#if i have to choose between interview prep for a job i want or doing homework for a course i really dislike….. i mean

[fingertipsmp3]

Just sent the email withdrawing from my course and now I’m nervous lol

[anandrettisimp]

Okay, so I need to do a bit of a ramble about one of the biggest couple goals in recent motorsport.

I am, of course talking about Will and Liz Power

Now you’ve gotta understand that they basically started at Team Australia/Walker Racing within a couple of months of each other with Will doing the last two races of the ‘05 Champ Car season and Liz joining as part of the PR team in February ‘06. They had met and interacted but it wasn’t an easy start for Liz.

You see, between Long Beach and Houston, which was to be the first race she would attend in person, her Dad, Bo, had a stroke and required quadruple bypass surgery. It was only at the last minute that she felt she could do the race only just making it in time for the team bus leaving for the airport.

Will sat beside her, making sure she was okay (apparently all he really wanted to do was hug her).

Eventually Liz was asked by team boss Derrick to befriend Will for two reasons:

He basically knew nobody

Australian media wasn’t happy that Australian driver at Australian back team wasn’t dominating series he had only just started in.

Part of the way Derrick sold this to her was by describing Will as a lost puppy but, at the same time, she wasn’t to date Will or she’d be at risk of losing her job.

Well within a couple of months they were dating because what do you expect when you take two people in emotional vulnerable situations and tell one of them to get close to the other.

It should be noted that around the same time Will had already asked mutual friends if Liz was seeing anyone.

Simon Pagenaud knew from the start and was even Will’s wingman from time to time and helped them hide the relationship while Liz’s family became part of Will’s rock in America. Liz’s mum Kathy is Will’s PA lady and basically the only person he trusts to buy and choose his outfits (cause left to his own devices you will know he is colourblind).

Of course it got found out but between how well Will was doing by the end of the season and how professional Liz had been in her role all was good.

Over time their careers would split, Will moving to KV Racing then Penske (with Liz being heavily involved in helping him prep for the interview) while Liz had stayed with Walker Racing until the end the going on to Dreyer & Reinbold Racing before calling time as she found it was too much to do PR at one team while your husband races at another.

And, honestly, if I was a racing driver’s partner I’d probably be in a similar state to Liz, murdering all the bottles.

Their son Beau, named in honour of Liz’s dad who had sadly passed away in 2007, was born in 2016 but after the birth there were complications which resulted in Liz having to go back into hospital in Christmas Eve, luckily she was able to recover.

Towards the end of 2022, as Will won the championship for a second time, Liz again was starting to get ill. Come January 2023 she had a fever of 106 and Will had to call an ambulance.

It turned out that she had a staph infection that had settled in her spinal column and the only way to save her was to do an operation.

She almost didn’t make it.

Will pulled out of the Daytona 24 but he almost retired full stop.

He had to be there for his family.

She got better though she was back in the hospital just before St Pete.

I think you had to be an idiot to not see that Will was off balance last year. This was a man who was doing everything he could to take care of his wife and then going to races by himself.

The support system that he has depended on since his first full season racing in America was gone.

For the first time since 2007 he failed to win a race.

It wasn’t until the final races last year, with Liz finally back that he relaxed. He even said he was just happy the season was done.

This year everything is back to normal or as normal as it could be after going through something like that.

But, most importantly, Liz is back.

There’s already been a couple of weekends, be it after practice, qualifying or the race where you can see Will come out of the car hot and all it takes is Liz being there a couple of words and he calms, ready to speak to the team and media.

We already know if Liz hadn’t gotten better when she had then we don’t have Will leading the championship right now because he would have chosen her and Beau over another season.

Heck, if he wins the championship this year I wouldn’t be shocked if he decides to end his career on that high so he can spend more time with the one who stood by him through it all.

[leaawrites]

Hi, I don't know if I could make a request for Graham Coxon x Fem Reader, where she's part of the band (you choose the instrument she plays), they met at school, they were the typical cliché of 'he's too cool for me' and when they finally get together they join the band together

The writing itself is about the band in an interview, their relationship was public and the interviewer asks them how they met, at that moment she tells about how she felt that he was too cool and all that, and everyone bursts into laughter, then when they leave the interview Graham asks her if what she said was true, And she says yes, and she ends up with a lot of mellowness and all that cloying stuff

Part of the Band

Graham Coxon x fem!bassist!reader

Summary: as requested.

Warnings: swearing, mentions of gramon,

Wordcount: 1.4k

Notes: I hope this is about what you wanted :)

Masterlist

“The Band was shit, the fact that that was their actual name was the most obvious clue that I shouldn’t have join them in the first place, but I guess you do stupid things for a crush sometimes.”

Y/n still remembered the day as if it was yesterday, how she stood in front of the music room and tried to prep-talk herself into thinking that this was a decision based on her love for music and not based on her love for a certain guitar player. Though, the moment she walked in and saw the three guys stand in the middle of the room, huddled together and whisper.

“They shut up immediately after I walked in, so I couldn’t help but think that conversation might’ve been about me,” she continued her answer, making Damon giggle quietly into his hand as he remembered the conversation they had all too well.

“It was,” he confessed. “Graham here, was so nervous to have her in the band, it was fucking hilarious to watch him play the wrong notes or mess up the text.”

“It wasn’t fun for you back then, because you had to wait for him to get himself together all the time,” Dave interrupted Damon.

“What have you got say about all of this?” The interviewer asked him now. All eyes in the room turned to Graham as he looked down at the bottle in his hands with a hint of a smile covering his face.

“It may have been about her,” he confessed quietly, a subtle change in his behavior for only her to see. He got nervous. With his fingers tapping against the glass of the bottle and his upper lip sucked between his teeth, she could see his heart racing in his chest. Knowing him well enough to see these subtle changes and being well aware of how they could influence his later performance for the show the had after the interview. He would be thinking too much.

Putting her hand subtly on his shoulder, she squeezed the skin beneath to assure him that no matter what he said, it didn’t matter; her story was far more embarrassing.

“What were you talking about?” The interviewer kept on pushing. Y/n knew it was their job, but having simple human decency wasn’t too much asked, now was it?

“You know, just this and that,” Graham kept on answering.

“Like what?” The tension in the room build up and she could feel it as well. “This and that isn’t very exact.” She tried laughing it off, but beside a few pitiful chuckles, no one joined in, leaving her to uncomfortably shuffle around in her chair.

“We weren’t saying much about her, just that we weren’t sure if we made the right decision,” Damon answered simply, receiving a shove from the girl next to him.

“The right decision?” she repeated, exaggerating the words while she spoke, her accent thickening while doing so. “You were basically desperate for a bass player and I was the only one willing to join your little band everyone else made fun of. Albarn, I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t call that having a choice.”

“She just wanted to join us so she could get closer to Graham,” Damon shot back, making the girl’s eyes widen. Her gaze was focused on Damon, begging him to stop talking while her cheeks began to redden and she could feel Graham focusing on her now, full of interest for the topic all of a sudden. “You know, Y/n has had the hots for Graham since kindergarten or so - and I can’t blame her, he’s fit for sure -, but she was always too afraid to talk to him. I mean, always a book in front of her face and absolute maths genius, she wasn’t the first person we would’ve considered for the band, but we’d done a pretty good job making her more of a Rock star, I’d say.” He was grinning like a proud mom who just told all her daughter’s secrets at the family dinner table.

“Is that true? You a bookworm and nerd?” People like her really didn’t stop over pushing words and their meaning, Y/n thought as she chuckled at the question.

“What am I supposed to say? I mean, yes, I was an absolute nerd, but - in my defence - Graham was way too cool for someone like me back then - still is. What was I supposed to do, just go up and talk to him? Albarn would’ve been the first to laugh at me, while staring daggers at me for trying to steal his boyfriend.”

He gasps on shock at the allegations, making the rest of the group burst out in laughter as he shoved the girl into Graham, like a little child. The interviewer chuckled awkwardly as she watched the young adults cackle on the small sofa, all squished together, gasping for air in between swearing and accusing the other of something.

“I’m afraid our time is up now,” she says, as the group quietens down once more. “It was nice meeting you and I’m looking forward to watching your performance in a few minutes.” Saying their farewells, they watched her disappear down the hallway, before letting all out a simultaneous deep breath which they held for too long now already.

Collapsing into Graham’s side, Y/n closed her eyes for a few seconds, mumbling, “I hate interviewers sometimes, they are so annoying. With all their questions and if they don’t get the answer they want, they’ll almost murder you for it.”

“It’s what you need to go through in order to stay important nowadays,” Damon shrugged, standing up to head towards the dressing rooms and get ready for the performance they booked. “Plus, most of them are fit, so can’t complain.”

“You’re such a pig, you know that?” Y/n watched him irritated as he left her with only his middle finger as a response to her comment. The smoke from his cigarette filling the air around him, leaving the sound assistant coughing in the corner of the hall. He always blew the smoke right into your face to piss you off.

Sensing the build up tension between the pair, Dave excused himself as well, saying he needed to check something with his drumsticks.

“The fuck does he need to check? If they’re still made out of wood or what?” Y/n chuckled, looking at Graham for a laughter from him as well, but all he did was chuckle dryly. “What’s wrong?” She sat up, taking his face into her hands, her forehead wrinkling slightly as she stared at him in worry and concern. “Are you alright? Do you not feel well. I swear to god, if it’s about that interview - that woman went too far and we all know it, it wasn’t fair to you.”

“Did you really mean it?” He caught the gap of silence between her rambling to stop her from worrying as much as she did. It was a normal habit, one she didn’t mind. She’d talk in concern and he’d cut her off every time, cutting her train of bad thoughts.

“Did I mean what? That Damon would definitely had been jealous if I asked you out? Yes, I mean, look at how you two act around each other.”

“About me being too cool for you,” he clarified, making her stop talking for longer than before.

The sarcasm that once dripped from her tongue was now nowhere in sight when she softly answered, “You know the answer to that.”

“As if I were too coll for you, you were too cool for me,” he said back, now smiling genuinely for the first time.

“Oh no, you were the one with the rich parents and friends with the cool kids like Damon, I was the complete opposite. As if I was too cool for someone like you.”

“You totally were. You were too pretty for me, still are.”

“Look in the mirror, love, and then think about that again.”

“Sometimes you make me sick, you know?” Damon’s voice echoed from the doorway, faking a gag as the couple looked up at him. “Like right now. You don’t want your singer to fall off, now do you?”

“Oh, how could we ever life without you, Damon,” Y/n pouted, the sarcasm back in her dictionary as she stood up, pulling Graham up with her.

“Get your ass on the fucking stage,” the blonde said annoyed, walking away. Another audible gag being heard making Y/n roll her eyes.

“Someday, I will accidentally push him off the fucking stage,” she repeated his words with a bad imitation of his accent. Graham laughed at her comment, silently agreeing with her, before taking her hand in his and pulling her after him towards the dressing rooms.

[thatonebirdwrites]

for the writer ask meme: 24 and 35!

24. How much prep work do you put into your stories? What does that look like for you? Do you enjoy this part or do you just want to get on with it?

I research the heck out of things. As in, I'll even buy books to read in preparation and take notes. And I'll be researching as I write, so if something comes up, I'll research it to make sure I'm doing a good job exploring that idea/topic and showing it well.

I honestly love researching things, so sometimes I research too much and need to stop myself from spending too much time researching when I ought to be writing. A lot of the summary notes for a particular researched topic will appear in my end-notes on the AO3 fics.

For original stories, I'll do a lot of worldbuilding behind the scenes -- even to the point of creating conlangs to name things or to craft ways of thinking that differ between ethnicities.

I also interview my characters to get a feel for their voice and write practice scenes.

I have several possible ending scenes, but I will write the story and see which one the characters choose. (Sometimes they choose none of them! So then I write a new ending. :D)

35. What’s your favorite writing rule to smash into smithereens?

The so-called "write what you know" bogus rule. I stand with Ursula Le Guin. Explore the infinite wonders of our imagination, and do research to help augment one's knowledge.

I don't even consider it a rule really. Just an annoying thing teachers say to stifle creativity.

If I wanna write about superheros dancing in space with their suited up girlfriend, then dammit, I'm writing about it.

I also like to smash the 'show versus tell' rule. There's a time to show and a time to tell. Balance it.

Thanks for asking! This is fun. :D

[butlersxbirdy]

You Light My Morning Sky

Chapter 15: Lay, Lady, Lay

Warnings: Discussions of pregnancy scares, emotional talks, infidelity, dishonesty, these two finally discuss the elephant in the room.

In the aftermath of the fight, and the pregnancy scare, you and Austin dealt with the heightened emotions by spending more time together, but he was still brimming with questions. He wondered, with all the secrets between you, why you had agreed to marry him. He didn't want to call it off, but he had to wonder why you'd say yes without having talked about the truth of how you got together.

For you, life was pure bliss. Unaware of the anxiety building in your fiance's mind, you found yourself basking in the time off. Enjoying your leave from your job was one thing; being able to take a more active and present role in Austin's life was entirely another, and both of you were honestly loving it. Photoshoots, interviews, press tour prep, all of it rolled off the two of you with ease now that you could do it together. He was your constant, and with some nerves out of the way, a little extra free time, and Austin asking relentlessly, you spent more time planning the wedding. You were sitting together on the couch, feet up, glass of wine in your hand that you passed back and forth between you as you worked on the concept of your theme, when Austin asks a question you thought he’d never think to ask.

Austin’s mind was still a whirlwind. He was thinking, and overthinking, he knew, but something was bothering him about what you’d said the night you took the pregancy test. Well, several things bothered him, but his boorish behavior was something that could only be corrected with time. Showing you with his actions, not words, that he was serious about treating your submission with as much care as you treated his, was the only way forward from that misstep. He didn’t want to disrupt the bliss you were experiencing by bringing up topics you had so stubbornly avoided, but he couldn’t shake the thought that there was something between you two that needed to be discussed. Silence from a time he’d happily let go of stretched long between the two of you, and it couldn’t go on. Too much time was spent in the cold. Too many months of silence where you should be, and now that you were here to talk to, confess to, pray to, and make love to, he had to step up and take the chance. The only thing worse than not bringing up what was on his mind would be to live with knowing he wasn’t strong enough to test the integrity of the bridge he’d built with you. So he chooses a peaceful moment, when you look relaxed but not drained, content with the moment but open to chance.

“Hey, love,” he says softly, stroking your arms, and you look at him with a smile.

“Yes, Kitten?” your voice is warm and inviting, and he feels the tension ebb and then wash in again like a high tide.He was laying on you, between your legs and feeling about as safe as he’d ever known. The many bridal magazines and lookbooks strewn across your laps only give him a reason to press onward.

“When you said you’d hid taking pregnancy tests from your shithead ex, did you have to do that after Australia?” he asks casually, rubbing your legnow and handing you the glass of wine. He places a kiss on your thigh and casually marks a page that has a picture of flowers he likes before looking at you once more, willing himself not to be nervous.

“Yes,” you answer with a little nod. “But mostly to be sure. We weren’t the most careful with how we went about all that. And we weren’t even really together,” you start, but he cuts you off.

“Baby girl, it’s okay,” he smiles warmly. “I was just curious. It’s alright,” he assures you. "I do wonder why we don't talk about it. I think a lot about why we have two versions of our story, I love you and I'm not embarassed," he says softly.

"I'm not either," you blush, frowning a little. "I just didn't see any reason why that should be the beginning of us. Because it honestly wasn't," you reason, trying to keep the sullen stubbornness out of your voice.

"But it is a part of us," he argues, hands stilling in their loving path across your skin. "You took care of me at my lowest, and the fact that you avoided discussing it made me wonder if you were the right person for me," he confesses. You pause at that.

"Why would that make you wonder?" you ask, the ice spreading in your chest once more. Anxiety rose like bile in your stomach, and you feel the weight of your engagement ring like lead on your hand, irrationally believing it might slip off and be lost to the abyss if he keeps talking like this.

"Because you were everything I needed," his fingers rub across his lower lip. "And then you couldn't wait to get away."

This was it. This was the smoke in the air when he got down on one knee, when he asked you to be his Mama, when he took you to all the places nearest and dearest to his heart.

"I had to leave because I couldn't stay there and not be yours."

"You've been mine since the minute our eyes met," he insists and you shake your head.

"No, Kitten," you correct him sadly. "When you saw me, you were Vanessa's."

He swallows thickly and turns his head away.

"I know," he nods. "I know, but..."

"Austin. I was dating someone else and you weren't yourself. I had to go. Do you think, if I'd stayed, we'd have gotten to the good parts any faster?" you ask, resting a hand on his cheek. He wants to push you away but he doesn't. "No, sweet man. No. We'd have broken into a million little pieces and sliced us both up."

His eyes open and he looks you.

"I know you're right," he blinks slowly. "But we should still be able to talk about it."

"I know you're right," you answer, and you cuddle close. "Wanna talk about it now?"

"Yes please," he smiles shyly. "You came for me. For me. That's the nicest thing anyone's ever..." he trails off and kisses you.

“No weddings themed after a movie you’ve worked on,” you insisted, and he smiles.

“I can make that agreement. Too bad we can’t have an Australian sunset themed wedding. I swear, you had never looked better to me than you did in that sunset.”

You keep the kiss brief, because you must. You cannot lose yourself in him, and let this moment go by like the years that passed while you were too lost in each other to think straight. You can both taste wine on each other’s lips, and you can’t help but think back to a time you don’t talk about, when Austin, your boy, saw you in the glow of a sunset in Australia.

Once upon a time, Austin Butler knew you as his best friend. He wasn’t sure how it happened, except to say that you met much like the two beautiful main characters of a romcom meet; at a coffee shop, on a sunny LA morning. The only thing that stood in the way of the two of you riding the wave of butterflies that always comes from meeting someone who will be important to you for years to come, was that his girlfriend didn’t like you. And he hated your boyfriend.

Still you became fast friends, helping each other through good times and bad; he held you through every shitty thing Dalton put you through, and you talked him back to Vanessa every time he was struggling. The two of you were thick as thieves, practically able to read each other’s minds.

Elvis, however, changed everything. The role was everything Austin had worked for, and you held his hand through the audition process. You were the one, after all, who told him that he absolutely had to have the role. He knew he couldn’t have done it without your help and your belief in him, and as the audition process dragged on, he realized that he had been falling in love with you. He was halfway to offering you his life in exchange for one dinner date by the time he realized his feelings had begun to grow, and when it came time to be separated from you to go to Australia, he knew that he had missed his chance.

He and Vanessa were struggling. Dalton was treating you like shit. Your work was ramping up, and you were meeting interesting men and women. He was leaving, and was likely to keep himself in the Elvis mindset by cutting off contact with the outside world.

That was the reason he gave you, anyway.

The truth was that you kept him tied to himself.

You were a part of his soul, and if he allowed himself to be consciously aware of you and your love for him in his daily life, he would never be able to let go fully, like he promised the King he would be able to do, so he left you without a real goodbye. He could hear he tears in your eyes when you left him a voicemail saying goodbye to him, wishing him the best, and begging him to call when he could.

He eventually did, but not often. You understood he was busy but you were so afraid the distance between you was more than just the monumental legacy of Elvis Presley and the physical distance between Australia and Los Angeles. You were afraid you’d been too obvious. Too affectionate. Too much in love.

You had no way of knowing that his growing love for you was keeping him distracted, and he wanted to focus. He wanted to get this just right, and make you proud.

But then everything shut down, and he felt alone, and isolated. No physical affection, no family, no friends, no Vanessa.

No you.

Olivia was, as he had told her time and time again, a great friend. She knew how much the distance was taking a toll on him, even when filming resumed and she and Austin slept together a few times, in character.

They both knew they shouldn’t, but she knew that he told you about it, so she didn’t feel quite as guilty as she would if he’d lied. He knew that you were back with Dalton, your ex, but even so, she had to quickly adjust to the fact that when they weren’t fucking or working, Austin Butler, or the combination of Austin and Elvis that now occupied Austin’s body, would only discuss you when pressed about his personal life. She didn’t mind, even facetimed you a few times on her own, and you got to be friends as well. Sharing a bed with a man and trying to ensure his happy ending with someone else should have been weird, but Olivia could, and did, handle it with grace and warmth.

Austin, however, had good and bad days. Giving Olivia the heads up when they were coming up on filming the scene wherein Elvis grieves his mother, sobbing in her closet, was a good idea, and showed keen protective instincts on Baz’s part.

“Try to be here for him, you’re what he needs right now,” he advised. Olivia knew that Baz, while just trying to help Austin and look after him, was dead wrong. He needed someone else.

That night, alone in her trailer, Olivia picked up her phone, tried not to gag at the price of plane tickets, made arrangements privately for a round trip package, then made the call.

When Olivia called, you’d hesitated; you had no faith in the idea that you were the one that could help him through this, though you knew his grief would be immense. When you stepped off the plane in Australia, any thoughts of seeing the sights vanished. This was the biggest day, personally, of Austin’s time on set, and he needed you. More than that, you missed him. The car waiting for you takes you to set, and Olivia meets you, opening your door nearly before the car comes to a full stop.

She hands your bag to the production assistant walking by, instructing that it go to Austin’s dressing room.

“Time Zones are weird, what’s happening? What time is it?” you ask, knowing you could look at your phone, but you are severely disoriented. Getting on a plane, getting off a plane, and being dragged around a Baz Luhrmann film set was a lot to take in, and yet all you wanted was Austin.

“It’s noon, they’re already on set, come on,” she says quietly, and you follow. Thankfully you’d had time to change on the plane so you’re in a soft, comfortable maxi dress, and you don’t feel like you stick out like an ugly sore thumb. When you walk onto the set, Baz does a double take at seeing you with Olivia.

“You’re y/n?” he asks with a smile.

“I am, nice to meet you in person, Baz,” you grin and he gives you a hug.

“He’s out of sight, we’re gonna start soon. If you wouldn’t mind, just. Hang back? He’s in that delicate headspace, just let him do his thing, and we’ll get you to him as soon as possible,” he says quietly. You agree and Olivia finds you both a quiet space to watch and wait where he can’t see you.

“Liv, the two of you have something,” you say quietly. “You can do this, you’re the one he wants,” your voice nearly cracks but you hold steady. Why had you gotten on a plane just to watch your best friend rely on the person he loves, who isn’t you?

“What we have is a job to do, and Elvis and Priscilla. This isn’t about what Elvis wants, this is about what Austin needs.”

You want to retort but you can’t, because Baz called for quiet on set. There was a pause, and then the scene is rolling. Tom, dressed impeccably as the colonel, walked up the stairs, the camera following, and there’s Austin. He looks so different, but also the same. It’s comforting, until the heart-wrenching sob wracks his whole body. Olivia has to physically restrain you the entire time, and tears pour down your face. It’s against your DNA to do nothing when Austin is suffering, and yet you are forced to. When Baz calls cut, Austin sniffles, unable to stop crying. His body is shaking, and the sobs don’t stop.

“Little Mama?” he whines desperately, in that low Elvis drawl, and you look at Olivia.

“He’s asking for you,” you whisper, throat closing with tears. She shakes her head.

“No, he’s really not. He never calls me that.”

“He calls me that?” you ask, incredulously.

“Go. Help him,” she insists, dodging the question but quieting your fears. You stand on shaky legs, and look to Baz as you pass by. He nods.

“Go on, girl,” he says quietly, and you step on to the set. You approach slowly, and kneel down in front of him. His face is hidden, still sitting in that desperate little hunched over attempt to make himself smaller. You place your hand in his hair, and take a deep breath.

“It’s okay, Sweet boy,” you whisper and his face whips up.

“Oh my god, y/n” he sobs, but it looks on his tense frame like a sigh of relief, and his arms wrap around you the way Elvis wanted to wrap his arms around his mother. He clings to you, practically knocking you over, but you hold strong. You’re on your knees, and he holds on to you, pressing his face into your stomach, your chest, your neck, as though he’s afraid you would vanish. You push away the inescapable knowledge that this is public, and a whole set of people are watching their lead actor crawl all over a girl no one had ever seen before as though she can save him. He clung to you, and you held him tightly.

“You’re here, you came for me, I missed you, I miss her,” he sobs almost nonsensically against you.

“I will always come for you, I will always be here,” you soothe him,

You pay the spectators no mind; you are here, with Austin, his face in your neck, the two of you crying into each other. You know it should register that you’ve missed him, and this is the end of missing him, but it doesn’t because now that you’re holding him, and he’s crying and murmuring to you, it’s as though you never left. The emotionally charged moment had you both leaping fearlessly from best friends into whatever this was now. Baz called to clear the set, and you go to stand up, but Austin pulls you back down.

“Stay!” he sobs.

“Austin, we have to go,” you whisper. “I’m not going anywhere, but we have to go, okay?” you hum, hands carding through his soft hair.

“Promise, Mama?” he asks, and it rocks you to your core.

“Promise, baby,” you whisper before you can really register that’s what you’re doing. He nods, and you take his hand, leading him away with his head on your shoulder.

You get him to his trailer, and you slowly get him out of his costume. He whines and stops your hands.

“What-”

“If this gets messed up because of me, they will throw me out of here. Let’s get you cozy,” your words sound robotic as you undress him, and he whines as you hurry through it.

“I’m sorry, Aust, it’s over soon,” you assure him, but he shakes his head, and grabs your hands again.

“Slow,” he says softly. “Slower.” He leans in and you know what he’s doing two seconds before he does it, and you do nothing to stop him. His lips land on yours and you lean into him for as long as you can before you pull away.

“You’re sleeping with Olivia!” you whine, covering your face with your hands. “This is a horrible time for us, Austin, please-”

“Elvis is sleeping with Priscilla,” he sniffs, and his eyes are flooded tears. “It’s me and you now, always been me and you,” he whispers, and you freeze in complete shock.

“Austin,” you bite your lip. It hadn’t always been the two of you. It had been you and Dalton, and him and Vanessa. If this was his confession, it was a poorly timed one. But he looked so out of sorts that you couldn’t leave him now, and you couldn’t ask him to talk this out. You couldn’t hurt him by turning away, so you buried it, and let it hurt you instead. He kisses between your breasts, and looks at you.

“Make it stop, Mama, make it go away, make it stop hurting,” he begs. “Just once.”

You knew that was a lie. It wouldn’t be just once, because you couldn’t let it be just once. If you were going to be his once, you were his perpetually. Chronically, pathologically his, forever more.

“Okay, baby,” you hear yourself saying, and you finish undressing him, not slowly, but rather less clinically than you had begun. The touches were loving and gentle, instead of mechanically goal oriented. When at last he is naked, his hands slide gently up your arms, leaving goose bumps in their wake, and he slides the straps of your dress down your arms, past your hands, until the fabric pools at your feet. He unclasps your bra and attaches his lips to your breast, fondly kissing and licking at you so intimately that heat pools between your legs. His nimble fingers push your panties aside and he moans throatily when he feels how hot and wet you are. He pulls his fingers away, and sucks them into his mouth.

“That’s even better than I pictured.” His voice is rough and ragged with raw need and tears.

“You pictured me? My taste?” you ask, staring at him in disbelief.

“More than I should have. For longer than I’ve had the courage to just ask the question,” he blushes, and you gently guide him to his bed. Sweet words are knives in your heart, because they are loaded with falsehoods. The lies aren’t malicious; he is grieving, he is out of his mind, he is living with a beautiful ghost in his head. The very reasons why he can’t be blamed are the very reasons you cannot trust a single thing that comes out of his mouth. He may love you, he may not. If he loves you, there’s no way in this moment to calculate how long. Elvis wasn’t faithful to Priscilla, you knew. Maybe you weren’t even getting into bed with Austin. There is no way to know from what place this need for you has erupted,, but it’s not from thoughts that can be picked apart and interrogated. His heart is full of feelings he cannot give weight to now. You look at his beautiful begging damp eyes and his fingers damp with his spit and your slick, and you know you left your reservations back home in California. Why else would you have come, if not to love him?

When he is laid back on the mattress, you move closer, clocking his trembling, grasping fingers as you stack pillows behind him, and help him sit upright against them.

“Get comfy, baby,” you smile warmly at him. The adoration of him behind the smile would fuel a river of tears if not for your instincts to make this good for him. He’s laid out on his bed, sinking into the pillows and looking at you. The golden, sculpted planes of his body are yours to behold, and you can’t deny that he is beautiful. His cock is gorgeous as the rest of him, and it looks as though it hurts, he’s so hard. You slowly remove your panties, and he whines, biting his lip.

“Come here, please,” he begs and you get on the bed, kneeling between his legs.

“Do you want me to take the edge off, or do you want me now, as you are?” you ask, and he tugs you close.

“Want to hold you for this part,” he moans into your mouth, and you line him up with your eagerly awaiting entrance before sinking down on him. His gasp and choked moan of your name is the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard, and you fall forward a little onto him. His arms wrap around you as you begin to ride him, and his face presses between your breasts, kissing and licking, all the while he holds you tenderly but tightly.

“Austin! Baby!” you moan and his hips buck up, pressing his cock against your spot. You roll your hips to keep up that pressure as you move on top of him.

“Sweet girl, pretty baby, Mama,” he hums, murmuring pet names and sweet nothings at you as his cock twitches inside you. He clings to you mindlessly as you ride him, and his little moans only turn you on even more. This is primal desire, and his lack of self awareness only drives him to the brink of launching the both of you off some unnameable cliff better than any love confession ever could. His words of love were doubtable, his intentions muddied by emotion, but his body doesn’t lie. His worship is inescapable, and his love for you is in every movement and every needy kiss. This is a man in love, writhing beneath you, crying for you, needing you like he needs air to breathe. The longer you ride him, the more he clings to you, and your walls tighten around him greedily. This is home for you. Across the world from your comfortable bed, you found home with Austin. You ride him more enthusiastically, but still gently, rolling your hips and sinking down on to him deeper somehow, until you feel him everywhere. You’ve never felt so in control and consumed simultaneously, and it drives you closer to sweet release. Austin pulls you in for a hungry kiss, hands in your hair, and when he lets out a desperate sob and sinks his teeth into your bottom lip, you cum with a moan that is swallowed in his hungry kisses.

“Austin… Baby…” you whine and he bucks his hips up, his motions stuttering and eager for more.

“Close, Mama, please!” he begs, tears pouring down his face, which reads of pornographically intense pleasure. You try your best to squeeze his aching cock with your velvet soft walls, but your body aches with exhaustion. However, just being inside you as you recover from pleasure he gave you seems to be enough for him, and he cums with a soft whine, lips attached to your neck and he bites down a little as his body tenses then relaxes, melting into you in the afterglow. When he has stilled, and has collapsed against the soft sheets, he looks up at you and you almost throw up at the look in his eyes. The sadness is back, but it’s a different kind.

“Would you stay if I asked real nice?” he asks and you nod.

“My plane doesn’t leave until tomorrow anyhow,” you whisper, voice rough with pleasure and overwhelming thoughts swirling in your head.

“If…” he swallows thickly, looking away from you, but his hands still burn like brands on your skin. “If it was me asking, if it wasn’t about the fucking plane, would you stay?” he asks.

“Austin, let’s not play the what-if game now,” your tone leaves no room for argument and he nods, jaw tightening.

“I’m never gonna see you again after you walk out that door,” he says coldly, and you flinch back.

“Why would you say that?” Tears well in your eyes as you stare at him in disbelief.

“You basically just did. You can’t wait to get out of here,” he retorts and you shake your head.

“That’s not true. It’s just, this is all a little loaded, honey,” you explain, getting off of him, and using a shaking hand to ease his sensitive cock out of you. “But I can promise you that my reasons for wanting to table whatever this is, of my many many reasons, none of them have anything to do with hating you,” you assure him and he smiles a little.

“Promise?” he asks, looking at you with that smile that is so purely Austin. He’s in his right mind now, and you can use this time to ease the ache.

“I promise, Austin. It’s you and me. I got on a plane. You’d do the same for me, let’s leave it there for now, and get in the shower, alright?” you help him up and cup his jaw tenderly, kissing him quickly, then more softly and with care. Your lips tell of an internal struggle, the mountain you climbed to get here, and the tension in his body leaves as he gets the message.

All in good time, you’re saying to each other. We will be worth the time.

When you finally bring yourselves to tear away from the kiss, you drag him with you into a cramped, but intimate, shower, and you bathe him with all the tenderness with which you’ve always imagined he’d treat you, and he doesn’t disappoint in kind. His hands are satin soft, and as gentle as a warm hug, but it’s just his fingers on your waist. You nearly cry and you turn to him, and he’s looking at you with some fierce kind of obsession, and you have to kiss him until the water runs cold to avoid the words threatening to tumble from both of your mouths.

When you get out of the shower, he dries you both off, and as you get into bed, the low southern drawl drags like sandpaper in your ear as he pulls you to him.

“Bed time, Mama, let me take ya t’bed,” he purrs, and he is lost to you. You crawl into bed with him, the both of you pawing at each other like teenagers, and you finally fall asleep after endless hours of touching, teasing, and biting kisses covered up the rose colored glasses you’d donned to get yourself here.

When Austin woke, he was alone in the bed. You’re still there, but you’re packing, quickly, clearly trying to sneak out.

“Where ya runnin of to, Mama?” he asks, voice and eyes bleary with sleep.

“My plane is leaving, Austin, I gotta go,” You say quickly, avoiding his eyes.

“Don’t go,” he says softly, and you look at him.

“We were never intended to see each other like this,” you tell him firmly, but with kindness. “I’ll call you when I get home, okay?”

“Don’t do this, okay?” he snaps, sitting upright. “Just, wait!” He is desperate, clinging to what probably never should have occurred.

“The plane is leaving, Aust. And right now, between staying here and being on that plane, I’d rather fly far far away from this.”

“From me,” he huffs coldly. “Fine.”

“From you barely being yourself. From you sleeping with Olivia. From me cheating on Dalton, which I just did. This isn’t-”

His arms around you cut you off, and he inhales deeply when his face buries in your hair.

“You’re still my best friend. Don’t take that away now,” his voice is muffled but you can hear the hurt, and more than that you can feel it in the way he trembles in your arms as you hold him.

“If I were taking that away, I’d be gone by now. But this probably shouldn’t have happened, and you have work to do. You can’t be Elvis Presley if Austin Butler is trying to woo me,” you kiss him one more time. “You need to get back in the headspace where you love Priscilla, and wear jumpsuits, and hate your manager, and make beautiful music, and make people laugh, cum, and cry,” you tease playfully.

“Did all three last night. Can ya stay?” he asks softly.

“I need you to know this with me, Austin. Face reality with me, so I’m not so alone. This isn’t how we’re supposed to be. You gotta let me go,” you sob, kissing him once more. He kisses you back and sits back down on the bed, hands still on your waist as he looks up at you, his hands curling in your shirt.

“If you don’t call when you land-” He says in a warning tone, and you nod.

“I know, I know,” you smile and hug him tight, before pulling away, and grabbing your bag. “Be good, Austin.”

“You too,” he smiles. It is a sad smile but it fills both of you with a temporary peace, and with that, you are gone.

“So you came home, and you waited, and you lied to everyone, and you took a pregnancy test," he summarizes, breathing through his nose. "If it had been positive, what would you have done?” he asks, kissing you softly and handing you a list of bakeries, silently pointing out the two he prefers. He's still discussing this heavy thing, but his mind has wandered, perhaps out of self preservation, to cake. At least discussing it hadn't driven him away for good.

“What any woman would have done,” you answer softly. “I would have let you be the perfect vessel for the immense spirit of Elvis Presley and tell you the second I could without ruining the greatest thing that’s ever happened to you.”

He frowns a little and holds you tighter.

“I wanna be clear as I have been about anything," he sighs heavily. "That isn't what every woman would have done. And I don’t love that answer, but it does make me love you even more,” he hums, and he looks up at you. “By the way, Baby,” he kisses you gently and tucks your hair behind your ear.

“Second best thing,” he smiles warmly, and pulls you into a kiss that makes you forget all about planning a wedding you couldn’t be more excited for.

"By the way, you were right," he nuzzles you as his hands dance along your waist, and wander to your ass. "It was better to wait."

"And you are worth every moment I waited," you assure him, and the look on his face when he hands you a photo of the tie he'd like to wear when he marries you is all you need to prove that talking about it was the right thing to do.

[seita]

— mood consequence | m.

pairing : iwaizumi/reader

wordcount : 2.127

genre : fluff, smut, pwp

cw : established relationship

tags : mean!iwa, daddy kink, dirty talk, name calling, degredation, size kink, no prep, clit spanking, overstimulation, squirting, creampie, a bit of aftercare.

note : this is my part of the haikyuu headquarters nsfw server collab!

collab masterlist.

+ summary : your boyfriend is in a bad mood and decides to use you as a source of release.

To the untrained eye, Iwaizumi looked unbothered. But after years of dating him, you could tell something was bothering him. His shoulders were tense and he was sitting straight up in his seat with his hands fisted against his thighs. He kept his gaze trained outside, watching the people pass by on the street with his jaw tense and set. The muscles in his face twitched every once in a while as he listened to the conversation floating back and forth over the table.

You made it a point to ignore him and his bad mood. But you weren’t sure if Oikawa, Matsukawa, or Hanamaki even noticed it.

Prior to leaving for dinner, he had come home in a terrible mood. You reminded him that the two of you promised to have dinner with your friends.

“Why couldn’t you have reminded me yesterday?!” he had snapped, tossing his jacket haphazardly onto the bed, leaving you to quickly pick it up and hang it properly so it wouldn’t get wrinkled, “I really don’t want to go.”

You told him that there were reservations and that it was Hanamaki’s birthday dinner. He continued to complain the entire time you were getting ready, snapping at you when you were a few minutes late to putting on your shoes -- leaving him waiting by the door until you came running down the stairs mumbling apologies.

The entire drive to the restaurant was tense and uncomfortable, leaving him in an even worse mood and only serving to tick you off.

As you sat down in your chair, pulled out by Matsukawa, you decided to make a point of ignoring your boyfriend as much as you could without ruining the dinner for the others.

A few drinks were down and you found yourself laughing and talking excitedly with Hanamaki who was telling you about some job interviews he had lined up.

Iwaizumi watches out of the corner of his eye as you and his friend have a nice time. Matsukawa and Oikawa are lost in their own conversation, leaving Iwaizumi quietly sitting beside the window. For a moment, you forget about the fact he’s angry and on edge - instead listening to Makki talk about his goals.

You completely miss the dark look in your boyfriend's eye as he downs over half of his beer in one sitting.

The ride back home is just as tense as it was there. His knuckles are white as he grips the steering wheel, jaw still set hard as he stares ahead at the road. You choose to ignore it, gazing out the window at the passing scenery.

He doesn’t let you ignore it for long, however. You step into your apartment, shutting the door while he lingers on the stoop, smoking a cigarette.

He bounces on his heels at the cold, free hand shoved into his jeans pockets as he sees you flick on the lights inside. The nicotine does nothing to settle his bad mood.

In fact, the time alone allows him to replay the entire dinner over in his head. From the way you had leaned in to let Makki whisper something in your ear that, for some reason, had you near tears from laughing to the seemingly innocent hand that rested on the pink haired man’s shoulder as you spoke to him. Logically, he knew that you knew nothing by it -- you weren’t attracted to Hanamaki. However, the already bad mood that festered for far too long threw all logical reasoning out the window and he settled on punishing his little brat.

You hear the apartment door open and close, followed by his huffing and muttering as he kicks his shoes off and hangs his coat up properly before making his way to the bedroom.

You hummed innocently, slipping a soft, worn t-shirt of his over your head. you quickly caught him standing in the doorway and you gave him a little smile.

“Are you ready for bed?” you ask, frowning when he didn't respond.

Instead, he worked on stripping himself of his jeans and button-down. His back was to you and he could see the way you watched him in the mirror, eyeing the flex of the muscles in his back as he moved.

“You seemed awfully close with Hanamaki tonight,” he muttered, internally cringing at the words.

You immediately met his gaze in the glass, frowning. The confusion and innocence in your gaze was genuine but it still ticked him off. It wasn't your fault that he was in a rotten mood and looking for a fight.

“Well, I mean,” you shrug, keeping your voice calm in hopes of settling him down, “We’re all friends. It was his birthday, should I have ignored him all evening?”

You giggle, the teasing lilt in your tone finally breaking him. He spun around, taking two long strides towards you before his hand was suddenly wrapped around your throat.

You gasped and looked up at him with wide eyes, mouth agape. The fiery behind his gaze had your own body heating up and you immediately knew that it was going to be a long night.

“I want you naked with your legs open for me,” he hissed, “right now.”

You nodded, quickly yanking your shirt over your head, flushing as you felt the heated gaze on your breasts. You let yourself fall back on the bed, hooking your thumbs into the band of your panties to push them off of your thighs.

As soon as you were naked, you let your legs fall open. He hums, staring at your folds before licking his lips.

You really were so pretty. So soft looking. Already your little cunt was getting wet for him, your folds parting to give him a teasing glimpse of the sensitive little clit and pretty hole he loved to torment.

“Open yourself for me, show me that slutty cunt,” he orders, grinning when you immediately do as you're told.

You lift your thighs, knees pressed to your chest so you could reach beneath them and part your folds with two fingers. Being exposed under his intense gaze had you trembling, but he could see the way your cunt clenched around nothing, drooling slick.

“I wonder what he’d do if he knew you were here with me right now…” he crawls onto the bed, resting on his knees between your spread legs, “spread out like this for me, looking like a little whore. Hm? Do you think he’d like that?”

You whine, watching as he tugs the band of his boxers down to free his cock. It slaps against his stomach, making his body shudder at the feeling. The veins in his arm and hand bulge as he wraps his fist around his cock, languidly stroking himself to the sight of you holding your cunt open for him.

“D-Don’t want to think about him, Daddy,” you whisper, biting your lip, “Only want you.”

He groans at the way the name slides off of your tongue, so sweet and pretty. Your words have him grinning, pride and possessiveness intermingling to drive him forward. He taps the head of his cock against your clit and you gasp at the feeling.

“Is that so?” he asks, teasing. His gaze is glued to your pussy, watching as he drags the head of his cock through your folds - from your entrance up to your clit.

“Oh, Daddy…” you coo, growing lax against the bed as he plays with the little bud like that - stroking it back and forth with the smooth skin of his cock.

“You're so wet, do you hear that?” he asks, humming when he prods your entrance again just to hear the lewd, slick sounds.

“'S all for you, Daddy,” you pant, biting your lip.

He nods, “That’s right, baby. But,” he sighs and begins to prod the little hole, slowly pushing inside.

Your eyes grow wide and you squeal, “Wait! Daddy! ‘S too big!”

He grins, watching your eyes grow glassy with unshed tears at the burning pain of being stretched by a nice, far cock with no prep.

“You pissed me off, baby,” he sighs, “And only good girls get prepped, you know?”

You whine, shuddering as you nod, “‘M sorry, Daddy. But I’m all y-yours. Don’t want Makki.”

He growls, rolling his hips forward to suddenly sink the entirety of his length inside you. You sob, back arching as you reach out and press your hands against his stomach - hoping to keep him from prodding painfully at your cervix.

“Don’t say another man’s name while I’m stuffing your little whore cunt nice and full,” he spits, making you whine out soft apologies.

He thinks you're so cute like this. So submissive, doing anything to make your Daddy happy - even letting him stretch your cunt past its limit. Still, he doesn't want to overwhelm you so he sits still, feeling your walls flutter as you slowly adjust.

His thumb finds its way to your clit and you whine, eyes rolling back as he circles the bud. Your thighs tremble and twitch at the feeling, body slowly relaxing against the bed - letting him know you're okay to take him.

He knows you'll say that little word if it's too much - he trusts you to tell him if you can't do it anymore. So he starts with a rough pace, harshly slamming his hips into yours - pummeling your cervix and making your body lock up in pain but the way he drags against your g-spot has you creaming beautifully.

There's a white ring at the base of his cock, a mess being made from the way your boyfriend expertly works your cunt. It leaves his cock throbbing painfully against your walls.

“Are you going to cum?” he asks, feeling the way you squeeze around him, crying out and sobbing his name.

“Yes, Daddy, please make me cum!” you immediately beg, eyes glossy and teary as you stare up at him.

“Tell Daddy what you need then,” he says, eyeing the way your breasts bounce. He can't resist reaching up to palm one, squeezing the soft flesh in his hand.

“M-My clit, Daddy, please!” you cry, grinding your hips down in fruitless frustration to get what you want.

“This?” he softly brushes the pad of his thumb over the hard, swollen little bud between your folds, “What about it? Want Daddy to spank it?”

Before you answer, he lays a mean little slap against the bud and you sob, the tears finally falling down your cheeks, “Daddy! Please t-touch my clit, make me cum!”

“Aw,” he coos, “Such a polite little girl.”

He takes mercy on you, rolling his thumb over the bud. A quick few circles has you going still. He watches with a lidded gaze, your body going lax while your thighs tremble erratically. Your mouth is open, chest heaving with the breathless little gasps you let out.

After a moment, and a few well-aimed thrusts of his cock, you seem to flicker back to life. Your back arches off of the bed and you squeal, legs kicking as pleasure floods through you.

He’s cruel, almost sadistic, in the way he forces you to ride out the orgasm. He doesn't slow or take his thumb off of your clit, sending you ever higher into euphoria.

You squirt, gushing cum all over his abs and thighs - soaking his cock as you squeal and cry out for him.

“Daddy! Daddy! Ah, pl-please! Please! Daddy!” he can listen to you scream for him all day but eventually, the messy, slick sounds of him stuffing your cunt and the deadly hold your cunt has on his cock has him cumming.

His hips stutter before he sinks completely inside, prodding your cervix and making you cry even harder before he releases - pumping his load as deep as he possibly can.

You’re still trembling and crying as everything comes to a slow end and he sighs, scooping you up into his arms to cradle you close to him. You wrap your arms around him and bury your face in his neck, letting out all the intense emotions that overflowed at the end.

“Shh, my good girl,” he coos, “Daddy is so proud of you, took it so well.”

“I-I don't like Makki, you know that right, Daddy?” you ask, sniffling without bringing your head from the safety of his chest.

He nods and kisses the top of your head, “I know, Daddy is sorry, he was just in a bad mood.”

You’re quiet for a second before asking, “Do you feel better now?”

He can’t help but smile, hugging you tight as he assures you that you made it all better, loving the way you brighten up and beam happily at the admission.

seita © 2020 | all content and its rights belong to me. do not modify or repost.

[jebazzled]

Level Up! Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced RP and You

Hello there! Coming to you again with tips & tricks for a top-notch roleplay experience! Today we're going to talk about writing levels and what they mean for your roleplay experience. We'll cover what these levels mean, how to gauge where you're at, and how you can improve your roleplay writing specifically!

WRITING LEVELS

"Writing levels" are often a descriptor sites will use in their advertising and site buzzes. They might be "semi-literate," "intermediate," "literate," "advanced," or any other sort of buzzword. The key here is that these descriptors are used by site staff both to advertise what type of writing is most common on their site and what type of writing they want to see on their site.

What writing levels are not is a value indicator. There's nothing wrong with being an intermediate writer or a beginner writer; advanced sites are not inherently better than intermediate ones, beginner sites are nothing to be ashamed of! Think of writing levels as an umbrella within the rp community. The same way a forum rp-er might narrow their search to jcink sites, a writer might narrow their search to sites which cater to their style of writing.

That said, it is good to define what each of these levels look like so you can figure out where your writing might fit.

BEGINNER Beginner writing is often very short and direct, without much in the way of literary flourish. Characters might be fairly undeveloped (or developed around one trait, for example, "goth" or "prep") and there's usually more discussion of their appearance than you see in advanced writing.

Examples:

Susie was short and very skinny, with big eyes and long mermaid-wavy hair dyed blue at the ends. She was sitting outside Firefly High in blue skinny jeans, silver Converse, and a black t-shirt. "I hope someone can give me a ride home," she said.

Raven sneered at Susie. She didn't like blue because she liked black, because she was a goth. "Are you listening to popular music? What a phony."

Bramblepaw sat down in the clearing. "Hello" he meowed.

Some guides will also give an example like 

patty threw a pom pom at susie! "take that u nerd!"

But I am choosing to believe that you're past that if you're deep enough in this hobby to be seeking out resources - I certainly never had that self-awareness until I was more in intermediate territory!

Beginner-level writing gets the job done, and can certainly move a story along. But if you've been writing a while, you might be ready to build more multifaceted characters, and to invest more effort in your writing.

INTERMEDIATE/SEMI-LITERATE WRITING Intermediate writing tends to be longer than beginner writing, with more variety in sentence structure and with more advanced word choices. There are likely more "beats" per post, by which I mean that instead of just answering a question or getting on the bus or etc, a character will likely do more actions in each turn writing. Characters are less likely to be a stereotype (see: Raven the goth who only wears black, Patty the popular cheerleader who is blonde and brainless, etc) but applications likely reveal one-dimensional characters. Common application styles I see from intermediate writers are "interviews" and "journals," as well as listicles (10 Things Raven Likes, 9 People Raven Hates, etc); this likely means a character is told rather than shown.

(Wondering what's so intermediate about interviews and journals? See my guides to interviews and journals!)

Examples:

Susie was born on March 20, 2003 in Farmville, Iowa. She didn't like how similar her classmates all were - they all listened to the same music, read the same books (none!) and had the most fun when drinking on a tractor. Susie was more deep, and liked to write poetry and sketch the animals that lived on her family's farm. Today she was sitting outside Firefly High, twirling the ends of her blue-dyed hair and waiting for a ride home. 

Raven wasn't like most girls. She didn't like horses or rabbits, but only liked goats, because they represented the devil. Raven also wasn't like most girls, at least in Farmville, because she worshipped the devil. She wore a lot of black to represent this, and when she saw Susie, she sneered. Blue! Susie must be a normie. "Are you listening to popular music?" She asked. "What a phony."

Bramblepaw had spent all morning hunting and was feeling lonely. All he wanted was to share a squirrel with a friend, and maybe have someone groom the tricky spot behind his ears. He padded from the apprentice den to the warriors', to the elders and no one was home. He sat forlorn in the middle of the clearing. "Hello?" He meowed.

Another common trait of both beginner and intermediate writing is that posts might not leave much for a partner to reply to. The whole point of this weird hobby is to collaborate with a partner - if you're finding that it is hard to keep writing partners, you might take a look at my guide for writing posts that beg a response.

Intermediate writing is stronger than beginner writing, but still sometimes falls flat when it comes to collaboration with a partner, and is almost never beautiful to read. Intermediate writing is when advanced writing is just over the next hill - and that hill comes with a fair amount of work.

ADVANCED/LITERATE WRITING Advanced writing can be long or short, but the writing in either case packs a punch. Advanced writers use a variety of sentence structures, words, and literary devices. They might have specific imagery they use for specific characters, specific literary constructions for different characters, and there is a strong character voice in each post. Advanced writers write multifaceted characters with genuine flaws and fears, and advanced writers produce writing that is enjoyable to read, elegant and emotive. Applications will usually be anecdotal - will demonstrate key moments in a character's life, allowing the writer to show them in action rather than tell the reader what they are like. (A guide to anecdotal freestyle applications is available here.

Examples:

Everything felt the same in Farmville: identical rows of corn stretching endlessly over the horizon, pockmarked by the occasional farmhouse, white clapboard and falling shutters. Every person felt the same - Susie and Mary and Sarah and Joseph, strong peasant names living strong peasant lives, and never straying more than twenty miles from the town in which they were born.

Even Susie knew she had her place in the sameness: the once-every-generation girl who fancies herself to be more, as though her sketches of the sheep and pigs are any better than her grandmother's before her. As though dying her hair blue were enough to make her different when she knew she belonged here as sure as the hogs in the barn.

The only difference between Susie and her classmates was that she didn't have a car to get her to her evening job at the Road Ranger gas station, and her bike had disassembled itself after she'd pedaled it into a gopher hole, so here she was, sitting pathetically outside Firefly High, waiting for a ride. She'd almost rather be fired than beg for one. 

It’s the principle of the thing, Raven had told her mother that morning. Yes, it was 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity; yes, there was not a cloud in the sky and the fields absorbed heat like a winter sweater; yes, she was aware that her white makeup and Wet n' Wild eyeliner was falling off her face like The Scream. But it was the principle of the thing, wearing the long-sleeved black shirt with the hand-cut thumbholes, a long dark skirt; her only concession to the heat, a pair of thin gray flip-flops instead of her beloved Docs. She listens to Death Wish; she doesn't have one.

But nothing makes a Satantic rebel feel more a phony than feeling it drip off of them in the rural Iowa heat, and Raven wanted to take it out on someone. Fair? No, but life isn't fair; she's got that on a sticker on the electric guitar she saved up her Hy-Vee salary for and never learned to play. Maybe pretending to be an asshole has turned Raven into one.

She has no real problem with Susie - Susie Q., from math, or Susie C., from human geo; who knows, they're all the same - but she scoffs at her anyway, loud enough to catch Susie's attention. "What top-40 garbage are you listening to?"

Hunting is something they do together, or they're supposed to. But in the whole time he'd been out in the woods, Bramblepaw hadn't seen a single other cat - not playing at the stream, not waiting in a tree for the finches to return, not sitting along the RiverClan border to taunt their neighbors. If he'd been a Loner, just passing through, he would have thought the entire territory abandoned.

It was unsettling, and when he returned to the Camp, it was more of the same: everyone gone, without a trace; had he imagined them being here at all? Was it all in his head?

His mew sounded small and pitiful to even him, the mewl of a lost kitten. "Hello?"

Advanced writing makes more time for descriptions, scene-setting, and other narration. It doesn't feel "cringey," by which I mean if you read it 10 years from now you're probably not going to want to drown yourself. Please do not ask me about the 2005 Proboards forum I adminned and referenced for this tutorial.

So now that we can recognize what writing our level might be at - how do we shop for a site?

FINDING YOUR FIT

Now that you have a sense of where your writing sits, it's time to use that data point in searching for a new site to call home. Some sites make it easy for you by self-identifying as beginner, intermediate, or advanced; some sites may use "semi-literate" and "literate," but I know I stray from those labels because it feels like a value judgment, and as I said before:

there is nothing wrong with being part of a beginner or intermediate community, if that is what makes the most sense for your writing and for what you aim to get out of your roleplay experience!

Before applying to a new site, you should do a little bit of digging around to see if it's a good fit for you: 

Look at accepted character applications. How do these compare to your own writing?

Skim some threads from top posters. How does this community write and structure their threads? Could you see yourself regularly keeping up with their speed, length, literary quality?

To the above point - does it seem like the community has a tendency towards your personal writing pet peeves? (For example, I personally cannot stand purple prose, and if the site community is prone to it, I am OUT.)

This is in addition to all standard due-diligence site-hunting routines, e.g. not diving into the world of Southern Gothic supernatural if you're looking for, say, urban fantasy.

It's also worth thinking about how the community behaves on the server, if you join it:

Is there a thread shoutout/compliments/etc channel? What passages are members calling out in there as exceptional writing?

Do the members strike you as open-minded and friendly or as more of a closed group? If you choose to shoot for a level above your standard writing as a growth exercise, this will be easier to achieve with an open-minded and friendly group than with a group of snobs.

Do you enjoy the vibe? Something frequently overlooked, I think. If you don't like the energy of the community, just don't join the site - that is going to be much more productive for everyone than you joining and then trying to get the staff to fully re-engineer their community.

Be honest with yourself! Regardless of how much you like a site's plot, lore, and community, joining a site that sits above your writing proficiency is challenging. You might find your characters routinely pended for lacking the development of other characters onsite. Other members may not be enthusiastic to write with you - not necessarily out of snobbishness or elitism, but because it's not fun to feel like you're not getting equal effort or quality from a writing partner. And you might find yourself feeling insecure about how your writing stacks up to others (I've been writing on advanced sites for 10 years and I feel insecure about my own writing sometimes!) which might sap your muse.

If you are looking for a minimal-effort, minimal-stress rp experience, stick to sites that are at or below your writing level. Writing with people of similar skillset will help take the edge off any insecurity, and because writing will be lower-pressure and lower-effort, you will be better positioned to juggle multiple characters and more big plots. "Lower effort" doesn't mean "lazy" - it just means that you free up headspace that otherwise you might spend on the mechanics of writing versus the excitement of plotting.

If you are an intermediate writer seeking to write on an advanced site, you need to take a much more deliberate approach.

One thing I see often is intermediate writers applying multiple characters to an advanced site at once. This is a losing proposition. While staff might be willing to pend an app and work with you on revisions, if they see you submitting multiple applications that require major revisions and overhauls, they see a pattern. While staff might be willing to help you develop one character to their site's standard, if they anticipate you needing that level of coaching on every character, they will question your ability to keep up with their members in threads. Staff cannot be expected to assist members on writing each thread post - at that point, it becomes easier to decline all of the intermediate writer's applications.

If you are an intermediate writer seeking to write on an advanced site, you need to treat this as a "quality, not quantity" project.

When I was 13 I was writing very much at a beginner and intermediate level, just little Neopets rps with my friends. Then I joined a horse rp - an advanced rp - with a 1000 word minimum per post. While I am beyond thankful ridiculous word count minimums aren't common anymore, I can credit this rp with much of my growth as a writer.

I wrote one (1) character. And I only plotted her with a couple of others. I was very active in the OOC community, and was eventually made a mod - but when it came to IC activity, I focused all my energy on one character and just a couple of plots, because I spent hours on each post, making sure that I was matching my writing partners as best I could. It was much more work than the beginner & intermediate forums I was on with my friends, and much more work for much less action. But stretching like that is what made advanced writing get easier and easier - until I could balance two characters on an advanced site, then four, until now, when I write 12 characters on multiple advanced sites with relative ease. The real challenge is in keeping up with threads - not in matching quality anymore.

If you are an intermediate writer seeking to improve your writing, joining an advanced site is a great option for growth, but you need to adjust your expectations.

Here are my best tips for intermediate writers looking to make the jump to advanced - or, for that matter, for beginners to make the jump to intermediate: 

Focus, focus, focus. Choose one (1) character to write - no matter how tempted you are by want ads, no matter how many other ideas you get, no matter what your muse is throwing at you. Use all those on sites at your current level. For your reach site, pick one character.

Be receptive. Your one (1) character might take a revision or two to get out of a pend. Remember that staff don't pend apps to be assholes - they do it because they believe in you and think you have it in you to do the necessary revisions! If they thought you were a lost cause they wouldn't have wasted their own time with a pend. Be open to the idea that they know what works and is expected in their community. After all, if your character and your writing aren't appealing to the site community... you're not going to have anyone to write with!

Focus, focus, focus, part 2. You should not choose this character based on the volume of plots they can attract. Choose a character who has one or two very close plots for you to focus on. You might consider identifying a particularly kind member of the community and filling one of their want ads, so that this close plot is ready-made for you, and so this person can be a friendly face on your writing journey.

Be realistic. You might think: well, if I focus on one character for a few weeks, then I'll be ready to take on another, right? You might be or you might not. Don't rush it. This entire journey is about deliberation and intentionality. Don't take on a second character on an advanced site until writing the first to the same standard is noticeably easier.

Be kind to yourself. This is a lot of work! If you have the time for it, you might consider also staying active on a site that is at your writing level, so you have a place for easy writing, indulging your plot bunnies, etc.

I hope this tutorial has been a helpful resource to you, both in identifying how to find the right rp for you and in figuring out how to improve your writing, if you so choose. Happy writing!

[thexfridax]

Translated interview with Adèle Haenel on ‘The Bloom of Yesterday’ (2016)

Interviewer [I] Adèle Haenel [AH] Translator [T]

I: You won the César twice as Best Actress [T: Best actress in a Supporting Role for ‘Suzanne’ in 2014, Best Actress for ‘Love at First Fight’ in 2015] in France, and were invited multiple times to compete in Cannes. Why did you want to take part in a German film?

AH: I liked the screenplay. I really don’t care about the market mechanism. I acted on instinct for all my films, and here I was interested in the story, and the extreme [T: nature of the] character of course. I was also familiar with Lars Eidinger’s work [T: who played Totila/Toto Blumen]. He is famous in France, and contemporary German theatre is also recognised. I’ve just done a play in Paris by Marius von Mayenburg, who is the author-in-residence for the Schaubühne [T: a theatre] in Berlin, and all roles had the names of the real actors, Lars Eidinger was one of them of course.

I: And how was it working with Lars Eidinger on set?

AH: Lars made a lot of suggestions, that’s always refreshing. When he unexpectedly changes the rhythm while acting, when the scene’s tone shifts a little – I really liked this about him. And that he can be so funny. This helped me to feel at ease abroad [T: she uses ‘in der Fremde’ here, which is actually more poetic than abroad but is hard to translate]. I didn’t feel as free and confident of course as I would when shooting in French, especially for improvisations. And we often improvised when we felt that the scenes became too static. Lars was sort of the driving force, so that I could react without words and create something new. And I always felt that he never just acted for himself. The most interesting thing about acting is not to always reproduce your own life, with your own private feeling �� but what’s happening if you meet someone special, a partner in crime, and through them [T: she uses the male pronoun him here] something unexpected happens, something new altogether. This is what I think is the most interesting part of our job, and Lars is doing this quite well.

I: How was it for you to work in a foreign language?

AH: It was important to me that I didn’t have to hide the difficulties in speaking. That doesn’t make any sense, it has no soul. To prep I watched a couple of films with French actors, who acted in German, and this was the biggest problem in my opinion, it had no soul. It was too neat, like German lessons. But it’s a way to protect yourself as actor. Chris Kraus [T: the director] understood that I didn’t want it that way, I needed uncertainty for the character. We went along with this uncertainty for the character. He wasn’t too fussed about certain words that were too difficult for me. That worked quite well.

I: How did you learn German so quickly for the film?

AH: I had a German teacher in France first, with whom I worked for a couple of months. Afterwards I went to Dresden, and spent two weeks there and passed the [T: language] test at Goethe-Institute. I went to Berlin for rehearsals and had to speak German all the time. I didn’t want a French assistant, or a dialogue coach, I really wanted to immerse myself in this country. That’s why I made a lot of progress. Voilá …

I: What’s the difference between working in Germany and in France?

AH: It was quite new for me here. I had never worked like this. Chris Kraus cleared the set at the beginning of each scene, and we rehearsed the whole scene like in theatre. Some scenes were quite long, i.e. we shot these scenes in bits and pieces over three days – and we rehearsed the full scene on the first day to figure out the rhythm and outline the characters’ psychology. That’s great. It’s great to just spend time on the acting. But of course, it is also quite a privilege.

Bonus

Lars Eidinger [LE] on working with Adèle Haenel

I: Your character experiences an extraordinary love story of great intensity against this background [T: of facing his family’s fascist past]. How was it to work with Adèle Haenel?

LE: With Adèle I always had the feeling that I found my female counterpart. We have similar ideas about acting. Adèle is not the person who plays against another colleague, or who is self-absorbed, on the contrary. Everything she does in the film works through me as partner, and vice versa, everything she takes, she takes out of me. That is absolutely satisfying. It doesn’t mean that it’s absolutely harmonious. There are of course difficulties and moments, where it takes long to find each other. But there was always the same ambition. And that’s why it was possible for us to go into emotionality together, you usually don’t experience it like this at work.

[…]

On the other hand, I must say: I thought that the screenplay was really funny. It was quite a good Litmus-Test, when the driver picked us up at the hotel in the morning, and Adèle and I rehearsed our scenes, and he then cracked up. You actually get a good idea how much comical potential those scenes have.

Jan Josef Liefers [JJL] on Zazie Lindeau and Adèle Haenel

I: How do you see your character of Balthasar Thomas?

JJL: First and foremost, Balthasar loves a madwoman. That speaks in his favour. […] Balthasar loves Zazie, he is also a bit obsessed with her, he is even separating from his wife, but he really has no clue – and that’s his limitation – what’s behind the things that she reveals of herself. She gives him her affection, and her body, and also two, three thoughts – but this is not what this woman is really about. And what this woman is about, what makes her complicated, what makes her so vulnerable, and also hurt, this is something that Balthasar never sees. All of this is only for Toto to see.

I: How was it working with Adèle Haenel?

JJL: Adèle is the kind of person, she just comes along – as Adèle and not as a film star that she is in France – and then goes on to Saxony, to stay with friends for a while and study German. She was really that unpretentious. And incredibly disciplined. Adèle spoke German so well during rehearsals that Chris even asked, it would be nice, if you could maybe say again: [T: Isn’t it? but with a French accent] – because she could almost say Isn’t it? without an accent. Adèle is the kind of person, who likes to laugh and approaches people, who as an actress is very much connected with her counterpart, and only retreats if something is not quite right for her. It’s a special kind of blend of intellect, talent and instinct.

Chris Kraus [CK] about Zazie (and Toto) and Adèle Haenel

I: You just mentioned the aspect of reconciliation in the film. Toto seems quite unforgiving.

CK: Yes, exactly, that’s why it’s so hard for him and the film’s overall goal [T: to attain reconciliation]. Toto doesn’t forgive himself at all. And to punish himself, he also doesn’t forgive other people anything. Punishment is always linked to morals. Of course, morals which failed.

I: What about the character of Zazie, who Toto falls in love with?

CK: Zazie was for me always as traumatised as Toto by her family’s past, but psychologically this manifested differently due to her temper. The destruction in both characters is comparable. That’s what brings them together. Their deficits and trauma. It unites them.

I: Why did you choose Adèle Haenel, who has become such a big star in France?

CK: This was originally the idea of the Casting Director Nina Haun, with whom I did almost all my films together. I met Adèle three years ago, when she was an up-and-coming young actress, not the French super star of today. We were really lucky that she wanted to be part of a German film for personal reasons, to explore her German-Austrian roots.

I: How is it that Adèle Haenel is almost fluent in German?

CK: It’s quite a miracle. Adèle hardly spoke any German apart from two, three words, when I first met her. But her character really had to speak this language quite well. We planned to give her a language coach, as we did with Tambet Tuisk in ‘Poll’. But Adèle adamantly refused [T: assistance], found it inauthentic and chased the guy off. She told me: ‘Give me three months, and I will speak like Goethe.’ And that’s how it was. She lived in Dresden for a couple of weeks, took a private tutor in Paris, and when she finally arrived in Berlin for the shoot, she was quite chatty and could also swear like the taxi drivers in Berlin. That was quite impressive.

—

Note: CK, LE and JJL also spoke about quite profound topics / themes that the film dealt with (like the Holocaust or the perpetrator-victim dynamic). However, I focused on translating the bits about working with AH here. If you can, please watch the film and let me know if you have further queries about the film / their interviews. I’m not a historian, but I do hope that history (and maybe this film) can teach a lesson or two about the persistent threat of fascism, and the difficulties of reconciliation in the face of past and present atrocities. And yes, this film is also funny, which is quite a feat in this context.

[nerd-of-many-layers]

I just need to rant about something. Luckily I have basically no followers and no one from my personal life that would be an issue is following me.

So, I got a really frustrating email from one of my Supervisors today. And of course I didn’t see it until I was getting ready for bed tonight and now I’m all angry and frustrated and emotional about the email and what’s lead up to it.

Some back story.

I work at two separate workplaces doing the same job. Unfortunately the first place I work at, let’s call it Job A, has some ties with my other job, which we will call Job B. My supervisor at Job A worked at Job B for a decent amount of time and the supervisor at Job B (who is still the same now) did something dirty to Job A supervisor when they quit. So there’s a little bit of bad blood between the two.

Now, I have worked at Job A (for a second time) since Sept of 2019 with a blip of nothing for a year due to Covid and repair issues. Since there was uncertainty of coming back I interviewed and got hired at Job B while I wasn’t working Job A. And since there was a lot of uncertainty even when we were able to work (until June of this year and my area opened up more) Job A had no issues with me working to get some more hours.

Come May I started coaching again so I was bouncing between 3 jobs (luckily coaching takes place in the same space as Job A) and Job A & B had more work to offer. So I took it. For June, July, and August I worked an average of 50-60 hours per week between the 3 jobs. I barely had days off and I averaged 4-5 hours of sleep during the weekdays. But I was fucking happy to be working again.

In July we had a training session at Job A where our supervisor basically berated us for being on our cell phones and that the public could see us and it was extremely unprofessional. In my job yes that can be a problem. However it hasn’t hindered our work ethic nor our ability to respond to things if needed. Our work still gets done well and on time.

During that same training session we practiced things that can happen at our job and our responses to them. And we got torn apart again. However, when we retrained before opening up after not working for over a year that specific retraining did not happen even though it was supposed to. And we have a lot of younger staff who had barely worked 6 months before Covid shut us down. The likely hood of them remembering that training is slim to none. So I was not impressed with being blamed for not doing our job (I had no issues with my responses but I’ve done the job for 8 years and am an adult) that they hadn’t helped us train for like they are required to. We were also told we weren’t coming in on our own time enough to practice our required skills. Which thanks to COVID Restrictions was basically impossible because all our space was limited capacity and we weren’t allowed to take space from customers. So I don’t know how they expected us to do that.

As the summer went on I started to burn out. Not surprising considering my work hours and sleep schedule. I told Job A that this was starting to happen, especially since I was teaching a lot between all 3 jobs and that can be exhausting. And I was teaching the most at Job A because a lot of staff they hired for summer had crappy availability and there wasn’t very many of us to cover the teaching that was scheduled.

With said teaching comes paperwork and reports that have to be done within a certain time frame. And because I was working so much I ended up taking work with me between workplaces. Which Job A supervisor didn’t like. And to be fair, they weren’t wrong on some of their concerns. Using Job A resources for Job B things for example.

However, with how much I was working there was literally no other way for me to get the things I needed to complete done. And I made sure it didn’t effect what I was doing at either workplace. I still did my required duties and did them on time. I just used some of our slower and quieter times to complete the extra work I needed to do. Yes I could’ve cut my hours down but that wasn’t really an option since both jobs were short staffed.

I had done similar things at Job B and not a single person raised a concern about it. Job B supervisor did not care as long as I did my job as was required. Granted my Job B supervisor is a lot more hands off and the full time workers are the ones who are the hands on people there.

In the last month an update came up from one of the certifications required by my job. Because Job A was behind on rolling it out to us I took initiative and Job B said they would pay for it so I did the required update. With that update there is a bunch of work I have to do on my own and since it’s a requirement for my job I had been bringing it to Job A to work on during quieter times.

But a day after starting to do that I got told I couldn’t do it on Job A time because I wasn’t teaching the course the update pertained to anytime soon. And since Job A knew I was teaching the course the update pertained to at Job B this fall my Job A supervisor felt I was miss-using Job A company time to work on this. I said that since this planning would benefit Job A too shouldn’t I be able to still do it. Nope. I also knew that I was being watched during the quiet times because as soon as I would sit down to do something someone would be checking in on me.

One last piece of back story. I had also applied for a promotion at Job A before covid shut us down and was turned down. The reasons were valid (at least I thought so at the time and now I’m not so sure) and so I worked on the things Job A supervisor asked me to. I applied again at the end of August and was told late last week that I had received the promotion.

I received the confirmation of the promotion and got told I was wasting company time all in the same week.

So, on to today’s email. It basically stated that I have been talked to about how I am using Job A resources (printing, lessons planning, report work) to benefit Job B and that despite having been talked to more than once (except each time was for different things) that they feel I know better and am choosing differently. They are apparently confused that our conversation this past week about lesson planning for the course update needed to be addressed again. And they want to have a meeting, sorry “connection”, this week to discuss the dynamics of the items in their email and how to move forward.

At this point I am so frustrated with how they have been micromanaging the team all summer and that it feels like we aren’t trusted to do our job. And though I’m probably way in the wrong (though it doesn’t feel like it right now) I don’t understand why I can’t prep for a job I’m expected to do later when I have the time and ability to do it now. I’m not allowed to be on my cell phone or prep for courses (whether I’m teaching them sooner at Job B than Job A or not) but I’m expected to busy all the time at a tiny and not super busy workplace. It just doesn’t make any sense. And I’m hella frustrated and ready to just say fuck it and quit.

So that’s my mini rant with a lot of back story. But that was a bit cathartic so I guess it sorta helped.

[n5md]

Cloudwalker

In our newly relaunched "Learn more about..." interviews, we switch up the continuity slightly and focus on just one release: Gimmik's Cloudwalker. Martin kindly agreed to answer a few questions to kick off what we'll refer to as v2 of the "Learn More About..." blog.

While Entre Les Chambres was the actual return of Gimmik to the public eye, Cloudwalker is more of a return to form. It is undeniably Gimmik; however, Cloudwalker treads some new ground for you. Can you shed some light on how the creative process changed from Entre Les Chambres / Deux Nouvelles and how those two albums might have influenced Cloudwalker?

Very well observed - they did influence Cloudwalker! Entre Les Chambres and Deux Nouvelles were both produced under technically limited circumstances. On top of that, I thought that no one will ever hear this material. Luckily it was not the case, and I got the chance to become a member of the n5MD family. When you produce with the idea that the material will never get released, it gives you a lot of room and space. You are not concerned about expectations. The music can flow and evolve freely. The calm nature of those albums helped that process. It was research where I experienced myself more as a witness than a composer. For me, that is a new approach. This approach was still the same when I produced Cloudwalker. That is the reason why the tracks are so diverse. Short Wave Memories and In My Family do not have anything in common, but that is the way they evolved, without me constructing anything. The most significant difference is that Cloudwalker was produced in a proper studio environment. Plus, I took a step into eurorack, which brings a very unpredictable element. And yes, that is Mutable Elements "Rings'' what you hear on In My Family. I was working on a self-generative patch with "Marbles'' when all of a sudden, the melody appeared...

I think you sent me In My Family shortly after you finished it, and it was one of the darkest days of the early pandemic; where our local government-issued curfews and such. It was the track that I needed at that moment; it brightened my day. It's very cool that the melody was a generative experiment gone right. I seem to remember you have quite a bit of the Mutable Instruments modules. Modular, to me, seems like a bit of a wormhole of experimentation. So, how do you stay focused when experimenting with new sounds and textures to bring, say, one of your Modular Nature tracks, which you have on your Youtube channel, to life.

Working with a modular system is entirely different. My approach is always a question. What will happen if I connect this with that and modulate with this? Then you start patching, and the results are entirely different from what I expected - a lot more exciting and better! In the beginning, I thought modular was about rebuilding synth voices. So I started emulating the signal-flow path of a 101 for a start. I missed the whole point of modular... A system has a life of its own and takes you to completely different places, and sometimes I do not even understand the results. (-: But that is not important. The decision to work with modular is to avoid walking down paths I have taken too many times when composing. What keeps you focused is your ear. The trick is to learn when to stop. In the beginning, I lost a lot of great patches when the result was already at 90%. When trying to reach 100%, my tweaks destroyed that patch's beauty, and I never found a way back to 90%. That happened a lot of times in the beginning. A modular system really helps to learn when to let go… (laughing). I chose Mutable Instruments because those modules are very focused on musical and harmonic results.

So, going back to Cloudwalker, how did it feel getting back to basics as far as Gimmik goes. People may not know that Entre Les Chambres and Deux Nouvelles were made for very personal listening. Care to shed a little light on those two, and more importantly, what made you want to go past those themes and bring Gimmik full circle for Cloudwalker?

Entre Les Chambres and Deux Nouvelles were NOT a conscious decision. Those were a necessity! The title Entre Les Chambres means "between two rooms", the space that is between two rooms. That is nowhere! It mirrors how I felt at that moment. There were many significant changes in my life, luckily nothing concerning my family, but still major changes. In order to cope with it all, I started making ambient tracks. It was the only thing that helped me to cope and focus again. The tracks happened by themselves. Listening to them and working on those albums was a calming experience. When they were finished, I played them to Chris, and he convinced me that he liked them. That led to the decision to make those first tapes. Later I sent them to you. Your reaction was very motivating because the music got released. With that motivation and getting back into a studio environment, the Cloudwalker tracks just poured out of me very quickly - it felt terrific to go back to the studio. My family gave me the time to work in my studio, and you and Chris gave very motivating feedback! From my perspective, this makes Cloudwalker my most important album so far, and I am very thankful for this chance! Another key element is that you gave me total freedom regarding artwork, choosing tracks, and their order. Just great!

Well, I knew going in that you know what you are doing. So I shouldn't have needed to step in and manage such details. For release prep, I'm available to take care of the details that an artist doesn't have access to or the working knowledge. You and Chris ran Toytronics, and you are a graphic artist as well, so I knew that you know the drill. If something was glaring or didn't work under the n5 stylistic umbrella, it is my job to say something, but I was pretty confident that wouldn't happen. I also know that after you completed the tracks, you took a great deal of time to get them to flow perfectly and also fit on four LP sides—your care in craft shows, and it's been great to work with you.

You brought up Chris, and there is an Abfahrt Hinwl remix on Cloudwalker, so; I'm going to ask. Are we going to hear some new Abfahrt Hinwl soon?

Thank you, as I said, that means a lot to me. And I still think that it is a fortunate situation. The AH RMX of Sailing Everest on Cloudwalker was just me, to be honest. That is why I used an abbreviation - AH. It is more a hint. It has a lot of the Abfahrt Hinwil ingredients. We tried to revive the project and realized that working over a distance via the internet does not work for either of us. The key of Abfahrt Hinwil was that we worked in the same room, at the same time, with the same equipment - listening to what the other one does - giving an immediate reaction. The most important point is communication, which has to happen immediately - you need to respond straight away, not with a delay. Today we find ourselves in two different life situations. We both would like to continue. After an online experiment, we realized it would be only possible when we visit each other and then work in the same studio. That is not possible at the moment, and Covid plays a significant role in that.

Ah, I see; Abfahrt Hinwil was you and Chris basically feeding off one another; also, there are cheques and balances, which is great to have. I completely understand why it would not be feasible to do it from a distance effectively. So, I'd like to pivot to these little builds I see on your Instagram. You recently sent me a pic of a peculiar little box that looks to be a synth. Assuming this is something you built (loving the stickering, by the way). What is this, and does it appear on Cloudwalker?

(laughing) That is a drone box handmade by a guy in Russia. Six oscillators, each one with a kill switch. Three standard range oscillators and 3 Sub. A very rough-sounding machine, great for drones. The filter sounds very nasty, just great. There is a little bit in the track Cloudwalker itself but washed out by Big Sky. The downside is that there is no midi, trigger gate, or voltage control. It is more of an experiment tool. The important parts of the track Cloudwalker have Mutable Instruments: Plaits and Tides 1, using the Sheep mode. Both outputs went into Warps, modulated by Stages. The little melody was played live on the Yamaha DX Reface, going into the Big Sky. It was all recorded live onto tape to 4 tracks to a Tascam 234. Then it was mixed the classic way, patchbay, fx, analog mixer main out to digital. 75% of the album was recorded to a Sound Devices MixPre-3 II.

It sounds like your Big Sky gets some action! Strymon makes some exceptional pedals. It seems like you can almost entirely make music out of the box if you needed to, which is excellent. So one last question: When we collaborated on the Cloudwalker one sheet text, you added something about the production tools "representing technology from 1958 to 2019," and I asked if 1958 was a type-o that needed to be corrected to 1985 when it was not. When people read that, I think they will be very curious as to what technology you utilized from that far back…

Yes, it is a great pedal, I love the sound and the fact that you get nice results very quickly.

1958- (laughing) There is an on oscilloscope from Russia, which can be seen in some of the videos on HIDDEN REALITY, and 2 vintage function generators. I got those old function generators from a close friend, he is an electronic engineer and professor for physics at a university. They got rid of all their old equipment, and he asked if I wanted to have something. He could not throw those old machines away, so he rescued them to his cellar. He changed the connections for me, so I can use them with the modular environment, using my standard patch cables. I used them a lot as modulation sources, as they can modulate extremely slow (like MI tides). But I have to admit that I got them for their looks in the first place…(laughing) - Those machines look like the machinery you see in Qs research center in old James Bond movies...

Order Cloudwalker now: US / UK / EU

Learn even more about Gimmik

[bensk]

Be curious. Be humble. Be useful.

I was invited to give the annual Taub Lecture for graduating Public Policy students at the University of Chicago, my alma mater and the department from which I graduated. This is what I came up with.

---

I am incredibly grateful and honored to be here tonight. The Public Policy program literally changed my life.

My name is Ben Samuels-Kalow, my pronouns are he/him/his. I’m a 2012 Public Policy graduate, and I will permit myself one “back in my day” comment: When I was a student here, the “Taub Lecture” were actual lectures given by Professor Taub in our Implementation class. I’ve spent the last nine years teaching in the South Bronx. For the past two years, I have served as Head of School at Creo College Prep, a public charter school that opened in 2019.

I was asked tonight to tell you a bit about my journey, and the work that I do. My objection to doing this is that there is basically nothing less interesting than listening to a white man tell you how he got somewhere, so I'll keep it brief. I grew up in New York City and went to a public high school that turned out Justice Elena Kagan, Chris Hayes, Lin-Manuel Miranda, among many others…none of whom were available tonight.

We, on this Zoom, all have one thing in common — we have been very, very close to graduating from the University of Chicago. I have never sat quite where you sit. I didn’t graduate into a pandemic. But the truth is that everyone graduates into a crisis. The periods of relative ease, the so-called “ends of history”, even the end of this pandemic, are really matters of forced perspective. This crisis isn’t over. Periods of relative peace and stability paper over chasms of structural inequality.

You went to college with the people who will write the books and go on the talk shows and coin the phrases to describe our times. You could write that book. You could go into consulting and spend six weeks at a time helping a company figure out how to maximize profits from their Trademark Chasm Expanding Products.

You could also run into the chasm.

What is the chasm?

It is the distance between potential and opportunity. It is a University on the South Side of Chicago with a student body that is 10% Black and 15% Latinx, with a faculty that is 65% white.

It is eight Black students being admitted to a top high school in New York City...in a class of 749.

What is the chasm?

The chasm is that in our neighborhood in The Bronx, where I’m standing right now, 1 in 4 students can read a book on their grade level, and only 1 in 10 will ever sit in a college class.

It is maternal mortality and COVID survival rates. The chasm is generational wealth and payday loans.

It is systemic racism and misogyny.

It is the case for activism and reparations.

In my job, the chasm is the distance between the creativity, brilliance, and wit that my students possess, and the opportunities the schools in our neighborhood provide.

In the zip code in which I grew up in New York City, the median income is $122,169. In the zip code where I have spent every day working since I graduated from UChicago, the median income is $30,349. The school where I went to 7th grade and this school where next year we will have our first 7th grade are only a 15 minute drive apart.

In my first quarter at UChicago, I joined the Neighborhood Schools Program, and immediately fell in love with working in schools. I joined NSP because a friend told me how interesting she found the work. I’d done some tutoring in high school, and had taught karate since I was 15. I applied, was accepted, and worked at Hyde Park Academy on 62nd and Stony Island in a variety of capacities from 2008 to 2012.

At the time, Hyde Park Academy had one of very few International Baccalaureate programs on the South Side, and every spring, parents would line up out the door of the school to try to get their rising 9th grader in. I worked with an incredible mentor teacher and successive classes of high school seniors whose wit, creativity, and skill would've been at home in the seminars and dorm discussions we all have participated in three blocks north of their high school.

In my work at Hyde Park Academy, I learned the first lesson of three lessons that have shaped my career as a teacher. Be curious. I had been told in Orientation that there were “borders” to the UChicago experience, lines we should not cross. I am forever grateful to the people who told me to ignore that BS. Our entire department is a testimony to ignoring that BS. We ask questions like, why did parents line up for hours to get into what was considered a “failing” high school? Why had no one asked my kids to write poetry before? Why are they more creative and better at writing than most of the kids I went to high school with, but there is only one IB class and families have to literally compete to get in? I learned as much from my job three blocks south of the University as I did in my classes at the University...which is to say, I was learning a LOT, but I had a lot more to learn.

I knew I wanted to be a teacher from my first quarter here. I did my research. The Boston Teacher Residency was the top program in the country, so I applied there. I was a 21 year old white man interested in education, so...I applied to Teach for America. In the early 2010’s, I looked like the default avatar on a Teach for America profile. It was my backup option. I was all in on Boston, and was sure, with four years working in urban schools, a stint at the Urban Education Institute, and, at the time, seven years of karate teaching under my belt, I was a shoe in.

I was rejected from both programs. Which brings me to my second lesson. Be humble. We are destined for and entitled to nothing. There is an aphorism I learned from one of my favorite podcasts, Another Round: "carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man." If you are a mediocre white man, like me, do as much as you can not to be. If you look like me, you live life on the "lowest difficulty setting." This means I need to question my gifts, contextualize my successes, and actively work against systems of oppression that perpetuate inequity.

Over the last two years, I have interviewed over 300 people to work at this school. There are a series of questions that I ask folks with backgrounds like myself:

Have you ever lived in a neighborhood that was majority people of color?

Have you ever worked on a team that was majority people of color?

Have you ever worked for a boss/supervisor/leader who was a person of color?

The vast majority of white folks, myself at 21 included, could not answer “yes” to these three questions. This is disappointing, but I've also lived and worked in two of the most segregated cities on this continent, so it is not surprising. By the time I sat where you’re sitting now, I had learned a lot about education policy and sociology. I'd taken every class that Chad offered at the time. I'd worked at UEI, I'd worked in a South Side high school for four years, and I still thought I was entitled to something. Unlearning doesn't usually happen in a moment, and I certainly didn't realize it at the time, but these rejections were the best thing that has happened to me in my growth as a human.

I moved back home to New York, was accepted to my last-choice teaching program, and started teaching at MS 223: The Laboratory School of Finance & Technology. I ended up teaching there for 5 years. I had incredible mentors, met some of my best friends, started a Computer Science program that’s used as a model at hundreds of schools across New York City…and most importantly, while making copies for Summer School in July of 2015, I met my wife.

All this to say — if you aren’t 100% convinced that what you’re doing next year is Your Thing, keep an open mind…and make frequent stops in the copy room.

I learned that teaching was My Thing. I didn't want to do ed policy research. I got to set education policy, conduct case studies, key informant interviews, run statistical analysis…with 12 year olds. This was the thing I couldn’t stop talking about, reading about, learning about. I really and truly did not care about the “UChicago voices” of my parents and my friends who kept asking what I was going to do next. My answer: teach.

If you look like me, and you teach Computer Science, there are opportunities that come flying your way. I was offered jobs with more prestige, jobs with more pay, jobs far away from the South Bronx. I was offered jobs I would have loved. But I’d learned a third lesson: be useful. If you have a degree from this place, people will always ask you what the next promotion or job is. They will ask "what's next for you" and they will mean it with respect and admiration.

Here’s the thing: teaching was what’s next. “But don’t you want to work in policy?” Teaching is a political act. It is hands-on activism, it is community organizing, it is high-tech optimistic problem-solving and low-tech relationship building. It is the reason we have the privilege of choosing a career, and it is a career worth choosing.

I had internalized what I like to call the Dumbledore Principle: “I had learned that I was not to be trusted with power.” This meant unlearning the very UChicago idea that if you were smart and if you think and talk like we are trained to think and talk at this place, you should be in charge. The best things in my life have come from unlearning that. Learning from mentors to never speak the way I was praised for in a seminar. Learning from veteran teachers how to be a warm demander who was my authentic best self...and more importantly brought out the authentic best self in my students. Being useful isn't the same thing as being in charge…and that is ok.

I believe this deeply. Which is why, when I was offered the opportunity to design and open a school, my first thought was absolutely the hell no. I said to my wife: “I’m a teacher. Dumbledore Principle — we’re supposed to teach, make our classrooms safe and wonderful for our kids.”

I also knew that teaching kids to code wasn’t worth a damn if they couldn’t read and write with conviction, so I started looking for schools that did both — treated kids like brilliant creatives who should learn to create the future AND met them where they were with rigorous coursework that closed opportunity gaps. In our neighborhood, there were schools that did the latter, that got incredible results for kids. Then there was my school, where kids learned eight programming languages before they graduated, but at which only 40% of our kids could read.

We were lauded for this, by the way. 40% was twice the average in our district. We were praised for the Computer Science — the mayor of New York and the CEO of Microsoft visited and met with my students. It felt great. I wasn’t convinced it was useful.

Kids in the neighborhood where I grew up didn’t have to choose between a school that was interesting and a school that equipped them with the knowledge and skills to pursue their own interests in college and beyond. Why did our students have to choose? I delivered this stressed-out existential monologue to my wife that boiled down to this: every kid deserves a school where they were always safe, and never bored. We weren’t working at a school like that. I was being offered a chance to design one. But…Dumbledore principle.

My wife took it all in, looked at me, and said: “You idiot. Dumbledore RAN a school.”

Friends, you deserve a partner like this.

The road to opening Creo College Prep, and the last two years of leading our school as we opened, closed, opened online, finished our first year, moved buildings, opened online again, opened in-person (kind of) and now head into our third year, has reinforced my lessons from teaching — be curious, be humble, be useful. These lessons are about both learning and unlearning. A white guy doing Teach for America at 21 is a stereotype. A white guy starting a charter school is a stereotype with significant capital, wading into complicated political and pedagogical waters. The lessons I learn opening a school and the unlearning I must do to be worthy of the work are not destinations, they are journeys.

Be curious

I didn’t just open a school. Schools are communities, they are institutions, and they are bureaucracies. If you work very, very hard, and with the right people, they become engines that turn coffee and human potential into joy and intellectual thriving capable of altering the trajectory of a child’s life.

First you have to find the right people. I joined a school design fellowship, spent a year visiting 50 high-performing schools across the country, recruited a founding board of smart, committed people who hold me accountable, and spent time in my community learning from families what they wanted in a school. There is studying public policy, and then there is attending Community Board meetings and Community Education Council Meetings, and standing outside of the Parkchester Macy's handing out flyers and getting petition signatures at Christmastime next to the mall Santa.

I observed in schools while writing my BA, and as a teacher, but it was in this fellowship that I learned to “thin slice,” a term we borrowed from psychology that refers to observing a small interaction and finding patterns about the emotions and values of people. In a school, it means observing small but crucial moments — how does arrival work, how are students called on, how do they ask for help in a classroom, how do they enter and leave spaces, how do they move through the hallways, where and how do teachers get their work done — and gleaning what a school values, and how that translates into impact for kids. Here’s how I look at schools:

Does every adult have an unwavering belief that students can, must, and will learn at the highest level?

Do they have realistic and urgent plans for getting every kid there? Are these beliefs and plans clear and held by kids?

Are all teachers strategic, valorizing planning and intellectual nerdery over control or power?

Is the curriculum worthy of the kids?

Can kids explain why the school does things they way they do? Can staff? Can the leader?

If I'm in the middle of teaching and I need a pen or a marker, what do I do? Is that clear?

What’s the attendance rate? How do we follow up on kids who aren’t here?

How organized and thoughtful are the physical and digital spaces?

Are kids seen by their teachers? Are their names pronounced correctly? Do their teachers look like them? Do they make them laugh, think, and revise their answers?

Would I want to work here? Would I send my own kids here?

Be humble

I learned that there are really two distinct organizations that we call “school.” One is an accumulation of talent (student and staff) that happens to be in the same place at the same time, operating on largely the same schedule.

These were the schools I attended. These are schools you got to go to if you got lucky and you were born in a zip code with high income and high opportunity. These are schools where you had teachers who were intellectually curious, and classmates whose learning deficits could be papered over by social capital…and sometimes, straight up capital.

“Accumulation of talent” also describes the schools I worked at. These were schools where if you got lucky and you were extraordinary in your intelligence, determination, support network, and teachers who’d decided to believe in you, you became one of the stories we told. “She got into Cornell.” “That whole English class got into four year colleges.”

Most schools in this country, it turns out, are run like this. I knew all about local control and the limits of federal standards on education and the battles over teacher evaluations and so much other helpful and important context I learned in my PBPL classes.  But when thin-slicing a kindergarten classroom in Nashville on my first school visit of the Fellowship, I saw a whole other possibility of what “school” can be.

School can be a special place organized towards a single purpose. One team, one mission. Where the work kids do in one class directly connects to the next, and builds on the prior year. Where kids are treated like the important people they are and the important people they will be, where students and staff hold each other to a high bar, where there is rigor and joy. A place where staff train together so that instead of separate classrooms telling separate stories about how to achieve, there is one coherent language that gives kids the thing they crave and deserve above all else: consistency.

We get up every morning to build a school like that. It’s why my team starts staff training a month before the first day of school. It’s why we practice teaching our lessons so that we don’t waste a moment of our kids’ time. It’s why everyone at our school has a coach, including me, so we can be a better teacher tomorrow than we were today. It’s why we plan engaging, culturally responsive, relevant lessons. It’s how we keep a simple, crucial promise to every family: at this school, you will always be safe, and you will never be bored.

Be useful

Statistically speaking, it is not out of the realm of possibility that several of you will one day be in a position to make big sweeping policy changes. You will have the power to not only write position papers, but to Make Big Plans. I will be rooting for you, but I hope that you won’t pursue Big Plans for the sake of Big Plans.

The architect who designed the Midway reportedly said "make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood." I had that quoted to me in several lectures at this school, and you know what?

It’s bullshit.

I am asking you not to care about scale. Good policy isn’t about scale, it’s about implementation, and implementation requires the right people on the ground. Implementation can scale. The right people cannot. We can Make Big Plans, but every 6th grade math class still needs an excellent math teacher. That's a job worth doing. I could dream about starting 20 schools, but every school needs a leader. That’s a job worth doing. Places like UChicago teach us to ask "what's next" for our own advancement, to do this now so we can get to that later. I learned to ask "what's next" to be as useful as possible to as many kids as I have in front of me.

I hold these two thoughts in my mind:

The educational realities of the South Bronx have a lot more to do with where highways were built in our neighborhood than with No Child Left Behind or charter schools, and require comprehensive policy change that address not only educational inequity, but environmental justice, and systemic racism.

The most useful policy changes I can make right now are to finalize the schedule for our staff work days that start on June 21, get feedback on next year’s calendar from families, and finish hiring the teachers our kids deserve.

I will follow the policy debates of #1 with great interest, but I know where I can be useful, and I’ll wake up tomorrow excited to make another draft of the calendar. I hope you get to work on making your Small Plans, and I will leave you with the secret — or at least the way that worked for me:

Find yourself people who are smarter than you and who disagree with you. Find problems you cannot shut up or stop thinking about. Do what you can’t shut up about with intellect and kindness. Use the privilege and opportunity that we have because we went to this school to make sure that opportunity for others does not require privilege. Run into the chasm.

Be curious, be humble, be useful.

Thank you.

[thesunnyshow]

Name: Ezralia Vali, but all my friends call me Elv

Writing Blog URL(s): @ezralia-writes (@haylo4ever was my OG writing account 5 years ago)

Age: 19

Nationality: Asian American

Languages: English and un poco Espanol

Star Sign: Aries

MBTI: INFJ

Favorite color: As of now, red

Favorite food: Pasta

Favorite movie: The Golden Compass, but Howl’s Moving Castle and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time are close choices too

Favorite ice cream flavor: Vanilla with chocolate syrup or caramel

Favorite animal: Narwhals

Go-to karaoke song: Uh, Who Do You Love (Monsta X)

Dream job (whether you have a job or not): TBH, my dream job is being a manager/CEO of a tech job (realistically) or a backup dancer for kpop groups (unrealistically)

Coffee or tea? What are you ordering? Neither, hot coco (coffee in the future to keep me sane)

If you could have one superpower, what would you choose? Mind-read 

If you could visit a historical era, which would you choose? Sengoku Japanese period or in England when kings and queens were bloody powerful 

If you could restart your life, knowing what you do now, would you? Yes

Would you rather fight 100 chicken-sized horses or one horse-sized chicken? 100 chicken-sized horses

If you were a trope in a teen high school movie, what would you have been? Please, I wanna be in the nerdy girl and jock romance but honestly, I’m probably just the side, hermit character.

Do you believe in aliens/supernatural creatures? Yes but I know they don’t exist 

Fun fact about yourself that not everyone would know? Uh, I talk a lot about myself but I have trypophobia - there should not be holes in things that are supposed to be whole.

What fandom(s) do you write for? As of now, I write for BTS, GOT7, NCT, Monsta X, and Stray Kids

When did you post your first piece? May 26, 2020 (Dec 7, 2014 was my OG post on ff.net haha)

Do you write fluff/angst/crack/general/smut, combo, etc? Why? I write fluff, angst (lots), and sometimes crack. While I can rec some awesome smuts, I don’t feel comfortable writing explicit smut as of yet, although I will elude to some smexy time. I do have a WIP that I will one day write that will definitely include smut because it’s part of the story.

Do you write OCs, X Readers, Ships...etc? I have some OG OCs and my starter fics on Tumblr were third-person female reader. However, recent works include x you (reader) and I find that really fun and easier to write! I don’t really write any ships for Kpop.

Why did you decide to write for Tumblr? Having read so many awesome works on Tumblr made me want to write and hopefully have other readers experience the same feelings I do when I read that great piece. However, my original goal was just to write for Monsta X since there aren’t a whole lot of fics for them but also because I have too many ideas running in my mind. Lastly, I just write for myself.

What inspires you to write? The groups I write for, other things I read (like mangas and/or shows), and especially songs!

What genres/AUs do you enjoy writing the most? I write best fluff for established relationships because otherwise it’s all just angst, which is a lot of fun to write while keeping it not too toxic unless stated otherwise for plot. I also love silly fics for giggles. As for Au’s I enjoy regular day to day life with a spin or fantasy based Au’s.

What do you hope your readers take away from your work? I hope they just feel a strong emotion - depending on the genre. I hope that they get to the end and find all the nuances I try to sprinkle throughout the story hinting to clues or plot devices. That’s always what I try to aim for.

What do you do when you hit a rough spot creatively? Cry. Jokes aside, I take a break/breather to refocus and take time for myself. I also read professional works to take my mind off things or get inspired. 

What is your favorite work and why? Your most successful? My personal favorite of my published works would be my Han Jisung x reader, Promise. It was my first kpop fic and a gift to my friend. I think it’s a hallmark of my return to writing and I look forward to publishing more of my favorite plots! My most successful is Spiderling, a Jeon Jungkook x reader fic, not surprised at all that my first official BTS fic would be the most popular one of my current works haha.

Who is your favorite person to write about? Honestly, I have so many ideas for Changkyun haha. I feel like he’s totally boyfriend material and can fit different roles from a total fratboy to a soft boyfriend. But I’m trying to expand both my writing and pairings and it’s a fun challenge to write for the different boys.

Do you think there’s a difference between writing fanfiction vs. completely original prose? I actually do! In my honest opinion, fanfiction is work about an already established character/person/universe. It’s easier for me to think up ideas for characters already prepped because I personally get lost in the details already of thinking up terms/universes to place the story in. I have a character that’s already established and people know about without having to elaborate on those finer details.

What do you think makes a good story? Proper formatting goes a long way. While I don’t judge on grammar and spelling mistakes, it is a much smoother read if people follow basic narrative-writing skills. I feel like anyone who can embody their own style and ideas (without being discriminatory or mean), then they’ve really got me hooked.

What is your writing process like? A mess. I know a lot of people outline, and I try that sometimes. But, normally I just get straight into writing what I’ve brainstormed, maybe adding some notes for future events here and there. If I get tied up at a certain part, I make a messy line break and start another scene.

Would you ever repurpose a fic into a completely original story? Yes. Funnily enough though, I repurpose my original storylines for fics, but if I could, I would write an original story.

What tropes do you love, and what tropes can’t you stand? I can’t stand cliches but I WILL cry over them if they’re well-written and/or have a spin on them. So, ultimately I’m down for anything. Enemy to lovers isn’t always my favorite but @gukyi​ does a great job, since that’s her renowned trope.

How much would you say audience feedback/engagement means to you? A lot! I have a few lovely mootz that always have something nice to say, but I would love more reader interaction! Of course, I’m a newer writer and haven’t blown up so it is to be expected that I’m a little lonely right now. I hope that’s not a long-term thing.

What has been one of the biggest factors of your success (of any size)? Who I write for. I hate to be blunt about it, but certain members and/or groups truly are more popular which is a shame at times. Plus, interacting with more mootz and authors as well as joining discord chats and networks helps by meeting new people who will interact with you and your content.

Do you think fanfic writers get unfairly judged? Yes, at times and with certain topics. We all know people will go on anon and tear anyone down for whatever reason.

Do you think art can be a medium for change? Definitely! Writing for the public,(especially fanfic and reader-based fics) especially in these times, means you have to adapt and adhere to the ever-changing times. We have a role to play in how people perceive things, whether that’s regarding an IRL person or how we view others with representation.

Do you ever feel there are times when you’re writing for others, rather than yourself? Huh, as of now, I feel like I’m writing for myself. Without a lot of interaction, I don’t feel pressure. I do want to write for other groups, but as of now I’m trying to pick up speed with certain groups. I have a lot of WIPs, so we will see where I end up.

Do you ever feel like people have misunderstood you or your writing at times? Not that I know of, haha.

Do your offline friends/loved ones know you write for Tumblr? No, haha.

What is one thing you wish you could tell your followers? I love you!

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers who might be too scared to put themselves out there? Don’t be afraid! It’s scary, but the worst that can happen is not writing!

Are there any times when you regret joining Tumblr? HAahaha, only because the site’s interaction roles have drastically dropped and a lot of the features suck. But the people I’ve met… priceless. I love them all and a lot have impacted my life so positively.

Do you have any mutuals who have been particularly formative/supportive in your Tumblr journey? Yes! All of them!

Pick a quote to end your interview with: 

Stan yourself first! <3

[taygetsschooled]

Week 9// How to land yourself a sweet Job that you might actually enjoy—A complete Beginner’s guide

As much as I wish I could’ve been born a trust-fund baby, I have accepted the fact that I am—and always will be—an average Joe(sephina) who, just like most of the world’s inhabitants, needs a stable career to make an honest living. Not that a job(s) should ever consume the entirety of your existence, acquiring one is a very important aspect of life and the ability to do so with polish and vigor is a skill every working-class citizen should refine.

That being said, I curated an in-depth guide explaining the basic necessities required to land the job you desire

I have organized each section for different levels of preparedness. You may skip to the sections that are most relevant to your current informational needs:

Section 1: Where to begin?

Section 2: Creating a Resume & Cover letter

Section 3: Job Hunting Tools

Section 4: Interview Prepping & Tips.

Section 1. Where to begin, you ask? If you don’t know what career area you want to pursue yet, start here:

1.      Make a list of your strengths. If that doesn’t come naturally to you, ask a friend or trusted co-worker their opinion.

2.     Evaluate Your Past to Avoid a Dead End. Ask yourself some questions help you clarify your feelings about previous jobs or other professional experiences so you can look for similar or different characteristics in the future.

3.     Talk to People to Learn What Your Dream Job Is. Start taking some time to request and schedule informational interviews with people in the fields you’re interested in to learn about their career paths and get advice. Ask about their job, their professional past and aspirations, and the industry. Be sure to prepare questions ahead of time.

4.     Take Classes First, Figure Out What Career You Want Later. Try something new whenever the opportunity presents itself. Take online classes, attend workshops, read books, and watch YouTube tutorials. By taking these chances, you may find out that you’re really into UX design, digital marketing, Python programming—or something else entirely!

5.     Consider What Work Environment You Need. Are people in the workplace you’re considering competitive with one another or collaborative? Are they friends outside of the office? Do they work as a team or on their own? Can people work remotely or are they expected to work in the office? What is the work-life balance like? What are the salary expectations?

6.     Do What Makes You Happy (Even If You Don’t Know What That Means for a Career Yet). Think about what truly interests you, not what necessarily sounds the most lucrative or high-powered on paper. Try to pin down those things that engage you in a such a way that you’re always able to muster at least a spark of passion about them and use those interests to guide you toward an applicable career path.

Section 2.  Ready to start applying? First thing’s first—create a RESUME! (and cover letter)

1.      Start by choosing the right resume format. There are 3 commonly used formats depending on which is right for you: Chronological, Functional, or a combination.

A chronological resume format places the professional history section first and is a good option if you have a rich professional work history with no gaps in employment.

The functional resume format emphasizes the skills section and is a good option if you are switching industries or have some gaps in your work history.

The combination resume format is a good option if you have some professional experience, where both skills and work history are equally important.

2.     Include name and contact information. Your resume should begin with your name and contact information including your email address and phone number. You have a choice about whether or not to include your mailing address. Your name should be highly visible at the top of your resume with a bolded or larger font than the rest of the document, but no more than a 14-point size. You might also include a link to your online portfolio if you are applying to creative positions, for example.

3.     Add a resume summary or objective. After your contact information, you have the option to include either a resume summary or objective statement. An objective statement quickly explains your career goals and is a good choice for those with limited professional experience, such as recent college or high school graduates. A resume summary is a short statement that uses active language to describe your relevant work experience and skills.

4.     List your soft and hard skills. Take a moment to consider which skills make you a great fit for the job. Review the job description and highlight keywords that you have had proven success with in the past. Consider both hard (technical) and soft (interpersonal) skills, as well as transferable skills you can use when changing careers or industries. Create a skills section with the keywords that are relevant to the employer. List any required skills like certifications or licenses first.

5.     List your professional history with KEYWORDS. Write your professional history section in reverse-chronological order. Start with your most recent job and provide a short description including the company name, time period in which you were employed, your job title and a few key achievements during your time at the company. You might also include relevant learnings or growth opportunities you experienced while employed there. Use keywords from the job description. Similar to your skills section, you should also include information from the job description in your job history bullets. This is pretty important given auto-filtering many companies now use to sort through resumes. Be brief in your summaries. Only like key achievements. Use action verbs. Some examples include “developed,” “saved,” “drove” and “managed.”

6.     Include an education section. An education section will be especially valuable if you have limited work experience (such as recent college or high school graduates) or if you are transferring to a new industry. You can include information such as:

Relevant coursework

Grade point average (if above 3.5)

Participation in clubs or organizations

Leadership positions held

Awards, achievements or certifications

When writing your education section, you should include the name of the institution, dates of attendance and your degree or area of study.

7.      Consider adding optional sections. If you have significant white space on your resume, consider adding an “achievements” or interests section. This can help supplement a shorter resume, especially for those with limited work and educational experience. Makes sure that the achievements and interests you list support your career goals and are relevant to potential employers.

8.     Format your resume:

Make your font between 10 and 12-point size.

Select a font that is clean and easy to read like Arial or Helvetica; avoid stylized fonts.

Make sure your margins are 1 to 1.5 inches.

Make your name and section headers bold or slightly bigger in font size (no more than 14 points).

Use bullet points when listing several different pieces of information, like under your education and professional history sections.

9.     Proofread your resume!!

10.   Tailor your resume for each position you apply for. It’s important to revise your resume to tailor it to each position you apply for. For each job, adjust the keywords in the skills section so that it’s a great fit for what the employer needs. You should also change what you emphasize in the professional history and educational experiences sections depending on what’s listed in the job description.

11.    Create a Cover Letter! A cover letter is a document sent with your resume to provide additional information on your skills and experience.  The letter provides detailed information on why you are qualified for the job you are applying for. Don’t simply repeat what’s on your resume -- rather, include specific information on why you’re a strong match for the employer’s job requirements. Think of your cover letter as a sales pitch that will market your credentials and help you get the interview. As such, you want to make sure your cover letter makes the best impression on the person who is reviewing it.  A cover letter typically accompanies each resume you send out. Employers use cover letters as a way to screen applicants for available jobs and to determine which candidates they would like to interview. If an employer requires a cover letter, it will be listed in the job posting. Even if the company doesn’t ask for one, you may want to include one anyway.

Section 3.  Let the HUNT begin!

Some useful tools for finding job opportunities:

1.       Networking. It's known as the hidden job market: Many of the best jobs are never advertised. They are filled by candidates who learn of them by word of mouth from friends, former colleagues, and ex-bosses. You can join professional associations, attend events for graduates of your school, connect with professionals who work in your field, and take every chance you get to meet up, in person or online, with others in your field.  Various online sites such as LinkedIn allow you to broaden your network to include friends of friends. The bigger your network, the more likely you'll find out about new opportunities.

2.     Referrals. Some employers offer incentives to their employees for referring a successful candidate to the company. It's a win-win situation for everyone. You get a new job, and your contact gets a finder's fee for attracting a top-notch employee.

3.     Job Boards and Career Websites. Many state governments provide job boards and job banks that can be accessed by all. You can also use job search engines or any of a vast number of career-related websites that post job openings, such as Monster.com, Google for Jobs, CareerBuilder, and Indeed. Many other databases specialize in freelance and contract work, including People Per Hour, Upwork, Simply Hired, and Crowded.

4.     Job Fairs. Job fairs are often targeted toward specific industries, although some job or recruitment fairs are more generalized. The promotional material will include a list of the organizations that will be represented.  Investigate any companies that interest you, bring a batch of resumes and business cards, and get ready to sell yourself. Consider any conversations with recruiters as mini-interviews that can set you apart from other applicants. Some organizations may even offer on-site interviews to candidates that match their requirements.

5.     Company Websites. If you already have your dream employer in mind, go directly to the career section of the company's website. If you track openings on its site, there's a chance you'll find just the opportunity that you've been waiting for.  Create a list of employers that you'd like to work for and visit their websites often.

6.     Headhunters and Recruiters. If you're looking for some professional help in your job search, headhunters and recruitment agencies can help.  Many organizations hire through recruitment agencies to streamline the hiring process. Headhunters actively recruit individuals to fill specific vacancies.  Payment is based on commission. Make sure you know up front whether you or the company is paying it.\

7.     Temping or Internships. Temporary employment and short-term contracts often lead to permanent positions. It's a great way to get a foot in the door or at the very least provide you with useful business contacts to call upon in the future.  Many recruitment agencies can assist with locating temporary or casual positions and contract work.

Internships are a great choice for students who are just graduating from college. The job placement services of many schools connect their students with opportunities.  If you're just starting out and you can afford it, volunteering can be a great way to gain valuable industry contacts.

Section 4. Lions and Tigers and INTERVIEWS, Oh My!

Here are some tips for how to prepare for a job interview:

1.      Carefully examine the job description. During your prep work, you should use the employer’s posted job description as a guide. The job description is a list of the qualifications, qualities and background the employer is looking for in an ideal candidate. The more you can align yourself with these details, the more the employer will be able to see that you are qualified. The job description may also give you ideas about questions the employer may ask throughout the interview.

2.     Consider why you are interviewing and your qualifications. Before your interview, you should have a good understanding of why you want the job and why you’re qualified. You should be prepared to explain your interest in the opportunity and why you’re the best person for the role.

3.     Do your research on the company and the selected position. Researching the company you’re applying to is an important part of preparing for an interview. Not only will it help provide context for your interview conversations, but it will also help you when preparing thoughtful questions for your interviewers.  Researching the company and role as much as possible will give you an edge over the competition. Not only that, but fully preparing for an interview will help you remain calm so that you can be at your best. Here are a few things you should know before you walk into your interview:

Research the product or service the company offers

Research the job position and understand all the requirements and responsibilities that go with it.

Research the company culture.

4.     Consider your answers to common interview questions. While you won’t be able to predict every question you’ll be asked in an interview, there are a few common questions you can plan answers for. You might also consider developing an elevator pitch that quickly describes who you are, what you do and what you want. You should also prepare to discuss your salary expectations, just in case. Common interview questions include:

“why do you want to work here?”

“what interests you about this role?”

“what are your greatest strengths/weaknesses?”

5.     Practice your speaking voice and body language. It’s important to make a positive and lasting impression during the interview process. You can do this by practicing a confident, strong speaking voice and friendly, open body language. While these might come naturally to you, you might also want to spend time performing them with trusted friends or family or in front of a mirror. Pay special attention to your smile, handshake and stride. If you need to, search up some resources on how to deliver a proper handshake, how to introduce yourself properly, and proper interview etiquette for more information. The internet is littered with tons of great information on these subjects.

6.     Prepare several thoughtful questions for the interviewer(s). Many employers feel confident about candidates who ask thoughtful questions about the company and the position. You should take time before the interview to prepare several questions for your interviewer(s) that show you've researched the company and are well-versed about the position. Some examples of questions you could ask include:

“What does a typical day look like for a person in this position?”

“Why do you enjoy working here?”

“What qualities do your most successful employees have?”

“I've really enjoyed learning more about this opportunity. What are the next steps in the hiring process?”

7.     Conduct mock interviews. Just like public speaking, practicing interviews is the best way to relieve anxiety and improve your confidence. Practice may be tedious, but repeatedly experiencing the interview process will make you more comfortable and help you give the right impression.  If you have friends or family to help, conduct mock interviews as much as you can. If you don't have another person, practice your questions and answers out loud.

8.     Print hard copies of your resume. Most employers ask for digital copies of your resume with the application, but they may not have easy access to it during the interview itself. Having copies to present to multiple interviewers shows that you're prepared and organized. You should have at least three copies to provide for multiple interviewers, plus one for yourself to follow along.

9.     Prepare travel arrangements. Allow plenty of time to arrive for the interview, even if it means arriving much earlier than needed. Save the interview contact information just in case something happens out of your control that is causing you to be late. Search the interview location in advance to avoid hiccups.

10.    Sell Yourself. One of the biggest challenges in an interview is selling yourself. Most people are uncomfortable with this idea, but presenting yourself accurately and positively doesn't have to feel like a sale. The truth is that you do have professional skills and experiences that may set you apart from other applicants, so it's acceptable and expected for you to acknowledge them to your potential employer. When you prepare for a job interview, make note of your skills that relate to the role and think of how your experiences and abilities can contribute to the overall goals of the department and company. If you have metrics or stats to show your accomplishments or growth during your previous roles, they're a great help in selling yourself during the interview. For example, you may have increased sales by a certain percentage or increased social media engagement in your last position. Whatever accomplishments you have, don't be modest about sharing them during your interview. Your potential employer wants to know that you'll be the right fit and that you can deliver something special to the company.

11.    Get ready to follow up after the interview. After your interview, you should prepare to follow up with the employer. Doing so reminds the employer of your conversation, shows them you are genuinely interested in the position and gives you the opportunity to bring up points you forgot to mention. Here are a few steps you can follow when crafting a follow-up note:

In the first paragraph, mention the specific job title and thank your interviewer.

In the second paragraph, note the company's name as well as a conversation point and/or goal that seemed especially important to the person you spoke with. Connect that point to your experience and interests.

 In the final paragraph, invite them to ask you any additional questions and close by saying you're looking forward to hearing back.

The process of getting a job may seem…yes, overwhelming, sure. It is tedious, but it’s also a fluid process that through practice and usage becomes like second nature. The most important focuses come down to having a strong resume & cover letter, networking, being calculated with your job searches, and presenting yourself confidently, professionally, and personably. Most of these things are already ingrained in us, we just need to take the time to hone them in and polish them up. Doing so only serves to benefit our own wellbeing in the long term.

[coffeecomicsgalore]

Unveiled Love

@smutember​

Ao3

Chapter 9 – Fantasy

“Dude.” Nino exclaimed as he wrapped his arms around Adrien in a bear hug the moment he opened the door to his apartment. Marinette narrowly missed the embrace and ducked between the two men, running over to Alya for safety. “I haven’t seen you in forever! I missed you!”

“Three weeks isn’t that long of a time, bro.” Adrien chuckled as he patted Nino’s back as he pulled away.

Nino wrapped his arm around Adrien’s shoulders and escorted him in, animatedly talking about something in secret. Marinette could see the bright smile on Adrien’s face, no doubt Nino had told him something amazing in secret.

“I’m glad you’re already gossiping with your boyfriend.” Alya chuckled as she pulled a platter of sandwiches from the fridge.

“Ooh. Secrets. Is it juicy?” Marinette asked with a curious and pleading tone.

“Apparently, not juicy enough to tell his girlfriend of ten years,” Alya emphasized the last few words as she increased her voice. “But I guess that’s fine.” She added with a pouty lip.

Adrien and Marinette laughed before Nino defended himself. “Sorry, babe. This secret is for me to know, and for you to find out later.”

“Probably a ring.” Alya stated with a wink and Nino sputtered.

“Not a ring.” Adrien defended his best friend. “Got to land that big job first, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah. I remember.” Alya added with an eyeroll. Alya had been adamant that Nino was not to propose until Alya received word that she got a job at one of the most prestigious papers in Paris. She put in applications everywhere, but only a few smaller companies have taken her under her wing. Doesn’t stop the blogger from trying her best though.

Nino walked up to Alya and squeezed her to his side, placing a sweet kiss to her temple. “Soon babe. You’ll get it. I know you will.”

“Hopefully soon. I have a second interview with Le Monde on Thursday. If I pass, I'll have to give them a journalist entry on a topic of their choosing. If I pass that standard, I’m in.”

“That’s so awesome!” Marinette wrapped her arms around Alya. “Good luck. I know you can do it.”

“Thanks, girl.”

“So, dude. How was your trip to Milan? Was it better than usual?”

“Ugh.” Adrien let his head fall back as he groaned, Nino handing him a beer in commiseration. “It was seriously terrible. Being there was supposed to ‘scare them into place’ as my father put it, but it only gave me headaches. Everyone was so terrified that I managed to get only two or three words at a time from many of the employees.”

“Dude. That’s rough.”

“Yeah, no kidding. I was stressed to the max every night.”

“Couldn't find any Italian chicks to fuck around with?”

Marinette sputtered and Adrien choked on his beer. Nino started to pat Adrien on the back to help him breathe, and Alya stopped setting up the table to turn to the two men.

“Geez, Nino. Could you be any gentler?”

“What? You know what they say... fucking helps release endorphins. Helps relieve stress.”

“Yeah, no.” Adrien finally said once he caught his breath. “Come on, man. You know I'm not looking for anything right now.”

“I didn’t say anything about finding someone to spend time with. Just someone to ease the stress of your manhood.”

“My manhood is fine, thank you very much. Plus, you know I’m not the kind of guy to do that. I find for keeps, not for sleeps.”

“But you’ll be wound up less, dude.”

“Listen, Nino. Things are finally getting settled with the new store in Milan and I just need to focus on that a bit longer. Once the transition is done, then I'll look into finding the perfect girl and settling down.”

Alya smiled at Adrien. She knew the boy loved with his whole heart and wouldn’t mess around with anyone and break theirs. She could see Adrien’s apprehension to the conversation and decided to change targets instead of subjects.

“What about you Marinette? Anyone new on your radar?”

Marinette shook her head as she sipped her drink. “Nope. School is hard as it is. I don’t need to add a boyfriend to that list of crap.”

“Oh, come on. Not even for pleasure?”

“Cobwebs, Alya. Cobwebs.”

“You know what? I know the sex is incredible for me. You two floof balls of stress need to unwind with some good fucking,” she took a sip of her drink, “...besides the ones you do to yourselves, that is. I can set the two of you up with people who could also use some good balls-to-ass action if you want.”

Marinette stared at Alya while Adrien just blushed.  

“No.” They said in tandem; Marinette harsher with her tone than planned while Adrien’s voice cracked.

Alya just shrugged her shoulders. “Fine then. If neither of you want to fuck around and have some fun, then let’s play a game.”

“What kind of game, Al?”

Alya took in another sip as she looked to Marinette. “If you could choose one celebrity or person to sleep with, who would it be? It can be a fantasy fuck for all I care.”

Marinette looked over to Adrien, and she gave him a devilish smirk. “Easy. Adrien Agreste.”

Alya sputtered, Nino gasped, and Adrien choked on his soda. The poor boy was going to die today from the embarrassment.

“Marinette!” Alya yelled.

“What?” She said innocently, before feigning realization. “Oh crap! I completely forgot that the Adrien Agreste is in the room and heard me say everything just now.”

“What the hell, Marinette? What has gotten into you?”

Marinette shrugged before taking a long pull from her cocktail. “What? We’re such good friends that I know I can say that without blushing anymore. Plus, my crush on him is long gone.”

Adrien was bright red, but gave her a devious smirk. “Wait. You used to have a huge crush on me? Where the hell was I?”

“Somewhere. I don’t know. You missed your chance to have all of this.” She said gesturing to herself.

Alya could not believe the confidence coming out of Marinette’s mouth as well as the pondering expression on Adrien’s face.  

“Well. Fuck. Guess I missed my chance then.” Adrien added with a snap to his fingers.  

Nino’s mouth was open, but he didn’t know what to say to this development.  

“Dude? Dudette? Alya?” Nino’s voice croaked as he called for his girlfriend.

“Well, I'll tell you who I would fuck.” Adrien blurted out, interrupting Nino’s thought. “Ladybug. I’d let her tie me down with that yo-yo and let her have her way with me.”

Marinette let out a strangled whimper.  

Alya lifted up her fist in solidarity. “Same, sunshine. Same. Sorry Nino, but I would fuck the ever-living shit out of Ladybug if given the chance. I’d even let her fuck me with a strap on. Just let me get pegged by her.”

“O. M. G.” Adrien said with sheer enthusiasm. “I’d let her do the same to my model ass!”

Marinette let out a choked cough and Adrien turned to her with faked worry. “Marinette. Are you okay?”

“Never better!” She managed to say, her voice hoarse.

“What does she have that I don’t?” Nino questioned to Alya.

“I don’t know. A skin tight suit? A sweet ass? Perky breasts? The list is endless.”

“Huh,” Adrien let out. “A skin tight suit? Don’t worry, bro. You don’t need a skin tight suit. Just your DJ hands would prove yourself worthy to me. Your ass is marvelous, and your pecs are mighty tight.” Adrien finished with a squeeze to his man tits.

“Dude.”

Marinette turned to Alya as Nino gave Adrien a hearty hug. “Alya, you still up to being a lesbian for a day? I need some curves in my life.”

“For your athletic ass? Sure!”

---

“Oh, you like my ass, don’t you?” Ladybug teased as she finished tying Adrien down with her yo-yo. She thanked her lucky stars that Adrien’s king-sized bed had metal slats in the headboard or she would have hung him from the ceiling instead.

“Every day since the day we met.”

“Horndog.”

“Excuse, me. I like the term horn panther, thank you very much.”

Ladybug tightened the cord a little tighter, getting Adrien to grunt. “Hm. Who knew you liked being tied up.” She peered at his gorgeous model ass as he laid on his stomach. She made sure his arms were stretched in front of him, while his legs were folded under him so she could work her magic.

“If you don’t stop talking, you won’t get your treat.”

“You mean, I get a treat? I thought you working my ass was my punishment.” He smirked knowing full well that everything would be a treat for them both.

Ladybug walked up to him, her lips twisting to a devilish smirk as she bent herself down until her face was level with his.

“Last time I checked, this was your fantasy, chaton. I already get to live my fantasy about fucking super gorgeous, Gabriel model, Adrien Agreste.”

“And is he everything you ever dream of?”

Ladybug winked and stood back up, walking back to the edge of the bed until she reached his bare ass. She looked at it as she tilted her head, before smoothing her fingers across his smooth skin until she touched the entrance to his asshole with her finger tip. He shuttered at the feeling.

“I could die and go to heaven with how amazing he is...” Adrien began to turn pink as she started to praise him, “how deliciously amazing his cock is...” she bent down to grab the straps of the toy and slide it up her legs, “how he makes me moan and scream out his name every time he fucks me hard.”

Ladybug grabbed the lube as she praised him with all the love she could give him, and she could see him visibly wiggle with excitement. With her free hand, she slapped his ass, getting him to whimper.

“Someone is excited to live their fantasy and get fucked by his dream girl.”  

Adrien could hear her squeeze out some lube into her hand. He looked over his shoulder and watched as she spread the liquid around the long silicone dildo attached to the strap-on, and he bit his lip to muffle the moans and the words that he wanted to yell out. The straps made her ass so much more juicer and delicious and he couldn’t wait to see what she could do to him.

She poured a bit of lube onto her fingertips and layered it over his asshole, dipping her fingertip into his entrance to prep it completely. She walked back closer to his ass and lined up against his entrance, then clicked on the bullet vibrator on to get the vibrations going.

“Oh, yeah.” Ladybug moaned out, feeling the bullet vibrate against her clit. She looked over to see Adrien still biting his lip, his gaze darkened with desire. She pressed the tip of the dildo into his entrance, then waited for his nod to indicate he was ready.  

Slowly, she pushed the dildo into him, taking her time until the sensations were overwhelming his mind. Moans spilt from his lips, the little gasps as she delved further into him, the praises as she told him how good he was being for taking her all in.

He gasped as she pushed the remaining bit of the strap-on into his ass, and moaned out a fuck as she held it there until he became use to the feeling.  

“Are you okay?” Adrien nodded and let out another breath. “Good. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

Ladybug began to thrust into him, making his hard cock swollen with delight. She hunched over him, steadying herself with one hand on his hip, while rubbing her fingertips of her free hand up and down his gorgeous, muscular arms. She finally smoothed her fingers over his shoulders and down his chest until she reached his taut pecs, then rubbed her finger against his nipple until it peaked. He mewled at the sensation and she moaned in his ear, causing his mouth to open to an “o”. She did the same to his other nipple, switching her steady arm to make it work.

She then reached down, wrapping her fingers around his hard cock, and began to stroke and tug on it as she continued to thrust. Each time she thrusted into him with the strap-on, she stroked towards the tip of his cock and swirled her thumb against his slit. Then when she pulled out, she stroked him back, caressing his balls within her grasp. Every so often she would thrust into him and hold the base of the dildo to his entrance, allowing him to feel the vibrations of the bullet as she felt it against her clit.

“Fuck.” Adrien moaned out, feeling the coil begin to rattle in his lower belly.

Every time she thrust, she could feel the vibrations rattling her clit, turning her further and further on as she continued. She didn’t want to cum sooner than she planned, but taking control, watching him wither under her as she stroked his hard cock, thrusting the silicone dildo in and out of him, the mewls and moans and swears that spilled from his lips... it was becoming all too much.

She began to slow down as she let the feeling of her orgasm dissipate. She hated herself for doing it to herself, but giving him this fantasy was something on her list of things to do ever since he confessed some deep secrets that he swore he would never tell. Giving him this turned her on, and she would do this anytime he asked her to. He deserved the world, and she wouldn’t deny that seeing his ass this way made her tremble.

“Fuck, milady. I don’t know how much longer I'm going to last.”

Knowing these were his usual words when the feeling of his orgasm was about to burst, she began to thrust harder into him  

She smirked against his ear before licking the shell of it, blowing onto the wet part until he gasped. “Then don’t”

As if the flood gates opened, she could feel his cock swell until it burst, and she continued to thrust into him while stroking his cock until his orgasm spilled out completely. The moment she felt him gasp at the final spurts, she thrust into him a bit further, finally allowing herself to fall over the edge.

She gasped out as she climaxed hard, and Adrien allowed her to thrust into him until she came down from her high. As soon as she did, she fell upon his back, wrapping her arms around his waist and clicking off the bullet.  

“So- good.” Adrien finally said as he heard her breathing level out.  

“Mhm.” She moaned out, then steadied herself to pull the strap-on out of him. Slowly doing so, she heard him grunt at the movement. She then pulled the strap-on off of her, then moved over and began to untie the yo-yo from his wrists.

He laid down onto his stomach as his breathing evened out, and Ladybug called off her transformation, leaving Marinette in her wake. She laid down beside him and rubbed her fingers against his wrists, soothing them from the redness left over by the ties.

“You okay?” She soothed, kissing his inner wrists as she massaged them.

“Mhm.” He moaned out, finally opening his eyes to glare into her blue bell eyes. “That was amazing.”

Marinette agreed with his words and placed a kiss to his lips. “If you ever want to do that again.... oh man, I'll do it.”

Adrien gestured with an “hell yeah” hand motion before falling asleep, ass up. Marinette giggled as she watched him snore, placing a blanket over his naked form, and snuggling up to him and sleeping comfortably beside him.

[friend-o-dorothy]

Employability Master Post

So I’m a job coach and I’m in this capstone course focused on employability and job readiness which is like hysterical to me because I literally help prep people for employment for a living. But rewriting my resume and doing mock interviews etc. has put me back on the receiving end of all this again, so I thought I’d impart some wisdom on y’all because I love you.

Resumes

Nothing on the page should be larger than your name.

Do not include work experience where you were fired or where you left on poor terms. Assume HR will contact that employer to seek a reference.

Do not exceed one page. I know there’s been a lot of debate about this lately, but for the love of God don’t do it. It’s still not standard practice to do and you’re more likely to find an employer turned off by that than impressed.

Double. Triple. Quadrouple check for errors.

If you have a huge employment gap, feel free to write a one sentence explanation in italics at the end of the work history section. Between the years of 2015 and 2017 I focused on school or I was focused on my family in the year 2018 and am now excited to enter the workforce is appropriate.

The skills section should not include things everyone else has. I cannot tell you how many resumes I see that say “proficient in Microsoft office.” If you’re applying they’ll assume you are already. Don’t waste precious space with that. If you want to include skills, share qualifications, completed trainings or webinars, and relevant information like typing speed for a data entry specialist or deescalation trainings for social work.

Make sure you have permission from your references before you use them. Even if you have a standing agreement, they may not answer an unfamiliar call if they aren’t expecting it.

Include awards and accomplishments. These should be applicable to the field you’re going into and contain descriptions. Here’s a glimpse of mine (sorry I’m on mobile and the formatting got weird)

Look online to make sure your formatting is appropriate. Also, many career centers at colleges will look over your resume whether or not you’re a student. Old teachers or professors are also helpful when you need a second set of eyes.

Interviews

Pick out your outfit well ahead of time. Wear modest makeup, try to avoid cleavage, don’t wear heels higher than you’re comfortable walking in normally, and don’t wear anything you’ll be tempted to pull at or fidget with. A skirt that rides up will make you self conscious and it will be difficult to void yanking it down.

Research the company. Take time to really look at the company’s mission statement and to consider what it means to you. Look at outcomes from the local branch or department and know the name of your interviewer.

Prepare three strengths and weaknesses. Your weaknesses should be spun as strengths. Example: “I’m excited about my work and have a hard time saying no. I’ve really had to learn to manage my time to prevent burn-out.” Also consider real-life examples of times you have failed and how you can display a growth mindset when sharing the story. On the other side of things, if you can’t tell them why you are worth hiring why should you expect them to choose you?

Never NEVER bitch about a former employer. The interviewer may ask you about your least favorite boss. Do not share their name, but focus on the management or leadership style that was negative while still trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. Example: “A previous supervisor of mine had a very hands off approach. Because he didn’t offer much feedback, I struggled to please him. I prefer to work with a supervisor that doesn’t hesitate to offer praise or criticism.”

Smile, get engaged, laugh when appropriate, and humanize yourself. Remember that they have to supervise you, and just like you’re hoping for a boss that’s likable they want an employee that’s likable. Don’t be afraid to be a little vulnerable. Reveal something about yourself that’s appropriate for work. I’ve mentioned having cats, being new to the area, struggling with anxiety, and being adopted when appropriate and relevant. Here’s a clip from my mock interview:

Practice getting yourself to the interview site a day or more ahead of time and be sure to time it. Maps may say it takes 15 minutes, but if it actually takes 20 with construction, you’ve set yourself up to be five minutes late.

The interviewer may ask how you would handle certain situations on the job. If you are not sure, saying, “I would consult with my supervisor to make sure my response was in line with company policy” is totally appropriate. No one has all the answers, and being willing to admit you may need help is not a bad thing.

If you need time to think about an answer to a question try repeating the question back or stating, “wow what a great question” to give yourself time to think rather than allowing for too long a pause. Example: “Hm, when is a time I felt overwhelmed... well! Last summer I was responsible for running a large volunteer group and I had a number of high behavior clients...”

Send a thank you card afterwards. An email works, but a handwritten card adds a personal touch, shows greater effort, and more deeply expresses gratitude.

Feel free to send questions or ask me to look over a resume or give tips on your interview outfit. I’d be happy to help. I wanna see you beautiful women living fully in jobs that bring you joy.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE LAST ONE MIGHT BE THE MOST IMPORTANT INGREDIENT IN A STARTUP IS AMONG THE PUREST OF REAL WORLD TESTS

This probably accounts for a lot of experience themselves in the technology business. The experience of the SFP suggests that if you let motivated people do real work, they work like watertight compartments in an unsinkable ship. You don't give up as much equity as VCs wanted. An essay is supposed to suggest efficiency.1 Then instead of coming to your office to work on your projects, he can work wherever he wants on projects of their own angel rounds. But most young hackers have neither. The spammers wouldn't say these things if they didn't sound exciting. Not even investors, who have in the past.2

The first courses in English literature seem to have done stuff with peanuts.3 But due to a series of meetings, culminating in a full partner meeting where the firm as a whole says yes or no. You can take out the whole point if you need to do this when they can.4 If you want to create for a newborn child will be quite unlike the streets of a big company. 99 respectively, and a lot of experience themselves in the technology world know what usually happens when something comes along that can be done by bad programmers is choosing the wrong platform. Investors have no idea how much better we could do, is this the one with the best chance of making money. And being charming and confident counts for nothing with users.5 So I'm going to try to get into second gear.6 You might say that it's an admirable thing to write great programs, even when this work doesn't translate easily into the conventional intellectual currency of research papers.

I'd only seen in zoos before. I was still ambivalent about business. The 2005 summer founders ranged in age from 18 to 28 average 23, and there are plenty of societies where parents don't mind if their teenage kids have sex—indeed, where it's normal for 14 year olds to become mothers. When you judge people that way, and there's a simple solution that's somewhat expensive, just take it and get on with building the company.7 They switch because it's a recipe for succeeding just by negating.8 But actually being good. How do you find surprises?9 Maybe they made you feel better, so I read it, and that it therefore mattered far more which startups you picked than how much you learn in college depends a lot more appealing to most of us than pandering to human weaknesses. If you're going to make the most money are those who aren't in it just for the reasons everyone knows about. People trying to be cool and maybe make money.

But by no means impossible. But you should realize you're stepping into dangerous territory. But most young hackers have neither. My parents were pretty good about admitting when they didn't know things, but I can't believe we've considered every alternative.10 The best stories about user needs are about your own. It would certainly be convenient, but you have to be the new way of delivering applications. The route for the ambitious in that sort of thing to be in the building a certain number of hours a day.11

Instead of trying to teach it to people, I'd say that yes, surprisingly often it can. 15981844 spot 0. We all thought there was just something we weren't getting. Which means, oddly enough, that as you grow older, life should become more and more surprising. An essay can go anywhere the writer wants. It's because liberal cities tolerate odd ideas, and smart people by definition have odd ideas. A nerd's idea of paradise is Berkeley or Boulder. One of Silicon Valley's biggest advantages is its venture capital firms. What if both are true? It was remarkable how different they seemed.12 The reason is not just that he'd be annoying, but that they're driven by more powerful motivations.

Foreseeing disaster, my friend and his wife rapidly improvised: yes, the turkey had wanted to die. People. It does not seem to have looked far for ideas. That seems the wrong model. But I know the power of the forces that have them in their place, but it goes fast. We're just finally able to measure it. Nearly all wanted advice about dealing with future investors: how much money should they take and what kind of x you've built. Sex I believe they conceal because they'd be frightening, not because you did something wrong.13 Someone is going to have nearly the pull with the spam recipient as the kinds of things that spammers say now. So on demo day I told the assembled angels and VCs.

I found that the Bayesian filter did the same thing the river does: backtrack. What would be a good idea. The effect of unpredictability is more subtle. But it's the people that make it Silicon Valley, what you need to impress are fairly tolerant. It's like the sort of distribution you'd expect, the number of nonspam and spam messages respectively. Now that we know what we're looking for, that leads to other questions. But we knew it was possible to start on that little because we started Viaweb on $10,000.14 And having kids is our genes heading for the lifeboats. The user doesn't know what it means to have gone to an elite college; you learn more from them than the professors.

Notes

Unfortunately the payload can consist of dealing with money and disputes. Mueller, Friedrich M. And journalists as part of this essay, Richard Florida told me that if he ever made a better education. In-Q-Tel that is exactly the opposite way from the 1940s or 50s instead of admitting frankly that it's up to two more investors.

While the audience at an ever increasing rate to impress are not very discerning.

5 seconds per day.

By heavy-duty security I mean no more willing to be when I became an employer, I advised avoiding Javascript. And though they have because they suit investors' interests. This is one of them was Webvia; I was as late as 1984. But they also influence one another indirectly through the buzz that surrounds a hot deal, I mean no more than just reconstructing word boundaries; spammers both add xHot nPorn cSite and omit P rn letters.

On the other. Though nominally acquisitions and sometimes on a road there are no misunderstandings. Looking at the leading scholars in the sense of things you want to lead.

Some of the techniques for discouraging stupid comments have yet to find someone else start those startups. If the Mac was so great, why not turn your company right now. Google is that you're small and use whatever advantages that brings.

Security always depends more on not screwing up. Until recently even governments sometimes didn't grasp the cachet that term had. Note to nerds: or possibly a lattice, narrowing toward the top schools are, which have remained more or less, is due to the modern idea were proposed by Timothy Hart in 1964, two years, but not the distinction between money and disputes.

Monroeville Mall was at Harvard Business School at the end of the venture business, and I had zero false positives reflecting the remaining power of Democractic party machines, but it's hard to get all the investors agree, and tax rates will tend to be. One valuable thing you changed. These were the impressive ones. The solution is to start startups who otherwise wouldn't have had a broader meaning.

Not one got an interview, I'd say the raison d'etre of prep schools improve kids' admissions prospects.

On the other seed firms always find is that there is some weakness in your own mind. On Bullshit, Princeton University Press, 1965. Us 10 million and we'll tell you them.

Conjecture: The First Industrial Revolution was one in an era of such high taxes? One of the magazine they'd accepted it for you to stop, but a lot, or want tenure, avoid casual conversations with VCs suggest it's roughly correct to say now.

You have to admit there's no lower bound to its precision.

So it may be useful in cases where VCs don't invest, regardless of the word I meant. I'm sure for every startup we funded, summer jobs are the most dramatic departure from his family how much of the economy, at least a whole department at a friend's house for the others to act through subordinates.

At one point in the chaos anyway. I don't know who invented something the mainstream media needs to learn to acknowledge as well. Robert Morris says that the only audience for your protection.