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#I love all the post formatting and how people can do it for their own pleasure
seeasunset · 1 year
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🔥 - post formatting!
Unpopular opinion!
☆ Honestly, this may not even count as an unpopular opinion at all.
My thoughts on post formatting is a bit 50/50.
On one hand, I don't care what you do for your formatting. If you like to be fancy with formatting, go for it. If you want to be plain and simple, do that too. Do what you think is good for you. Don't follow certain blogs because their formatting may not be ideal for you.
On the other hand, be mindful with your formatting. You can still be aesthetic-pleasing while ensuring the formatting is readable and easy on the eyes. Not everyone has great vision and sometimes certain formatting some people do ends up not being all too great, putting a strain on the person who is reading it. Headaches, unable to focus long enough to read, etc.
Yes, people don't have to follow those kind of blogs if it's too much on their eyes. It also prevents them from following too. I've seen some people say they love to follow certain blogs because either the muse and person behind the screen is great and cool or the blog look cool. In the end, they can't click the follow button because the formatting is a bit hard to follow.
Basically, you can do your own kind of formatting that is pleasing to your self and your own satisfaction but also be mindful. Again, people don't need to press the follow button at all. Cater to their own comfort.
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whetstonefires · 1 year
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One thing I don't think I've ever seen talked about is how post-apocalypse ideation is largely about homelessness.
Homelessness looms large in the American consciousness. Like, not that it's irrelevant elsewhere, but it's got a particular cultural place in the US that's reflected in Hollywood, and therefore relevant because what makes it into film and TV sets the terms of so many conversations.
We don't acknowledge it if we can help it, but I think most people know they're never more than a few very bad months from winding up there.
Even people who are sure it only happens to people who deserve it, who fuck up and put one foot in the morass of their own foolish volition. Even they know the quicksand is there, waiting to be walked into, and that the odds are stacked against ever climbing out on your own once you have. And that they, too, are capable of fucking up. Of trusting the wrong person. Of getting cancer incorrectly.
And those of us who know damn well we can't be sure we're safe even if we do everything right, we know it even better.
And in that sense it doesn't matter what the world would realistically look like after X kind of apocalypse, what people would do, how society would adapt. Because the anxiety that's being processed is about the reality that's in existence now.
About what if my world ends. And I lose access to the fruits of developed society, to clean clothes and new glasses and running water, to a safe place to sleep where I don't expect to be killed or robbed, or driven out by men with guns and dogs. To my home and work and family and everything I usually use to tell me who I am.
What if every man's hand is against me, and every meal is a small victory, and there's only my own dwindling strength between me and the long night?
Will I make it? Will I hold up under the strain? Will I retain my dignity? Will I be lucky? Will I be able to protect the people I love, in that world, the world where no one is protecting us anymore?
Is there a way to continue to live as a human person, when you're denied the prerogatives of one, and don't know if you'll ever get them back?
Putting this anxiety into the context of a massive apocalypse divorces this scenario from the burden of shame tied up in the idea of winding up in that sort of situation in the normal course of events, by having society vanish rather than expel you, personally, as a washout, and continue on around you.
It also allows you to rule out a priori the question of what resources might be offered but can't in an anticipatory context be counted on; shelters and programs and housed friends and family who may or may not help. And narrow the narrative to only the question of what you can survive, and often a fairy tale about surviving all of it and starting over.
Rehearsing for a loss in a mythologized format is a very normal anxiety processing behavior, and I think a lot of apocalypse scenario building is attached to the buried dread of that personal apocalypse. But I haven't seen that one make the list.
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Since you've mentioned Scarlet Lady in one of your posts, what's your opinion on it?
I've mentioned before that I'm a big Scarlet Lady fan, which is the only reason that I'm comfortable answering asks like this one. I don't publicly criticize the content of hobby creators. That's wildly inappropriate! Punch up, not down.
The linked post was a general discussion of the adaptation process and how @zoe-oneesama did a fantastic job, so for this one, I'm just going to do some general gushing because I do actually like praising and enjoying things!
Scarlet Lady's chosen format (comic) allows it to have this wonderful conversation with canon where it can rely on the framework of canon to tell it's own story while also using canon for jokes and meta commentary. This means that Scarlet Lady is about as close as fan content can get to a direct reboot because it's able to have moments like this one from the comic's first post:
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[Image description: Adrien standing in his room after transforming into Chat Noir for the first time. He is beaming and his eyes are shining with excitement as he exclaims, "This is gonna be awesome!"]
A single picture that communicates everything we need to know about Adrien getting his miraculous. When I've done this same thing in fanfic, I had to write out the full scene because that's how novels work. You have to give the full picture. With a comic, you can just quickly acknowledge this thing that we all already know and then move on to the new stuff. A picture really is worth a thousand words! (Or, in my case, more like two thousand...)
This allows Zoe to keep the same akumas that we get in canon without her story feeling like a boring rehash because she can focus on what's different in her version. A novelization of the same content would have to show both the stuff that stays the same and the stuff that changes for it to be coherent. That's a lot less fun to read and write. It's why I basically never revisit canon akumas in my own stuff. It's just too derivative for the written word.
This is one of the big reasons that I loved Scarlet Lady. Because it was able to have that more directly conversation with canon, it was able to take canon and say, "hey, why don't we embrace the tone that you established in season one and retell the story with that vibe?" That's something that I desperately wanted to see, but that is totally unsuited to my chosen artistic form. It couldn't be a novel. It had to be a comic.
If you want to know what a true formula show version of Miraculous would look like, Scarlet Lady is it. It does everything that Miraculous should have done:
Sticks to a lighthearted tone where nothing is ever super serious
Keeps Gabriel entirely unsympathetic
Has slow character development and background hints at a bigger plot as the only serial elements, allowing the individual episodes to be their own story while never feeling incomplete or rushed
Allows characters other than Marinette to shine while keeping Marinette as the clear main character
Makes Adrien narratively important
MAKES THE LOVE SQUARE CUTE SO I CAN ACTUALLY SHIP IT
Understands that Lila and Chloe can't coexist as antagonists
Reverses the love square, which is the best way to tell their story. Yes, I will die on my "love diamond" hill. It's a good hill. Come join me. I'll bring cookies.
I could keep going, but you hopefully get my point. While Scarlet Lady is certainly not the only way to do a formula version of canon, it's proof that a formula version does work! You don't have to go the serious route for Miraculous to be successful.
I want to take some time to gush about the ending, but I don't want to spoil it, so I'll put that gushing under a "read more" in case anyone hasn't seen it. I'll finish out this less spoilerish section with this:
I feel like some people are surprised when they learn that I love Scarlet Lady because - as some of you have probably picked up - it is quite different from my ideal version of canon. I'm not sure why that would stop me from enjoying a thing, though. It's important to remember that our personal ideals are not the only way to tell a good story. There are lots of ways to take what canon gave us and make something wonderful! It's part of the reason that I enjoy being in a fandom.
If I only wanted to see my ideal take on canon, then I'd stick to writing/imagining my own stories. But I don't want that! I like seeing alternate takes, too. Scarlet Lady is one of my personal favorites. It's completely different from anything that I'd ever think to write and that's why I'm so glad that it exists! I like being entertained just as much as I like creating my own entertainment and I don't want to only read stories that look like something I'd write. That's boring!
Spoilers below:
I've mentioned before that there are many, many ways to properly handle Chloe's character and Zoe did such a good job with her take on that! Chloe isn't absolved of all the things she did wrong, but she's also treated as a young woman with the ability to change.
While the comic bares the name of Chloe's alter ego, she was the never the main character. She never went on a journey. The story kept her to her shallow season-one self: a petty brat who just wanted attention. It did this because that's who Chloe was in canon and who Chloe needed to be for the comic to work.
The first time we see any complexity from Chloe is in the comic's final few episodes, which was absolutely the right call for Zoe to make! In a recent post, I talked about how the end of a formula show is the only time when you can break the formula in catastrophic ways and that's what Zoe did. She kept Chloe static until it was time to end the story and that's when the formula breaks. That's when Chloe gets depth because, once she has depth, the formula doesn't work.
That depth is not used to redeem Chloe, but to show us that there's hope for Chloe. That this petty brat who we've been dealing with has some serious issues and needs help. Help that she's going to get far away from the people that she's hurt because her issues aren't an excuse for what she's done. They don't erase the harm that she caused. At the same time, understanding her issues makes us hope that she can be better now and Scarlet Lady took a moment to give us that hope. To show us the START of Chloe's true story.
That is the kind of ending that I have wanted to see in so many properties!!! It was so wonderful to finally get one that did this right. A story that understood that full redemption to the team and damnation to death/suffering are extremes on a scale of possibilities. You don't have to go to extremes! You can fall in the middle and the middle is a perfect, natural place for Chloe to land in this kind of story. Fully redeeming or even fully damning Chloe simply doesn't work in lighthearted formula content. It's too big a lift as canon has already demonstrated.
I also loved Zoe's take on Emilie. I've mentioned that I don't like evil Emilie in part because it makes her revival feel like the start of a new story. She's back and she'd bad, so we have to take her down now! But I don't want that. I want the story to end when Gabriel is stopped. Zoe does this by giving us an Emilie that is another perfect middle ground. She matches canon's uncomfortable implications without feeling like a true villain who is a threat to society.
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Netflix wants to chop down your family tree
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Netflix has unveiled the details of its new anti-password-sharing policy, detailing a suite of complex gymnastics that customers will be expected to undergo if their living arrangements trigger Netflix’s automated enforcement mechanisms:
https://thestreamable.com/news/confirmed-netflix-unveils-first-details-of-new-anti-password-sharing-measures
If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/02/nonbinary-families/#red-envelopes
Netflix says that its new policy allows members of the same “household” to share an account. This policy comes with an assumption: that there is a commonly understood, universal meaning of “household,” and that software can determine who is and is not a member of your household.
This is a very old corporate delusion in the world of technology. In the early 2000s, I spent years trying to bring some balance to an effort at DVB, whose digital television standards are used in most of the world (but not the USA) when they rolled out CPCM, a DRM system that was supposed to limit video-sharing to a single household.
Their term of art for this was the “authorized domain”: a software-defined family unit whose borders were privately negotiated by corporate executives from media companies, broadcasters, tech and consumer electronics companies in closed-door sessions all around the world, with no public minutes or proceedings.
https://onezero.medium.com/the-internet-heist-part-iii-8561f6d5a4dc
These guys (they were nearly all guys) were proud of how much “flexibility” they’d built into their definition of “household.” For example, if you owned a houseboat, or a luxury car with seatback displays, or a summer villa in another country, the Authorized Domain would be able to figure out how to get the video onto all those screens.
But what about other kinds of families? I suggested that one of our test cases should be a family based in Manila: where the dad travels to remote provinces to do agricultural labor; the daughter is a nanny in California; and the son is doing construction work in the UAE. This suggestion was roundly rejected as an “edge case.”
Of course, this isn’t an edge case. There are orders of magnitude more people whose family looks like this than there are people whose family owns a villa in another country. Owning a houseboat or a luxury car makes you an outlier. Having an itinerant agricultural breadwinner in your family does not.
But everyone who is in the room when a cartel draws up a standard definition of what constitutes a household is almost certainly drawn from a pool that is more likely to have a summer villa than a child doing domestic work or construction labor half a world away. These weirdos, so dissimilar from the global majority, get to define the boxes that computers will shove the rest of the world into. If your family doesn’t look like their family, that’s tough: “Computer says no.”
One day at a CPCM meeting, we got to talking about the problem of “content laundering” and how the way to prevent it would be to put limits on how often someone could leave a household and join another one. No one, they argued, would ever have to change households every week.
I put my hand up and said, “What about a child whose divorced parents share custody of her? She’s absolutely going to change households every week.” They thought about it for a moment, then the rep from a giant IT company that had recently been convicted of criminal antitrust violations said, “Oh, we can solve that: we’ll give her a toll-free number to call when she gets locked out of her account.”
That was the solution they went with. If you are a child coping with the dissolution of your parents’ marriage, you will have the obligation to call up a media company every month — or more often — and explain that Mummy and Daddy don’t love each other any more, but can I please have my TV back?
I never forgot that day. I even wrote a science fiction story about it called (what else?) “Authorized Domain”:
https://craphound.com/news/2011/10/31/authorised-domain/
I think everyone understood that this was an absurd “solution,” but they had already decided that they were going to complete the seemingly straightforward business of defining a category like “household” using software, and once that train left the station, nothing was going to stop it.
This is a recurring form of techno-hubris: the idea that baseline concepts like “family” have crisp definitions and that any exceptions are outliers that would never swallow the rule. It’s such a common misstep that there’s a whole enre* called “Falsehoods Programmers Believe About ______”:
https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-falsehood
In that list: names, time, currency, birthdays, timezones, email addresses, national borders, nations, biometrics, gender, language, alphabets, phone numbers, addresses, systems of measurement, and, of course, families. These categories are touchstones in our everyday life, and we think we know what they mean — but then we try to define them, and the list of exceptions spirals out into a hairy, fractal infinity.
Historically, these fuzzy categorical edges didn’t matter so much, because they were usually interpreted by humans using common sense. My grandfather was born “Avrom Doctorovitch” (or at least, that’s one way to transliterate his name, which was spelled in a different alphabet, but which was also transliterating his first name from yet another alphabet). When he came to Canada as a refugee, his surname was anglicized to “Doctorow.” Other cousins are “Doctorov,” “Doctoroff,” and “Doktorovitch.”
Naturally, his first name could have been “Abraham” or “Abe,” but his first employer (a fellow Eastern European emigre) decided that was too ethnic and in sincere effort to help him fit in, he called my grandfather “Bill.” When my grandfather attained citizenship, his papers read “Abraham William Doctorow.” He went by “Abe,” “Billy,” “Bill,” “William,” “Abraham” and “Avrom.”
Practically, it didn’t matter that variations on all of these appeared on various forms of ID, contracts, and paperwork. His reparations check from the German government had a different variation from the name on the papers he used to open his bank account, but the bank still let him deposit it.
All of my relatives from his generation have more than one name. Another grandfather of mine was born “Aleksander,” and called “Sasha” by friends, but had his name changed to “Seymour” when he got to Canada. His ID was also a mismatched grab-bag of variations on that theme.
None of this mattered to him, either. Airlines would sell him tickets and border guards would stamp his passport and rental agencies would let him drive away in cars despite the minor variations on all his ID.
But after 9/11, all that changed, for everyone who had blithely trundled along with semi-matching names across their official papers and database entries. Suddenly, it was “computer says no” everywhere you turned, unless everything matched perfectly. There was a global rush for legal name-changes after 9/11 — not because people changed their names, but because people needed to perform the bureaucratic ritual necessary to have the name they’d used all along be recognized in these new, brittle, ambiguity-incinerating machines.
For important categories, ambiguity is a feature, not a bug. The fact that you can write anything on an envelope (including a direction to deliver the letter to the granny flat over the garage, not the front door) means that we don’t have to define “address” — we can leave it usefully hairy around the edges.
Once the database schema is formalized, then “address” gets defined too — the number of lines it can have, the number of characters each line can have, the kinds of characters and even words (woe betide anyone who lives in Scunthorpe).
If you have a “real” address, a “real” name, a “real” date of birth, all of this might seem distant to you. These “edge” cases — seasonal agricultural workers, refugees with randomly assigned “English” names — are very far from your experience.
That’s true — for now (but not forever). The “Shitty Technology Adoption Curve” describes the process by which abusive technologies work their way up the privilege gradient. Every bad technological idea is first rolled out on poor people, refugees, prisoners, kids, mental patients and other people who can’t push back.
Their bodies are used to sand the rough edges and sharp corners off the technology, to normalize it so that it can climb up through the social ranks, imposed on people with more and more power and influence. 20 years ago, if you ate your dinner under an always-on #CCTV, it was because you were in a supermax prison. Today, it’s because you bought a premium home surveillance system from Google, Amazon or Apple.
https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/29/impunity-corrodes/#arise-ye-prisoners
The Netflix anti-sharing tools are designed for rich people. If you travel for business and stay in the kind of hotel where the TV has its own Netflix client that you can plug your username and password into, Netflix will give you a seven-day temporary code to use.
But for the most hardcore road-warriors, Netflix has thin gruel. Unless you connect to your home wifi network every 31 days and stream a show, Netflix will lock out your devices. Once blocked, you have to “contact Netflix” (laughs in Big Tech customer service).
Why is Netflix putting the screws to its customers? It’s part of the enshittification cycle, where platform companies first allocate surpluses to their customers, luring them in and using them as bait for business customers. Once they turn up, the companies reallocate surpluses to businesses, lavishing them with low commissions and lots of revenue opportunities. And once they’re locked in, the company starts to claw back the surpluses for itself.
https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
Remember when Netflix was in the business of mailing red envelopes full of DVDs around the country? That was allocating surpluses to users. The movie companies hated this, viewed it as theft — a proposition that was at least as valid as Netflix’s complaints about password sharing, but every pirate wants to be an admiral, and when Netflix did it to the studios, that was “progress,” but when you do it to Netflix, that’s theft.
Then, once Netflix had users locked in and migrated to the web (and later, apps), it shifted surpluses to studios, paying fat licensing fees to stream their movies and connect them to a huge audience.
Finally, once the studios were locked in, Netflix started to harvest the surplus for its shareholders: raising prices, lowering streaming rates, knocking off other studios’ best performing shows with in-house clones, etc. Users’ surpluses are also on the menu: the password “sharing” that let you define a household according to your family’s own idiosyncratic contours is unilaterally abolished in a quest to punish feckless Gen Z kids for buying avocado toast instead of their own Netflix subscriptions.
Netflix was able to ignore the studios’ outraged howls when it built a business by nonconsenually distributing their products in red envelopes. But now that Netflix has come for your family, don’t even think about giving Netfix some of what it gave to the MPAA.
As a technical matter, it’s not really that hard to modify Netflix’s app so that every stream you pull seems to come from your house, no matter where you are. But doing so would require reverse-engineering Netflix’s app, and that would violate Section 1201 of the DMCA, the CFAA, and eleventy-seven other horrible laws. Netflix’s lawyers would nuke you until the rubble bounced.
When Netflix was getting started, it could freely interoperate with the DVDs that the studios had put on the market. It could repurpose those DVDs in ways that the studios strenuously objected to. In other words, Netfix used adversarial interoperability (AKA Competitive Compatibility or ComCom) to launch its business:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability
Today, Netflix is on the vanguard of the war to abolish adversarial interop. They helped lead the charge to pervert W3C web-standards, creating a DRM video standard called EME that made it a crime to build a full-featured browser without getting permission from media companies and restricting its functionality to their specifications:
https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/the-end-of-indie-web-browsers/
When they used adversarial interoperability to build a multi-billion-dollar global company using the movie studios’ products in ways the studios hated, that was progress. When you define “family” in ways that makes Netflix less money, that’s felony contempt of business model.
[Image ID: A Victorian family tree template populated by tintypes of old-timey people. In the foreground stands a menacing, chainsaw-wielding figure, his face obscured by a hoodie. The blade of the chainsaw is poised to chop down the family tree. A Netflix 'N' logo has been superimposed over the man's face.]
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crimeronan · 1 year
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i've seen a couple people in the notes of this very good post about fictional polyamory by @thebibliosphere say things along the lines of "oh, i've been doing it wrong :(" or "how do i know if i did this right??" or "i should probably give up and start over, i wrote this badly :(" and. no!!!!
(i AM seeing far MORE people say "oh, this clarified and helped me so much, i think i know how to fix issues i've been having with my own story" which. YES!!!!)
listen. if you're a monogamous person who's writing a polyamorous relationship, and you've been focusing mainly on The Triad and All Three Together All The Time as the endgame, that's literally fine. that's a perfectly acceptable and strong starting point for your plotting, imo. you do not need to give up on a story that you've started like this.
but the things discussed in the post Can and Should improve your execution!
you can keep the same plot beats and overall relationship arc 100%. polyamorous relationships are infinite in their formations, every one is unique. "basically a monogamous romance but with three people" Does exist, as a relationship type. you're not hashtag Misrepresenting (TM) poly people with it
BUT i do think it will help to read up on some poly people talking about how their relationships Differ from monogamous ones.
so i have outlined some basic important concepts about polyamory.
MORE IMPORTANTLY though, i've broken down some questions that you can answer throughout the writing process to strengthen your individual dyad relationships, your individual characterization, & your characters' individual feelings/experiences. this is a writing resource have fun
future kitkat butting in to say i spent over two hours writing this and it definitely needs a readmore. it is also NOT comprehensive. but everything should be pretty simple to follow! feel free to reblog if you find it helpful yourself or just want to reward me for how gotdan long this took KSLDKFJKDL.
i've grabbed quick links for a couple of the important concepts, some have SEO pitches in them but the info largely seems to be good. (if i missed anything Egregiously Gross on these sites i should be able to update the links with better ones later, since they're under the readmore.)
sidenote: this is NOT meant to be overwhelming, despite the length. if you can't read all of this, that's Okay. you do not need to give up on your writing.
here we go:
compersion!
compersion is a BIG thing in a lot of polyamorous relationships. it's joy derived from seeing two (or more) of your partners happy together, or joy derived from seeing your partner happy with someone else.
compersion is really important as a concept because it highlights that every individual relationship within a polycule is different -- and that that's a GOOD thing. it's sort of the inverse of jealousy.
by the "inverse of jealousy," i mean that instead of feeling left out and upset and possessive, you feel happy/joyous/content.
i can use personal experience as an example: it's a Relief for me when my partners receive joy/support/sex/romance/etc that i can't (or prefer not to) give them. and i love seeing my partners make each other laugh and be silly together.
it's 100% okay for a poly triad not to be together 100% of the time, it doesn't mean that the third member is being left out or not treated equally when two people do things alone together.
(i have individual dates with my partners all the time! PLUS larger 3-and-4-person date nights.)
if the third member DOES feel jealous or left out, then the polycule can have a conversation to figure out what needs/wants aren't being met, and solve that. this happens semi-regularly in my polycule, as it will happen in any relationship (including monogamous ones)! it's just part of being an adult, sometimes you have to talk about feelings.
metamours!
a metamour is someone who is dating your partner, but ISN'T dating you. this may not be relevant for people writing closed three-person romantic sexual triads, but it's a super helpful term to know.
the linked article also lists different types of metamour relationships with some fun phrasing i hadn't heard before. the tl;dr is: sometimes you'll be domestic cohabitation friends, sometimes you'll be buddies with your own friendship, sometimes you might not interact much outside of parties, every relationship is different.
there's no one-size-fits-all requirement for metamour relationships. sometimes polyamorous people will end up dating their metamour after a while (has happened to me), sometimes polyamorous people will break up with one partner for normal life reasons, but remain friendly metamours.
the goal of polyamory is NOT for EVERYONE to fall in love. it is 100% okay if this happens in your story, it happens in real life too! but it is also 100% okay for characters to be metamours without ever becoming "more than friends."
(sidenote: try to kill any internalized "more than" that you have when it comes to friendship. friends are just as important and special and vital as partners.)
of course there are a million ways for messiness to occur with metamours within a complex polycule, exactly like with close-knit platonic friend groups. however this post is not about that! there's enough "here's how polyamory can go wrong" stuff out there already, so i'm focusing on the positives here :)
open versus closed polyamorous relationships!
i'm struggling to find an online article that reflects my experience without directly contradicting at least SOME stuff. so i'll give a quick rundown
google has a bunch of conflicting definitions of open relationships and whether open relationships are different from polyamory. the general consensus seems to be that an open relationship prioritizes one partnership (often a marriage), but that each partner can have extraneous flings or long-term commitments (most often sexual in nature).
this is not typically how i use the term wrt polyamory. the poly concept is pretty simple. a closed polyamorous relationship is one with boundaries like a monogamous one. there are multiple partners in the polycule, but they are not interested in having anybody new join said polycule.
an open polyamorous relationship tends to be more flexible -- it just means that IF someone in the polycule develops mutual feelings for a new person, it's fine for them to become part of said polycule if they want to! the relationship/person is open to newcomers.
some groups will need to negotiate this all together, others will just go "haha, you kids have fun." just depends on the individuals!
with open AND closed polyamorous relationships, the most important thing is making sure that there's respectful communication and that everyone is on the same page. but there's no one-size-fits-all way to do that.
i wish i could give you guys a prescriptive "You Must Do It This Way" guide, but that's.... basically the opposite of what polyamory is about, HAHA.
feelings for multiple people!
i was gonna tack this on to the previous section but decided it warranted its own lil bit.
a defining feature (....i'm told?) of monogamous relationships is that a monogamous person only has feelings for One individual at a time. they only want a relationship with one individual at a time. or, if they DO have feelings for multiple people simultaneously, they're still only comfortable dating one person at a time & being exclusive with that one person.
this is perfectly fine!
the poly experience is generally different from this. but once again..... polyamorous people all have different individual perspectives on this.
for me, i have never been able to draw hard boxes around romantic vs sexual vs platonic relationships, & i love many people at once. my personal polycule lacks many strict definitions beyond "these are my chosen people, i want to forge a life with them indefinitely, whatever shape that life takes"
some poly people feel explicit romantic or sexual attraction to multiple people at once, some poly people feel almost no romantic or sexual attraction at all. i'd say that MOST poly people feel different things for different partners, which is not a bad thing!
some poly people are even monogamous-leaning -- they have just chosen one romantic partner who is themselves part of a larger polycule. (so this monogamous-leaning person has at least one metamour!)
or alternatively, they might have one romantic partner AND a qpr, or other ways of defining relationships. (this is a factor in my own polycule!)
i made this its own point because if you're writing a straightforward triad, this is unlikely to come up in the story itself -- but it's worth thinking about how your characters develop/handle feelings outside of their partnerships.
like, is this sort of a soulmateship, 'these are the only ones for me' type deal? in which they won't fall in love with anyone else, and can be fairly certain of that?
that's pretty close to typical monogamous standards but you Can make it work. just be thoughtful with it
alternatively, can you see any of these characters falling in love Again after the happily-ever-after? and how would the triad approach it, if so? what would they all need to talk about beforehand, and what feelings would everybody have about the situation?
it's worth considering these questions even if the hypothetical will never feature in your actual canon, because knowing the answers to these questions will help you understand all of the individuals & their relationship(s) MUCH better.
i've been typing this for nearly two hours and there's a lot more i COULD say because... there's just a lot to say. i'll close out with some quick questions that you can ask yourself when developing the dyad dynamics within your triad
first, take a page and create a separate section for each individual dyad. then answer these questions for every pair:
how does each pair act when alone?
how do they act differently alone compared to when they're with their third partner?
are there any elements of this dyad (romantic, sexual, financial, domestic, etc) that these two people DON'T have with the third partner?
if so, what are they?
are there any boundaries or hard limits within this dyad that aren't shared with the third partner?
if so, what are they?
partner 3 goes out of town alone for a few weeks. what are the remaining two doing in their absence?
(doesn't have to be anything special, it's just to get a sense of how the two interact on a day-by-day basis without the third there)
what is something that each partner in the dyad admires about the other -- that they DON'T necessarily see in the third partner?
what problem do These Two Specifically need to solve in the story before their relationship will work?
how is that problem DIFFERENT from the problems being solved within the other two dyads?
doing this for ALL THREE dyads is VITAL imo. that way, you develop complex and nuanced and different relationships that all have unique dynamics.
those questions should be enough to get you started, i hope
then After you've charted the differences in relationships, you can start to jot down similarities in the overarching triad. what does one person admire in Both of their partners? what are activities that all three like to do together? what are boundaries or discussions that all three share?
but the main goal is to figure out how to Differentiate each relationship!
a polycule is only as strong as the individual relationships within it. if two people are struggling with their own relationship, adding a third person won't fix that.
(UNLESS the third person is the catalyst for those two to, like, Actually Communicate And Work Their Shit Out. i just mean that the old adage of "maybe if we just add a third-" works about as well to fix a miserable non-communicative marriage as, uh, "maybe if we have a baby-")
AND FINALLY.
if you're not sure whether your poly romance reads organically to poly people, you can hire a sensitivity reader with poly experience. if you can't afford that, you can read up on polyamorous resources like a glossary of terms & articles actually written by poly people. (and stories written by poly people!)
you can also just.... ask poly people questions, if they're open to it. i like talking about polyamory and my own relationships so you're welcome to send asks if u want, i just can't guarantee i'll answer bc my energy levels fluctuate a lot and i don't always have time.
polyamorous people are in an uphill battle for positive representation right now & so the LAST thing i want to see is authors giving up on their stories bc they're worried about getting things Wrong. well-meaning and positive stories that treat this kind of love as normal, healthy, & aspirational are So So So Needed. even if you guys end up with some funky-feeling details.
seriously, if you're monogamous then you probably don't have a full idea of Just How Nasty a lot of people can get about polyamory. i wish it DIDN'T mean so much for you guys to want to write nice stories about us, but it does mean a lot. and it means a lot that you want to do it WELL.
in conclusion. this is not a prescriptive guide, it's just a way to raise questions. and also, you all are doing FINE.
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kathaynesart · 2 years
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The call has ended, but the final recording still has a bit further to go.  
BEGINNING || PREVIOUS || NEXT MASTER POST
Sorry these past several updates have been such downers.  I promise the next one will have some fun banter.  Can’t wait to get back to the real world with less digital effects and data dump.  I don’t know how Donnie deals with all of it. 
Below the cut I’ve added a little talk about Donnie and the way he handled this heavy conversation, something I fear might come off a little harsh without the proper context clues.  Also, below is a fun little discovery I made about Omega! 
I’ve already had a few people express how Donnie seems mean to his family in this update, which I totally understand how it can come off like that.  A certain amount of nuance is lost in this sort of comic format with neither descriptors, actual voice acting, or even Donnie’s face to give context for the way he is saying certain lines.  It’s an artistic choice I made, but one I still wish to clarify.
I see the sudden hang up as less Donnie being a jerk and more him having to cut the conversation short because he has to keep focus and he’s scared of Leo talking him down from the ledge he’s standing on.  He’s sticking to his guns and it hurts him to see how much it’s hurting his family and so all he can do is distance himself before the strong emotions cause him to make a mistake in the middle of enemy territory (placing legitimate logical concerns over emotional ones).  At the same time he is attempting to remain calm if only to try and let some of that wash onto Leo and April, because he knows if Leo freaks out too much he could risk bleeding out faster, which is why he was pressing for April to care for him first and foremost.  Were he a better liar he might have done so just to keep Leo calm a little longer, but no such luck.   Donnie holds so much love for his family, and I don’t think an apocalypse has changed that, he just has difficulty at times knowing the hierarchy of emotions expected of such a rare and dire situation and instead chooses to focus on the logical issues because at least those are some things he has certain control over. He wants to keep his family safe at all costs and if he has to cut off the last conversation he initiated and desperately wanted with his family to do so then he will.  I hope that clears some things up.  I might make this paragraph into it’s own post tomorrow for those who might have missed this update. 
On another note, I discovered something fun while researching Donnie’s screen UI!  (Extra photos under the cut:) Omega is actually in the movie (kind of)!  Look at the lil’ guy!  All sorts of dead!
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Thanks as always for your support and comments, it means a ton!
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fictoculus · 6 months
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౨ৎ how they kiss; rewritten
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send a request!┊masterlist┊taglist applications
FEAT... almost all the genshin men
SYNOPSIS... my original how they kiss post has been really well received so i decided to rewrite it in a different (and slightly more specific) format ^^
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[character] places tender kisses on your forehead, jawline, neck, and (of course) lips. he's a lot more intimate than some, and often avoids giving you quick pecks, or 'meaningless' kisses, as he would say. however, as soon as it's just the two of you, best believe [character] will be all over you, kissing a trail from your collarbone to your temples. he enjoys ghosting over your lips, but often finds that he is just as eager and impatient as you, if not more...
alhaitham , ayato, baizhu, diluc, kaeya, kazuha, neuvillette, scara, wriothesley, xiao, zhongli
it'd be impossible to count how many times [character] kisses you in a day; for all you know, it could be well into the hundreds. he always seems to have his lips pressed against you, whether it be your face, your hands, your chest, your neck; he just wants to show you how much he cares. physical touch is definitely one of his (many) love languages, and your friends can (and will) vouch when you say [character] is always clinging on to you...
childe, gorou, heizou, itto, kaeya, kaveh, lyney, thoma, venti
[character] is a casual kisser. yes, he'll press the occasional smooch to your forehead, but nothing out of the ordinary. that's not to say it bores you, of course. the feeling of his lips on yours never fails to make your heart flutter; just something about him drives you (positively) crazy. whether that be his hand placement, scent, or the kiss itself, you'll never know...
albedo, baizhu, diluc, cyno, gorou, kazuha, lyney, tighnari, thoma, wriothesley
you often find yourself desperate to catch [character]'s lips with yours, but he never seems to allow it. as much as he loves showing you affection, he gives you little to no kisses in public. that's not to say he doesn't love you though, in fact, it's the complete opposite. given his status, [character] often refrains from engaging in any more than hand holding around prying eyes, your safety being in his best interest. yes, people know of your relationship, but he can't shake the gnawing fear that someone would use you to get to him. it was his worst nightmare, and he will do everything in his power to ensure it never comes true...
ayato, neuvillette, scara, wriothesley, xiao
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thanks for reading ♡ want to read more? my requests are OPEN, so please feel free to let me know what you’d like me to write next!
TAGLIST…@maopll . @nyxmainex . @avensuersa apply here
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© FICTOCULUS 2024; please do not steal, translate, or repost my works as your own
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rubra-wav · 7 months
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I had this interesting scenario where Vox one day becomes exhausted from his rivalry with Alastor after realizing that the one-sided interactions were becoming old. He later meets the reader (who can also be a part of the hotel) who starts hacking into Voxtech's database to troll the company for shits and giggles. This catches Vox's attention and he's pissed about it. You can do what you want for the rest but they continue to have this rivalry to the point where it's very well known around hell. From an outside perspective, there is just back-and-forth angry banter but there are moments where they're just;
Reader: *appears on screen* Hey Box head, guess who found some good blackmail with your name on it- Vox: *Is so close to having a breakdown, he had a bad week.* Reader: Oh shit- did something happen, are you okay? 😰
They hate each other but they don't hate hate each other. This can be taken as platonic or romantic. I sent this request to someone else but I wanted to share anyway.
Vox x troll/hacker reader: Why So Blue? (Oneshot/concept version)
Why So Blue fic Masterlist
A/N me when I get to write Vox getting utterly humiliated by a troll-y hacker demon 🫶
I changed about the order of stuff as things happen a bit and took creative liberties with this one - sorry if it's really different then the thought you originally had.
(REQUESTS ARE CLOSED, THIS WAS FROM THE LAST TIME THEY WERE OPEN)
Update: This was really well-received, and several people have requested a part 2. I've decided that I will be writing it properly from the start in a proper chapter kind of way rather than in this format so it makes continuity kind of work better rather then the drabbl-y format used here.
Cw: SFW, romantic, enemy's to lovers type beat, references to one-sided radiostatic, also references to staticmoth, mildly suggestive in one part 💀, gn reader, mostly light-hearted - idk if it qualifies as quite hurt/comfort lmao
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- It was just a normal morning for Vox when you first showed up.
- As usual, he booted up for the day, got changed out of his casual clothes, and made his morning coffee.
- As he walked into his computer room, absentmindedly sipping his coffee while looking at his phone, he sits down in his desk.
- Then promptly spits out his mouthful.
- When he finally looks up at the screens around him, he's mortified to see a muted video of himself passionately (and very drunkly) singing and dancing horribly from last night while he was out with Valentino and Velvette.
- Posted on Sinstagram from his own account.
- Hundreds of comments flooded in underneath it; laughing, saying it's cute, complimenting his singing, and talking about the caption underneath with curiosity.
- The caption reads; 'For someone who talks so big about being ahead technologically, it was awfully easy to hack old Boxy here LMAO'
- Vox flips out instantly.
- It doesn't take long to take down the post, change all of his details, and post an official apology for his lack of professionalism with a hypnotising message to forget the whole incident occurred at all. He also does a massive comb over for any other breaches and changes all of his systems to be even more impenetrable to a potional attack.
- He calms down, and the incident fades away to the back of his mind.
- But then it happens again.
- Another morning, an employee is rushing into his studio as he wakes up properly, telling him this time that someone is somehow broadcasting Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up' to the entirety of hell at 6 am, interrupting every one of the scheduled programs.
- There's a message in big letters on the bottom of every screen in hell, under the god forsaken video and song playing, saying, "What is love~? - U" Underneath them.
- And that's how it starts, the infuriating thorn in Vox's side that is 'U'. No matter how hard he tries, you're constantly undermining his efforts to keep you out of the system and tormenting him in ways that aren't necessarily malignant but are extremely damaging to his image as the overlord of technology.
- For some reason, he's the only Vee you seem hellbent on coming after as well. Vel finds your pranks funny or cute when they don't inconvenience her, and Valentino just likes to prod Vox into getting angrier further.
- He just cannot work out what your motivations are at all. Is it truly that you just want to piss him off? He doesn't understand why someone with such clear skills would simply use them to taunt him and leave him messages to unveil as he undoes whatever you do.
- It vexes him even farther when these messages from you that you leave for him to decode start to sound borderline flirtatious, which makes him feel all the more humiliated.
- He is a grown demon, skilled businessman and entrepreneur, an overlord, and yet you insist upon calling him things like Box, Boxbabe, Boxbitch, and even babygirl of all things for some goddamn reason.
- The back and forth goes on for months, and 'U' quickly becomes a long lasting meme, several people, much to Vox's horror, shipping you two together and even partaking in ship wars as to whether Vox x 'U' is better then Vox x Val.
- Theres one day where Vox quickly puts his phone down after reading a rather concerning expert from what is certainly explicit fanfiction between the two of you, even him deciding that that's enough internet for today while just sitting staring off into space silently for a solid 10 seconds.
- Vox's sleepless nights pouring over his code to try and keep out your attacks, him glitching out whenever he finds infuriating messages left by you, etc. Begin to become routine and he just anticipates the consistent blows to his pride you give him at every turn.
- A weird, unconscious part of him deep down begins to enjoy your rivalry, almost wanting to see what punches you pull out next to disarm his constant losing battle to keep you out, but it gets squashed down the second he becomes aware of it.
- The rivalry is always at arms length, but sometimes he has to stop himself from replying with the same vaguely flirtatious tone you take on whenever he experiences a small win against you.
- He fights to make sure he doesn't have any potential of getting too into it.
- Things take a different turn, though, with the double blow of Alastor coming back and his on-off relationship with Valentino once again going up in flames.
- After stopping his usual monitoring of all things going on in hell online and in real life as picked up by his cameras, he presses his face into his hands with a long, exhausted groan as he fights crying.
- All the people he was actually interested in were as unrequited as per usual. He always tried so hard with Alastor, but as always, he never got anything but met with the clear reminder they would never be anything more.
- And, of course, any potential of anything more happening with Val was completely off the table. It would be stupid to even think about anything real with him.
- He shut his eyes, putting his screen on the desk in front of him.
- Was he just not worth it? Was that it?
- He startled when he heard the familiar crackle of the speakers coming to life around him. It was rare he ever heard your voice coming through his speakers, you usually preferring to just leave messages, however you decided to surprise him tonight apparently.
- Your blurred out face appears on the screens, only showing the lower half of your grinning face.
- "Oh Boooooxybooooy! I found some world-shattering cringey shit you did 2 months back, i-" You begin singing out, before stopping, seeing by his expression.
- Vox was trembling, looking as if he was about fall apart at any second. His monitor was dulled, red eyes half lidded with pixelated bags forming under them, his bottom lip slightly quivering around his sharp teeth.
- "What the- fuck- ....are you alright?" You asked unsurely.
- Vox finally snapped out of it, realising that you were here witnessing him in a way that was very much not something he wanted you of all people to see him in. His mask slid back on, but it was hardly convincing.
- "Of course it is. What the fuck do you wa-ant. I've got shit to do." He inwardly cursed as his voice glitched slightly. God fucking dammit why did you have to show up.
- He watched your lips on your mostly blurred out face slightly curl as you hummed, clearly not buying it.
- "You wanna stop with the lying bullshit and tell me the truth, Boxhead?" You somewhat chided him, your hand coming into sight as you leaned your cheek onto it. Vox let out a growling sound, going to spit some vitriol at you, but was cut off as you absentmindedly made your next comment.
"Felt you once again have a fit about the radio demon going online. Lights in my house and the houses out my windows started flashing and shit. Is it hi-" your brows shot up and eyes widened, this hidden behind the censorship as you watched Vox, leader of the Vees, your rival, let out a shuddering breath and actually start crying comically pixilated tears right before your eyes.
- Vox's claws gripped into his desk as he grit his teeth as he let out a gasping breath he fought to stifle. He was so goddamn exhausted that he just couldn't be assed to keep it all up anymore. It wasn't like you hadn't seen rather unsavoury things he'd been trying to hide anyways.
- "No shit it's about Alastor. It's always about him. Does it get you off knowing I can't get with the guy I have always wanted no matter how hard I try? There. Are you fucking happy now?" His voice cracks as he snarls the words out at you.
- You let out a long humming sound, as if thinking. "I mean, not really. I'd only be happy if you were this upset over me, not some old hazbin radio announcer who fell off years ago." You shrug with a slightly sad smile.
- Vox squinted at you, confused.
- "I mean, come on, I'm your rival too. Why neglect me so much in all this?" You press your bottom lip out in mock sadness, tone mocking again. Your words are true despite the joking tone however, it did bother you that he always seemed so much more ready to go running after the most obviously aroace man you think you had seen in your entire fucking life.
- Vox couldn't believe what he was hearing, hot embarrassment caused his monitor to start heating up a bit, painting animated flush over his cheeks. "Oh, stop taking the piss, U. Fuck off." He scoffed, rolling his eyes, looking to the side in irritation.
- You chuckle at him, shaking your head and causing the thing blurring your face to shake with it. "Is it really that hard to believe I'm into what we have going on here?" Your voice is still lined with the usual tone you take on with him, but much less so.
- Vox looks back at your blurred, smiling face incredulously. "Yes." He growled, blinking his tears away as he regained his composure a bit.
- You sigh heavily, rolling your eyes. "Ooookay, well, once you're done riding the coattails of a man who will never want you, come hit me up, Boxhead." You say through smiling lips, before abruptly pressing 'hang up' on the call so he didn't have time to actually respond.
- Vox sat in bewildered silence, not able to react properly as his brain felt as if it was working on low resolution comprehending what you just said.
- His face heated up the more he thought about it, heart beginning to hammer in his chest as he laughed in disbelief. No way. No fucking way.
- But you had said it.
- Despite his usual pessimistic nature, he allowed himself to actually believe it, chuckling.
- He looked over to his phone as a notification sound rang out to see a photo of himself presumably just now; flustered, eyes wide in disbelief and unfocused while staring off into space, a crooked grin on his face.
- It was captioned as follows; 'POV: local pathetic radio simp finds out other rival actually wants him'
- "FUCK." He yelled out in embarrassment, knocking out several of his monitors with a surge of electricity.
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I loved writing this sm omfggg.
There's definitely part 2 potential to this one, but it would have to be in a while w all the other stuff I'm gonna get to first.
Masterlist
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islandofsages · 9 months
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Hey ! Can I ask for the Diasomnia boys reacting to a male!Ignihyde!reader who join the gargoyle club (idk if it's name) ?
Like, the reader is really just interest in the gargoyles, and isn't scare of Malleus (or anyone, really. Man is too tired for being scare.)
Ignore it if you don't want to write it.
Have a good day/night ! And happy new year too.
characters: diasomnia boys x male ignihyde reader
tags: platonic, canon compliant, fluff, imagines + scenario format; mentions of malleus in literally everything, lilia being a dad
warnings: none
author's notes: reader is so idgaf energy i love it. also i just remembered the small font feature exists LMAO do tell me if it's too small, i'll change it back to the original size!! if not, i'll change my previous posts to the smaller font. also you have a good day/night too anon ! and happy new year :D
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Malleus Draconia
Oh? You want to join the Gargoyle Studies Club? You’re being serious? Oh!
Words cannot describe how happy he is about a fellow gargoyle appreciator though his expression doesn’t really show that
And to think you see him as just another dude… such honor was bestowed upon him…!
He’ll excitedly bring you to every gargoyle he’s found on campus and infodump about them - and you’d write them down somewhere if you’re in the mood
Sometimes you’d find new gargoyles and bring him to them and you start to do likewise
Even outside of club activities you two geek out about gargoyles at times which has earned you two the title of nerds
“Have I told you about the time I’ve met talking gargoyles? I never thought I would see such a day…”
Gargoyles aside, he has times where he confides his personal daily life in you and in turn, he’ll ask you what’s it like being in Ignihyde, etc
After being around each other so much, it feels weird when you guys aren’t together - some people would ask where Malleus is whenever you’re on your own, and vice versa
People found it weird how close an Ignihyde student is to someone from a different dorm too and you’re not sure if you should be flattered or not
But in a sense, Malleus really is your other nerdy half.
Sebek Zigvolt
You?????? Join the club where Malleus is president and is the only member of?????????
“WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU’RE WORTHY OF JOINING SUCH A CLUB?”
Well, for one, the fact that you’re unfazed by his constant yelling and therefore probably too tired to be fazed by anything, consequently making you the perfect companion to Malleus because you wouldn’t react inappropriately to Malleus’ conduct
And that you actually are interested in gargoyles. That too. You tell all this to him
He clutches his head with one hand, debating your logic. You don’t know how and why but he accepts your argument
That doesn’t stop him from monitoring you two’s activities from afar but, again, you couldn’t care less. A sixteen year old’s fanatics is just part of the growing process
Outside of club activities, he interrogates you on what you’ve discussed with Malleus and you just tell him the truth: gargoyles
At some point, he gets so engrossed in your infodump about gargoyles his eyes shine with a new light
Of course, he mentions something about Malleus obviously liking something so interesting and befitting of his status - but he also thanks you for enlightening him on the topic and that he’ll go to you for more information if need be
You’ve converted him. You sometimes see him clutching a book about gargoyles around the school. It’s filled with notes sticking out of the pages. And a portion of that sometimes he’ll run to you to confirm about a fact or two
Maybe it’s safe to say you two are kind of friends now.
Silver
He doesn’t think too much of it other than being glad that Malleus finally has a fellow gargoyle fan he can geek out with
He’d see you and Malleus chatting it up around campus and he can’t stop the tender smile on his face from making an appearance
Sometimes he himself will try to strike up a conversation with you and gargoyle geek aside, he finds that you’re just a pleasant person to talk to and be around
He admits he’s not too close with any of the folks from Ignihyde aside for the Shroud brothers but you brush him off by saying that nobody is really
He also admires how you don’t really let anything get to you. Again, you shrug it off by half-joking that you’re too tired to be scared by anything at this point
He somewhat empathizes with you on that point, grieving over his narcoleptic tendencies with a heavy sigh
You try your best to cheer him up or if you have experience with such things, you give him advice on how to manage it
You then jest that he can tag along with you and Malleus’ club activities whenever he’s free if he wants. The more, the merrier, right?
He ponders it for a minute and nods. You didn’t think he’d actually accept the offer
“I don’t see a reason to refuse. Sebek and I have accompanied Malleus on his trips before. I’m sure this time around will be more fun with you here.”
And so you all do. You all have a royal time together - and the joy on Silver’s face is especially princely.
Lilia Vanrouge
He sheds (crocodile) tears at the thought of Malleus finally having an additional member in his one-man club more friends
Since you’re chill about it, he is too! As long as you get along with Malleus, everything will be fine and dandy
If anything, he’s a bit impressed by how it takes more than the average amount to gain a reaction out of you 
…and a bit concerned. Are you sure you’re getting enough nutrients? His paternal instincts kick in when you tell him you’re too tired to have a reaction to anything
He knows that Ignihyde students are mostly shut-ins but he still advises you and makes sure you get a balanced diet
It’s like he’s adopted yet another son
“Oh, (Y/N), you really ought to take care of yourself more.”
You grow a bit annoyed at him sometimes but you know his intentions are good so you don’t protest
You do feel very loved though. You didn’t expect this much from just joining a club for a topic you’re genuinely interested in
But you have to admit it is kind of hard to come by people who aren’t intimidated by the Malleus Draconia, even if you don’t see it as anything special
What’s special, though, is the affection Lilia holds for you.
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sindar-princeling · 1 month
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LOTR Newsletter 3 Shire Drift - FAQ
Hello everyone!
Just like last year: for those of you who are already familiar with The Lord of the Rings Newsletter, this serves as an announcement that I'm doing it again; and for those who aren't - an introduction to the project :)
What is LOTR Newsletter?
I'm one of the people who subscribed to Dracula Daily in May 2022, and immediately thought, "Hey, I can do this too but with XYZ!" - XYZ being The Lord of the Rings. Because the events of LOTR also have specific dates ascribed to them, we're gonna be reading LOTR as it happened.
When does it take place?
Because of the way the beginning of LOTR is structured (read: because I don't want to leave six-month-long breaks between the first entries), we're gonna start on September 15th - a week before September 22nd, when the main events start to take place. It's also the publishing date of the Silmarillion, but that's just a fun fact for my own enjoyment.
From September 15th to September 19th, we'll read the prologue, and the fragments preceding Frodo's departure from the Shire. From September 20th, we'll be reading according to the dates in the book until April 8th. Then we'll be reading last parts of the book - which are stretched over a long time - once a week, to once again avoid lengthy breaks in delivery.
The Newsletter will last from September 15th to May 26th.
Where do I go if I want to post/talk about something related to the Newsletter with other readers?
We discuss current (and not only current) entries in the #lotr newsletter tag, and we have a Discord server set by the amazing @k-she-rambles! (I really hope this time I managed to generate a link that never expires...)
How do I subscribe?
Since the original platform I was using (TinyLetter) was shut down halfway through the second year of the newsletter, I had to figure out an alternative way to execute this project.
For the lovely people who joined the last edition of the newsletter, just a short announcement - I weighed all the pros and cons and decided to continue carrying out the newsletter the way I did after TinyLetter shut down.
For the new folks, a lengthier explanation: check out this post if you want to learn the details, but long story short: I can't send the newsletter as e-mails anymore, so instead I decided to provide you with a ready copy of the entire thing. I prepared formatted copies of the whole newsletter - September 15th to May 26th - as an .odt file, as a .pdf file, and most importantly as an .epub file, because I assume most of you are reading on your phones (if you don't already have an .epub reader, I use FBReader, and everything worked fine on my phone). At the beginning you'll find the whole table of contents with hyperlinks, so the navigation inside the document should be easy!
The MEGA folder can be accessed right here, and it's available for everyone!
In the folder linked, you'll also find a calendar file made by @none-ofthisnonsense that you can download on your phone and import into your calendar app so that all days when we read are marked in your calendar!
If you want to receive notifications about when there is an entry to read, you can also follow @is-today-a-lotr-newsletter-day and turn on notifications! This is a blog created solely for notifying you all when we're reading a new fragment of the newsletter, so all notifications you'll get will be about new entries, and nothing more. The notifications are meant to be the equivalent of sending e-mails.
Anything else I should know?
Please don't rat me out to Tolkien Estate/j, and have fun reading!
(And as a PS.: Thank you very much if you join - or join again! Last year was very tumultuous because of all the changes in the format, and I know the new way is not for everyone - but introducing more changes again felt like once more creating new chaos, so I decided to stick to a solution that mostly worked. I hope you understand!)
See you on September 15th!
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theminecraftbee · 3 months
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the "how to write a rec post or masterpost" post
i promised this a few days ago, so here it is: my brief guide on how to pitch yourself or someone else on tumblr to other people in such a way that they might actually click on it! this is what i've found is the most effective way to format a set of fic recs or your own masterpost will typically be, at least to me. this is meant for when you're listing multiple fics in one post, typically intending to help a reader choose one they want to read!
the biggest thing to remember is a rec post or masterpost is a tool for a potential reader. therefore, you want to include the information they need in the easiest-to-read way possible.
first off: if you are trying to list or rec more than one fic, do not use the tumblr 'link' embed function. like, you CAN, but ao3 link embeds get ugly when you have more than about one of them. instead, do an in-line link, like this! this will make a longer post much easier to read.
next, with each link, include the following information: a brief summary (it doesn't have to be the same as the summary/pitch you used for ao3, and probably shouldn't be; instead, a one or two sentence description of what the fic is about is best), the fandom it's in, a sense of the fic's length, and rating. (note that you DON'T need to include all the tags and trigger warnings--if someone is intrigued enough to read it, they'll click on the link, and from there they will see the tags and trigger warnings. this should only be enough information to get someone interested.)
finally, ESPECIALLY if it's a rec post, include at least one sentence about why someone should read it. why are you recommending it? this is different from the summary; if a summary of the fic is "joe hills gets stuck in a time loop", the sentence about why someone should read it shouldn't be "haven't you ever wanted to see joe in a time loop?"
the point of rec posts--and indeed promoing on tumblr--is that people trust word of mouth more than they trust a random summary. so give them that word of mouth! if it's a rec post, say something like "it's a fic that made me cry", or "i never thought i'd laugh so much at a fic until i read this", or "the character-voices are on point", or "i stayed up all night reading this". if it's your own master post. include something like "this might be the fic i'm the most proud of", or "this one is great if you like joe hills and enjoy tragedy", or "this one was an experiment in style". something that is NOT just further summary of the fic, but instead describes a good reason to read it!
so, for example, an entry in my own hypothetical master post might look like this:
to convey a certain brilliance, hermitcraft, T, 21k. joe hills and zombiecleo slowly, and through many death loops, drag their way out of their collapsed base to try to survive after a lunar apocalypse. this is the second hermitcraft fic i ever wrote and i wrote it before we knew how moon's big would end, inspired by super hostile; people still tell me it has some of their favorite joe characterization.
and an entry in a hypothetical rec post i might write could look like this:
the sky weighs heavy tonight by mawofthemagnetar, hermitcraft, T, 79k. an ensemble fic in which a plane being flown by keralis and zedaph crashes, and in which the world is still recovering from the scars of a deadly war. i LOVE snake's writing, and this fic was basically designed to capture me specifically; it has cool worldbuilding, body horror, PLANES, a really cool aircraft investigation plot, one of the best-executed ensemble casts in the fandom, and a fun tone! it's a fairly easy read even given it's length, too; if you haven't read it, you absolutely should.
my only remaining recommendation is that if you're writing a LONG fic rec post or a LONG masterpost, you organize it by categories. these categories can be whatever is most useful for you--by relationship tag, by fandom, by ship or not ship, by genre, etc., it's mostly just to make scanning through the post a little easier.
and hopefully this is helpful for some folks out there! if people are interested i can also do one on "how to promo my individual fic", i also have observations and opinions on that.
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schrodinger-swriter · 8 months
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in whatever format is the easiest for this, can you do alastor with a deaf s/o plzzzz it would be so lovely
Alastor x Deaf!Reader
This blogs first request! My apologies if this is a little OOC or a little messy, I'm having a friend give me pointers on how to structure things until I grow accustomed to Tumblr; as well as this I believe Alastor may be one of the harder characters for me to capture.. but I'm still willing to try! I hope you enjoy C:
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I enjoy the idea that Alastor may already know some sign language, at least some of the more well known signs as well as a handful of others. I do think, however, he is more likely to work on his signing on his own rather than with you.. although, the idea of the two of you getting together away from prying eyes to have these little learning moments between the two of you is nice.. He makes sure your thoughts get put out, oftentimes projecting his voice loud enough to snap everyone's attention to you two. Especially if the pair of you are in the chaos that is the Hazbin Hotel. You both have lengthy conversations in sign, sometimes lasting for hours. You don't find many people who know sign language, let alone being fluent. Honestly, out of the cast I believe Charlie may be the only other character that would know sign.. but this post isn't about her. Alastor is rather open to letting you 'talk' his 'ear' off, his smile of course never faltering. However he is very graceful when letting you know that the conversation needs to be cut short.
He wouldn't ask why you're deaf, that's rude of course and Alastor isn't that intrusive.. at least not that bluntly.. Will likely (somewhat condescendingly.. is that the correct word?) scold anyone who dare try to treat you unfairly. After all you're his little friend and you get the perks that come with that.
Though... he does have a habit of startling you. He doesn't mean to sneak up on you, it's just that his footsteps are so light and don't really cause any...vibration? Shake? Something.. in the wooden floors of the Hotel. He does think it's amusing when you jolt, though.
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punkitt-is-here · 11 months
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Yknow i love fo4 and fo76 as games but hate them as Fallout games yknow?
Like theyre nice to play and i love some of the characters but man. They just. Are not Fallout. Its literally like if you took Fallout but made it for a general audience, theres no spice!! Theres no grime!! Why is everything so clean!!!
That's the thing; these games are built with inherently different base goals in mind. Bethesda in the modern day thrives off selling the idea of player empowerment, of being an explorer in a foreign land that you conquer through hard work. You shape the world to your liking by questing and exploring and conquering. And genuinely? I got no problem with that. I think games that gas the player up like crazy and set you loose on a world to make it your own are totally fine conceptually! Like, the fantasy of being able to shape the world the way you see fit is something I think a lot of people can get into, whether you're just looking for control in your life or you just want the experience of feeling like you can have some grand effect on the world at large.
But because of that, I think the core of what makes Fallout so interesting has to be put on the backburner. I don't play Fallout to feel powerful necessarily, and I certainly don't play it for the fuckin' gunplay. I play it because it has such a fun dedication to weird stories that feel like they have something to say, a staff of writers dedicating their time and effort to being a proto-DM at a table, trying to provide interesting and thought-provoking or at least real damn fun stories in front of you, because ultimately, the West Coast Fallout games are about people. They're about characters! And when you focus less on the idea of telling stories in a world and more on empowering the player as a fourth-wall observer, those priorities clash and in the East Coast Fallout's cases, it makes for a game with no spice or edge. Having something to say about, say, the US Military or American Expansionism and Exceptionalism or the nature of clinging to the past kind of fundamentally clashes with the player empowerment fantasy that Bethesda Fallout games want to sell you. You can't have these philosophy-based, morally-interesting factional conflicts that want the player to look inward when the very concept of your game is built around collecting loot and shooting guys instead of learning about that loot and learning about those guys you're shooting and why you're shooting at each other. Having radiant quest loot loop gameplay just doesn't mesh well with a world where choices are meant to have far-reaching impact, because if it did, it'd be impossible to program under a normal development timeframe, and it would likely make the player look inward and go "what the fuck am I doing with my time?" at the endless meaningless quests to go on.
I don't think the "Lone Wanderer Comes Across A Microcosm Of Adventure" format is bad, not at all, but you have to put a lot of work to make that feel cohesive with the larger character and faction-based narratives that 1, 2, and NV are built on, so instead those Bethesda-style games opt more for a toybox, playground approach to the post apocalypse. And when your primary goal is showing the player how cool of a sandcastle they can build, it'll never be structurally sound enough to sustain even a wave of nuance.
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pensat-i-fet · 4 months
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His very own real princess (Pedri x Reader)
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**I'm back with another imagine! This one was requested many moons ago and the anon who sent it might have forgotten about it so sorry 😕 but I got the inspiration for it and so I wanted to share it! I'm not so used to writing short format anymore so I feel everything could be a series. Let me know if you'd like this concept to be one! ☺️ And enjoy! ❤️**
Word count: 3675
Masterlist
Wattpad
Being famous was not as great as people made it up to be. For Pedri, it meant leaving the house was too much sometimes. He had to deal with people following him and even getting in front of his car just to get his attention. He was asked to sign autographs and to take photos every couple of minutes. While he loved his fans, it could be a bit much. Especially when he could tell they were filming him so they could post the video on TikTok for a couple hundred likes. So, one day, he tried to avoid those people by going to a park. He could probably lose them there. There were so many trees and dogs that made it harder to move quickly around the area.
For you, it had been a bit different. Growing up your family wanted to keep you a secret almost. For security reasons…or so they said. So, naturally, you wanted to rebel against them and do the complete opposite. Still, it wasn’t until you turned 18 that you started to show up at official events. And now you were 20, you realised maybe your parents had been right all along. But you weren’t going to tell them that. Of course. So while some paparazzi were chasing you, you spotted a park and thought you could hide there for a bit. Maybe even call your chauffeur so he could pick you up and save you from the vultures.
“Oh! Sorry”.
Pedri turned to look at the girl who was apologising to him. You had bumped into each other and he hit you in the head with his shoulder without meaning to. He hadn’t even seen you there.
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry. Are you alright?”
And then, it happened. You looked up to see his face and you couldn’t believe who it was that you were talking to.
“Oh my God…oh my God”, was all you could say.
“I take it you know who I am”.
“Yeah, who doesn’t?”
Pedri chuckled. “I guess there are some lucky folks out there who don’t. But really, are you ok?”
“Yes, it’s fine. Just more shocked to see you here than anything else”.
Pedri smiled at you and you were trying hard not to swoon. Being hidden from the public eye meant you hadn’t been around a lot of famous people before. Your second cousins were way more used to this and always told you famous people were just normal people. To them…not to you. To you, famous people were…fascinating.
“I was planning on hiding here for a bit”, you said.
“Me too, but I don’t want to ruin your plan so I could leave…”.
Pedri started to look around, getting ready to leave so you stopped him. “You don't know who I am so that makes you good company. Perfect company actually. So you can stay. Also, you got here first”.
“Should I know who you are?”
“I guess not”, you shrugged. Not everyone followed your family. Thankfully.
“Are you a singer?
“Babies cry when I sing”.
“Actress?”
“Nope”.
“Influencer”.
“I only influence how much money there is left in my dad's bank account”.
You thought it was really cute how he concentrated, trying to guess. “Then…a model?”
“No, but I appreciate the compliment”.
“What compliment?”
“If you think I could be a model, then you think I'm pretty”.
“Well”, he started. “I like to invite pretty girls to eat or have a drink so…which one is it going to be?”
“There is an ice cream ban there…if you dare approach it”.
It made you laugh how Pedri looked around the area, making sure no one who could know him was there and then he turned to look at you again.
“What flavour?”
“One ball of coffee and one of vanilla, please”.
“Sounds sophisticated”.
“I guess you’re getting closer to my identity”, you laughed.
“What are you? A princess?”
“Nah, the princesses are my cousins”.
Pedri laughed before going to the ban to get the ice cream. The funny thing about being part of the Royal family was that it was so weird that many thought you were joking when you said that. But you weren’t. Not many people knew your parents but they still were part of the family so…they got attention. And now, you got the attention too.
“Here is your ice cream, your Majesty”.
“Thank you, Golden boy”, you joked back.
“Does that make me royalty too?”
“I guess. Football royalty so less hated than real royalty”. “Less hated? You clearly aren’t on Twitter”.
No, you weren’t. No amount of therapy would heal you after reading what people wrote about you or your family there.
Sitting down on the grass and eating an ice cream while chatting with Pedri was something that healed your mood. It was so nice to be with someone who didn’t know who you were but that also understood how you felt. Even if he didn’t know it yet.
“There are a lot of kids and parents around now. I feel no one will even look at us while we leave”.
You looked around and agreed with his assessment. “Ok, where should we go?”
“I don’t know. Wanna go walk near the beach? It’s usually where I end up when I go out. It’s not often I do but it’s nice to go there”.
“I like the beach”.
“Where are you from?”
“Well…it’s a funny question that one”, you sighed.
“How so?” “I was born in The Netherlands, then lived in Madrid for a bit, went to school in Switzerland and Wales and now I’m back in Spain. I go to different cities all the time. I like travelling”.
“Wow, that’s a lot. Was it a boarding school you went to?”
“Yeah”.
“Maybe you are a princess after all”.
You giggled and looked down to hide your blush. Yes, your life sounded very much like that of a princess. Even if about 40 family members needed to die for you to become one for real.
“I love this”, you said, looking around and feeling so…normal.
“Yeah? That’s good”.
Pedri smiled at you and you realised maybe it wasn’t so normal what was going on. Sure, you were on a walk like a normal person but you were walking with a very famous footballer. That didn’t happen every day. At least not to you.
“And I see pizza there. Do you want a slice?”
“I probably shouldn’t…”.
“But Pedri! Today everything is possible! You’re not a football player but just Pedro from Tenerife. And I’m not a princess”.
“What are you then?”, he asked, smirking.
“I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy…asking him to get some pizza”.
The excitement of the crazy afternoon made you lose a bit of the control you usually had and you grabbed Pedri’s arm to take him to the pizza ban. It wasn’t like holding hands but…once the physical contact started, you were both very aware of it. But pretended it was all normal.
After buying the pizza slices, you didn’t wait a second to start eating. You were so hungry and it wasn’t often you got to eat greasy pizza with your hands.
“That burns!”, you complained, opening your mouth and using your hand as a fan.
“Maybe wait a little to eat”.
“I was hungry”, you pouted and that made Pedri stare at your lips.
“You got some sauce on your mouth”.
“I think I have a mirror on my bag…”.
But before you had time to find it, Pedri used one of his napkins to clean your face. When you looked up at him, you noticed he seemed to have done that without even realising.
“Sorry”.
“No, don’t be. Thank you for not letting me look dirty while we walked”.
“Princesses have to always look perfect”.
“Exactly”, you told him, laughing.
But good things had to come to an end and soon Pedri started to notice people looking at him. That meant it was time to go home.
“I’m sorry. It just…that’s my life”.
“I get it”, you told him, wanting to explain to him how much you actually got it. “It was fun to spend some time with you though”.
“Would you like to do it again?”
“I would. But maybe somewhere more private”.
“Do you have Instagram? So you can follow me and we can talk about meeting”.
That made you pause. You had an official account controlled by people hired by your family but also a private one. So maybe you could use that one to follow him.
“Yeah. I’ll follow you later and send you a message”.
“Cool. See you…soon?”
You nodded, not knowing what to do. Should you hug him? But then all the people ready to surround him showed you that no, a hug wouldn’t be a good idea. So you said goodbye and left.
Pedri was entering the dressing room a couple of days after you met, not really looking at his teammates but at his phone. You two had been texting ever since you separated. And he was constantly checking to see if you had sent him a new message.
“Hello, your Majesty”, said one of Pedri’s teammates and it took him a second to notice he was looking at him.
“Sorry?”
“I just said hi to your Majesty. Would you like us to find a throne for you to sit on?”
“What are you on about?”
“Haven't seen the cover of the magazine yet?”, asked Frenkie.
“I haven't done any covers lately…”.
“The gossip magazine”, pointed out Lamine. “It’s all everyone is talking about”.
“I don’t get it. I haven’t done anything to be in one of those magazines”.
“How about going out with a pretty girl the other day? Paparazzi are everywhere. You should know that by now”.
So people had seen him when he was hanging out with you. Great. You didn’t seem like someone who’d enjoy the attention. But why make such a big deal out of him being seen with someone unknown?
“You also chose the wrong girl to date”.
“I’m not dating her but she's just a normal girl…”.
“Who's related to the Royal family. And here we were worrying about Gavi being the one who could become king”.
“I would have made a great king”, said Gavi, raising his chin proudly.
“You would have made a terrible king”, told him Fermín, shaking his head.
“What do you mean Royal family?”
Pedri was about to start freaking out. You joked about being a princess but…was it not a joke? What? He knew the princesses! Leonor, Sofía, Victoria, …none of them were you. So what the heck was going on?
“She’s like a second or third cousin of the real princesses but the media has been trying to find out everything about her in the last few years”, explained Pau.
“How do you know so much about that?”
“My mum loves the Royals. I live with her and she talks about it”, shrugged the youngster.
The jokes continued but Pedri didn’t care. He just kept thinking about how you had lied to him. And he got it in a way. It couldn’t be easy to be in your position but…you had spent two days talking to each other about a lot of personal stuff. Didn’t you trust him enough to tell him the truth?
When he finished training and picked up his phone again, he saw a text from you saying “I’m sorry”. A part of him wanted to ignore it but you didn’t deserve that kind of treatment despite your lies. So he asked you to meet instead. But you were in Madrid for a couple of days so it’d have to wait. You apologized multiple times and Pedri told you it was ok but…you weren’t so sure.
“What’s wrong?”, asked your cousin Sofía, who was a real princess.
“You saw the magazines, right?”
“Yes. Wanna talk about it?”
“I…we bumped into each other randomly and it was so good to meet someone who didn’t know who I was. You get it, Sof. If someone gets it, it’ll be you”.
“I do. Is he mad at you for lying?”
“Not really”, you said, frowning. “I expected him to be but he seems to understand why I lied. He also gets it”.
“I bet he does. So, what are you going to do?”
“We’ll meet when I get back to Barcelona in a few days”.
Sofía laughed looking at you. “That smile…someone is smitten!”
“How could I not be? Have you seen him? And he’s super nice too, not just handsome. But I fear I’ve ruined it”.
“Don’t be so negative. Let’s just get ready for the match and forget about your Barça boy for a couple of hours”.
It wasn’t a secret that the king of Spain supported Atlético de Madrid and a lot of people suspected his daughter Sofía did as well. However, it was very hard for her to attend matches without people noticing but she had become a bit of a pro at it. And now she was taking you to the match too.
The match was fun and Atleti won so Sofía was very happy. And you didn’t get spotted by anyone…or so you thought.
“Pepi!”, called Ferran when Pedri was entering the dressing room in the morning.
“What?”
“Your princess is a traitor, she doesn't even support you”.
“What are you talking about?”
“She was at the Atleti match yesterday with Princess Sofía. But I bet you can turn her into a Barça fan”.
Ferran’s wink didn’t stop Pedri from feeling so weird about this whole situation. Or more like jealous. What if you had your eye on an Atleti player?
But he could only stare at the photos in the article. After your meeting, he had only the memory of how you looked that day. Your private Instagram only had a handful of photos and a few were of your dogs. The official Instagram only had a few official photos and…even though that was you too, it wasn’t the you Pedri knew. The girl in the photos from the Atleti match was you. Laughing with your cousin and looking so happy.
The article…he didn’t like as much. After the photos of what the press called “a date” were published, they just assumed you were seeing Pedri. So what were you doing watching a rival team? It wasn’t as if you went to see a Real Madrid match, God forbid. But still…shouldn’t you be supporting “your boyfriend”?
“Hi”.
A few days later, you were back in Barcelona and Pedri invited you to have lunch with him. Finding a place where no one would see you was hard, but your family knew a few tricks to achieve that.
“Hey. It’s good to see you again”.
This time, you did hug as a greeting. Even if you had spoken only via texts, it still felt like you knew each other so well now. So a hug seemed like the right thing to do.
“I’m sorry about everything that happened. I just…I don’t know, Pedri. Being with you made me forget who I was for a second and I didn’t think about how this could affect you”.
“It’s ok. You know I get it. It’s the same for me. My every move is overanalysed. Though I guess being a princess is a bit more important”.
“Not this again”, you shook your head, laughing. “I’m not a princess. I’m a nobody, really. But the press was waiting for a moment like this. A scandal or whatever”.
“Eating pizza in public is very scandalous. I don’t know how your reputation will recover”.
You laughed at Pedri’s joke but also remembered what you had been told. “It’s not so much what I did but who I did it with”.
“Oh…ok”.
When the photos were published, your parents talked to you about all the reasons why you should stay away from Pedri. Before you even had time to say nothing was going on…at least not yet.
“It’s stupid. I told you I’m a nobody. But family connections dictate this or that…I don’t want to date a politician or another royal just because it’s what I’m supposed to do. I don’t have it as bad as my cousins. You know, the real princesses. But still…it’s boring. I want to be able to make my own decisions”.
“You don’t want to date a politician…but would you like to date me?”
Being so annoyed with your family and their restrictions, you didn’t realise Pedri wasn’t stupid and could easily read between the lines.
“You’re better than a politician so…”.
“Look”, said Pedri, grabbing your hand to hold it. “No relationship was going to be easy for me. I knew that. So…this doesn’t scare me”.
“Really? I was actually worried it would”.
“I could see it in your face”.
“Can you read minds now? Is that how you know where to shoot the ball?”
“No, that’s because I’m a generational talent”, joked Pedri, making you laugh. “But I mean it. I’m not scared. Are you?”
“Not as much as I probably should”.
“But…are you an Atleti fan? These are the important conversations we need to have before trying to date”.
“That’s my cousin. I don’t really have a team. So I might let you convince me to become a Barça fan. I already support Spain so…”.
“Even against The Netherlands?”, he asked. Your mum was Dutch so it was a fair question.
“Only if you play for Spain that day”.
And so you both forgot about what people would say, what people would demand from each of you and started to date. There was no need to hide since there were photos of your first date online already. Even if back then you didn’t want to admit it was a date.
Being together compensated for any comments or insults…but Pedri was starting to get a bit tired of his teammates curtsying in front of him and calling him Majesty. They did it with you too, which only made you laugh.
“I told you, guys. I’m not a princess”.
“No. Not officially”, told you Pedri. “But you are my very own princess. My queen even”.
Your blush made everyone laughed. It was so obvious to everyone how in love you both were.
However, the media was going to try to find anything that could make it sound like your lovely love story wasn’t so lovely.
Something your family always had to do was attend charity events. It was probably one of the few things you liked doing, since many of those events raised money for great causes. So when you were invited to one to raise money for cancer research, you said yes immediately. It being organised by the Atlético de Madrid foundation didn’t matter to you. But for the press…it was a different story.
“Hi, it’s nice meeting you”.
You turned to see it was Álvaro Morata, the player who presided the event, saying hello to you.
“Thank you, it’s nice meeting you too”.
“I heard about you and Pedri…sorry if it’s too informal of me to say this”. “It’s ok, don’t worry”.
“So…you two are really together?”
“Yes”, you said, blushing.
“Good. He’s a good guy. I’ll see you around the Spain matches then”.
“You will”.
Other players were there too and you were introduced to all of them. Mario Hermoso, Marcos Llorente, …they were all very nice to you. But it was a younger player you had to sit next to at your table. One that you hadn’t met before but that introduced himself as Rodrigo Riquelme. However, that wasn’t what his teammates called him.
“Should I call you Rodrigo or Roro?”
“I feel I can’t ask someone of your station to call me such a nickname”.
You laughed seeing the Atleti player blushing. “I don’t mind. I’m not really that important”.
“You are the most important person here”.
“Depends on who you asked”, you shrugged.
It was lovely having someone young to chat with at such an event. You were usually surrounded by old politicians and entrepreneurs who bored you to death with their conversations. So you had a great time…Pedri didn’t have as much fun seeing all the posts on social media talking about how his girlfriend was being too friendly with another player.
He knew it was stupid. You were just chatting with Riquelme. Pedri knew you now and realised that was how you talked to his friends too. That was how you talked to Ferran, for example. It was nothing like how you talked to Pedri.
But still…it wasn’t nice to see so many people doubting your relationship. And, what was worse, insulting you.
“You look unhappy”, you said when you met him again in Barcelona. “Is it because of the articles? Nothing happened with Riquelme. I swear”.
“I know”, he sighed, wrapping his arms around your waist and kissing your forehead. “I just hate how people will try to find any excuse to try and hurt us”.
“We knew it was going to happen…”.
“It’s not nice anyway”.
“But we’re fine?”, you asked, worried.
“We’re fine. I missed you a lot”.
“I know. I missed you too”.
Knowing Pedri trusted you was so important and you felt you needed to prove you were worth that trust. So, even though you knew you were likely to get in trouble, you forgot about protocol and attended his match wearing his shirt.
It wasn’t even the most important match but when it ended, you went as close to the pitch as you could and called Pedri so he could go meet you. Every one of his teammates that walked past curtsied and called you two “your Majesties”. But you didn’t care. You looked around, noticing the cameras were all pointed at you, and kissed Pedri.
“Making sure everyone knows you’re just my princess?”, he whispered.
“Yes. And while we’re at it, everyone can also learn you’re my prince”.
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sunsents · 2 years
Text
Neteyam - Reacting to your death
Hey y'all, how y'all doing 😟? It's been a year since I published something but I am in my avatar era. I will post an announcement about where I've been, but enjoy(?) this heavy angsty.
Summary —> You're on your last breath, and Neteyam has a hard time accepting it.
Pairing: neteyamsully x !reader (no use of y/n)
Word count: 1024
Warnings: blood/angst/mentions of a g*n/sad neteyam
DON’T REPOST MY WORK
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Sharp pain was all you could feel when you jumped down the ship. It was that short moment of pushing Neteyam before you to minimize exposure that the realization hit you; you followed after him without thinking twice about the consequences, yet again.
Your ears rang in the otherwise silent ocean, like the water completely separated itself from the unnatural, unnecessary and foreign violence happening in the surface. A sigh of relief, contentment, serenity, until you're resurfucing again - or rather, struggling to.
"Fuck," you sputter, feeling a strange loss.
Lo'ak shouts after you to hurry up, but you can't, and it frustrates you. You hate falling behind, no matter how dire the injury is. "You sxkawng," gasping and trying to hold onto something, crimson surrounds you. "I'm shot."
Everyone stills.
Neteyam's head whips around with nothing but pure, unadulterated horror. His eyes fall on your pained face, then the bullet wound on your chest. You can see dark shadows casting over his face, the tremor of his hands, the slowing of his breath - all working together to keep his gears turning you assume. He quickly swims forward. "Quick, the Ilu."
You feel yourself being held around your body - suddenly, warmth feels like an unfamiliar concept. When had you become so cold to the outside world? When had you closed yourself off that warmth was foreign?
Though in odd, you fashion, you're not panicking. You're just lying there, gazing at the sky and letting chaos erupt around you. Sounds are muffled, and you don't know what's happening but you can only assume they're taking you to land.
The sky looks uncharacteristically blue - against all odds you've found yourself in. Eywa is in mourning.
Maybe it's because you cannot fathom that you, your own life, cannot end. You feared losing loved ones, but never feared nor thought about dying. It's not like you were immortal of course, one day you were going to leave the physical world and join the all mother amongst your family.
You just didn't think it would happen this soon. And you still think against it - you think against it when Mr Sully lays you down on cold rock, when he turns you over to inspect something, and when he looks at you with a faraway look.
"Dad," Neteyam chokes out.
Everything hurts and you start struggling to breath. Light headed, that's when you stop thinking  all together.
"Am I-" you gasp for air, surprised that you, out of all people, is struggling to speak. You were quite chatty, at least that's what they told you. "Am I, dying?"
"No!" yells Neteyam, he's cupping your head with his palm, not letting your head touch the cold surface. "You're not dying, ____!"
He's sobbing, and you look around the faces of the people you consider loved ones. Lo'ak is wide  eyed, staring at your probably paled face. He looks in utter agony and...confusion? Mr. Sully is crying, this is the first time you have seen him cry - be so vulnerable. He was Toruk Makto, so he'd always dismiss you with a nod, sometimes crack a joke here and there but stay stern all the while. He was clutching your hand, his own shaking. Kiri was just now arriving at the little land formation, and the look of her horror on her face brings tears to your eyes. You were dying - no. You were dead, it was final.
You try to calm your breathing, an obscene contrast to the gushing blood on your chest. You couldn't speak, but you could feel. And you were feeling the love of the people around you - and with the intensity of it, you deemed it a worthy way to go.
Neteyam however, was cluthing on your hand, hard. "You are not leaving me ____....Dad!" he sobs, a wretched sound breaking through his chest as he doubles over your body and shudders. "Do something!"
He's yelling, screeching even. His dad looks in anguish at his son's state, or perhaps because he feels utterly helpless at saving you.
"It's okay, Neteyam." you say softly, in a very wispy voice; "You're going to be okay."
You smile, and he screams, trashing and hugging your body to his chest. You try to push him away, but to no avail. Your limbs have fallen weak, you have already accepted the pain. "No!" he screams again, chest reverbeting against your deflating form.
"No, no, no, no!"
Mr Sully grabs ahold of his son and softly pulls him back, seperating him from you, "Son, please," his voice sounds broken.
Lo'ak is silent beside you, head held down, shuddering. Warm droplets are hitting your arm, and you can only guess it's tears. Kiri is on her knees, begging To Great Mother.
But you know it's final. And you don't feel too sad about it. You'd get to be with your parents, and Eywa, and all that. You'd be happy, you know you would be.
"____! No, I have to tell-" Neteyam gasps, trashing in his fathers hold. "I love you, I see you. Please,"
You're eyes have finally glazed over, you're gone.
You hadn't heard, and that only breaks Neteyam more. He screams in agony, clawing at your body, shaking you so, somehow, miraculously, you would open your eyes, tell him you love him and that you wan't to spend the rest of your life with him.
But there is no, "rest”. This was it for you, this was your life. When you had told him that you wanted to spend your life exploring Pandora, this was the extent. You would never have that, you will never be able to fulfill your dream because this day was the entirety of your future and present.
Neteyam is helpless. He had somehow escaped his fathers hold and was hugging your lifeless body close to his. Shrieks were ripping from his throat, desperately trying to transfer some sort of energy into your limbs. He could feel his mother's warmth surround him, a weak force pulling him back. "Please, don't. Let me hold her."
He sounded so broken, empty, purposeless that his mother and father break down as well.
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norristri · 2 months
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landoscar fic recommendation
this wld be a full ao3 fic recos :D anw message me if u want your fic to be removed here thnx
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that one from work can come over on monday night by higgsbosonblues 
tags: Alternate Universe - No Girlfriends/No Wives, Slow Burn, Canon Compliant, Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, Miscommunication, Coming Out
mclaren 2023 season canon compliant ; i really really love the getting to know part even though you know each other all through out the years hahaha this fic gives me the "all along there was some invisible string tying you to me?" :DD this was such a fan read to me as a new landoscar shipper that time <33
purring in my lap ('cause he loves me) by nyoomfruits
tags: cat!oscar, as in he shapeshifts into a cat lmao, Crack Treated Seriously, Mutual Pining, Idiots in Love, Miscommunication
oscat !! OSCAT !! OSCAT !! lando's "Over me? When the fuck were you even under me?" he's so so so funny and oblivious lmao and them being each other's comfort after a bad race :(( this was so adorable
#814 | Communication? The Kardigans | Long Gone | 4:18 by Anonymous
tags: Social Media, Implied/Referenced Sex, Lando I Don't Drink Norris Can't Hold His Alcohol Smh, Layout Is Entirely Social Media, Getting Together
i love LOVE social media format aus!!! so soo refreshing and creative the use of spotify playlist was GOLD and idk if it's a reference of gen z's and their spotify playlist for every situation but but!!!! i get it!! the name changes in every convo hahahaha they r so chaotic but at the same time so landoscar
from the start by tiredwishes
tags: modern setting, fluff, love confessions, getting together
this had me hooked so easily??? like i was just scrolling through the landoscar tag then i refreshed the page boom there's a new fic posted :DD the awkwardness, the ODDS!!!!!! i love how it has the dynamics of canon!landoscar :>> of them having the same people around them then boom they collided and the ending was perfect aaaaaa <33
for keeps by ipleadbritney
tags: spy au, fluff, light...angst? happy ending
read this after death and other lies bcos i can't move on LMAO took me a while to digest and it was honestly so good!! the humor was fantastic I DID NOT EXPECT EVERYTHING ABT LANDO landoscar
no proof, not much (but you saw enough) by ipleadbritney
tags: magical realism, pre-relationship, qatar GP '23
LOL THIS WAS SO FUN TO READ ??? lando's dramatic ass and him comparing themselves to BROCEDES ++ i like that it's magical realism but at the same time canon hehe :DD "He spent the majority of his junior years chasing after Lando Norris, a dream blisteringly quick and blinding in its brilliance." this line reminds me of, "Loving you is synonymous to breathing" :)
Death and Other Lies by finifugue
tags: spies & secret agents, mature, angst, hurt, comfort, happy ending
i love LOVE the world-building & everything!! prolly in my top 3 landoscar fics <33 the lando-charles siblings relationship had me SOBBING ;-;; “The things that we have lost were wonderful when we had them, do you not think? And that means they are not properly gone. And even if they are gone forever, that means that I can spend more time being sad in here, with you. And that is nice in its own way. We have not had a reason to go here for a long time, and it is more cramped than it was, but it is still good.” :) the twists, the turns, everything !!!!!! my friends were probably annoyed at me because i talked abt this fic ALOT lol i usually don't like spy aus bcos i don't like actions that much lmao but this??? THIS IS A MASTERPIECE sorry i cannot put how much i love this fic into words hashjdhasdjhsa BUT YOU GUYS SHLD READ THIS!!!!
scenes from a social media admin by ipleadbritney tags: social media admin!lando, driver!oscar, social media au, getting together
ipleadbritney your existence in this fandom is EVERYTHING !!!! lando's list of things.... lando's list of things he finds hot :>> this fic made me smile the whole day, hehehe :))
sink your teeth into me by nyoomfruits tags: vampire!oscar, werewolf!lando, soulmates, racing drivers
LANDO was so fcking oblivious *face palms* the travel coffin was my fave part hehe ok oscar is so vampire coded dhsjadhajshdas “Lando’s own driver’s room is right across the hall, stocked with his own hoodies and sweatpants, but those don’t smell like lemon and home, so he wisely keeps quiet and accepts the ones Oscar gives him.” :)) :)) I LOVE THEM maxiel tolerating lando's dumb ass HWJHAJS SO ENTERTAINING
note: will be updated !!!!!
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