh, yeah.

I want to believe that it's just that nobody fucking cares to listen to chronically sick people. Because that feels less evil than everyone in my life actively doing it on purpose to cause me pain.

Hoping I can find a work-from-home job soon so I can stop working in offices that drain my health and maybe I can stop having meltdowns from being overestimated by office chatter and office lights and extroverts forcing me into conversations I do not want.

[crow-in-gotham]

BLOG POST NO. 12 - WTF IS A BATMAN

If there is one thing that I have learned about the people of this city, it is the fact that literally everyone here loves to gossip. Like seriously, you see it everywhere, from people of all ages, young or old. I’m not complaining about it by any means (I’m Filipino, being a marites is kinda in my blood) but it’s just a little bit jarring to be on the bus, just peacefully minding my own business, then suddenly overhear someone gossiping in the seats behind me.

Which is exactly what happened to me today on my ride to school.

The apparent topic of the day? The identity of the ever mysterious Batman.

I know, I know, the topic has been talked about so much that if you compiled all the conspiracy theories regarding this and printed it out, the amount of paper you’d fill up might just be enough to reach the halfway point between the Earth and the Moon.

But regardless of how overdone this topic is, it’s still a pretty interesting thing to talk about. After all, absolutely no one knows who Batman is, or if he’s even a man in the first place. For all we know, the “man” in his name might be a red herring and he’s actually some eldritch alien sent from beyond the Milky Way to lull the world into a false sense of security so he can open a portal into the Dark Dimension and take over the entire world as an evil overlord.

Too much? Yeah, I think so too— but hey, what else am I supposed to do during my Differential Equations class, actually listen to the lecture? Pssh, nahhh— my attention span is way too short to sit through an entire 3 hours of just constantly being bombarded by numbers (I am so fucked).

Anyway, back to the topic at hand— Batman’s identity.

I’ve seen so many theories floating around about this, but only two in particular are that memorable for me personally. Well, three if you count the last one (we’ll get to that).

The first theory was that it might be this dude named Harvey Dent (had to look him up— and man, all I can say is that I’m sorry), but uh certain events have completely debunked that. If you live in Gotham then you know exactly what I’m talking about, and if you don’t then uh go do a quick internet search, I’m too lazy to spoon feed you all the information you need (you gotta learn how to do your own research somehow).

Then there’s the whole “Batman is Bruce Wayne” thing which is like, okay, I know where they’re going with this but at the same time I’m kinda ehh on it, you know? For one, Bruce Wayne looks too much like a personified teddy bear (I have said this once and I’ve said it again) to be the civilian identity of the literal definition of darkness and “it’s not a phase” but bat furry coded. I just don’t think the dude that flirts with women and men (istg the amount of times the tabloids just conveniently skip past this— I know for a fact I’m not the only one who’s seen that photo of this dude grab the waist of that male reporter from the Daily Planet— I see them) every chance he gets is the same guy who puts on a bat costume (am I allowed to make another furry joke?) to beat up bad guys in the middle of the night.

So what I’m trying to get at here is that I see the point being made, and I acknowledge it, but I just feel like we need more concrete evidence, you know?

I hope to fuck that I did not just summon an entire mob to come after me for that last bit.

Anyhow, onto my final theory, which is the fact that Batman might just be a cryptid born from the shadows of Gotham herself. This connects to the whole “Gotham is alive” conspiracy that started circulating around a few years ago. I don’t know how popularized it is, but it ended up reaching me when I was browsing through some forums a couple weeks back and honestly, even if it’s not true, it makes for an interesting thought. Because hey, what if cities are alive? That’d be interesting (and is also mildly terrifying).

The basic idea of this theory is the fact that Batman, thanks to being a cryptid and all that, isn’t actually human and therefore doesn’t have a human identity. He’s just Batman. As for why Gotham made him in the form of a human, not many people really answer this question (or more like no one really bothers to ask), but here’s my thoughts: I think Gotham made Batman into a humanoid because we as humans are often more inclined to be comfortable with something if it’s in the form of something familiar to us (hence, human). Like, imagine if Batman wasn’t human and was something like a massive blur of shadow and tendrils— wouldn’t that freak you the fuck out? Regardless of whether or not it saved you, you’ll still feel fucking terrified of it. But if it’s someone that just looks like a dude in a costume, then doesn’t that make you a little less scared? (I say “a little less” because let’s be real, human or not, Batman excels in being terrifying)

Well, that’s all under the assumption that the whole “Batman is a Cryptid” and “Gotham is Alive” are true.

Or that Batman even exists.

I’m pretty sure he does but there’s a lot of people that are saying otherwise, so I feel like I should at least acknowledge the fact that some people think he’s not real? Like, I even have classmates who say that Batman is just a tale told to kids so they don’t misbehave and stay out for too long— which, okay, that’s fair. I’ve heard my fair share of scary stories and beings throughout my childhood as well to be honest— also from adults who thought it’d be a great way to keep me obedient (mostly my titos and titas, my ma and pa never really liked scaring me or my brother)

Buut, I’m going to have to disagree with those points because I’ve heard Red Hood talk to his little earpiece thing (yes, Red Hood, I know you have one, because literally every vigilante/hero in a team should— no, I do not care if you say you’re a crime lord, you saved me from a mugger, get over it). And you know who he called out to one time? Batman.

And okay, to be fair, Red Hood could’ve just said the name to keep convincing people that Batman is real when he’s not, but honestly I don’t think Mr. Bleeding Bat Symbol over here would be that dedicated in making Gotham believe in something that isn’t real.

But I digress.

Do I actually care about Batman's real identity? Absolutely not. As long as the dude doesn’t bother me then I have nothing against his questionable life choices (I mean come on, what kind of life choices lead you to dressing up like a crime fighting bat?).

And also he keeps Gotham marginally safer, I guess, so that’s a win in my book.

As for the whole “What’s Batman’s relationship with Bruce Wayne?”— I've also given it some thought.

And honestly a part of me thinks they might be exes… or divorced.

But that’s a ramble for another time— I need to study for my next class.

[winns-stuff]

LO APPRECIATION:

Okay, sadly I don’t have much information on this being and I’m not sure what to call them since she was a side character but y’all remember that cat banker that Hades intimidated for doing her job? Yeah, we’re celebrating her today. Let’s all clap because she deserves so much respect.

What’s insane to me is that she got mistreated by Hades at work during his so called “love arc” and yet no one bats an eye? Now imagine if this was Demeter everyone would be so fucking pissed. The blatant hypocrisy of it all is infuriating to me because I’m tired of this “let’s hold this character accountable but ignore the character who does worser shit!!” like no, if you’re really about holding characters accountable I expect there to be no biases or anything because Hades has been the absolute biggest menace in this whole comic and it needs to be addressed or else I’ll uproot myself and I don’t even know how to do it or what that means.

My thing with this interaction is that it was so disgusting. That whole episode made me want to rip out my spleen, how the hell are you going to get mad at that lady for following basic bank orders? She asks for Persephone’s ID and instead of just going to get her one Hades gets fucking furious are you serious? Why does everyone just look the other way with that? The fact that the employees are terrified of him coming and have to prepare themselves for his attitude is completely and utterly wretched. Like this isn’t the first time Hades has gone out of his way to abuse his powers just for Persephone’s sake, and I think it’s fucking ridiculous. Don’t you think she’ll need an ID to interact with your modern and up to date world? Don’t you think she’ll need to learn things on her own because she’s going to be down there? Or does Hades just like her having the IQ of a fucking donut and likes the fact that she HAS to depend on him for regular everyday shit.

This isn’t what respect looks like folks. If I’m in a relationship with you and you feel the need to spoon feed me every bit of information and keep things from me for my sake we might as well not even be together. It’s not a relationship it’s a paternal thing that we’re trying to mark as a relationship. Think about it, Hades helps Persephone with everything, explains everything to her, lends her money, protects her, and speaks on her behalf. Who does that remind you of? A father. Hades is taking the role of a father and Persephone the child because she’s retaining all of this information from him and him only, many other people have already told her things that Hades had to dumb down for her but she only listens to Hades about it? Who else does that? A young child with their parents because they know them and they have the upmost trust with them. It’s giving Father-Daughter and I’m so upset no one calls this stuff out, it’s sick to even create something like this and market it as a romance. Romance is an art form between two souls, it’s beautiful and messy, passionate and determined, creative yet powerful. Romance is so important in literature and movies and Love is a key thing that makes us who we are, it shouldn’t be used like this.

Anyways, back to the gorgeous bank manager and her employee. I loved her design I thought it was so cute and really unique, her eyes stood out and I loved the way her outfit complimented her.. fur? Everything went well with it and she’s literally the only thing I enjoyed in that chapter cause she was so breathtaking she deserves the world and more because god… The way she was treated made me want to eat a damn tree. It was so angering cause he didn’t even have to do that at all it was unnecessary and completely immature.

I loved her little personality too, she seems like the type of person to get things done and I respect that a lot because it’s a refreshing character trait from the main cast. She also seems approachable, likable, charming, kind, encouraging, responsible, and overall wonderful. I love her and I would love to see a webtoon only starring her cause let’s be real, someone needs to guide Hades on how to be a better boss and king, and who else to do it then the queen herself? The bank manager.

Anyways, sadly that’s all I can say about her since we know so little but genuinely I’m so upset how overlooked and ignored she was in that episode. She didn’t deserve any of that for doing her job, Hades deserves to get fucking fired fuck him. Also sorry for the little rant but I was trying to refresh my memory of her and I had to sorta read the episode, update that shit gave me a migraine with how shitty he was. I’m really at my limit if I see Hades mistreat another innocent bystander literally doing nothing I might make a 20 paragraph post about how disgusting and vile I think he is because there’s no words to describe the things I wanna talk about with him. My hate for him is genuinely with the passion of a million suns, he’s terrible. Anyways, love her and her magnificent employees <3

[terra-luna-nike]

i got told at work today that customer survey responders are saying they're "not being sufficiently thanked." i had to bite my tongue to stop myself saying out loud "and do they want me to make eye contact while i swallow?" to my boss.

like, holy fucking shit it's a customer service job. an unending procession of the dumbest people alive come into my workplace and refuse to read or understand anything while i spoon feed them the information they need to know and try to extract from them the information i need to do my job. they should be fucking thanking me. they should be crawling to me on their fucking hands and knees.

i had a customer the other day, tiny little woman who was all ate up with anxiety. she was trembling and visibly afraid of Doing Something Wrong or of upsetting me the entire time she was interacting with me. why can't they all be like her? ideally with the added freedom to fucking slap them to shut them up for a moment when they do the thing she did of constantly overapologizing for daring to inconvenience me in even the slightest manner.

i genuinely long to work a day at this job where all my customers genuinely believe i can fucking haul off and nail them right in the jaw if they irritate me.

[redemptioninterlude]

[ FEED ] sender offers receiver a spoonful of what they’re cooking so receiver can taste it // mei chang & rue bennett

domestic intimacy meme ( no longer accepting ) + @chmerical // mei

so they settle the new place. it's like, boxes on boxes and things on things and ling has so much stuff that she has to corner him into throwing out. it's a joint effort, with mei in the mix, which is something that rue's honestly COMING TO LOVE, because it's like having gia around all over again. a terrible twosome, fighting the forces of... well. it's hardly evil. anymore at least. mei doesn't know about the terrible highs and lows of what happened to them over their filming schedule, and really, they lean into the whole tiktok conspiracy of it that seemed to help inform mei about what was happening between the both of them before mei even actually came into the picture which...

is kinda nice. and kinda awkward. but rue's always been AWKWARD AS FUCK anyways, so none of this is really new, and all of this just bleeds into the fact that... they're doing their best. it's happening as it needs to happen. and while reintroductions of siblings can always be tough, watching them go at it together is like, weirdly wholesome and rue's just happy to be a part of it. plus. mei's like, a super cool kid, and fucking tough as hell, and she knew she had her own things to learn out of her, especially now.

as in, especially when the concept of family for all of them was changing. mei comes with rue and ling to her family's for easter, and it's like, a big deal. it's totally a whole thing and her chest clangs with anxiety over it since like, ling's only met her family once, and she wants mei to have a good time. it helps that she's almost the same age as her sister, and they're all in the kitchen together, helping to cook while her mom runs out to pick up more BREADCRUMBS or whatever. cooking's a whole new thing for her, really.

but mei's pretty good at it! already working on gravy and something else, calling rue over to come HAVE A TASTE, the taller girl slumping there against the countertop, a quiet hum of approval heard from her as she wrapped her arms around her in a quicker squeeze. "fucking amazing. urgh. i can't wait? and hold on, did you add orange to that? fucking perfect. i'm starving, do we really have to wait longer?"

[kinocomix]

Devlog 16: capturing the magic of living indoors

The script for TSTW is around 7 scenes long so far. At the beginning every story needs time to introduce its characters, movies get away without this by structuring the plot itself around meeting the characters in some way– think about how you always hear about having to “challenge” your characters or how they “evolve”. When a story has lower stakes it can be a bit more difficult doing this without boring the reader, so I've been putting some extra care into carving out the first section. in any case…

Hopefully the title of this devlog gives off the correct vibe which is “ew how tf”. Here's one of the central ideas I want to put across in the killouette project and I'm going to illustrate it with an anecdote. Some years ago, I bought a used notebook from a bookshop. I unfortunately don’t have it on me right now to be able to share pictures of it but it looked something like this:

(this image is not the notebook, this is from google)

to clarify, this notebook is USED used, this was someone’s diary in the 40’s or something. it didn’t have anything too earth shattering– i’m not about to find some hidden treasure any time soon, however it still was really fascinating. This fascination is why a lot of stories are told in the form of  “found media”. it’s not necessarily because the narrative is trying to be passed off as legitimate, it’s because a lot of times, the way you tell a story is equally as important as the contents of the story itself. here’s an example. compare texts A and B below:

A:

the boy fell unconscious and had to be taken to the hospital. the paramedics answered his phone and told his mom.

B:

“-hey, do you know anyone by the name of [name]?

-yes, it’s my son, who is this?

-M’am, your son is currently passed out. we’re taking him to the hospital right now.”

Both of these texts say the same thing. it could even be argued that B says less because it doesn’t mention that the mom knows she’s talking to a paramedic. However, B is less boring to read because it frames it within the context of “something is happening” instead of “let me tell you that something is happening”. In games this is called immersion and it’s vital to your enjoyment of any piece of media. This is why when a story breaks the 4th wall too many times it becomes hard to be invested in its narrative. Even deadpool knows that there’s a limit to this and you’ll notice that when the authors of deadpool want you to take it seriously, they stop fucking around.

going back to the notebook i bought, you can now sort of see why the act of reading someone’s mundane thoughts is way more interesting with the right framework. This is the framework that Diary of a wimpy kid  is built around.

now I already know that I want to do this for killouette as well, but I want to dial it up a notch. Killouette is going to make her diary a fully illustrated comic, basically reenacting things panel by panel. this makes the animal designs diegetic if done correctly and gives us the chance to do something else that’s really cool, which is to have her pass her notebook around to all her friends and have them write things in it as well. So effectively, what we’re really making isn’t just a notebook, it’s an entire folder of documents and papers compiled by these kids. this could include stuff like schematics, pictures, sheet music, another smaller book, handwritten notes by people, annotations by the kids, etc. etc. 

there is an added value by deciding to give the book this treatment. First, it gets rid of the annoying “all seeing reader” element. In TSTW and Almost Home, seeing everything makes sense because the camera is meant to highlight the emotion of the scene and not spoon feed you information. think about how in this scene in Almost Home, I never actually show or tell you what happened to Adelaide in detail. You just know it from her saying something about it. I didn’t show you because it’s meant to be inferred. Here, showing more would have been spoon feeding you a sad story which I didn’t want to do. 

In contrast, I wrote an entire chapter to tell the reader that someone is afraid of being poor. The reason I did that is because I thought the scene after it where you see the same person being a jerk regarding money would be more impactful knowing the journey they took to get there. 

the second thing this decision helps with is production. As long as the end result look pretty and was made ethically, it really doesn’t matter how short the production timeline was. A comic book drawn by a child would be best done on an actual ruled notebook using whatever a child would have access to and scanned. If you’ve ever doodled comics with a big pen before, you know those don’t take much time at all. this would give more time to work on the more complex aspects of the project like making the sheet music, the pictures, putting the whole thing together… you get the idea.

now let’s go back to the title real quick. In the story, Killouette can’t leave her house (we’ll be talking about that in a later devlog). What this formatting of the book needs to do is show you the mental goings on of this child. The mantra of “show, don’t tell” applies best here. I don’t have a lot of interesting set designs to show you cause it’s just going to be the inside of her room. What I can show is the inside of her brain.

next week we’ll be tackling some of the themes.

devlog updates on tuesdays.

[bylightofdawn]

WIP Sunday

What I actually managed a WIP which isn't half a damn chapter's length? Someone check me for a fever, I must be sick. :P And it's totally not because I as a reader am always thirsty for more when I get a sneak peek but shush. Context, pretty much takes place after Cahir exits season three after he decides that a lone soldier on foot and totally take on five mounted Scoia'tael which is to say ya boy should be dead but I'm operating on the assumption he makes it through it obviously. But is pretty grievously wounded. Had a fun pneumothorax and is still recovering from that. Gallatin got some emergency aid from someone and is now trying to put some distance between pretty much everyone and find a real healer to might be able to keep Cahir from backsliding back to the brink of death. It's been about two-three days so Cahir is started to become more coherent and realizes it fucking sucks being this wounded. So he'll prolly start getting salty pretty quick here and Gallatin should enjoy it while he can bully and motherhen him without much resistance. 😂 Standard disclaimers, this is super rough and has not ben read through or edited in anyway yadda yadda

The widow was even willing to part with some of her dinner for the cost of a little more coin and a sob story Gallatin made up about them being partners and now Cahir had been wounded in a battle up North. How he was taking him home to die because that had been his final wish.

The entire time he spun that lie, it felt like a fist was squeezing around his heart because there was probably more truth to that lie than he preferred to consider.

One good thing that came of it was the unexpected knowledge that there was a coven of Druids nearby. As tempting as it was to pack Cahir back up onto his horse and ride through the night for the Druids, the woods were far too dangerous to be traversing at night. Instead, Gallatin had thanked the woman for the information and the hearty stew before retreating to the bunkhouse.

He found Cahir sitting up in the bed he’d left him looking somewhat alert though Gallatin suspected that was due to the pain. The painkillers he’d given the man had worn out hours ago but the elf was trying to use it sparingly since they didn’t have a lot of it.

“I got us some food. Think you can keep down something solid?” He asked as he settled onto the bed next to Cahir who blinked at him owlishly for a moment.

“Yes,” the stubborn fool forced out hoarsely despite Gallatin’s earlier advice for him to limit his talking. It felt like his throat was coated in a layer of broken glass and even that simple word hurt to utter.

“Idiot, I told you not to talk.” The elf chastised but there was no real heat in his accusation.

Then, to Cahir’s everlasting mortification, the man held up a spoonful of the rich-smelling stew to his mouth to hand-feed him. Gallatin outright laughed at the offended look on the knight’s face.

“Don’t get used to it, I’m only playing nursemaid until you can reasonably hold a spoon and not drop this entire bowl into your lap. The sooner you get better, the quicker this ordeal will end. And to get better, you need to eat.”

Cahir’s glower was pretty impressive for a man who’d been on death’s door only a day or two ago. But he did grumpily allow Gallatin to feed him and he made a pretty decent dent in the bowl of stew. The flavoring was all wrong to his Southern raised tongue but it wasn’t bad.

One thing the North had that they lacked in the South was the readily available supply of starchy plants and root vegetables which could bring flavor to the leanest of poorest cuts of meat. Back home, they tended to drench tough and or gamey pieces of meat in so much spice and flavor that you couldn’t taste that it was practically saddle leather that you were chewing.

So the food was bland tasting but more hearty in a strangely comforting way.

“Madwynn, the woman who owns the farm, says that there is a circle of Druids a few day’s journey to the Southwest. I’m hoping we can find a healer among them. Do you think you’re up for trying to reach them? We could lay here for a while, keep our heads down, and see if you heal up on your own, but there’s no real Healer in this place or anywhere within a day's ride.”

“I can manage,” Cahir rasped tiredly. “Need to…put some distance between…us and Aretuza.”

“That was my thoughts exactly.” Gallatin conceded quietly and didn’t bother to chastise the human about speaking. He tucked into his own bowl of stew quickly finished it courtesy of the hunger pangs that had been plaguing him for hours.

The sad truth of the matter was, at this point, hunger was a near-constant companion to the elf, and he’d gotten good about ignoring it. When given the chance to eat his fill, he didn’t pass it up. Madwynn had included two generous hanks of chewy, dark rye bread that served as a perfect vehicle for scooping up the meaty broth.

“Goddess blessings, I’m almost sad we’re moving on. Do you know how long it’s been since a pretty lass cooked me a home-cooked meal?”

Cahir shot him a grumpy look, feeling unreasonably displeased to hear Gallatin lump praises upon their unseen hostess. “Just keep your ears covered. Or you might find…her quaint bucolic charm changing quickly.”

A violent coughing fit took him then and Gallatin went pale despite the natural tan he had.

“Damn you, Cahir. Would it kill you to listen to me for once?” He cursed the man as he pulled him into his arms to help keep him upright as the coughing fit racked his body.

After the fit calmed down, he coaxed the human into drinking from a skein filled with willow-bark tea that had been steeping all day. [Spoiler Character] had suggested it along with a healthy dosage of honey to sweeten it to help with the inflammation and ease any coughing fits Cahir might have while his lung healed.

By the time he’d drunk a third of the tea, the human was wrung out and weak as a day old kitten once more. Frustration was beginning to bubble up inside of him now that he was becoming more and more aware of his injuries and how uncomfortable and mortifying it was to be brought so low.

Gallatin stayed there on the bed and combed his fingers gently through Cahir’s sweaty tawny curls. He carefully picked at the tangles and soothingly dragged his nails along the man’s scalp until he’d passed into an uneasy sleep.

He told himself as he continued to hold the other man through the night he was worried about him lapsing into another coughing fit and that was why he didn’t seek out his own perfectly good bed a mere handful of feet away.

All in all, he got very little sleep that night but at least Cahir slept through it, as peacefully as a babe in its mother’s arms.