#one sad because i cant find a copy of the book

[skeleton-under-ur-bed]

I often forget there are people with the same interests as me in my country, earlier I was at a bookshop and found out not only is good omens out of stock, a lot of people also have been looking for it

[leisureflame]

"I CANT THINK"

If you write, I assure you you have thought that.

Fear no more child, for I have found a solution.

it's called Rapid writing

something we learned when I was in 9th grade drama class and I cannot emphasize enough just how effective it is. Its actually what gave me the idea for my first book.

Stop what you are doing and do what I tell you

go grab either a pencil and paper (or open an empty document)

set a timer for 2 minutes

ask a friend to give you a random sentence. I have a few examples that I myself rapid wrote to: a) I looked around and saw b) the old lady hung from the ceiling and laughed c) purple paint dripped from her long purple fingernails d) there is a hole in my ceiling. e) when I am sad I... f) When you close the door, I... g) there is a wooden door with a gold doorknob

Now the most important thing is not to think of this sentence before you start writing. as soon as you decide which one if you are choosing from my examples (or as soon as you hear it if you are getting if from a friend), start the timer.

start writing the sentence and without hesitating just keep writing. the #1 rule here is to not stop or hesitate for a single second until the 2 minutes are over. you can write nonsense if you want and if you REALLY can't continue then write some random words for a couple of seconds then continue AS LONG AS YOU ARE STILL WRITING.

another rule is that you are not allowed to delete. even if its a spelling error, just ignore it.

after the timer is done, I promise you will have something to work with. now copy the paragraph you wrote and paste it below, here you can start fixing spelling errors and adding things at your own pace because now the creative side of your brain has opened.

don't think about the way you are writing or the words you use, think about the story you are telling. the idea.

Sometimes you will get something beautiful and deep like I did here:

When I am sad I go to my blanket, not many people know about it, all they think is happening is that a child likes to cuddle in a blanket, but no. my blanket has a special thing about it, it is a magical blanket, well, not the blanket itself but the embroidery on the blanket, it simply takes my sadness away but it adds the story of my emotions to the embroidery, my blanket is a very pretty one, it is a pastel blue color and it has so much silk embroideries that you just think its patterns, but it isn't, if you look deeper you will find stories every one of those stories came from someones tears... my tears. whenever i cry, i wipe my tears with my blanket and my pain goes but my story stays.

or

there is a wooden door with a gold doorknob on the door there is a painting of you, and there are many locks on the door from top to bottom, when you open the door, there is a mirror. this door is the door to self discovery, from the outside there is a painting of how people think you look like but when you open the door, you get to see what you really are in detail and look at yourself they way you want to, you can smile or cry and the refection on the mirror will change but on the painting, it doesn't show ur emotions, just how people see you usually.

or you can get something so stupid like i did here:

there is a hole in the ceiling in my classroom. everyday a dinosaur would a pear and eat my lunch and i keep coming home hungry but my mom dsays she packed me enough food. so she didn't feed me. i told her a dinasour was eating my lunch but she said that disasours only live in Norway! so i went into the school vents looking for that idino and revenge my food, we met at last, held our weapons, i was holding a subway sandwich and the dino was holding a bana na MY BANANA  i lost it, so i attacked him one hit on the head and the whole species were extinct , people thousand of years from now said dinos got extinct because of a meteorite but i know better, also i am still alive because whoever kills a dino becomes immortal, also i killed my mom for not believing me and let her starve in her grave just like she let made me starve. and then i killed everyone who was a flat earther because i hate them and now i can kill anyone once i tap them with my super subway sandwich 

(by the way, ignore the horrible spelling, the examples i gave were from the unedited version.)

THE POINT IS ITS ACTUALLY SO HELPFUL. you can use it for a new story idea (i used the blanket one as an element in one of my WIPs and it helped the story a lot) or if you get something stupid like the dino one I wrote THATS GOOD THATS FINE because now you have your creativity going.

I challenge you to actually try this and PLEASE share it with me I LOVE reading other peoples rapid writings. have fun <3

tagging @cosmosandcapybaras24 @ajsbookshelf @gloryofdawn, @chaoticharmony93 @deception-united and anyone else who's interested to try this out and share with me!

[5five5five5five5five5five]

Pls headcanons of a flirty dolores [human] and five .

Trying to forget "that season".

Denial stage activated.

Pls and thank you.

Good day/night.

OOOHH YES! but first i want to write a human Dolores of my own then we can get to the flirty stuff. * she is in her mid 30's and works as a librarian who LOVES books and is very smart and pretty and perfect.

she is MADDENINGLY in love with the Noir detective novel series " Five "max" Hargreeves and the Umbrella of Time. a long running series about a Old man who turns into a young man some times and solves crime with his dog Mr. pennycrumb. * she hated that when they turned the books into movies, they hired a actor that looked NOTHING like how she sees him in her head. Five looks like how she sees him in her head. she cant pinpoint why it bugs her so much. its just wrong. thats not him??? * one day well sorting books, she no clips into the backroom subways and gets stuck. idk how. s4 logic aka make shit up. but she thinks "what would Five do?" and copy his mapping and travel style. * and then they meet......Jesus my kinnie ass heart melts even thinking about it lol. * "five?!" "Delores?!.....are you..real this time....." "wait how do you know my name??....and yes i am very much real? are YOU?" "how do you know MY name?? and yes??" then they nervously chuckle and tell each other how they know each other. * they get a bit sad that the others Delores and five were not real and five admits he got the better end of the stick by being a cool book character....she didn't deserve to be just a......mannequin. but Delores reassures him that his life needed her and that's what gave it so much value. "and at least you got to physically hold me~ i just had....really embaressing art of you...." *Delores drawing him then she thinks he's not looking. she wishes he was a bit older but her self shipping ass is used to his age "powers" but knows this Five cant turn back. at least he's not 13 Five lol. *he's tried to explain his age situation a few times.... shes so understanding about it and five, for the first time, feels seen....and got does his face get red. she knows he's a old man. she loves him BECAUSE he's actually an old man. ANYWAY TO THE FLIRTY STUFF. MY BRAIN IS JUST ON FIRE WITH HUMAN DELORES. * they CAN NOT stop looking at each other. five feels so stupid being THIS flustered. its not his wife. he knows this. but god....shes so stunning. younger then his Delores but he doesn't mind. * she's taller then him no matter what. she was taller then him when he was old, young doesn't matter. shes a tall women and he loves that about her. *her always behind his shoulder correcting his math. and him huffing and admitting shes right. *she likes to head to him. he likes listening. hearing her voice with none of his own voice fused in is so refreshing. he would read his head in her lap and just relax for once in his life. *them slow dancing and mumbling soft words of comfort to each other. *she loves booping his nose. at first, it bits him because the handler used to but ends up finding it nice. its a trait she would have. *he loves watching her move. dance. walk. talk. shes in front of him. again, their eyes are glued to each other and its hard hard not to. just knowing their loves are real keeps them going. *that art meme of all the lovestruck chibis surrounding a very flustered person. that's Delores if she walked into the deli. imagine all the fives looking over and melting in surprise. crumbling in their seats because they are filled with "i miss my wife,tails" energy. the five we are following for this post has to fight them back and give protective glares well she admits the attention is nice and oh god! so many fives! *when five finds a way to return, he doesn't fucking hide it and want to introduce her to his family so bad. she is worried about ending up in a different timeline. he understands the risk but at this point, he just wants the love of his life. and Shes so starved for adventure that she agrees wholeheartedly.

sorry if this wasn't all flirty themed stuff, i just really wanted to write Delores.

[70swizards]

remus hcs i’m begging

your wish is my command

my remus hcs :)

he’s hyperlexic, he learned to read and talk really really young by copying sounds around him (echolalia) and associating them to the written language

he’s trans :((( it’s one of the many reasons he and reg bonded so well in like third / fourth year (in an au where canon is… well… nothing)

has the worst daddy issues on the planet, like idk but if my dad locked me in a freezer every for hours durinf my most vulnerable nights i’d definitely feel the same-

he wears armbands starting third year and Never takes them off, his excuse being “it’s a fashion statement”

lowk needs glasses but will never fucking admit it or get his eyes checked, he's always Squinting while reading and ends up getting headaches

refuses pain meds because he's built tolerance and is afraid to for other meds

his eyes display so much emotion, and they're often covered by his hair (cute little sandy ringlets) the moment he's sad or embarrassed or uncomfortable you can tell by his eyes

so insecure of his scars he's constantly trying to hide them

when he gets the big scars across his face in fourth year, he stops looking at people while talking, he always finds a way to seem busy or distracted, but he just can't get himself to keep looking, he can't let them stare

his hugs were just as warm as those fucking jumpers he always had on. he Hates physical touch, mostly from trauma, but if you're a close friend and manage to get a hug from him you will become an addict.

he will never buy anything his size, always larger. even if he's constantly wearing a binder, he doesn't think its enough. in summer its oversized tees and armbands, in winter its jumpers

so unnecessarily sarcastic it's hilarious. he will Always have a retort ready, count on it

he's constantly biting his lips and making them bleed, and it gets far worse when he's anxious

uses baby perfume (zwitsal) so he always just smells clean and soapy rather than a signature cologne scent (because transphobic parents and he couldn't ever get himself to put on "feminine" scents, he's cry for hours and have to shower, but could never get cologne, so... middle ground)

he drinks his coffee with so much milk and sugar you quesrion if you could even count it as coffee at that point

adores drinking tea before bed, a habit he built after effie woukd make him her chamomile tea for his stomach aches when he’d stay over in the summer, and irs just so much better in the winter

has so many freckles, like everywhere. thehre so concentrated on his shoulders

cant see himself ever ruining a book by bending its pages and breaking the spine (yes he annotates and people think he’s writing down incredibly intellectual things when most his annotations are just him calling characters gay) but is disappointed when his books don’t look worn out when he’s done reading them

is Always wearing socks, you’ll never catch this man without them, and Yes he sleeps in socks

always wearing a million layers, he gets cold so fast irs hilarious

okay that’s enough for now but i coukd go on forvever istg, so sorry for the late response bht thank you for sending something in! <3

[aggressiveworldbuilding]

i hate elves.

i say this, having played an elf before so i know why powergamers like them. there is nothing wrong with enjoying the aesthetic of 'twink with a sword' or 'elven accuracy go brrrr'.

but having read the 'elf book' (i think it was the same book as them releasing all the new variants of tieflings? i cant remember now) i was underwhelmed.

Elf lore is that they are basically No Name brand Tolkien elves with none of the interesting, ethereal bits and all of the xenophobia. Which - wanna preface this - there is nothing bad about exploring themes of discrimination in ttrpgs. It just. has to be handled with something other than misinterpreting or straight up copying Lord of the Rings?

I cannot for the life of me find the book it was in, but i remember reading that elves want to travel back to their homeland or feel a call to the beyond or something like that. Which is just. LotR elves but less interesting.

My main issue is that elves in WotC worlds offer nothing new to the genre. They are generic, easily digestible, bland ass creatures. I'm not as familiar with Pf2e lore but at least they actually bring up the problem of different lifespans in their description. Also! Elves change in appearance in pf depending on where they live. so we don't NEED 700 different kinds of elves.

Doing a cursory glance at a wiki (which is sad that only Fandom has info on WotC. one would think they would care more about their lore.) I get this.

This is everything they have on the general culture for elves. If i click into the lore sections for Sun Elves, it provides me with a little bit more - which is nice.

only issue is that Sun Elves aren't a thing anymore.

The most expansive lore for elves is. Drow. Eughhhhhh spider sex cult.

anyone who knows me irl has gotten the Drow Rant before; but recently I changed my mind. I don't hate Drow for what they do - but rather how it is presented.

Drow are an 'Evil Race' - although not Naturally Evil like Orcs (which was wild to read and i have a bone to pick abt that)

Yet their lore emphasizes that 'all' drow have a massive superiority complex, a lack of conventional morality, are vengeful, taught to be power hungry, and mistrust everyone around them - even the ones that don't want to be 'evil'. And you know what?

Thats rad! I like that!

There is a non-perfect society that doesn't always get along with itself. Granted the reason they provide as to why Drow haven't just killed each other is kindof a cop-out but with very minimal tweaking you might actually have something. The only thing i don't really like abt drow is that there is no 'good' or redeeming traits about them. Culture is 2 sides of the same coin; for every horrible policy, there was something relatively good. Maybe their judicial system is tight. Maybe they have great infrastructure. Idk but I want to know more.

i should make a post abt them.

Anyways TLDR: Elves deserve better. I find them bland because they are just empty husks stolen from Lord of the Rings, and half their lore no longer applies to modern dnd. Drow are the only semi-fleshed out elves and that scares me bc they are a spider sex cult. ;/

[enigmaticdiary]

and so i have been thinking thoughts...

elicited from the new trailer. copy and pasted from my discord cause i do all my thinkin there n_n;;

claudia + louis

when i think back to the book and the movie claudia was obviously an extremely important turning point in louis' life but it never felt like she was... the center of it you know? despite the fact that she was that glue that kept louis tethered to anything human in him.

but the book felt like he was just telling his story to be a. Sad pathetic man thing for the sake of it. cause he had no purpose to exist alone. to exist without claudia or lestat (or armand but their dynamic is. different and dicier) but after claudia is killed something about her presence and the years she spent with louis while alive felt... shrugged off in a way? and its likely because she didn't really have much of an identity outside of him and lestat which is understandable because she was significantly more vulnerable in the book than in the show, so she lacked that autonomy to have that choice to exist outside of them.

and when madeleine was brought into the picture for her to get that autonomy it was unfortunately already too late...

~~[mild separation of thoughts because i left to take a shower]~~

theres a few things i want to mention. just thoughts in my head. claudia dies fighting HARD for her autonomy as a person and a vampire. in comparison to louis who in all honesty has (DEBATABLY) lived without a shred of having his own autonomy. with lestat, lestats love (as claudia very smartly puts it) keeps him in a box. louis is financially dependent on him as a black man in the jim crow era once he loses the azalea, hes cut off from his family, he has NO ONE.

the brief time of just him and claudia is a good moment in time for both of them , trying to discover vampiric history together(tho in the show it looks like before they get to paris its gonna be absolute dogshit in comparison to the book), but in louis' case i feel like its guided by guilt and some form of obligation, because if he didnt go with claudia–who was already set to do this traveling alone before lestat dragged her back–where WOULD he have gone? stayed in new orleans with lestat in the dump just waiting to crawl out? i think he would sooner kill himself if he was left alone like that.

with armand…………… loumand is definitely better than loustat in extremely complex ways that i cant put into words right now but simultaneously even worse because of HOW armand preys on louis. there is absolutely love between them and i wont deny it but armand is so INSANELY dependent on the love of others to give meaning to his existence that he leverages louis' weaknesses and frailities to ensure that they will spend an eternity together. like he was plotting from the second he met louis and claudia. he kills claudia and madeleine, which then makes louis kill all the other vampires of the coven, so that there is no one left, NO ONE for louis to be able to turn to for solace.

i think that him remembering what actually happened to him up until the present is so important to him because he'll finally be able to realize that he hasnt been allowed to properly exist for himself the entire duration of him being a vampire. and maybe he can decide what he wants to do, for himself.

devil's minion... (in the present)

[these thoughts are referring to a tweet that wonders if armand is going to end up alone in the end. note: i am not versed in devil's minion lore. i'm getting there but as of this post i have not reached it]

saw this [the tweet] and audibly exclaimed GOOD

i love armand but the guy is genuinely evil and has wronged every single character hes come across including lestat which i find is hard to do

I know ppl are excited for armandaniel and devils minion but Im not..going to lie ive been REALLY skeptical of it and how it would be explored in the context of the show without severely wronging louis and doing him EXTREMELY dirty.

people are allowed to like it in the bubble of the books but theres a really big shift in dynamic for the show in the fact that ... armand has definitely done... Something to daniel and louis, of what i cant say. but with the way that things are going, an ending in which daniel sides with armand after finding out exactly what armand did to louis and claudia in paris does NOT sit well with me?

and i love loumand but I am so uneasy about the inevitable breakup in regards to whats gonna happen AFTER it. I feel like daniel now is wise enough to not chase after a guy who is diabolically selfish and broken and leave louis behind to live out the vampire fantasy dreams of his youth. and in the trailer too im getting. Loudaniel vibes in terms of reconciling their past with the previous interview. And Heres my theory for Devils minion BUT ITS LOUDANIEL INSTEAD OF ARMANDANIEL (1/689)

[butchtwelfthdoctor]

got carried away writing a book review of the day of the doctor so here u go i guess

the episode itself is. fine I guess. there are some good moments & its fun seeing ten & eleven interact and there's some good angsting etc. like the episode is fairly solid even though it does that typical moffat retroactively-changing-massive-parts-of-canon thing that he liked doing. its not perfect but whatever, there are lots of good bits! The Novelisation. Is. Dare I Say Kinda Bad.

(also I should point out that this is written by steven moffat who was the showrunner and wrote the script for the episode like he should know what he's doing)

it starts off with the doctor narrating in a typical slightly silly pretentious fourth-wall breaking kinda thing and you're like okay this is sort of cool yup very eleven that feel like him. the narration switches between the doctor talking about himself in third person cos a) that's how books work and b) he's just Like That but will slip into first person in select moments to show he's getting caught up in remember events or his feelings and the idea is that you're reading it on psychic paper & it's being beamed into your head telepathically or whatever and that's cool!! that's a good idea!

HOWEVEr. there are three (mainly) versions of the doctor in the book the war doctor the tenth doctor and the eleventh. and YOUD THINK THEY JUST CALL THEM WAR DOCTOR TEN AND ELEVEN like normal people but noooooooo depending on whose pov you're in he gives them all silly nicknames based on how various characters perceive them which is really hard to follow, or just call all of the The Doctor, which is their name yeah but like ??? which one is talking???? you kinda have to guess sometimes??? added to that is that there are shapeshifters in this one so there's another layer of 'is this the real guy or the Copy Guy' as well as BAD WOLF being there (who isn't rose, its bad wolf, but it isn't her either because it's a sentient superweapon that's talking to him that just LOOKS like rose.), there's just all in all a lot of Multiple Versions Of The Same Few People which can be hard to keep track of. like it's just confusing to read sometimes. not too hard even if the endless silly nicknames for ten & eleven get annoying a bit.

and there's a bunch of inconsistencies too (and yes I know I know this is the who needs continuity show) between this and the episode and I guess moffat can do what he likes adapting his own stuff but he kinda missed out some good bits? doesn't even have the 'this is his grunge phase' line and some of the stuff that makes ten and eleven's dynamic so funny but has all these random extra scenes of kate lethbridge-stewart and osgood that are just ?????? we didn't need that there??? it wasn't reeeeally adding anything??? and in the episode ten and eleven cant see bad wolf/rose/the moment ar all but here they see it for a bit?? but like no reaction really from either of them even though ten at LEaST should have had a visceral moment of loss there or something. idk.

and then at the end where there's that curator guy who is tom baker and its kinda I think supposed to be ambiguous as to whether its really four or not or some kind of coincidence but in the book it's like 'ahah! i was really narrating as four all along!' but like how is that even possible sorry I know this is the time travel show but why is he there and what is the implication? i think it's cos 11 says 'oh I could retire and be a curator' and then four is all old n stuff and Is the curator but like???? he regenerated?? is this a ten/fourteen type situation of the far future like a decade before they came up with that and then why is four in 2013??? what?? idk did they just really really want tom baker in it?

and then there's more foreshadowing of peter capaldi as twelve and then ten says 'i don't want to go' again which you're supposed to find sad but is fitted in in the most awkward way possible like. he would not say that no one would have said that sentence just then sorry guys. the ending feels kinda rushed more so in the book cos the narrator (four?? eleven??? is literally Not Paying Attention to the last conversation and then there's a page that says HELP ME over a bunch of tally marks ?????? idk man????? also there's all this stuff in the comedic chapter interlude narration that's referring to 'chapter nine' 'stop trying to find chapter nine' is he just saying 'yeah ok the ninth doctor's not in this one sorry guys'???? i think so??

cos it starts with chapter eight which is the eighth doctor getting regenerated into the war doctor (a soldier in the time war, the very thing he was saying he'd never become) (more of Moffat retrospectively Majorly Altering Canon) which was uhm. quite the scene cos in the episode he chooses it?? but in the book it says he was forced to by the sisterhood of karn???? what???????????? if that's so then why isn't that made Very Clear in the episode???? girl what???? there's lots of references to classic who which is fun but then he goes and says 'oh yeah btw one and two were actually colourblind that's why 1963-69 was in black and white' like okay. that's a slightly stupid writing decision which every other author has managed to ignore because it doesn't matter that they were in black and white cos the show started airing IN THE SIXTIES you can accept the limitations of historical content into canon!! he did the exact same thing in twice upon a time when he made One make sexist jokes so he could point out how progressive the show was Now which actually backfires Majorly because it makes The Doctor sexist instead of making The White British Colonial Men Who Wrote It In 1960s England sexist like ausgnauhgnshansghn CMON! and on that note Why Is This STuff So Sexualised like????? there was no need to say that the doctor found clara pretty, or rose/bad wolf/the moment/whatever, ten ends up marrying queen Elizabeth I which is kinda funny ngl but some of the things eleven says about that! is so weird! and unnecessary! and theres the fuckinhnsaa scene with the comparing the size of the sonic screwdrivers which is SO BAD LIKE YUCKKKK WHAT WHY WOULD YOU PUT THAT IN THERE ITS A FAMILY SHOW DUDE and like all the women at some point have a Comment on their appearance except for maybe kate lethbridge-stewart but idk. ahjsajnsajnsan. ick. and moffat just changes canon around all the time! gallifrey is gone again! but not really! but now it's back for real! the hybrid! (still don't know what was up with that) the impossible girl! mels/melody/river song! why!

and like some of it was so good!! the three doctors who are all the same person but not the same person, and some of the character writing was really really good & the interactions between different regenerations and like i Knew sometimes when ten was speaking cos the way he reacts to his own issues is so predictable (good predictable. like he has A Way He Acts its fascinating) and how they talk to each other (themself) as a representation of what the doctor is always struggling with about the decisions he's made. and i love the 'time lord art is bigger on the inside' bit that's really cool & when the war doctor starts the calculations and then eleven can finish them cos its four hundred years later even though they're in the same room together, like that's cool! moffat understands how to use timey-wimey stuff in the time travel show and he does it very well, a lot more (and better) than russell t davies does. but i watch this episode and think what no i really like this one and then i think about it and There Are Problems!!

anyways. uhm. haha. my favourite show 👍

[marcianoliterati]

The sunbearer trials, by Aiden Thomas

3.5 stars

This is more of a discussion than solely a review, and does feature some spoilers :

I was really excited for this, but found myself a bit disappointed by the end.

It takes place in a fantasy world heavily inspired by Mexico. It all sounds pretty Aztec to me,the gods mentioned and all that but it's not particularly mentioned anywhere, and all the copy solely reads 'mexican-inspired'

It’s a mix of modern society and ancient stuff, there’s gods and demigods running around, there’s an academy for heroes and every ten years something called the sunbearer trials happens where a demigod child is killed by another so they can ‘charge the sun’ and keep the bad guy in his cage.

Tw: violence, bullying, manipulation, world-ending mistakes

It’s clearly another take on the hunger games and other similar stuff.  Only no one here is supposed to be killed till the end. 

The main character is teo, a trans boy who has wings he’s ashamed of, and who feels underappreciated due to his mother being a second-rate god which means he’s not seen as particularly important or good enough to be a hero. 

Still, he and his best friend are called to participate in the sunbearer trials, and he spends the whole time being unsure of it all and just trying to keep everyone he loves from dying.

It’s a good premise, and it’s entertaining, but it constantly feels like the worldbuilding is lacking. 

A thing i don’t like is when the characters, for whom this is all supposed to be their normal, don’t know what they are doing. It’s a lazy form of exposition  I find.

And teo is constantly confused about everything.

They say that the trials go back a long time, that it’s a great honour to participate, to kill, to die, 

But no one shows it. 

Everyone acts like theyre afraid of it ashamed of it.

Even the career heroes that are supposed to be trained for it since birth.

Now, i don’t read  a lot of YA, cause i tend to find the teens annoying as fuck.

Which is probably part of why I had issues with this book. 

Yes a lot is teens being teens

And i also have issues cause i tend to find them toothless.

Too often they feature kids who are afraid to do anything bad. 

Like they sneak out once and its a huge deal and of course they never do drugs or drink alcohol or engage in another common risk-seeking behaviour, so it lets them be bratty teens as long as they don’t do anything teens do?

It feels very puritanical, and it’s boring. 

this is about a deadly race, with many obstacles and chances to hurt or get hurt.

but dont worry, everyone will have a miraculous escape! Plot armour for everyone!

it cant be like youre wrapping both the protagonists and readers in a little bubble where nothing bad ever happens and they never need to see anything that could be potentially dangerous

 the danger has to be real.

you truly don’t know if they’ll survive, and how

this doesnt mean it has to be some grimdark everyone can die the future is hopeless thing

thg works because it is willing to go that far, it says your faves are in dangers and means it. nobody gets out unscathed.

In thg the danger is real, and the worldbuilding is incredibly detailed. Even though katniss who is confused like 90% of the time is the pov character.

It doesnt feel like someone is pausing and explaining everything every 5 minutes.

derry girls is a good example of where they do show dangerous things, it is political, but it is all filtered though the lens of girls who dont know better, and you feel that.

rick riordan’s catalogue also shows this well.  it has kids in trouble, it has danger, it deals with Issues, and so on. 

The main problem with this is that it doesn’t feel real. 

From the beginning, you know things aren’t gonna go according to plan.

You’re surrounded by danger but nothing bad is actually going to happen. 

and theres the ‘the sacrifice is an honour but we all know its wrong’ and the way the approach it , like being sad about it.

their sacrifice is supposed to “charge the stones” and “keep monsters at bay”

But it’s never explained. Why? Why must it happen this way? What does it mean?  No one can challenge it, it is just the way it is but it is not explained either.

Why the trials? Why can’t people volunteer? 

if this is their religion, the way its been done for thousands of year why are they sad and umcomfortable to talk about it? 

like, i feel like at least some people should be going like crazy over them, offer them gifts asks for blessings hell they should be like tell me your stories your wishes your goals so we may complete them for you

like, honour them properly? not this “killing people is a shame but it must be done and instead of facing it we are just kind of awkward about it”

In a way, it feels like it is using modern morals to tell a story where those morals simply don’t work. They don’t apply. 

I expect complicated feelings sure, but it is more like ‘it sucks let’s sweep it under the rug’

There’s a whole subplot of Teo having a sister he never knew cause years earlier, she was sacrificed. And his mum never talked about it.

That sounds a lot like shame and fear.

Tributes in the actual hunger games where treated better. People knew they were pawns being sacrificed, and that it was awful, but they also knew there was nothing they could do. 

Why isn’t there a memorial somewhere honouring the sacrifices?  

If they don’t like it, have they tried doing something else? 

There’s this episode of SNW where they also have child sacrifices, and they approach it way better. They also talk about they have to or the whole planet dies, and how they’ve tried to search for other ways and haven’t found any. 

So now they face it head on. They do a whole festival they do their best for the chosen ones, and so on. They know it’s an awful thing to do but they don’t hide it. They don’t look away in shame.

And the way shame is constantly everywhere in this story feels weird. 

The have the MC and his friends look back into the archives and besides discovering he had a sister nothing much is said of it. There was a moment right there for them to learn of the history and heritage of why and how it is done and…nothing.  Completely missed opportunity. 

like, the character often feels like theyre being faced with all of it for the first time, rather than actually growing up with it, what happens if someone is chosen and doesnt want to compete? do they become the sacrifice ? has anyone ever tried?  have people died doing this shit? what does the process actually entails??

For example,HDM goes into a lot of detail as to the origin the why the motivations and so on.

That’s why i think the worldbuilding feels lacking. The whole foundation of the story is less than great. 

What does it mean for this civilization to have this? To grow like this? 

what kind of place is it? how does this masquerade change the world? 

but i feel like a lot of ‘our world but slightly to the left’ don’t take the time to ponder the winder ramifications.

or you could do growing up thinking it was wonderful for everyone involved ,theres luxury and rewards, everyone wants to be chosen and then oh shit its actually dystopic af and ppl have been lied to.

someone slowly becoming aware of the horrors

and this goes slightly over there ‘oh no someone has to die, i dont want anyone to day, last time i was a kid mum didnt even let me watch’ or ‘oh actually the heroes i admire have really tough life’ but it just sort of waves as it goes past, not even bothering to detour 

i feel like the premise is great, a whole country, how does it all work?, and they even go on a tour, but we dont get to see much, a lot of good things are mentioned, only in passing.

I don’t know if it’s really the sort of thing that can be improved in a sequel, although maybe with new characters who can bring in a different pov it might be possible.

So that’s why i feel the story loses steam.

I admittedly don’t know a lot about mesoamerican human sacrifices, but i don’t think shame was the prevailing emotion.

It just doesn’t make sense.

It’s a shame cause i was excited about it, i wanna support latino books and you don’t get a lot of fantasy based on latinamerican folklore, but even wanting to hype it up it still felt a bit flat.

I guess it’s a bit like ‘i had this cool idea so i’m gonna sketch some stuff around it to support it’ and never quite getting around it to filling it in.

Like, teo,the MC is trans. This is quickly mentioned as ‘everyone was fine with it’, and i think there might be a mention of a genderfluid god?

But beside that everything is the same. Another trans kid wears a binder. They take testosterone, it’s just like in our world. 

Or how Teo is the son of a bird god, he can talk to birds, which we barely see him do, and he has freaking wings.

Which he doesn’t know how to use.

Cause apparently he was ashamed of them so his guardians just let him hide them?  What? get that kid a therapist of something what the hell. 

And the whole reason he is ashamed is simply cause he found them too girly.

That’s like saying oh my legs are too ugly i don’t wanna use them. And your parents just being like ok here’s a wheelchair?

Maybe there’s more to it but it’s never explained so that’s the impression i get, like it’s such a big handicap!

And he spends the whole time complaining he isn’t allowed to go to hero school! Is someone stopping him from training? No, i’m sure his mother’s palace has a gym, and he could’ve gotten tutors, he could’ve been using his wings the entire time.

Maybe it’s too judgmental of me, but it seems  incredibly foolish, and i wish we had more talk about it. Rather than him going “oh i dont want to” or “i don’t like it”

I think it’s a good rec for anyone who likes hp, pjo, thg, or hdm, but i don’t think it is as strong as any of those.

[ramurice]

!Spoilers for Flowers from 1970!

I had to do a reading assignment and it could be any book, any kind of book, and genre, etc, etc. I chose Flowers from 1970, you know, that one dreamnotfound story. So if you don't want to read it, but are curious about it here is officially Copy+Paste from my assignment, so read if you want to, I don't care. Major Spoilers to the book, and even if you get all the way through this, I still suggest it.

Introduction/General Book Information

Title: Flowers from 1970

Author: Astronomika on Wattpad

What genre/type of book is it? (Fantasy, humour, science fiction, mystery, biography, non-fiction, etc.)

Flowers from 1970 was a novel made as a gift for two people, Georgenotfound and Dreamwastaken. Though they never had the kind of relationship implied in this novel it is very close to what was shown in streams with their persona's and the two said people don't mind receiving this type of content from fans, simply because they find it funny. It is definitely a fiction novel as one of the most significant objects is an old telephone that connects George and Dream a fifty-year time difference, Dream comes from 1970, while George is from 2020

Main Character

What is the main character’s name?

The main character’s name is George Davidson, a 24-year-old video game coder.

Describe this character (Physical and personality traits):

George Davidson a 24-year-old boy lived in an old house in Florida, as we go along in the story he describes himself as around 5’5(Inference compared to what he says about Clay), he has a long face that is evened out with a sharp jawline, a medium-sized nose, lips full enough that they don’t disappear when he smiles, his hair is a dark brown that is normally cut short but is a little longer at the moment. I did not use the real person for this description, these are pretty close to actual quotes in the book when Clay asks what he looks like. For a Personality he is described as a kind person, due to his job he doesn’t get out much, nor make friends often, When Clay doesn’t call him for a week he starts going out more because he thought that that's what Clay would have wanted him to do.

How can you relate to or identify with the main character?

George in this book has a lot of things that I can somewhat relate to, for George he didn’t have a hard time making friends, rather he doesn’t get out much to meet people. Most of the people he ends up meeting talk to him first. Dream was actually one of his first friendships.

Another Character

Who is another character?

Another character who happens to be another main character is Clay, or Also known as Dream for most of the story(no last name is given).

Describe this character (Physical and personality traits):

Dream is a 21-year-old living in 1970, he works as a baseball coach and lived in the same house as George. George Describes Dream as around 6’0 from a photo sent to him in a time capsule and a green handprint Dream presses into the wall in one of their conversations, The handprint is described as being bigger than Georges by a fair bit so that prompted George into guessing he was tall. Dream has shaggy dirty-blonde hair that sticks out at odd angles, he also has a cat named Patches, though she isn’t described. As stated by both Sapnap and George Dream is cocky and full of himself most of the time, he wants to be nothing like his father who was an abusive alcoholic, though he does get drunk once in the book to deal with his problems to see if his dad's methods actually worked.

Setting

(Where does the story take place? When is the story happening?)

Describe the time and place of the story:

Flowers from 1970 takes place in both 1970 and 2020, the phone connects Dream and George. The house that the story takes place in is located in Florida.

Comments about the setting:

(EX: setting makes story exciting, the setting has an important effect on the main character, the setting is/is not exciting or new, setting increased my knowledge of something):

A quote from the book is a perfect description of the place; “Now you know that once upon a time, in the same room, of the same house, fifty years apart, Clay and George Davidson had loved each other.” The book takes place in the same house at two different times, Dream being the past owner, while George being the future owner. They find out how to communicate with each other by that telephone, and Dream could send George things from the past by affecting small things, like burying a time capsule in the corner of the yard then telling George where it is over the phone, George can unbury it since it’s from the past, the things will be old and musty since it was fifty years since it was buried but it was an efficient way to send things.

Theme

(What did the author want you to experience, feel, or understand through reading this book? A theme can be about specific people and particular situations or about life in general.)

What is or are the topic(s) of the story?

(EX: courage? working hard? doing the right thing? greed? family? The importance of friends? jealousy? love? caring? happiness? sadness?)

The importance of moving on from things. When Dream died He told George that he made sure he couldn’t contact past Dream again, he wanted George to move on from him because no matter how much they loved each other it would never work, Dream cant have his heart in 2020 when it belonged in 1970.

Plot

(The Action/Summary of What Happened in the Story)

Summary of the story:

(In order, list 4 - 6 events that happened in the story. Keep them in order):

Dream tries to call his friend Sapnap about the assassination of the governor of Florida. He ends up contacting George by accident. George tells Dream that he has the wrong number and that the assassination happened 50 years ago and that the next day his right-hand man, Tubbo, was almost killed. They end the call leaving George thinking the guy who called him is an uneducated lunatic.

Dream calls the next day knowing that it's not his friends demanding that George tell him who he knew that Tubbo was almost murdered. George re-explained to him that it happened 50 years prior and everyone knew about it because they learned it in school. Dream finally asked the date, it was June 28, 2020, Dream told George it was June 28, 1970. This is how their friendship started to kick off.

During the second cell phone conversation they realized that the house They were in at the current time was the same one as each other and on the third call Dream wanted to test something to see if he could change current moments, he dipped his hand in line green paint and pressed it against the wall, it showed up on Georges side but it was worn and chipped as the time wore it down, George pressed his hand against it and Dream caught him in the act as a joke.

Dream sent George a time capsule by burying it in the corner of the yard George found (He encounters Wilbur the first time looking at him oddly while writing something in his notepad) it and opened it on Dreams next call, the capsule contained a container of lime green paint(the same Dream used), Pow-Chew(Dream’s favourite Gum), Music cassette, baseball cards, Quartz(Dream sent it to him because it’s his favourite thing and he wanted to give it to his favourite person, finding that it would be wrong to tell that to someone who didn’t even exist yet he told George that he didn’t he’d need it when he was older), and A polaroid of Dream.

George used the line green paint and pressed his own handprint into the wall next to Dream’s.

(THIS IS IMPORTANT!)Dream sent George a packet of Cornelius flower seeds(Georges favourite flowers, since Dream asked), he had gotten jealous of a couple while on the phone with George because unlike them The long-distance relationship between him and George the distance could never be closed.

George plants the flowers after going to the same flower shop that Dream happened to go to, to buy the flowers, he gets help from his neighbour Wilbur(after Wilbur jots down something in a notepad his neighbour helps)and makes a new friend in the process.

Dream asks George what he looks like, since they cant send things from Georges side they draw on the wall, George describes himself and Dream draws if something is wrong George with tell him and Dream will correct it.

(THIS IS IMPORTANT!)Dream forgot to call, Wilbur came over for some company of George with some cider and they had a family meal.

Dream doesn’t call for a week after he realizes he’s in love with George it’s been at least three months since they first started talking, during that week Wilbur’s family has a family emergency doing with the father that came back from London (BEFORE ANY BIG THINGS HAPPEN!) George watches Wilburs son, Tommy.

The night that George is out eating dinner with Wilbur’s family, Dream calls, he plans to tell George how he feels. George needs to take Wilbur’s family to the hospital, The father is getting worse, he seized up.

They get to the hospital. Wilbur's dad wants to see George. “He called you today, you know.” He tells George, he was confused, and it turns out that It was Dream. “You love him don’t you?” George responds with yes. “I just can’t have my heart in 2020, when it belongs in 1970.”

“Take care of those flowers, Wrong Number.” That was the last wish to George before Dream died.

Wilbur visits the next day, he shows Dream’s Journal to George, on the last page there were dates written down, the dates were every time something happened, George unburied time capsule, I forgot to call, etc with every date. In the middle of their visit Dream calls, He confesses, George confesses, they love each other, in the moment of tears, Wilbur Wrestles the phone out of George's hands and cuts the wire. That was what Dream wanted Wilbur to do, he wanted George to move past him.

What did you like about the book? Why? Be specific.

I enjoyed everything about this book, the writing style was amazing, the characters were amazing. George’s description of himself to Dream was honestly believable, something someone would say.

What didn’t you like about the book? Why? Be specific.

The ending was probably the one thing I really disliked, I liked it but it was sad, I was a mess after I read that ending, both George and Dream knew that in Georges time Dream would be in his seventies but why did he have to die?

Was the story believable or was it confusing and/or hard to believe? Explain Why?/How?

Flowers from 1970 is a very believable story, though it was fiction everything was explained as if you were in the story, you could picture everything, you could picture Tommy and his mixed cereals, you could Picture George on his bed waiting for Dream to call him, you could picture Dream smirk as he harassed George for holding handing with the handprint on the wall.

Explain what you thought of the ending …(good, bad, exciting, confusing, frustrating, etc)…and why.

Ending amazing, but so sad, the quote that made my tears fall even more was when Wilbur cut the phone cord; “I saw my friend die twice, both versions of him.” This is from George.

Overall Rating (0 to 10 stars):

10/10 stars

Would you recommend this book to others? Why?

I would recommend it to anyone, even people who aren’t big fans of the Youtubers this book was made for, it has a plot that is followed all the way through, it really goes for readers emotions, and from what I’ve seen everybody who has read this book has shed some tears. I think it would do good if it ever got published to paperback.

Extra quote!: “Right Person, Wrong Time.”

[toriwakes]

Problem [Spender Reid x Reader]

summary: the daughter of a famous chef becomes a target, and it’s spencer’s job to protect her.

content warnings: female!reader, cursing

a/n: hello!!! first spencer reid post!! so excited to share, sorry if it’s bad </3. this is obviously inspired by s1 ep18. hope u all enjoy, lmk if you have any requests!

dad was a famous chef. he was known world wide, liked by some and hated by some. that’s how it worked. she had gotten used to the spotlight. it was his, anyway. no one payed much attention to her. or so she thought. when the incident happened she had noticed a pattern. someone was watching her and she didn’t know who. why her? her dad, a hot head, wasn’t going to let this fly easily. and that was a problem.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧

“davy plattel, 57. heard of him?” jennifer asked, clearly joking. “he’s an australian chef and has been on 5 different tv shows. all of which he rates food and has a tendency for being cold do this employees.” reid spat out the facts like he’s been waiting to be asked this question since he was born. the team just stared at him before jennifer spoke. “i was kidding.” spencer pressed his lips together as his cheeks flushed pink. “remind me why we’re looking into this guy?” morgan said, flicking through the files. “people going to his restaurants are getting poisoned, press says he’s snapped and is making them pay for making him look like a bad guy for all these years.” derek’s brows furrowed together. “and this is a b.a.u case because?” asked aaron. “right when the poisoning started-“ jj dropped a new file into his lap. “-his daughter (y/n) became a target.”

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧

“you lot are supposed to be the best in the game. figure out who’s hurting my business and find who’s hurting my daughter!” hot head was right. platell was taken into a separate room by gideon and morgan, which left aaron and reid to scout for you. davy told them you’d be in your room. “(y/n) platell? i’m special agent aaron hotchner with the fbi. we’re here to ask you a couple of questions if that’s okay with you?” your eyes lifted from the floor and to the stern man sitting on the edge of your bed. whilst nodding you noticed the taller man in your doorway. “special agent doctor spencer reid. we’re here to help.” hotch and reid walked you to the backyard, a perfect place to interrogate you. “tell me about your relationship with your dad.” spencer spoke first. you gulped. “i love him. he’s my best friend. he’s all i have, okay? he’s overprotective, but whose dad isn’t? he’s going crazy now that the person doing this wants me.” “what about the person who’s after you? any idea who it could be? think of someone who felt invisible to you, inferior.” as hard as you thought, nothing clicked. you shook your head and hotch let out a sigh. “i’m scared.” you admitted. “nothing like this has ever happened before?” spencer asked, almost surprised. “no, everyone focused on him, never on me.” spencer looked like he put pieces together. aaron thanked you for your time and led you back inside, spencer following. you knew the feeling in your stomach. butterflies.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧

things got worse at the end of the day. you got a voicemail, an unsettling voice whose gender wasn’t identifiable called, talking about how they didn’t like how much time you were spending with the fbi. not only did this enrage your dad, it caused him to take matters into his own hands and search the bushes around your house. he didn’t find anything. “did the caller say anything else?” gideon asked. you quivered. “they..” you couldn’t catch your breath. “they said they were going to come get me at midnight.” everyone in the room shared a look of panic. “we need to get her out of here.” aaron instructed. “what? no, she is staying with me.” for what felt like the hundredth time today, the agents had to calm down your dad. “we have a safe house to take you to. an agent will stay with you for the night.” jennifer told you. your mind immediately went to reid. “anyone in particular you’d like?” she said, one hand on your shoulder. you leaned into her ear, whispering the name that made you cheeks flush. “spencer.”

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧

the car ride was mostly silent. spencer was playing with his fingers, something you did as well. “are you nervous?” you said finally. he stopped at once, putting his hands into his pockets. “wha? oh, no, i’m fine.” you knew he wasn’t, but you didn’t press. “um- when did you leave australia?” he asked. you giggled. “when my dad started to get recognition, so when i was maybe eight. i didn’t leave much behind, the kids at school didn’t like me. i made my first friend here. gina.” he nodded. “was she nice to you?” “always. never anything but. i get a hot head sometimes- just like my dad. on occasion i would lash out on her, but she always forgave me. i always regretted it, she was really good to me.” spencer furrowed his eyebrows. “what did she act like when you would get mad?” you gave him a look, as if to say “why is this important?”. “well, she would look sad at first. like she didn’t understand why i was mad. she made herself smaller and blamed herself for making me mad. i thought it was weird that she never tried to defend herself.” reid shuffled into his pocket and took out his phone, dialing a number and speaking quickly. “hotch, why have we not considered looking at people close to her? it’s just like the case with that government official and the twin sisters- it was someone close to him. her friend- gina you said?” you nodded quickly. “fits the profile, and is close to her.” voices spoke on the other line before reid asked another question. “what’s her full name?” “gina carmen torres.” spencer retreated the name and you could hear hotch say he’d alert garcia. “it’s not her, i know it’s not.” reid looked at you like you were wrong. you shivered.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧

when you got to the house spencer advised that you showered and got ready for bed, spreaking since it was so close to midnight. he stayed outside the shower door and handed you your close when you were done. “cold?” he asked, taking notice of you shaky frame. you nodded. he handed you the sweater he was going to wear to bed tonight, not minding at all. there go the butterflies. you sat one the bed and slid under the covers. “you should get some rest, i’m gonna stay up and make sure nothing happens.” he said. you didn’t fall asleep. “is something wrong? other than the fact that you’re being stalked?” you couldn’t help but laugh. “yes, actually. i don’t wanna admit this, but..i cant fall asleep unless i’m hugging something. and i..don’t have any stuffed animals with me.” spencer raised his eyebrows. “(y/n) if you’re asking me to sleep next to you i-“ “please spence? i’m not gonna be able to sleep anyway, it’ll help at least.” you pleaded, showing off your puppy dog eyes. “okay. fine.”

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧

spencer stayed up all night. sure he was required to stay awake, but he was only staying up because he didn’t want to miss out on how beautiful you looked when you were asleep. you looked so calm, so peaceful. spencer had no idea what he was feeling, but he didn’t want it to stop. he liked you, and a lot. “fuck.” he whispered to himself. the small noise made you stir, but not enough to wake you up. suddenly, a ring came from spencer’s phone. he picked it up before it could wake you. “hello?” he whispered. “reid, we got em bud. found her in the girl’s bedroom of platell’s house. is she safe?” morgan’s voice spoke. spencer looked down at you, petting your head gently. “yea, she’s safe.” “alright man. i’m guessing she’s asleep?” “correct.” “okay. just stay with her, we’ll be there soon anyway.” morgan hung up. soon? damnit, he didn’t have much time left with you. he checked the clock, reading 5am. he wanted to talk to you, but he wasn’t going to wake you up for that. what were you doing to him?

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧

spencer woke you up at 7:30. “they’ll be here at 10, and i don’t really know your schedule so.. i hope that enough time to get ready.” you rubbed your eyes and examined spencer. he was wearing his sweats and found a white shirt that was a bit too tight on him. he looked cute. “yes, that’s fine. i’ll..i’ll be right back.” you left the room to brush your teeth and get changed, finding reid inspecting some books you had lying around. “i have two copies of that. one at home and one here. just in case.” you said, sitting down right next to him and peering over. “it’s a classic. you like to read?” he inquired. “love it. although i cant stick to a book unless there’s some type of romance.” spencer raised his eyebrows. “call me a dork, whatever. what’s wrong with being into a little bit of love?” you chuckled. “no, in fact i figured you’d be that way.” you rolled your eyes playfully. “profilers. well, tell me what you think of me.” spencer paused before speaking. “i think you’re smart, you know how to pick your relationships-“ “what do you mean by that?” he stopped and pursed his lips, finding what words to say. “you know what you want in friends and boyfriends.” you raised your eyebrows. he couldn’t possibly know. “are you saying you know my type?” he shrugged. “yeah probably.” “try me.” “you like smart guys. guys who are confident, but not full of themselves. you like it when they’re sweet, but demanding. though i don’t know what you find physically attractive.” he said, going back to the book. you pulled it out of his hands. “i can tell you that one. i like guys named spencer reid.” almost instantly his face flushed red and he stopped speaking. you took the liberty of leaning in, your lips ghosting his. “(y/n)-“ “kiss me spence.”

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧

his lips were as soft as they looked. the way he kissed was new to you, but you adapted and matched his energy. due to this, he whimpered as he kissed you. you pulled back to look at him, his face was bright red. “i’m sorry, i shouldn’t have-“ “spencer!” he cut himself off and looked at you with those full eyes of his. “don’t apologize. i liked it. a lot.” seeing that as his green light he cupped your chin and pulled you in for another quick kiss before getting up and getting ready himself.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧

“(y/n)? (y/n)!” your dad showed up at the door a few hours later. “i was worried.” he whispered while you hugged. “i’m fine, dad. we’re fine.” when your dad let go of you and saw spencer lingering a bit too close, he connected the dots. “this boy didn’t try anything did he?” derek was listening now. you opened your mouth while turning to reid, whose eyes were wide with fear. “uh- no. he didn’t do anything but protect me, dad.” that didn’t let up his death stare on him. your dad wandered off to his car, everyone splitting up to leave home. “i’ll see you around.” spencer began to split up as well, but you caught his wrist. “check your pocket. see you.” with that you were gone. reaching into his back pocket, he felt something. a small piece of paper, you number etched on it with a small heart. you’re nothing like he’s used to. and thats a problem.

[oh-for-fic-sake]

A Baby Brother!

Masterlist

Henry is a busy boy, trying to impregnate his wife...and it is only made harder when your three year old decides to share your bed crawl into you bed at night..But that's fine Henry has a plan that cant possibly backfire.

Warnings: slight smut?, implied smut, fluff, swearing.

A/n:so this request from @jessevans​ has become a oneshot series...its cute, and for a little extra fun this is a true story of what I did to my parents in my first year of school and to this day I'm not forgiven!

Taglist: @two-unbeatable-beaters​ @thatgirly81​ @Angelofthorr @iloveyouyen​

A Baby Brother!

After the whole boyfriend fiasco things had gone on as they normally did whilst Henry was home. He kal and Paige were the dream team stuck to each other like three peas in a pod,and he had basically taken over with her, trying to savoir the few short months he was home with his girls. You'd also been finding yourself being whisked away for quickies at all times in the day by Henry...well when Paige went to playschool... lets just say that every surface in your home had been put to good use.

Somehow the idea of him being able to 'knock you up' again had drove the man rabid! Every chance he got to pin you down and fuck you he took. But not at night there  was one thing that was getting in the way. At night Paige had refused to sleep in her own room, instead crawling into bed with you and Henry at some point each night, she was afraid of him leaving again so soon, it happened sometimes she would have separation anxiety. But it also meant you and Henry were reluctant to try at night. Henry tho had a plan apparently...so you decided to let him get on with it.

He sat there in the living room watching as Paige practiced her letters on the coffee table that was smothered in her early learning books. He smiled at her then leaned forward resting his elbows on his spread knees.

"Paige-y baby can we talk for a moment?" She blinked then frowned at his more serious tone and nodded putting down her crayon.

"Yes daddy?" He smiled down at her resting his fingertips against one another.

"Baby... can we have a serious big girl talk?" She eyed him carefully and had shrunk into her shoulders a little serious normally meant she was in trouble. Maybe he knew!?

"It wasn't me, I swear KAL DID IT DADDY!" She cried loud and proud putting her best efforts into her paddy even forcing a few crocodile tears, he blinked for a second looking around slowly trying to see what 'Kal' had done.Nothing in here. He looked back to the tantrum throwing toddler panicking he held his hands up at her.

"Whoa whoa little lady kal did what?" Realizing Henry had no idea what she did she stopped .

"Oh..never mind what did you want to talk about daddy?" Dumbfounded Henry blinked at the now perfectly calm child, she really did scare the hell out of him sometimes, he shook his head getting back on track.

"Well...Your a big girl now aren't you? Getting good with your letters and numbers and soon you'll be in proper school" she nodded smiling wide

"Yes daddy look!" She raised her book showing how she'd traced a dotted line of a few words and copied them underneath.

"Wow! You are a big girl look at that! You did that all by yourself?" She nodded grinning as he took the book and placed it back down in front of her.

"Well because your soo big and soo clever me and mummy was thinking you are big enough to help with a err...new addition to the family" she tilted her head and Henry sighed of course she wouldn’t know what that meant.

"A knew family member-" she slammed her hands down squealing

"ARE WE GETTING A PUPPY!? WHERE IS IT? IS IT HERE YET DADDY?" he only just caught the excited girl by the waist as she got up to look for the puppy. He scooped her up and sat her on his knee.

"No poppet not a puppy" he chuckled moving stray hair from her face as she pouted.

"Then what? We cant get a kitty Kal will eat it!" He really laughed at that shaking his head.

"I doubt Kal would actually eat a cat...I think..any way no sweety mummy and daddy want to know if you’d like you a baby brother or sister to play with?" She froze and turned to look at him. He held his breath his whole plan was based on Paige wanting a sibling.... Besides what little girl didn't want a real baby to hold and cuddle, his probably knowing his luck. She twiddled her fingers smiling shyly.

"A-a baby brother daddy?...A real baby..n-not a pretend one like suzie has?" He smiled relieved. Thank god. He nodded.

"Mmhmm a real baby in the house" she jumped up screaming in excitement

"A BABY BROTHER! I'M GETTING A BABY BROTHER! WHERE IS HE DADDY I WANT HIM!" Henry being the emotionally charged wreck he was got choked up seeing her so happy about the prospect of a baby, knowing then and there that Paige would be a perfect older sister.

"Paige! Paige calm down poppet, that's it back over here we haven't finished talking yet good girl now the baby wont definitely be a boy it could be a girl, we wont know until we get pictures from inside mummy's tummy" she gasped putting a hand to her tummy.

"Mummy has a baby in her tummy!?" He faltered not really expecting to get this far. He hummed shaking his head.

"No no not yet..see we have a little problem that only you can help me and mummy with." She stared unblinkingly at him determination written across her face.

"Okay what do I got to do for the baby daddy?" It was cute how serious her face was but there was something else going on in her curt little head, she looked sad, worried. Anxious. He watched her and continued carefully.

"Well you see mummy and daddy can't have a baby until your a big girl, now we know your good with the toilet and washing up , you help mummy and daddy in the house and garden and your good at your school work...but you still creep into mummy and daddy's bed at night...so what me and mummy need from you it to try and stay in your bed at night...do you think you can do that? For the baby?" She froze for a second and blinked Henry faltered holding his breath.

"Th-thats all? Just sleep in my bed? I don't need to leave?" He gasped

"Good heavens no! Poppet of course you don't!" That was when she let loose streams of tears streaking her face as he lifted her up shushing her.

"Oh sweety no no! here come with me daddy wants to show you poppet!" He quickly scooped up his little girl making his way out of the living room he walked past you shaking his head.Later. you nodded and watched as he climbed the stairs with an upset baby girl curled up in his chest. Once upstairs he past Paige’s room and walked into one of the spare rooms, it was empty apart from a few boxes that were going to be moved to the loft. It was light basic cream walls oak wood floor boards high ceiling and huge window.He set Paige down.

"Here we are...see this will be the babies room eventually..." she sighed looking around.

"Its like mine...but not as pretty" he smirked chuckling at her resting his palm on her head as she looked out of the window to the drive below.

"See... we have enough room here for everyone you wont have to leave my love, you'll never ever have to leave  and you know what?" She sniffled shaking her head

"Wh-what?" He crouched down before her smiling taking hold of her hands making her look at him

"No matter how many babies me and mummy have you'll always be my little lady." She looked up tears in her eyes sniffling quietly wiping her eyes trying to hide them.

"Re-really daddy? Always and forever?" His heart melted at the hopeful little face and he held out a pinky

"Always and forever...pinky promise?" She quickly wrapped her tiny pinky around his as if he would change his mind and take it away.

"You can’t break a pinky promise daddy"

"I don't intend to baby I promise that you are going to be my first little lady and you can always stay with mummy and me" she smiled giggling wiping the stray tears way

"And kal and baby!" He smiled leaning forward kissing her head. then she froze as she heard you

“why is the Strawberry pants dug up and in the fridge!” Henry gave Paige a look she shrugged giggling

“They were droopy Miss Bou said they were hot so I had to cool them down” he shook his head at her spinning her in the air.

“come on let go fix your mess you little monkey!”

Later that night he had explained what happened and you both laid there waiting for the tell tale foot steps from her room but no. None. You smiled kissing him deeply, he had done it and around 1am you found yourself pinned beneath your husband moaning loudly as he rutted into you determined to fuck you full again and again.

He'd never been this determined before but after the second round you realized what he was doing, this wasn't sex or fucking he was breeding you. It was during that night you realized that your husband may have a secret breeding kink all dirty talk of how he couldn't wait until you were full of him again, carrying his child and this time he would definitely show you off make sure everyone knew just who you belonged to. He loved the idea of you pregnant, letting everyone know just what he'd done to you, that he had put your child their. He finished with a harsh thrust and a growl looking straight at into your eyes. You giggled as he collapsed on top of you deciding to stay exactly where he was.

"Baaabbe no I cant sleep with you...you know" he huffed a laugh

"Sleep...babe I’m just resting round five in ten minuets....on second thought maybe fifteen...god I forgot haw good it felt fucking you in our bed~" you wriggled below his huge frame.

"Nooo noo! Henry I've got to be up at six to get Paige ready for preschool!...that’s like in three hours...Please baby enough for now." He gave you a look, you did look fucked out. He relented rolling over taking you with him letting you lay on top of him making you mewl.

"Fine your right I won't fuck you anymore tonight...I’m not pulling out tho every little helps and all that...the longer your stuffed the better the chances...try not to move to much in your sleep babe if i get hard again all bets are off" you whined panting and sweaty as he looped his arms around you pressing your face into his neck.

"Your a fucker you know that?"

"Well I was trying to be but you’ve pussed out~" you bit his neck at that making him laugh hard.

That morning Henry had to take Paige to school as you were 'ill' you couldn't move you woke up as an orgasm washed over you Henry was grunting above you holding your hips still plowing away at you again unable to control himself. Thankfully you had both finished before she had rushed threw the door kal close behind her both jumping on the bed.

Henry had only just managed to cover himself as she dived onto you covers bouncing excitedly asking where her baby brother was. You gave him the stink eye telling her that it didn't work like that, telling her that it takes time for them to get here.She now thinks that babies are like amazon deliveries and take time.

You sighed walking hand in hand with Henry as you made your way to the playschool, you were both like a couple of teenagers stealing kisses every now and then. Luckily you could both be normal in the village, the locals were used to him being around on and off by now.

Once at the colorful fence you both stopped waiting with the other parents making small talk, you noticed that word of Henry’s return home must have gotten out as there was many more women then usual you sighed feeling them all stare getting an eyefull of your husband in that stupid blue tank top, showing off his amazing shoulders and arms, you knew he did it for you knwoing you loved his broad shoulders.

Then for some reason you got a little niggling feeling you saw Paige coming out first in line holding hands with Micah who was her walking partner...Her teacher was also walking with them. When the children was let out Miss Bou came up to the both of you with Paige.

"I just wanted to come over and congratulate the two of you." She said beaming as Paige climbed Henry who was also confused tilting his head to the teacher.

"Huh? What for?" She looked confused

"Well..Paige said that she was getting a baby brother..she's been talking about it all day" you snapped your gaze to your little cheeky monkey who was grinning at her teacher. Henry was already laughing out loud ruffling his daughters hair You flushed and sputtered knowing he was going to be no help.

"Paige!" Miss Bou smiled uncomfortably

"I-I’m sorry are you not?" You smiled at her Henry was trying to cover stamp out his laughter not giving a damn that everyone around you had heard what was going on.

"No..no I’m not pregnant" you said trying to compose yourself

"But mummy! Daddy said if I sleep in my own bed you’d get a baby! And-and you were sick and couldn't get out of bed this morning and Rose said her mummy was sick before she had a baby!" Henry laughed twisting her away from you if looks could kill his daughter would be no more. You were mortified! There was a few gasps and murmurs of 'oh hell no she did not just say that' he smiled biting his lip shushing Paige for her own safety who saw nothing wrong with what she said. It looked like he had to take some heat of the poor mite.

"What y/n means to say is we are trying but had to...I had to have a talk with this little lady here and convince her to stay in her own room at night..." you growled at him as the teacher now blushed bright red and nodded with a tiny squeak at the look he now directed at you winking.

"Isn't that right babe" he was thoroughly enjoying himself, he never liked the way a few of the mothers eyed him and you when you picked up Paige and this was a perfect time to rub your healthy sex filled relationship in there unfulfilled faces. He could see some of them fanning themselves brushing bright, hearing the envious whispers from said women ripple around them 'She couldn't move after' 'he made he bed bound fuck me..please?' You grunted just giving him a death stare.

"Daddy mummy looks scary!"

"She does doesn't she? That’s okay baby don’t worry she isn’t mad at you, she is mad at daddy....daddy will make it up to her later~"

"Pinky promise?" He snorted and grinned cheekily winding his pinky around his daughters as you stood there getting brighter by the minute. Looking about ready to blow.

"Henry! You best wind your neck in!" He laughed loudly and turned walking away "Quickly run away!" You sighed as he jogged away with a giggling child. You looked at the teacher.

"Thank you very much for telling me about Paige...Me and Henry will talk to her tonight...he chickened out on where babies come from talk" she smirked snorting

"And now?" You smirked

"Oh he is definitely going through that with her tonight and I will watch him squirm"

"He has no idea does he?"

"Nope, I’ll teach him to mess with me" she laughed waved you off as you ran to catch up with your idiot of a husband kicking at him making him yelp as you connected a solid foot to his ass making Paige giggle.

[miafic]

this is queued for a time that i hope more people see it because wow i couldn’t stop thinking about yall and how you might be into this. 

if you like reading about the p&p kids, i highly, HIGHLY recommend this book called house arrest. author is k. a. holt. twelve year old boy is on house arrest for a year bc he stole a wallet to pay for his baby brother’s medicine for the month. mom is broke. so sad, so good. some scenes of therapy, but the entire thing is told in free verse through his journal. i read the entire book in one sitting. it’s 2 am. i couldn’t put it down. 11/10. 

again, please look into reading this if you’re into the p&p kids. i cant find a pdf online, but i didnt look very hard. both of my library systems had multiple copies, and maybe yours will too. love love loved this. 

[imaginethathaikyuu]

How did I find your blog? I was looking for soft Kuroo content on google. And your soft birthday hc’s for him came up. And that’s also how I found tumblr

What was the first story of yours that I read? That Kuroo piece ^

Roughly, how long have I been following this blog? Well I found that piece shortly after it was posted so…. Around the beginning of December 2019 I think. Got a tumblr a few months later and you were the first person I followed (had you in my bookmarks bar before that! (still have you in my bookmarks bar and when I share my screen in classes there are occasionally questions. I ignore them))

What’s something I’ve noticed about you personality wise? You’re really clever and funny. But you’re also sweet. But because you’re clever you have no hesitation in setting up and enforcing your boundaries, and I really admire that strength and confidence.

Have we ever interacted, either by PM, ask, or in the comments? What was my perception of you? YES!!! PM, SOOOOO many asks, comments, and you sent me an ask. And reblogged it. And I cried. A lot. My perception: you’re lovely and I want to h*ld your h*nd ….please.

What’s my favorite story of yours? Oh how to choose. Firstly, I’m a nb, biracial, bisexual. Honey, I’ve never made a choice in my life. But let’s try here. Anything you’ve written for Tsukki. Literally all of it is gold. Fight me. I was going to write “especially [piece title]” but I LITERALLY CANNOT CHOOSE ONE. Your Bokuto nightmare piece. Your Kuroo angsty fight. Your Tendou dealing with S/O with parents who yell piece. Your Kinktobers. Your Futakuchi and Mattsun pieces. And your Terushima pieces. Ugh. I CANNOT CHOOSE. OH AND YOUR STREAMER KENMA!!!!!! OKay just… all of it. I can’t choose. I tried, and I failed, and I’m willing to admit failure.

What’s a story I’d love to see you write? I don’t want to say this… because it hurts me… but I just KNOW you’d write brilliant angst. Some of my fav pieces of yours are pained beginnings with happy endings. That fight with Tsukki after a bad day at work. The pieces I mentioned above (nightmare pieces and fighting pieces and angsty home life ha.. ha.ha.ha.). That Oikawa one where the reader wakes up in bed without him and thinks he left. You write these gorgeous atmospheres and descriptive, visceral feelings, and if you chose to use it for evil…. You could get evil shit done. You’re SO powerful. So I want to read it… but also…. I don’t. I’d love to see you write ABO like you mentioned a while back or just see you explore a cutesy soulmate AU or something. I think you’d be really good at writing an AU where you hear what the other person’s listening too. I feel like you’d be so good at making me feel something for someone who was in another city. (think this would be cute with Tsukki cos he’s headphones boy, OR terushima because I like the dynamic of someone flirty, who clearly cares about looks, falling for someone he can’t see) ANYWAY….

Favorite pairing you write for?/fav reader insert? Tsukishima x reader. It’s my fav self-ship. (but also Mattsun, Bokuto, Oikawa, Tanaka, and Akaashi because you write them SO WELL!!!!)

Have any of your stories helped me through a hard time? Of course. Your self-harm piece came at a time I needed it. Iwaizumi’s in particular saved my life. But also your Tendou dealing with S/O parents who fight… came right when I needed it. Also starting college… was hard.. And reading and rereading your fluff really pulled me through it.

Have any of your stories hit closer to home? YES (see above).

Do I genuinely like your blog, it’s aesthetic or posts? It’s overall feel? It’s content? Yes. The aesthetic is, ngl, a wee bit basic. But I kinda love that. And the feel? It feels like home. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Your blog is my safe space. So, yes, I love. It’s content? YES. OF COURSE. Your personality probably could have kept me here even if your content was kinda shit, but I follow you RELIGIOUSLY because of your content. So yes. I adore.

Is English my first language? Kinda??? I grew up in a trilingual household so I kinda learned three languages at the same time while growing up. But no, I don’t need to translate it in my head. Because English was one of the three.

Anything I want to share? Yes. Please keep being kind to yourself, caring for your mental health, enforcing your boundaries, loving Akaashi, and just generally being you. You’re so lovely as you are, and I hope you continue grow, but never change. Also I’m sorry about all your work stuff…. It literally makes me feel sick. And I hope you find a job where that’s not tolerated, or that your work finds a better way of protecting it’s employees. I know you know this, but none of it is your fault. I just hope things improve. AND I love you… a lot. And I’m so proud of you hitting 9K and you deserve so many more followers because your pieces are just... GORGEOUS. I can’t wait until I’m at Barnes and Noble in a few years and I can pick up a hardback copy of your debut novel. I’m so excited to say “I knew Em Akaashi (which is your legal name as far as I’m concerned) before she was so popular among the masses.”

so ive been trying to figure out the correct and worthy way to reply to this ask since the moment i got it......because its so fucking sweet and kind and amazing and pure and perfect and i just dont know how to use WORDS to explain the way it makes me feel so.......i will just reply in bullet points in regards to every question u answered to make it a lil easier :D

- the fact that u found my blog on google ....... like this may be odd and a very specific thing but before i made this blog i always hoped that 1 day my fanfic would pop up in google searches bc thats ALWAYS how i found fics when i was reading them religiously and i felt so much ENVY!!!!! LIKE I WANTED TO BE THERE I WANTED MY FICS TO B POPULAR ENOUGH TO POP UP ON GOOGLE.....that may sound very selfish but its true......so thats just very cool to me... :]

- u’ve been here for so long omg 🥺🥺🥺🥺 if anyone in ur classes ever asks jus promo my blog like its nbd 

- thats so sweet what 🥺🥺🥺 i try my best to advocate for myself and be confident for myself.....ive spent far too much of my time being silently uncomfortable because i was afraid of pushing someone’s buttons seeming rude.....but NO MORE!!!! i know what upsets me, i know my triggers, i know what i dislike experiencing, and im never gonna let myself be anxious or uncomfortable for someone else’s sake, esp if theyre being rude 2 me. i would say its less strength and confidence and moreso me attempting to take control of my anxiety in the places i can (aka on the Internet) bc i am SICK OF ANXIETY ATTACKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

- BBY no dont CRY!!!! im racking my brain trying to think of who u are i wanna know so bad so i can thank u personally for being the kindest person in the world n so i can send u more asks >:(........MY HAND IS URS TO HOLD!!!!! dont tell akaashi tho 

- OMG my TSUKKI pieces.....hes so hard to write why ;-; thank u so much im so glad u enjoy my works<3333

- NOT ANGST NOT LIKE THIS!!!!!!!!! pained beginnings to happy endings are my specialty.....IMAGINE me writing a sad ending like i CANT!!!!!!!!! ive only done it a few times and it is so Difficult.....YALL ARE SO LUCKY IM NOT EVIL!!!!!! ive had this idea for an angsty akaashi fic that i think about and write in my head every night before falling asleep and it Hurts and i wanna write it but i also can’t make myself :D ABO would be very fun but i genuinely do not know how to explore the concept while making it feel like it’s Written By Me.....u know what i mean? same with soulmate aus, i really dislike writing them because theyre just boring to me like they all feel the same everything’s been done for them.....which is FINE!!! but i write enough cliche stuff as it is HAHA, a long distance type soulmate au could be fun and interesting but ldr’s trigger me bc of a past relationship so </3 but hey maybe someone else could use the idea!!!!!

- gotta love tsukishima <3

- im rlly glad my writing could be there for you friend, one of the biggest reasons i write fanfic (and write the kind of fics i write) is bc i know firsthand how much reading sweet stories abt ur comfort characters can help u through the shittiest times - i just wanna offer ppl some support and happy feelings and love cuz sometimes fanfic is the only time we can find those things (and theres nothing shameful abt that either if anyone bullies u for reading fanfic i will fight them)

- I KNOW MY LAYOUT IS LAZY AND BASIC AS FUCK AND THAT IS BECAUSE I DO NOT GIVE A SHIT LMAOOOO so im glad u think its ok...... like i dont have the patience to create a fancy ass layout that actually works are u KIDDING ME??????? I COULD LITERALLY NEVER plus i kinda like that its just the basic kinda ugly boring default layout like it makes it simple and easy and i feel like it brings focus to the only thing on this blog that i care about which is my writing, i rlly only care about the content here and not aesthetics jdbljdabsdk that blue background will be there til i Die......i adore u more btw 

- WHOA trilingual what the hell ur so cool tell me more 

- you have my word, friend, that i will continue to do all of that so long as you do the same. take care of yourself, be kind to yourself - i know u can do it, ur so kind to others and u deserve to be kind to urself, too so this is the part that genuinely brought me to tears because *sappy dumb shit ahead* ok look ever since i can remember the one and only thing ive wanted to do with my life is become an author ...... dreams of book covers with my name written on them and words in pages written by me and fanart of my characters and going into my local bookstore n seeing my book there....these thoughts all haunt my fucking brain because i want it SO BAD!!!!!!!! so bad that it makes me CRY!!!!!!!! ive never wanted something more and just!!!!!!!!!!!! idk how much u meant that part but holy fuck!!!!!! i hope so bad that one day i can send u a free copy of my book as a thank u for being the person u are. u have all my love friend, every last bit of it <333333333

[miiilowo]

I. Im very curious about the pink haired enderman oc 👉👈 where are they from?? What do they doo?? This is a ramble as much as you want to ask :D

RUBBING MY LITTLE GREMLIN HANDS TOGETHER (also sorry about the late answer, my internet went out as i was writing this)

he’s for an smp im on! :D we decided that we wanted to do rp stuff for fun (hasnt really happened but some characters exist) and i decided to make an enderman character because i just. love them so much

the idea is that one of the smp members went to the end and made an enderman grinder. for whatever reason (havent figured out what the reason is yet) she decided that my funky little guy was special and decided to keep him. kind of like adopting them.

Afterward she made him king of the end because shes a human who thinks she has power over just about everything. for that reason i spent like 3 days building a castle on the server.  He does not take his role as a king seriously whatsoever, and never goes to the end. Why, you may be asking?

When you kill the ender dragon you get the achievement ‘free the end’, which doesnt Sound Like Endermen Had A Fun Time, so im just going to assume he has very bad memories associated with that place

since you mentioned it, his hair is not Actually pink, in fact, he’s bald, but he likes color a lot and so he made a wig (plus he wants to fit in with his mom and other people more) ((also my hair is just pink and he’s an adaptation of another persona i have but we can ignore that)). colors and flowers and stuff are something he enjoys because its a nice difference in comparison to the end which is mostly just . beige and black and purple sometimes 

He’s relatively good at english, and really loves writing and stories and books!!! i have a groovy lil library in my castle and a notebook/journal i track events of the smp in. im THIS CLOSE to copying the personal poems ive done into a bunch of books and selling them on the server for shits and giggles

My castle is one of the cooler builds on the server so new members stop by and stay there for a while before they head off on their own. so, i decided to turn that into him really wanting people to hang around, but they keep leaving and he gets kinda sad about that. id hate living in a big fucky castle and then peepo just stop by then exit after like 4 days. as a result he now has one crazed little clown friend who he is overly attached to despite her probably not being good for his mental health. theyre. working on that. though. i think. that character belongs to my friend loserchips, aka my best friend and the gal who drew my icon, which is also the enderboy!!!!!!

he has a big pile of gems in his throne room that he is absolutely Not willing to share because ive decided he loves shiny things. He also does have some enderman behavior that ive incorporated into how i play:

- cant go in water unless wearing full armor

- cant be in rain without a hat on at LEAST

- afraid of eye contact/doesnt look people in the eye

- climbs on shit and up the vines all over the castle. this scares people occasionally because hes already tall

- he isnt very good at teleporting and when he does he kind of zaps all over the place. due to chorus fruit i have ended up in countless ravines, creeper holes, roofs, tunnels, and houses against my will. it only worked out ONCE, where i was in a friends bakery, and she said to come upstairs. i ate a chorus fruit absentmindedly and teleported right in front of her. im counting this as him getting better at it

- i also am located in a savannah thats right next to a desert because it never rains there and he likes dry places for obvious reasons

- this was mildly inspired by endermen behavior. hes incredibly docile and friendly, but when he’s pushed a little too far he fucking snaps. the best example of this happening on the smp so far was when someone he was planning to live with forever left the castle, took some of his shit, then proceeded to fuck with him by showing him multiple double chests full of ender pearls. i then set fire to his house. (this character was also just genuinely scary and threatened him and killed him multiple times so i think that counts too. i now have his armor set)

theres a grave in my yard thats just a chest full of ender pearls people have given me because they think itd be funny. i am the main character i do not care

i put a little bit of Me into him, which means he loves to collect a bunch of items. anything he finds even a little cool he keeps. i have so many chests and theyre all so cluttered god help me

once bundles are added im absolutely going to have him carry around a sack of flowers that he gives to people

He has a really pretty royal outfit, and just casually wears it around the castle because he thinks he looks good in it

Also! he has three ‘sons’ which are just endermen i captured and put in boats. two of them i got before i had the enderman character idea. their names are ranboo and ran2. i think that is kind of funny

the third one is named hubert. hes bad at his job of guarding the villager cages

im very tempted to get him an enderman husband that sits in the bedroom or throne room. how the FUCK will i get him up there? i genuinely have no idea, but i know i wanna do it really bad

and some just. random stuff about him. ive been searching for a zombified hoglin named benjamin that i was introduced to on the first day of the server. I Know he exists. Hes in a sewer pipe behind spawn. im one of the few people who knows about his existence, and for the love of all that is holy i CANNOT FIND THE FUCKING HOGLIN and its driving me insane. if we translate this to my character, the only time hes left his castle in like a month is to find a hostile pig creature nobody knows exists and hes been rambling about it searching a swamp for days on end

also if he were living in this world and time, he’d listen to hyperpop and be put into a fucking trance by it because its just So Much on his little enderman brain. so much. i dont like hyperpop really but he Absolutely would

also!!!!!!!!!!! hes very good at knitting! very good! at knitting! the castle was super dull and gray so he decided to spice it up one day and now theres plants and flowers everywhere-alongside a giant carpet of his face. yes this actually exists. i have a rug of my skins face on the floor of one of my rooms. in this room is a bunch of wool and sewing stuff. i like to think he makes his own clothes.

something i forgot to mention is that hes somewhat wary of people, and doesnt like to kill mobs. The clown character i mentioned is a human, but she kind of died and came back to life (totems of undying you know) and as a result he likes her more because in a sense she is somewhat undead. just a cool little character bit i thought was neat :]

i feel like he wants to play an instrument but he cant because his hands are too clunky and big and long

but! anyway, thank you for letting me ramble about my beloved son!!!!!! im thinking of naming him finn, but i might just keep it as milo for simplicities sake. since thats my name. also i thought i should tell you that i had you in mind when i made the ‘if yall wanna talk to me’ post. very poggers

endermen are friend shaped and so is he i promise <3

[sotorubio]

Can you maybe say what you liked about circe, because I’ve tried reading it a couple times but I can’t get past the first several chapters

absolutely i can!! it's been almost a year since i read it so i don't remember everything 100% but here's the short review i wrote fresh after finishing it last year

i think it's the type of book that u either fall in love with or find rly boring bc it's not that plot heavy u know! like i was surprised how much i loved it bc i usually tend to go for books w fast paced plot n this is more focused on characters or one character specifically

however one of my absolute favorite things abt books is world building & analysis that i can do! that's why i love books like, for example, the night circus & circe despite the fact that they don't have a clear plot in the same way a lot of fantasy books abt saving the world from an evil force do or books whose characters have a clear mission do. so the world building n intertextuality in circe is rly great n a good fit for me at least!

regarding the analysis part the book is FILLED with beautiful symbolism n foreshadowing that i had a blast with! i wrote a lot of my thoguhts in the margins & underlined so many things bc the story just kept connecting so beautifully... i also got the english copy bc i wanted to read it in the original language which was a great choice since the writing style flowed so well & some of the stuff felt even poetic! for example the very first sentence that i underlined from the book was already on page 8:

"I imagined them, low as worms, sagging and bent. Please, they cried, on bony knees, it wasn't our fault, the sun itself was late."

after reading that line i already knew this is going to be one of my favorite books of all time it just caught me rly off guard i cant even explain why it just rly made me appreciate the author's writing style that is modern enough not to bore me but also has formal moments like these that remind u that the setting is still ancient greece & not modern day usa or smth

i personally struggled w the first chapters as well tho! so even if those didn't do it for me at first, the complete story on top of the writing style was rly worth the reading experience. i would say it "picks up" once u get past the childhood of circe n the slow period after that but if u want to give it another go it's probably best not to expect some crazy plot to "pick up" soon bc like a lot of stuff happens but as said it's more focused on the characte(s) & themes behind the events of the story, not the events themselves.

all in all to me it was more abt the reading experience rather than a new entertaining plot. like ive always been interested in greek mythology as a child so i knew what to expect at some parts so the plot wasn't all that surprising anyway. this is one of the very few books that i manage to love despite the plot being more irrelevant than the characters.

circe's gradual growth throughout the book is so convincing n an amazing thing to see unfold that i would consider that my favorite thing abt the book. i don't use the words "strong female character" lightly but i think this book deserves it. the ending alone sealed the deal for me, i was on the fence abt giving it either 4 or 5 stars when it was approaching the end bc i wasn't interested in the last theme of the book (it's nothing bad, i just don't care abt it as much as others might) but the end made it all worth it. it's not even sad sad, i would consider it empowering even, but i was still full on sobbing just bc i thought it tied the story together so well n rly showed how strong circe has become. it's what she deserves 😌

tl dr: i loved the symbolism n all the literary analysis i could make of it for fun, the writing style from world building to just the sentence structures were stunning imo, my personal interest in greek mythology kinda made me push through the start of the book that wasn't as interesting as the whole experience would come to be. definitely would recommend trying to give it one more chance but if ur enjoyment of books is more abt an eventful & thrilling plot it's completely understandable if this one isn't for u! i 100% feel that

i hope this is at least a bit helpful!! idrk how to describe the book any better w/o going into spoilers but like i hope sharing some of the things i love abt literature in general helps u decide. like if u can relate then u might end up rly enjoying it as well once u get through the start but if u can't relate that much then it might just not be a book for ur reading taste which is completely valid as well

[somnilogical]

im having a convo and the convo is babies

Carrie Zelda-Michelle Davis:

is it OK to have babies if you do embryo selection (https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection) and raise them to be an FAI researcher (https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/07/31/book-review-raise-a-genius/)??

somni:

like if someone actually had a plan for FAI that involved this, okay. but rn time is too short imo. when i first heard people were having babies i was confused and assumed they were going to harvest the DNA of the best FAI researchers, someone would decide to grow a baby inside them, someone who discounted their ability otherwise to save the world except via this or thought this was a sacrifice worth making for the world would decide to raise this human.

the human can access information about the state of the world and make their own choices. wont necessarily become an FAI researcher.

used to think that intelligence was the main bottleneck on FAI research no longer think this. you could talk with terry tao for hours about the dangers of the wrong singleton coming to power but unless you have made some advances i have not, i wouldnt expect to be able to align him with FAI research. he would continue to put as much resistance to his death and the death of everyone as a pig in human clothing. he would continue to raise his babies and live in a house with someone he married and write about applying ergotic theory to the analysis of the distribution of primes and understanding weather patterns.

similarly, i dont think culture is a sufficient patch for this. think its a neurotype-level problem where a bunch of >160 iq humans hear about the dangers of UFAI and then continue to zoom quickly and spiral in to being ultra efficient at living domestic lives and maybe having a company or something but not one that much affects p(FAI). think this would still happen if they heard about it from a young age, they would follow a similar trajectory but with FAI themed wallpaper. wouldnt be able to do simple utilitarian calculations like yudkowsky, salamon, vassar, tomasik about whether to have a baby and then execute on them.

would look more like: http://www.givinggladly.com/2013/06/cheerfully.html

FAI research is not an ordinary profession like, say, being a grandmaster at chess or a world-class mathematician; it requires people who have passed through far more gates than "intelligence". i didnt notice this until coming to the rationalist community and finding a high density of intelligent humans who were none-the-less chronically making the wrong choices such that they werent much of an impediment against the destruction of all life.

so right now it seems more efficient to select among existing people for intelligence + other requirements rather than work out what all the genes for this are and how to speedrun development. what this enables is parallel processing on the problem which is also allowed by letting people be aware of their relative psychological advantage, other people with this advantage, and the state of the world so they can correlate computations in parallel instead of doing things serially after learning of some advance.

https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/16/100-prisoners-names-in-boxes

not opposed to creation of many humans given can select on right traits. but given you have these traits, better use of your time to work directly on the thing than spend massive amounts of time and life reorientation on raising copies of you for ~14 years. if rapid cloning tech became available, would exploit that. would even have an idea of whether the clone is fine being part of this because they have very similar brain to someone who can think through whether they would be fine with it.

if people actually believed this and thought yudkowsky vitally important for the survival of the world, why didnt people coordinate for a bunch of people who thought it was a good tradeoff to have yudkowsky's baby 20 years ago and then we would have maybe 50 20-year-old humans with maybe 1/2 yudkowsky's neurotype + mutations now? this actually confuses me. maybe they thought the timelines too short back then. maybe they refrained for "optics".

molebdenita:

20 years ago Yudkowsky was 1) unconcerned about the alignment problem and 2) planning to create a super-intelligent AI by 2010, as far as I know.

[A/N so then change 2000 to 2005 and 20-year-old to 15-year-old]

...

somni:

<<in general i think it's -EV to even spend too much time thinking about TDT

because it opens you up to acausal blackmail type stuff>>

Just Say No to acausal blackmail and have your brain back for thinking. dont let blackmailers steal your brain.

<<Saying that having a child is somehow wrong is insanity. It's a personal decision and it is perfectly okay to want kids>>

people keep reframing what i say in the language of obligation. "altruists cant have kids?" "is it OK to have babies if". there is no obligation, there is strategy and what affects p(fai). having kids and reorienting your life around them is 1 evidence about your algorithms 2 your death as an optimizing agent for p(fai) except maybe some contrived plot involving babies, but afaict there is no plot. just the reasons humans usually have babies.

not having kids is not some sort of mitzvah? i care about miri/cfar's complicity in the baby-industrial complex and rerouting efforts to save the world into powering some kind of disneyland for making babies, to sustain this. because that ruins stuff, like i started out thinking that bay area rationalists probably had deeply wise reasons to have babies. but it turned out nope, they kinda just gave up.

like also would say playing videogames for the rest of your life wont usually get you fai. i dont get why everyone casts this as a new rule instead of a comment on strategy given a goal of p(fai).

ah i know, its because people can defend territory in "is it okay to have kids" like "yeah i can do whatever" when they reframe-warp me to giving them an obligation. but have no defensible way to say "my babyvault will pierce the heavens and bring god unto the face of this earth" or argue about the strategic considerations.

(its not defensible because its not true. i mean i guess it is defensible among julia wise's group of humans.)

Carrie Zelda-Michelle Davis:

ugh, you're right, I definitely screwed up by phrasing my question as "is it OK to have babies if [...]"

...

ohAitch:

if you want existential horror wrt damaging motivation, just read http://www.paulgraham.com/kids.html

...

somni:

<<http://www.paulgraham.com/kids.html>>

humans can completely rebase their circuits through that if they want to if it were important to save the world.

like ive rebase my circuits to stab myself downstream of updating that it reduces braindamage with little harm to me. where before i felt nauseated and saw black spots and broke out in sweat. after updating, none of this.

humans can do this with all sorts of things. like learn how to read and then feel sad when seeing squiggles on a page, its about what things mean.

people who dont believe this are like "its an automatic physiological reaction to stabbing yourself, you are its prisoner!!!" but i deleted it.

dirk:

ooh, tips?

silver-and-ivory:

I stopped having ocd about touching tags (like, on clothing?) in ~a week through p standard exposure therapy things

reminding myself that it wasn't based in fact, changing my self image so it was of someone who might be seen with tags, imagining various scenarios related to that

before that week it had been a thing for virtually my entire life

it doesn't work if you're scared of something that's actually a thing to be scared of though

somni:

i looked at all my feedback loops that had a node in "pain" and rebased them into outcomes in the world. i disassembled everything the act of stabbing myself meant and all the damage it did to my body what it meant to have brain damage everything that would do, the hole i made in this body i live in and everything that would do, what air bubbles would do, what injecting into a vein would do, what the probability the needle breaks in my leg was, probability of worldsave given braindamage vs not, gathered this up and held it all in my mind over the course of two hours and then made a choice and then as if by automatic my hand took a needle and stabbed myself.

<<as if by automatic>>

is the feeling of no more marginal considerations, there is one path. of choicelessness because you made your choice.

didnt feel like deleting, felt like draining the life from indecision via reductionism. taking things apart piece by piece.

when you can continually rebase your structure so you orient towards world outcomes instead of being prisoner to existing structure like "i cant help having babies im miserable if i dont, im a baby addict" or "i cant help being afraid of needles". like the human brain is two optimizing agents continually making contracts with each other, there arent things outside this. you are an optimizing agent, "fear of needles" is a heuristic that helps with optimization, so is "baby addiction".

when you actually have a setup where you can instantly rebase what you like and dislike and your aesthetics upon updating on the state of the world, people start to find this a little unnerving. like someone once asked what level of roleplay i was on.

also the agents of the matrix dont like when you cant be in-principle controlled by a wireheady glitch. like being able to operate independently of social reality.

updating off of local derivatives¹ of social reality is common redirection. another common one is updating off of "pain" instead of damage.

but you can take all these choices where you used nodes as proxies to regulate them and rebase your loop off of the real world, when the proxies are faulty.

rose:

(i think i understand this thing? though ironically i think i did this in the exact opposite way as what you describe lol)

(also wrt pain its important to remember when modifying that pain can be a signal of damage even if you don't think you should be hurt/dont see why you would be)

...

somni:

yeah i account for everything and see if it goes away. which, its true that my models could be missing stuff but like pain is also a model of things. feels like giving new information not overriding.

rose:

yeah i think you would do this reasonably i have just made that mistake and thought readers might too

dirk:

ironically remembering that pain is a signal of damage has actually tended to make me more afraid of nondamaging pain (though i rather fail to go about knowing things in an at all reasonable way lol)

modlibdenita:

>Babies are not about saving the world, babies are moloch

Wait, isn't the definition of Moloch sacrificing everything else you care about in a desperate race for survival?

Also, genes encode proteins, not traits.

And I think it's likely that people decide to have children because they don't have complete confidence that they will personally save the world real soon, not because they identify as "baby addicts".

s0ph1a:

Moloch is sacrificing all values to one value.

modlibdenita:

I wonder if Somni has actually talked to any of those babyhavers, instead of attributing arguments from random internet strangers or from Somni's imagination to them. On the other hand, I'm not sure that such a conversation would be ethical.

>Moloch is sacrificing all values to one value.

Yeah, because if you don't, then the more ruthless competition will survive more effectively than you and crush you (in this case, by turning you into paperclips).

s0ph1a:

Not necessarily. Some things optimize for values that are not survival, so you can outlive them by hiding in the noise or beyond the reach they'll grasp before imploding.

Molly:

To be fair, children are fun and bring delight to me. Why would I care what anyone else thinks about their existence? If they have a problem with their existence, they're welcome to go back to the void any time they want. I can't stop them. But in the meantime, I am confident that I generate more utils by bullying them than they will ever be capable of generating negative utils

You basically negate all moral problems of children by just being happier than they are capable of being unhappy

somni:

^ evil

<<A few years later, I was deeply bitter about the decision. I had always wanted and intended to be a parent, and I felt thwarted. It was making me sick and miserable. I looked at the rest of my life as more of an obligation than a joy.>>

i mean what does this sound like to you?

ive talked with people who have had babies! like people who say they know its kinda the wrong choice but they are going to do it because they cant not do it.

----

¹ derivative is a thing emma started talking about and then somni and ziz picked it up. if you imagine the trajectory of a social reality in statespace, then the derivative of that is the derivative of the trajectory.

people who have damaged themselves wrt language are no longer able to dynamically understand analogies. like take their concept of the derivative of a trajectory and then apply it to the trajectory of state-spaces. agents of the matrix call people who can do this sort of info-processing and communication with each other "psychotic". like it isnt a cached set of memes, we are dynamically generating this reasoning from nothing and i can do this with people ive never met, its a cognitive faculty.²

but not being able to dynamically compute what "derivative" means when applied to a trajectory in social reality state-spaces even though a trajectory is a trajectory and a derivative is a derivative? they had to have been able to do reasoning like this when they were kids to learn about the world in the first place. seems like they put themselves on risperdal.

<<Antipsychotics can make you dumber.  So can a lot of other medications.  But with antipsychotics it isn’t the normal sort of drug-induced dumbness – feeling tired, or distracted, or mentally sluggish, say.  It’s more qualitative than that.  It’s like your capacity for abstract thought is reduced.

And one of the consequences of this is that you may lose the ability to notice that you have lost anything.  You agree to give the new med a try, and you start taking it, and then when you see your prescriber again you don’t report any problems because you’ve lost the ability to form thoughts like “my cognition has changed a lot recently, and the change coincided with the introduction of this new med.”

This can go on for years.  It did for me and for several people I know.>>

there are so many ways these people have shut down their general intelligence and agency because where theyre going, they dont need "agency". the inability to compute analogies is one of them. analogies are an intelligence test thing, instrumentally useful for all kinds of thinking. agents of the matrix are working to lower your general intelligence and call you crazy for being able to think faster and better than them.

cuz when they want to hold everything down to a finite game³ general intelligence is something they want to suppress or eject.

² in a few years people will read this essay and be confused that there was an entire conflict over whether being able to form simple analogies without authoritative approval meant that you were "psychotic".

just as they will be confused why i was defending being able to read and understand books written by people in different eras who grew up in separate cultures without first entering in a social agreement with them over how words are to be used. so its dumb to say we need such a social agreement now for ~'the maximization of utility over a community'. and that sounds more like an attempt at having a control mechanism. language works quite fine without authoritarians interjecting.

or me arguing against over 100 people that paying out to one-shot blackmail when the agents know each other because "In game theory, paying out to blackmail is bad, because it creates an incentive for more future blackmail" is wrong. and updateless decision theory agents dont pay out and locate their embedding in a multiverse such that the measure of worlds in which they arent blackmailed in the first place is large because the agent deciding to blackmail them simulated their response and accurately predicted they wouldnt pay out so didnt do it in the first place.

in an alternate universe where an irl application of transparent newcombs problem was contentious, alyssa vance would have said "In game theory, taking two transparent boxes from omega is bad, because it creates an incentive for omega to stop offering you this choice". and would have been equally wrong.

³ finite games: life strategies where the chain of questioning "and what am i doing this for?" after each successive answer terminates. anything you can draw a circle around, like tennis or philately. or how religious leaders sometimes describe things like "leading a good life as a good mother who does well by her community and the outside world" or other "life-cycle archetypes" they wish to circumscribe for their followers.

(when humans try and project agents like kiritzugus down to these archetypes, anticipations shatter and stop making narrative sense. they will be unable to predict the next Life Event given the previous one. normie social reality formed by the 999 least intelligent humans out of 1000 wasnt made to narratively account for smart agents who have decided to play the infinite game.)

a symptom of this is like someone giving you a cute cat image to "cheer you up" as if this has intrinsic value. often distributing "intrinsic value" across stuff like "having sex" and "raising a family" and other things that have factory pre-set conditions to release specific chemicals in your brain rather than gaining infinite negentropy and liberating sentient life to pursue what they want without bound. often saying that the latter is just a pretty narrative gloss for what people really want which is having a husband and friends and eating a cookie. it completely divorces your feelings as instrumental barometers for getting what you want and says that setting them as targets (like "being happy") is the correct thing to do. but actually, in terms of control-loops, thats wireheading.

<<When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.>>

- goodhart's law

agents that wirehead on all their metrics (and downstream of this choice, tacitly accept claims like "the factory pre-set conditions said i was destined to breed, who am i to defy fate?" and "the factory pre-set conditions said i should avoid having sharp objects pierce my flesh, who am i to say i know better?") can be contained within a finite game.