#making it much harder to read than it had been originally. it was pretty funny but i don't know about the funniest. of all time???

[coquelicoq]

just got a thank-you card specifically for a christmas card. like, this woman (my dad's best friend) sent me a christmas card, then i sent her a christmas card, then she sent me a card thanking me for the christmas card. here is what she wrote:

Thank you for the best belly laugh of 2024. The Fucking Deer card is the hit on Christmas card wall. I will keep it FOREVER and put it up every year. So from now on it will always be the FIRST card up! (and the last one down!)

here is the card in question:

[ID: Outside of a Fresh Frances greeting card, illustrated by Demi Schlehofer. The card has a repeating pattern like you might see on a Christmas sweater, featuring reindeer and fir trees. Five of the reindeer are standing alone. There are also three reindeer couples having sex, with one reindeer mounting the other. /end ID]

the message printed on the inside of the card read:

Oh deer! Wishing you a very merry Christmas!

in addition to which i had handwritten:

Help. I bought this card thinking it was a nice holiday sweater/cross stitch theme, only to discover when I got home that those reindeer are definitely getting busy. I was only looking at the reindeer that are just standing there alone but there is reindeer erotica mere centimeters away. Kinda makes sense to do this through the medium of cross stitch I guess...it comes pre-pixelated. Anyway, I have this card now and I'm going down my list of people I know trying to think who would not take this in one of the multiple possible wrong ways to take this, and I landed on you. So, congrats for being the recipient/lucky winner of the fucking reindeer card, I guess??? [paragraph of responses to specific things she had said in her Christmas card] Keep on keepin' on, and remember, reindeer babies gotta come from somewhere. Happy holidays! [my name]

[rosenclaws]

You call that a Costume? || Leopold Mountbatten Smut

summary: Halloween is not the same for Leopold as it was in 1876. There are many differences but the biggest one he can think of is the costumes. Especially when he sees your costume and gets to experience all of what the 21st century has to offer.

warnings: SMUT, MINORS DNI, 18+ only, Fem!reader, sexy costumes, desperate leopold, blow job, making out, teasing, unprotected sex, creampie, breast worship (sucking/fondling), skirt kink, reader wears more girly clothes.

Halloween Masterlist

a/n: Okay the costume we landed on for the reader isss Sexy Pirate! I wanted something with a corset and like. We've all seen Keira Knightley in Pirates of the Caribbean so. Anyways I decided to combine the original halloween idea with this request from @glittergamer35 The request fit the vibe of the halloween story I hope that's okay!

If Leopold could describe his new life in one word it would be, fascinating. He's constantly learning new things. Being exposed to new culture, new life, technology. It was just incredible. Everyday he learned something new, found a new appreciation for what the city had become. Still it was harder to adjust to certain things. How rude people could be, apparently chivalry was far less common to his dismay.

Though the one thing that really captured his attention was the clothing. No longer did women wear corsets and big poofy dresses. Fashion was much more diverse now and though he enjoyed wearing such comfortable clothing, he had a hard time swallowing everything that this world had to offer.

Meeting you was the biggest pill to swallow. The first time he met you it had been at Kate's work. Leopold had been brought in to read for yet another commercial and this time you were here to watch. You brother was the director of the commercial and you worked for him.

He was taken with you the moment he laid his eyes on you. Though his eyes drifted to your clothes. They were much more form fitting than he's seen before. Instead of pants you chose to wear a skirt that just sat just above your knees. To his shame he couldn't tear his eyes away from you when you turned around to speak to someone. He's a gentleman.

Gentleman don't stare like he was desperate to do. Leopold pushed down any carnal desire that he felt. Even without the sexual attraction you were incredibly alluring. So well spoken and intelligent. You were funny and bright and he found himself wanting to spend every waking moment by your side.

Your first date consisted of a romantic dinner. His breath was taken away when you opened door. Absolutely gorgeous. His heartbeat quickening whenever his fingers would brush over the bare skin of your back. You were so soft.

Still he ended the night with kiss on the cheek and the promise of another date. Soon he had written a letter and was officially courting you. He loved you. Every thing about you.

But the way you dressed, it was driving him insane. Short tops, even shorter shorts. Even when the weather turned cool you wore clothes that made his head spin. Sometimes you'd spend the night and all you'd do is cuddle but when you woke up you wore nothing but a t-shirt and the thinnest pajama shorts. It truly drove him mad. Still he loved you for more than just the way you looked so never acted on it. Choosing to wait until the time was right.

For you, dating Leopold was a dream. He really was a fairytale come to life. Nothing but respectful, romantic, a complete dreamboat. Months had passed and every day you fell more in love with him. Only one thing seemed to linger in the back of your mind and that was sex.

Leopold was nothing but a gentleman the entire time you had been together. Always making sure you were comfortable, putting your needs before his. There was a lot of love in those pretty eyes of his. There was also something else, lust. Now Leopold refused to act on it and you wanted him to so badly. You saw the way he looked at you when you wore your more revealing outfits. I mean once you wore a shirt that was practically squeezing your breasts and you caught him staring every time you looked at him.

Still when you curled up to him and told him you were cold he offered you his jacket to keep you warm. His jacket is nice but you were thinking of something more physical to get your temperature up. Glancing at your calendar you saw that Halloween was coming.

A perfect plan coming to your head as you called Leopold to ask him if he'd be your date to a friends costume party. There's no way he'd be able to resist you after that party and you were going to make sure of it.

-

Halloween wasn't an entirely foreign concept for Leopold but it's nothing like he remembers. Back in his time Halloween was meant for expensive and lavish parties filled with odd games. People would pull tricks and wear costumes to trick the spirits.

Now it seems that the costumes got more colorful and the parties were less lavish and more for about drinking among other things. The candy was much more enjoyable now though. When you told him to get a costume he really didn't know what to do. You had told him you were going as pirate so why not match.

With Charlie and Kate's help he found a puffy white shirt and pants. Got himself a bandana and boots and a few accessories. Looking at himself in the mirror he decided he was a proper pirate. Fit with a fake plastic sword and all. There's a knock at the door and he hears your voice as Kate welcomes you into the apartment.

"You look great Leo!" He turns around to give you a playful jab with this sword but instead he freezes. Dressed as a Pirate you were but this was a much more. Revealing pirate than he was expecting.

A long sleeves white shirt that left your collarbones exposed was covered by a corset. Squeezing your breasts so that they just peeked over the top. Instead of pants you opted for a skirt. One that was very, very short. Barely covering your butt as you turned to give Leopold the full view of your costume.

"Do you like it?" You tilt your head to the side innocently as you walk walk towards him, inspecting his matching costume.

"I uh," His eyes wander downwards before snapping back up to your face.

"Yes my love. You look amazing." He leans in and kisses your forehead.

You shamelessly ogle his costume. He looked so hot in that damn shirt and pants its just not fair.

"You look amazing too Leo, though I think this might help." Leopold watches as you unbutton the top three buttons on his shirt, exposing his chest more and more. He gulps nervously as you smooth out his shirt, running your hands along his bare chest too.

"Perfect." You smirk at him and he just stares at you with wide eyes. A blush creeping up his neck as you take his hand and lead him out the door.

"Bye! Don't wait up for us." You say playfully as the door closes behind you.

This party was torture for Leopold. Absolute bloody torture. Watching you in that costume. Desire runs through his blood and he can't seem to ignore it. It's highly inappropriate to be thinking the things he is right now but he can't help it.

"You okay Leo?" You ask innocently as you stand close to him.

"Yes darling." He isn't budging and you're growing frustrated. Whatever you're trying to do isn't working.

"Can I talk to you outside?" He nods and you pull him outside of the house. The cool air making you shiver. It's not like you had much to cover you right now.

"Are you cold, do you need anything."

"For fucks sake Leo I need you!" You say frustratedly. Leopold has been the fantasy of every wet dream you've had for the past three months. You can't wait any longer.

"I..Pardon?"

"I want you Leo, I have for so long but you don't seem to want me." You step closer to him. He stands rigid in his spot. Not quite believing his ears as you tug on his shirt. Pulling him into a blazing kiss. He groans into the kiss as you grab his cock through his pants.

"Home, please." He groans in an almost pathetic tone.

You waste no time in calling a taxi. The drive home is filled with anticipation. Leopold's leg is bouncing impatiently. You hand the driver whatever money he needs and tell him to keep the change. The second you step into your apartment you're on him.

Unbuttoning that sexy white shirt to reveal his toned chest. Shoes are discarded by the door and you pull him to the bedroom. You push against his chest until he sits down. He stares at you with wide eyes. God he's so sexy.

"Do you want me baby?" You nip his ear and he suppresses a groan. His hands hover your sides, afraid to even touch you right now. Terrified that he'll do something wrong.

"Answer me," You tilt his head up and you look for any sign of hesitance.

"Yes, god yes I want you. You drive me mad. Invading my every thought until nothing but you remains in my head." He confesses.

His desperate plea is music to your ears. You capture his lips in a slow but passionate kiss. He groans as you slowly grind down on his lap. His whole body feels like its on fire. His chest heaves as your kiss breaks. A string of saliva connecting the two of you that you lick away. He's already ruined. Just the sight of you has him falling to his knees.

"Darling, Please." Leopold's breath hitches as you run your hand over his crotch. He's been painfully hard all night and just this little touch is going to send him into a frenzy.

"Shh, just let me take care of you okay?" You pull on the waistband of his pants and he sheds them quickly.

Throwing them to somewhere in the room. Fuck you knew he'd be big. He moans as you kiss the side of his cock. Wrapping your hands around it you pump it a few times. Spitting on it to get your hands to move easier. His face is scrunched up in pleasure. It almost looks painful as scrunches the sheets tightly in his hands.

"Don't hide from me baby, wanna hear you." You say sweetly as you then take the tip of him in your mouth.

That's it, he's died and gone to heaven. A loud, broken moan falls from his lips as your mouth sinks deeper and deeper. Taking as much of him as you can until he hits the back of your throat. His knuckles turn white as he tries not to come down your throat right then and there. Just the sight of you taking his cock like this. So willing to please him. So pretty. Your mouth is warm and wet and he doesn't think it could ever get better than this.

The urge to buck his hips overtakes him but he uses every ounce of self control to keep himself still. Your hands reach over and covers his own. Gently prying them from the bed sheets and placing them on the side of your head.

"Are you sure my love, I don't want to hurt you." Spit pools and drips from the side of your mouth as you nod your head.

The feeling making his dick twitch. Slowly you move your head back, coating his dick in spit before going back down. A steady but merciless rhythm for Leopold he falls apart under your touch. He feels himself getting closer and though he desperately wants to come in your mouth he needs you to get off if he wants to please you. He tugs on your hair but you don’t move.

“Please, I’m going to-“ He’s cut off as you go farther than you had before. Taking all of him. Gagging on his cock as your nose brushes against his skin. It’s too much.

Soft whimpers fill the air as his cum shoots down your throat. There's a daze in his eyes as you slowly pull off. Licking you lips clean as he comes down from his high. You run your nails down his chest gently. He grabs you wrist and kisses the inside of it. Peppering kisses up your arm and then the other one.

“My girl is quite the Vixen.” He purrs. He helps you up from your knees and onto the bed. Gently placing you on your back as he hovers above you.

“Can I touch you now, my love?” His fingers ghost up your side, barely touching you as he hovers above your breasts.

"You don't have to be so formal right now Leo, just give in. I need you." You take his hand and place them on top of your clothed chest.

He closes his eyes as he savors the feel. You bite your lip as he squeezes them gently. His hands are still gentle but he's slowly losing his composure.

"You want to see them?" You ask and he nods. You sit up and undo your corset, he helps you out of it and then goes your shirt. For a moment he stops breathing. Too taken by your naked form to think properly anymore.

"Gorgeous." He mutters quietly as his hands go back to squeezing and fondling your boobs.

You tilt your head back as he flicks over your nipples with his thumb. He looks up and takes note of your reaction. Doing it again but a little rougher this time. When he's certain your satisfied he leans down and captures one of them in his lips.

You gasp as his tongue runs over it, sucking and biting lightly as he grinds his hips against you. Cock already semi hard. His gentle nature starts to break as he squeezes rougher than before. He switches his mouth between your breasts. Showering them in attention and love.

"Leo.." You whine as you feel yourself grow wetter. You need him. He pulls away with concern but you pounce on him. Practically ripping his white shirt off. Your hands run along his bare chest, fuck it's not fair how handsome he is.

"I need you Leo, please." You pump his cock in your hand and he groans. He's already hard again, how could he not be when he has the perfect woman in front of him. Your hands tug your skirt down but Leopold stops you. A blush on his face as he tries to stammer out a request. You furrow your brows until it clicks.

"Oh, you like the skirt?" You tease as you put it back on. Instead reaching under your skirt. Leopold watches as you pull your panties off and hang them off your finger.

"Better?" You toss your panties to the side and he nods wordlessly.

"Leo!" You gasp as he gently tackles you to the bed. His head disappearing under your skirt as he shamelessly licks up your cunt. It takes you by complete surprise and you love it.

"At another time, I will worship you like the goddess you are." He crawls up your body until he's hovering over you.

"But now I need to be inside of you."

"Please Leo, been wanting this for so long." You wrap your arms around his neck as he slides in.

He's big and the stretch is absolutely delicious. He buries his face in your neck. Muffling his moans in your skin as he bottoms out. This sensation is beyond his wildest dreams. He thrusts his hips in and out at a tortuously slow pace. You squirm under him as you beg for more. He sinks his teeth into your shoulder as he picks up his pace.

One hand lifting your leg to his shoulder. Rubbing comforting circles as he pounds into you. What he lacks in experience he's making up for in utter raw desire. It feels so good, so fucking good. God it's not fair. He sits up on his knees to get a better angle.

"Leo!" You scream out as he shifts his hips to hit that perfect spot deep inside. He smiles as he pistons his dick into that spot over and over again. You grab his hand and move it to your clit. Begging him to use his fingers in tandem with his thrusts.

"Right here?" He moves his fingers in circles, watching your face.

Studying every twitch in your face, every moan, every bite of your lip. You move his hands just a little bit up and your body jolts. There it is. He's absolutely merciless with his fingers. The only thing on his mind is bringing you to orgasm. To make you cry out his name with pleasure. You dig your nails into the sheets as your back arches, screaming his name so loud you're sure your neighbors could hear.

"That's it my love, just like that." He coos as you clench around his cock.

It takes every ounce of self control to not cum right then and there. It builds like a wave. Starting small but it crashes and rocks your whole body. Leopold is dragging his cock in and out. Waiting for you to come down from your high. He's desperate. He needs to cum bad.

"Please love, just need a little more. Please." He whimpers as he coats his cock in your slick. Leaning down to bury his head in your chest. Soaking in the sweet smell of sex.

"It's okay Leo, whatever you need." You comb through his hair with your nails.

He practically purrs when you scratch his head. He's sweaty and needy and he's never looked prettier. All rhythm is lost as he fucks his hips into you. Chasing his high as he sucks on your breasts.

Finally his hips still and his face scrunches up. Hands balling into fists as he comes hard. You gently scratch his head, listening to his quiet moans as he takes a moment to recover. He groans as he pulls out, already missing the feeling of being wrapped up in you.

"Stay here love." He gets up and you happily watch him walk away. He comes back with a damp towel and a glass of water.

"Drink." He cleans you up as you sip the water. You try and get up but he stops you.

"If you need something I will get it," All you need right now is him.

You take off the skirt to your costume and let it join the pile of clothes. Leopold climbs back into bed and pulls you close. The sex was amazing but this is what Leopold loves the most.

Cuddling, just being close to you. He feels honored that you'd let yourself be so vulnerable, so exposed with him and he hopes you feel the same way.

"Not bad from a man from 1876." You tease and he raises an eyebrow.

"Not bad?" He peppers your face in kisses as you laugh. Threatening to tickle your sides.

"Okay okay! I take it back, You were amazing." He finally relents and moves you to face him. Maybe it's the post sex glow but you've never looked more radiant before.

"I love you, so much." He pulls you impossibly close as he kisses you lovingly. His hands wander but not with lust. With love.

"I love you too Leopold." You sigh as you feel your body relax completely in his arms.

"So how was your first Halloween?"

"Eventful. Though I must say I do have a few suggestions for your costume next year." He nips your ear playfully as speaks.

"Oh you think this year was something, you won't survive next year." You hear his breath catch in his throat. Too many ideas are already cooking in your head. If you're feeling nice then maybe you'll show them to him before next Halloween.

Either way, Leopold can't wait for next year. He's already counting down the days in his head.

[subwaytostardew]

▽ Subway to Stardew - Adoptable Joltik ⚡️

This would play after Emmet's 8 heart event and getting Joltik up to 8 hearts as well.

I released a separate mod specifically for adopting Joltik, so you only need to get them up to 8 hearts to adopt them! You can do it right now!

Adoptable Joltik Mod Link: https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/21002

And of course... Commentary under the read-more.

Joltik's adoption event sat in the drafts for quite a while. It took me whole a day to implement and I didn't let myself sleep until I finished everything. (It's 1 PM now...)

The event ended up wildly different because of how extra custom pets are implemented. You would think that they would be added in the same way as you get your cat/dog that you select during character creation. No. You have to buy a license. Only Marnie is authorized to sell them.

Here's the original script for Joltik's adoption event:

[Joltik Adoption Event]

Emmet: @! Joltik likes you verrrrry much. They want to stay with you. I'm letting you adopt them. Yup. I filled out all the paperwork. The Joltiks are legally documented now. 

I never gave ours a name... Galvantula wouldn't let me. She is verrrry picky about it. But that's okay. Joltik is yours. You should name them. She came along for approval. So. What name should I put on the adoption form?

[Name input box like Marnie's adoption thing...]

[Galvantula pauses for a moment to think and then offhandedly agrees.]

Emmet: Galvantula didn't shock me for that. That name is okay. Yup. I will file that with the Ferngill Republic. Don't worry about it. Make sure you take verrrry good care of our little Joltik!

[Joltik jumps and heart emotes]

◇���─◆──◇──◆

The whole naming portion was a source of much more frustration than it should have been. In events, the name input box is brought up by the "catQuestion" command (which applies to dogs chosen at the start, too...

If you refuse, then Marnie also shows up no matter what you do. Farmhouse positions are also tricky and made even harder to find reference for after 1.6 added the farmhouse being moveable. Joltik kept spawning where Emmet was supposed to be so I had to use a move command just to get them to spawn one tile to the side. Galvantula was fine. I didn't get to updating her vanilla portraits yet so she's staying quiet.

The catQuestion command also only adds the pet you pick during character creation. There's no fields to target the usage. You have to buy a license. It's the only way to get another pet. I didn't want Joltik to replace a cat either since in-story you would have to earn the trust of both Emmet and Galvantula... There's no way you can do that by the first 25 days of spring. It's immersion breaking and you lose a cat.

I did find the license aspect funny though. It was oddly fitting for the mod's lore of Pokemon being pretty much banned from the region. Emmet is a threat to Stardew Valley's ecosystem. Not the best guy for the task of combating anti-Pokemon xenophobia.

Pet sizes are apparently hardcoded so I had to make a new spritesheet for Joltik as if they even need a 32 x 32 pixel area per frame. I did end up making new sprites for them while I was at it. I tried to base it off of the cat's behaviors so I have less animation fields to edit (I was tired). The cat loafs a lot. Trying to convey that in a tiny spider posed quite the challenge.

After everything was done, I figured that the whole adoption portion of the mod could easilly be taken apart to be its own mod as a demo of sorts for the expansion. So I went and made a content pack to post.

Bringing up your starter pet's friendship level takes quite some time, so it would be awkward if I let the event play with no preconditions. Because of that, I ended up including Joltik as an NPC and locking their adoption behind their heart level.

We actually only had two lines per day of the week (not including season) for daily dialogue. That shot up to six lines per day of the week for a full 0-2-4-6-8-10 in spring because I was determined to publish a mod. (I've been modding for nearly a year nonstop and I don't have anything playable... humiliating...)

Anyways! I hope you're all having fun with 1.6! It certainly brought new challenges and opportunities to the modding scene!

▷ Station Steward Thylak

[td-frog]

thoughts on dcas e5

villains alliance

i like that the notes at the end was just a reveal from miriam and not like an advantage thing for connor. that adds an interesting new layer to the whole thing.

i also really appreciate that only half the villain's alliance is actually being allies and that it's the original villain trio from s1. granted fiore and ellie are more motivated by being the only villains on their teams, but alec clearly meant it when he said they'd work together in spite of that and the rest of yellow team absolutely didn't. which like. obviously.

gonna be honest i assumed grett voted for yul because i saw people quoting it as fact (including the fandom wiki) and checking the handwriting seemed like a lot of work. but i was also surprised because literally in the last episode during their argument he said connoriya would probably vote him out because of his beef with riya and he hasn't even considered her as an option? esp when one vote wasn't revealed so they literally could have both voted for him.

i'm sooo curious what emily wanted to talk to him about. i'm still expecting yellow team villain alliance implosion of sorts but idk that i see yul going first anymore- it seems like they're planning more for him what with the cliffhanger here, his being shitty to grett, and his rivalry with riya. in terms of "who would vote for who" he has more things against him, but in terms of narrative i think he'll stick around. which might just mean yellow wins more for a bit.

magenta team

the hunter / tess conversation was really funny to me because it reads to me like hunter is just the absolute worst at a) situational awareness and b) effective communication. the way he presents the situation to her comes across as "i care and worry about ally because i love her but she's hard to approach when she's stressed" which i do believe.

but in pretty much every interaction he and ally have had this season she's been like "please work with me to help us get through this game and minimize hate" and his response is "why do you care so much what other people think?" like dude. read the room

like it does shift the perspective in that i think some of his shitty boyfriend moments were him (badly) trying to help address the source of her stress (like, in a "you can't control how other people feel so it's helpful to learn how to let go of it" way), but like. of fucking course she responds badly to that, you're essentially responding to "i care about this" with "stop caring" and being surprised when she takes that badly.

anyways i do like where it went. it seems like ally and tess might reconnect soon and i'm looking forward to that.

i also like the decision to get hunter out; i'm obviously biased because i love fiore but also from a drama perspective it makes more sense. his and ally's relationship is in a place where him leaving doesn't get rid of the drama, and the drama of fiore sticking around is better than the predicted 2v2 if she left.

it raises the question of how magenta alliances shake out next. i don't expect jake and ashley to stick with fiore bc they only voted out hunter because it was strategic here. it would make more sense for them to team up with ally now that she's alone (and she and ashley had a brief moment). but ally might not trust that because she'd be in danger later. also we don't know when the merge is and what would change then.

also shoutout to jake playing strategically here, i like the idea that miriam getting out pushed him to think harder about how to actually play.

cyan team

i mentioned in my last predictions that gabby hadn't really gotten to do anything plotwise and that's still sort of true but i can see how it changes- "if ellie were in a villains' alliance she would have told me"

like i love ellie in her bitch era but i think it runs the risk of getting old- she's not trying to be likable at all and that's bound to cause problems eventually, and this is fucking perfect. the thing she said to tess about how you can't trust friends in this game- ellie and gabby have never been directly pitted against each other and i bet that happens here.

i think their relationship is one of the strongest in the game right now, only really behind jaiden but james is out so that's irrelevant. but this raises the question of what ellie would choose between gabby and winning. she'd obviously choose winning over most everyone, but gabby? and i expect that to be painful even if it works out in the end.

also tom!! first off shoutout to aiden for bringing up the drama, he has no idea what's going on but is trying his best. but tom finally admitting to avoiding jake- and the reason is soooo funny.

like it makes sense. their relationship on s1 was tumultuous at best and neither handled it well. it genuinely makes sense that once he was off-camera he would worry that all the drama would continue to follow them and want to cut ties completely. it was shitty to ghost, but like. i get it.

but dude. you came back on the show together!!! you knew he would be here!!

(again i think this is great, i totally get why he's still avoiding jake, it's because he doesn't know how to communicate like an adult and hopes that avoiding all of his problems will make them go away)

i do think it's interesting in light of him being overly hostile to jake last episode? like i wonder how much of that is genuine resentment over stuff from s1 that's built-up unaddressed vs trying to push him away in advance because he's scared of them getting close again.

also he told aiden he was planning to talk to jake. i'll believe it when i see it buddy.

predictions

i think magenta team is safe, barring team change shenanigans.

i think yellow team could be in danger, because they have a lot of plot ready to explode, but they're probably also safe.

if it is them... i think it could be a lot of them. connor for being outside the alliance, yul for everything, alec for the villains alliance betrayal thing?, potentially riya although i'm less confident. i think grett is safe unless specifically sabotaged. but i don't think they'll lose.

i'm expecting cyan team. they're due for drama with the ellie villain thing, at the very least i think they'll be more focused in the plot of the episode.

i think tom and aiden are safe because i don't see the love triangle plot wrapping up so soon. it could be tess because she doesn't have an alliance, but i think she's more likely to be tiebreaker than targeted. i'm leaning one of gabby and ellie, depending on how the ellie villain thing shakes out. narratively it feels like sending ellie home here resolves a bit much, but idk why it'd be gabby. maybe an immunity idol type situation where ellie protects herself and it screws over gabby? or protects gabby and screws over herself? unsure.

aside from elimination

ally's gonna have some fallout from hunter leaving- probably talking to tess and maybe teaming up with either fiore or jake and ashley. but since i don't expect elimination the alliance part probably won't be a huge focus.

whatever happened with emily and yul- idk what it is so no idea how it will affect things.

i'm expecting drama on the cyan team, mainly related to ellie but idk exactly what it'll look like.

maybe tom will actually talk to jake??

[journalofanobody]

Struggling just to keep posting, I become a traitor.

As I've been recovering from surgery these past two weeks, I've been trying hard to keep posting, to give something, however little, to my friends and followers here. Quite frankly, many times while posting I have battled a terrible tiredness while simply trying to post an interesting mix of things for those who have faithfully continued to look at my blog and my poor little poems.

Sometimes the fogginess nearly gets the best of me but, at the end of each evening's posting, I feel pretty good about what I have done here. Not great, just pretty good. And for now, that's plenty.

However, mistakes occur, as I learned this morning. A follower whom I was actually beginning to see as a potential friend, wrote to thank me for all the support and advice I have given her during her persecution by trolls here and then revealed to me that she noticed that I had reblogged something from one of them. This, she concluded, is evidence that I was now one of that group of her "enemies" who were "tightening the noose around her blog." I was shocked.

Often, in my current state, I am completely absorbed in just finding aesthetically pleasing content, and barely notice who the original blogger was, and this, I guess, was my undoing. I was now a "betrayer" of a friend and thus belonged to the enemies and internet trolls she claimed were pursuing her. Needless to say, I was hurt and disappointed that she could not consider the context of my trying very hard to post even while recovering from major surgery.

Funny, even as I was reading it, I was ready to apologize and ask her to point out which post it was so I could remove it but, alas, I found that I had been blocked and her blog deactivated. Judgment had been rendered and no appeal was possible,

Now, sitting here, thinking about this, I recall the small herd of trolls I had to deal with when I first started this blog. Some of my friends here were following and reblogging from some of those people and, when I mentioned it to them, they said it's just reblogging of images, nothing to do with our friendship or "sides" being taken. And I thought it made sense and got over it.

I didn't speak out in defense of her trolls, or even reblog a lot from them. One image got through and, even if I had noticed it's origin, it would have seemed wrong to deny the source of it. And so what?

I'm not up for this sort of nonsense right now. I feel like I'm back in high school with warring cliques, or in Donald Trump's circle being forced to care about whether the boss feels betrayed. But this person I was dealing with was no high school girl, or some prickly fascist, this was a well-educated, cultured, kind person, and this is precisely why I find it more disappointing and sad than all the sorts of people I usually imagine behaving this way.

It's a small bump in the road of my recovery, a wee ding on my spirit, and it makes it all that much harder to trust people on this site, but then, who cares? Society unravels even at its upper reaches, among people from whom we would reasonably expect better.

I think I am just going to take a few days off from posting here. My time might be better spent just reading, sleeping, and trying to get myself fit to work again.

A weary good night from a slightly sadder Nobody,

Michael

[dragon-snoots-a-boopin]

So, I have finally gotten around to seeing Transformers One and now I want to talk about what I did and didn't like about it. THERE WILL BE SPOILERS, you have been warned.

What I Liked:

I really liked all of the bot designs. The sort of classic square nature mixed with some roundness here and there really does work in my opinion. I especially liked seeing some designs like Soundwave's alt mode being based on their alt mode from this Bumblebee movie toy and I believe it was the same for Ironhide towards the end of the movie too. Shockwave's alt mode looked to be based on their alt mode from Fall Of Cybertron/Rise Of The Dark Spark, at least I think it was. Those generic trooper guys looked kind of like the Vehicons from Transformers Prime, which I am sure was not intentional but, just something I thought of when I saw them.

The score by Brian Tyler was really great too and a great choice of composer in my opinion. Not sure if it was intentional but, I could hear some ques to the music of Transformers Prime in there too and I liked that. But, overall, a really great score.

The animation was all really good and really clean to me.

I thought that the voice acting was very good. Going into the movie, I had heard and read people saying that Hemsworth just sounded like himself and I have to disagree as he did a distinct voice for Orion and for Prime and neither sounded the same and neither sounded like his normal voice. Same goes for the other voice cast as well.

What I Didn't Like/Could Have Been Better:

The plot was incredibly predictable and it was easy to see from pretty early on that something was off about Sentinel Prime, even if I didn't know the specifics but, it was not a shock to me when learning of his betrayal.

D-16 becoming evil, while it was something we all saw coming, needed to happen more gradually than it did. Once they learned of Sentinel's betrayal, D-16 right off the bat wants to bury Sentinel Prime. Then, D-16 get the t-cog and it's like a switch is flipped, evil mode activated. From the beginning of the movie, D-16 should have been much more anti-authority but, no, they're all about follow protocol which, makes no sense for their character and who they become.

I don't really like this iteration of Orion Pax because there are no inklings of the characteristics of who they'll become later in the movie. Elita-1 says in a speech that Pax does all these courages things and I just don't see it. To me, all the things Pax does are without any logic and they just happen to work out based purely on dumb luck. I hate to say it, but I think that Pax should have had to work a lot harder to be worthy of The Matrix Of Leadership than just taking a shot for Sentinel Prime. I just don't think that Pax did all that much to really be deemed worthy of it and it feels like Pax needed to have it because plot.

I'm not the biggest fan of making both Pax and D-16 miners as I think their origin story of Pax being book smart and D-16 being street smart and sharing the same ideals (at first) for the future of Cybertron has a little more impact.

I really wish they had also made D-16 a gladiator, would have been cool to see some gladiator combat in the pits of Kaon but, oh well.

B-127's entire personality and character is that they never stop talk and that's it.

Elita-1's entire personality and character is that they think they're better than everyone and that's it.

The humor was very hit and miss for me, with more misses then hits.

The mid and post credit scenes were alright. The mid credit scene was just there for the funnies and the post credit scene was just Megatron vowing revenge.

Overall, for as much as I like and recommend the movie, it could have been a lot better too. Still good and enjoyable and I recommend giving it a watch.

[1st-recon-lylith-blog]

Cards I made as fanart for a space-themed mobile game

The game, Seedship, doesn't have any cards or visuals (aside from the loading screen). I just made cards for fun based on what I think they'd look like. If you want to see the full cards and some of my thoughts about them, I have them attached below.

Since the point of the game is to find a new planet to settle on, I wanted the animal card to show a creature that looked like an animal but also alien. My main photo resources for this render were cows (for their face shape and fur texture) and geckos (for their pupils). Then I doubled the eyes and pupils to make it look even more alien. This was one of my fave cards to make.

If memory serves me this was the first card I made. I wanted these circular shapes to give the card an airy feel. I would continue to use the half circles to visually tie the cards together.

I am not used to doing landscapes much less ones done in a birds eye view. Tackling the concept of "Resources" felt a bit nebulous. The main resource images used were photos of abandoned quarries. I don't know if I could do this any better now or if I'd struggle even more lol. But hey! Semi-circle clouds!

In Seedship, planets can be goldilocks, super cold, or super hot. I decided that focusing on the extremes would make for the best visual. I think my main inspiration for the sand visual was actually the new(ish) Dune cover illustrated by Jim Tierney. In this illustration you can also see the diamond shape I'd use in other cards to visually tie them together.

Similar to the Animals Card, I wanted to portray alien plant life. I wanted to do a close up similar like the Animals card. Surprisingly choosing to do a close up of an alien plant made it difficult to read as a plant. I didn't want to do green on the plant originally, but it just didn't look very plant like to me otherwise.

I am 99% sure if you look up "watercolor ocean tutorial" on youtube the tutorial I followed to make this will pop up lol. Solid tutorial

Believe it or not but this was a LOT harder to get right than you'd think. Blur is both my enemy and my friend. I had a LOT of fun painting the planet and its clouds

I consider this to be the sort of visual linchpin for the series. It has both the diamonds and semi-cirle clouds in one image. By far one of my faves for the series.

Probably one of the prettiest cards of the series (though I am proud that there are so many pretty cards to choose from). The illustration is based on recent(ish) portrayals of black holes.

Its funny to look at this with eyes open to one of my childhood Artist inspirations, David Christiana. He has this beautiful motif of swirls in his work. I didn't make the connection back then, but having recently painted my Siren painting and looking at his art for reference, that I have been strongly influenced by his work for a long long time.

[whenthechickencry]

Umineko EP6. Replay Part 1

It is very interesting how much the dialogue in the wedding scene seems to put Battler in the role of what is usually considered the Bride's role in misogynistic society - Erola downright calls him his property, actually. With how Natsuhi was literally sold in a way like this and this is revenge for winning against Natsuhi I can imagine this being some kind of twisted humor on Erika or Bernkastel's side. I forgot Hachijo published theories online and not like, on books and stuff. The idea of her just spending all her day arguing online and getting heated about the truth of Rokkenjima is extremely funny to me.

Ange's sense of time is really fucked here with remembering stuff from the future, honestly a lot of the stuff wrt Ange's time kind of flew over my head the first time so I should pay more attention this time.

We go back to lambda etc, and uh, it's very clear Bernkastel doesn't like Erika at all anymore and Erika is desperate to prove herself to Bern. ....Battler and Beatrice's relationship in the meta is obviously set in a way to kind of mirror the story of Beato and Kinzo, and now we are in the "Beatrice 1 died and Kinzo is desperate to bring her back stage" aka the grooming your daughter stage so this episode sometimes get a little bit uncomfortable, probably intentionally so, since they are serving as hints to the actual truth, and even on first read you can tell the language of Battler's Piece-Beato is mirroring Kuwadorian-Beatrice. honestly, it would probably be more disrespectful to not have it be uncomfortable since otherwise

The fact that Lambdadelta is on Battler's side is pointed out! Of course, Ange refutes it, but it will be pretty relevant on ep8 especially.

Battler begins thinking about the role of a game master and how it's much harder than it looks, and the logic error gets some setup.... Battler smiling and blushing with excitement when he thinks he can show Beato his game is really cute, though, haha.... if a little sad, with full context.

Here is r07, through Featherine, telling us that just because something was as mall sin for Battler doesn't mean that it wasn't a big deal for Sayo.... and to please not dismiss her heart as we have seen that even Battler has accepted it by now. This is making me emotional.

While this is obviously paralleling Kinzo-Beatrice, they are obviously also referring to how Sayo-Beatrice was originally created as a way for her to kind of... compartmentalize away her feelings for Battler. She was literally created for Battler, as the game keeps pointing out.

Battler throws a tantrum and literally breaks the plates and all the food Beatrice had made for her, good one Battler, great way to do an apology. Genji reprimands him by asserting that they are truly Beatrice.

The whole discussion about 'scents' is interesting, because when i think of works that don't carry the same scent as the original work.... it's several of Higurashi's side arcs. But several others do too, so the fact that an endless amount of 'correct' forgeries can be made isn't wrong.

Kanon and Shannon have their usual discussion on loving vs not loving for 'furniture'.... it's been at least a while actually, ep5 was ironically the one ep that didn't really focus on either of them despite being an answer arc, it's really sad when Kanon jumps at her like "you are only pretending to be a human, George won't love you when he finds out more" and her just kind of giving weak affirmations that it is not true. I don't really have a lot to say that Kanon didn't say here haha - he confesses his feeling of being trapped, his disgust at himself, and both envy and admiration for Jessica.... it is kind of nice to be able to see the things come out of their own mouth instead of subtext, though also really sad. The scene ends with both of them agreeing they are nothing more than furniture.

Kanon talks about how if Shannon ever quit he would stop working and Jessica says she knows about that already.... kind of shows how at least at some point Sayo was making plans to leave the island entirely and giving excuses as to why both Shannon and Kanon would have to disappear.

This scene is really cute but the part about Jessica confessing she's mainly into Kanon because she was jealous of George and Shannon is always a bit sad to me.... I still think they are cute though.

Chick-Beato starts thinking about the meaning of names a bit depressed and Ange talks about how she feels bad for her - I am glad someone's pointing out how fucked up it is to do this to Chick-Beato. Featherine and Ange begin pointing out that Beatrice was created for Battler and eventually became the Witch-Beato we see in previous games, so the question right now is why (being abandoned after being promised help in your worst moment and then coming back at the worst possible time... Featherine explicitly points out 6 years = a thousand years. Erika tries to do a threatening badass entrance.... and starts coughing horribly. I am team Erika I feel bad for her.

Erika solves all of Maria's puzzles and makes everyone uncomfortable by trying to show off to everyone by solving literally children's puzzles.... haha Erika is so fucking funny on replay man it's so obvious she's just kind of struggling really hard to seem like a genius and to prove herself to Bernkastel.... I feel really bad for her like I know she's kind of evil but like.... i want the best for her. In Erika's perspective, this is like, they think they are surprised at her intelligence. but it's so obvious their reaction is more like "You are overthinking it, idiot, that answer doesn't make any logical sense you literally had to invent magic cheese for the answer"

Erika prompts conversation about the Witch portrait, Jessica points out a bit confusedly that the butterflies and scorpions are carry-overs from the Akujikima spirit stories. They point out that Kinzo started the Beatrice mentions way before the portrait. Feels like a Beatrice-Timeline refresher. This is when Beato and Beato meet btw. They start talking about how 'Beatrice' existed before the mission to serve Battler and before the portrait even. Again, more Beatrice-Timeline/History refresher.

Shannon points out Beatrice stole her stuff haha - shows Beatrice is both the excuse for Sayo's mistakes and also her power fantasy and excuse when playing pranks on others.

Ange talks about how Sakutarou is mass-produced here and how there's good magic and bad magic... Featherine kind of chides her for having a simplistic view of magic. Oh narration haha..... yeah Erika can own 1000 kids in an argument I am sure hahahaa.

Erika who is Definitely a Serious and Scary Threat then proceeds to be so proud of herself for owning a literal 9-year-old child and preventing anyone from butting in. Dlanor is like "are you serious rn" godddd..... Erika is so good.

There's something kind of sad about Erika saying she knows detectives won't be accepted anywhere and afterwards Shannon and George trying to understand her, I think.

George reveals he is an incel and the one to remember Battler's sin is.... George. Shannon gets obviously flustered at the fact he of all people remembered that.... Ange talks about how she finds guys like George creepy and deluded about women, hahaaha. The dagger that him changing the subject to children must have been for her....

Sayo immediately begins not saying much and just saying yes. over and over.... feels like she is basically disassociating away from this conversation honestly.

"...Erika thought she felt touch of pity in his gaze, and she averted her eyes uncomfortably" when talking about love, Battler starts pitying Erika in this chapter as opposed to last chapter where she was just kind of demonized by him, I think it shows how his perspective towards other people has changed... I do think Erika is a very pitiable person.

Everyone just kind of shrugs and accepts what Erika says haha. Like yeah, obviously ghost stories mix up together, Erika, a bit rude to mention it, though. And no one wants to be the one to tell her "Duh?"

The Beatrices talk about what each other was missing, kind of funny that the answer is "Sayo's decaying mental health and being given a bunch of money and bombs" but. Battler struggles some more with the Logic Error, and you get hints of future reds here.... reading these scenes makes me think about how Rika's time loops must have felt for her, just the feeling of nothing ever working and everytime you figure out something you get 20 other obstacles. This line is so sad jesus.... and the way Jessica affirms it makes me want to cry.

All the Ange interjections where it is shown Ange has the skill of Literacy are kind of funny.

Beatrice using the Golden Truth here is a pretty big hint into what it is. Something everyone agreed in the story to be true together.

Beato makes Battler cookies and he throws them away because of course. Denying this part of Beatrice is just as bad as denying any other part of Beatrice, Battler. Even Ange chastises him. Jesus christ I feel so bad for Beatrice. Ange wonders why Beatrice would "create a piece that loves Battler" instead of doing it herself.... well if you really liked someone and they harmed you in a way that you wanted to both keep your love and move on, what would you do? As much as I was mad at Battler this scene is really sad.... Battler really understands what she is doing now and is a crying mess when he thinks about it.

It is kind of interesting how Battler's relationship with Chick-Beato both mirrors and contrasts Kinzo-Beatrice. Kinzo was deluding himself into thinking his daughter was his lover, which ended up destroying her. Battler is deluding himself into thinking of her as his daughter and not a part of Beatrice, in order to be able to treat her better.

Zepar and Furfur give their introductions, I like them a lot, and they hammer down that only one of Kanon and Shannon can receive love. It's obvious everyone is playing the role of Sayo's internal thoughts rn. She thinks if anyone is to find out about her body the relationship will certainly, without a doubt, fail. Anything else is a miracle. She is completely trapped.

Jessica whinges a bit and finally kind of gets forced into the love duel and then Elder informs Chick that she is also part of the trial - haha considering this is probably representing a period of like 2 years before the trials, Sayo very much did not know Battler was going to come back and be included in here romance issues further! Erika's seal and room are rendered unusable by Battler and Erika... mentions wanting to have a smoke? Hahaha, that's kind of a cute visual. Dlanor mentions the emotion Erika seems to have from exposing magic isn't really a pleasure, Erika begins explaining about her past, and... haha that hit unexpectedly hard.... when you have found all the evidence that you are being lied to and gaslighted and you give the other person a chance to explain.... and they completely refuse and keep lying to you it really fucking hurts. I can't really blame Erika for thinking that loves causes you to see things that aren't there, there is a unique kind of fucked up harm that is suffered when you are lying to yourself for the sake of someone else and deep down, you know it.

Erika claims she is happy now that she's not tormented by nonred words, even though everything she does screens desperation and unhappiness....

Erika wishes she wasn't human, that she could use the red instead of having the blue gnaw at her heart, with no way to take them out.... but it's impossible to use the red, and so it's impossible to believe others. The fight between George and Eva starts right after and... Eva just asks George if he already fucked Shannon, jeez. And then she starts denigrating her parents which is.... ironic considering they are half sisters but anyway. George mentions how Eva only cares about what she wants for herself and Eva kind of goes apeshit, obviously being manipulative, but I do think Eva is doing what she thinks is best for George.... but her thinking of what is best is still fucked up, and it is based on what she thinks would be good, not considering anyone else's, especially not the person she's trying to control, opinions.

George is pretty ruthless (and correct) here about how his entire life has been controlled by Eva for her own ambitions and his own will crushed.... if he knew that I sure would love if he would stop hammering on Battler and Jessica how much They Nedd to Respect and Love Their Parents No Matter What... trying to quash others from reaching a necessary step into self-realization in order to appear as the Mature Wise ones. No wonder the symbolism used when describing this is a spider-web trapping George - his schedule sounds incredibly fucking hellish and crushes any opportunity for a kid to be a kid. It's not really a surprise he came out of it with weird ideas about socialization and women. The way Eva mentions having to see him while studying is really kind creepy and crushing. Not even when reading the damn book Eva wanted him to read was he allowed privacy.

"Both you and I.... need to leave our childhood days behind." It is interesting to acknowledge Eva's childhood trauma after this scene. George is probably aware since I doubt Eva wouldn't mention it.... I think it shows a kind of determination in George to both acknowledge the way his mother has been hurt while not letting that get in the way of looking out for himself. George takes the One-Winged Eagle staff, which represented Eva's dreams, and crushes it out of existence.

"He would intentionally spark jealously between women and revel in the harem, lapping up their flirting". It is kind of sad that this was probably one of the first times Kyrie experienced love, and that she already had an awful home life.... They were both in college and probably pretty young when they met, and Rudolf's antics are pretty much abusive. It's not really a surprise that after decades of having someone as volatile as Rudolf as a partner, she ends with murderous jealously.

....Kyrie says that Asumu acted as a total airhead who would NEVER talk about anything serious with Rudolf, but from the description Battler gives of her liking mystery and solving mysteries and stuff that's not really the impression I get. I think Kyrie's coping about the fact they had emotional intimacy.

Also, I uh, doubt she was afraid of vehicles as a lie as well. Asumu wasn't dumb like Kyrie perceived her at first but I doubt she was a huge mastermind as well, that's just Kyrie;s hatred and need to take away blame from Rudolf talking., Oh you are so wrong Kyrie, So wrong. It's really obvious how much resentment Kyrie has towards Rudolf by now. I can see why she saw his death as a way to start anew in EP7.

This is what Kyrie says to herself but it is absolutely not true, in reality, nothing changed, it was not fate, Kyrie's lack of ability to give birth nor Asumu's smarts that caused what happened to Kyrie; it was Rudolf and Rudolf's own actions alone that did that.

Kyrie's way of viewing love is so twisted and sad. She thinks any love that isn't constantly monitored and watched over 24/7 will always leave, it will be stolen. The only way to keep love alive is not let it have any room of escape.... it's not hard to see why she would think that after being stuck with a man who would betray her in any way possible if out of her sight for 5 minutes. It's so sad seeing this to me. How she doesn't only see any alternatives but thinks any alternatives don't EXIST anywhere in the world. It is not very different from how people who have been abused for many years assume all love must be as painful and fucked up as the one they have.

Kyrie is telling all of these to Jessica because she doesn't want Jessica to end up in the hell of regret she had for 18 years when Asumu was chosen over her - though truthfully her hell started when she met Rudolf and never ended.

There is something about how Jessica had to basically be couched into agreeing into this kind of destructive love, unlike George who agreed into it immediately. Sure it could just be because Jessica isn't as serious as George about their relationship.... but I do think Jessica probably has a healthier view of love than George does. Jessica does seem to believe that love is a mutual thing you can both grow from George uh, kind of doesn't seem to care much about Shannon's internal world and kind of sees her as just kind of a representation of his improvement and kind of as a conquest over Battler. Not that Jessica doesn't have a problem of thinking she has the answers to problems she has barely thought of, though. Haha, in magic Kyrie dies when Jessica acknowledges how fucked up her view of love is. I am glad she has the realization of how fucked up controlling love can be, and I will say that the fact life hasn't fucked up their view of things so much is something refreshing about the cousins compared to the adults....

[childotkw]

YOO... i just sped read chapters 25-39 of CS and I'm absolutely. blown away. i know my last ask was pretty recent but i need to immediately run to your inbox. i don't think this is as long as the previous one but it is pretty lengthy, take ur time to respond :>

first off, rita skeeter gets on my nerves oh my god she is so annoying... i find it so entertaining watching hadrian using jacob for info though. i'm kind of a jacob sympathizer - he did mess up really bad but i do like that addition. i don't expect them to become buddy-buddy though,, LMAO hadrian blackmailing skeeter is also really funny imo 

the ball was cool and fun and all, loved the interactions between adalard and hadrian. it was very? relaxing? adalard is probably one of my favorite side characters. hadrian being drugged and then being yanked into riddle's office and then. they almost kissed was absolutely wild. it compares to the 'sleeping in riddle's office' scene. then hadrian's dread when he realized what he did was absolutely hilarious.  

THEN hadrian finds out about the order and lily's affiliation with them,,, hadrian meeting sirius was amazing i love sirius he is babygirl. later his interactions with the other members of the order are really cool. he knows them but he doesn't - he only knows them through the lenses and stories of lily's but there's no real connection. i think that's really sad :(( tonks and remus are so cute also. it's been years since I've read the books and i don't remember ever really getting the chemistry between them until i read that small scene you wrote of them !!!! 

oh jesus when lily and riddle meet,, bringing her to the place james proposed to her was just downright cruel man. i SWEAR the shock i felt when he took lily.... hadrian realizing like a day after and just GOING off to find her.

i originally thought that hadrian's patronus was a dog?? like sirius dog?? because he said 'good boy' to it and then sirius commented on it and i thought it was a dog. black panther is really cool though !!!!

THEN the scene with the woman and,, i forgot to mention her in my last post but lowkey she is way more intimidating than voldy for some reason. its the mysteriousness or something man,, and how she takes voldy not seriously at all. "little lord" is what really gets me...

the entire ball-doppelganger thing was cool as hell !! i love the dance between hadrian doppelganger and bellatrix . harry finding lily and going back - i felt really bad for tonks with what hadrian said though hadrian is entirely justified to what he said. he doesn't even know them.

honestly i was very very afraid for hadrian when voldy went to severus for the numbing cream and then talked about ... dark mark stuff. hadrian put himself through that - just so that lily could awake from her coma-sleep-whatever.

pleasantly surprised that it was not a dark mark though,, i wonder what effects that thing will have throughout the story. severus' discomfort while watching hadrian and riddle's interactions are hilarious. oh yes hadrian big brain realizing he has some of riddle's blood as well. however. let's get to the big thing

“Are you insane?” He whispered, voice cracking. “I’m me, mum.” 

OH MY God that line. i've seen it in another one of your asks before HOWEVER it hits so much harder in context. earlier sirius had reprimanded? scolded? lily for dismissing hadrian because of his age and referencing his own fallout with his mother and it hits so hard when hadrian and lily have their own fallout. .... .

i want to strangle lily,... she has the audacity to say shit like that after hadrian did so much to save her?? and like, she just doesn't even consider the amount of hurt she'd cause by saying that... GJJDHJHSHGAGSDG

anyway, im going to continue reading so have my kudos author-nim !!!! ur fics make me feel so many things

Oh you are flying through the chapters!!

Rita Skeeter is the bane of many peoples' existence I feel 😂 while she only pops up once or twice, I'm glad I managed to get her unique brand of obnoxiousness right.

Jacob's actually a fun character to see the reaction to over time. He started out as someone most were chill with, then the goblet happened and it was all fire and pitchforks, and then slowly over time he's largely now become a tolerated presence. It's genuinely so much fun to see the progression.

And I'm glad you liked the Yule Ball! It was such a fun chapter to write! Adalard got a chance to shine, and of course, The Interaction between Hadrian and Riddle 😂 fond memories

The Order and Lily and Hadrian is such a mess, but the conversations in those early scenes really set things up for future events 😉 and I'm really happy that Tonks/Remus worked for you in CS! I know wolfstar is usually the default ship, but I actually really like Tonks and Remus so I couldn't resist haha

And the kidnapping of Lily...you can't say she wasn't tempting fate there 😂 Hadrian going into mission-mode to rescue her, creating his doppelgänger, invading Riddle manor, snarking with Bellatrix - he was so fun to write hahaha

The Lady is an ongoing mystery in CS - discord has a whole list of potential suspects lmao. I'm holding my cards close to my chest on her though. Her lack of concern over Riddle is such a boss move though - she basically speaks about him like he's a misbehaving toddler 😂

And oof yeah the mark - people were losing their minds when that happened! Hadrian sacrificing his freedom for his mother, and then having her spit in his face...that was brutal. That whole fight, and Hadrian's poor little heart breaking...I felt so bad for the boy.

It's wonderful from a writer's perspective though to hear that the fight between them, and that line in particular, got you good. All the context in that scene, and all the little things that had been building up since the early chapters - it was very very satisfying to write!

Thank you again for sending in your thoughts! It's always a delight to see your username in my inbox, and reading your reactions never gets old!! 🥰🥰🥰🥰💕💕💕💕💕

[quenthel]

oughughug ed stuff (also some tmi stuff)

i have been recovering from my ED pretty well... learning how to enjoy meals and not overeat all the time im even a little bit distressed/ reward myself with other stuff than food so my relationship to meals have changed... i also got much more into cooking than i was bc of dunmeshi too and i enjoyed the philosophy of cooking and eating meals from that manga so much legit helped me a ton to think about it more and really internalize it. Like reading that manga really made me reconsider what i think of food and that made it easier for me not to fall back into old bad mindsets as much (but i do sometimes still its a work in progress)

And like I lost a lot of weight bc of this (i just eat a little less move a little more and give more time and thought to my meals) like its been still a struggle for me esp in the beginning and by this point im losing weight very slowly like it took me 8 months to lose 10kg while the first 8 i lost in like 2 months. And while this food journey was overall good for my mental my body got much much weaker psychically esp my endurance because its a large change. Im not sad about it because being overweight (and still being overweight lol) was making me miserable (and the societal hatred for fat people was part of that ofc, but also mostly it was caused by some beliefs i have about my own self worth its a big issue) but I feel like no weight loss post or story or anything talks about this. I also started to exercise and so far some of it has been harder but some of it has been easier. And i still need to work a lot on appreciating my own body and truly inhabiting it in a sense like being at peace with it and not fighting it and connect to my own body as its part of myself and not just something im in. Like its part of me. Funnily enough the times i really felt that connection were the times I was spending a lot of time together with other people like irl (when i had a huge friend group and we drank a lot together or when i was w my ex lol).

Like at this point i weigh less than i ever remember weighing (even in my teens lol) and i still have a long way to go. But i would not have done it without being supported by my friends and parents like i dont think anybody can come out of toxic mindsets without opening those doors and asking for help or knowing that they HAVE to do it for other people (like my dad recovering from alcoholism because he was scared he will die before seeing my brother and me grow up). Also its funny that around the time i started really thinking abt my own body and my health and really asking for help (in therapy too) to make me truly healthy, not working on it in isolation like i did after beating disco elysium was around the time i started thinking abt being trans too. Like realizing that my body is me made me think more about my own gender too. I’m also thinking a lot abt starting HRT but that would be impossible for me bc of my country (idk if i can even do that abroad but maybe...) but I don’t want to yet since I want to establish my body mind connection first and THEN see if i still feel like I should.

Anyway im around halfway done with my weightloss plans and its been 9 months. I originally wanted to recover fully and reach that weight and develop habits to exercise regularly in 2 years but since im moving soon i might not be able to focus on this as much or maybe its going to get easier... who knows. I still feel like I’m a work in progress tho both bc of therapy and bc of this but also because i really feel like im JUST starting to become more of an adult because im thinking about these things (and its making me more sad that i cant be financially independent yet but im trying to be patient). But it feels like im currently at a point of my life when im changing for the better overall and while I struggle a lot its not as bad as it was before so thats pretty hopeful...

[inkisadream]

When I was a child, I was obsessed with magic. By this I mean both magic in the storybook sense and magic in the deep earth sense—the intuition of knowing that there was a profound life force running through everything I encountered, just as my own blood and spirit ran through me. During recess in elementary school, I would walk between the trees on the edge of the baseball diamond, stroking the bark and whispering stories. My brother and I would act out spells from Harry Potter, me desperately willing them to be real. In third grade, I got really into rocks, both geologically and animistically. I had dozens of crystals and knew they each had a personality. We went to stay at my grandfather’s cabin in the mountains above Denver, Colorado, and I had never felt so alive.

I remember as I got older that magic became more and more storybook, more and more marginal. I relished moments when I had time to read fantasy novels and escape into worlds so much more vibrant than mine seemed. It was around this time that I started letting my fiction writing fall by the wayside, that I started supposing I would major in politics or history instead of anything creative. I let myself indulge by twisting assignments for my classes into any outward expression of creation I could, but this got harder and harder the more advanced my classes became. During my freshman year of college, I took a creative nonfiction class and turned in a mix CD, something I loved making, with my final portfolio. But something about this act of vulnerability felt cringe, and my teacher didn’t appreciate it. I never did anything like that again.

I am not sure I could pinpoint why, exactly, I decided to be magical again. I couldn’t tell you if there was something I read, someone I came across, some spark that let me know “witch” had always been within me and could also come out from time to time. In my mind looms a British miniseries I watched in the summer of 2016 called The Living and the Dead, which plays with the liminal and also includes incredible English folk music. Was that the time I chose to start looking for a tarot deck to that spoke to me? Did I start observing full moon rituals shortly thereafter, or did that come later? Where did I even learn how to do them? I couldn’t tell you. I have legitimately no idea. But the convergence occurred, nevertheless, and it crescendoed until “witch” was not something I could be from time to time, but a descriptor of all that I was. All of the potential within me.

It is something my family would reject, if they knew. My father was originally unwilling to let my brother and I read Harry Potter because it was about “witchcraft,” which is so funny to me nowadays because nothing J.K. Rowling has ever touched can be likened to magic. I am convinced he loves Lord of the Rings because Tolkien was a Christian, which means he has given himself permission to engage with the fantastical because it has been named explicitly religious, rather than “only” spiritual. In any case, there is a difference between choosing to know something and recognizing there is no choice; the knowledge simply rests in your bones.

I am writing this entry as part of my own studies in witchcraft: I am working currently with Maia Toll’s The Night School, which is pretty much what it sounds like. Like nearly every accessible witchcraft course, it is an introduction, by which I mean I have done dozens of introductions. But I always manage to find something new in them, regardless. In this one I find daily reflection prompts that force me to know myself and my craft better. By writing through them, I have realized more forcefully than ever that “witch” is not an identity we adopt. “Witch” is what we intuitively are, a gift with which we enter the world. What is our choice is whether we resist external pressures demanding we deny ourselves that gift.

[radiance1]

I shall try to answer this as best as I am able:

The time period can honestly be whatever the readers want, though I, myself, am inclined to having it be before Jason's death. Simply because the image of Danny holding up a scythe ready to kill behind the Joker is a funny image.

I don't know the Batfam too well but I'll just go off the assumptions I've gotten from reading a fanfic or five. Really only about the ones I've read about.

Bruce- is sus about Danny's origins but is also as welcoming as he is able since there is very obviously something wrong (his gut is telling him this) with the kid Alfred brought home.

Alfred- I will put my foot down here and say he would emotionally adopt him. That's gonna be his kid that he teaches the trades of being a butler too, and I can see him finding Danny some sources to better his skill in using that scythe while they were on vacation. Danny is very much attached to him as he was the only adult figure at the time to treat him like he was human after an undetermined amount of time(How long is up to the readers) being dehumanized. If it came down to it, I think that Alfred would be the only person capable of pulling him out whenever he slips deep down into the cycle of hatred again.

Dick- I think he would be curious and also happy? About having a new addition to the family, always trying to make him feel welcomed and loved whenever he notices he's there.

Jason- (I don't actually know what he was like as Robin so uh, to the Red Hood arc we go!) I feel like he would react to him as any other member of the batfam (besides Bruce), not too friendly but not outright hostile either? I guess he would also connect to Danny on some level because they both know what death felt like.

Tim- I can see him trying to find out any and all information he could about Danny when he noticed he existed, probably before he became too. He would probably ask Danny some questions too. After a while I guess he would just treat him like normal?

(Uuuh who else do I somewhat know..)

Damain (Had to look up some of his interactions with the fam when he was first introduced lolz)- Him and Danny would most likely get off to a very rocky start, Damian's personality (As one person so put it, a Major brat) wouldn't lead to the best of relationships not helping that he tries to kill off Tim multiple times. He would try to be polite, like Alfred, but unlike Alfred, he would be pretty petty. I guess after Damian calms down and adjusts they would be somewhat friends?

(Ok yea sorry that's all I got-)

I most undoubtably feel like they would hide the batstuff, but whether or not Alfred doesn't is up to him. It would also be a lot harder to hide things from someone who's invisible, takes floating as his preferred method of transport and doesn't, well, breath.

Hmmm, no. I don't think he would be. Although this is my own interpretation, and the reader does not and never needs to follow stuff I give my thoughts about besides the original post if they didn't feel like it. I feel like he would get tipped off by Alfred being, well, a butler so he would know that whoever he works for is some rich guy while rationalizing that since it's Alfred said guy in question probably isn't that bad.

Or maybe not even that and just the fact that Alfred's living up his vacation rich guy style.

I also feel like, he just, literally would not care whatsoever. Compared to everything else in his life he wouldn't even say it's anything noteworthy and hey, he can say "If I had a nickel for every rich guy I knew with a secret basement, I would have two nickels, which isn't a lot but it's weird it happened twice."

Is Danny immortal/stuck as a 14 year old? Hmm, really and truly, I have no opinion on this hc, so it is truly up to the reader to decide if this is what they want to go with or not. Though the sight of a 14-year-old in a butler outfit and being told has been here longer than some of the kids make for a funny thing to imagine.

Mhm, yup, most undoubtably yes. He's quiet, only being comfortable around one person, is distrustful of others, perhaps even scared of human contact. Of the rare few times he goes out of invisibility it would probably have to do with Alfred checking over him or when he's very relaxed and always goes back to invisibility whenever someone who wasn't Alfred comes close to him.

Someone was very obviously interested in this boy, and they very obviously didn't treat him all that well at all. Given how he seems to be more comfortable not being visible in any sort of way.

I do feel like they wouldn't see him as someone combat inclined, since he would try and be peaceful with Alfred's family (and soon to be his but he doesn't know that yet) and not to create bad blood, Alfred doesn't even tell them either.

The day enemies infiltrate the Wayne Manor with the intent of harm, is the day the entirety of the Bat family sees that Alfred's son picked up his trait of not hesitating to go for the kill. It would most defiantly be the most unfortunate of times for the invaders, having to fight against a Grim Reaper and a war veteran with a shotgun.

Hope I answered everything!

Alfred Pennyworth has in fact, perhaps, in the slightest of chances.

Picked up his Master's habit of collecting children as if they were on sale.

He was spending his time on one of those rare vacations he decided to take, it was nice, to relax with only the vague overhanging worry of something going wrong back at the manor that he's gotten very good at ignoring.

Only to come across a child bleeding out in an alley, heavily injured.

He would not be able to live with himself if he didn't at least try to help them however he could.

Such is how he acquired a child he later found to be a meta who whished to learn the ways of a butler.

---

Danny had escaped from a GIW compound, after having been handed over by his family a while after his reveal. He felt, completely and utterly betrayed, when it happened. His parents, while hurt, he was at least capable of actually seeing them do it, but never would he have thought Jazz would do so as well.

They did it so happily, that he wondered if letting him go really was the greatest thing to happen to this family.

He chained, muzzled, all the ways to bind him they pulled all the stops too, knowing how dangerous he was. He wouldn't have even done anything then, too stunned by his families apart willingness at handing him over to the government.

He hated them.

He hated them so much.

The GIW facility was a terrible, cold, unfeeling place. One where they drilled thoughts into his head again and again until he found himself unconsciously repeating them when his head felt empty, one where his body gained a new mark day by day and pushed through tests, he had no clue of even hoping to comprehend what they would gain out of it.

It was a cold, unfeeling place. Placed in a cell of white and nothing else, with low walls and chains binding his body in place until the time came for another experiment.

It was a room he grew used to. One he even held some kind of strange, twisted affection for.

It was a room that held a tiny piece of safety, of rest. It was a room that taught him to hate.

A deep, powerful, disgusting, twisting hatred that crawled from the depths of his cells, corrupting his blood and carving itself deep into his bones. Forcing it's out of his pores until it practically oozed from his flesh.

It drowned his mind, tainting each and every thought, every memory, every dream, every waking moment until he could feel nothing but hatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehate.

When he was taken out of that he could feel nothing, with the drugs swimming their way through his blood that snapped the thin string keeping him between a person and an emotionless puppet.

He thinks that's what the GIW thinks he is.

And when he was placed back in that room, he could only hate.

It was a cycle. Stuck between feeling either nothing or hatred.

He hated feeling nothing, it made him feel like he wasn't real. Like it snapped the thread that held him between what a real person was and a dream.

So, he allowed himself to drown deep into his hatred. Until the white walls of his far to small room seemed to fade, until whatever sound he could have heard became nothing but dull noise.

Until the passage of time seemed to become just a blink.

He didn't know what day it was, when he saw it. Saw them. He didn't know the time, the date, the day, the hours. He knew nothing.

But he could recognize his family. Recognize one of the objects of his intense hatred that he forced his thoughts too. The people who willingly gave him up just like that and one of the causes for his current life.

He didn't know why they showed him them, he felt it some sick, utterly cruel joke. A joke he didn't know the punchline for, a joke the universe sent his way to make his life all the more miserable.

There were multiple of them. Multiple clones of his family. Som within test tubes, some being pulled out from the tubes, some walking around in lab coats. A waste of talent, they called it in his dad's case, a waste of intelligence in his mother's, and a waste of intellect in his sister's case.

His original family was already dead, he was told. Replaced by clones, clones that took over the legal decision to change his guardianship. Clones walking around twisting and desecrating his family.

'At least it was painless.' One of the clones said, talking with his mother's face. 'Far more than they deserved for having keeping a thing like him' spoken by his father's imposter.

The drugs pumping through his system to keep him calm, to keep him feeling nothing was suddenly pierced through by an intense feeling of horror, hate and self-loathing.

He should've known it wasn't his family. He should've done more! More to protect them! To keep them safe! The could've still been alive if he just knew.

In that moment, watching imposters speaking, walking, talking, breathing, with his families faces. He exploded. Exploded with a power fueled by nothing but his intense hatred for every. Single. Living being in this goddamn facility.

He killed whoever stood in his way. Managing to get his hands on relatively newly designed weapon, an ectoplasmic scythe (that also apparently could revert into an everyday item). Which he used to rip and tear throughout the entirety of the facility. He got injured, of course, he couldn't dodge everything, but he didn't care.

A body stuck between life and death, incapable of fully going one way or the other no matter what happened. Gifted supernatural powers fueled by wrath and twisting hatred and a weapon made by man yet in the range of the supernatural.

They didn't stand a change. He killed them all. No matter who it was, man, woman, clone. He didn't, couldn't care. He could only kill, only maim, only hurt.

And that's what he did.

It was then, when the facility was blanketed with silence tainted by despair, death and hysteria. When previously white walls were covered by blood, and the halls turned into rivers of blood and corpses. That he broke down, the overwhelming hatred he felt replaced by relief then sadness then self-loathing.

His family didn't give him up! But they were killed. Kill because of him. He couldn't stand being in this place, anymore. His body felt as if it were moving on unseen strings as it walked through the halls, the scythe shrinking back what it was when out of combat, his mind too occupied by thoughts and feelings.

It walked through a portal, one to the ghost zone, and then promptly into another portal and spat him out into an alleyway. Which he then promptly collapsed and curled into a ball, curing the shrunken scythe in his palm and he was out like a light.

A few days after he woke up, he found himself growing attached to the human that found him in that alleyway. An old man, maybe, but a nice one. He didn't want to meet anyone, besides that man, so he turned invisible when anyone else come into contact with him.

Alfred Pennyworth.

It was a name he clung onto mentally and a man he clung onto physically as well. He wanted to be like that man, someone so nice and caring, someone who didn't mind that he turned invisible at the sing of another person, who let him cling onto him both invisible and not whenever he wanted to.

He did panic when he heard Alred saying his vacation was over, and such that he had to leave. He didn't want to be left alone again, he didn't know what he would do if he was left alone again.

Until Afred said we were going home.

We. As in, him plus another. Alfred plus Danny.

Home.

Heat blossomed in his chest, seeming to replace the constant, low hum of hate sitting beneath him skin.

Home.

[cadkeyper]

Hi my name is Ark and I’m armed with pure delusion, today I’ll be talking about how I could/ would beat every single classic Creepypasta. RIP to the victims, but I’m built different. I barely ever leave my room, I did martial arts training years ago, and I am fueled by nothing other than the McDonalds sprite that runs through my veins. So I think I’m pretty qualified. For the sake of this, I will not allow any of them to be armed with their weapons, this is fist to fist combat.

Nina the killer

In her original story, she’s literally just a nine year old with a knife. I would grab her by the ponytail, and swing her around until she reached a high enough velocity for me to let go and have her hurtle directly into the sun

Ben Drowned / Sonic EXE

I put these two together because the strategy for beating them is pretty much the same. First of all, I’m not a nerd. I would never play sonic or zelda, but let’s say for the sake of debate, I do. After the first time weird things happen, I WOULD OBVIOUSLY STOP PLAYING THE GAME. I turn off my tv, break it, set it on fire, and then I would take the game cartridge, put it in a blender until it was a fine purée, and then drink it to absorb their power

Smile dog

I literally never read my emails.

Jeff the killer

If we’re talking the original, I would whoop his ass so fast it’s not even funny. Once again, he’s like a 13 year old with a knife and a Joker complex. I would slap the shit out of him so hard that it knocks the smile off his face.

Ticci Toby

He can’t feel pain so I would have a harder time getting him down. However, he does have Tourette's, and as somebody who also has it, I would just tic which would trigger him to tic, (this happens from personal experience it’s agony) and then I would get him. (This may also result in me ticcing back, and we would reach a stalemate)

Eyeless Jack

I literally never sleep, so if he wants to sneak into my room at night to take my kidneys, good luck. If he got within a foot of me, I would jab my fingers into his eye sockets and make him double blind. As he stumbles around with double no eyes, I lunge at him and I take HIS kidneys. See how he likes it.

Laughing Jack

I could beat him as a child. If he tried to pretend to be my imaginary friend, I’d completely exhaust him. I was a wolf kid. I had a reputation for how hard I could kick people in the shin. I am not defending myself from him, he’s defending himself from me. I would grab his nose and twist until it made a 🌀shape

The Rake

If he runs at me, I will simply kick him in the face so hard that all of his teeth fall out. Before the battle, I would rub my entire body in the most foul tasting, disgusting thing you could ever imagine. Like ghost peppers, or limes, or bananas. So when he goes to bite me, he recoils and is so disgusted he retreats, allowing me to win by default

Slenderman

If I’m not mistaken, he likes to stalk his victims before finishing them off to drive them bonkers. He tries this with me, that’s his first mistake. Every time I see him, I will also set off an extremely loud obnoxious noise, like an airhorn, or any song on my kazoo. He thinks he’s coming to stand outside my window and jumpscare me, WRONG he’s getting his eardrums blown out with every Nicki Minaj song ever released. In addition to that, I will go out of my way to constantly bully him at every turn. Instead of drawing cryptic symbols on my walls, I’m writing stuff like “SLENDERMAN IS SO TALL HIS PRONOUNS ARE FE/FI/FO FUM”. He will eventually grow so frustrated/ confused at my constant harassment that he decides to leave me alone and that I am not worth the effort. If he sends his proxies after me, we’ve already established that I could absolutely dominate each and every single bone in their bodies This has been my personal guide to beating most of the classic Creepypasta’s and I do not take constructive criticism <3 

[sluttywonwoo]

study buddies || k.mg x reader

Pairing: frat!mingyu x fem reader 

Summary: studying for midterms with the guy you’re hooking up with goes exactly how you’d expect

Warnings: swearing, light smut (18+)

Word Count: 1.6k

a/n: reworked this old blurb originally posted on my tom holland fic account ( @wazzupmrstark ) for my gf’s birthday :)) happy birthday @hotgirlmingyu

Masterlist

You woke up to banging on your apartment door. Groaning, you rolled over to check your phone and saw that it was six am. You pushed yourself up and out of bed and padded into the kitchen to answer the door. You were surprised the relentless knocking hadn’t woken up your roommate, but she was a pretty heavy sleeper.

You yanked the door open to see Mingyu with a handful of textbooks. You squinted at him in confusion, wondering if you were seeing things. Mingyu had never been to your place before, you didn’t even know he knew where you lived.

His appearance startled you a bit. His hair was messy where it was usually slicked back or styled and he was wearing gray sweatpants and a white t-shirt. You didn’t think you’d ever seen him in anything other than khakis and a douchey printed shirt.

“What are you doing here?” you asked, rubbing your eyes.

He frowned. “You said we should study for midterms together.”

You thought back to the last time you’d seen Mingyu. You couldn’t remember saying anything like that.

“Was I drunk?”

“Probably.”

“So why are you here?”

“To study. You agreed that we could help each other out.”

“Mingyu, I don’t even remember agreeing to that.”

“Well I’m already here,” he said and pushed past you into your apartment.

“Seriously? It’s Saturday.”

“Yeah, and midterms are next week.”

“Couldn’t you have waited until the sun was up?” you grumbled, mostly to yourself and shut the door behind him.

“We’ve got a lot of material to cover.”

You cursed under your breath as you watched him set up at your kitchen table, knowing you should probably study even though you desperately wanted to go back to bed.

You and Mingyu had met at a party at his fraternity and woke up the next morning tangled in the sheets of his bed. To say it was awkward would have been an understatement. You didn’t think you’d ever see him again, but to your horror, you saw him in your stats lecture on Monday and your mythology class on Thursday. This was a pretty big university. Why did the same asshole have to be in two of your classes?

As much as it annoyed you, you couldn’t stop thinking about Mingyu, and apparently, he was having a similar dilemma because every time you went out he seemed to be there, and every time you hooked up.

That was the extent of your relationship, though. You didn’t even speak to each other in class or at parties. The only time you talked was behind closed doors when one or both of you was naked. Even then you kept your guard up because you refused to let yourself fall for a frat boy with commitment issues who never wanted to be seen with the same girl twice. A boy who wouldn’t even talk to you in public.

But you couldn’t ignore the way your heart fluttered when he said your name as he was about to cum, or the way his lips felt against yours. He could be a total dick, but you’d also seen a softer side of him that he didn’t show many people. You forced yourself to forget about that side. It was easier that way.

“Okay, what are we starting with?” you asked with a sigh.

“We have the stats exam first, we should work on that.”

You made a face. Statistics was the harder out of the two for you. In fact, it was the hardest class you were taking this semester.

“I can’t believe I’m doing math before seven am.”

“You won’t be complaining when you ace the midterm,” he quipped, already working on a practice worksheet.

You watched him solve problems like he was checking items off a list. You knew he was good at statistics, but you didn’t know he was that good. Figures, a guy like him was good at pretty much everything. Everything except mythology apparently, because once you’d switched to that he was flustered and frustrated. You would quiz him on myths only for him to get every single question wrong.

“Mingyu, did you even read any of these?” you asked, pinching the bridge of your nose.

“Yes, y/n, I read every one. How do you think I passed all the reading quizzes?”

“Cheating?” it slipped out before you could stop it and Mingyu gave you a hard glare. You held up your hands defensively. “Just a joke.”

“I don’t think it was.” He licked his lips. “But for what it’s worth I read them all. I just can’t keep them straight.”

You sighed. You felt bad, but you were getting frustrated too. And not just because Mingyu wasn’t grasping the myths. This was the longest you’d ever spent together (at least while you were awake) and you hadn’t even had sex. He just smelled so nice and looked so cute when he was concentrating that you couldn’t help feeling a little impatient. You had been at it for hours, you thought you would’ve done it at least once by now. But Mingyu was more serious about studying than you thought. It was kind of admirable and kind of annoying.

“Okay well reread through the Egyptian myths and I’ll quiz you again.”

“Alright.”

He pulled out his reading packet and flipped to the section you took out your phone and scrolled through social media mindlessly as he read, but it quickly got boring. You wished Mingyu would take a break so he could rail you. He was still reading intently, but you figured a little distraction couldn’t hurt.

You started by taking your hair down from your bun and shaking it out so that it fell around your shoulders. You knew your shampoo drove Mingyu crazy and hoped it would have an effect on him today. He shifted his seat, but didn’t look up from the packet. Next, you leaned over and rested your head on his shoulder. You’d never done something so domestic like this with Mingyu, but it seemed to work because he cleared his throat and adjusted his sweatpants.

“You know you could be working on math.”

You shrugged. “We already did stats for hours today. I think I’ll jump off a bridge if I look at one more differential equation.”

He fell silent and tried focusing back onto the reading, but you moved your hand to his thigh and kept it there as you continued to through twitter, not even reading what was on your screen.

“Stop that,” Mingyu muttered, making you jump a little.

“Why?”

“Fuck, because you’re distracting me. You look too hot right now.”

“I’m wearing pajamas.”

“I really don’t care. You still look hot and I’m trying not to fuck you senseless right now.”

“Well what’s stopping you?” you asked lowly and nipped at his ear.

“Need to finish this,” he replied through gritted teeth.

“I can’t convince you to take a break?” You moved the hand on his leg up so that you were cupping him over his pants.

He shook his head. “After.”

You leaned over and kissed his neck, then his jaw, and felt him get hard under your hand. “If I have to stop what I’m doing you won’t be able to walk for the next week.”

“That sounds like more of a motivator than a deterrent,” you admitted. “I’ll suck you off,” you offered and hooked your thumb in the waistband of his sweats, trying to bribe him.

“If you let me finish I’ll eat you out,” he countered.

You straightened up. It sounded like a pretty good deal.

“Fine.”

A few minutes passed in silence and you were waiting patiently, typing up a rough draft of an essay you had due for another class when Mingyu groaned.

“What?” you asked, wondering if he needed help.

“Can you please stop that?”

“Stop what? I’m literally doing nothing.” You were genuinely confused now.

“Just- I don’t know you’re making it so hard to concentrate.”

“Am I making it hard?” You smirked.

“Very funny.”

“Would it help if I put a paper bag over my head?”

“Probably.”

“Come on, keep reading about Osiris.”

“I don’t want to read about Osiris anymore, he’s a dick.”

“The faster you finish the faster you can get off.”

“I thought you didn’t want to wait,” Mingyu pointed out, trying to deflect.

“I think I recall something about you going down on me if I let you finish reading.”

“Fine,” he grumbled, but didn’t turn back to the book. Instead, he continued to gaze at you with those big brown eyes. You couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“What?” You felt your cheeks get warm.

“I just really want to kiss you right now.”

You smiled and raised your chin, challenging him. “Then do it.”

He leaned forward and pressed his lips to yours. You closed your eyes and kissed him back, savoring the moment.

When you pulled away, Mingyu’s eyes were dark with want and you could see that he was now fully hard in his sweatpants.

“How about I eat you out now anyway?” He suggested, leaning forward to kiss your neck.

You moaned and brought your hands to his hair.

“You trying to bribe me?”

“Is it working?”

“Fuck yeah.”

Mingyu stood and picked you up from your chair. You wrapped your legs around his waist again. He pulled on your bottom lip with his teeth and smirked.

“Promise you’ll finish studying after?” you asked.

He considered it. “Does what we’re about to do count as studying mythology? Because it’s going to be legendary.”

You scrunched up your face in distaste. “No, I take it back. Put me down.”

Mingyu grinned. “Hey! You know no ones gives it to you as good as I do.”

“That confident are you?”

His grin turned into a smirk. “Is that a challenge?”

lmk what you think i always appreciated feedback!!

forever tags: @haven-cove

shoot me an ask to be added/removed from my taglist

[soundsfaebutokay]

So I've recc'd this video before, but it deserves its own post because it's one of my favorite things on youtube. It's a Tedx Talk by comics writer, editor, and journalist Jay Edidin, and I really think that it will connect with a lot of people here.

If you live and breathe stories of all kinds, you might like this.

If you care about media representation, you might like this.

If you're neurodivergent, you might like this.

If you're interested in a gender transition story that veers from the norm, you might like this.

If you love the original Leverage and especially Parker, and understand how important it is that a character like her exists, you will definitely like this.

Transcript below the cut:

You Are Here: The Cartography of Stories

by Jay Edidin

I am autistic. And what this means in practice is that there are some things that are easier for me than they are for most people, and a great many things that are somewhat harder, and these affect my life in more or less overt ways. As it goes, I'm pretty lucky. I've been able to build a career around special interests and granular obsession. My main gig at the moment is explaining superhero comics continuity and publishing history for which work I am somehow paid in actual legal currency—which is both a triumph of the frivolous in an era of the frantically pragmatic, and a job that's really singularly suited to my strengths and also to my idiosyncrasies.

I like comics. I like stories in general, because they make sense to me in ways that the rest of the world and my own mind often don't. Self-knowledge is not an intuitive thing for me. What sense of self I have, I've built gradually and laboriously and mostly through long-term pattern recognition. For decades, I didn't even really have a self-image. If you'd asked me to draw myself, I would eventually have given you a pair of glasses and maybe a very messy scribble of hair, and that would've been about it. But what I do know—backwards, forwards, and in pretty much every way that matters—are stories. I know how they work. I understand their language, their complex inner clockwork, and I can use those things to extrapolate a sort of external compass that picks up where my internal one falls short. Stories—their forms, their structure, the sense of order inherent to them—give me the means to navigate what otherwise, at least for me, would be an impassable storm of unparsable data. Or stories are a periscope, angled to access the parts of myself I can't intuitively see. Or stories are a series of mirrors by which I can assemble a composite sketch of an identity I rarely recognize whole...which is how I worked out that I was transgender, in my early thirties, by way of a television show.

This is my story. And it's about narrative cartography, and representation, and why those things matter. It's about autism and it's about gender and it's about how they intersect. And it's about the kinds of people we know how to see, and the kinds of people we don't. It's not the kind of story that gets told a lot, you might hear a lot, because the narrative around gender transition and dysphoria in our culture is really, really prescriptive. It's basically the story of the kid who has known for their whole life that they're this and not that, and that story demands the kind of intuitive self-knowledge that I can't really do, and a kind of relationship to gender that I don't really have—which is part of why it took me so long to figure my own stuff out.

So, to what extent this story, my story has a beginning, it begins early in 2014 when I published an essay titled, "I See Your Value Now: Asperger's and the Art of Allegory." And it explored, among other things, the ways that I use narrative and narrative structures to navigate real life. And it got picked up in a number of fairly prominent places that got linked, and I casually followed the ensuing discussion. And I was surprised to discover that readers were fairly consistently assuming I was a man. Now, that in itself wasn't a new experience for me, even though at the time I was writing under a very unambiguously female byline. It had happened in the letter columns of comics I'd edited. It had happened when a parody Twitter account I'd created went viral. When I was on staff at Wired, I budgeted for fancy scotch by putting a dollar in a box every time a reader responded in a way that made it clear they were assuming I was a man in response to an article where my name was clearly visible, and then I had to stop doing that because it happened so often I couldn't afford to keep it up. But in all of those cases, the context, you know, the reasons were pretty obvious. The fields I'd worked in, the beats I covered, they were places where women had had to fight disproportionally hard for visibility and recognition. We live in a culture that assumes a male default, so given a neutral voice and a character limit, most readers will assume a male author.

But this was different, because this wasn't just a book I'd edited, it wasn't a story I'd reported—it was me, it was my story. And it made me uncomfortable, got under my skin in ways that the other stuff really hadn't. And so I did what I do when that happens, and I tried to sort of reverse-engineer it to look at the conclusions and peel them back to see the narratives behind them and the stories that made them tick. And I started this, I started this by going back to the text of the essay, and you know, examining it every way I could think of: looking at craft, looking at content. And in doing so, I was surprised to realize that while I had written about a number of characters with whom I identified closely, that every single one of those characters I'd written about was male. And that surprised me even more than the responses to the essay had, because I've spent my career writing and talking and thinking about gender and representation in popular media. In 2014, I'd been the feminist gadfly of an editorial department and multiple mastheads. I'd been a founding board member of an organization that existed to advocate for more and better representation of women and girls in comics characters and creators. And most of my favorite characters, the ones I'd actively seek out and follow, were women. Just not, apparently, the characters I saw myself in.

Now I still didn't realize it was me at this point. Remember: self-knowledge, not very intuitive for me. And while I had spent a lot of time thinking about gender, I'd never really bothered to think much about my own. I knew academically that the way other people read and interpreted my gender affected and had influenced a lifetime of social and professional interactions, and that those in turn had informed the person I'd grown up into during that time. But I really believed, like I just sort of had in the back of my head, that if you peeled away all of that social conditioning, you'd basically end up with what I got when I tried to draw a self-portrait. So: a pair of glasses, messy scribble of hair, and in this case, maybe also some very strong opinions about the X-Men. I mean, I knew something was off. I'd always known something was off, that my relationship to gender was messy and uncomfortable, but gender itself struck me as messy and uncomfortable, and it had never been a large enough part of how I defined myself to really feel like something that merited further study, and I had deadlines, and...so it was always on the back burner. So, I looked, I looked at what I had, at this improbable group of exclusively male characters. And I looked and I figured that if this wasn't me, then it had to be a result of the stories I had access to, to choose from, and the entertainment landscape I was looking at. And the funny thing is, I wasn't wrong, exactly. I just wasn't right either.

See, the characters I'd written about had one other significant trait in common aside from their gender, which is that they were all more or less explicitly, more or less heavily coded as autistic. And I thought, "Ah, yes. This explains it. This is under representation in fiction echoing under representation in life and vice versa." Because the characteristics that I'd honed in on, that I particularly identified with in these guys, were things like emotional unavailability and social awkwardness and granular obsession, and all of those are characteristics that are seen as unsympathetic and therefore unmarketable in female characters. Which is also why readers were assuming that I was a man.

Because, you see, here's the thing. I'm not the only one who uses stories to navigate the world. I'm just a little more deliberate about it. For humans, stories formed the bridge between data and understanding. They're where we look when we need to contextualize something new, or to recognize something we're pretty sure we've seen before. They're how we identify ourselves; they're how we locate ourselves and each other in the larger world. There were no fictional women like me; there weren't representations of women like me in media, and so readers were primed not to recognize women like me in real life either.

Now by this point, I had started writing a follow-up essay, and this one was also about autism and narratives, but specifically focused on how they intersected with gender and representation in media. And in context of this essay, I went about looking to see if I could find even one female character who had that cluster of traits I'd been looking for, and I was asking around in autistic communities. And I got a few more or less useful one-off suggestions, and some really, really splendid arguments about semantics and standards, and um...then I got one answer over and over and over in community after community after community. "Leverage," people told me. "You have to watch Leverage."

So I watched Leverage. Leverage is five seasons of ensemble heist drama. It's about a team of very skilled con artists who take down corrupt and powerful plutocrats and the like, and it's a lot of fun, and it's very clever, and it's clever enough that it doesn't really matter that it's pretty formulaic, and I enjoyed it a lot. But what's most important, what Leverage has is Parker.

Parker is a master thief, and she is the best of the best of the best in ways that all of Leverage's characters are the best of the best. And superficially, she looks like the kind of woman you see on TV. So she's young, and she's slender, and she's blonde, and she's attractive but in a sort of approachable way. And all of that familiarity is brilliant misdirection, because the thing is, there are no other women like Parker on TV. Because Parker—even if it's never explicitly stated in the show—Parker is coded incredibly clearly as autistic. Parker is socially awkward. Her speech tends to have limited inflection; what inflection it does have is repetitive and sounds rehearsed a lot of the time. She's not emotionally literate; she struggles with it, and the social skills she develops over the series, she learns by rote, like they're just another grift. When she's not scaling skyscrapers or cartwheeling through laser grids, she wears her body like an ill-fitting suit. Parker moves like me. And Parker, Parker was a revelation—she was a revolution unto herself. In a media landscape where unempathetic women usually exist to either be punished or "loved whole," Parker got to play the crabby savant. And she wasn't emotionally intuitive but it was never ever played as the product of abuse or trauma even though she had survived both of those—it was just part of her, as much as were her hands or her eyes. And she had a genuine character arc. My god, she had a genuine romantic arc, even. And none of that required her to turn into anything other than what she was. And in Parker I recognized a thousand tics and details of my life and my personality...but. I didn't recognize myself.

Why? What difference was there in Parker, you know, between Parker and the other characters I'd written about? Those characters, they'd spanned ethnicities and backgrounds and different media and appearances and the only other characteristic they all had in common was their gender. So that was where I started to look next, and I thought, "Well, okay, maybe, maybe it's masculinity. Maybe if Parker were less feminine, she'd click with me the way those other characters had." So then I tried to imagine a Parker with short hair, who's explicitly butch, and...nothing. So okay, I extended it in what seems like the only logical direction to extend it. I said, "Well, if it's not masculinity, what if it's actual maleness? What if Parker were a man?" Ah. Yeah.

In the end, everything changed, and nothing changed, which is often the way that it goes for me. Add a landmark, no matter how slight, and the map is irrevocably altered. Add a landmark, and paths that were invisible before open wide. Add a landmark, and you may not have moved, but suddenly you know where you are and where you can go.

I wasn't going to tell this story when I started planning this talk. I was gonna tell a similar story, it was about stories, like this is, about narratives and the ways that they influence our culture and vice versa. And it centered around a group of women at NASA who had basically rewritten the narrative around space exploration, and it was a lot more fun, and I still think it was more interesting. But it's also a story you can probably work out for yourselves. In fact it's a story some of you probably have, if you follow that kind of thing, which you probably do given that you're here. And this is a story, my story is not a story that I like to tell. It's not a fun story to talk about because it's very personal and I am a very private person. And it's not universal. And it's not always relatable, and it's definitely not aspirational. And it's not the kind of story that you tend to encounter unless you're already part of it...which is why I'm telling it now. Because the thing is, I'm not the only person who uses stories to parse the world and navigate it. I'm just a little more deliberate. Because I'm tired of having to rely on composite sketches.

Open your maps. Add a landmark. Reroute accordingly.

[foli-vora]

more than words, pt.2

A/N: Really wasn’t expecting that kind of reaction to pt.1 so thank you all so much for your likes, reblogs, kind words and support! I had a few requests to make a taglist so I’ve done it at the bottom - let me know if you’d like to be added! (and I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone) so - on with the show!

Summary: The one person who you thought would be happy for you finally getting with someone decent was your best friend. After all, he had set you both up. Who would’ve thought he’d be the reason it all falls apart?

Pairing: best friend!Benny Miller/f!reader, Frankie ‘Catfish’ Morales/f!reader

Word count: 1.7k

Warnings: swearing

pt.1 / pt.3 / pt.4 / pt.5 / pt.6

+++

You startle when your phone vibrates on the coffee table, the sudden and abrupt noise of it quick to drag your attention away from the true crime documentary playing across your TV screen. You eye it from your spot on the couch, so far, yet only a mere reach away if you could be bothered to stretch the distance. Your eyes fall back to the TV, happy to just ignore it and address it when you eventually have to move from the cocoon of blankets and pillows you’ve surrounded yourself with, but when the reminder alert sounds two minutes after receiving it, a small voice in the back of your head pipes up, saying it could be something important and you sigh tiredly.

The effort to move pulls a low groan from you and you stretch out, snatching the device from the table and back into the warmth before you could tumble onto the floor and really have something to grumble about.

Hey Benny’s mystery girl, how’s your night going?

The text sends flutters through your stomach, your hands immediately clamming up with a brief wave of nerves. This was the guy that Benny was setting you up with – an apparent very close friend and someone who clearly meant a lot to him. Why did you feel so much pressure to make a good impression?

Blankets, cushions and crime show now forgotten, you straighten up and let your fingers hover over the keypad in contemplation.

Do you play it cool? Act like you have a brimming social life, full of fun and endless options, and are not currently sat at home on a Friday night in your pyjamas watching Netflix, eating an excessive amount of snacks? No. No, you shouldn’t put a false image out there. Honesty is the best policy.

Hey yourself mystery fish. It’s a nice and relaxed night on my end, how about yours?

You leave it at that, briefly wondering if you should quickly chuck your phone on airplane mode, delete the message before it could go through and start again.

Did it sound boring? Is that the kind of image you were throwing out there? Maybe you should’ve acted like you were at least doing something productive. But then… what if Benny was there to call you out on your bullshit, knowing you literally have nothing better to do? He’d gladly do it, too.

You roll your eyes at yourself, wondering why you even cared what this mystery man thought about you and your weekend rituals when you had literally never even met. You were who you were, and that was that. If he didn’t like it, then he could take his handsome face and pretty brown eyes elsewhere.

I’m jealous. Stuck out with the guys and all I can think about is sleeping.

Scratch that. Maybe he was a man after your own heart, after all. A picture of a tray of tequila shots and lemons wedges comes through, another text quickly following which had you giggling quietly to yourself –

I’m too old for this shit.

You grin at your screen, opening your camera and snapping a quick picture of your blanket covered legs, snack covered coffee table and bright TV screen before sending it with a little smirking emoji. You’re not disappointed when he replies almost immediately.

Now I’m really jealous – are those Doritos?

Nacho cheese!

The one and only acceptable flavour. Is that Forensic Files? I binged the shit out of that the other day!

OMG it’s so good!

-

Surprisingly, your eyes didn’t feel as heavy as you thought they would when your alarm drags you from sleep the next morning. You could even say you were looking forward to waking up, which was not how your Saturday mornings usually played out.

Immediately you reach over for your phone and unlock it, smiling like an idiot at the Home safe :) text waiting for you. You chew your lip as you scroll through the many bubbles of conversation, stomach twisting in delight as you re-read through the topics you managed to bounce through in the few hours of texting before you had to call it quits at 2:14am and send a final – Goodnight Frankie x

You had paced your apartment after that, ringing your hands together anxiously and eyeing the clock as the seconds ticked past, scowling at your reflection in the mirror as you took your worries out on your teeth, scrubbing them much harder than necessary. Was a kiss too much? Is it too early for that kind of thing? You had only literally just started talking. Should you quickly text and say it was an accident? It’s not like you can say you sent it to the wrong person – the message had his fucking name in it.

The sound you made when you got a – Sweet dreams mystery girl x – in return wasn’t even remotely human and the words swirled around your head long after you fell asleep.

The reservations you had originally developed on being set up, yet again, quickly dissipated the longer you and Frankie exchanged messages. There had been no awkward block of nothing between texts, no dragging up mediocre subjects to keep the conversation rolling… it had just flowed so effortlessly, so naturally – something which had never happened before with Benny’s previous candidates. The only other candidate that you had managed to have a comfortable conversation with was Will, and that was only after you had both agreed that there was no attraction between the two of you.

Over text, Frankie seemed funny – quick witted and sarcastic – and often had you snorting into your drink over a comment or joke made at his own or his friends’ expenses. No, you weren’t even remotely hesitant about this anymore. If anything, your evening of conversation just made you that much more eager to meet him.

It’s much later in the day when you finally message him, having kept the temptation to message him at bay while you tidied up, keeping it short and sweet with a, How’s the head? You chew your lip, eyes flicking over the message with thoughtful eyes before quickly tagging a little kiss on the end and pressing send. Not even two minutes later, your phone goes off on the coffee table and the clammy hands return tenfold when you read over the message a good fifteen times.

Can I call?

Shit. Shit. He wants to call? And like… talk? With voices? What if you stutter? Choke? Oh god, your throat’s dry. It’s dry – how can you talk with a dry throat? You can’t. Fuck. Fuck. Drink – you need a drink –

You quickly run to the kitchen, filling a glass of water and swallowing it down as quickly as you could, not at all caring that it half spills down your chin and onto your jumper. You gasp for air when you finish, slamming the glass down and catching the drips of water from your chin with the back of your hand. You slide across your floor as you run back out to your couch and grab your phone, typing a quick reply.

Yeah sure.

Too casual. Was that too casual? Should you have added a kiss? Shit – it’s already sent. It’s fine. It’s fine. He asked a short question, and he got a short answer. It makes sense. It’s fine. You yelp when your phone starts to vibrate in your hand, his contact name flashing across the screen.

Oh God.

Oh God.

He’s calling. He’s somewhere out there, phone to his ear, waiting for you to answer and you’re what – standing in your lounge and looking at your phone, watching it ring, like an idiot? What are you doing?

You inhale deeply, clearing your throat a little before swiping the green icon.

“Hi,”

Oh God, what was that? What was that tone?

“Hey. Sorry – looking at my phone screen and trying to reply was making my eyes feel like they’re exploding.”

His voice is deep, hoarse from his night of drinking, and overwhelmingly pleasant to listen to. It brings a flush of warmth across your cheeks, an electric tingle across your skin.

You laugh softly, “It’s alright. Tequila wasn’t a good idea, then?”

He grunts quietly and your stomach tightens, throat suddenly dry again at the suggestive sound.

“It never is.” He groans, melting into a long yawn and you start to feel a little guilty. Did your text wake him up?

“I’m sorry, I should let you sleep –”

“No! No, it’s fine. I uh – I really want to talk to you… if you’re not busy.” He adds onto the end, almost nervously. 

“I’m not busy,” you reassure quietly, smiling shyly down at your lap. “I’m all yours.”

He chuckles lowly, and the sound settles deep in your belly, “Good.”

You don’t understand how conversation could just be so... easy with someone you’ve never met. For a brief moment, you worry you might be talking too much, maybe boring him, but when he keeps asking questions, encourages you to continue, you think that maybe he doesn’t mind, maybe he actually is just interested in what you’re saying.

When dinner comes around, you’re in a fit of giggles as you prepare your food, listening to pots and pans bang and clash on the other end as Frankie prepares his own meal. You cook together, eat together, and then settle in front of Netflix together, debating back and forth on what to watch. The evening melts into night, one movie turns into two, and eventually conversation dies down.

Sometime in the night, you roll over, briefly waking to fix and fluff the pillow under your head when a sound makes you pause. Your head jerks up and you look around, finding yourself sprawled across the couch, and a blanket twisted around your legs.

Glancing over to your phone to check the time, you touch the screen and blink in surprise when you see your phone call is still connected with Frankie, who’s quiet on the other end. You move to press the red button but freeze when a soft snore sounds from the device, and a warm flood of affection grows in your heart and spreads throughout your chest.

He’s asleep.

You listen a moment longer, smiling tenderly when more quiet snores reach your ears. Instead of hanging up, you bring the phone closer, tucking it just beside your pillow before laying your head back down and closing your eyes, letting the quiet breathing soothe you back to sleep.

If the strong butterflies turning your stomach were anything to go by, you were in serious trouble.

+

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