#i copied the text to tumblr and did the whole formatting thing and then i found the internet connection had just vanished since its stormy

[alilbatflies]

Hi there, just found your "just cake" fic and I am interested in how it continues.

What i'm saying is, please continue this fic, villainxhenchman is now one of my favorite writeblr tags.

-@the-agency-archives

Hi! I'm glad you liked part 1. Now get ready for...

...

Just Cake #2

The commonly known thing about old-fashioned traps was that when they failed to trap you, you got to tease the creator of it relentlessly. A net, seriously? People have tried before, sweetheart. Better luck next time.

The inconvenient thing about old-fashioned traps was that when done properly, they did their job damn well. It was exceptionally embarrassing to get caught in one. You should have seen that coming. Alas, you didn’t. Fool.

The henchman had tried pushing the villain out of the way once they noticed the trap. So now they were both caught. The villain hovered over them in the really quite cramped space of the net. Wasn’t that wonderful?

The villain gave the net a testing jerk. It didn’t do them any good.

“Who the fuck even uses nets these days?” the villain hissed.

“It does seem we’re quite literally trapped, boss.”

“No, we’re fuckin– not–” the villain tugged on the net violently– “UNSTUCK YOURSELF!”

“That’s not how traps work, boss.”

It was a definitely never to be mentioned ever again kind of situation, really.

The villain settled into a relative silence. They clawed at the net with one of their blades while growling and cursing occasionally. They tended to be silent most of the time, but the henchman knew very well just how varied their cursing vocabulary was.

They were sure the villain had far exceeded their word limit for the day. Their voice was furious. Cutting.

But not cutting enough to slice through the ropes.

Henchman smiled at their internal commentary; glad they didn’t blurt it out like they so often managed.

There was nothing better to do, and so they watched the villain struggle. They hung really quite skillfully above the henchman, somehow not falling down on top of them. Not that the henchman would especially mind. It was quite cold out there.

They briefly wondered who would even set up a trap that far out in the woods. The obvious answer was someone who lived around. Secret hideouts and all that jazz.

The thing which bothered them the most however was that whoever set the trap up was skilled. Skilled enough to have them both trapped. The villain especially was not easily trapped. Once that whoever came around, they would still be stuck and practically at their mercy. The henchman doubted there would be mercy to be found.

The net moved under the villain’s persistent attempts.

Cold air breezed past. The henchman came to the conclusion that someone showing up was better than freezing to death. 

The villain’s yell startled them out of their thoughts.

“SCREW THAT!”

“Screw me,” please.

The villain obviously stopped themself from cursing again, turning to look at the henchman. “Hm?” they said, which henchman translated as ‘you’ve said something?’

“Nothing.”  Here we go again. Saying stuff.

The villain measured the few nicks they managed to inconvenience the rope with. They huffed an exhale. “That’s not going to work, is it?”

“I’d presume we won’t be able to get out of a net specifically made to capture and hold magical things, boss.”

The villain huffed another exhale. They hid their knife. Then they looked down at the henchman, slumping slightly.

“Do you suppose I could sort of hm… flop down on you? Really uncomfortable up here.”

“Conserve your energy.”

The villain slumped on top of them.

The net was quite uncomfortable under their back even before, but with the added weight, it reached a whole new stage of discomfort. There was nothing the henchman could do about that. Except for maybe miraculously breaking them both out of the trap and acting like it never happened. A minion could dream.

“You’re warm,” the villain said.

“Huh.” The henchman didn’t really manage to figure out a better reaction. They felt too warm entirely, just about bellow the boiling point. It definitely had nothing to do with their proximity. Nope. Not at all.

They both stayed perfectly still.

The henchman considered shuffling, but they had a feeling it would be even more uncomfortable than before.

“Do you regret anything?”

The villain seemed to mumble that mostly to themself, but given the whole situation, the henchman caught it anyway.

“Don’t think about dying yet, boss. We’ll have plenty of chances to make it out.”

The villain hummed, unconvinced.

The henchman hardly convinced themself, so it was no surprise. They decided to answer the villain’s question at least. Death loomed over them with the deft finality of a trap shutting down with chilling-to-the-bones precision. Just like it did.

Nothing to lose but the vague concept of dignity, huh?

“I regret ruining your birthday cake.”

The villain was perfectly still for a moment. Then they lifted themself to look the henchman in the eyes. “My what?”

“Well… you see, the thing that splattered on your doorstep… on your birthday day?”

The villain blinked.

The henchman looked away. It was such an awkward thing, wasn’t it? Of all the things they could have chosen… then again. You make someone cake and then you drop it like a clumsy tool. The sole act of baking the villain cake was borderline ridiculous and entirely unprofessional, too.

“You know when my birthday is?”

“You mentioned you were born on Vampire Day once, in relation to the Candle Parade, so that’s a day after the autumn equinox, so… That’s that.”

The villain hummed quietly, thinking. They rested back down.

The henchman held perfectly still, as if that could somehow remove all of their embarrassment. They measured their breathing, for all it was worth. They had a feeling the villain could sense how uncomfortable they were anyway, but hopefully played it on the whole stuck-in-a-net situation.

“Nobody’s ever given me birthday cake before.”

“Oh, really?” The henchman tried to see the villain’s face. It was a whole new of an uncomfortable movement, so they stopped.

“You’re the first.”

“But I’ve…” Ruined it. Splattered it. Fucked up spectacularly. “…dropped it.”

“Worse things happen,” the villain said. “I appreciate the effort.”

“I didn’t even wish you… anything.” It had been a busy day. The henchman forgot about the villain’s birthday, except for all of the inconvenient times when they really couldn’t say their thing. Like in the middle of a fight, when they were in the bathroom, or when the villain finally fell asleep and the henchman didn’t want to wake them up.

Might as well fix that now. “Happy belated birthday.”

“Hm. Thank you.”

It made the henchman very comfortably warm. Convenient for the villain, they supposed, since they were being used as a personal heater at the moment.

“What’s your regret?”

“Hm?” The villain sounded almost startled.

“Your regret.” Henchman tried to adjust their head to get at least a little bit more comfortable. It only got worse. They rested back to the way they were. “You know my regret. I want to know yours.”

It took the villain a long time to make a sound again. The henchman thought perhaps they crossed the professional line too far, stepped just beyond the acceptable. They prepared their sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that but the villain spoke first.

“I suppose that’s fair.”

They are very fidgety all of a sudden. But at least they sounded like the henchman’s head might stay on their neck.

“So.” The villain cleared their throat. They searched for words and seemed to come out short.

“You don’t have to tell me if you’d prefer not to.”

“No, I’m…” The villain inhaled deeply. In a wave of composure, they spoke at once: “Actually, it partly involves you—I mean, it entirely involves you—and the thing is that you, sincerely–”

The villain’s attention shifted.

The henchman felt the silence settle over them. The last words were like stones falling into the lake, vanishing to leave but circles running on the surface.

In the silence, the henchman finally registered the someone moving closer.

The villain shifted in an attempt of a defence position despite the power-suppressing net and the inconveniently squished henchman underneath them. They bared their teeth in a snarl.

“Look who we’ve caught,” an entirely too sweet voice said. “Well, aren’t you two adorable?”

...

Part 3

[fiveredlights]

Maybe you've answered if before but I love how you wrote candle wax and Polaroids, both the fics itself and the format. Can you please give me tips on how to do the format? Because I already struggle with just putting cursive into the ao3 text

thank you for the ask anon and everything is under the cut because i have a terrible tendency to ramble!

okay for the formatting you will need to be somewhat familiar with html formatting within ao3. it can be quite difficult to understand in the beginning but i promise it'll get better.

the most helpful guide i have to formatting can be found here and it is a goldmine! anything and everything from basic html formatting to more complex things can be found here. another helpful one is here.

for glitter on the floor the only two basic html formatting things i used were font colour and font style (i also did a whole email thing but that's a whole other post about work skins i'm happy to ramble about)

firstly to do anything, you'll need to create a new work skin which you can find to do here. otherwise it's dashboard -> skins -> my work skins -> create work skin. you'll need to title it uniquely.

i would follow the first guide on how to do the things i'm about to show you because it's a bit difficult to show on tumblr but using your example, if you were wanting to do cursive font in your work, heading to your newly created work skin you will first need to put the CSS into it. in the CSS box you would put:

#workskin .font { font-family: 'cursive', cursive; }

save that, and in your actual work in the html box you would put:

which should hopefully show this:

a very common issue i used to get was that for CSS and HTML it is much easier copying and pasting rather than typing it out yourself because the quotation marks are different than the ones on the keyboard. so i would pull the css and html from the guide and modify then.

for font colour it is a similar thing, choose whatever colour and pull the hex code. in your CSS box you would have:

in your html box you would put:

and you should get this:

anon if you can, deffo shoot me a message if you need more help because it's a bit difficult explaining when i don't know how far along you are in the html journey but hopefully i steered you a good direction.

[solradguy]

Hey Sol! I remember quite a while ago, someone asked you about how to get into archiving stuff and you answered with a little guide of sorts of useful programs/websites/etc.

Do you still have that guide up? Is there somewhere I can learn more in-depth about how to begin archiving too?

Tumblr search is failing me and I can't find that post now... So! I'll type it again. Lately I've been thinking about writing some kind of "archivist's manifesto" type thing for my Neocities in an effort to hype people up about archiving and to guide them on how to do it. When I write that up I'll post it here too.

Here's a big post I wrote on how to scan books and where to upload them (this is also linked in the big GG masterpost that's in my pinned): https://solradguy.tumblr.com/post/722512206034501632/sol-radguy-scanning-guide

That guide also has some tips on photo editing that may be useful for non-book scanning stuff, like some free program alternatives.

I've tried finding professional guides on how to archive media but most of them are written for people looking to archive family photos/things and not web media or physical books. None of them have been very helpful, honestly. One thing they recommend doing that I think IS helpful though is the rule of 3: Keep 3 copies of an archive somewhere. A physical hard drive, cloud storage, a second hard drive stored separately from the first (in case of accidents/hardware failure), uploaded to separate file hosts, and printing new physical copies are some. Doing any 3 of those is highly recommended. I do the two hard drives and cloud storage/file hosts ones. My hosts are generally Archive.org, Neocities, and Google Drive.

Be very careful about trusting image hosting sites with valuable scan data because they come and go like the wind. Photobucket, Tinypic, Imageshack... They're either dead or require a premium to host files now, which doesn't help hobby archivists at all. Imgur's demise is on the horizon. It's just the way it goes with these due to how expensive and space-consuming image hosting is.

Absolutely 1000% do not ever use just Discord for archiving/hosting things. Nothing on that platform can be backed up easily or with automation, and the guys that run it have already made weird choices the community didn't want while also putting more and more things behind the Nitro paywall. I suspect they're going to kneecap image and file hosting some day soon, too.

For archiving someone else's files, something that helps greatly (if it can be done) is either including the source of the file in the file's name or writing a separate document with the sources and whatever other additional information there is.

Here's a basic example of some Sol images from my Sol folder:

The first two are from the Counterside collab event and then the second two are official art but the file names are descriptive and it saves time sourcing them for things later. For archiving fan art/fiction, the filename is a good place to put the artist credit. Something like [Artwork Title]-[Artist Name]-[Original File Creation Date].format ("Sol Badguy Missing Link - Daisuke Ishiwatari - May 14 1998.jpg," or however you wanna organize the folder) works good.

Windows 11 didn't like working with Japanese text in file names for some of the Vastedge stuff I archived and I had to translate/romanize them. If you can't read Japanese/source's language, just do your best (number them instead?) and include the native language text in a .TXT file if possible.

A more complex example from the Vastedge .TXT doc:

The Vastedge materials archive is pretty dense and had a lot of contributors so the first half of the .TXT document's just credits for who did what. This is useful for if something gets lost because we'll know who to go bother about it. Among other things.

The next section is a long stack of details about the files themselves. I won't paste the whole thing here, it's pretty long. It covers how the archive came to be, issues with some of the files, how the files were obtained, and some other stuff:

The last half of the .TXT doc is a listing of the folder contents. I included this for quick reference and because sometimes archives get fractured by people only reuploading certain parts of it. Future archivists or anyone else going through this archive now have a list of what should be in there and will know if something is missing.

Archive.org/Wayback Machine has a browser extension for quickly archiving webpages. I have that and WebP / Avif Image Converter by Nullbrains (Chrome, might be on Firefox?) installed to quickly archive pages and convert image files as I save them.

In summary:

Upload/store things in multiple places

Include credits wherever you can, however is easiest for you

Try to keep files in the most widely compatible formats (jpg, gif, bmp, png, tiff, mp3, mp4, txt, pdf, flac, etc). Google's .DOC, Clip Studio Paint's .CLIP, and similar file formats meant for a specific piece of software may not be supported in the future.

A bad/incomplete archive is better than no archive at all. Consider how exciting Sappho poetry fragments are compared to what it would be like if we didn't have anything. Don't worry about making it "perfect."

Hope that helps some!! I'll try to write the manifesto for my NC soon

[trilobi-te]

Chipspeech Twitter Archive Update

Hi I should have done this months ago.. I do not know when (or if) I am going to finish that website lmao. So I am just going to share my notes from Google Docs. Should be easier to read than the original posts and helpful as a starting point if anyone else decides to make a website :3

The documents are all on commenting mode so feel free to make comments to bookmark things for yourself or write your thoughts or whatever. Under the cut I have put some formatting notes.

It's a folder, each year of Twitter posts is its own document (I tried to compile them into one but it lagged too much). There is also a document with all of the original Tumblr posts (from the accounts I could find, no tags yet but I will go back and get them eventually, also no dates but they're all from 2015), and one with the bios from the official website for ease of access.

The formatting is a little (a lot) weird and there are probably pictures that need resizing/transcription but I figured it's better to give people access now. The text is small (to keep the page count as low as possible) so you will have to zoom in.

It goes by day, organized with a bulleted list. The top level bullets are each character that tweeted that day. The second level bullets are original tweets/retweets by that character. The third+ level bullets are comment threads under that tweet, the organization here is inconsistent but imo still readable (if you think something needs an edit for clarity let me know and I'll fix it).

For each character's section of the list, normal text is that character's tweets/comments. Italicized text is anyone who is not that character. If it is labeled with unitalicized text, it is that character/important account (e.g. the official Chipspeech account), otherwise it is a fan. I also included some labels and/or clarifying comments for Vocaloid producers I like, they're not central to the story though

I got rid of the line breaks within the tweets when copying them down because it was easier to format. Sorry about that. Idk how to fix it other than going through everything again but it doesn't take away from the story so I'm leaving it for now.

If something came from a website other than Twitter, I tried to provide the link (unless its content was deleted). I did my best to transcribe the Clyp posts that were not deleted.

If something is a text-only retweet, it is marked with [retweet]. If it includes an image, it's probably a screenshot of the whole thing. I only included retweets that felt story-relevant (so no miscellaneous cat pictures, Apple-related aesthetic images, etc.), but if people really want it I can go back and add the rest.

Deleted tweets are noted with [deleted tweet], with the characters they came from if applicable. Idk how Twitter works but it the person in the thread is replying to the username of a certain character, I assumed it was that character's tweet that had been deleted. If something says [deleted Dandy thread], assume there is a deleted Dandy tweet in between each of the listed tweets (or another character, but it's usually Dandy). That was meant to be a temporary time-saver and I've gone back and fixed the ones I've found, but there's probably more I accidentally skipped.

Anything not in English is translated in a comment. Except the X-Sampa (I will fix that sometime but there's not much of it). Also it was done with the built-in Google Translate feature so it may be a little incorrect. Unclear pictures and whatnot also have clarifying comments. I can add more clarifying comments (or image IDs) if anyone needs them.

I tried not to include any unattributed fanart but there are some that I forgot to copy the handle for (I am also fixing these when I find them).

As for any future updates to this folder as a whole, I kind of want to go back through each account's liked tweets to see if there's anything funny in there but idk when that will be. That would probably be its own document.

Honestly I should have given everyone access back in June.. oops. If you have any questions you can put them in a comment on this post (or reach out to me another way, idk). As I mentioned before, feel free to use all of this as a starting point if you're making your own website.

I'll pin this post so it's findable in the future. Also sorry for disappearing for several months (it will happen again).

[zeltqz]

niyaaaa do u have any tips for people who wanna get into fic writing? 👀

i don’t really get how the whole posting format for fics works on here tbh 😭 and like your info area it’s so cool

YEAH OFC!! btw dm me your username so i can follow and support you <3

tip 1- the posting format isnt that hard to get used to actually its just you create a tumblr text post and then copy and paste your fic onto it, add the tags and stuff then post it. if you want to add banners, headers and stuff to make it look better then go ahead, just add images to the text post

tip 2- the info area is the same as above, just add pictures of your choice etc to the text post, add your information, name, age, fav things etc and then to link posts to your post, highlight where u want the link to go, then copy the link of the post u want linked then press the hyperlink that looks like two chains linked together when you highlight the text if that makes sense? sounds like a lot but its rlly not i promise haha

tip 3- always type your fics on other apps like word or google docs since they have an auto save feature!! i dont reccomend typing your fics on tumblr since one if the app crashes, it doesn't automatically save your work so everything you wrote will get deleted (some versions of tumblr do have autosave, my laptop has it but my phone and iPad doesn't, so i dont rely on it)

tip 4- idk if you want tips on actual fic writing or just how to get your fics onto tumblr but ill help you with that anyway. with me when i write fics i always imagine it out in my head. theres some of my fics where i just went with the flow and wrote wgatever came to mind and those are the fics i hate the most because they dont rlly make sense to me. theyre always so random and it just seems rushed and bad.

i picture my fics like a scene in my head and whatever i want the character to do, think, say or feel i write that shit down asap. i use other online sources to help get more descriptive like the emotion theasurus <- honestly one of my favourite things to use ever, they have so much body language to use for every emotion in the damn book

dialogue is also something i find difficult. i've improved i personally feel like but its still hard for me especially if im writing a new character. i never want to make the character seem OOC so i do lots of research before hand. i normally use the wiki to read up on a characters personality.

for example i'll use ran for this since he's like 99% of my account lmao. in the wiki, he's described as "naturally whimsical toward others which makes him inscrutable" though ran doesnt have many scenes in the manga (which i hate bc i love him sm) its impossible to actually write him down to a tee so i use that naturally whimsical description to make him playful, charismatic, carefree etc, going off what little information i have with him.

getting a characters personality down is what can make or break a dialogue. for me when im reading a fic of a character and their dialogue is so OOC it puts me off and i dont even wanna read. so i apply my same fic icks to myself and think if I don't like seeing this and that in a fic, why would I incorporate those in my fics and have ppl get put off it if they have the same fic icks as me?

hope that makes sense!!

tip 5- dont rush yourself at all. i used to rush a few of my fics and i just ended up hating it so much after and fought bck the urge to delete them so many times but then i'd see people's comments and realise i was being too harsh on myself. i'd keep them up but i'd just hate seeing them get attention.

rushing only makes you hate your work and the quality of your work will decline if you are not in the right headspace.

thats also why i have the don't rush me thing in my rules because not only is it annoying to see people constantly asking for updates, it also makes me mad because i know i'll just put out a piece of garbage if i did rush.

also another tip don't give yourself deadlines!! if you know your writing consistency can be a little sloppy, don't tell your followers that you're going to upload every so and so day. if something happens and you miss the deadline, you'll feel bad and rush something out and most times out of ten, a rushed fic doesn't do well. so take your time and don't rush.

tip 6- dont listen to what other people say or feel obligated to write something you don't wanna. establish your boundaries!! for example, from day one i started this blog i said im accepting requests but i will not write anything to do with non-con, incest or minors. i made sure that was out there so i wouldn't feel uncomforable writing anything i wasn't comfy with.

there are people on this app that may like your writing and request you to write something for them. you are not obligated to write anything for anyone! don't feel like you have to just because they asked nicely.

if you want to accept requests you can im not saying you shouldn't, im saying don't feel like you have to. you always have a choice. its your blog.

tip 7- remember this isn't a job. you're allowed to take breaks, allowed to have a personal life. don't feel like you need to be updating every day. i used to think i was obligated to be uploading consistently at least every week because i was obsesssed with engagement and seeing peoples comments and was scared if i took a break ppl will unfollow. now i honestly don't care. i'm not active as much as i used to because of school and that's fine! if ppl want to leave, let them. don't feel like you're forced to keep being active in order to keep your follower count stable.

tip 8- this app can get really toxic sometimes. luckily enough i've only had one toxic anon in my inbox and i've been on this app for a year. some people have so many, some ppl get harrassed etc. if that happens to you just be prepared since there's no actual way to find out who's behind anons. you can turn off your anon options which means if ppl want to inbox you something then their account will be showing. some people arent comfortable with that and that's fine! i keep mine on because i want people to feel comfortable on my page.

just remember though if you ever feel like this app is getting overwhelming take breaks! for the sake of your mental health take breaks. i know so many writers on here that took breaks and came back healthier and stronger.

i feel like this tip goes for social media in general. as much as i love social media im aware how unhealthy it is. breaks are so important for you. remember that.

i can't think of anymore tips right now but if i have some more i will edit the post and add it on.

if u have anymore questions about the tumblr posting format dm me and ill help you out :))

[morningnoodles]

Could you please make a tutorial on how to add pictures to ao3 chapters ? Phone version please 🙏

hey anon, sure thing!

i actually did the whole 7 days of bagginshield week on computer as i find that easier but here's how i updated the epilogue through my phone ˙˚ʚ(´◡`)ɞ˚˙

1) your image

if it's an existing image on the internet that you want to add (hopefully with the permission of the owner), you can skip to the next step.

if it's an image you created, upload it somewhere that can be accessed publicly (blogs, websites, etc). if you want to maintain its quality, i would not recommend social media platforms because they're notorious for ruining em.

i uploaded mine here on tumblr. if you're using phone, you can upload yours via the app and save the draft but you will need to open tumblr in a browser for the next step.

2) grab the image link

it's also called image location, image address or image URL. because you can't upload images directly on ao3, you need this to add your image to your chapters.

long press on your image and something like this will pop up

tap on "copy image location" or the equivalent for you.

you can also tap on "open image in new tab" and the URL in that tab usually is also the image URL. you know it's the right one if it has "media" or your file format (jpeg, png etc) on the URL somewhere.

i think tumblr app can't do this which is why you need to open tumblr via browser to grab the URL. (i could be wrong tho! ✿)

3) add to ao3

tap on "Rich Text", not "Html" and then tap on the photo icon below

add the copied image URL to "Source", add image description if you like, then change the dimensions to your desired size. for the comics i put their full size (1600x4800). then tap "Save".

i'd recommend going back to Html for the next paragraph if that's easier on phone but that's it!

hope this helps! (❁´◡`❁)

[yourlocalartsonist]

ROTTMNT Moths Fly In Packs - Chapter One

A/N: HI I’M FINALLY POSTING THE FIRST CHAPTER. Really excited and super nervous but I’m SO happy I can finally share this with everyone. I’m not doing a drawing for every chapter since that’d be selling my soul to the red dilf down below but this is the first chapter so I figured why not do something special. Also apologies if any of the characters seem ooc, I’m still learning how to write them so it might take a bit (especially the dialogue). Also also, sorry if the formatting seem weird, I just copy pasted a google doc into Tumblr and I haven’t entirely figured out how this app works yet. ANYWHIZZLE despite all that I hope y’all enjoy and I can’t wait to write more ^^

Next Chapter

Masterlist

Disclaimer: chapter involves themes of manipulation, violence, and curse words. If you’re sensitive to that stuff, scroll past and stay safe <3

I looked out the window and sighed. Today could have been a lot worse, sure, but it also could’ve been a whole lot better.

It was one am on a Monday night. Staying up this late this early in the week is gonna guarantee a begrudgingly painful school life till Friday. And yet, here I was, staring at my phone at his texts.

Zane: Hey! You were active on insta. How come you didn’t text back?

Zane: hey it’s been an hour now. I’m starting to worry about you

Zane: Salena are you ignoring me? I already said I was sorry

Zane: fine then. Don’t text me. But at least talk to me tomorrow. I miss you.

Zane: Goodnight.

He was getting clingier by the day. Last month when he asked me out, I was worried rejecting him would break his heart. Somehow, it looks like it had the opposite effect and boosted his ego since he’s only gotten more pushy after that. I mean today he picked a fight with a guy just for talking to me. It’s getting ridiculous.

I groaned and hopped off bed to get a drink of water. I know I should probably forgive him, I’m sure he’s just coping differently maybe. It’ll get better with time. I hope it gets better with time. Otherwise the next four months are gonna be excruciatingly long. Still, I can’t just not be mad after what he did.

As I lamented in my depressive thoughts, I saw four figures out the window, running from rooftop to rooftop. Smiling, I opened the window and let the cool air and the joyous voices flow in. At least one good thing’s coming out from today.

It looked like they were chasing someone, a giant pig man specifically. I would’ve been more freaked out if this was the first human-animal thing I saw.

The very first time I saw one was a giant bull in a bellboy uniform running along the sidewalk, clumsily knocking anything and everything over as he wept. I assumed my sleep deprived brain was probably making things up again but the sheer absurdity of it paired with the fact that my sleep schedule was actually decent that week, I began to question that guess. Then, only ten minutes later, seeing four human-sized turtles walking upright seemingly searching for the bull man sealed the deal that I could not be making this shit up.

But that was two or three years ago. Now, it’s more of a fun surprise seeing the new animal person of the week than a sanity-questioning spiral. Most often, I see the turtles passing by. Sometimes they’re goofing off or skateboarding. Other times, they’re chasing someone like right now. I can only assume the pig man is evil if he’s being chased by them. I know the turtles are good since I suspect they’re the “mysterious heroes” that saved New York from that-which-shall-not-be-named a few months back. I mean, who else could it be?

Even if they’re chasing a potential murderous lunatic, they seem like they’re having fun. They’re all smiling and laughing and whizzing around everywhere, just looking at them gives me an adrenaline rush.

I stared out the window longingly as they zipped by, disappearing into the night. Maybe the late night was getting to my brain, but things just felt worse than usual this time. I’ve been watching these four go by my window at least once a week for so long. They always look so fun to be around. Free-spirited and zany, the exact opposite of everyone in my life. Maybe I really am going insane but for once I just want to know them, to see them up close. And if I’m feeling particularly crazy, I might even say hello.

I found my body edging closer and closer out the window. The fire-escape does lead all the way down, and I’m only on the sixth floor anyway. It’s not exactly a fast distance to the ground but it wouldn’t be too bad if I run…

Before I knew it, I was already out dashing in their direction to catch up. I’ve only ever dreamed of having enough courage to actually attempt this. If my aunt finds out I snuck out my grave will be dug and that’s not an exaggeration.

Yet somehow, that didn’t stop me. My skin felt numb from the cold wind, my hair was going crazy behind me. I felt pain in my cheeks from how much I was smiling. I guess I am feeling particularly crazy tonight.

***

By the time I caught up with them, I was embarrassingly out of breath. They were now all ground level in an alleyway and I was hiding just around the corner, close enough to listen in. A little nervous if they can hear my hideous dying dog pants, not just because it would blow my cover but also for the sake of my prestige. They seem a little too distracted by the pig man to notice me, though.

“Alright, meathead! Give us the poison, or I’m gonna smash your head into the wall and keep smashing till I smash the wall down with my smashy little fists!”

Note to self: the red one likes smashing.

“Oh get stuffed you annoying little rats! Can’t a guy sabotage his rival chef’s excuse of a business in peace?”

“GASP! He’s defaming rats!”

They broke out into a fight over what looked to be a large bag of, assumedly, poison. The pig man’s tentacle arms were whipping all over the place, trying to land a blow on the turtles. Oh and apparently his arms can extend which I would find cool if it weren’t for how gross it looked. It’s all drippy and squishy-looking and weird, not a texture I’d want to be near.

I won’t lie, I was kind of distracted from the danger I put myself in since being this close allowed me to properly see the turtles fight. At first glance it looks like they’re flailing all over the place, but it’s actually in a more cohesive way. The blue turtle teleported around and sliced the tentacles attacking them, the red one went in for a punch with giant fists at any opening. Purple guy had glowing guns in his signature color all shooting at the same time and the orange turtle swung around hitting pig man with any object his fiery chains landed on. My god was I awestruck watching them all in action. I was so busy gawking I barely even registered the magic weapons.

One of the flame chains got a hold of his leg and sent the pig guy flying backwards, losing grip of his poison bag.

“Heads up!” The blue one yelled as the bag soared through the air. All the turtles attempted catching it while the pig man’s tentacle arm followed close behind the bag. It looked like it was about to be body horror Peppa Pig’s win.

So I stepped out and grabbed the bag before he could. All eyes now on me, I made a run for it in the other direction realizing how exposed I was. Behind me I could hear a confused “Who was that?” sounding like it was from the purple guy.

Yeah, sure, maybe this wasn’t the smartest move but if I’m getting myself involved I might as well be useful.

I’d break in and out of thought every time I crashed into a wall or slid on the ground. I was never exactly known for my clearly graceful nature. My body started aching. Still I kept running, only stopping to throw a rock or two at one of the stringy pink arms behind me. Seriously, why does that dude have to be so puke-worthy.

A silver blur sped right past my head. The glowing sword stopped in front of me and a familiar blue turtle appeared out of thin air.

“And where do you think you’re going?”

As much as I pride myself on reflexes, the initial shock didn’t wear off fast enough to prevent me from crashing into him and falling back on the ground. I barely had an impact on him, though, since he was still standing perfectly fine with a hand on his hip and the other gripping his weapon.

“Look pal, I have been heroing all week and as much as I love fighting villains and looking badass, I say we make this fast and you just tell me who sent you.”

“S-sent me?” It took me a while to catch on. Not my best day, I know.

“Oh, no no no! I'm not working for anyone! I was trying to help. See?”

I held out the bag towards him, hoping that would convince him I’m not a threat. To my surprise, instead of taking it, he squinted his eyes and me and crouched down to match my height.

“You know, you look kinda familiar. Have we met before?..”

I was too stunned to respond.

Back when I first saw the turtles, after seeing the human bull, I overheard them talking about him and wanting to find him. The blue one especially, he seemed extremely guilty about something. I figured I’d help but I wasn’t brave enough to just go up to them and tell them I saw the bull. I’m too shy to even approach regular humans, these were talking anthropomorphic turtles. So instead I threw a note down and it bounced off blue’s head. He looked at it, read it, then looked up at me. I poked my head out from behind the fire escape and gave an awkward wave, trying to let him know I was on their side. It worked since he directed his team towards where I wrote the bull man went.

I remember later that same night, he knocked on my window. I was a bit freaked out admittedly and hid away by instinct. I wasn’t exactly expecting to see them again.

“Oookay. Well.” I could tell he wasn’t sure how to deal with me. I was regretting hiding but my legs were frozen in place.

“I don’t know if you can hear me since the window’s closed but I wanted to say thanks for the note. We found our guy way faster than we would’ve if we kept having to use Raph’s ideas.” He let out a playful chuckle.

I felt my heart melt a little. I don’t know what I was expecting but it wasn’t really that. I don’t usually hear things like that often.

“So yeah uh, if you can still hear me, thank you.”

My legs started working again as I heard him leap off to leave. I opened the window and rushed out to the fire escape. Luckily, he was on the ground not too far away from me. I called out to him.

“Salena!”

He turned around and saw me. “What?”

I beamed brighter and yelled again.

“My name is Salena!”

“Salena?” His voice brought me back to present day.

“You remember me?”

He let out a cheery laugh. “Of course I remember you! I told you, your note was the only reason we found Bullhop so fast that day.”

“But that was years ago.” I sighed in disbelief as he helped me to my feet.

“And? No face has ever escaped ol’ Neon Leon’s noggon!” He proudly pointed to his brain. I debated telling him the word was noggin.

We heard voices in the distance.

“PUNCHING LIKE A BOSS!!”

“I SWEAR ONE DAY I’LL TURN YOU ALL INTO STEW!”

“GUYS! He wants to turn me into stew!”

“Mikey, that’s not a good thing.”

“Says you! I’d make a delicious stew, thank you very much, Dee!”

“Welp, duty calls! Let’s get you to safety.” With that, he opened a blue portal and pulled me through it to a nearby rooftop. So his swords can teleport and open portals??

“You think you can keep this bag with you?”

I managed to nod.

He gave a smirk and stepped back through his portal to rejoin the battle.

“Leo! Where’s the bag?”

“And the person who stole the bag?” I could still hear red and purple speak.

“Relax, they’re a friend, they’re keeping the bag safe.”

“A new friend?! OMIGOSH!!” Orange seemed excited

The fight picked up fiercer than before. It was hard to keep up with the turtles and the chaos of their weapons. Orange flames, purple lasers, sheathing metal. The ground shook at every red flash. All the while, the air filled with lively laughter and jokes.

Pig man wasn’t going down easy, either. He pounded his giant spiky mallet, probably matching the force of red’s hits. I know they’re experienced fighters and all, but I felt a bit useless sitting around and doing nothing. I looked around for some way I could help.

Luckily, something caught my attention. On the left side of the roof, I could see a pile of bricks laying around. More than perfect for knocking out a mutant. Now the question is how to get them down.

I saw a flash of blue out the corner of my eye.

Bingo.

Screaming at the top of my lungs, hoping my voice wouldn’t be drowned out, I called out to him.

“Blue! Hey, blue up here!”

He followed my voice to where I was, looking a bit confused and worried I was giving myself away.

I pointed to the brick in my hand. “Make a portal on top of him!”

I saw his face light up as he understood my plan. “Great idea!”

As he dashed off, a blue portal opened near me. I rushed around the roof, grunting as I pushed the bricks in. Blue threw a sword in the air, appeared right above the pig, and opened the other side of the portal, letting all the bricks rain down on him. They all looked a bit surprised seeing around 8 or 10 bricks hit him on the head, blue included. Yeah, sure, maybe pushing all of them in was a bit overkill but seeing how crazy powerful this guy was, I didn’t want to risk it.

And boy, was he out cold. The four turtles made their way up the roof, I presume to get the bag of poison.

I glanced back down at the pig “So like…he’s not dead is he?”

“Meatsweats? Nah that guy’s handled way worse.” Blue said strangely casually. “Good thinking with the bricks, btdubs.”

I’d appreciate the compliment more but I was still struggling to figure out what could possibly be worse than bricks to the head.

“Yeah, thanks for your help back there with the poison, too.” red rubbed his neck and gave a sweet smile. For a big guy he seems awfully friend-shaped.

“I’m Raph. These are my brothers Leo, Mikey, and Donnie.” Leo struck a pose, Mikey waved like his life depended on it, and Donnie…well he was just on his phone with his shell turned towards me. It’s a cool shell, at least. I never noticed it wasn’t a real one before.

“I’m Salena. Nice to meet you all.”

People used to tell me I ask too many questions so I got into the habit of just keeping my tongue bit. But I would’ve exploded if I didn’t seize the moment today to find out what the hell was going on. I’m bad at social situations, anyway, might as well be on purpose.

“So if you don’t mind me asking…What are you? How do you exist? Where’d you get your weapons? Did you make your shell yourself? Who was that guy? Can I see what’s in this bag?”

“AHEM! I’m glad you asked!” Donnie turned his attention towards me, dramatically answering my questions. “We, weird human, are the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (trademark). And yes, my battle shell is indeed Genius Built technology. Made this baby when I was twelve.”

“We’re mutant turtles!-”

“Literally just said that in the name Micheal”

“Still think Mad Dogz was better.”

“-And we were made in Draxum’s lab to take over the world back when he was going through his ‘bad boy’ phase but we ended up being heroes instead. Pretty cool right?”

“Hey, inquiry for you actually, why’d you help us anyway?”

I awkwardly answered Donnie, telling them about my luck of random mutants frequently passing by my window. Apparently some of them were Yōkai, Raph said there was a whole Hidden City of them and a doorway leading to it near where I lived. I was a little surprised at how happy they all looked listening to me talk. Usually I’d be told to shut up by now so this was a nice change of pace.

“What happened to your arm?” Leo pointed to the wound on my forearm.

“Oh. That explains why it felt so sore. I guess I scraped against a wall or something? It’s fine, though, I’ll patch it up when I get home.”

“No way. You helped us, we help you. Let the professional do his magic.”

Leo took out some supplies from his pouch. I sat on the edge and let him work on my arm while the rest - mostly Donnie - info dumped their stories to me. At first it was a way to distract me from the initial sting of my cuts being cleaned but it wasn’t long until they got carried away with their storytelling. They told me about their mutation at the lab, how they found out, their two dads and other human friends. The oozequitoes, as they called them, were what made them and all the other mutants. It’s crazy to think these guys were made as literal military weapons considering they’re now wacky vigilantes.

“Voilà! Look and be amazed!”

“Woah! You weren’t kidding when you said professional.” I admired Leo’s bandaging on my arm. It was clean and neat, tight enough to be secure but not turning my fingers blue or anything. Much better job than I would’ve done.

The full moon was beautiful tonight. Unfortunately, it reminded me where I should be at this time.

“Well, I’m really enjoying talking to guys but I should probably go home. I don’t even wanna know how late it is”

“What? But can’t you stay a little longer?” Mikey, who was practically vibrating this whole time, suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. He looked so dejected it made my heart hurt. Raph attempted to comfort him.

“They probably have school Mike. Maybe we can hang out another time, if you’re up for it?”

“REALLY- I mean, yes, yeah. That sounds lovely!” Stay civil, Salena.

“Hey before you go, you should really try one of these.” Leo opened the poison bag and took out a pizza puff? “They are absolutely delicious.”

Poison or not, pizza puff’s a pizza puff.

“NO!“ Unfortunately, Raph slapped the treat out of my hand before I could plop it in my mouth.

We bid our farewells and Mikey handed me a paper with their numbers on it paired with some cute doodles of them. After telling him where to go, Leo opened a portal to my room. I know you’re not supposed to tell strangers your address and it did feel a little weird but a portal was the fastest way home. No way I’m hoofing it this late in the night. I love New York but not that much.

Sitting on my bed now, I observed the blue turtle as he was getting ready to go back. The red stripes around his eyes made me realize he was a red-eared slider, I read about them back when I was six or seven I think.

“Hey Leo?”

“Yeah?”

I smiled. “It was nice running into you again.”

He gave his signature smirk “Funny how life works, ay?”

He waved and fell back into his portal. I closed my eyes for a bit, then grabbed my sketchbook.

Placing Mikey’s doodles on a blank page, I wrote down their respective eye colors.

Green, brown, yellow, blue.

Next Chapter | Salena Moni

[ilovedthestars]

Random Summary Tag Game

Ever need to summarize a long fic that you wrote so you can pitch it to someone else, but it's hard to distill it down into just a few paragraphs?

Never fear! Wolf on the Murderbot Diaries Discord came up with the genius idea of a longfic sampler that randomly chooses a paragraph from each chapter, to assemble a summary that is certain to make even less sense than anything you could come up with, enticing readers to read your fic to find out what it's actually about!

I'm exporting it to tumblr as a tag game with her permission.

Here are the instructions:

Choose a long (or long-ish) fic that you wrote. Randomly select a single paragraph from each chapter. If the fic has too many chapters for this to be reasonable, randomly select 5-10 and then choose random paragraphs from those. If the fic is all one chapter, randomly select 5-10 paragraphs from it.

(One easy way of doing this is to copy the text into a document and format the whole thing as a numbered list, which will number each of the paragraphs. Please don't count paragraphs by hand unless you really want to. Here's a random number generator you can use.)

Then, put all your randomly selected paragraphs in order to create your amazing summary. You're allowed to reroll to avoid spoiling major twists.

Here's mine:

Her hands were trembling. I will ensure that your human is safe, said a voice in my head. I am capable of seeing to its treatment with the MedSystem, the mysterious voice asserts. (Who is that? Another crewmember, in a different part of the ship?) It adds, As well as repelling any attempt by the SecUnit to harm my crew. I don’t know why, but that made me angry. I’m not afraid of you. You can’t do anything to me that’s worse than I’m used to. I attached a few memory files of punishment from the governor module, so it knew exactly what I meant. ART said in the general feed, It would be best if I could continue to monitor SecUnit in the MedSystem to ensure that treatment was successful. She stared at the ceiling for a little bit longer, while I sat there nervously. Eventually she said, “Did you really think they were going to hurt you?”

This is from my Murderbot fic Acceptable Mission Cost! (Probably not a longfic by most people's standards, but it's my longest fic, lol)

Please consider yourself tagged if you see this and want to participate! Tagging some friends who were involved in the discord discussion: @every-eye-evermore @blessphemy @wtf-skittens @specialagentartemis (As always, no pressure!)

[masschase]

SR Boss Asks Answers

I realised how much space long reblogs take up on the reblog page (yeah, I'm new to tumblr) so I've copied this onto a new post.

But yeah, did them all, and I implore anyone who wants to talk about their Boss to do these, because even if no-one reads it, it was fun. There were a couple of things I didn't really think about, like the #16 Casey-cat moment which is my new favourite thing.

#17 is something I've just done a longer post on.

Apologies for formatting issues.

1.What’s their backstory? Cassandra ‘Casey’ Michaiła Clark was born in Stilwater. Her dad left when she was very young citing that he couldn't handle two kids. Ofc he leaves and has two kids with his new wife and barely sees Casey and her sister. He later claims he wanted to leave their mom, not them. Her sister rightfully points out that for all her flaws, their mom never actually stopped him seeing them so that's on him.

Her mom was from a slightly more affluent background than her dad (they met in college but dropped out when her mom got pregnant) and they were scraping by until he left. After that, her mom worked very hard to maintain the appearance to the outside world that they were not struggling with money, even though it sent them into debt. She was always very judgemental and religious, but also had a genuine anxiety disorder. She eventually got addicted to Xanax and would drag Casey with her to make excuses like that she'd flushed her last lot down the toilet/took them to school and they got confiscated etc.

It got to the point where she was pretty checked out and Casey's sister had to make sure they were getting to school on time, that there was food on the table etc.. When she was 14, her sister left home and this derailed her pretty bad.

Her best friend Mori(OC: Moriarty Alleyne- hoping to post more about him soon)'s mom Angela was instrumental in taking care of her from about the age of 12. She always made sure Casey was fed when at her house and gave her some of Mori's old clothes when she outgrew her sister's hand-me-downs. She did try to help where she could but wasn't fully aware of the situation for a long time. Even though Mori's friendship with Casey became a little strained due to his girlfriend disliking her, Angela would still invite her around.

When Casey was 15 her mom caught her making out with a girl she liked and it led to her mom throwing her out of the house. She stayed with Mori and Angela for two weeks straight but Angela started saying Casey should go check on her mom, and offers to go with her- having realised by this point that drugs are involved she's worried her mom might have OD'ed (Casey doesn't realise that's why until years later). Casey assures her she has been in contact with her mom (technically she has been, she's been sent texts about repenting her sins and guilt trips about leaving her at home the whole time) and pretends to go home but obviously can't.

So instead she finds herself on Saints Row at a really stupid time of night and… well, you know… Saints Row happens.

2. How old were they when they first joined the Saints? Fifteen, almost sixteen. Weird little angry kid born 29th June 1990. I think she has pretty obvious millenial tastes and tendencies. I find the post-SRIV dynamic pretty fascinating actually. She probably has a lot more in common with Pierce and Shaundi who I hc as similar ages compared to Johnny who is xennial, Kinzie and Asha who I think are borderline millenial/gen z, and 110% zoomer Matt. Then you've got Keith and Ben complaining that the ship is ran by kids and CID, Jane and Jezebel being extreme outliers to the whole thing.

3. Did they have a happy childhood? I mean overall she says it wasn't terrible. She had some nice moments with her sister. Kinzie calls her backstory "tragic" when she hears it and Casey disagrees calling it "just, y'know, a bit shitty". She heard stories of other kids going through physical and sexual abuse, she saw how Mori was affected by his dad's death and had to help him through some very dark times with his depression. She doesn't class her borderline sociopathy as a mental health issue until much later on. She starts therapy around the time the Saints rise to fame, around 2012-2013.

4. Do they have any siblings? Yes, she has a sister called Phoebe who is approximately 4 years older than her and as above, pretty much had to raise her. She left home when she was 18 which led Casey to feel pretty abandoned all over again, especially because she didn't fully understand her reasons.

5. Did they graduate high school? What about college? No, she dropped out of high school. She had plans to study English Literature at college had she got that far. She held on to school for almost a year after Phoebe left, still scraping Bs, but eventually it all took its toll. She got a job as a dishwasher in a small restaurant. If it wasn't for stealing food off of plates for a few months she wouldn't have had the muscle mass for the physical strength she displays in the first game.

6. What’s their sexuality?She self-defines as bisexual. Later she wonders if it should be pansexual. She didn't know what pan was in like 2003 when she was figuring it out, but either would fit her. Equally she would describe herself as panromantic but many of her friends assume she is fraysexual or otherwise arospec based on her choices around relationships.

7. What do they look for in a partner? She doesn't. She ignores or downright avoids that sort of interaction if possible. Suddenly becomes fucking mute again if she tries to talk about feelings. But she seems to be romantically attracted to people that are quite physically affectionate because she is very friendly emotionally but has trouble initiating non-sexual physical contact.

She does have the odd short-term partner, but tends to be drawn to people she doesn’t like all that much as something in her brain knows it won't last (talking days, I think her longest was like 10 days for many years). She has a lot of one-night stands/other casual hookups.

8. Are they currently dating anyone? Currently when? ;) Throughout the games, no, unless it’s a matter of days as described above. She's capable of romantic attraction but as above, doesn't want a relationship for practical reasons (actually fear) because a partner could be used against her.

9. Who do they love most in the world? Her friends. They are her family. She is unwavering on that. This doesn't change when she gets a partner or meets a blood relative from the pods. But it does shift a little some time in 2024.

10. Is there someone from their past they will never forgive?

Her parents. Anyone who contributes to the several deaths of her friends also but the difference there is that she doesn't let them live. So no need to forgive them. Hell she only considered letting Matt live because he reminded her of herself when she got dragged into the gang life at 15-16. The upgrades just sealed the deal.

11. What is their favorite food? Mori and his mom are Bajan-American so Barbadian food is a comfort food for her, especially salt fish and macaroni pie. Unfortunately none of the lieutenants stationed with her are of that heritage, so she often seeks out Carribean restaurants while still on earth. Phoebe's pecan pie is also a comfort, it was their grandma's recipe but she died when Casey was 6 and Phoebe was 9-10. Casey has the recipe but can't cook anything besides like frozen pizzas, instant ramen etc. She eventually tries to make the pie and realises burnt pecan pie is still good pecan pie! Despite this, lemon meringue pie is her favourite dessert. When the nice manager was on shift at the restaurant she would sneak her a piece every night. She also has a soft spot for fries because when she the dishwasher in the diner they were the easiest things to eat off plates before scraping them. Also pieces of burgers and ribs.

12. What are their pet peeves? She gets really restless when waiting on someone. Like she'll say meet at 2 and by the time Johnny gets there by 2.03 she's been pacing back and forth for five minutes. She doesn't mind all the gang being sarcastic with each other but if they all start talking each other at once she usually has to silence them. She is open to being called out on things like her white cis privelege or some of the hetronormative bias instilled by her background but she doesn't much like being challenged on some of her more bullshit 'rules' or lieutenants pushing back on her decisions once she's made them. She does eventually mature out of the latter.

13. What are some of their fears? Her biggest fear is losing someone she cares about. Unfortunately she's frequently had to live it. This is one of the things that contributes to her feelings on relationships.

14. How do they deal with injuries? Major: the Saints have a heavily bribed doctor in Stilwater, Steelport and DC. Minor: She usually asks Johnny to bandage if needed bc everyone else is too slow and gentle. Then more or less runs and hides until she's feeling better.

15. What is the MOST embarrassing moment in their life? That time she almost slow danced with Josh Birk at the 4th of July party is certainly up there.

16. Are they a cat or dog person? Cat, I think. I think she wouldn't have thought of herself of much a pet person in general because she grew up without any and she assumes she'd be too lazy to take care of them. But then she goes to a friends house who has a cat. Maybe Mori(which would be funny because his mom affectionately compares Casey to a stray cat). And she doesn't really know how to react around them so she's just kind of like "Sup.". Then the cat just kind of comes and sits on her lap and she's like… oh… warm! Soft. You are my new homie now.

17. Beside the 1950s sitcom, what else would their hell be?Again, just losing all the people she cares about. The only reason that was not her simulation is because Zinyak/the system he uses has a very shallow understanding of the human psyche, not surprising because Zin have a very conscious mind compared to humans where a lot is subconscious. This makes them fairly intelligent but also means they can adapt to changes due to their time travel easily because they just go "oh, a memory has changed.". See also: Pierce's simulation. Maybe everyone's.

18. Which death affects them the most? (Besides Johnny)

Oh this is different because they all impact such different areas of her life. Lin’s death probably had the greatest impact on her actions as a leader.She becomes very front-and centre/self sacrificing because of Lin.

On a more personal level I was going to say Carlos because she had pretty strong feelings for him but actually it's Aisha. Watching how her best friend, who she looks up to more than anyone and basically wanted to be, was just walking around with a piece of him missing really solidified her fear of relationships and anger at the injustice of life and death; things she might have otherwise grown out of/conquered with therapy.

19. What is their favorite music? She likes a pretty wide range of music because she doesn’t want to let anyone down by not following their recommendations and always finds at least one song she likes from the artists they like. Not taking that into account, she really likes '80s shit' and also ska but as a 00s teen she went through the pop punk phase pretty hard too.

20. What are some of their hobbies? Reading, definitely. Almost every spare moment when she gets to the stage where there are spare moments. In high school, Yu-Gi-Oh cards were big for her. Tbh she is pretty nerdy but because she's so technologically challenged her friends don't seem to pick up on that. I feel like in an AU 2020 she would get really into cottagecore during the pandemic then get really pissed because she can't bake or draw or knit.

[castlebyersafterdark]

Do you have any tips for uploading to AO3? I've never uploaded there, and I rarely use it logged in and it's a little daunting/confusing? I was wondering if there's any tips or things that I should know before starting. Thanks!

This is such a broad topic I'm not sure what specifics you need!! Here are some generic things I follow and appreciate when looking for fics at least:

Use the tagging function properly. Tag what you think are important aspects of your fic. Since I write smut, I like to list the main features of what's happening sex-wise since I know when people are looking for that content rating, they're in it for specifics. But you should tag the main characters, the main ship, any tropes you feel are important to categorize if you want. Don't over tag, though. If I see a fic with a paragraph long tags list - I may skip it to be honest? Because then it sometimes feels like people are trying to mass appeal to a non-existent algorithm. Tag honestly, but smartly.

Put effort into your summary. Short and simple. A lot of people might feature an interest grabbing few lines of dialog. Or just describe what the story is about. Nothing makes me skip clicking a fic more than "I'm so bad at summaries I don't know what to say!" Yes you do!! Describe your story! Take pride in your writing, don't put yourself down as the first thing a reader sees.

Make sure the format is easy to read. I view ao3 as more refined than a tumblr post or whatever the hell people are doing on Wattpad or wherever. Format it like book prose. Not all in lowercase. Proper punctuation. Sensible paragraph breaks. Each new speaker should be in a separate line, not all in the same paragraph.

I know there are programs to format the weird paragraph spacing when copy/pasting into the rich text box, but I can't figure that out. I and others appreciate uploaders who take the effort to remove the double spacing between paragraphs/lines, even if you have to manually go in and backspace to condense it. It's not the most important thing, but I typically read scrolling on a phone and all that blank space kind of drive me nuts. But maybe others like it. Personal preference but you asked me and I have a preference!

I discovered this myself recently and need to go back and look at my writing and make a change - I read some posts about it and a friend who I share writing with for feedback mentioned it as well - fanfic readers prefer shorter paragraphs. And I know I'm pretty wordy so this is an adjustment. It's different than novel writing. Try to find a sensible break to just split giant blocks of text into multiple paragraphs. A paragraph as a thought rather than a ramble. If that make sense. I found that my writing when formatted sometimes is so long that when on mobile, you're scrolling and scrolling and the paragraph still takes up the whole screen - and apparently readers prefer it to be split. So I'm adjusting my style as well for this, but I think it makes sense because of the nature of fanfiction right now is more tailored for the moment - and many read on phones rather than desktop. I never noticed or cared about long paragraphs but it was advice given to me as writing feedback and I think it makes sense! Maybe some will nod yes and others might disagree!!

I just think it's ok to make a mistake and adjust if needed. I'm just happy people are tying things, so no real shade if ooops someone did something I listed here. It's all commonly held opinions, though, and meant to help authors take pride in what they do 😊

[the-sneep-snoop]

i have said it once i have said it a thousand times there is no greater hell for me than experiencing bad ux design.

partly because autism and i will cry if something is too confusing or doesnt work how its supposed to and partly because i did ux design for a job a few years although at a very basic level and that lets me give myself the false belief that i have any authority here

but this is seriously on my mind a lot like if i was better at writing and / or into journalism? trust that i would have already published a more refined version of this post on medium or something. unfortunately i will be addressing you today from the humble uncapitalised unpunctuated tumblr post.

anyways i just like to complain so, here are some things i hate about websites (and some badly formatted pdfs) featuring varying levels of explanation

A SECTION FOR LONG ANSWER RESPONSE BUT EVERY LINE IS A SEPARATE FIELD AND ALSO YOU CAN'T DELETE YOUR TEXT

idk if i can explain this in a way that justifies the horrors. imagine you are trying to apply for scholarships via a fillable pdf and you must answer a prompt with a paragraph length response. but alas, upon reaching the end of the line, you can no longer type. hitting return does nothing to advance to the next line. oh well, maybe try again, select what you have and delete it. but alas again! hitting delete does nothing to delete your text. fortunately you discover that you can still copy and paste, even if it pasts a row above the one you had selected. well, it is what it is, and with a burst of resolve you type out your whole paragraph in google docs, and painstakingly copy and paste excerpts whose length is dictated only by trial and error due to different font sizes. you definitely did not cry for three hours over this ordeal

WEBSITE MAIN PAGE THAT'S JUST A LOT OF BUTTONS

my lovely university's student services website which is used for silly little things like paying tuition and selecting courses. it has lots of helpful webpages and helpful redirects / shortcuts to helpful external webpages. lots of them! around a hundred if you count. how is it arranged? how does navigation work? well, each and every one of them is a small square button. and it's all just arranged in one massive grid. hundreds of them. not in any particular order.

WHITE TEXT ON A WHITE BACKGROUND

nothing else to say about it

DROP DOWN MENUS ON A PDF THAT IS MEANT TO BE PRINTED

let me paint you a picture. a form that is printed and given to all students in the school for them to fill out. a field where something must be rated on a numerical scale from one to five. every student receives a form that has the number five already printed in that field. why? why, you ask, asks everyone unfortunate enough to be tasked with filling this form. well, one trailblazer who did it digitally via fillable pdf has discovered the elusive solution to this mystery. it was supposed to be a dropdown menu. a dropdown menu that has been flattened and killed like a fly in a papercopier.

A JOB APPLICATION THAT ASKS TOO MUCH INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

idk if it's even allowed to ask that but they did. and in the goofiest way possible. it asks 'have you ever used a website or social media. enter the url here' . there is only one field and it is required to proceed. oh man, i'll have to think really hard about which website (out of all the websites i have used in my life) i should respond with...!

A FORM DISGUISED AS A CHATBOT

i am very passionate about this one. i think it is evil. i think disguising forms as chatbots is useless and inefficient. i don't see much appeal in an illusion, a poor mimicry of human-to-human customer service, for the sake of a marginal amount of vague approximations of 'social connections' and 'friendliness' and 'approachability'. at the very least, it's not worth the sacrifice of usability. it is conversational, and that tricks you (including less digitally literate older people, the kind who type please and thank you into their google searches) into thinking you should respond conversationally. what if it says

"hi! my name is linda and i am your virtual assistant! do you have a postal code you can provide"

and the user replies

"hi linda! thanks so much! i do have a postal code, I just have to double check that I have the right one, could you hold on a minute?"

and the chatbot is expecting something more along the lines of "A9A 9A9". i should also mention at this point that i am not at all educated on how chatbots work and for all i know i am dead wrong and i am tilting at windmills. in which case i probably deserve to be shamed but also please be nice to me please don't be mean thank you

AN INFAMOUSLY INTRUSIVE PERSONALITY TEST THAT HAS A NEW FEATURE (CONFUSING IMAGES)

okay so certain well known fast food company recruitment process includes a 'personality test' that is more like a job interview because it asks you questions that often have wildly obvious correct and incorrect answers (despite its disguise as a 'there are no right and wrong answers here' type of personality quiz). this has been criticised for having questions about things like if you would choose to cheat on a test , if you would defend the company against your friends discussing 'negative and unfair press', if you would yell at your neighbour, if you would break the dress code. the criticism comes from it being unrealistic and silly, but it also ties into how many neurodivergent people struggle with honesty vs. the 'right answer' in job interviews.

now, that's bad enough, but someone decided it needed some visual aids to help explain the scenarios depicted - granted, that's a nice idea, but not executed super well. for one thing, the computer generated mascots who live in a futuristic science fiction world with the brand logo all over everything is not the most appealing thing to think about. for another, i found that sometimes the scenarios just didn't match up or make sense with the questions, and made me feel incompetent at reading what was going on in the scene. which is very stressful and not super fun.

RACIAL DEMOGRAPHIC QUESTIONS ON JOB APPLICATION

yes i understand that collecting statistics on prospective job seekers can be useful. yes i acknowledge that most forms with these questions are nice and allow multiple checkboxes to be ticked. but in this day and age i keep finding dropdown menus or mutually exclusive radio buttons to indicate race. that's right, you can only choose one option. which is awkward for some people. like me for example. at least sometimes i am allowed to choose the option of 'other' :)

-

and that's it for today. i may very likely be able to think of more but i'd rather not tbh. turns out there is a lot of negativity brewing in my mushy little mind after spending an hour and a half typing out my every grievance with every poorly designed website and form. who knew? and on top of that i lowkey hate how comedically challenged / tryhard / quirkly my writing voice turned out. it wasn't meant to be this way. trust me, i hate it too. this is an incoherent ramble written in the most mysterious hours of the night / morning in the midst of illness and fueled by nothing but my brain juice. which is not always the most pleasant juice out there if you know what i mean. so if you read this and you hate me please keep in mind that i am not the pretentious individual person i come off as. i am not usually like this. it's like i have been possessed. sorry

[xero-fox]

ok this might not be what you're looking for but tumblr actually has a progressive web app (PWA), which is basically a way of running the site through your browser but with a 'native app'-like interface. This is it on my home screen looking like any regular app:

Why is this useful from a 'getting rid of tumblr live' perspective? Because it means that we can use browser extensions to modify the app! To do what I'm about to show you you'll need a mobile browser which:

supports PWAs

supports the browser extension you wish to use to modify the tumblr PWA

Here, I am using Firefox for Android as the browser, and uBlock Origin to modify (uBO is most famous as an adblocking extension, which it's great at, but it also allows us to do more targeted customisation too!). I don't know much about Xkit, and Firefox for Android doesn't currently support it (though it might in the near future), but if your mobile browser does support it and you know how to use that, go ahead!

Ok, first off navigate to tumblr on your mobile browser and log in. You'll see tumblr live at the top of your dash and in the side menu so let's start by getting rid of it.

We don't want these.

Open uBlock Origin (probably in the 'add-ons' or 'extensions' section of your browser menu) and open the dashboard.

Now go to 'My filters' and type the following two lines as shown. These remove the tumblr live section from the top of your dashboard and from the side menu respectively.

Here are the two lines in text format if you want to copy and paste:

www.tumblr.com##.EiXnY.wQ2Ma > div www.tumblr.com##[title="Live"]

Hit the blue tick at the top to save your filters then reload tumblr. No more tumblr live!

See?

Now let's install the PWA. On Firefox, open your browser menu and hit 'Install'.

This should either automatically add the app to your home screen or give you an option to place it where you want - the specifics of this depend on what launcher you have on your phone.

And we're done! Hit the app icon and use it as you would any other app (this is exclusively the way I use tumblr on my phone now).

Extra stuff:

What can't the PWA do? Push notifications is the main thing, you'll have to open the app to see any activity (messages/reblogs/likes/etc.). The post editor can also be a bit temperamental, but I did write this whole thing using it so take from that what you will.

I'm on iOS, what browsers can I use? I'm not an iOS user, but I don't think WebKit supports any of the extensions required to block tumblr live like this unfortunately (iOS users please correct me if I'm wrong).

Well. This is frustrating.

I use Tumblr on my phone. This stupid website thought it was a brilliant idea to replace “snooze Tumblr Live for 7 days” (when frankly, I’d rather it ‘snooze’ eternally, but this was decent for a while) with “snooze Tumblr Live on your dashboard for 30 days,” emphasis mine.

Which means that obnoxious icon placed right where I can accidentally tap it won’t go away.

Well. Looks like I finally have a reason to switch to desktop with Xkit.

But I also have a question. Are there third-party apps to access Tumblr (the way there used to be for Reddit) that either don’t have Tumblr Live or let you turn it off?

[foone]

One of my few problems with adopting Tumblr as my social media outlet of choice is the way reblogging your own threads to comment on them means you get this slow explosion of longer and longer posts, and all previous versions still exist on your timeline.

This got long, so musings about the differences in how long-text posts work on different social medias and the trouble with writing them on ADHD continued under the cut.

So if you scroll down my Tumblr account after a bunch of writing, you see:

FOONE: A, B, C, D, E

FOONE: A, B, C, D

FOONE: A, B, C

FOONE: A, B

FOONE: A

And this is annoyingly repetitive especially as posts get long. Which is a definite risk, I can type SO FUCKING MUCH.

And you might say "this is easily fixed: posts don't have to be short (this isn't Twitter) so just put all the content in one post", which, no. I have ADHD. Coming back in the room to go "AND ANOTHER THING!" is my modus operandi, you know? I can't think of all the things I want to say and just say them in one place and go "OK DONE" and click a button and let the internet go read it now. I don't know what I am going to say until after I have said it, and especially not what I am going to say next.

And I worry that the way Tumblr compounds your threads in this additive explosion means that the threshold for "this is too much of this punk" is much lower than other social networks, and that's a real worry for someone who writes as much as I do. I am happy to write endlessly for my own entertainment but I don't want to be annoying, and having to repeatedly scroll past multiple copies of my endless threads is going to get old fast.

Also on the subject of "one long post vs many short ones in a thread", splitting a post and continuing in a reply post/reblog has a functional use: it's like a paragraph break, but moreso. So it's good for indicating a break in the thought, to shift focus, or to take a tangent. (and as someone with severe adhd, my brain is 90% tangents)

Anyway I'm thinking I might do something weird like build a private mastodon instance and then set it up to sync threads to Tumblr.

Like, collect a full thread of small posts, turn them into paragraphs, and post that to Tumblr as one big post. It will work better, I think.

Fundamentally the problem I am facing right now is that Twitter is the best site for how my brain works. Individual tweets in a thread are a close approximation for how I think, so writing a long series of tweets is easiest for me. In that format, I can write. I can be creative. I can express myself.

And don't get me wrong: I love Tumblr. This is easily one of my favorite places on the web. But the "big open white page with plenty of room to write" model is not a good fit for my brain. I look at that and I can't get started. If I can get started, I can't finish, because I get bogged down in going back and editing and rewording.

Short small snippets in a row, like IRC or Twitter, prevent those problems. I don't have to think about the whole thing I'm writing, because I don't have room to write that. I just focus on the current line, and once that's done, I move on to the next. Did I misspell something? Could that have been phrased better? Well, too bad. That line is done now, you can only move forward.

Yeah this may not result in a work of literary genius but it at least results in something. I am not a great writer, I'm never going to be a new york times best seller... But I'm not aiming that high. Writing like this, as a series of short snippets and not going back to fix and re-edit them? It's the only way I can write at all. (and if you have ADHD that gets in the way of your writing, I recommend trying it).

I'd rather write in this specific and limited style than not write at all. There's too many ideas in my head, I need to get them out.

Anyway the reason I'm thinking about this now is that this is why I've traditionally been a heavy Twitter user (though let the record show that I have been on Tumblr for longer!). It works for that style of writing, so I could flourish there.

But it's dying. Oh God, is it dying. And I'm having to think about what to do next. Where to "go".

And as an aside, it's always weird how we always phrase these things like migrations. Like people are backing up their bags from site A and getting on a train to site B.

Maybe it's just my ADHD talking, but that's never been how I've used the web. I am in many, many places simultaneously, and have been for a long time.

I'm active, to different degrees, on Tumblr and Twitter and reddit and discord and mastodon and cohost and Facebook and LinkedIn and IRC and email chains and BBSes. The only thing that change if I "move" is how much I focus on one over an another. If I have a shitpost in my head, where do I decide to post it? If I want to talk about something more serious, where do I go?

Obviously with Twitter dying I'm focusing more on other places. I joked to someone on Twitter that I'm currently sharding what used to be my Twitter posts to Tumblr and mastodon: Tumblr gets the shitpostier and transier stuff, mastodon gets the techier stuff. But that may change as I find the right balance going forward.

Or, regarding my "persona Jubilee" post, I might just stop. I have been this Foone for a while, it might be time to stop and rethink.

Anyway, the final wrinkle in this overlong post: I wrote this much on Tumblr, despite all my talking about not being able to do it. I think I'm basically doing this by channeling my "Twitter thread mood" and not going back up and editing. Who knows if that means I've actually managed to overcome my previous inability to just write free-form long content, or if this is just a limited trick that I can't keep up. Time will tell.

[anyataylorjoy]

Hey! I love your blog. Quick question: I like that you have the tag you are tracking on your description as well as the link to your gifs, may I ask how you did that? I have tried a couple times but the link never works when I add it to the description of my blog.

of course! a very brief tutorial below the cut + a bonus tutorial on gradient text for captions & html text formatting:

adding links to description:

first go to account -> blog setting -> edit theme

then, once your blog website opens up we're just going to add our links through basic html code:

text version to copy here: <a href ="http://url">word</a>

note: if you're linking to another page on your blog you can leave out the "http:// and just put "/url of page" instead

example of my description:

where the purple highlighted text is the url and the yellow highlighted text is the word that carries the link

i also have <b> which bolds the text and </b> which ends the text bolding (more on that below)

some troubleshooting:

make sure you're adding them to your description through edit theme under website theme in your settings! i don't think you can add them directly through mobile!

if it's still not working for you make sure you're putting in your description under appearance options and not under description in open graph options

once you get it working i would go ahead and copy the whole text and keep it somewhere because whenever you change your icon or header tumblr wipes the links out and just keeps the text so you'll want to go back in and repaste it in each time you do that

HTML text formatting & gradient text:

here is a fantastic list of html text formatting for your blog or captions! and here is the resource i use for gradient text

you will need to copy and paste the text from the HTML CODE FOR THIS TEXT box into another document ( i use my notes app) and use find and replace for the following things:

find & replace ' with "

find & replace ; with a space (so just delete it)

then; in tumblr you need to click the little gear icon on your new post and select html from the drop down menu (rich text is the default)

then you can copy and paste in your gradient text code or add in html formatting elements!

let me know if it's still not working or if you have any other questions 💜💜💜

[dreamsnails]

Hey guys! I'm so sorry it took so long, but here we are! Chapter 2. Chapter 2 has two different endings and splits off into two paths, one where you go with Sal when you return home from school, and one where you go with Larry. This is the Larry iteration. If you want the Sal ending, read the next post instead (https://dreamsnails.tumblr.com/post/678850785510096896/as-promised-the-sal-iteration-of-chapter-2-if).

A friendly reminder, I tried to set the story in a time where it would still be close to the cannon characters, but they would be 18. Remember as you read this that the characters are all intended to be 18. Now, nothing spicy happens, but some feelings are definitely insinuated! With that out of the way, I hope you enjoy! I put a lot of work into this one.

Also, if anyone was wondering why the formatting of my text is all screwed up, it's because I write the chapters in google docs and just copy and paste it. In docs it looks correct, but I guess the words like getting a little jiggy on Tumblr, haha. Okay, I'll shut up now, for real this time! Enjoy!

   The soft droning of my alarm clock alerted my eyes into motion, swinging open at full speed. I shot up, sweat dripping down my back. A shadowed hand slithered from on my bed beside my left thigh and down the sheets, causing me to shriek and pull them up to my chest. I watched it slide underneath my bed. Heaving breaths wracked my chest as I shuffled as far to the wall as I could. 

    Click! The lights were on now, and I shot my head towards the door, staring with frightful, wide eyes, a deer in the headlights until my eyes were able to adjust. 

    “Honey, my goodness!” It was mom. My chest rose and fell, a rhythmic pattern, eyes fluttering shut for just a moment as I tried my best to process what had just gone down. She approached cautiously, touching the bed for a brief moment before swiftly pulling her hand back, holding it in the air. “Your bed…it’s soaked dear…” 

    She eyed me up and down. I grabbed a hold of my knees, pulling them close to my chest. I focused straight ahead. 

    “Let me get the thermometer.”

    “No,” I blurted. She stared at me, and I shook my head, continuing. “I… I just had a really really bad dream. I’m fine…” 

    “Are you sure?” She brushed some hair behind my ear. 

    “Yeah, I’ll be okay. I’ll be out in a moment.” 

    As soon as my bedroom door was shut and mom was out of sight, I sprang out of my bed, immediately crouching on my knees to examine underneath it. 

    Nothing.

    It was barren under there, only a stray, crumpled paper on the floor from my sketchbook. I reached my arm under, snatching the garbage and tossing it into the bin at the foot of my bed. 

    A shower, I thought. That will calm me down. 

    I reached into my drawers, pulling out underwear, a fresh pair of ripped jeans, and a black t-shirt. My towel sat on top of my dresser, and that was added to the stack in my arms as well. My fingers fumbled with the doorknob, shaking with excitement from the moments prior, and I stepped into the hall. 

    The warm water soothed me as it swept in sheets down my soiled body, carrying away the sweat and fear. I sighed, dropping my shoulders. What in the hell was in my room? Was that the thing that touched me in the hallway yesterday? I grabbed my loofa, squirting a generous amount of soap into it. I let the rough surface glide over my body, remembering a story dad had told me before. When he was young, and he and mom had just moved in together, they spent a lot of time watching horror movies and cheap flicks. One night, he went to bed early, leaving mom to read on the couch in their living room. He suddenly woke up, frozen in fear as he watched an unfamiliar face and hand of an unknown creature slip behind their bedroom door, closing it behind them, as if it had been in their room and was now sneaking into the hallway, watching him as it did so. He screamed for mom, and they searched the whole house for the monster, but it later turned out he had just experienced his first case of sleep paralysis. 

    I turned the shower knob, the water ceasing. Perhaps that was what I had just encountered. Sleep paralysis. 

    I didn’t think about it too much more as I slipped my clothes on and went to the kitchen for breakfast. I poured my bowl of cereal, trying to ignore my parents whispering in the living room. Sticking a spoonful of Reese’s Puffs into my mouth, I muttered “Guys, I’m fine. It was just a dream.” 

    “If you’re sure, champ.” Dad replied, grabbing yesterday’s newspaper off of the side table and propping his feet on the coffee table. Mom scoffed at him, annoyed that he wasn’t as concerned as she was. She stood from her spot on our couch and walked over to me, who was leaning against the wall in the dining room, and placed her hands on my shoulders. “I’m eating my cereal,” I remarked, muffled, mouth full once again. Mom sighed, rolling her eyes. 

    “I just want to make extra sure.”

    “Mom,” I warned. 

    She hugged me, and I stood there, trying to make sure I didn’t lose my cereal onto the floor. “I love you,” she said. 

    I sighed, smiling. “I love you too, mom. But I’m not a baby anymore.” 

    “You’re always going to be my baby,” She fussed, squeezing me and rocking us back and forth. 

    “Mom!” I chuckled. "My puffs, man!" She let go of me, smiling back, before walking back into the living room to sit next to dad. “Wash your bowl before going to school!” 

    “I know ma!” 

    Before no time, I found myself in the same position as yesterday. Bag slung over my shoulder, hand nervously twisting the doorknob as I thought about the events of this morning and yesterday morning. I told myself over and over that ghosts aren’t real, and that nothing is after me, but that sinking feeling stayed inside of me as I shut the front door and stood alone in the hall. My mind buffered, trying to get myself to the elevator, to get myself to school, but I was too shaken. I made a dash for 402, praying that he was still there. 

My fist rapped at the door. It was answered by a man who looked to be in his mid 40s, his hair blue, just like Sal’s. He looked tired, or possibly angry? I forced myself to smile, intimidated by his presence, and hoping he couldn't tell. “Uh, is Sal still here? I think we're supposed to walk to school together today.”  

    A warm smile replaced his tired features. “Oh, you must be Sal’s new friend! He mentioned you might stop by.” He extended a hand, which I shook. “I’m Henry Fisher, Sal’s dad. It’s nice to meet you (Y/N).”

“It’s nice to meet you, too.” My cheeks felt warm. He told his dad my name? I knew it wasn’t anything special, but it felt that way to me, like he was proud to be my friend. None of my old friends ever talked about me to their parents, as far as I knew. Then again, I was never invited to stop by their houses to know.

Sal appeared next to him at the door, sliding past him to stand in the hall next to me. “See you when you get home from work, dad.” He said, adjusting his posture. 

“See ya, Sal. You guys have a good day at school!” 

He shut the door as Sal and I walked towards the elevator. I contemplated telling Sal about my dream and what had happened in the hall yesterday morning. Shuddering at the thought, I pushed it back, standing in silence as we waited for the door to slide open. My hands muddled together, toying with one another.

“Is everything okay, (Y/N)?” 

    The sound of Sal’s voice snapped me out of my void state. I looked straight ahead.

    “Sal, do you think this place could possibly be haunted?” 

    He paused, thinking. “Well, I think that this building is old, and I think that there is a lot that we don’t know about its past. Why? Did something happen?”

I cracked, now fully animated, spilling everything about the last couple days. “Yesterday morning I was waiting for the elevator and someone touched my back, like ran their hand on my back, or I thought someone did, and it surprised me so I turned around really fast but nobody was even there, and then this morning I had a really bad dream and I woke up and thought I saw someone move their hand down my bed but after I checked my room I realized nobody was there, and this place just felt off from the start, like, when we had our walkthrough of the place, but mom and dad don’t even care and it’s gonna drive me insane, and I think mom thinks there’s like, something wrong with me now because she was whispering to dad this morning about something but it. Isn’t. Me. It’s this creepy ass apartment complex! And they don’t even feel it!”

Sal stared at me. I huffed, hands rubbing my tired eyes. The elevator door slid open, and we stepped out onto the first floor. 

"(Y/N), I-"

"Yooo! Hey guys!" Larry's wide smile greeted us, and he began striding in our direction. 

"I'll talk about it with you later, promise." Sal dismissed, greeting Larry with a crisp high five and a punch in the shoulder.  

"Woah, (Y/N), you look like shit." Larry teased, ruffling my hair. I raised my arms up protectively. 

"Hey! That's not very nice!" I laughed. "I slept like shit." 

"Oh no wonder then." His hands found their way into his pockets. The genuine smile he gave me was contagious, and I soon found myself forgetting my misfortune in his presence once again. 

"So, hey, I was thinking maybe Friday we could all hang out at my place after school. Ashley and Todd, too," Larry started, trying to pass the time. Sal nodded. 

"Yeah, sounds like fun. Do you want me to bring anything?" 

"Dude, if you could get those, like, dino chicken nugget thingies, like the frozen ones you bake in the oven, I would literally make out with you on the spot." Larry wiggled his eyebrows. 

Sal turned his head, looking forward again. "Okay, I am definitely bringing nothing now." I could hear the banter in his voice. 

"Aww, come on, man! Okay what about just a little kiss on the cheek?" 

"Alright, fine," said Sal. He raised his index finger. "But only one." 

"Should I bring something too?" I asked. What could I even bring? Microwave popcorn? My parents typically didn't have lots of snacks lying around at home. Mom loved to cook, and if I wanted a snack, she'd always make me have an apple or drink some water so I would be hungry enough for her elaborate dinners. 

"No, don't worry about that," Larry waved me off, then nudged my arm playfully. "Just bring yourself, you’re good enough on your own.” 

The half-lidded look he gave me, that coy smirk… was he flirting with me? Before I could try to weigh the possibility– 

“HEY!” 

Thud!

“Ouch, damn dude!” 

Laughter from the two of them. 

“So if I have to bring chicken nuggets, then that must mean that I’m not good enough on my own, right?” Sal teased. 

“Hm… Nope! Guess not,” Larry shrugged, eyes closed. Another couple blows landed on his arm and side. Watching them kind of reminded me of a toddler trying to beat up a much older brother. 

“Fine, fine!” Larry finally gave in. “You’re good enough, chicken nuggets or not.” 

The school came into view, a flood of colors entering and lingering outside. I made it a point to take in the fresh air before entering the dull building. I would be stuck inside for the next large portion of my day. A small tug of anxiety pulled at my chest. Against my will, my mind corrected me. I would be stuck inside alone for the next large portion of my day, ostracized from my only two friends here. Last hour couldn’t come soon enough. 

A cool voice pulled me out of my thoughts. 

“Are you alright, (Y/N)?” 

It was Sal, always the one to notice and always the one to speak up. We stepped into the building, and he looked at me expectantly. I took a deep breath, and put on a smile. I wanted to be honest with him.

“A lot has been bothering me this morning, there has just been so much going through my mind already, and I don’t really know if I am okay.” 

Is what I wanted to say. Instead…

“Y-yeah!” I blurted. “Of course! I’ll meet you after school.” 

He was silent for just a moment. Could he see through me? No shit, I thought. I was a mumbling fumbling mess. “Alright, see you after school!” was all he said in return. 

We turned our separate ways, my face dropping with my stomach as soon as the boys were out of view. I was a zombie, blurs of other teens rushing past in my peripherals as I made my way to my locker. The cold steel of the lock almost burned as I turned the dial. Right… left… right… 

Click. 

The lock popped open effortlessly. I grabbed my materials, taking note of my classroom number, and then shut the door, putting the lock back into its rightful spot. 

~*~

“(Y/N)!” Two hands slapped down hard on my desk, causing me to jump, my pencil swerving and pressing hard into the page. My head shot up to face my aggressor. 

“The bell rang– hey, is that Sal?” He grabbed for my sketchbook. 

“Hey!” I cried in protest, reaching for it, but I was ultimately too late. It was now in his possession, and his eyes studied the page. 

“Wow,” he huffed. “You’re pretty impressive.”

    “Thank you.” I swiped for the book, but he was faster, and it was now held above his head. 

“Larry!” I stamped my right foot, pouting like a child. “Give it back!” I received a low chuckle, and his arm swept behind him to hide the book behind his back. 

“Why do you want it back so badly?” He teased. 

“Because it’s mine!” I whined, stamping again. I made a poor attempt to reach around him for it. A step back was enough to keep me away. 

“(Y/N) has a crush on Sally~” he sang. My face went bright red. I was absolutely mortified. 

“I do not!” I stammered, crossing my arms over my chest and averting my eyes.

“Oh you totally fucking do!” 

“I don’t!”

“You do! Your face went all red!” 

“Larry!” 

He held my book out towards me. I snatched it, turning my nose up at him in annoyance.

“Aw don’t be like that,” he said. “I won’t tell anyone.”

    “Promise me.” My voice was venomous. “And promise not to talk about it anymore!” He put his hands up defensively. 

“I promise. Now let’s go find your boyfriend so we can walk home.” 

I landed a solid punch on his arm. 

“Ow! Okay, okay! I’m sorry, I’ll stop!” He was smiling, but I definitely wasn’t. We finally made our way out of the classroom in silence, and into the hallway, which was remarkably still quite full of other students, despite the time we had spent after the final bell still in the classroom.

I didn’t say a word to Larry as he escorted me to my locker, and then over to his and Sal’s. I didn’t really care about his increasingly more worried expression either. The only thing I really cared to say about it was “Yeah, everything is fine!” when Sal asked if we were alright. 

    We walked home in heavy silence. I didn’t really care to interact with Larry, and Larry was too full of nervous tension to say anything to anyone. I could tell Sally knew something had happened. He kept looking over at one of us at a time, trying to say something, then deciding to keep it to himself. By the time we made it back to the apartments, I was too exhausted to care anymore. We stood in the lobby, the silence growing.

    “I’m gonna go back home, guys.” Sal eventually made out some words. “If either of you want to hang out later, you’re welcome to come by!” He turned as the elevator door opened. “Um, I– I’m sorry you’re not feeling well. I hope you feel better soon! Both of you…” He pushed a button inside the elevator, and the door shut, leaving Larry and I alone. 

    “(Y/N), I–”

    “Larry, I don’t want to hear it.” I turned my head away from him. 

    “Please, just let me apologize…” 

    I stood in silence. It would be nice to hear him say sorry. 

    “I wasn't trying to hurt you, I was messing, you know? I was just trying to joke around. I didn’t notice how much it was bothering you, because I was too busy horsing around to pay attention, and I really am sorry,” he pleaded. 

    “Yeah, clearly. How many times did I have to yell at you again?”

    “Look, you have every right to be mad at me. What I did was dickish and rude. I shouldn’t have teased you like that, and it isn’t my business whether or not you like someone, or who that someone is.” 

    I glared at him. 

    We stood in more awkward silence. I stared down at my feet, waiting for him to just leave me alone and go home. Instead, footsteps sounded, and his presence was right in front of me.

    “You know, I think your drawing was pretty awesome, regardless of who it was of…”

    I looked up at him. He wasn’t smirking, he wasn’t standing confidently as he usually did; instead, he looked vulnerable. His shoulders slouched, and his face was downturned, yet his eyes made contact with mine. I felt my breath hitch as we stared each other down. His eyes really were mesmerizing. I had to look away. 

    “Thanks, I guess…” 

    “Remember when I said we should hang out sometime and draw together?” He asked. 

    “Yeah, with Ash, right?” 

    “Yeah, well… do you want to do that? Like right now? Without her– I mean– with just us?” 

    I once again found my way to his eyes. They were desperate, and I began to feel guilty for being so cold towards him. I was definitely overreacting. He promised not to say anything, and he even apologized. Like, well. A strong apology.

    “Yeah, we can do that.” I swallowed a lump in my throat.

    He immediately lightened up. He led me downstairs, unlocking the door with a card he pulled out of his pocket. We walked through an unfinished hallway, complete with a washer and dryer, as well as a vending machine, until we made it to a door. He unlocked it, and we entered a normal apartment, just the same as my own. A woman sat on the couch inside, watching the television, feet elevated over the cushions she rested upon. She looked nearly identical to Larry, from the big, brown, emotionally charged eyes, down to the admittedly big nose. 

    “Hey mom, I’m home,” he greeted her. “I brought a friend over.”

    She turned her attention towards us as we made our way over to what I assumed to be Larry’s room.

    “Okay, sweetie, but keep the door open please!” 

    “Closed!” He called out, already in the motion of shutting the door.

    “Cracked!” 

    Slam!

    Well, I guess I’m here. 

    I took in my surroundings. Band posters made up half of the many pages plastering the walls. The other half consisted of drawings on paper and paintings on canvas, which I assumed to be done by him, the way he talked about liking art so much. They were very expressive, done in cool tones. Some depicted gloomy scenery, others showed gatherings of people in various depressing and/or mundane settings. My eyes traveled to a gathering of sketches done on white papers. A couple pages were of the goofy-looking ginger kid from the day before. A few more were of the beautiful girl Sal was deep in conversation with; Ashley, I believe. A few even featured his mother, and Sal’s dad. But most of them were of Sal, all in various poses. 

    “I love my friends and family,” Larry pulled me away from the artwork. “This is kind of my way of honoring them. Of course, I always ask permission before I just plaster them on my wall.” He chuckled. “It would be weird if I didn’t, and kind of creepy.” 

I gave him a warm smile. “No, no, I get it completely. I mean, you saw me sketching Sal earlier anyways. I think it’s really sweet of you.” I reached out, gently brushing my fingers along the 2D features on Sal’s mask on one of the pages. “They’re really well done.” 

“Thanks!” He chimed. 

I spent a bit more time examining his artwork. I could hear his foot tapping behind me. I wondered if he was staring at me, but I didn’t really care to turn around to find out, partially because I began to realize I busted in here and started judging everything in his room, awkwardly staring at every bit of paper decorating the walls. How would I feel if someone did that to my own room? Finally, he cleared his throat. 

“So, uh, do you want me to take your bag?” 

“Oh, shit, yeah!” I turned around, reaching into my bag and grabbing my sketchbook and a pencil before handing it to him. He set it down delicately next to his own, made his way to a bean bag and took a seat, then motioned towards the futon just across the way. 

I sat down, sinking into the cushion. 

“You okay if I turn on some music?” He asked, pointing towards his stereo with his head. “I personally prefer rock and metal, just a warning. In case you don't like it.” 

“Yeah, that’s fine.” 

He reached up and hit the power button, then adjusted the volume to a comfortable hum, loud enough to hear clearly, but quiet enough that we could talk without screaming at one another. 

“Incubus?” I asked, recognizing the song as one of theirs. “Nice.”

    “Heh, I usually listen to much heavier stuff, but when I draw I prefer stuff like this. Also to not scare new people!” His eyes lit up, his lips curling slightly at the edge. “Unless you want to be scared. Have you heard of Sanity’s Fall?” 

I shook my head. 

“You want to?”

    I nodded, an avid metal fan myself. 

I watched as he ejected the disk and inserted a new one, turning the volume knob up. The quiet hum of the CD being read filled the air, and then the song blasted through his speakers. An intense guitar riff was combined with raspy screaming, and upbeat drums and bass followed, adding to the symphony. I found myself having a difficult time staying still, my head nearly banging with the tempo against my will, a spell metal seems to cast on me. My foot tapped along as a compromise. 

Larry let himself fall back into his bean bag, hands plucking at the strings of a guitar that didn’t exist, long hair swaying as his head rocked. Fuck it, I thought, and let myself go, too, enjoying the moment. 

We both whipped our hair as we headbanged to the song. I felt a little silly doing such a stupid thing in front of another person, but honestly, I was having fun. A lot of fun. We both took glances of each other, laughing as we did so, and–

“Larry! ‘Christ sake! Turn it DOWN!” 

We jumped, turning our heads to stare, mortified, at his annoyed mother. A few seconds later he was out of the trance, scrambling for the volume knob and turning it back down. 

As soon as the door slammed shut, and we were alone again, we whipped our heads around to face each other. We both burst into a hard laughing fit. 

“You should’ve seen the look on your face, dude!” I shouted, slapping my hand down on my thigh. “You were totally scared of her!”

    “No way!” He denied, body still wracking with laughter. “And even if I was, you were too!” 

“Shut up, man! What reason would I have to be scared of her?” 

He jumped at me.

“Okay, maybe you don’t have a reason to be scared of her, but I’ll give you a reason to be scared of me for pointing it out!” 

I shrieked, and we fell into another fit of laughter as we rolled into a playful wrestling match. 

He laid on top of me, hands on each side of my head, and we both breathed heavily from the effort, our bodies pressed against each other. I felt my cheeks beginning to burn. Hormones raged inside of me. Everything about him in that moment was appealing; the way he looked, the smell of his cologne, the feeling of him on top of me. It all was wrong, I was supposed to be mad at him, at least a little, still, yet once again, I found myself being pulled into his hypnotic chocolate eyes, until he cleared his throat. 

“Heh, that was, uh…” He stood up, then reached out a hand to me. I took it. “It was fun.” He chuckled, averting his eyes. His face was scarlet. 

“Yeah.” He helped me stand. “It was.” 

I wondered if he felt what I felt. I wondered if he was thinking of… 

He took his seat again, on the bean bag, and pulled out a sketchbook from behind it. I followed suit, grabbing my own. 

“Anyways, let’s get to work,” he mumbled, flipping the book open and burying his head into the page in an effort to hide his embarrassment. 

“Yeah…” 

I couldn’t help but allow myself to smile as I opened my own, mapping out his current pose on the blank paper.

[sleeplessandstubborn]

As I went through the (digital, no trees were killed during the making of this copy) pages of Gérard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme's book about Emmanuel Macron, Le traître et le néant (play of words with Sartre's L'être et le néant, they do these kind of things. And ah, we could translate this as The traitor and the void) I wondered if the authors attempt to do a psychological portrait of their president had not spectacularly backfired and given a not particularly flattering account of French political landscape. A bunch of obnoxious snobs, completely disoriented by the demise of traditional parties as if that was something completely unprecedented in the World (guys, stop navel gazing for a second and look at your neigbouring countries out of Eurovision week too) and nostalgic from the times they were just alternating in power. The President's true personality? Well, he keeps ellusive the whole time, the commonplace description of an habile seductor who can easily adapt to circunstances rather than having a clear ideology. Welcome to my very chaotic recap/review of this book, if Tumblr allows it. Because computer is being rebellious and this godforgotten site won't let me write long texts.

(Accurate depiction of me trying to make this site work on my computer)

First of all, who are these Davet & Lhomme (D&LH from now on) guys and why did I read their book? Are you behaving as a bad macroniste, oh Sleeplessandstubborn? Yes I am, but that's irrelevant for all us right now. So D&LH, nicknamed by their colleages Melon & Melon (Le Monde, their own workplace, lol) or Dupont & Dupond (by the one and only Canard Enchainé) are two journalists, authors of several books dedicated mainly to politics. However, their main bussiness model in the last 15 years and the thing that has made them more (in)famous are examples of the anti-presidential literature that is so mainstream in France. Since 2011 they have dedicated an unfavorable book to the three last presidents, and the three volumes have been published in the last months of their tenure. Of course they sell very well.

(Never read the one about Sarko, should I?)

The structure/format of these books is very similar. A series of personalities, many of these with an axe to grind, are interviewed about their relationship/experiences/misfortunes/whatever related to the main subject, that is, the sitting President. Personally I find their style annoying. With years, people has learned to talk less and less to D&LH because it usually mean problems. The long list (or 100 names or so) they have included at the end of their last book says volumes both about their debatable ethics as well as the distrust of French political landscape. In that list of people who wouldn't talk to them you can find members of Macron's government AND most of his potential adversaires for the reelection you can wonder with whom they are supposed to speak next time. Of these three books, the one that had more repercusions was Un Président ne devrait pas dire ça, in which Hollande was at the same time the main subject and the main source, as he was interviewed more than 60 times by D&LH.

It went horribly wrong and even foreign press talked about "political suicide". To this day the book is considered as one in a series of reasons why he couldn't run to be reelected. It angered everyone and even the right wing opposition who had been complaining because it was being written by the journalists who wrote against Sarkozy used Un Président ne devrait pas di on to trigger an impeachment process. The reason was that, during one of the interviews with D&LH, he claimed to have ordered several targeted killings. Ooops oops ooops. Of course all French Presidents do these things, but no one is supposed to talk openly about it because national security & stuff. He also insulted the judiciary, footballers, the members of his own party and/or government, told that there were too many immigrants and came across as a huge snob with the redeeming trait of telling good jokes now and then. But, as you can read on Le Traitre et le Néant, it traumatized everyone and is held as something you should never, ever, do.

It seems that Hollande didn't learn his lesson or that he hold selective grudges, since he has spoken to D&LH again, and his participation on this book has been widely mocked. He appears again under an unflattering light, everyone talked about the time his dog broke Brigitte Macron's glasses and how he should have offered to pay them instead of feigning outrage when the bill was sent to the presidential palace. He also manages to come across worse in certain anecdotes. E.g., the famous moment after Manette's death and how he failed to show an ounce of empathy towards a very distressed Macron who had just lost his beloved grandma.

I've read several accounts of this anecdote, this is the first one told from his point of view... and it's the one in which he cames across the worse; congratulations, François, you played yourself again. Then, one can smile at how the chapter dedicated to Valls starts.

The deflowering, eh? There are a few things worthy of Ao3 or Wattpad in this book. One of these is the title of this chapter, with his Angry!Valls as we learned to know in fanfic, even if they chose to tell the worst possible version of the (in)famous (verbal, but you can imagine it in other ways) dick contest at the National Assembly. No one can top Le Canard in that aspect. They have the best version of the zizigate. At least we have M. Pradié praising the presidential prostate too, it's the only quality this member (pun intended) of Les Républicains recognizes.

But, you are going to ask me, what the fuck does this book contain? Any revelation? No, not much that I haven't read previously, sometimes in worse books written by worse people. But, short story, I find the authors prententious, the politicians featured here whyny and delusional, the bunch of bitter haters that are the majority on its pages too petty and cartoonish, some of the people featured there behaving in a particularly pathetic way (the perfect example of that cathegory is Pierre Moscovici, that vents out during his interview then try to take is back). There's no allusion to economy, to foreing politics or to anything that it's not the "pursue" of the Macron Mystery (TM) that so many authors try to unveal. As if one could have an accurate portrait of a personality via the distorted mirror of people who hate him (the word hate is written often), or the kind of individual who spread rumours to damage him.

Meh; if you want to read an anti Macron book, at least read Ruffin's one from 2018 (9?). He's as obsessed as many of the guys featuring in this one, but when he's not writing about the feelings the President's nose awake in him he's capable of writing interesting and quite moving of people who have difficult lives (an then the next page he's talking about himself again). It contains less white middle age men trying to get right why their president has no children.

(The He Has No Children Brigade seems to be composed mainly from LR members).

So, you are asking, should you buy the D&LH? Nah, I don't think so. but when in doubt, go to the library and decide for yourself.