#Save Ms Excel

[andifthestarsweretodie]

I am still in the trenches...

[ew-selfish-art]

DpxDc AU: Justice League requires all of its youngest members to list at least one adult emergency contact in case something happens out in the field- And Lancer did tell Danny to put his number down if he needed help!

Lancer wanted to call CPS, wanted to call them for years, but something was wrong with his beloved town and the government agents that came were always… ill mannered. To say the least. So with the young Mr.Fenton appearing wounded in his class on multiple occasions, sleeping through lectures even more often, Lancer felt himself gradually accept that no other adult was going to step up to protect this child.

He figures out his Identity as Phantom and it makes his rage boil hotter than Dante’s sixth layer of hell. Danny refuses to abandon his parents (who continue to hunt him unknowingly), and he refuses to let any of his ghostly responsibilities fall wayside (this CW fellow is a real piece of work!).

But for all the things he expected when he told Danny that he could be trusted and could help- Ms. Manson and Mr.Foley coming to him for help, patching wounds, offering snacks and covering for Danny when attacks occurred in class- he hadn’t expected the Justice League to be knocking on his door.

Lancer blinked at the appearance of Batman in his classroom after the final bell, but then his stomach dropped.

TELLTALE HEART THATS THE BATMAN!!

“Phantom listed you as his emergency contact. Have you had any recent communication with him?” The deep, gravel voice startled Lancer.

Lancer checks his phone, Danny had skipped class today; and while Lancer was working with Danny to get him after school lessons and tutoring for all of the hours he missed, it was uncommon for him not to respond at Lancer’s text asking for a confirmation of his safety.

“Not in 24 hours, but I can message him again.” Lancer is shaking as he types on his phone to team phantom-Who wouldn’t be nervous at both the implications of Danny’s safety and the Batman??

Superman flies into the room from the open doorway, “No luck, without a heartbeat I can’t find him. Where ever they have him it’s lead lined or he’s keeping himself invisible.”

SCARLET LETTER ITS SUPERMAN!?!

Danny doesn’t reply to Lancer, and neither do Danny’s friends.

“He has two team members with whom he is inseparable, if none of them are responding then all three have been accosted. I’m coming with you until we find them.” Lancer declares and while he’s sure that Batman is unimpressed, Superman gives him a sad smile and nods.

Thus Lancer joins the Justice League for a day, Helps to save Team Phantom and Informs the takedown of an illegal government agency.

Batman also slides him some adoption papers and a card for a lawyer if Lancer decides to formally adopt Danny. Lancer also wins a Wayne Excellence Award for Teaching that year but he’s pretty sure the money is unrelated to Danny’s alter ego- after all, Lancer is a fantastic teacher.

[suzisunday99]

MS Word switches and F9

Using number switch to display pecentages in word Merge docs

ALT+F9 expands all field code brackets in the document

F9 updates fields - updates all fields in current selection

SHIFT+F9 toggles field brackets; for nested brackets (such as example below), click inside the nested value and hit SHIFT+ F9 a second time to toggle nested field codes.

Use CTRL + F9 to manually add field brackets and type:

{=100*{MERGEFIELD your_field_name}\# #0%}

Control granularity of display:

#0% displays 6%

#0.0% displays 5.9%

#0.00% displays 5.878%

Etc.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

An adversarial iMessage client for Android

Adversarial interoperability is one of the most reliable ways to protect tech users from predatory corporations: that's when a technologist reverse-engineers an existing product to reconfigure or mod it (interoperability) in ways its users like, but which its manufacturer objects to (adversarial):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

"Adversarial interop" is a mouthful, so at EFF, we coined the term "competitive compatibility," or comcom, which is a lot easier to say and to spell.

Scratch any tech success and you'll find a comcom story. After all, when a company turns its screws on its users, it's good business to offer an aftermarket mod that loosens them again. HP's $10,000/gallon inkjet ink is like a bat-signal for third-party ink companies. When Mercedes announces that it's going to sell you access to your car's accelerator pedal as a subscription service, that's like an engraved invitation to clever independent mechanics who'll charge you a single fee to permanently unlock that "feature":

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/05/carmakers-push-forward-with-plans-to-make-basic-features-subscription-services-despite-widespread-backlash/

Comcom saved giant tech companies like Apple. Microsoft tried to kill the Mac by rolling out a truly cursèd version of MS Office for MacOS. Mac users (5% of the market) who tried to send Word, Excel or Powerpoint files to Windows users (95% of the market) were stymied: their files wouldn't open, or they'd go corrupt. Tech managers like me started throwing the graphic designer's Mac and replacing it with a Windows box with a big graphics card and Windows versions of Adobe's tools.

Comcom saved Apple's bacon. Apple reverse-engineered MS's flagship software suite and made a comcom version, iWork, whose Pages, Numbers and Keynote could flawlessly read and write MS's Word, Excel and Powerpoint files:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

It's tempting to think of iWork as benefiting Apple users, and certainly the people who installed and used it benefited from it. But Windows users also benefited from iWork. The existence of iWork meant that Windows users could seamlessly collaborate on and share files with their Mac colleagues. IWork didn't just add a new feature to the Mac ("read and write files that originated with Windows users") – it also added a feature to Windows: "collaborate with Mac users."

Every pirate wants to be an admiral. Though comcom rescued Apple from a monopolist's sneaky attempt to drive it out of business, Apple – now a three trillion dollar company – has repeatedly attacked comcom when it was applied to Apple's products. When Apple did comcom, that was progress. When someone does comcom to Apple, that's piracy.

Apple has many tools at its disposal that Microsoft lacked in the early 2000s. Radical new interpretations of existing copyright, contract, patent and trademark law allows Apple – and other tech giants – to threaten rivals who engage in comcom with both criminal and civil penalties. That's right, you can go to prison for comcom these days. No wonder Jay Freeman calls this "felony contempt of business model":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Take iMessage, Apple's end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) instant messaging tool. Apple customers can use iMessage to send each other private messages that can't be read or altered by third parties – not cops, not crooks, not even Apple. That's important, because when private messaging systems get hacked, bad things happen:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_celebrity_nude_photo_leak

But Apple has steadfastly refused to offer an iMessage app for non-Apple systems. If you're an Apple customer holding a sensitive discussion with an Android user, Apple refuses to offer you a tool to maintain your privacy. Those messages are sent "in the clear," over the 38-year-old SMS protocol, which is trivial to spy on and disrupt.

Apple sacrifices its users' security and integrity in the hopes that they will put pressure on their friends to move into Apple's walled garden. As CEO Tim Cook told a reporter: if you want to have secure communications with your mother, buy her an iPhone:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tim-cook-says-buy-mom-210347694.html

Last September, a 16-year old high school student calling himself JJTech published a technical teardown of iMessage, showing how any device could send and receive encrypted messages with iMessage users, even without an Apple ID:

https://jjtech.dev/reverse-engineering/imessage-explained/

JJTech even published code to do this, in an open source library called Pypush:

https://github.com/JJTech0130/pypush

In the weeks since, Beeper has been working to productize JJTech's code, and this week, they announced Beeper Mini, an Android-based iMessage client that is end-to-end encrypted:

https://beeper.notion.site/How-Beeper-Mini-Works-966cb11019f8444f90baa314d2f43a54

Beeper is known for a multiprotocol chat client built on Matrix, allowing you to manage several kinds of chat from a single app. These multiprotocol chats have been around forever. Indeed, iMessage started out as one – when it was called "iChat," it supported Google Talk and Jabber, another multiprotocol tool. Other tools like Pidgin have kept the flame alive for decades, and have millions of devoted users:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/tower-babel-how-public-interest-internet-trying-save-messaging-and-banish-big

But iMessage support has remained elusive. Last month, Nothing launched Sunchoice, a disastrous attempt to bring iMessage to Android, which used Macs in a data-center to intercept and forward messages to Android users, breaking E2EE and introducing massive surveillance risks:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/21/23970740/sunbird-imessage-app-shut-down-privacy-nothing-chats-phone-2

Beeper Mini does not have these defects. The system encrypts and decrypts messages on the Android device itself, and directly communicates with Apple's servers. It gathers some telemetry for debugging, and this can be turned off in preferences. It sends a single SMS to Apple's servers during setup, which changes your device's bubble from green to blue, so that Apple users now correctly see your device as a secure endpoint for iMessage communications.

Beeper Mini is now available in Google Play:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.beeper.ima&hl=en_US

Now, this is a high-stakes business. Apple has a long history of threatening companies like Beeper over conduct like this. And Google has a long history deferring to those threats – as it did with OG App, a superior third-party Instagram app that it summarily yanked after Meta complained:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/battery-vampire/#drained

But while iMessage for Android is good for Android users, it's also very good for Apple customers, who can now get the privacy and security guarantees of iMessage for all their contacts, not just the ones who bought the same kind of phone as they did. The stakes for communications breaches have never been higher, and antitrust scrutiny on Big Tech companies has never been so intense.

Apple recently announced that it would add RCS support to iOS devices (RCS is a secure successor to SMS):

https://9to5mac.com/2023/11/16/apple-rcs-coming-to-iphone/

Early word from developers suggests that this support will have all kinds of boobytraps. That's par for the course with Apple, who love to announce splashy reversals of their worst policies – like their opposition to right to repair – while finding sneaky ways to go on abusing its customers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

The ball is in Apple's court, and, to a lesser extent, in Google's. As part of the mobile duopoly, Google has joined with Apple in facilitating the removal of comcom tools from its app store. But Google has also spent millions on an ad campaign shaming Apple for exposing its users to privacy risks when talking to Android users:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/21/23883609/google-rcs-message-apple-iphone-ipager-ad

While we all wait for the other shoe to drop, Android users can get set up on Beeper Mini, and technologists can kick the tires on its code libraries and privacy guarantees.

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/2023/12/07/blue-bubbles-for-all/#never-underestimate-the-determination-of-a-kid-who-is-time-rich-and-cash-poor

[alowkeyclown]

wondering what to do in a situation where someone(/thing) informs you about how trapped, violent, resentful and angry they feel and oh yes they revel in sadism by the way? excellent news because local OAIR worker Gwendolyn Bouchard (who just got promoted btw) is here to offer you her professional advice ! which is as follows: call them an idiot as soon as the opportunity presents itself and attempt to bully them into signing some kind of eldritch horror control contract !

(warning: if you have even a nascent sense of self preservation kill it with fire at your earliest convenience as this will prevent you from accessing the full benefit of Ms Bouchard's life saving advice !)

[athina-blaine]

kb/ms is truly transcendental yaoi, spectacular, amazing, 10/10, no notes ... from the perspective of a mithrun enjoyer

as a kabru enjoyer, however...

I'll start off by saying that of course Kabru doesn't want or need a romantic relationship to be fulfilled, especially not with a white man, none of them do, it's all non-canon, Dungeon Meshi isn't about romance or shipping, yes yes yes, but none of us are here for that right now!! We're here to fruitlessly argue why my blorbos kissing makes more sense than your blorbos kissing!! You know it, I know it, none of us are free of cringe!! Clown on clown violence!!

That being said ... 🤡

I just don't see what Kabru gets out of kb/ms. With Mithrun, it makes sense; Kabru has a huge impact on him and ultimately helps him reaffirm his will to live. That's very exquisite drama and excellent character writing. But with Kabru, I just don't feel that Mithrun's character interacts with his personal flaws and would instigate his growth anywhere close to the same degree. I have to imagine most fics involving them focus more on Mithrun's baggage and how Kabru helps him heal from that ... because that's mostly all that happens between them in the main story, lol!

And like, that makes sense, because ultimately chapters 61-62 aren't about Kabru and Mithrun; they're about Kabru working through his conflicted feelings in helping Laios conquer the dungeon. I think it's ironic seeing people complain about kb/ms having Kabru be Mithrun's accessory when, if anything, Mithrun's main narrative purpose, outside of illustrating the danger of the Winged Lion, is to serve as Kabru's obstacle. I'd even argue Mithrun represents Kabru's personal bad ending; Mithrun wants him to kill Laios and surrender the dungeon to the canaries, preventing the short-lived races from ever understanding how dungeons function and returning to the status quo that had gotten Utaya destroyed. It's only when Laios practically forces Kabru, straight up puts his thumbs to the screws, to work past his reticence and be emotionally vulnerable that Kabru finally puts himself on the right path to achieve his goals (it's, uh, still a bit of a bumpy ride, but they get there in the end, lol!). If he'd been this way with Laios from the beginning, he might have understood Laios' intentions from the start and saved himself a lot of pain, but it's only because of Laios' influence that Kabru is able to grow as a character and get his happy ending.

(And even if one were a Mithrun enjoyer, ultimately the main source of Mithrun's life affirmation comes from the canaries. In that final scene, Kabru gets the ball rolling because he's outside of the canary hierarchy, but the scene ends with Mithrun being embraced by the canaries and as far as I'm aware the two don't interact with or reference each other post canon at all. Hell, it's Senshi who really drives the point home. Not that it matters when we're all wearing shipping goggles here, but it felt remiss not to mention it.)

At most, I can see how taking care of Mithrun would force Kabru to reexamine how poorly he takes care of his own body and that could make for some good drama. But even then, that change is ultimately instigated by Laios' influence on him, an extension of how Kabru wants to understand how Laios can see the value in monsters in an attempt to better understand his own trauma. If a person were to get into Dungeon Meshi specifically for Kabru and wanted to ship him with someone in a way that's most interesting for him, I'd be hard-pressed to argue there's a better choice than Laios (although who'd be cringe enough to do something like that haha right guys ... [sweating])

(Side note, though, I really don't vibe with the argument that kb/ms "reduces Kabru to a caretaker role" and that's why it's bad. There's plenty of instances where Kabru shoulders his friends' burdens (helps Kuro learn common tongue, listens to Daya's fiance about his relationship troubles, etc) and, more importantly, is seemingly happy to do so. I think Kabru genuinely enjoys looking after his friends and in the story seems to find plenty of personal satisfaction getting Mithrun to eat. I understand it has the potential to be more troubling considering Kabru is a brown man and Mithrun is a white man, but idk, it just feels on the same level as people trying to discount labru by saying Laios wouldn't take enough of an interest in people to want to start a romantic relationship, when his whole thing is that he does want to connect with people and just feels like he can't. It's not a bone I feel like picking, haha)

I honesty don't mind characters being "mischaracterized" in fandom or fic even to a large degree, I know it bugs a lot of people but I respect that ultimately fandom is little more than picking up the vague outline of a doll and playing with it and mashing their faces together. Besides, if I'm really worked up about it I can just write a fic and set the record straight myself, haha. This post is merely inspired by the supremely annoying subsection of twitter that acts like labru is the ship where it's just two dudes sitting in a room together. I'm just saying, Kabru ends the series whispering into the ear of another man as his day job and it's not Mithrun lmao

[pyroclastic727]

The Marvels is being scathed by critics, and that's a good thing.

I finally saw The Marvels today. I'm a bit late to the party, so all I saw about the movie was the teaser at the end of Ms Marvel, and way too many critical reviews of it.

Now, obviously on Tumblr you find the good reviews, like, the cats outnumbering the white men and how Kamala Khan is, like, basically all of us. But in person, I've had someone tell me that it's bad because Rotten Tomatoes rates it 43%, which-- besides wondering why anyone would listen to Rotten Tomatoes, I'd have to wonder why the website would give it such a low rating. The easy answer is that the Tomatoes review committee is populated by white men, who, upon having no one to relate to, react badly to the movie. But I think there's more to it.

The Marvels is a revolution. Through its character-driven writing and brazen exploration of morality, it rewrites the superhero formula completely, by questioning what exactly it means to be a superhero.

The Marvels was directed by Nia DaCosta, an award-winning Harlem native and creative visionary whose approach to this film was to define these characters as humans, not as superheroes. Her approach to heroism directly addresses that the idea that a hero is not always right. A hero, DaCosta claims, is "someone who's trying their best with the information and tools they have at the time. They'll always get it wrong." Carol Danvers's arc directly addresses this, as the resolution of her subplot involves her re-igniting the sun that she snuffed out. Her heroic act is to undo the damage that she wrought.

When compared to old Marvel, this message just doesn't come through. In WandaVision, Wanda's grief is for a family that was killed by the Avengers. Yet, she is painted as a villain, even as she searches for a happy home, even as she at one point joins the Avengers. The Avengers cannot undo what they did, and don't really try. They defeat the big bad, sacrifice their lives, but nothing brings back Wanda's family. Nothing undoes that war. No one searches for Wanda after the event, to try to help her with her grief, except for Monica, and she's working against orders. Their heroics are militant, but while they excel at destruction, they leave the people they hurt in the dust.

This antiheroic plot of old Marvel is precisely what appealed to so many American audiences. Their protagonists are: a rich corporation, a super-soldier, a privileged teenager, a scientist who makes weapons, an ex-convict, a man born into godlike power, and I'm sure there are others but I don't actually care that much... (these would be iron man, captain america, peter parker spiderman, hulk, antman, thor, and etc). All these archetypes appeal to American ideals that the wealthy would sympathize with. They claim that there are people who are inherently bad and seek the power that they have, in the way that a poor person might want a job that a wealthy person wants their child to secure. They claim that it is their business to save those which cannot save themselves, and use this to get involved in wars that are not theirs, and beat up badguys whose backstory they have no way of knowing-- and they punch before they stop and listen.

They are cops in every sense of the word. The responsibility of the vigilante is to defend against evil, but part of that responsibility is to figure out who exactly is evil and who is in need of help.

The Marvels creates a team that tries to distinguish evil from good, and delves into the grey area between them. The final battle between Carol Danvers and Dar-benn has the superhero pinning the grey-haired antagonist to the ground as she begs for, then demands, that Carol fix what she damaged. Monica urges her to listen. Through this, The Marvels argues that a hero does not always beat up the bad guy and fight against unrelenting evil, but that a hero can be wrong, and that a hero can reconsider. It's kindness in the way that is revolutionary, where it's much easier to choose cruelty.

The fact that the movie is getting torn apart by critics, then, is not just because it is a "girls movie" or it doesn't have a strong white man for the white male viewer to sympathize with. The Marvels cannot appeal to Marvel fans because it rewrites the genre itself. It takes a film series whose purpose was to depict the struggles of cops, of the wealthy, of people with too much power who are trying to learn how to responsibly wield it, but don't. And it gives that power to people who have watched superheroes try and fail, who are slowly learning to be better heroes than the ones before them.

The next generation is a critique of the last, a group trying not to make the mistakes of the chosen ones that came before them, and as such, the movie exists to critique the movies that came before it. Therefore, a viewer of Marvel who would positively review it, due to sympathizing with the previous heroes and enjoying the power fantasy, would dislike it out of its existence being critical and contradictory to the films they like themselves.

The Marvels is not for Marvel fans-- at least, not those who saw the Avengers as purely heroes. Instead, the film reaches out to people who would have been against the old Avengers, who want a story that dismantles the unquestioned idealism of superheroes and writes about people trying to protect their communities and the people they care about.

So, let the critics complain. The MCU is shedding its roots as a pro-cop and pro-colonialism power fantasy, and evolving into an exploration of what it means to be a true hero.

[morgana-larkin]

Alright, got another idea for a fic. I was writing worth it but then got this in my head and just had to write it. I’ve seen a lot of ideas for Melissa x reader but never saw one where it’s age difference but in reverse. Where reader is older than Melissa. Summary: Melissa starts college to become a teacher and ends up falling for one of her teachers. Not edited in the slightest and I hope you like it!

On another note: I’m almost done part 10 of Worth It and starting writing the next part of mine.

Wanna Kiss The Teacher

Warnings: Smut, bottom Mel, top reader, reader is older than Melissa, lot of fluff

Words: 3.2k

Melissa was determined to become a teacher. If she couldn’t be a firefighter due to her being a woman, then she’ll be a teacher.

It’s her first day at college and she couldn’t be more excited. While she went to the south Philly college and could stay at home, she chose to get a dorm room on campus since there’s 8 siblings at home and would need quietness for studying.

She walks down the hall on her way to her first class, English Major. She steps into the classroom and finds a seat at the front.

You’re about to start a new year as the English major teacher for the first years. You’re already at your desk at the front of the class, making sure your lesson plan is good. The clock strikes 8:30 and class begins. You get up and go to the chalkboard to write your name on it.

“Alright first years, welcome to your first class of your first year. I’ll be your professor Ms. Y/l/n.” You tell them and then turn around.

Melissa’s smile drops as soon as she sees you, she thinks you look stunning. You’re wearing a white blouse that’s tucked into black jeans that have a bit of flare at the bottom and your hair in a ponytail with some stray hairs at the front on your face.

Alright I’m just going to be taking attendance. While I do that, I suggest getting some paper and pencils ready as I’ll be starting immediately after.” You tell them and you see them all move to their bags. You go through the list of names and then you get to one that you’ll never forget. “Melissa Schemmenti?” You call out and Melissa raises her hand. You look up and do a double take, you think she looks beautiful. Her ginger bangs framing her face just right while the rest of it flows down her body like an orange river. Her black plain shirt that shows off just the right amount of cleavage. And her smile, her smile that can light up all of Philly. You process this all in a second and you go on to the next name on the list.

You then start class and you sometimes can’t help but look over at her. When you ask a question, you look at her first to see if her hand is raised. Most of the time it isn’t. When you first heard her speak, her voice is so confident yet smooth. After class she comes up to your desk.

“Ms. Y/l/n?” She asks you and you look up at her.

“Yes Melissa?” You ask her.

“I was wondering why you kept looking at me when you were teaching?” She asks and you freeze, of course she noticed.

“Well I sometimes can tell when people will make great teachers, and I think you will.” You tell her. Not a total lie, you actually do think she’ll make an excellent teacher. “You know what you’re talking about when you answer a question and you go with the flow. That’s important in this field.” You say and you look at her smiling at you and you suck in a breath quietly.

“Thank you Ms. Y/l/n.” She says and you can’t help but smile at her sweet voice. “I actually wanted to be a firefighter like most of my family but they rejected me due to being a girl so the next thing was being a teacher.” She says and you tilt your head.

“One day I’m sure they’ll accept women in that field. But sometimes I think things happen for a reason and I believe you didn’t get accepted as a firefighter because you’re meant to be a teacher. And who knows, you might save a life when you’re one. Teachers can be heroes too.” You tell her and her smile gets bigger at that.

“Thank you.” She says and she leaves after that.

2 months passes by quickly and you start getting to know her more. You have no idea why but she seems to take an interest in talking to you as much as you do with her. Everyday after class or if you run into each other in the halls or somewhere else then you two stop and talk.

You found out that she’s the oldest of 9 children, 6 daughters and 3 sons. The second oldest is her sister Kristen Marie who is wanting to be a teacher too and is coming next year. She lives on campus even though her family lives half an hour away, she has a big Italian family and her Nonna taught her and her siblings to cook.

She learned that you have 2 siblings, an older sister and brother. You have a dog at home and you live by the campus in one of the townhouses. Also that you have been a teacher for 5 years and that you’re 29 years old.

You can’t deny that your attraction to her grew instead of going away like you thought it would. You can’t do anything about it though, she’s your student and she probably wouldn’t be interested in being with her teacher anyway. It’s not against the law to be with a student but it’s considered unprofessional.

Melissa on the other hand loved getting to know about you. She loved that you didn’t seem to mind talking to her at any chance she got. She finally got the courage to ask to meet your dog, stating she loves meeting dogs and you accepted. You met her at her dorm room and knocked. She opened the door after a few seconds with a smile.

“Ready to go?” You asked her and she nodded and walked out then closed the door behind her. You two walked and talked to each other on the way to your car. You don’t know why you accepted for her to meet your dog Max. You like her and she seemed to take an unusual interest in you.

You got in your car and drove the 3 minutes to your house. You both got out of the car and you went into your place where Max was at the door like he always is when he hears you coming. You bent down to pick him up as he was 15 pounds and turned him to meet Melissa.

“Max, this is Melissa. Melissa this is Max, my little doodle.” You say and pet his head with your free hand.

Melissa stuck her hand out for Max to sniff and after a few sniffs, he deemed her acceptable and jumped out of your hands and ran to her wagging his tail.

“Hi Max.” Melissa said in a higher pitched voice that you assumed was her dog voice. Everyone has one. She started petting Max and he seemed to keep wagging his little tail and started licking and wanting to play with her.

Melissa went on the ground, on her knees and started playing with him. You heard her keep giggling and you thought it was the cutest scene you’ve ever seen and she has the cutest giggle you ever heard.

“Do you want anything to drink? I have water, milk, apple juice.” You suggest and she looked up at you.

“Actually some water would be really nice, please.” She says and you nod your head and go to the kitchen.

When you come out a minute later, you see Melissa running around with Max running after her. She has a huge smile on her face and his tail won’t stop wagging.

“No wonder he likes you, you’re as crazy as he is.” You tell her with a smile and then hand her the cup of water.

She accepts it with a thank you then takes a sip. You can’t help but look at her lips when she does. The way she places it on the cup and her mouth is a bit open to let the water in. You look down at her neck when she swallows and entranced by the way it moves. You look away when she’s done her sip, hoping she didn’t catch you staring at her.

She did catch you staring and with a wave of confidence, she puts the glass down, grabs your shirt and pulls you to her lips.

You pull back after your brain catches up with the situation and you look at her like a deer in the headlights.

“Melissa, why did you just kiss me?” You ask her shocked. When you ask that, all her confidence she got vanished and she got really nervous.

“Be-because I like you and I- I had a-a feeling that you liked me back. I- I’m sorry, I read the situation wrong.” She stuttered a bit and you grabbed her wrist when she started backing away.

“Melissa, you didn’t read the situation wrong. I do like you, and I’m honestly surprised you like me. But I’m your teacher.” You tell her and she blushes.

“You really do like me?” She asks and you nod. She goes to kiss you again but you stop her with a hand on her chest.

“Melissa, I’m your teacher, we can’t.” You tell her and she pouts.

“It’s not illegal, I’m 18.”

“You’re right, it’s not illegal but we shouldn’t as it’s considered unprofessional. And also, same sex relationships aren’t fully accepted yet.” You tell her and she looks down. You hold her hands and she looks up at you and into your eyes. “You’re beautiful, kind and wonderful and I’m certain that you’ll find someone, someone who isn’t your teacher.” You tell her and she looks at you with determination.

“Why can’t the person be you? I don’t care if you’re my teacher. I like you and I want to be with you.” She tells you, not backing down. Suddenly Max jumps at Melissa from behind and she stumbles forward, into you. You catch her and she feels amazing in your arms. She lifts a hand up and moves a lock of your hair out of your face and you look at her stunned.

You suddenly feel like you can’t deny her anymore, you lean forward and kiss her. You move your hand to the back of her head and she moves her hand to your neck. You pull back and lean your forehead on hers, both of you breathing heavy.

“I really shouldn’t be doing this.” You tell her and she smiles at you.

“You shouldn’t, but you want too.” She replies back with and you chuckle.

“I really do want you.” You tell her and she pulls back to look at your face.

“Then take me, take me right now.” She suddenly says and you quirk an eyebrow at her.

“Melissa, we shouldn’t be doing that. I mean I just found out you like me back literally 5 minutes ago.” You tell her and she leans forward.

“But haven’t you wanted me for longer than 5 minutes?” She says and starts kissing your neck. You tilt your head to the opposite side to give her more access and you hum.

“Oh god, yes I have. Since day 1 I thought you were so beautiful.” You admit to her and you feel her smile on your neck.

She pulls back a bit. “So then take me, please. I’ve wanted you since day 1 as well. I don’t want to wait any longer.” She tells you and you look at her.

“Are you a virgin?” You ask her and she looks down for a second then looks back up at you and nods.

“Is that a problem?” She asks you and you groan.

“Melissa, I-I-” you start to say but then gets cut off as she starts sucking on your neck and you moan. “Melissa, you’re first- first time, should be with someone special.” You tell her and she pulls back and looks at you.

“All the other people that I’ve had interest in, I didn’t want to have sex with them, but I want to have sex with you.” She tells you and places her hands under your shirt, on your hip.

She starts to inch her hands up, slowly asking for permission to take it off and kisses you passionately. “Fuck it.” You say as you pulled back and took your shirt off. You then surge forward and kiss her hard, causing her to walk backwards until she hits a wall. You press her up against the wall and trail down her neck. She gasp underneath you when you start sucking on her neck.

You place your hands at the hem of her shirt, pull back and look at her.

“Are you 100% certain about this. If we continue then I won’t want to stop. Well I will if you tell me to at any point but-” she cuts you off with a kiss.

“I’m certain, I want you.” She tells you and you pull her shirt off. She unclips her bra and lets it fall to the ground. When you see her chest bare before you, you almost couldn’t believe it. They were magnificent and you lick your lips. You look at her and she nods, giving you permission to touch them all you want.

Instead you pick her up bridal style and she yelps due to the shock. You bring her to your room and put her down gently on your bed. You climb on top of her and kiss her and put your hands on both her breasts and squeeze a little bit. She moans under you and starts squirming when you put your mouth on a nipple. You put your body on hers when she won’t stop squirming and you can feel her trying to move still. If it wasn’t her first time then you’d tell her to stop squirming, but for her to actually concentrate on what she’s feeling, then you’ll let her try to move how her body feels like it needs too.

She snakes her hand around your back and she unclips your bra then pulls it off. You trail down to her pants then look at her and she nods at you again. You undo the button on her jeans then pull the zippeee down before pulling her pants down. You pull her underwear down at the same time by accident but play it off like you meant to do that.

You smile at her completely bare under you and she’s stunning, angelic looking. You take your pants and underwear off then get down on your knees. You hook your arms around her legs and pull her towards the edge of the bed. You immediately attach your mouth to her clit and she moans out. She bucks her hips and you have to pin her down. She grabs a hold of your hair and she gasps when you go faster. You can tell she’s close by the fact that she’s shaking and she’s breathing heavily.

“Oh god, y/n, I’m so close!” She tells you. You add a finger in her entrance and she gasps loudly. She then comes with a scream and you don’t slow down. She lets go of your hair and grabs hold of a pillow. You can see she needs something to stabilise herself so you remove your mouth from her clit and put your thumb there instead. You then lay on top of her but you put one arm next to her and lean on it so you don’t put all your weight on her. You kiss her lips and she’s all too eager to kiss you back. She then pulls back and gasps when she comes again.

You slow down inside of her and remove your thumb from her clit and the finger that’s inside of her. She just lays there breathing heavily and you kiss her and she kisses you back. While kissing her, she inserts a finger in your entrance by surprise and you gasp in the kiss. You then pull back and have your mouth hanging open when she starts moving in and out of you. You start riding her finger and she lets you.

“Dio mio.” She blurts out and you moan at that, she sounds beautiful speaking Italian. You ride her finger in a way that gets her finger to hit that spot inside of you that brings you close to the edge. Melissa catches on quickly and wraps an arm around your waist and pulls you closer to her. You end up stop riding her finger and she starts doing the pumping again, only this time the way she knows you like the best. Melissa slides another finger in you and you squeak out a gasp. You’re close to an orgasm and you kiss her again. You gasp into the kiss as you come and she slows down and pulls out of you.

You pull back from kissing her and she brings her fingers to her mouth and she licks her fingers clean. You both end up cuddling, with her head on your chest and your arm wrapped around her.

“I hope you know that this won’t affect your grade at all, even though you were amazing.” You tell her and she giggles.

“We both know that I don’t need it. My grades are already high.” She replies back with.

“That’s true.” You say and look at her with adoration. She looks up at you and sees your eyes and she blushes.

“I got to kiss my teacher.” She says proudly and you laugh.

“Oh you did a lot more than just kiss me sweetheart.”

*30 years later*

Melissa and Barb were in the break room talking while the trio was at their table. You suddenly walk in and hand Melissa a bag of takeout and she looks at you confused.

“What did you do?” She asks you.

“Nothing, I can’t just surprise my wife with her favourite takeout food?” You tell her slyly and she quirks an eyebrow. “I’m bored.” You tell her and she giggles. “Only teaching 2 classes instead of 4 is boring.” You tell her and she shakes her head at you.

“Melissa, you have a wife?” Janine asks and you both turn to the trio who’s looking at you both stunned.

“I never hid that I’m married.” She says.

“You never said it was to a woman.” Jacob tells her and you look at Melissa and cross your arms.

“Really?” You say to her and she gives you her cutest smile. “20 years we’ve been married and you still don’t tell people you have a wife.” You mumble out and she chuckles.

“Come sit Bella.” She tells you and you move a chair right beside her and sit down. She leans in closer to you and you wrap an arm around her. “Thanks for the food Amore.” She tells you and digs into the bag.

“Not a problem sweetheart.” You tell her and she turns to you and gives you a kiss. Barb and the trio are watching the interaction with a smile.

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[harukadrawsthings]

Super Mario is the second reason why I'm an old Nintendo customer. I've played many games in the franchise, the first being the 8-bit classic Super Mario Bros.

When you ask a fan what the best Mario game is, the answer is likely to be Galaxy 2 or Odyssey, but for me it's not either of the plumber's key titles (although the two I've mentioned are excellent 3D platformers).

I was one of those people who was overjoyed when it was revealed in September at the Nintendo Direct that they were bringing back "Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door" for the Switch with improved graphics and dialogue and with extras that didn't exist in the GameCube version! (And a good solution to the problem of scalping in the grey market of retro gaming).

I've loved the Paper Mario they made for the Nintendo 64 since I was a kid and I had the chance to play the sequel almost a decade ago and I thought it was amazing how they took everything that was good about the first game and made it even better. Never has a Mario game absorbed me as much as this one; Thousand Year Door is a lot of fun and a turn-based RPG that's both accessible and challenging. It's a shame that the sequels don't follow the same type of gameplay, although I really enjoyed Origami King in general. Here's a suggestion for my followers who have a Nintendo Switch at home. It was great to relive this story in search of the Crystal Stars to save the world and for me it's undoubtedly one of the best games available on the console. 😊

Do not repost. Do not modify. Always credit me!

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[sgiandubh]

It all starts with a smoke alarm

This wasn't supposed to happen like that, of course. It was supposed to happen with an ”allow me to introduce myself”, at the least. But hey, I am playing the cards I've been dealt, and since an anonymous ask on Tumblr does not allow pictures or links, this will have to do. We'll have plenty of time later.

Yesterday, I said that reading that Single Report reaped benefits. I have screen capped and summed up all the things that made me rise an eyebrow, to make things easier. Hopefully, this is going to be short: who would wax lyrical about a septic tank, after all?

I did not use my superpowers to do this, but simply the link provided by a very active Anon on several shipper blogs, in order to properly stir shite, I presume: https://corumproperty.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/HomeReport-31.pdf

Armed with my wits and a virtual highlighter, I started to carefully read the whole document. Ownership details aside - this, I discussed yesterday -, I remind you that it should give any prospective buyer a good, detailed idea of the available fittings and current condition of the house put on sale.

In Europe and elsewhere, I guess, inspections of this type are rather a dull and thorough affair. And these people did an excellent job: they checked every single nook & cranny, used binoculars to have a closer look at the roof tiles and listed it all on these papers a good researcher should read, before dropping to conclusions.

This is how we know, for example, that the inspection happened on a rainy day:

.. and that the guttering was overflowing. Does that sound like a well loved, lived-in house to you?

Thought so.

This brought a smile. And the image of a Christmas tree left near a London dustbin in June. Home, sweet home?

Like all properties, this also comes with burglar and fire alarm systems. However, apparently not much has been done, in this respect. Or at least, not recently. Not since February 2022, to be accurate: otherwise, they would have been upgraded. Yet, no such thing: it's up to the buyer to do and pay for the upgrade.

Lived-in? Certainly not after February 2022 and probably even earlier, would be my best guess. But lived-in at some point in time, most certainly.

You see, since I was on the real estate agent's webpage, I also took the virtual tour of the house. It is available to everyone, here: https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=AFKibrk8QiD

Now, I don't know about you, but when I visit somebody's house for the first time, I always check the bookshelves: yes, I am a shameless nerd. I am also well aware that the rest of the furniture was staged, it looked that sad, clinical way it does all over the world. Did not expect to find any books in there, to be honest. And yet, there they were.

I didn't bother with the fashion coffee table books, although I thought they were a nice nod to Ms. B's past, and totally the kind of things she might have on her credenza.

A built-in bookshelf in the basement caught my eye. That did not look staged. It looked as she might have left some of her own books in there, like an afterthought, if you want. And people's choices of books are always speaking volumes to me, about who they really are.

It did not disappoint.

More fash-un. And yeah, Tiffany & Co! I knew it!

A Tina Turner bio or memoir. Awww:

Bette Davis and some feminist literature. Her books, I am pretty sure of that:

And, to save the best for last, lo and behold, what do we have here?

Bear Grylls?

That Bear Grylls?

Hahahaha. Of course. I have all the reasons in the world to believe the music producer/PA/whatever is into masculine thrillers written by a world-renowned survivalist, haven't I?

Not a chance in hell, to be honest. I grinned like the Cheshire cat because, ladies, we do know WHOSE book is this, don't we?

Judging by its jacket, well-read. Not a prop.

Belonging to someone with a dry, wicked sense of humor who apparently also left this gem:

A Captain's Duty. At this point in time, I wasn't grinning anymore. I was laughing like an idiot, of course.

Slàinte mhath, ladies. We'll have time for a proper introduction later.

[coraniaid]

Absolutely hate the received wisdom that Buffy Summers is not "book smart" or that she doesn’t care about doing well in high school.  How little attention are you paying to the show if that’s your take on the character?

Consider:

When she first arrives in Sunnydale, one of the first things Buffy does is make friends with Willow Rosenberg, explicitly because she wants to hang out with somebody smart and get caught up with the classes she’s already behind on.

After seeing her permanent record in her sophomore year, one of Buffy’s teachers (Teacher’s Pet’s Dr. Gregory) tells her that she has “a first rate mind” and that he “know[s] you can excel in this class”.

Buffy had a favorite teacher (Homecoming’s Ms. Moran) whose class she says “changed her life” and whose failure to remember her the next year obviously upsets her a lot.

When she gets the ability to read minds in Earshot, one of the very first things she thinks to use it for is showing off in class to impress her teachers. 

After Buffy comes back to Sunnydale for her final year of high school, one of the terms Principal Snyder insists she meets to be accepted back is a “glowing letter of recommendation from any member of our faculty who is not an English librarian”.  Since she doesn’t get kicked out again, we can presume she got one (even if not from Ms. Moran or the late Dr. Gregory).

In Lovers Walk we find out that Buffy got a 1430 in the SATs. That’s a score which means Buffy probably outperformed at least 95% of people who took the test in 1998 (when the average for college-bound seniors was 1017).

In Choices, Buffy gets accepted into Northwestern, and is clearly heartbroken that she isn’t able to go.

Buffy Summers spends practically all her free time in school hanging out in the library.

Yes, Buffy often struggles in school.  She’s often absent, and doesn’t always have the time to do the homework.  And when she is in class, she’s often late or too tired to concentrate. 

But the reason for this isn’t that Buffy “isn’t smart”, it’s because – spoiler warning, I guess, for those of you that obviously managed to miss it - she’s a vampire slayer.  She effectively has a whole full-time job, a whole secret life that means she doesn’t have time to do homework or prepare for tests; something that keeps her awake all night so she can’t focus on her schoolwork the next day.  When she comes out as a Slayer to her Mom, in Becoming, one of the things she tells her she wishes she were doing rather than having to save the world is explicitly “studying”. 

And she does all the stuff above anyway.  How do you think she’s managing that if she’s not really smart?

Yes, Buffy isn’t quite as academically talented as Willow.  Yes, she often makes self-deprecating jokes about how poorly she’s doing at school (telling her Mom before parents’ night in School Hard that her teachers will be impressed that she always brings a pen to class “ready to absorb the knowledge”; worriedly asking Giles before an English makeup exam in Faith, Hope & Trick whether they “give you credit just for speaking it”).  

But these pretty obviously are jokes.  Buffy’s problem in School Hard is with Principal Snyder, who’s threatening to expel her because he blames her for “starting fights” and is worried she’s going to burn down a building, not with any of her actual teachers.  Not with her academic results.  Buffy passes the English test she was worried about, in fact she passes all her required makeup tests.  She does this even without Willow’s help. 

The only time we see Buffy actually completely fail a test is in Nightmares, which ... isn't anymore real than the conversation she has with her father later that episode. It's one of her nightmares being brought to life; because Buffy does care about doing well in school and is afraid that she won't.

Yes, Buffy finds some classes boring – but so does Willow.  Many high school classes are boring, no matter how smart you are.  Yes, Buffy struggles with some subjects (like French) more than others.  (It’s probably not a coincidence that learning a foreign language takes much more time and practice than many other subjects.)  But nothing in the text of the show suggests that Buffy is not smart and motivated, or that she wouldn’t be doing really well in high school were it nor for the fact she’s a Slayer.

Quite the opposite, in fact.  The show repeatedly tells us that Cordelia Chase is who Buffy was in her old school in LA.  Cordelia’s popular, she’s on the cheerleading team, her parents take her on expensive holidays.  These are all presented to the viewer as things Buffy used to have, and would still have if it weren’t for her Calling.

And Cordelia’s also really smart.  She has teachers who praise her for doing the reading and answering questions in class and who offer to help her with her homework, she looks forward to the SATs because she “do[es] well on standardized tests” (and while we don’t learn her exact score, from Xander’s reaction it’s clearly meant to be impressively high), she boasts in Lovers Walk that she has a lot of experience in covering up how well she’s doing academically.  We learn in Choices that she got offers from Duke and Columbia and USC.

That’s who Buffy is.  That’s what she’d have been doing in high school if she wasn’t the Slayer. 

Literally what show are you watching if you don’t spot that?

[moralesmilesanhour]

mad props! 04

summary: in the week leading up to the show, your grades begin to slip. whatever will you do... word count: 1820 a/n: hiii i rlly enjoyed writing this chapter bc some of the stuff in here has definitely happened to me lmao. if you feel up to it, reblog and tell me what your favorite song from any musical is in the tags! songs mentioned: 'Chip On My Shoulder' - Legally Blonde the Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording) prev next

“Max, you’re a little flat, hun.”

The choir director pulled her shawl tightly around her as Max–the chosen casting for Emmett Forrest–ran through some of his sung lines for ‘Chip On My Shoulder’. 

The brown-skinned, dark-haired boy was an excellent actor; he breathed life into the words on the script and delivered them with all the earnestness and humor required to play Emmett. Hell, he even improvised his own jokes.

But he couldn’t hold a note to save his life. 

For some lines, Max could get away with half-singing, half-talking, but he was practically tone-deaf once the song got more involved. The choir director–Ms. Johnson–had to be called in to help get him somewhere that was at least within the ballpark of the correct pitch. His high notes remained painful to all present in the room, no matter what she did.

You huffed from your spot on the fake park bench, resisting the urge to scratch your scalp beneath the itchy wig. Everyone had heard the exact melody on the piano by now. Hear it, sing it. Like Spanish vocabulary, you couldn’t comprehend how people got that sort of thing wrong.

Harmonizing with Max went about as expected; you lost your place several times because of the distracting dissonance between your voice and his, like hearing a parrot and an eagle squawk at the same time.

Regardless, it was too late to recast Max now. He had a leading role with too many songs and lines to memorize. 

“Alright, take five!” the director yelled with a clap of her hands. 

A collective sigh could be heard as students dispersed for their well-earned water and bathroom breaks, the tension in the air dissipating. You stepped carefully off of the stage, when you heard a snicker in your direction.

Miles was in the middle of painting a cardboard sorority building in an obnoxious shade of hot pink, shaded with strokes of fuchsia and cyan that managed to work together somehow. You frowned at the fact that you couldn’t say anything bad about it.

The boy struggled to hold back a laugh, looking up as you stood over him with crossed arms.

“Something funny?”

Miles stood to meet your eyes, carelessly wiping bits of paint onto his pants.

“That frumpy-ass 613 wig you got on, for one,” he replied with a teasing grin. “Are you gonna wear that for the actual show?”

You rolled your eyes.

“No, for your information, I’m not. This is a placeholder wig,” you ripped it off of your head for emphasis. “Why are you even here, anyway? Don’t you got posters to make?”

In actuality, you knew about the art club lending some of its members to paint sets for the show. But you wanted to make sure Miles knew he was unwelcome.

“Just doin’ what I do best,” he shrugged. “You should be grateful for my sacrifice.”

You snorted, “What ‘sacrifice’?”

Miles jabbed his thumb behind him towards the left side of the stage, where Max was going over his lines. “I gotta listen to that nigga sing for over an hour. I’m sacrificing my time and my ears.”

Despite yourself, you laughed brightly at the comment, causing a more genuine smile to spread across Miles’ face. You looked pretty when you laughed.

“Oh my god, he sucks, right? Spent the whole damn song looking for the note.”

“Too late to replace him now, though. Show’s in two weeks.”

You nodded.

There was a brief pause before Miles asked, “So what made you sign up for theater? I was kinda surprised to see you on a stage.”

You gave him a wary look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” he raised both hands in defense, “You just seemed like more of the quiet type, that’s all.”

I signed up to avoid you, you thought, but didn’t say aloud; That would’ve given him the satisfaction of knowing that you thought about him that much.

Instead, you answered, “I used to do theater at my old school. Got the lead part most of the time, if you can believe it.”

There was an arrogance in your voice as you said that last bit that soured Miles’ expression. 

“I believe you, no need to convince me,” he said flatly. “Legally Blonde’s an interesting choice, though.”

You shrugged, “The part really lets me show my voice off, so...”

“Showin’ off,” Miles muttered beneath his breath, “Sounds like you.”

“Excuse me?”

Before you could start to argue, his eyes went wide, like he’d just heard a noise that no one else could hear.

“It was really nice talking to you, Y/N, but I gotta go,” he said, spinning on his heel and bolting towards the auditorium door. “Watch my stuff for me!”

Your jaw dropped in offense. Was he allowed to just bail on a club activity like that? And with the gall to ask you to watch his things for him. You totally did, though.

Once you got home, your feet throbbed and your muscles ached from all of the choreography. You were just barely out of your school uniform when you decided to lie down for a quick nap. Or what you thought was a ‘quick nap’.

The blaring of your alarm made your heart jump as your eyes flew open, half of your face damp with drool. The early morning washed over your room in a pale blue shade, and the sight would’ve relaxed you if not for the sudden realization that you weren’t in your pajamas.

You shot up, wiping the side of your face with your sleeve. Your Spanish and AP Physics notebooks were still strewn across your bed, along with several worksheets that had remained blank. Unfinished.

…Oh no.

Your heart was practically in your throat when you explained to Mr. Sanchez why you didn’t have any homework for him to collect. 

The man noticed your glassy eyes, and held up a reassuring hand in the middle of your frantic explanation.

“That’s fine, it happens,” he said gently, “Just bring in the missing work tomorrow, and it’ll only be ten points off. Don’t make it a habit.”

He adjusted his glasses, and returned to grading the pile of worksheets on his desk as you trudged back to your desk, a pit forming in your stomach over those precious ten points.

“You good?” Miles asked as you sat down, concern coloring his features. He ran a finger over a small band-aid on his right temple. “You look like you’re about to cry.”

You buried your face in your arms on the desk.

“Nunya.”

He sighed, “I dunno why I even asked.”

Unfortunately for both you and Mr. Sanchez, missing assignments did, in fact, become a habit. 

You began to spend more time lingering in the auditorium after everyone had left, practicing your line delivery. Adding little details, like extra hair flips or twirls. The spirit of Elle Woods had practically taken over your body.

You got home later and later into the evening, sometimes flopping down onto your bed and falling asleep before your head could even hit the pillow. This new ‘habit’ had you scribbling down vocab words and formulas in a frenzy, balancing your notebook on your lap on the bumpy bus ride to school. The flashcards that you had made for Mr. Sanchez’s class were now sitting untouched at the bottom of your bag.

By Friday, it landed you in front of his desk for office hours after you received your very first ‘F’. 

“As you’ve probably noticed, Y/N, your grades have fallen a significant amount in a very short period of time, and I’m a little concerned,” Sanchez slid your weekly grade report towards you and placed his finger on your Spanish grade. “What’s going on? This is very unusual for a student like you.”

Your sweaty fingers clutched the sides of your seat as you stared down at the report. How did you let it get this bad? Elle Woods would never.

“I-I just…”

You shook your head. “I’ve just been busy with extracurriculars and stuff, so assignments slip my mind sometimes.”

“You’re having trouble balancing them with your schoolwork?”

“Yeah, basically,” you leaned forward, looking desperate. “Can I still re-take that quiz? I didn’t really get to study, and–”

“Oh! That’s actually what I called you in for, one second.”

Sanchez rose from his seat, and made his way over to the door.

“You know about our Study Buddy system, yes?”

You nodded slowly, skeptically. “Am I getting a ‘Study Buddy’?”

“Pre-cisely. Come in!”

He opened the door, and you almost groaned audibly at the lanky figure that appeared at the entrance.

Miles entered with a friendly smile on his face that dropped the second his eyes landed on you.

“Oh. You.”

The Spanish teacher sat back down and gestured towards him.

“Miles here is both a native speaker and beyond proficient in this class. He was so kind as to sign up for the program, so I thought it might be nice to pair him up with someone in the same period.”

Shocked into silence, you were unable to say anything other than a quiet “Okay” as you stared blankly in front of you.

Study buddies. With the guy who didn’t even study. This had to be some kind of sick joke.

“He’ll be giving up a bit of his lunch time to tutor you in my classroom. I’d also highly recommend you two study with each other after school as well, if you can make the time. Sound good?”

“Yes,” you both said in miserable unison. 

“Well, that’s all,” Sanchez waved his hand. “You’re both dismissed. Have a lovely weekend!”

“You too!” you smiled tightly as you got up and made a beeline for the door, nearly bumping into Miles as you did so. 

Your weekend would be anything but ‘lovely’.

You fixed Miles with a glare as soon as you got out into the hallway.

“I’m not giving up my lunch period for you,” you yell-whispered. “I hope you know that.”

He took a step towards you and fired back, “Neither of us have a choice, your highness. If we’re not both up here during lunch, I get in trouble, and you gotta take the L and fail this class.”

“I’d rather fail, then. I don’t give a fuck.”

“Oh?” he laughed mirthlessly. “You were in tears over a damn ‘89’. Makes no difference to me, but I think you do give a fuck.”

You opened your mouth to shoot back a rebuttal, then closed it. Miles raised an eyebrow.

“I’m lying?”

“...No.”

Miles leaned forward until he was only inches away from your face. “Then cooperate. Or we both lose.”

You sighed in defeat, “Fine.”

He nodded curtly, then left to go grab his things from his locker.

In a forced attempt at courtesy, you called out towards his back, “See you next week–”

“Whatever!”

taglist (comment to be added!): @vhstown @alaoraangelix @shuna-boin

[depressedhatakekakashi]

Gosh looks like today needs more Kakashi positivity

Kakashi's first lesson to his students is 'fuck the rules if your friends are in danger/need your help

Kakashi actively wins multiple fights on his own and even holds his own against Kakuzu and Hidan without using the MS. Cannonly (Manga only) Kakashi wins against Zabuza (twice), the seven deadly swordsmen, multiple enemies in the war arc. Kakashi is also portrayed as more of a leader than a direct fighter, excelling most when he can lead a team to victory (like in the Kaguya fight).

Obito's eye is a GIFT to him. It doesn't matter if he 'shouldn't have it' or any other reason people come up with for him being crap for using it. He is the only character we see with a Sharingan (that is none Uchiha or even Uchiha in the vast majority of cases) who was 100% gifted the eye and told to use it. He uses it to honor the memory of a friend he lost.

Kakashi is the only character we see actively stand up to the system from inside the system. He's the one who stands up to Danzo to save Yamato. He's the one who turns his back on the 'New Hokage' (Danzo) and takes Naruto out of the village during a time when ALL shinobi are supposed to be restricted to inside of the village. He's the one who ignores Hiruzen's order's and plan in order to go save Yamato. He turns his back on Tsunade giving him an S-Ranked missiong to go after two of his students.

Kakashi taught each of his students something in the short amount of time we actually got to see him in teaching mode. He helps Sasuke improve his taijutsu so much that Gai is impressed by his improvements in the short span of a month. He teaches Sasuke his Chidori. He teaches Sakura the Qi release. He teaches Naruto how to make use of his shadow clones to learn faster (something Naruto uses both to create his rasenshuriken in such a short span of time and which he again uses later to learn sage mode.). That's not even touching on the obvious moments of teaching them about teamwork and chakra control (with the tree climbing)

Kakashi cared about all of his students. When he saw Itachi he assumed he was there for Sasuke, and when he found out he was there for Naruto he was just as ready to fight to protect his students. He carries Naruto on his back after he exhausted himself and gives Naruto a head pat. Seeing a bit of himself in Sasuke does not mean he ignored any of his students. While other teachers were hyper-focused on one student, Kakashi at least recognized he was only one person and when he needed to hyper-focus on Sasuke he still made sure that Naruto had someone to train him in chakra control as that was his weakest point.

Kakashi is the Hokage that made genuine changes to the system. He's the one who made a no-kill order for the shinobi of Konoha. He's the one who redirected Konoha's system away from shinobi toward a more economic system. It was during his reign that Konoha became an economic giant and grew exponentially in size.

Kakashi also became stronger after losing the Sharingan. The Sharingan was a gift from Obito that directly hurt him because he didn't have any magical fixes to keep him from getting chakra exhausted. the chakra was constantly being drained from him by the Sharingan, making him chronically fatigued just by existing with Obito's gift.

Kakashi's purple lightning is a stronger move than his chidori and does not require the sharingan. He's also capable of turning pieces of his mud wall jutsu to glass to deflect electricity before returning it to mud so that it is not left as an extremely fragile material that would shatter under most other attacks. this is a feat that was thought to be impossible even by the person who originally suggested it.

His chakra pool is so much bigger that he held a mud wall for three days and released it when he was ready to go on the attack

he defeated 50 jonin rank missing nin shinobi with a frying pan and some really well-used genjutsu

he's always learning and growing. Kakashi in OG Naruto was one of Konoha's strongest ninja and he STILL trained to get stronger after Naruto left because he knew he needed to. The same Kakashi who made the mistake of looking directly into Itachi's eye in their first fight then turned around and tricked Itachi into wasting a MS move on a shadow clone.

[blacklegsanjiii]

Okay okay youve awakend brain worms in me, hear me out:

Sanji escaping the dungeon a few weeks earlier causing him to be in the grandline instead of east blue and meeting none other than ✨Robin✨ maybe sanjis somehow being hunted by germa or smth so theyre both on the run and they make a pact to help each other (which is rocky at first cause they both have hella trust issues) but slowly opening up to each other more and more and being each others only trust person...

Idk!! Im reallt loving all your different sanji situations especially since i see him as a barbie character (he has so many jobs!! Lmao) and ive always loveedd his friendship with Robin since i imagine them both having a bit of a morbid humour

Fuck that's good. That's so fucking good ommmggggg.

17 year old Nico Robin picking up a starved and beaten 8 year old Sanji. Both of them flinching at touch no matter how kind or anything. After a year they're probably close and sharing beds/blankets/stuff like that. Doesn't mean it's not hard or anything. Sanji suffers from nightmares every night and is running on very little sleep most of the time. Robin doesn't know how to comfort him at first because sometimes when he wakes up it's straight into a panic attack.

Robin explains Ohara and the buster call, Sanji explains Germa and his issue with bugs from the mask. Robin pulls this impossibly tiny child to her and holds him as they both cry. This is the first time they really touch each other without flinching and such. If they're running from Cipher Pol or the marines or even Aokiji Robin makes sure to always hold the younger's hand. Makes sure to keep him with her at all times.

They spend a lot of time traveling and reading and Sanji gets better at cooking and feeding them and Robin only gets smarter. Sanji gets a bounty as well, guilty by association and the theft and everything else. He's got to have a name like Robin does but I don't know what.

Eventually they wind up in Alabasta working under Crocodile. Ms. All Sunday and Mr. Prince are excellent workers, highly skilled and still able to do what they love. I imagine Robin also taught Sanji to read the poneglyphs in case she dies. Sanji tells her about the All Blue. They have a pact with each other, if one dies the other will try to fulfill the other's dream. It's a lot of weight on their shoulders. Ohara and Germa, the government, the history they have.

When they ask to join the Strawhat crew Luffy lets them when he finds out Sanji can cook and Robin is an archeologist. They don't mesh well at first. Zoro trusts them on the Captain's word but he picks fight with Sanji because he doesn't use weapons and he and Robin are on edge.

When they run into Aokiji he looks at Sanji and Robin. Aokiji mentions off handedly that Sanji's bounty might be getting updated. They leave and Enies Lobby happens and Robin and Sanji are tense. They just are. It probably falls apart and Sanji says it should have been both of them at once because that way they wouldn't have hurt the crew twice, Robin agrees. Luffy yells at both of them for that, saying that they are apart of his crew and won't let them leave until they're dreams are accomplished.

Skipping ahead to WCI Robin goes with Luffy instead of Nami. Robin is dead set on bringing up what happened in Enies Lobby against Sanji because how dare there be a double standard. Even when she finds out they have Cipher Pol over them again. Then she finds out about the cuffs.

How dare Judge and Big Mom? How fucking dare they. Those are his hands, his greatest treasures and tools. Sanji explains that he wants to save his family and they do, Robin doesn't like it because she saw Sanji fresh out of the dungeon, a skeleton wrapped in paper skin covered in bruises and cuts. Robin will let Judge live but on the escape when Judge is saying that shit?

Robin pulls him close and traps him in her arms and threatens him. Devil Child Nico Robin is not one to be played with, especially when it comes to the only person she really truly trusts. So she makes it very clear that she is letting him live this time but if she sees him again? IF they even happen to be in the same town? He will be killed, it will be painful. Sanji is letting her because this is Robin's turn to be protective.

On the way to Wano they're sitting next to each other and Robin mentions that if she was allowed to she would have killed him then and there for how she found Sanji. Sanji nods and apologizes for the trouble and Robin frowns at him. Something akin to "Remember Enies Lobby?" where Sanji mutters that it still should have been both of them. Robin pulls him close and mutters that this should have been both of them too.

[lucabyte]

Your gender thought type essays have made me curious about what your oc creation/development process is like! It seems to be something you put a lot of thought into and that’s very interesting (especially cause my circles don’t often go into detail in that area)

I'm delighted to hear you're curious!! I'll give as thorough an answer as I can manage, though it'll likely be a bit disorganised. Okay, so... I'm gonna use a couple examples for this, and since you specified gender stuff I'm gonna go for some where gender/sexuality are integral, even if in seemingly counterproducive ways (but that'll be the last few...)

So. The first character that comes to mind here for me in terms of like... A lot of thought going into their gender is Lavender.

So going all the way back... Lavender was made in 2015.

Spreadsheet puts her at the 13th character in the setting, creation-date ways! So she's Been around a while.

Part 1: A Core Idea

Now, why was Lavender made? This is the first step of character creation. Well, she was made to tick a bit of a box. I realised my only girls at the time were all tomboyish so I needed a cute girl. And this was 2015, so she arose in the form of a Waifu Joke. She was intended to be a side-character with no real plot ties, so I just designed a character as cute as possible, named her simply (Lavender Wafeu == literally Colour and Waifu) and was basically done? 7 months later I would make Mafioso to slightly further the joke, in that giving Lavender a girlfriend makes her unpursuable* as a waifu. This also gave me a stark butch/femme pair, and I recall around this era there was a joke going around on tumblr of 'Indestructable Lesbians' as opposed to buried gays. This kinda became their thing. Two lesbians the plot wouldn't touch and they wouldn't be endangered.

.... And then that was kinda it. She was a cute girl who was fun to draw, shy, and reserved in nature. An opposition to Mafioso's brash (but secretly a little nervous) demeanor. I would literally just liken this to flutterdash outright. I was basically just doing flutterdash in terms of their personalities.

SO: This is the first step to all my characters. Find a core concept, or more likely, a core joke. Lavender's core joke is a very rough and (frankly unfunny) "your waifu isn't going to fuck you" joke. But you can see how she was built out of it. And we'll get to how that building happened next.

(^ Weird 2015 era lavender with her total lack of emotive range and flat characterisation)

Part 2: Dormancy

Lavender stayed unchanged for quite a while, in this flat state. She picked up a few things, mostly little 'twists' to her character. ie. she could hold her own in a fight, is surprisingly quick to jump to (cartoonish) violence, and likes a good steak. All very basic little things, obvious "oh bet you didn't expect That" contradictions.

She didn't recieve much attention during this time despite me really liking her design still. Mafioso languished even worse in this era, with her mother Omerta picking up most of the development instead. Overall, these two were very, very boring. No amount of little superficial additions could save them from this.

But it... hints at something, right? It hints that maybe there's a facade somewhere, that maybe the perfect-cute-girl thing might actually take a little bit of effort to upkeep...? Hrm...

Part 3: A Fresh Perspective

So, sometime in 2020, I was finally remaking my 2016-era spreadsheet of all my characters from the ground up, since I needed to remove a lot of ms excel specific formatting it had in it.

And while going through, I was being helped by @samhainian, who I had befriended in the years between. And they remarked that I didn't have enough directly trans characters in the cast, to which I agreed. I had a handful of tokens at the time (Adder and Angel spring to mind?) but not many more, so we literally just went down the list with suggestions. And when Sam suggested Lavender, I reacted with confusion. Because... Wait. Is she not trans? But she's so feminine? All of my characters lean extremely gender-neutral in presentation unless they're trying to do gender on purpose...?

And this just, unlocked her whole character like a skeleton key.

I was making her do her gender on purpose. The reason she had those contradictions is because she's putting in the effort to appear like this perfect, girl-next-door, waifu type. Something that doesn't really work if she doesn't have girlhood to prove.

From here, her coy 'maybe she has more to her than cute girl' hints were instantly recontextualised as a thing She was Doing. And instead of being random superficial tidbits, they were Depth. And her cartoonish 'extremely mild-mannered and polite persona' suddenly became a very human facade.

So, she had a new core to build around. And her lack of anything going on before in terms of backstory suddenly felt contextual? She's clearly fresh new to this. She had already had the backstory of being a very young (about 19~21) person who had moved to a new town to live on her own-- Suddenly that makes sense. She's forging a whole new identity. Her polite 'never really talking about herself because she's an object for the audience to desire' quietness becomes intentional evasion. She doesn't have a backstory, because she doesn't want it to be any of your business.

And ironically, this immediately Gave Her the backstory she had been missing. Her wiles and hidden 'smarter than she looks' becomes so relevant as to be real character traits...

I already somewhat went over this (and a number of other gender thoughts, including my thoughts on my myriad 'cis but not' or 'nb in a specific direction') in a thing I wrote, woof, 2 years ago: (LINK) which was a ramble about a lot of my character's genders... In that I summarised Lavender's gender as such:

Part 4: In practice

Okay so it's all well and good that I realised Lavender is Trans Gemder. But that's not where it ends, because she finally became refined and polished to the point of um. Quadrupling her image count on toyhouse. because of Purrgatorio.

See, the other reason I was getting my spreadsheets in order was for Purrgatorio (the original flavour of it, the visual novel) and I needed to just do some general housekeeping.

Lavender, Mafioso and Ess shared a route in VN!Purrgatorio, being that I saw them as a triad of characters. While this characterisation of her basically did nothing interesting, aside from showing her fiery side, this would later become the basis for her being one of the first characters met in actual purrgatorio, where she, being polite and nice, and established back in 2016ish to be one of the few characters Chrome isn't a total asshole to--- She gets to meet Ali.

Now this is where I would say a lot of the real development happened. Right there, in action, in putting her to the test of real writing. All of her characterisation stops being hypothetical, and instead something I have to portray. And I found as I wrote, she grew more deep simply by giving her such an odd situation to be in. And of note, by having Ali be intimidated by talking to cute girls, it gave her the upper hand in the dynamic-- Really allowing me to show off her ability to lead a conversation, and her quiet confidence in herself-- as well as hinting at the thing she isn't quite so confident with.

It's also allowed me to start thinking about her sexuality, too. This is another thing that goes back to her flimsy core concept. The Waifu is generally a sexless being in their own right, having sexuality projected onto them by the narrative or audience. In fact, a lot of shounen girls don't get to be romantically forward-- both because it risks alienating the intended selfshipper-audience, and also because showing too much confidence and autonomy in their sexuality can be too threatening for the chuunibyo audience, who aren't yet comfortable with their own sexuality and-- wait! Look at that! Another part of the core concept I can toy with! Wouldn't it make sense, if she's meant to be a deconstruction of The Waifu Archetype, for her to have that confidence and autonomy? This is what 2015-me was clumsily trying to grasp with the whole lesbian thing... So why not just re-angle that into her being confident and forward. It fits with her new personality, so it works!

*oh hey there's that asterisk. I also realised she had chemistry with Ali! Given the way she is level-headed and rather logical deep down, her curiosity drives this. She's not going to pass up a chance to know a literal Alien... But it also further illustrates how badly Mafioso has been left in the dust by her. (She's been quietly tinkered with behind the scenes ready for her reintrodcution, but for a while, I was really struggling!! Like, considering overhauling her character levels of struggling!! But, we managed, I think. She's yet to be introduced and put into practice yet, but it's upcoming.) To the point where I've broken them up! At least for now. Mafioso needs to prove herself I think, since now she can't rely on Lavender being waifish and easily won over.

TO SUMMARISE THE MAJOR POINTS THERE:

Any joke/idea can be a suitable core, even if flimsy, you just need to find which parts are interesting to either double down on or deconstruct

It's okay for characters to take a long time to form! If you don't feel connected to a character they might need a shake up, but also YOU might need a shake up. Lavender needed a new perspective from someone with a different approach to gender as me, and for I myself to become more comfortable with Real Sexuality (ive literally just aged nearly 10 years itll happen) before she could really shine.

Following on from the above you basically never need to throw a character out completely. You should try and find what it is you like about them, or consider core, and perhaps try and reframe or refract those elements. A character might get demoted to non-main status sometimes, but why throw away that depth? They can hang out on the sidelines if that's better for them.

Sometimes a character won't feel done until you write them! You can do this with RP if you have the ability, but I wrote Purrgatorio instead, which is intentionally low-stakes and non-canon so I don't get too freaked out about writing it. It's a playground for testing characterisaton, and putting characters in weird pairings they otherwise wouldn't to see if something interesting arises.

SOME OTHER EXAMPLES FROM MY BACK CATALOGUE:

Lavender is a bit of a daunting pick, given that she's spent nearly 10 years slowly rotating in my brain, only to finally become realised in the last 3-4 or so. But I do have some more recent quick examples, as well as another giant thing you can read if you want to.

GIANT THING TO READ IF YOU WANT IT: I've posted abt this before way ages ago but I wrote up a whole gigantic thing on my probably 2 most in depth characters. It can be found here (LINK) and also has a longass diatribe about their genders, sexualities, and the core thing they were originally riffing on. (Which was like. a specific type of anime boy ship i was a sucker for, that I eventually realised I was making way more interesting than most anime i was into was bothered to do)

It's a very thorough look into my thought process, including ANOTHER diatribe on purrgatorio granting me some good boons of character.

OTHER EXAMPLE 1: ALI

Okay Ali is too complicated to get into thoroughly here, but they're another good example of a core idea spiralling out.

Core idea: Blank slate visual novel protagonist, so gender neutral and a bit of a flimsy everyman. No real name, only a default name if you left the entry blank. (Ali, a shortening of the canon surname). #FFFFFF skin to keep the jokey ambiguity and pink hair to reference Dante's silly red hat.

Twists: Canon assigned surname of Alighieri, implying them to be some descendent of The Real Dante. And they're in a VN so there's a spooky easter egg where you can roll a death screen that shows them as an ominous demonic Thing instead of a regular human.

The, VN!Purrgatorio got shelved, and because they were human instead of a furry they got shuffled into other projects. A furry version of them showed up in a different project riffing on the demon thing, making them a child-friendly antichrist with 2 siblings based on the tragicomedy masks. Then that furry version's stuff got shoved onto the human version who was just a half-demon kid in Creature Feature. THEN we decided they'd be half-succubus to keep the ability to shift between the sexes (referencing the blank slate gender ambiguity of the VN). THEN that became 'nerd who is freaked out by being a sex demon and doesn't like the ethical implications of their existance but is still kinda miffed that they arent Getting Any' who STILL HAD the antichrist stuff from the furry version....

(^ technically a completely seperate ali ive not done anything with in years lol)

Like you get it. It's a giant katamari of STUFF from all different settings. This is what I mean by 'you never really need to scrap a character'. Because after all this shoving them around into different projects and them accruing things (the 'guy who is really concerned with informed consent is a succubus/incubus' angle really informed them here, as well as deciding that they're apathetic about the magic sex characteristic changes.) we threw them right back into the original setting of Purrgatorio and it went WAY BETTER once they actually had some character traits!

But that core idea still stands a little. Not in them being an everyman, but in prompting them to become an altersex character when fleshed out, and in the way that they're distinctly still tied to that second-person-narration that VNs have, and the eventual 4th wall break they got in the VN informed their powerset as 'narrative manipulator'.

also as a note here: DON'T BE AFRAID TO PLAY WHILE YOUR SETTING ISN'T DONE!

VN!Purrgatorio got shelved because I redid a bunch of MYMK's setting when I was finishing it up. But It was worth it even unfinished.

Ali themselves when in Current!Purrgatorio has spent, up until very recently, their whole time with their home setting (Creature Feature) in a state of being deeply unfinished and in need of a reshake. It's finally getting that now, but it was still fine for me to reference what I knew likely wouldn't be changing! They were able to function just fine without their home setting being solid for upwards of 2-3 years. Obviously this shouldn't be done for *finished* works, but when you're just playing, like I am with Purrgatorio, it's okay to keep things fluid and effectively quietly retcon things later.

OTHER EXAMPLE 2: PEACH TRACY

Peach tracy is an actually recent character, and is under @samhainian's purview, as with the rest of Moraine. Now, she was made with a very distinct gender/sexuality in mind, unlike a lot of my characters who stumble ass-backwards into one.

Peach is the 'token girl' of her group (the other two being Red, a closeted and unaware transfem, and Toyon a he/him butch.) and well, her gender is basically "tik tok girlie", as is her core concept. She only works if she's a pampered cisgender straight girl from a rich background. She's nice! But she's privileged.

Her twist however, is that she is wracked by the guilt of her and her group letting a friend take the fall for an Illegal Youtube Prank to save their own skin, and as such her entire character unravels from there.

Because she has all this guilt, it stands that her Girliepop Persona must be somewhat constructed. She's leaning in to the femininity as a shield and a deflector. She's, y'know, a white girl.

So her gender ends up being overperformed, and she's petrified of expressing her sexuality due to it being tied up in this image of purity. She's the exact type of person to psyche herself out into believing those 'having a crush on your friend is problematic' tumblr posts.

But none of this would really work if she did not start as a (white) girl, able to use that shield. If she were a dude or nonwhite-coded she would not have the ability to react to her situation that way. Ergo, she is actually built out of her identity this way.

(As for her sexuality, she is unhealthily self-flagellating about it, so it ends up just being unpleasant. This was a genuine surprise to myself and @samhainian when we were discussing it. We hadn't thought about it prior to starting some lighthearted riffing about assigning characters kinks literally bc we were bored when we had the horrifying realisation that Peach would not be safe about this shit AT ALL due to a lack of self preservation and way more ambient suicidality than we realised she had until we dug here. We quickly resurfaced from the joke conversation into an actual deconstruction of how she's internalised a lot of blame and decided to go distinctly carceral with it for herself. so there's another tip: Even if you aren't making nsfw content, poking around a character's sexuality will sometimes reveal raw truths that come from sexuality being very vulnerable by default.)

Peach is overall an interesting contrast to Lavender, since they're both Girls Being Feminine On Purpose, but one is transfem and one is. Well god idk what peach will end up but she'll need to unpack it.

(I note that peach is white also, since while I rarely intentionally racially code my characters, sometimes i SUPER do.)

OTHER EXAMPLE 3: VIRGIL MALACODA

Okay because I've talked about a number of girls so far lets be brief about a fuckin Dude.

Virgil is like, some real toxic masculinity shit. He would probably be fucked up in some different way if he were born a girl, but he's distinctly falling into a lot of traps due to his upbringing as "A dude who was promised he'd get power when he grew up".

His dude-ness is a very flat fact to me in that way, and he's similar to Tabitha in that regard since it's one of the ways they're meant to reflect each other. Dudes who's place as patriarch-to-be saved them from being pawned off as a wife, but is still responsible for a lot of their misery. Certainly the better of the two options, but could still be better!

Virgil's themes of masculinity being a simultaneous shield and blinder is a simple one but I go back to it a lot because it can be true a lot of the time in antiquated social situations like, say, the upper class. So, being a villain, he does end up being a condemnation of the structures that disincentivise healthy masculinity. He's necessarily amab because he is the result of how particularly regressive views of masculinity can shape a child into a repressed and miserable adult.

Whether or not virgil stays a dude or not if he ever figures out his way of viewing power structures was Fucked Up and Bad is anybody's guess. It's not really Masculinity that was hurting him, so much as a rich asshole's narrow view of it. So there's no real reason for him to reject a healthier version of it outright, it's just whether he'll ever get there...

CLOSING REMARKS:

Okay writing in the tumblr post editor is starting to scare me with errors so I should probably close this out. But yeah this is a little bit of a run down of where my head is usually at when making characters. A lot of it is just batting jokes back and forth until they become something more solid, which I don't know that I really got across here.

Like, a lot a lot of my characters are built around a core joke. Usually what-ifs like.

"What if a shounen-type card game anime protagonist was just as brash and head-full-of-air as the rest of the, but a girl"

"What if Ed Sheeran had a cheating scandal with two tboys and it made the radio fucking horrible to listen to"

"What if a wrestler was really, really wide and also clearly into rubber"

"What if somebody took the 'blonde anime boy who barely shows emotion' trope seriously because that kind of repression can't be good"

"What if a guy was specifically interested in becoming a Soil Scientist from like, age 4, and never gave up that dream"

^ If you can figure out who's who then you win a prize (a kiss)

But yeah. Jokes upon jokes upon jokes. Assign them classpects and pokemon and put them into speed/power/fly formation and just joke for as long as you possibly can until you hit on something. And if a joke feels really right, or completely off the mark, try and dig in and find why.

Like. I joke about the sexuality thing but it does help since it's so disarming and immediately a bit childishly funny often. Sometimes you'll end up with say, something as serious as "Despite being friends with The Fence, Selene probably shouldn't be left unsupurvised in kink spaces because she ABSOLUTELY does not have the ability to restrain herself and not take her anger issues out on strangers" and sometimes its as silly as "even outside of being asexual, ess is never jackin that shit because if he got caught in any kind of mildly embarrasing scenario it'd ruin his whole year so the cost/benefit analysis of that really doesn't work out"

Because like. both tell you about the characters, and you can also read them more broadly now. Selene ruins relationships by letting anger at unrelated things get in the way, Ess keeps himself from doing even utterly harmless things out of deep social anxiety.

Like yeah, i got to them via goofing about sex but it's still character analysis at the end of the day so long as you put The Reading first*

*DISCLAIMER: im asexual im only ever doing stuff for the read lol . it might be more difficult if youre allosexual . or maybe itll be easier. i dont know just dont get too lost in the sauce. think with ur brain not ur other parts

ALSO gender and sexualty often end up linked so it makes sense to end up at one from the other a lot of the time. It happens.

And as an addendum if you wonder where i tend to literally Design characters? Like visually? It's usually at some point between the first few jokes and before naming them. Though sometimes names come first.

OVERALL: A character should have a core concept to them to start with. This core concept CAN SUCK and be flimsy, or a joke, or even a joke you no longer find funny. But you can always refer back to it when building a character up. If you want to capture the concept, work toward it, if you want to deconstruct or mock the concept, then do that instead. If you sour on a joke, maybe find a way to satirise or deconstruct what you're no longer finding funny.

Sometimes this core concept is steeped in a specific cultural thing, be it race, gender, sexuality, ect, and those necessitate thinking about. Sometimes it's not and those things can practically be an afterthought, but once you lock it in it's likely to begin informing the later choices as it becomes part of the scaffolding.

(To hop back to why you even asked this Q: I so thoroughly read Siffrin as amab BECAUSE they had so many themes about Not Having Changed and clinging to what they knew, and so working backwards from that it only made sense to me that they mustn't've done a big overhaul YET or made any big decisions about that YET by the time we see them in game, because that's what gels best with their themes of being Too Afraid To Change and being a contrast to Isa who has changed a bunch, and a comfort to Mira who hasn't changed at all in their gender. Then it was a case of looking through the game for more evidence either for or against this reading, and I found a lot of evidence for it, in my opinion. But I did so Because I noticed that the themes were Stronger if read this way, and because I conceptualise characters as themes and concepts FIRST it made sense to try and work back to those themes.)

But yeah. TL;DR:

Ground yourself with a Hook for the character, sometimes making it sillier makes it easier to think about.

Try and think about how they would be formed by the world around them, or what their behaviour says about how they must've been formed

Don't worry about things taking a long time. Sometimes a character needs someone else to make a suggestion, or for you to grow and change a little before they click

Putting it into action helps a lot, even if its just roleplay or short snippets. If you can't 'feel out' what a character would do in a situation, that's when it's time to think about their goals for how they want to be seen as a person (including, if they don't want to be seen at all...!) and what hard boundaries they have say, morally.

I am by no means a like. Expert on any of this. I'm fumbling through it all just as much as the next guy (AND... I'M ACTUALLY SOMEWHAT OF A HYPOCRITE. I THINK CHARACTERS ARE BEST SEEN AS 'NARRATIVE CONSTRUCTS' RATHER THAN 'PEOPLE', SO ALL THIS ADVICE BEING SO CHARACTER FOCUSED RATHER THAN NARRATIVE FOCUSED IS MISSING THE FOREST FOR THE TREES LOL....) but apparently people do Like my characters? So, what do I know i suppose LMAO

[maypop-the-dragon]

PSA: Free Software

Reading this may really save your time, privacy, and money! Reblog or share to spread awareness!

Folks often use software that’s expensive and sometimes even inferior because they don’t know there are alternatives. So to those unfamiliar: basically, free and open-source (FOSS) or "libre" software is free to use and anyone can access the original code to make their own version or work on fixing problems.

That does not mean anyone can randomly add a virus and give it to everyone—any respectable libre project has checks in place to make sure changes to the official version are good! Libre software is typically developed by communities who really care about the quality of the software as a goal in itself.

There are libre alternatives to many well-known programs that do everything an average user needs (find out more under the cut!) for free with no DRM, license keys, or subscriptions.

Using libre software when possible is an easy way to fight against and free yourself from corporate greed while actually being more convenient in many cases! If you need an app to do something, perhaps try searching online for things like:

foss [whatever it is]

libre [whatever it is]

open source [whatever it is]

Feel free to recommend more libre software in the tags, replies, comments, or whatever you freaks like to do!

Some Libre Software I Personally Enjoy…

LibreOffice

LibreOffice is an office suite, much like Microsoft Office. It includes equivalents for apps like Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, which can view and edit files created for those apps.

I can't say I've used it much myself yet. I do not personally like using office software except when I have to for school.

OpenShot

OpenShot Video Editor is, as the name suggests, a video editing program. It has industry-standard features like splicing, layering, transitions, and greenscreen.

I've only made one video with it so far, but I'm already very happy with it. I had already paid for a video editor (Cyberlink PowerDirector Pro), but I needed to reinstall it and I didn't remember how. Out of desperation, I searched up "FOSS video editor" and I'm so glad I did. There's no launcher, there's no promotion of other apps and asset packs—it's just a video editor with a normal installer.

GIMP

GNU Image Manipulation Program is an image editor, much like Photoshop. Originally created for Linux but also available for Windows and MacOS, it provides plenty of functionality for editing images. It is a bit unintuitive to learn at first, though.

I've used it to create and modify images for years, including logos, really bad traceover art, and Minecraft textures. It doesn't have certain advanced tech like AI paint-in, but it has served my purposes well and it might just work for yours!

(Be sure to go to Windows > Dockable Dialogs > Colors. I have no idea why that's not enabled by default.)

Audacity

Audacity is an audio editing program. It can record, load, splice, and layer audio files and apply effects to them.

Audacity is another program I've used for a long time. It is not designed to compose music, but it is great for podcasts, simple edits, and loading legacy MS Paint to hear cool noises.

7-Zip

7-Zip is a file manager and archive tool. It supports many archive types including ZIP, RAR, TAR, and its own format, 7Z. It can view and modify the contents of archives, encrypt and decrypt archives, and all that good stuff.

Personally, I use 7-Zip to look inside JAR files for Minecraft reasons. I must admit that its UI is ugly.

Firefox

Firefox is an internet browser, much like Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Safari. While browsers are free, many of them include tracking or other anti-consumer practices. For example, Google plans to release an update to Chromium (the base that most browsers are built from these days) that makes ad blockers less effective by removing the APIs they currently rely on.

Aside from fighting monopolies, benefits include: support for animated themes (the one in the picture is Purple Night Theme), good ad blockers forever, an (albeit hidden) compact UI option (available on about:config), and a cute fox icon.

uBlock Origin

As far as I know, uBlock Origin is one of the best ad blockers there is.

I was on a sketchy website with my brother, and he was using Opera GX's ad blocker. Much of the time when he clicked on anything, it would take us to a random sponsored page. I suggested that he try uBlock Origin, and with uBlock Origin, that didn't happen anymore.

Linux

Linux is a kernel, but the term is often used to refer to operating systems (much like Windows or MacOS) built on it. There are many different Linux-based operating systems (or "distros") to choose from, but apps made for Linux usually work on most popular distros. You can also use many normally Windows-only apps on Linux through compatibility layers like WINE.

I don't have all four of these, so the images are from Wikipedia. I tried to show a variety of Linux distros made for different kinds of users.

If you want to replace your operating system, I recommend being very careful because you can end up breaking things. Many computer manufacturers don't care about supporting Linux, meaning that things may not work (Nvidia graphic cards notoriously have issues on Linux, for example).

Personally, I tried installing Pop!_OS on a laptop, and the sound output mysteriously doesn't work. I may try switching to Arch Linux, since it is extremely customizable and I might be able to experiment until I find a configuration where the audio works.

Many Linux distros offer "Live USB" functionality, which works as both a demo and an installer. You should thoroughly test your distro on a Live USB session before you actually install it to be absolutely sure that everything works. Even if it seems fine, you should probably look into dual-booting with your existing operating system, just in case you need it for some reason.

Happy computering!