#more of my shitty diagrams

[frownyalfred]

writers: worried you’ll forget where someone is standing? just draw a crappy diagram! it helps I swear!!

[baejax-the-great]

[First, I was rereading "Agua Caliente" and I remembered a song that played a lot in my childhood (and I had kind of forgotten) bc the lyrics somehow matched the Patrochilles dynamic in this fic. This is kind of funny bc I would never in my life associate sertanejo (it's a type of country music, I think? Idk I've never heard country, but the aesthetic is kind of similar. Anyway, it's pretty popular here) with shipping an ancient Greek couple in modern AU, but ok. And I went to listen to this song again and now I'm listening to it on a loop, so thanks for that.]

Now the real question! It's perhaps a strange question, but do you plan what you write? Like, before you write, do you have the whole structured idea in mind? I could have sworn it was like that reading the fics, but then some notes on Ao3 and certain things you say on Tumblr started to make me reflect that maybe you don't plan as much as I thought… in that case, how do you manage to connect everything so well without looking like something was left out/without prior planning??? It's magic, technique, luck or actually do you plan?

Sorry if the question is a bit "???" but I'm REALLY thinking about this! I used to write fics years ago and I was in the "won't plan" group and as expected the fics came out obviously unplanned (but that was ok with me bc it was just to pass the time and I didn't expect it to be an engaging story or anything), and here's why this ask exists: it's precisely bc I was in the “won't plan” group that I'm really intrigued by the possibility of you NOT planning bc it just doesn't seem that way reading your fics...

The short answer is that I do plan what I write, but probably not enough.

I rarely start writing a fic with an entire idea. Often it's just a vibe. But I won't start posting a fic until I know exactly what the conflict is and how it will be resolved.

This was easy in ATG, for example, because I'd already written the resolution before I even decided to write the fic. Structuring it by Patroclus's age also helped, because I could make an outline with the stuff that needed to happen and then jam stuff I wanted to happen around it. That "Stuff" could be really specific--obviously Pat had to graduate school and Achilles had to go to the Olympics on specific years, and it was also like, this section should have them fighting. This section should have them getting along, but Achilles is hiding this big lie so there should be a weird tension.

In Sunset, it took me longer to figure out the conflict/resolution. Sure, I knew that Achilles was going to cry on a Chicago street corner and get naked in Pat's kitchen, but why was he there? How did he get there? I had already written Achilles settling in to Pat's place and the scene where he gets into the lake before I decided on Aphrodite being the key to explain this whole thing. Then I knew Pat had to die. But a lot of the stuff that happened in the middle was sort of on a whim (particularly Achilles getting on the wrong L train-that was definitely just an impulse I had while finishing that chapter). Tecmessa's chapter was also a later addition, and a deeply self-indulgent one, hah.

Agua was the least planned of these three, and in some ways it was because the idea was a lot simpler. After three years, Achilles runs into Patroclus again and they reconcile in some way. I knew exactly how Patroclus would feel about the whole thing (relieved, guilty, upset, wounded, hopeful, upset about feeling hopeful). My original plan was just to set up Achilles in his shop and his new life doing his best and have him run into Patroclus at the beach, and eventually they'd go to the desert. I wrote parts of their meeting first, and then I started writing the beginning and ended up scrapping most of that. I realized I was going to have to do a lot more writing for poor Achilles. My lack of planning here did cause some difficulties--I had like three versions of that date he went on with Pat with different endings. One involved Pat in the hospital, lmao. Zag and Meg coming to stay with Achilles were kind of whims, and I had meant to have Hypnos show up for "his turn" and have Achilles send him home because no, these were not team-building exercises, but then I forgot ��.

The reason that I need to know the conflict/resolution at the start is because I do think all the scenes in a fic should relate to it in some way, either by building up the conflict or setting the groundwork for a resolution. Even for the impulsive scenes I add just for fun, I think about how they can do this. For example, Achilles getting lost on the L allowed me to build up Pat's unreasonable anxiety, show that Ajax was also feeling it to some extent, and end in Pat saying "fuck it" and just giving in to making out with his hot, ancient boyfriend. It was also something that happened to a friend who was visiting me from out of the country and didn't have a working cell phone. That moment of watching him through the window of the L as it slowly pulled away is just etched in my memory.

In Agua Caliente, almost anything could relate to the resolution, because the resolution was "Achilles having a life," thus it didn't require as much planning. Zagreus's apartment getting flooded (something that happened to me in grad school) showed Achilles attempting to be flexible with some success while allowing himself to become closer to Zagreus, which led to a point of connection with his kids. It also made it easier to explain why Achilles was doing Zag's delivery that day when he ran into Pat. There were only a couple things that truly needed to happen in AC for the fic to make sense, and that was a resolution with Achilles' kids and then with Patroclus, of course.

I do get loose threads sometimes, side conflicts or things that didn't end up going anywhere, and those things tend to annoy me until I figure out a way to resolve them or make them otherwise relevant. Or I don't. Or sometimes I realize I need to add something/someone into the fic, and it would have been smoother if I'd added it in an earlier chapter so it didn't seem like a convenient thing I'd just thought of to solve a problem. That's always annoying to me. But whatever. It's fanfic. That's the risk of posting while you write.

[punmster]

having an existential crisis because I finally cracked and searched up a summary for Manacled and found out one of the DMSMG alternate endings (which I've changed before this) is like. kinda similar to it??

[neverendingford]

Therapists have two genders:

Professional Asshole and

Well-meaning Incompetent

[dawn-the-rithmatist]

*pokes you* narrative structure book rant?

Hi Lou, thank you for the poke, ily!!

Okay this can all be roughly summed up by saying that when you've got a book series, the end of a novel should really give you the feeling of, this story has ended, but the saga continues. And I read a few books recently that really left me with the feeling of, haha, gotcha! you thought you were getting a conclusion, didn't you, you dumbass! And I gotta be honest, that,, makes me very frustrated.

(To be clear, this isn't a "I hate cliffhangers" rant, because those can be really fun and effective... when they're used to continue a bigger story in tandem with the resolution of a smaller story. Hopefully that makes sense with the rest of the rant.)

I'm putting the rest of this under a read more so people can scroll past if they want to. There's what will probably become a very long rant below the cut :)

Okay, so with a book series, generally you either have an overarching story that stretches between novels, or you have many different stories that are somewhat unrelated, but based around a common theme/setting/cast/etc. In the second case, it should be pretty self explanatory that you want your individual novels to have resolution- you're not continuing those plot threads into another novel, so obviously you want them tied up.

But the other case... that's the one where I get frustrated.

Suppose you've got a story with an arc that looks something like this:

(I know this isn't how most plot diagrams look but i'm keeping it simply because this is me making powerpoint diagrams at one in the morning, please be patient with me)

Suppose you're writing a three book series that covers that bigger story arc. In that case, I would expect your books to structure out something like this:

Each book has its own exposition, conflict, and resolution, while simultaneously contributing to the bigger arc around it- the overarching plot of the series. The first book might be a bit expositon heavy, and the last might have some heavy lifting to do when it comes to resolving things, but overall, every book is telling a story within a story. Substories, if you will.

What I've been seeing instead that frustrated me so much is something like this:

In this one, I made each book a line segment, although it's not usually that extreme. Usually.

This is where you read book one, and they keep introducing things, and you can see the threads of a really interesting conflict, and then right at the end of the book, you get a whole torrent of events that leaves you feeling a bit overwhelmed and a bit lied to. The first book has no resolution- just a lot of exposition and a lot of introducing conflict.

Book two, by comparison, has a lot of the action of the series. It's where characters start solving the problems, confronting things, having their big "aha" moments. It probably leads up to some major confrontation, or a big cliffhanger- you're right on the verge of a resolution, and most of the heavy lifting has been done, but you're not. quite. there. Despite a lot happening in this book, it might feel a bit flat overall (see diagram), or it might not. It's probably the best book in the series.

Book three gets all of the resolution. I'm not putting a lot here about book three, because tbh I'm surprised if I make it through book two once I've been angry enough about book one.

Some GOOD examples of series structure:

Pretty much every cosmere series. Each one clearly has its own structure to it, even as it plays a bigger role in the plot of the series. Look at the Stormlight Archive! The Way of Kings is exposition heavy, but NO ONE can say that there isn't payoff for all that work by the end of book one. And The Well of Ascension could definitely be considered a cliffhanger with the things that go down at the end, but it's nonetheless a story that resolves, even if the series is clearly amping up.

The Scholomance! Every book has its own story going on, and the main conflict of the novel is resolved by the time the novel ends. There are still problems to solve, and they'll definitely be addressed- but the immediate problem has been dealt with.

Some BAD examples of series structure:

Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: End Game. I'm putting this here even though it isn't a book series because it just captures the point so. perfectly. You think you're walking into a superhero movie. They spend a lot of time building up this conflict, and more time building up fanservice and massive action sequences, and have this big moment of emotional payoff where you think they were able to stop Thanos, then- GOTCHA! They lose! Everyone dies! The end! Oh but don't worry, there's another movie coming out :)) NO. If you were going to do this, call it "Infinity War Part 1". Don't give us an incomplete narrative and call it a complete movie. AGH.

The Atlas Six. Gotta be honest, I didn't enjoy this one for a couple of reasons, but a BIG one was the way that it all felt like a setup when you got to the end. Without spoiling anything for folks who haven't read it, I felt like I had just read a prequel for a book that hadn't been released. A lot of exposition, a lot of time spent building up these characters and their interactions sometimes not very well, but that's a different rant only for it to be one big GOTCHA! at the end. It was like reading a comic expecting a superhero story, only for it to be the hero's tragic backstory, up to and no further than the point that they decide to do something with the cards they've been dealt.

Unless you're labeling something with "Part 1," people are going to expect a story to resolve, and when you don't deliver on that, they're going to be disappointed. It's the same way that you would be upset if you turned on a romcom, and got to the end without the two main characters ever meeting- although at the very end, you see them both walking towards the same coffee shop, so maybe something will happen. Eventually.

Whenever I see something like this, I often end up thinking to myself, "This isn't meant to be a first novel in a series. This is meant to be the first part in a several-part epic. This is a prologue that got turned into a novel so that people wouldn't be intimidated by the size of the book, or because trilogies are selling well right now, or whatever explanation you want to pick."

Let it resolve. Leave a few threads to connect to the next novel in the series, but let it resolve. The characters win the battle, but perhaps they're losing the war. The characters lost the battle, but they've discovered something that promises to turn the tide. The characters have solved the mystery, but there are a few things that don't add up and they're sure there's more beneath the surface. All great resolutions! All lead into the next story! But there's a whole lot of stories that will go for shock value and lack of resolution so they can get you to buy the next volume. And nothing makes me angrier at a book than when an author tries to pull one over on the reader instead of actually doing the work to structure a story.

[cizzle-freezy]

sometimes i think about how warrior cats is more or less harry potter for animal kiddos

[the-fuck-was-i-thinking-when-i]

my dad, seeing my unshaven and very hairy legs: wow

me (started process of trying to get prescribed testosterone):

[copperbadge]

Hi Sam. A potentially stupid question. Image descriptions for screen readers. Do they work the same way for audio and video? As in are they needed or helpful? I'm finding conflicting answers when I search for this.

Not at all a stupid question! I think sometimes it can vary by community, to be honest.

Screen-reader users, visually impaired folk, and others for whom IDs are particularly relevant, feel free to chime in; I'm going to ramble and you likely have more useful stuff to say. Remember to do it in reblogs or notes, as I don't post asks sent in response to other asks.

I'm not visually impaired, and I don't use a screen reader and thus am not really able to speak with firsthand authority. In the past, when I've asked, I've heard that in-post text is better than alt-text for images; even if that stops being the case, I prefer to use in-post text because there are people who aren't screen-reader users who also like the IDs. I do too, actually. And generally I've heard that video as well as image should be described. I don't do straight audio generally, but when I do, if it's a song I don't bother because the title is there and lyrics are googleable, if it's speech I like to see/give a transcript.

I like when videos have descriptions especially, because I am almost never in a position to play a video I see on my dash. If the video doesn't autoplay I don't want to hit play because then it will load with audio and I'm usually either a) somewhere I can't have audio or b) already listening to something and unwilling to turn it off. If the video autoplays it's muted, but if it's audio-heavy there's the same issue. So if someone posts a video without a description/transcript, unless it has captions, I can't engage.

There are a lot of guides out there for how to write IDs and I kind of think, based on conversations I've had, most of them are bullshit by people who don't use screen readers. In my experience, which is not universal but is relatively comprehensive, people who can't see an image often do not want a precise objective description as we're instructed to provide.

There's a great essay that touches on this, Against Access, where the writer, who is Deafblind, talks about how he doesn't want a diagram, he wants an emotional evocation.

Why are you telling me, telling me, telling me things? Your job isn’t to deliver this whole room to me on a silver platter. I don’t want the silver platter. I want to attack this room. I want to own it, just like how the sighted people here own it. Or, if the room isn’t worth owning, then I want to grab whatever I find worth stealing.

I've had people get shitty with me about putting "feelings" into my IDs, but the majority of people for whom those IDs are necessary have told me they like it because, for example, saying "She looks like she's about to commit violence" is a subjective opinion but conveys something that "A woman is standing with arms upraised and a frown on her face" does not. And if you're describing an image but there's not a ton of meaning to it, describing it in clinical detail is wasting time. A paragraph describing a fortysomething white guy and all the clothing he's wearing and the room he's in is not as helpful, on occasion, as simply saying "This is a photograph of me in my bedroom." It depends on context, which is your call to make, and the only way to get good at that is to do it.

But again: this is my experience with my readers, and even John Lee Clark, quoted above, doesn't speak for his whole community. So I would suggest that the best way to get an answer for this is just to ask your readers what they'd prefer. If you have friends who use screenreaders, ask them. If you don't, or if you don't get a response from your readers, I would do what you feel is best until someone tells you otherwise, and then be gracious and discuss it with them so you can better understand their needs. In my experience, when someone is genuinely trying to make a more welcoming space for disabilities -- as opposed to making virtue-signal attempts to Be The Perfect Ally -- they get a lot of slack when they don't get it exactly right. It is better to make a welcoming space for people to feel safe telling you that you fucked up than it is to pretend you're never going to fuck up.

So yeah, as someone who is more or less fully sighted, that's my two cents, but if you really want to know what your readers want, you know...I'd ask them. :) Good luck, either way.

[frownyalfred]

sometimes writing a plot is just scribbling nonsense in your phone until it makes sense again (aka, I know how pack bonds work, I definitely know what I’m doing)

[thirteenthdoor]

So if you know me from @dragoncityinteriordesign, you know that one of my great pleasures is making shitty, not-to-scale MS Paint diagrams of interior locations. Therefore, enjoy a quick-and-dirty layout of how the Obsidian house is supposed to work.

A few notes beneath the cut:

When I say "supposed" to work, I mean that sometimes the layout doesn't match the physical reality of the building. Ignore reality for a moment, though -- this is the layout, as presented by the show.

The house is only ever shot from the side that's on the left of the diagram. This has left me guessing about a lot of things re: how the right side of the house works, including the space I have tentatively marked as Nanzhu's office. Expect a different post about that someday.

There are four doors on the bottom floor. Two only ever open when they're being used to enter door worlds.

Ling Jiushi has an interior window in his room where he can look out and see through a hole in the second floor (helpfully marked "hole") that overlooks the little sitting area. I assume sometimes the other Obsidian members sit around down there in the hopes that he'll forget to close the blinds before he takes off his shirt.

I took a long time squinting at the exterior building to see if it was really the same as the interior. I think my answer is: yes, but not necessarily at the same time. Despite a couple incongruities and the annoying part where no one ever travels between the two in a single shot, the interior and exterior are just too similar not to be the same thing. However, there are some exterior shots that imply baffling things about the second-floor interior in particular. I'm assuming what really happened was that that the production had to build out the interior to their specifications, and many of the exterior shots were done before/after this happened.

The purple question marks at the end of the second-floor hallway are to indicate that we see Qianli slip back there like there's supposed to be more to the house that way. We never get to go back there, though, so there's no telling what it's meant to be.

Maybe it's the bathroom? I'm definitely disturbed by the lack of a bathroom. Fanfic writers, where are we putting the bathrooms?

...And obviously I am a trainwreck with keeping straight the book names and drama names. Look, you know who I mean.

[bonefall]

This may be a bit of a silly question but I’m trying to research this for a fanclan and I cannot make a fox’s tail out of the non twoleg workings

So how would you/Windclan go about reinforcing the tunnels? Used to think it was just ‘put a thick branch up there and every few fox lengths, it’ll support all that’ and that doesn’t seem quite right anymore. Please and thank you 🐈‍⬛

I'm gonna try and keep this reply simple and not get into the in-depth mechanics of digging holes, that's a post for some other time and I'd have to talk about depth and learn math and shit

So very simply putting it, usually, you would naturally dig square tunnels, and this is where all the tension of digging comes from. See, a square tunnel is really bad for physically holding things up, so beams are there to help.

Think about a tunnel kind of like building a bridge. The tunnel is a structure that needs to hold up the dirt above it. Really, functionally think about how many bridges are truly flat; it's not many! You want Arches.

And, it just so happens, a tunnel ALSO wants to be an arch. I'm not sure if I'm explaining this well so I drew a little diagram of a cave-in;

[ID: A drawing of a square tunnel with a dotted line showing the arch of where the dirt will collapse. It progresses into the second drawing of a rock fall, revealing the arch of the first drawing.]

Most cave-ins aren't the ENTIRE tunnel collapsing, it's the part of the tunnel that WANTS to be arch. Arches good. Arches are physically the best way for holding things up. Problem is that you can't dig like that without dropping however many pounds of earth on yourself.

So really, what you want is a beam, not just a stick in the middle of the hole. You want to put a beam from wall to wall, supported by two columns beneath. Like minecraft.

Other various things;

Older tunnels are, actually, usually more structurally sound. There's been more time for them to "stabilize."

The deeper the tunnel, the more stable. This is because the earth above the tunnel is packed in better. You do NOT want to open up a staircase downwards like minecraft, the entrance will COLLAPSE.

However, naturally, a collapse in a deeper tunnel is more deadly and severe for obvious reasons.

Just to state the obvious, sand bad. You do not want to dig in sand. Sand Bad.

Canon vastly overstates the severity of shallow tunnel collapses. Cats will die in less than a foot of dirt :/ There's this part in DOTC where Jagged Peak activates a quicktime event and a burrow collapses on him and it was so profoundly stupid it's been in my head ever since

suffocating in an old animal burrow... girl... do you think rabbits are constantly dying in collapses? genuinely? In soft soil?

Gray Wing is like, "you almost out bro?" and Jaggy-P is like, "ya im coming" and then WHOMP. DIRT. thats not how this works thats not how any of this works

And as a final note... the problems with WC's portrayals of shitty parents aside, it actually makes perfect sense that Tallpaw would think his father Sandgorse is a lunatic for feeling safe with going right back in after a collapse. Tallpaw doesn't know that some kinds of cave-ins actually make the tunnel more safe, but Sandgorse, an experienced digger, would.

(unfortunately the writers don't know this. but i do.)

[jellybeanium124]

pathetic vent post lol

so the thursday before last, one of my coworkers told me she's quitting bc she got a job in the field she wants to have a career in. I was happy for her and told her so, but I also felt kind of sad, because she's a woman close in age to me and I've been thinking we could be friends if I wasn't technically her boss for a little while now. so finally near the end of our shifts (we were closing) I buck up and ask if her she'd want to exchange contact info and stay in touch and hang out after she left.

and y'all she looked so happy and excited to be asked that. absolutely 0 hints that her delighted response wasn't genuine. so she puts her number in my phone, and even takes a silly picture for the contact pic, and I send a test text and she responds to confirm it's her correct number.

on monday I text her about hanging out later in the week, with ideas. on tuesday I text her again, with new ideas if she didn't like my first ones. I didn't mean to double text two days in a row.

nothing.

I wait till yesterday and send her one last text, explaining that I really do wanna be friends, I am more chill outside of work and she's only seen Work Nina if that's what she's worried about, but that I don't wanna bother her.

it's been over 24 hours now, and nothing. part of me wonders if she changed her mind and blocked my number.

it's just really disheartening because I've had another person string me along and then not respond/continually cancel on me pretty recently. after my college friend group broke up thanks to the serial sexual predator (which is a whole nother story, dw he didn't do anything to me, in fact he refused to talk to me the first time we met when I introduced myself and tried to make polite small talk, and I realized several months later that he didn't engage with me at all because he didn't wanna fuck me 🙃) things have been kind of dire in the irl friends department and it's sad and pathetic and I thought finally here was a girl I really connected with, and she liked gossiping with me at work, and she seemed really really excited at the possibility of being real friends with me, and then nope... not a single response to any of my texts. zip nada zilch.

it's just hard... I was basically socially rejected by everyone in my film program at my uni, then I finally started to make friends at the jewish club and a serial predator with an apartment full of guns who sells stolen lego sets on ebay and does cocaine ruins that, and then I'm at work and now that I'm a manager I'm the boss of most people there and I wouldn't be close friends with most of them anyways and the one girl who I think I could be really close friends with fucking ghosts me after I was brave enough to ask if she'd wanna be friends. it's been like five straight years of rejection for me. I always had friends in k-12, I wasn't a "popular kid" but I was well liked among the venn diagram of gays, nerds, theater kids, and band kids and I had a lot of friends in high school. I don't fucking know what happened. and now I'm on meds that are finally giving me energy and happy chemicals so I wanna go out, I wanna do stuff, I wanna walk around, and I don't wanna be an apartment slug anymore but I don't have anyone to do anything with and there's only so much fun you can have by yourself. and I'm still too shy to go to a bar alone because I know I'll stand in the corner paralyzed by social anxiety. I'm trying bumble bff rn but I'm so shit at responding to people and I kinda hate myself for it and I'm trying to do better but I keep not responding to people for too long and yeah maybe my ex-coworker is stuck in that cycle too idk.

oh yeah and the whole past year of antisemitism makes everything worse because I'm deeply realistically afraid that any goyim I meet are going to be hateful hamasniks <3 so that's a fun lil bonus.

jesus man... idfk. it's just shitty. it's just fucking shitty.

[boreal-sea]

I studied American & British government and politics at a level, and the first thing we covered was electoral systems because they are so *so* awful.

The way I try and explain it to people who are struggling to understand FPTP is imagine a group of 10 people are deciding on a snack.

Your choices are:

Packet of ready salted crisps.

Packet of salt and vinegar crisps.

Packet of peanuts.

3 people pick ready salted crisps. 3 people pick salt and vinegar.

4 people pick the peanuts.

So 60% DONT pick peanuts, that's less than half. But EVERYONE gets peanuts. (And what if someone who voted crisps is allergic to peanuts? Tough. That's what everyone gets)

The electoral system is fucked. But if we replace the Dems with salt and vinegar, an Independent with ready salted, and Republicans with peanuts. It shows how Easy the Republicans can get a seat if you Don't vote blue.

I hope this helps people who struggle to get why not voting blue is a vote for the Republicans.

In my country (UK) the Conservatives (that's like your Republicans) don't have a majority of votes even though they have the majority of seats in Parliament.

(This doesn't take into account your absolutely fucked electoral college that doesn't make sense, sorry,,, I struggled to wrap my head around that)

Yeeeeaaaaah our electoral system is so, so fucked on LITERALLY every level, which is why it's so god damned important that we vote blue no matter who and that we don't do anything to damage people's willingness to vote blue. Republicans make sure the system is incredibly stacked against marginalized voters, because marginalized voters know that voting blue is the only way we get to cling to rights. We literally cannot afford to lose even a single blue vote.

On the bottom level, on the basis of the voters, Republicans use our system to fuck them over in many ways.

Restrictions against individual voters

Many states having difficult voter ID laws designed to prevent marginalized people from voting. These voting laws are implemented by Republicans. So there's a bunch of Democratic votes that never get cast.

Next, each state and city run by Republicans often do things like removing voting locations, making it harder for marginalized people to vote by making it harder for them to get to polling locations and making the lines in those locations longer. Marginalized people are often lower class, and it's almost impossible to get a whole day off to stand in line to vote, therefore, these people often have no choice: they can't risk their job to go vote. So there's more blue votes that never get cast.

Also, many of those states have restrictions on absentee voting, which could be a solution for folks who can't take time off to vote, but because absentee voting is made purposely difficult and confusing, it again restricts people from voting. More blue votes lost.

Those are just the harms done to individual voters by Republicans. We haven't even gotten to voting districts yet.

Voting Districts

So the way the electoral college works is that everyone's individual votes are first funneled up to voting districts, and then those districts are tallied to decide who won the state. The problem is, human beings draw those districts - and Republicans like to drawn them in very shitty ways that ensure marginalize people's votes don't count as much.

Look at this. That third diagram is what happens in states all across America. Anyone who thinks the USA works on a "one person, one vote" system is wrong. You do not directly vote - your vote is tallied as part of your district, and that total is what determines who wins the state.

And then you have what happens at the state level, because the system continues to fuck over voters.

The Electoral College

You thought it couldn't get worse? It gets worse. Each state has officials called "Electors", and they are the people who actually cast the true vote for president. Now, legally, in many states, these Electors are legally required to cast their vote for the candidate selected by the districts in the state, but in some states they technically could just vote for whoever they want. They don't, because they'd never win reelection, but still.

So, ok. How many Electors does each state get? Is it based off something logical, like population maybe? Kind of. Every state gets 1 for each Senator (so a total of 2) and then 1 for each congressional district - and the number of congressional districts a state gets is based off population.

This system, unfortunately, ends up giving more "weight" to voters from less populated states. Some people claim this is good, because it means those states will still have their opinions expressed in government. Other people note that land doesn't vote, and it's completely unfair a small number of voters get to basically override the choice of a majority of voters.

So, a candidate has to win 270 of these electoral votes to win the election. Notably, the electoral college results do not always match the "popular vote" - that's the 1:1 vote of the people. There have been several situations where the majority of individuals in the USA voted for candidate A, but because of how the electoral college works, candidate B won instead. The last two times this happened, it was Democrats who lost. Most recently, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by over three million votes, but lost in the Electoral College, so we ended up with Trump.

Summary

If any of my followers are confused, I get it. But hopefully, you will also see now how incredibly stacked the system is against minority voters specifically because they're more likely to vote Democrat. Maybe now you will see that Republicans basically have to cheat at every stage of an election to win, and that if we actually had fair elections in this country based on 1:1 votes, Republicans couldn't win.

And maybe, hopefully, this will make it clear why it's so fucking dangerous to tell people to not vote for Biden. We are walking a razor thin wire across a chasm of jagged rocks, while Republicans laugh and throw fireballs at us. They don't want the system to change, because it benefits them! Every voter we successfully get to the polls is a win for us and a lose for them.

Please vote. Please vote blue. Please vote for election reform.

[jolalibrary]

ii. coffee + fruit

javier peña x dea! f!reader | chapter two of nowhere to run

Summary: Determined to do it better this time, Javier Peña returns to Bogotá to take down the Cali Cartel. With a new promotion, office and team, what he doesn’t expect is the pretty thing outside his office—or why they’re not allowed in the field. chapter warnings: season three narcos spoilers, no use of y/n, mild use of a codename for story purposes. wordcount: 5.5k an: as always, a huge thank you to @guyfieriii who talks me down from panic, and @yeyinde who listens to my insane plans

He finds that spot on his forehead, thumb and index digging—massaging into his skin and bone. The edges of himself, frayed, stressed—teased to the point they could almost pull away and crumble as he walked past your desk.

It’s empty. The half-drunk coffee still there. 

You’ve not been there for a while. Not since earlier, when he should have looked away at the sound of raised voices, instead of honing in on them. Something wrapping around his insides—

“You got a minute, sir?”

He listens, even if he doesn’t. He hears the important parts: Miami, Cornerstone. He also hears the noticeable slap of the file on the rest of his files—the ones with your post-its and notes all over. 

“What’s this?”

“A shitty diagram.”

He stares—feels himself glaring. Ridding it, hopefully before the agent can even notice it. A reaction he blames on a headache, even if he knows it has more to do with earlier. 

“What’s your name?”

“Fiestl.” 

Javi chews it. Staring up and down at him. 

“Chris Feistl.”

He smirks at the rest of his speech. That same gnawing feeling rising inside of him, half-hoping the man in front of him isn’t the reason you’ve been hiding, but heavily suspecting he is. 

Javi likes shooting him down, he realises, when he watches that same kicked-puppy face stretch across the man’s features—the same way it did when you muttered whatever you did under your breath. 

It’s only as he crosses the office, hoping to rid him—when his eyes land on you through the blinds. Thankful you’ve made another appearance, looking somewhat more you than you had done earlier. Coffee firmly in hand—chewing the inside of his cheek. Relaxing him—having not needed to go find you. 

“Nice office by the way.”

He snorts. Realising quickly how fucked he was. “Thanks.” 

Yellowing light woke you as it bled through the open window.

The scent of him still clings to your skin. All Marlboro smoke and ambery wood, blended with the sultry scent of whiskey and something you suspect is just him. 

It was easier to leave. 

To watch his eyelids grow heavy, sliding from under his arm and dressing in the silence of his government-issued apartment. You’d thought about staying, about the morning when he’d wake and likely feast on you for breakfast. How good it would feel, how good he is. 

You’re not young and impressionable. Good sex is good sex, not an invitation to begin manifesting and dreaming about a life together taking down narcos. 

So, it was easier to leave. 

To burst the fantasy before it could begin growing, amassing into something which would involve hurt feelings from either side. 

You do this a lot?  Fuck my boss? No. Have you seen Stechner? I just m— Don’t lie to me, Peña. It’s beneath you. 

You weren't quite sure what to classify last night as, but guilt began to peck at you, all the same. It made you consider things. Turning them over in your mind under the low pressure of the shower…

Maybe you should have left a note. Something. Anything. 

Although, when it boils down, you’re not entirely sure what the appropriate messaging even would be. Never having needed to do it before. Maybe it never happened to him either. 

He struck you as a man who did the leaving over being the one who was left. It crossed your mind, only then, that maybe he wouldn’t take kindly to being greeted by cold, undisturbed nothing. 

From what you knew—outside of the rumours and the intern—he didn’t tend to fuck his colleagues. That thin line is the one he drew. Javier Peña didn’t like to shit where he eats. The thin line, though, has been erased, kicked away until dust covers it. 

Your soap slowly rids you of his scent, his touch—leaving only the blossoming-welcome bruises and the soreness. The only thought which began to appease you as you turned the water off, is that judging him or not, he didn’t appear to have a reputation that screamed he’d ever left a note himself. That and the fact you owed him nothing except professionalism. 

You’re late. 

Not late for the start of your shift, but when you’re usually in. People have come to expect you around sunrise. Not today. Today, you’re greeted by some of the agents beneath you, their smirks being the evidence of your unexpected time in. The gossip already likely fluttering around, half-expecting the whispers to chirp before you’ve even removed your coat. 

If you were a man, it wouldn’t happen. 

They wouldn’t bat an eyelid if Peña walked in draped in two women. It was a thing reserved for women. The shame-guilt. The whispers behind your back, trying to act as though by doing it in a low voice, they’re doing you a favour by keeping back what a whore they think you are. 

Because usually, you’re the one to turn the fluorescent lights on. The only one making noise in the large expanse. But, there’s already chatter when you throw your bag in your drawer. Your phone is already ringing before you’ve even made a coffee.

It is distracting. It smothers wandering thoughts and any chance at regret. It’s only when you’re making your final note for him, all set to sit down ready to consume the coffee when you see him. 

And time slows. 

Everything around the two of you almost stops as you let yourself take him in. Meet those same eyes which had almost cut your clothes off last night. He doesn’t look embarrassed or regretful, but sorrowful. No spark in his eyes, no twitch of his lips—two things you’d been washed in by the time you reached his place last night. 

You should tear your eyes away as he nods at someone and heads in your direction. You should stand up, hand him the notes and a coffee—unsure why you’ve even stopped to stare. 

Your legs have other ideas, already carrying you to him. Watching him trace his eyes up and down you like he didn’t have his fill of that last night. Acting normal, no smirk, no blush of his cheeks, as though he didn’t have his tongue, cock and fingers inside of you hours ago.  

You should be happy. Grateful. 

It isn’t as though you like mess or complications. It had churned inside of you on the drive in, hands wrapping around the steering wheel, unsure if you’d made things difficult. If you’d blurred the complicated lines before they’d even really been laid out. 

You take his wrist, lifting it as you coax his hand around the mug, looping his fingers around the warmth. His touch sends sparks up your skin, along your fingers, and forearms all the way to your chest. Ones you have to ignore. Ones you pretend aren’t there. 

Because he’s like fire. He burns, but you welcome it. 

Like you did last night, over and over again. 

Your throat goes dry, watching as he brings the mug to his lip. Your mug. The one you hadn’t drank from and craved more than anything. 

“Morning.” 

It comes out normal, but it’s forced. Trying to banish any sound of indifference, hand grasping at some papers before you turn to walk alongside him, matching his strides. 

“You have a meeting in ten—which I’d do your top button-up for. There’s also a file on your desk, less important than the meeting, but more important than the phone calls you need to make.”

He looks good. 

Something you had noticed before sleeping with him—not able to help but acknowledge it, even if you hated it. But now, having seen him more undone, more walls torn back, it was hard not to look for longer. Linger. Let your eyes trail down from his eyes to the slope of his nose, to his lips— 

“Fuck. This is good—“

His eyes widened, taking another sip of the drink. 

Your hand tugs on his elbow to stop him, keeping close to him as you smile. “Look. Tell anyone, and I’ll cut you.” 

“About last ni—“

“No.”

It comes out like a squeak. Something which quickly warms your cheeks and ears, tugging your shirt into place, swallowing back further denial. 

“The coffee,” you continue, straightening your spine. “I don’t—I don’t care if you climbed a desk and told everyone I fucked you senseless last night. I do care if everyone knows I have a stash of good coffee.” Your head tilts behind you. “They’re feral—fucking… animals. For good casework and for good coffee.” 

For a second, he stares. Just stares. His mouth opened, before closing. 

He’s hard to read. Even when you know so much about him. Some things are easier, like the things he wears. The shame—the need to do right. Even if he blurs the lines, even if he gets lost along the way of finishing the task at hand. Other parts of him are harder, hidden behind thick walls of concrete you don’t expect to ever see past. 

And yet, it makes something bubble in you. Something you can’t place, but really hate.  

His hand twitches though. Not the one around the coffee, the one limply at his side. The only sign that your nonchalance is bothering him, his eyes attempting to claw through you the same you’re doing to him. 

“Drink up,” you say, licking your lips. “You’re gonna need it.”

“That bad, huh?”

“It’s with the Ambassador.”

“Shit.” 

Draining the mug, you take it from him, handing him the file in your hand. “Try to smile, Peña—you make it through this, I may be able to give you a bigger reason too.” 

“That so?” 

You smirk, and he has to know how warm your cheeks are. Must be able to feel the heat from them through the air as you avoid his eyes, hating the impact his words have. Two simple fucking words. 

It’s dangerous, the game you’re playing. 

Red lights flash, a warning tone sounding in some dull recess in your mind. 

“Yes,” you smile, with equal wickedness. “I’ll take some of your paperwork from you.” 

He rolls his jaw, smirking in return. 

“What?” you ask innocently. “Something else on your mind?” 

You wondered if he hoped. 

If he’d woken up and stretched his hand out to find you, to pull you close. From the small window into his life, he was insatiable. Good. Knowing exactly where too… 

Shaking your head, you smile. “Just so you know, I’m also good at things that don't involve me being naked.”

He doesn’t say anything. 

“Plus, I already saved your ass. I delivered the news and not Stoddard.” You stop at your desk, putting a distance between the two of you. “Well, I’ll be here if you need me.” 

He nods. 

Just nods. 

You’re a coward. 

Even if you’re not ashamed, even if you had been happy you went home with him. You still hid. Flipping between your desk and the file room.

The fact both Dan and Peña, plus Stoddard, had fucked with your filing had proven a blessing in disguise. Your hands itching to put it right all day, thankful whatever the meeting this morning was, it kept Peña behind glass. 

“Hey.”

You know the voice before your eyes land on the face. It's ingrained into you. A voice you used to love, but now makes your blood boil. Quickly, you try to rid the heat from your cheeks, lifting up to watch him—the former lover: the romance that ended in disaster. 

He wipes his mouth before he leans down on your desk. 

Even now, all you can think is Chris Feistl still has a cute smile. That and the fact you like the way strands of his hair fall over his face—just like they are now. A slight urge, the slightest need, to brush them from his face rose inside of you. 

In the same way, you had done before things got complicated, before when things were wonderful and lovely—before they went up in flames. 

You always wondered how hard it would be to get over a breakup when you were confronted with it every day. Having always been thankful your previous relationships ended as you were required to move, whether across the states or to a different country.  

It’s hard to ignore what you have learnt quickly. Difficult to rid everything, such as the mug on your desk that was a gift before anyone knew you were both a thing. Knowing that when you walk past him, he’s seen the lingerie you’re wearing under the clothes. That he’s the one you had originally bought them for—the one who peeled them off your skin while dinner bubbled messily in either one of your two’s kitchens. 

It hadn’t been him who ruined them the other night. 

That had been the man to the side of her—the one surrounded by glass and wooden blinds. The one you’re hiding from. 

“So… you good?”

Smirking, you put your pen down. “You walked over here to ask me if I’m good?”

He stares for a second, reconsidering his words. “You didn’t answer my call… last night.” 

You bite your tongue, leaning forward. Remembering. 

Recalling how you’d cancelled it at the bar, and again before you left the bar…with Peña. How his lips had ghosted over your neck as you dug your hand in your bag to silence it. Ignore it. His teeth grazing your—

“I know that you’re strong, but I also—“

“I’m fine, Chris.”

His silence is damning. The air is tightening as you stare, hoping he doesn’t push, silently hoping he doesn’t. The two of you having spared mess and more pain than needed. 

“You don’t have to lie to me. I know. I know that you’re not doing as well as you… like to let people believe.”

It’s instant, the way a cold chill spreads down your spine. Your lips straighten before the words meet your ears, knowing how this is all going to go. 

“I know you’re not eating, so I can only assume you’re not sleeping.”

Your body knows before your brain does—the hold on your chest tightening, pain spreading like ink across your heart, poisoning and squeezing.   

Him calling it out—the panic, the memories, the fucking nightmares. 

“Some of the guys said you were in late—“

“Will you keep your voice down?”

Your eyes cast to the side, finding narrowed brown eyes staring at you through the blinds. Ones which you hold for a second too long. 

Ones who seem to be assessing the situation quicker than he should.

Chris leans closer, likely so the whole office doesn’t begin its idle gossip again. It does that. 

Breathes and spreads ideals and rumours quicker than a virus spreads in a hospital. You can feel the eyes through the blinds now, the ones watching—studying, trying to understand the office dynamics and who knows who. 

“I just don’t want you to think you’re alone, no matter what’s happened—happening—between us—“

Standing, you place your palms flat on the desk. “—Stop. For the love of my sanity, please can you just stop, Fiestl.”—“

“I know you chose to end things but I still want—“

You shove him. Lightly. Two fingers at most, not even likely to bruise—but enough to make his words shrivel in his throat. Your eyes, burning holes into him.

“You know what, I was with someone,” you say, snappier, harsher than your previous words. “Last night.”

They hit the air like bullets. Piercing into him and the air. It washes over you both—your confirmation, your acknowledgement. They shatter the space between the two of you like glass. Watching as his eyes acknowledge your words, temporarily frozen before his jaw tightens and his teeth grit. 

You’d sympathise if he hadn’t pushed. It is the sole reason why you don't shift your expression, keeping it firm, and rigid. Feeling the pair of eyes in your back, the ones behind the open door—having likely heard every bit of his speech. 

“I told you to stop.”

He nods, reeling back, standing—running his hand through his impossibly thick hair as he forces a laugh. All half-hearted, weak, as though the air had been punched from his chest. “Yeah. Yeah, you did.” 

“I’m not your problem.” 

He frowns, tilting his head. “You’ll always be my problem. I—“

“Please, s-stop.” 

It’s less this time. It cracks out of you. Voice shaky, more tinged with threatening-to-spill tears. 

His words fade, vanishing—disappearing into the air without truly being spilt. So much more on the cusp of his tongue, but you stare until he swallows them. Watching him instead nod. 

It pricks at your heart. Hating how it makes the part of you which had already healed, throb. It hadn’t been easy, as much as you pretended it was. But, it was better to pretend than to acknowledge how car-crash-like their argument had been. How it began as one thing and ended as something neither of you both could come back from. 

Everything good having wilted when you’d gone to Cali, coming back to crumbling roots and sharp-edged memories. It had been wrong beforehand, tainted. But, it had worsened, leaving behind nothing but death and the ghosts of what once was. 

“I have work to do, so if you’re done...” 

“No, I’m d—“

“Good.”

You straighten fully,  moving past him as you head to the bathroom. Feet moving you around bodies and desks. Waiting for the inevitable.

Thankfully, it slams into you when you’re on the other side of the door.

The thread he’d unpicked with his words. I know that you’re not doing as well as you’d like people to believe. Feeling your throat tighten at the memories, how you bristled at the feel of the door on your spine. 

Seeing them—the cold, dark eyes. How even though you know they aren’t here, they’re staring at you as stones cut into your knees and weeds tried to wrap around your ankles. The sight—the blood. The crimson staining your hands, knees and soul as helplessness stole your facade, confidence and belief. 

It makes you weak. 

Makes you crumble from the inside, out all over again. 

Shifting to dust, turning to something opposite to the training you’d taken to be here and more of a shadow of someone you once knew. Something you know they’re waiting to see—the higher-ups. The ones who are desperate to be proved right. 

Then, when it’s raging through you, ripping apart the carefully placed threads and walls that keep you up straight, you’re flooded with grief. 

The nightmares that have bled into the moments you’re awake. Its grip on your chest tightens, restricting—hand grasping at the cold bathroom counter as you will yourself to snap out of it. Shakily turning on the tap until cold water slams into your skin—

It lessens. 

Looking up, meeting the mirror, seeing only thick tears that have carved into your cheeks. Sweat pebbling at your brow, your mouth taking in copious breaths as you slowly find you can stand straight. 

Shame vibrates in your bones. That and tiredness.

You've spent the better part of your day darting through an array of emotions—all of which had given you whiplash—and made it hard to smile.  

You had taken a while to resurface from the file room, awkwardly holding a mug up to Peña through the blinds once again—noting how the office had emptied.

It’s nice, the silence. The lack of ringing from phones, fingers on keyboards and low-murmured chatter. It’s even nicer seeing the glow the setting sun casts over the place, casting shadows. Not needing to glance at the clock, you know the hour is late. Is time to be going home, even if you’ve stayed far later than this on so many occasions. 

You have to show him you’re okay, even if you’re not. 

Even if you’re barely held together by the threads you usually are. 

The aftershocks of your panic ebbing through you. Small little wobbles and pricks to your eyes, followed by a slight gasp as breath is lost. Worsened by your anger when the news hit the office. 

That once again a mission went sideways. That two more agents were going home—and that someone they put in a position to lose something, happened again. Under it all, like the low hum of a song from a distant radio, you thought of Cali.

You’re used to them, the thoughts, the panic—having slowly become the norm. Yet, they’re rarely here, rarely ever embedding into your day—they normally wait until you’re in your car or at home. Appearing like ghosts when you’re alone, when there’s very little to distract you. 

On another day, you’d likely have handled it better. But, Chris had done a number on you. He had bruised you, in some ways. Knocked you off your confidence and thinly-veiled pedestal you climbed up onto to appear like the same agent the rest of the office knew before you came back.

You don’t have to pretend with him, though. It’s why you stayed in the bar longer than you should have. Why you didn’t bat his palm away from your knee and why you traced little shapes with your nail against the back of his hand. 

Peña didn’t know you. Likely didn’t care too—not that you want him to. 

Feelings are messy. A tangle of things that would worsen as and when you were sent home. If you grew too attached it would hurt when the inevitable crashed down; if you remained distant, it would lead to awkwardness and more office dramatics. Neither of which you wanted—having already ticked both of those of yourself not that long ago. 

Your eyes catch Van Ness and Chris’s new desks, the ones they’d moved into before the seats of the other agents were even cold. 

It pecked at you, the day. It wove under your carefully constructed armour and threatened to showcase who you were—a fragile, half-broken soul haunting a place you used to run. The thought niggled, swirling, capturing other feelings in its wake until it grew larger and larger. 

Blinking, you stared as the pot brewed. Finding it all of a sudden hard not to acknowledge that the first time you’d stopped thinking—outside of drinking and the few hours of sleep you were given—was when you were with him. That he had fully engrossed you, not allowing you to sink off to any recess or corner to drag up old demons and shadows to ruin what it was. 

You place the coffee down in the centre of his desk. Taking a while to drag your eyes from the steam spiralling up into the air, watching it softly before it’s lost to the air. Each silvery twirl captures your attention until all you see is caramel chestnut. 

Then you see the rest of him, trying not to let your mouth drop open at the sight of him. 

He’s removed his jacket since you’d asked him if he wants a coffee, his hair far more tousled—likely from pulling at it, something you’ve seen him do all too often. The cause for the dryness in your throat is the sight of his top two buttons undone. His tie loosely hanging, his finger probably having stuck in the knot and yanked it down. 

It almost cracks you. Makes you almost forget how to breathe, stomach tightening—wanting to spread through you as it reminds you of last night—his phantom touch spreading across your hips. Even if he’s safely behind his desk, not touching, breath not dancing across your jaw. 

“Everyone else has gone.”

His hand gestures to the chair opposite his desk, one you know you shouldn’t sit in—should head back to the file room or go home before the stars come out. But you sit, slowly too.

It would be a lie to say you hadn’t noticed the same thing countless women did. The angle of his jaw, the way his eyes hold yours, as if you’re the only source of light in a room. You’d just hoped to be better than the other women, able to snap out of it—keep a respectable distance. 

“They do that. Go home at the end of their shift.” 

He snorts. “Not you, though.” 

“Not you either, Sir.” 

Watching it land, that three-letter word is like a shot of caffeine to the veins. It makes his jaw shift, his eyes try to inconspicuously drag along your frame. 

“Look, it’s likely not any of my business, but…” you look at him, watching him play with the ends of his tie as he meets your eyes. “I didn’t ask earlier, you alright? Looked heavy—the conversation with—” 

The lump appears before you can stop it. Before you can think about willing it away, it shifts at the last second. 

“Fiestl. Which, I suspect you already know his name,” you smirk, crossing your leg over the other, “But yeah, it’s fine. I’m fine.”

The most honest you could be. Your half-smile meeting his, hoping it soothes him—settles him. 

“You two date, or something?” 

It surprises you, somehow. Prickles at you, makes you sharpen and straighten your spine. “You jealous or something?” 

“No.” 

He says it too quickly. Only realising his mistake a second too late, the same regret you felt at instantly snapping at him. 

Clearing your throat. “Sorry… I just, we did, yes.” 

He nods, and the way he leans his head back in acknowledgement makes you notice how drained he looks, how withdrawn—how sunken. 

“This your coffee or the offices?”

Twitching your lips, you relax again. “Try it and find out.”

His eyes narrow, his lips shifting across the front of his teeth as he offers that slow smirk-smile he does. The one he did so much last night, once whiskey had loosened him and humour had let the weight from his shoulders lessen. 

“How’s your bad day?” 

He half-smiles with a snort, hand swiping over his jaw as he sighs. 

Because you know how hellish it has been. You’d seen it, heard it—watched it ripple across the office. 

Clearing your throat, leaning back against the chair, you tilt your head. “No one’s going to blame you for Duffy and Lopez. For one, Duffy is real a dick.” 

Folding his arms, he mirrors you. Leaning back, not even moving for the coffee. “You know the right words to make me smile, cariño.”

Smiling, you look down. Needing too. It almost catches you off guard: cariño. Makes your tongue heavy—forcing your thighs to push together as your mouth drops open. Dawning on you that this must be how ‘sir’ makes him feel. 

Then, like rain on a beautiful warm day, you begin remembering why you left this morning—why you’d told yourself it was the best thing, and yet here you were undoing it. 

The air puckers, ruffles and wrinkles as no words are spoken. The steam from the coffee continues to swirl, performing a dance neither of you are paying attention to. His eyes are on you, and you’re firmly on the spot on the floor, warming under his gaze—wishing you knew what he was thinking, and yet wishing you didn’t know him at all. 

“I left because whatever… last night was, it wasn't serious.” 

Flicking your eyes up, you expect contempt. Instead, you see understanding.

You see softness, shame—but you suspect not because of the act itself, but rather because he understood. 

“Because you know so much about me or?” 

Your watch as his forehead creases, waiting expectedly for your response. His fingers run across his jaw as he stares, more in waiting than anything else. Your eyes staring at his index finger, remembering—recalling. 

“Because I’m really not that person, Peña. I know people say that, and they usually don’t mean it. But, I didn’t expect coffee and a piece of fruit this morning. And I really couldn’t stand the idea of having an awkward morning conversation when we’re both naked and wondering if the other regrets it. Which I don’t, by the way—regret it.” 

He slowly takes the coffee, fingers wrapping around the white porcelain, a stark contrast in size as he keeps his eyes on you. Assessing you, trying to peel back layers and uncover things. 

You’re smarter. You’ve had to be. 

Already hard enough fighting amongst other agents for a shot, never mind the fact that so very few of you make it to Bogotá—least of all women. 

Throwing up walls, you quickly hide the complexities that make you nervous, the things which keep your adrenaline heightened and your nightmares prickling close to daydreams.  

“I wouldn’t.” 

“What?” 

“Keep looking for a secondary reason for why I left you in bed,” you say with a knowing smirk. “There isn’t one. I just prefer my own bed.”

Smirking, he brings the cup to his lips, pausing as he stares over it and through the swirls. “Guess next time it’s your place then.”

You have to laugh, to hide the heat in your cheeks. “Cute, Peña. Real cute.” 

He takes another sip, a larger one—rich flavours of herbs, nuts and chocolate flooding his tongue. “Fuck, tastes good.”

It’s a bad idea.

That’s what you think. What instantly follows behind the other thought, the one on the tip of your tongue, the one you should hold back, but—

“Odd, not the first time I’ve heard that in the last 24 hours.”

Whatever the air was doing previously, it stops—and something far worse replaces it. Something heavier, thicker. Something which makes your body thrum and his eyes momentarily widen, before darkening—almost obsidian in shade and so shiny, you almost slip on them into his soul. 

He places the cup down. The ridge of its base echoing all around the room in the silence—it like a note, spreading through your ears and leaping from bone to bone. 

You watch as he drags his thumb across his bottom lip, shifting in his seat, leaning more over the desk. Not taking his eyes from you for one second, as though by blinking you’ll vanish. You should. You should excuse yourself before you give in, before you snap and bury yourself in him until every other emotion is muted and easy to stuff away. 

Dragging his tongue across his lip, the corner of your lips twitching at the sight. 

Folding your arms, you smile. “What you thinking?” 

“That I shouldn’t do this.” 

It’s natural, how you slowly sigh. “I’m very aware, I’m not even informing you of anything.” 

Glancing at him, finding the light catching his dark eyes, how they look like pools you, all of a sudden, want to slide into them—drown in them. 

“Also thinkin’ how we shouldn’t repeat it.” 

Swallowing, you lift your chin. “No. We probably shouldn’t.” 

Standing, he drinks you in, slowly moving around his desk. Each step, he doesn’t take your eyes off you. The gap is shrinking and shrinking. 

It’s not until he’s in front of you, leaning on his desk, foot nudging against yours. “Is it bad that I want to...” 

“That good, was I?” 

His fingers brush over his chin, and you feel it—anticipate that in a second you’re going to snap and be pressed against him. You are almost holding your breath. Needing it too. The way he has already silenced things, stilled the nerves in your body. Afraid of showing that you want nothing more than it.

“Yeah, cariño. You are.” 

You shift in the chair, staring up at him, counting—not sure at what number you’ll either close the gap or leave. Would it be ten, twenty, fifty—

You don’t get past five. The ring of his phone cuts through the air. 

“Shit.” His eyes slide from yours, staring at it. “Do not move.” 

You smirk, listening to him answer before you slowly stand. Your legs feel like lead, trying not to let his frown halt your movements—because you shouldn’t do this. Listening, hearing him say his name, short, sharp and breathless.  

His one-sided conversation blended with the ghostly whispers of gossip likely to come. The ones which worsened when you came back from Cali—the ones which follow you.

You're at the door as you hear him, his voice a little louder—a little more stressed. 

“Wait—I’ll call you back. Hey.”

Spinning on your heels, you meet his odd expression face on, slowly walking backwards in pursuit of your desk—your coat, bag and keys—until his fingers lightly touch your forearm. Thumb around your elbow, soft, gentle—almost surprisingly so. 

“You’re right, we shouldn’t.” 

“Words rarely ever said to me.” 

Smirking, you almost roll your eyes. Almost. “Take it as a sign, then. Your phone call saved you from another thing to get in trouble over.”

His mouth clamps shut, a thin line appearing between his brows. The same one you saw when he was sleeping, and you dressed in silence. The one which you’d wanted to run your finger over and thin out, take it with you, leave it in some distant part of the city for someone else to wear instead. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, sir?”

“Less of the sirs.” 

You pause, half tempted to just close the gap and be done fighting him. “Why? Worried about something.” 

His lips curl. “I’m tryin’ to be decent.” 

“How’s that going?”

“Fuckin’ poorly.” 

You smile. “Goodnight, Peña.”

He doesn’t nod, not until his fingers remove themselves, one by one, sliding from your forearm. 

Wanting to stay. Wanting nothing more than to press your lips to his.

“You owe me a coffee.”

He doesn’t smirk, but his lips try to. “And a piece of fruit?”

Shaking your head, you grab your coat, and then your bag. “Night, sir.” 

“Night, cariño.”  

chapter three ->

[thesupernaturalhouse]

Sooo, world building stuff!! Rewriting hells hiarchy, mostly for the hellborn cause I really don't see the difference between imps, hellhounds, and hellborn.....I don't get it, why is there a difference in ranks?? Idk, and I don't care, so I just merged them all

Cause I always thought imps were just the wrath rings hellborn while the hellhoudns were the gluttony hellborn. Again, I don't see a difference between the hellborn-

Anyways, small list of the rings respective hellborns in my au

Pride: cannibal colony

Wrath: imps

Lust: succubus/incubus

Gluttony: hellhounds

sloth: goat-candle

Greed: skeleton jesters & reptiles(snakes, sharks, dinos, etc)

Envy: deep sea fish

Are the cannibal colony hellborn? Apparently not, unless Rosie is the only hellborn out of the entire colony

But it makes a lot more sense if they were hellborn so :/ my canon my rules!!

Moving on, I guess technically merging them does change some stuff, I mean, not really, but like- the 'pounds' are just normal orphanages, some are shitty, some are good, it depends what ring their in; pride has the worst, gluttony has the best

Pride has the worst due to the sinners being around and, of course, distruction happens. Gluttony has the best because that's where the hellhounds originate, so they got more say over what happens; sloth is all about Healthcare so their for #2, Lust is #3 since consent/safety and all that, wrath is all about family so #4, Envy is #5, and Greed is #6. With pride be 7 ofc

Greed surprisingly has okay pounds, mainly because Mammon- despite being a shit employer, loves his niece, not that he'll ever admit it, and Charlie uses that to get him to do stuff; he claims he's just 'bribing her in advance'....he is not, but again, he won't admit it

Thats...literally the only diffrence and it barely makes a diffrence

Anyways, what I feel like people ignore with they critique the hierarchy that sinners are constricted to the pride ring, so they are only above the hellborn in said pride ring and even then it's only in terms of power

Which is part of the reason I hate it when people complain about sinners being above hellborn cause like...they are only confined to the pride ring, they are only above the hellborn in the pride ring and that's due to them getting powers/form based on their sins

It goes Lucfer; Lilith, Eve, Roo, Charlie; the 7 sins; Goetia (who don't have a native ring btw); hellborn

Add roo and eve cause i think their supposed to show up eventually, and I think they'd be on par with Lilith, tho Roo might be above them since she's the literal root of all evil, amd Charlie is probably above all 3 of them since she is part angle.....doesn't matter to much, ignore my ranting

Anyway, I got a little diagram in the works right now, so hopefully, you guys will see that soon, it just for fun and world building, I'll honestly probably have a chapter in the fic for an info dump about said world building as a B plot probably

[wisteriasymphony]

The LuckyBug Miracle Team Sucks - TWEOS AU Analysis

(4 individuals who don't work for their miraculous, and 1 person that does)

Just to start off, yes, I am analyzing my own work. Nobody really has the same depth of information on this other than me, after all. I want to get more into these sorts of things, because I like to organize my thinking behind the choices I make in this fic, and maybe even draw people into my work as well!

Lucky Lucky Ladybug - Viperius - CARA.PACE - Renared - Chat Noir

These are the five main holders of the LuckyBug Team before CN quits at the start of TWEOS. We're going to be talking about why most of them suck at their job (but mostly why Lucky chose terrible miraculouses for her peers), starting from worst to best synergy.

Viperius - Snake of Intuition

The ideal holder of the Snake Miraculous is someone who is level-headed, wise, and capable.

Luka Marcel Couffaine is the exact opposite of all of these things.

In TWEOS, Luka Couffaine is as far removed from empathy as humanly possible, making him a terrible superhero in general, much less one with a power as important as interrupting the flow of time. Luka never goes out of his way to explore his abilities, rarely involves himself in battle unless forced to, and put more thought into giving his superhero form a sexy haircut than into being a good teammate. He is explicitly only a superhero for the money it brings in even though he is already the son of a world-famous rockstar. Luka is not intuitive or wise, he is shallow and self-serving.

More Suitable Miraculous: None of them. Maybe the Mouse so he can multiply and go fuck himself.

CARA.PACE - Turtle of Protection

The ideal holder of the Turtle Miraculous is someone who is stable, sacrificial, and steadfast.

Nicolas Ibrahim Lahiffe, unfortunately, falls short of the mark.

While not as outwardly shitty as Luka, Nino also lacks the right qualities in an effective superhero. Nino is the type of person who, as Quinton Reviews once perfectly put it, "would rather be chill than be right". Nino is laid-back and likes to show off with his Miraculous, enjoying how cool it makes him look while still helping out at the end of the day. ...But he's not exactly protective. If anyone even stood up to Lucky being physically abusive, it should've been him. But Nino does not protect the weak, because he is the kind of person to stand on the sidelines. Nino is not a source of stability, he's too much of a laid-back (and often cowardly) jokester to protect anyone.

More Suitable Miraculous: Monkey, Pig.

Renared - Fox of Illusion

The ideal holder of the Fox Miraculous is someone who is cunning, sly, and witty.

Aaliyah Thérèse Césaire is trying so hard to make it work, but is underserved by what she's been given.

If anyone in the team has the braincells, it's Alya. Alya can draft up plans with her Holo-Illusions like second nature, strategize on the fly, and takes to her ability to make diagrams out of thin air like a fish to water. ...But that's not what the Illusions are for, is it? As natural for her determined nature, she strives to bend her miraculous to her will anyways, rarely ever using her Illusions to actually distract and more to help her with her thankless job of the actual team leader. It makes sense that she would function this way, though! Alya is a proponent of the truth through and through, and is rather blunt often to the point of being brutally honest. Alya is not cunning, she is forthright and stubborn. If only she got a miraculous to reflect that.

More Suitable Miraculous: Ox, Rooster, Bee

Lucky Lucky Ladybug - Ladybug of Creation

The ideal holder of the Ladybug Miraculous is someone who is creative, compassionate, and clever.

Marinette Anne Louise Dupain-Cheng is this in all the wrong fucking ways.

It does take a creative person to formulate a plan to woo your celebrity crush with a perfect version of you. It takes someone who knows how to be compassionate to so effectively deny a shred of it to Chat Noir. It takes a clever person to make up a fake eulogy. And yet, at the same time, Lucky Lucky Ladybug is hindered by her hot-headed entitlement and her need to be the center of attention. She lets her team do the creative work, weaponizes her compassion as something to market herself with, and is somehow so caught up in her own world that she ignores evidence of Adrien being a relationship when it is staring her in the face. Marinette is best described as an embodiment of "creation" only in the sense that she will one day orchestrate her own undoing.

More Suitable Miraculous: Anything would be better than the Ladybug. That way she isn't brainwashing people anymore.

Chat Noir/Errant - Black Cat of Destruction

The ideal— Actually, let's break from convention for this one.

If anyone is fit to embody Destruction, it is Adrien fucking Agresté.

Once you get deep enough into TWEOS, Adrien is by far the most emotionally turbulent character out of any of them. It helps that the narration is so often colored by his input, but his range is exceptional and takes up a significant focus of the story. He is the mostly openly self-destructive and suicidal, romanticizing the idea of dying with his girlfriend, but is equally willing to destroy others in pursuit of his goals.

It's also worth taking into account that TWEOS is essentially a corruption arc. The whole point of the story is to witness his circumstances tear him apart, unearth his traumas, show a version of Adrien that becomes bitter and violent and vengeful. What power would suit a vengeful, violent person better than the power to destroy things?

Conclusion

In short, it's meant to be incredibly ironic that the only holder that truly embodies their miraculous is the one that quits. The entire ordeal is a stageplay put on by higher powers, of course it's more important to them that their puppets are obedient more than anything.

Of course, this isn't to say that synergy between a person and their miraculous is a good thing, either; That's what makes the eventual magic-induced insanity even worse, after all. This is what killed Emilie, what's ruining Marinette's relationships, and what is starting to happen to Adrien as well.