#or that I’ve smushed together or altered

[eternally--mortal]

One of my many time travel headcanons slots into the irondad—spiderson corner of the Marvel fanverse. I love Spider-Man and his stories, but I also suffer from visceral second-hand embarrassment and second-hand pain of seeing someone neglected or abandoned or alone, so most of my voluntary interactions with the Spider-Man/Marvel fan sphere come from the warm and fuzzy and emotionally rewarding sections with Tony and Peter becoming family. I know there are some arguments about how realistic that may or may not be to the movies, but I don’t really care. I love that those fan fictions and fan arts exist and I embrace them because they’re my favorite way of intaking that particular corner of media. So if you’re on that same page with me, enjoy my little private time travel headcanon:

In a Universe where Tony survives, Beck would have to curb his plans. They wouldn’t have formed the same way. For one thing, the drones and the glasses wouldn’t have been accessible through Peter / Tony’s will. For another, Peter would have been immediately more obviously tied to Tony, because Tony wouldn’t want to let him out of his sight after saving the world for Peter. In this version Tony and Pepper essentially adopt Peter and share informal joint custody with May. Peter gets to be Morgan’s older brother and he eventually sees Tony as his dad. They take their time to adjust: Peter has time to settle after the snap and find a new equilibrium, and the group of them develops a normal family routine. There’s definitely an optional version of this where Harley’s there as well because I have a soft spot for that, but this is mostly about Peter and Morgan (sorry Harley. You’re awesome, I just didn’t imagine you in the bulk of this story).

Beck’s team takes longer to get their shit together—partially as a plot device to allow Peter to adjust enough to call Tony “dad” and partially because Tony isn’t dead in this version, so their plans have to be different.

When the public figures out that Tony has a ‘son’—one that’s just as smart as he is—Beck and his crew decide not to go directly after the drones. They go for the kids instead. They figure ‘hey, if the rumors are true and the brat is just as smart as Tony, he can build whatever we want him to. If not, we can use the kids as leverage to get what we want.’ They go after Peter and Morgan and steal some of Tony’s super-secret-recently-invented time travel technology and hop around the space time continuum for a little bit. They don’t realize that Peter is Spider-Man because they’re convinced he’s Tony’s son and have fixated on that rather than on the fact that Peter might be a superhero (since Tony so obviously considers him a son they didn’t do as much digging into ‘why on earth would Tony Stark take interest in this random kid?’). But Peter doesn’t know whether he should play his hand as Spider-Man. They keep him separated from Morgan most of the time and he has to keep her safe because they’re threatening him with her. Peter doesn’t want to take the risk that he’ll escape and they’ll portal away with Morgan somewhere/when where he can’t find them.

Beck and his crew haven’t tried to reach out to Tony yet. They’re pretty confident that they can use Morgan to get whatever they want out of Peter instead. And besides that, Beck really just wants to make Tony suffer, so he figures taking his kids somewhere unreachable is the best way to do that. But he also wants to be able to watch Some version of Tony, just to remind himself of whom he’s torturing. So after hop-skip-jumping their way through the time stream, Beck takes them back in time to just after the Avengers saved the world from Loki—or some other convenient time within the span of movies. There’s some flexibility there. (The watches work for all of these trips. It’s possible that Peter and Tony revisited the tech to eliminate Pym Particles as an energy source. Maybe Beck’s team of engineers found another power source. Or maybe they just have a huge stash of particles. I don’t know. I didn’t really think about that part of the story. This is really mostly just background.)

Peter wants to lessen the risk of being more permanently separated from Morgan, he wants to make it easier for Tony to find them, AND he likes that they’re in a time period where he can reach some version of the Avengers. So he sneaks out while they’re trying to make him build something and he sabotages all of the time bracelets so they can’t be used again.

The real meat of the story comes with the back-in-time Avengers. Tony gets an odd transmission that he can’t open (because Peter sent it to JARVIS in the hopes that His version of Tony would find it and see it in the future and would know when and how to come back and get them). Then the Avengers run into the future version of Tony who shows up in the past. Younger Tony gets super suspicious, and he and the other Avengers assume that this is some super villain using a copy of the Ironman suit.

Beck’s crew may also have done something to get them on Team Cap’s radar, and Cap may be investigating some of their movements as potential remnants of Hydra or something else equally suspicious. Especially since Beck’s crew may have been too bold entering into this part of the timeline when they assumed they’d have access to an escape (before Peter broke the bracelets).

Finally the Avengers have a run-in where they see Tony’s face. Maybe they even catch him and drag him back to Avengers Tower (which of course he would know how to control / escape). He won’t tell them what’s going on because he takes one look at his younger self and sees a traumatized man with narcissistic tendencies who is Not ready to be a father. So he just tells them that Beck “stole something from me” and to “not get involved.” He plays up some of his familiar bravado and ego so they won’t dig too far into what exactly Beck might have stolen.

Meanwhile Beck is getting fed up with Peter, for obvious reasons. They’re trying to get him to fix the bracelets on Top of everything else they wanted him to do, but he keeps stalling for time. Beck keeps almost catching him recording covert videos, and before Peter has the chance to upload and send any more of them, the crew packs up and ditches the base where they were originally holding the kids. Peter and Morgan are now stuck in the past together, but Peter’s finding fewer and fewer opportunities to escape with her without revealing himself, and now that they’re in the past he’s afraid that Beck might discover his identity and go after Peter’s younger self as well before he even has the spider bite. Besides that, none of Beck’s team realizes how much food Peter needs to eat to stay functional. And when he’s difficult they do things like withhold food (which is a problem for his metabolism), withhold heat (when he can’t thermoregulate, so it’s basically like drugging him because it makes his body think it has to hibernate), actually drug him, etc. He’s hedging between causing problems to make life difficult for Beck, playing at good behavior in order to get more time with Morgan, actually practicing semi-good behavior to buy some time for Tony to come get them, and trying to formulate a better escape plan. And when Beck relocates them to an old Hydra base, Peter decides not to take any risks about showing off his spider powers.

The Avengers team breaks into Beck’s old base after the relocation. Cap is convinced that Tony made some stupid world-ending tech that’s going to get them all killed and that That is what Beck stole. That, or it’s just the time travel tech. To be fair, Tony is also pretty convinced that it’s some sort of tech, and he’s fairly invested in finding out what future-y stuff his older self is being so cagey about. They find evidence of a lab with mechanical parts (tools and pieces that they gave Peter to try and get him to build things, etc.). But Nat comes across a room with a blanket in the corner and a couple crayon drawings and does the whole “Guys, maybe we’re on the wrong trail here” bit about how maybe they don’t really know what’s been stollen. Tony gets what he can out of the computer and takes it back to the tower to decode.

A week later he’s de-encrypted the files enough to access some of the videos that Peter made and saved behind some walls of coding.

There are little snippets that show Peter stalling for time, ones that show some of the repercussions of his sabotaging the watches, etc. There are videos that show how much Beck’s team is treating him as a stupid normal kid and trying to manipulate him in a variety of ways—sometimes with Morgan, sometimes with violence or bribery.

A video where Peter wonders if he should be building something to appease them because they’re not feeding him and he needs to see Morgan, and how he wants to hold out, but Dad he’s not sure he’s going to be able to if it means Morgan might get hurt. How he promises to take care of her.

There are videos of Peter being a little shit and pulling tricks behind Beck’s back to mess with the tech.

A video of Peter looking a little better and Morgan sitting there assisting him and handing him the right tools before he can finish asking for them. They sing a little Italian at each other (in this version May taught Peter some Italian and Tony taught Morgan and Peter some as well). Morgan tells Peter “that’s not the way Daddy builds it.” And Peter has to tell her that they don’t have dad’s stuff at their disposal. (They’re sneakily building an E.M.P. instead of whatever Beck wants. That’s why Peter had to stash the thumb drive so it wasn’t hooked up to the computer system. Unfortunately Beck gets wind of it and figures out what they’re doing before they can use it. He’s noticed the Avengers sniffing around which is why they ditch their original base.) There’s definitely a moment in a video somewhere where they’re talking about Pepper (calling her ‘mom’) and how she would be able to stop Beck maybe even more easily than Tony—Peter says it as a Half-joke to make Morgan feel hopeful—and Peter says “can you do your mom impression?” And Morgan’s face transforms into this little deadpan look and she goes “No, Tony.” And they both laugh and joke about how Pepper would just tell Beck “No” and take them home. And then we see Beck storm in and discover the E.M.P. and throw it into the corner where it smashes (which is how the Avengers find it when they investigate), and we watch Morgan get dragged off screaming and Peter screaming back for her and trying to talk down Beck while Beck is pulling the whole ‘I thought letting you work with your sister would make you behave, but obviously I can’t trust the two of you together’ bit. He says shit like ‘you’re a worse brat than your dad’ and insults their whole family and says some nasty things about Tony and then about Peter and Morgan all while he’s ordering his people to shut the place down and clear out. Beck figures out that Peter’s been recording all of this after his team drags the kids out and he leaves a nasty message for Tony about how he’s going to pay, blah blah blah, how he’s never going to get his kids back. Something dramatic.

Obviously there’s some backlash in the team to Tony finding out that he’s a dad or that he’s going to be. They try to do some calculating to figure out when he’s going to have Peter (since they assume he’s a bio kid), but some of that is messed up by the fact that they don’t know about the snap or the five years that Peter lost. It’s generally chaos. They’re also a little more rushed to figure this out now that they know that there are kids involved. (They also don’t realize that Peter has powers, but it shouldn’t really matter because he’s a kid anyway.)

(At some point there would also be a conversation later when they meet up with Older Tony where someone suggests that Younger Tony just deal with Beck in the present time to avoid all of this so that Older Tony can explain how time travel doesn’t work like that and that This future version of Beck is already set the way he is, likely on a deviant path from their own Beck.)

Beck super mad that the time watches are broken and that the Avengers are on their tail. He rigs up the Hydra base and uses some of his hologram tech to manipulate the kids into thinking they’re being rescued when they’re not (either just to be an asshole or to try and get Peter to fix the watches through manipulation), or to show Peter a hologram of Morgan when she’s not in the room and vice versa to mess with them. At one point he possibly makes Peter think he’s shooting Morgan or something as a form of punishment for Peter not cooperating. There’s a large variety of evil that Beck is frankly willing to dip into to psychologically mess with these kids (and Tony by extension).

Older Tony and the Avengers end up working together to go save Peter and Morgan, which could honestly go a variety of ways. But I like the idea that Peter and Morgan are integral to the escape somehow, by building something or by Morgan remembering something important or by Peter using his smarts or his powers just a little. Younger-Tony gets handed Morgan (by another hero, against his will) at one point while Older Tony is in another room on the other side of the base trying to negotiate with Beck who’s threatening to kill Peter (something like that), and Morgan calls him Mr. Stark or Tony instead of Dad or Daddy because “You’re not my Dad yet” and makes a comment about how there isn’t enough gray in his hair. And he’s not really sure how to respond to her so they’re kind of strangers to each other.

Morgan possibly mentions something about ‘why didn’t you bring Uncle Bucky?’ and Steve just about has a heart attack, and Peter has to defuse it like ‘I don’t think they know about Uncle Bucky yet.’

Beck and his crew are taken into custody. Peter and Morgan get some time in the med bay for recovery. We get to see them interact with JARVIS (which is a little odd because they usually just have FRIDAY). The Avengers get to see Tony being a dad—even if he’s a little cagey about it around the super hero team. There are allusions to him being married to Pepper (without them directly saying it). Peter and Tony fix the time watches (without letting JARVIS see the schematics, because we can’t have an earth-conquering robot knowing how to traverse space-time), and they go home. (Either that or we involve Harley, who’s possibly been home with Pepper this whole time and did not get kidnapped because having all three kids would have driven Beck over the edge. And Harley took care of the technology from his end and ended up altering the tech to open a doorway instead of just using the watches. Not canon compliant, but I don’t know that I mind it as an option. Because, again, The Feels are more important to me for this particular story.) There’s definitely a little moment somewhere in their stay at the tower in the past with the Avengers where Peter wants to drink coffee or something and Tony tells him ‘thanks, no, I’ll take that’ and then asks Morgan to do a Mom (Pepper) impression, so Morgan turns to Peter and goes “No,” and Peter responds with “traitor” or something. I don’t know I think it would be cute.

And then there’s just the aftermath. Peter has Aunt May and MJ and Ned waiting for him when he gets back home. There’s family time with Pepper (and maybe Harley???). All those good vibes. Back in time there’s an acknowledgement of the fact that Tony is a whole-ass person who will grow and develop. Cap wants to go look for Bucky. And the seed has been planted that something is going to go wrong with JARVIS. Tony wonders if Peter’s out there somewhere and was possibly a child of one of his one night stands. Things like that.

[notsocheezy]

Brain Curd #204

Brain Curds are lightly edited daily writing - usually flash fiction and sometimes terrible on purpose.

He's gonna be Frank with you. Read the rest of The Frank Program here on Tumblr!

Frank was spaced out, drooling just a little. He’d just set up a lava lamp in the corner and was mesmerized by it, despite not having turned it on.

“Hey, Frank?” Big Mike snapped his fingers right in front of his eyes. “Frankie? Hellooo, Frankie?” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. This was very unprofessional behavior. Some guy sat in the guest seat, twiddling his thumbs. Frank hadn’t even introduced him.

“Nice place you got here!” The guy said, giving a thumbs-up. “My place is a total sty, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” Mike replied, then shook Frank by the shoulder and whispered in his ear. “Hey! Who the hell is this guy?”

Frank shook his head and looked over at Mike. “Hey, Mikey, how’s it going?”

“We’re recording an episode! Who is this guest?”

“Oh, him? He’s my… uh… he’s a mushroom expert.”

“What’s his name?”

“Uh… Thomas…”

“Thomas… what?”

“Just Thomas. Probably. I don’t wanna ask.”

Mike shook his head. “What do we even ask a mushroom expert, Frank? What does he know that anyone in your audience would be interested in hearing?”

“Oh,” Frank chuckled. “He knows a lot. Go on, Thomas, tell us about the Egyptians.”

Thomas clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Happy to! So basically, the story goes like this: the pharaohs of ancient Egypt discovered the mind-altering qualities of Psilocybe maluti - AKA the magic mushroom.” He wiggled his fingers in the air.

Mike rolled his eyes. “‘Mushroom expert,’ huh?”

Thomas continued. “The pharaohs were wise, but only so wise as to know that they knew nothing. So they partook in the sacred process of eating shrooms with some snacks, so that they may have their third eyes opened wide to the full wisdom of the universe! It’s how they learned to build the pyramids!”

Frank leaned in, captivated. “Hey, Mikey, can you go get us some snacks?”

“No.”

“King Tut famously met the Annunaki aliens via telepathic link, and they shared with him their millennia-old recipe for a sandwich. Over centuries, this recipe was passed down among the elite until it was finally made available for the public to taste. You know it as the McRib.”

Frank whispered. “Come on Mikey, I’m getting really hungry.”

Mike groaned and rummaged around in a cupboard for a ramen cup or something.

“It wasn’t just the Egyptians though! All the great ancient civilizations knew the power of the mushroom! It was the reason they invented democracy in Greece! That’s why the man doesn’t want you to have them! The people would be too powerful if they were taking as much shrooms as the elite!”

“The elite?” Frank asked.

“Yeah, the elite! Like Wesley Johnson, and that fascist Chuck Tangent.”

“Woah, woah, woah!” Frank put up his hands. “Mr. Tangent is a friend of the show, sir, so you’d best hold your tongue.”

Thomas leaned in. “Wait… is he cool?”

“Yeah he’s cool, he’s real cool.”

Thomas slammed on the desk. “Goddammit! I’ve been hustled again by the damn mainstream media!”

“You’re goddamn right, kiddo!”

Mike tossed a smushed protein bar on the desk in front of Frank, who tore into it like a starving crazed weasel.

Mike pulled up his microphone arm rather than sitting back down. “I think we’ve all heard enough, folks. He’s Frank, thanks for letting him…” He watched as Frank ate the protein bar sideways, his face covered in chocolate. “… be himself. See you next time.”

Please comment, reblog, like, and follow if you enjoyed- I'd love to know what you think! See you again tomorrow.

[skyeinfinity0]

I’m currently working on a Rise fanfic called Two Birds forget but this chapter is murdering me so have a bunch of fic ideas i want to write ik the future feat. RotTMNT and The Owl House

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Fair warning this is going to be mostly Donnie angst bc that’s what i like to write.

Two Birds Sequel/What if thing-I can say nothing without spoiling the ending of the fic.

Inspired by:Nothing

My thoughts: Whenever I get writers block i just work on this a bit more bc it’s easy. It’s just a fairly lengthy one shot.

Titanium Tin Man- Donnie gets an invite to a big fancy science convention where a famous multibillionaire is going to supply funds and endorsements to help kickstart one ‘aspiring inventor’. No surprise Donnie wins, and he gets very very famous. This power obviously goes to his head because he’s Donnie.

Inspired by: Cabinet Man by Lemon Demon

My thoughts: I am very very very excited to write this and have considered dropping Two Birds multiple times so i can get started. However, I already dropped the first fic I ever wrote, so i wanna try and stick with this one. I’m really mostly excited for the second arc of the story, which is also inspired by a Lemon Demon song, but just saying what the song is a massive spoiler so.

Drift Away- Donnie gets kidnapped by Big Mama, but he is confident in the fact that his brothers will find him. However, Big Mama has powerful connections in low places, and her web of lies extends farther than anyone could guess.

Inspired by: Drift Away covered by Caleb Hyles

My Thoughts: This is kind of a remake of my first, dropped fic Purple Rain has Fallen Down except it only hits like three of the same story beats. I am also very excited abt this bc Big Mamas new ally is so cool to me man i can’t wait to write him.

Burn it All Down- Donnie invents nanotech, which he turns into an alter ego called Pyras he uses as an outlet to let out all his anger and emo stuff into. Basically he sneaks out in his nanotech suit and sets stuff on fire while disguised. However, things start to get complicated when his brothers start to take interest in bringing Pyras to justice. And then Baron Draxum gets involved and it all goes to shit.

Inspired by: Play with Fire by Sam Tinnesz

My thoughts: I was OBSESSED with this concept for a while, but i’ve kind of fallen out of love with it. It’s still cool, just not amazing. Also i struggled so hard to explain the plot there oml.

Echoes (Name Highly Subject to Change)- Donnie hears the voices of the Krang in his head after the events of the movie. After determining they are not controlling him in any way, Donnie builds a complicated, morally ambiguous contraption that can be used to turn thoughts into reality using nanotech in the hopes he can use it to confront the Kraang. Idk it’s kind of hard to explain.

Inspired by: Turn the Lights Off by Tally Hall and Maya the Psychic by Gerard Way

My thoughts: This started as two different concepts: the one inspired by Turn the Lights Off where Donnie makes what is basically a non-virtual reality machine and the one inspired by Maya the Psychic where Donnie hears the Kraangs voices, but i was having trouble fleshing them out so i just kinda… smushed them together. Idk what else to say.

Emotionally Unavailable- After an accident while experimenting with a mystic crystal, Donnie’s emotions are separated from his body and manifest as ‘ghosts’ nobody else can see. Basically Inside Out but the emotions have no control and just yell at the person.

Inspired by: Oh Klahoma by Jack Stauber

My thoughts: This is a newer concept but i think it’s pretty cool idk

I also want to write a stereotypical ‘Donnie gets hurt by the shredder and hides it oooo’ fic but that’s less of a project and more of a thing i’m gonna do when i’m bored.

The Owl House x Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Who tf knows i just need some fluff. None of it would make sense (why does hunter have belos possession scars but Luz is still s1 Luz?) But i just crave it.

-Hunter and Donnie would be besties bc I need them to

-Luz and Mikey are soul siblings and you cannot convince me otherwise

-Amity and Raph seem like they would be friends? idk how to explain it they just have the vibes

-And Leo would gain a cool aunt who would absolutely enable his shenanigans because that’s just what Eda does

Anyway if you read all that thanks and if you’d like to adopt a fic hmu and depending on how attached i am to the idea i’m willing to give it up if someone wants it

[donnieisaprettyboy]

hell yeah I gotchu

this also gives me the chance to show my final version of the pattern with all the alterations I’ve made! it makes the scales pointier and more separated rather than smushed together, a taller section above the drawstring cords, and a more defined border around the top :)

pride themed dragon scale dice bags I crocheted today! featuring transgender, aromantic, genderfluid, bisexual, and non-binary pride :)

to make all 5 it took about 11 hours from learning the pattern to completion. I’d like to start an Etsy shop so I’m doing practice runs and tweaking the pattern a little bit with each new bag before I start trying to list and sell any <3 I plan on gifting these ones to friends!

variations in the bags include hook size used to make it, drawstring length, and the height of the top of the bag

this pattern is a combination of this dragon egg dice bag pattern, this dragonscale stitch video, this Pokémon drawstring bag, and alterations I decide myself.

what pride flag should I do next? :)

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

If you *were* isekai-ed into Twisted Wonderland, what else would you do differently? (btw I think it’s hilarious but also sort of sad that you’d ignore malmal like that? 😂)

[Referencing this post!]

*rubs hands together*

Some disclaimers before I begin:

1) I will be assuming no prior knowledge of Twisted Wonderland when I am isekai’d (so I won’t know anything about the world, the characters, how their magic works, etc.).

2) I will be writing the things I would personally want to do and say; I am a separate entity from my OC, Raven Crowley, and whatever I write below the cut is not indicative of what she would do and say.

3) Some of the things I’d do/say would drastically alter the events of the main story; for the sake of argument, just assume that the main story progresses as normal despite my actions realistically leading to drastically different consequences or damaging my reputation with certain characters.

4) These are just the immediate things that come to mind, I might have missed some things I’d do differently because I didn’t comb through every scene of every chapter before writing.

Okay, now it’s time to turn Twisted Wonderland’s main story upside down 😷

***Main story spoilers below the cut!***

“If you’re not going to entertain me, then what good are you?” — me as Yuu, probably

Firstly, I’d be extremely protective of Grim right from the get-go, and I would spoil him to death. I’ve always wanted a pet cat, and a sassy talking one is even better than a regular cat 😂 As soon as I pop out of the coffin, I’d chase after Grim like Alice chased the White Rabbit into Wonderland (forget following Crowley to the ceremony, I’d go after Grim and ignore the headmaster). I’d also aggressively shove Riddle and Azul aside at the entrance ceremony to grab Grim for myself (probably shouting something like “MY kitty!! Everyone BACK OFF, he’s MINE!!” while cradling Grim with my body). After that point in time, I’m giving him all the head pats and canned tuna he wants (he’ll probably grow round because of it) 😌 You know how people baby-talk to infants? That’s me with Grim. I’ll “uwu” to him and call him “Grimmu” instead of Grim while smushing his cheeks. He can call me a minion all he wants, I fully support it ❤️ I’m also never EVER letting that sucker out of my sight, I’d ferry Grim everywhere tucked under my arm and I’d use him as a cat-shaped flamethrower for self-defense.

I wouldn’t be scared of the Ramshackle Ghosts during our first meeting. If anything, I’d just be fascinated that ghosts exist at all??? I’d stand there and ask them a billion questions about how ghosts “work”, since they’re technically dead and defy all laws of how science classifies creatures as “living”. Yeah, I know magic is a thing in this world, but ghosts transcend death itself. How could I NOT want to know about them? (Then I’ll go and brag to everyone about my cool ghost uncle room mates 🎵)

I’d eagerly volunteer to help Crowley around NRC instead of Crowley volun-telling me to do it. I hate hate HATE seeing unfinished tasks, especially when I know that one small thing being left undone can disrupt the entire system (aka the school). Even if they’re not MY personal responsibility, I’ll feel compelled to help complete them anyway just to see them done. If Crowley actually tries to guilt trip me into do something (like the whole “woe is me” act), there’s a much higher chance that I’ll resist doing it because I hate it. Just come out and outright tell me what you want so I can turn it down faster without the lingering bad taste in my mouth from guilt, Crowley 😊

I wouldn’t treat Ace and Deuce like my friends or classmates, but as annoying little brothers that I constantly need to nag and supervise. This especially goes for Ace, whom I see as the brattier of the duo. I won’t stand for him shit talking my cat (he can shit talk ME all he likes, but if he insults Grim, the kiddie gloves are coming OFF). Deuce gets more leniency, but I’d still tug on his ear and tell him to go study or something. I will put them in child leashes. I’M NOT AFRAID TO DO IT.

It’s not very clear what Yuu does during in-game battles, but personally I’d just chill in the back while shouting orders at Ace, Deuce, and Grim. I’m not going to count this one as a change, since I think the game implies that’s what Yuu is doing via the player choosing which characters and spells to deploy every turn, BUT I will say that sometimes I’ll just sit in the back with snacks and watch people fight like it’s a free movie or something 🍿

Since I’m so protective of my favorite child (Grim), there’s no way I’d let him eat any OB stones. I’d smack the OB stone out of his paw, or pap him on his butt until he spits it up. Eating rocks will mess with his digestive system, and I’m not about to have that.

I wouldn’t even use the Ghost Camera to take pictures of people. I’d use it to take pictures of things I think are super dumb or super interesting. You’ll get a bajjllion pictures of food or nature before you find a picture of a real fleshy human being on my camera.

When it comes to taking classes and being involved on campus, I’d be a very active student. Even if Grim is the one responsible for any classes that involve magic, you’ll probably find me lurking in the background taking notes (on Grim, on the class materials, on other students, etc). I’d want to learn as much about this world, the people in it, and how everything works, and I’d want to document it ALL. Basically, I’d be Rook Lite—

I would pick a fight with every student I come across when possible (like, I would purposefully annoy/taunt them in hopes of getting them to snap and throw some magic at me). Why? Because it would be fun, that’s why. I’M HERE FOR A GOOD TIME, NOT A LONG TIME. When will I get the chance to be beaten up by magic in my original world, huh? If I’m going to experience living in a place with magic, then I want to experience as much of that magic as possible, and that INCLUDES getting my ass handed to me multiple times. Healing magic exists too, so I can even experience how THAT feels ❤️

I know my personality seems to be all over the place from the bullet points I’ve written so far, but I think I’d have a pretty well-established personality compared to Yuu: someone who’s pretty serious, dry, and sarcastic, prioritizing work and gathering knowledge above all else. However, I’m willing to take risks if it means I get to experience something new, fun, or interesting (think “curiosity killed the cat”). When it comes to dealing with people, it’s VERY clear who my favorites are (*coughsmytalkingcatcoughs*). I act like a jaded, overworked, and unimpressed mom to everyone else, straight faced and trapped in perpetual disappointment.

My personal goal wouldn’t be to get back home or to keep Ace and Deuce out of trouble, it would be to keep myself amused. I get bored extremely easily, and being thrust into another world with all these new factors is just a recipe for disaster. I’d honestly make for a terrible classical heroine, because my priority would be “what would be the most entertaining way to spend the day” instead of “how to save the day”. I’d hesitate to help someone if them struggling is the more entertaining option for me to watch unfold. In a way, I’d be just as shitty as the NRC students themselves 😂

Honestly though??? I’m kind of distrustful of others and unwilling to do group work due to bad experiences I’ve had in the past. I’m also pretty proud, so I would be super hesitant to accept help from anyone; I’m more likely to think of it as an act of pity or something negative rather than as kindness. I’m literally a poster child for Not Being Amicable (TM) and Independence over Cooperation, which is probably the opposite of what Crowley wants. I guess this will all be one massive learning experience for me too??

Forget Ace calling Riddle out for his bullshit, I’ll do it first. My patience would be wearing thin by the time Riddle rejects the apology tart (and besides, wasting food and Grim’s cute new ribbon are such sins 😤). I’d tell Riddle that he’s being childishly unreasonable and acting like a spoiled brat, no sugar coating at all. This would no doubt accelerate his OB, maybe even bring on an early OB, but like???? I’m not going to just stand there and let him throw a tantrum over something so small, that’s ridiculous (keep in mind that I have NO idea about his past, and even if I did, that still doesn’t justify any of the awful things he did). The same goes for most of the OB boys; I might as well call them out and give them a piece of my mind (once I get fed up with each of them) since I have little to lose compared to the students of each dorm. What are the OB boys gonna do, fight me? MAYBE THAT’S WHAT I WANTED ALL ALONG, EVER THOUGHT OF THAT? Do it, you cowards.

My only incentive in trying to solve the injured students mystery is just because it would be fun for me. I’d seriously commit to the bid, too—get dressed in a detective outfit, or pretend to be an ace attorney investigating the crime scene and interviewing witnesses... Heartslabyul and Grim can stare at me if they want or complain about how much time I’m wasting, but I’ll be having the time of my life 😌

Every time I spot J word or Rook, I’d curl up into a useless uncontrollably sobbing ball on the ground. If I have to engage with them or interact with them, I’ll just straight up refuse to make eye contact or shout something really normal like “step on me” 😷 or ask them to mug me in a sketchy back alley and bleed my wallet dry while they’re at it, and hey I’m free 24/7 if they need a human-sized footstool or something an—

I become a crazy cat lady by adopting Chenya and Cheka into my cat family. (Leona is perma-banned.)

I’ll come out and say it: I wouldn’t want to help those anemone’d students in the first place. It’s their own faults that they weren’t willing to put forth their own effort to pass the exams and tried to take the easy way out (and besides, it’s much more amusing to watch them suffer through the consequences of their actions than be freed of them). I’d even be disappointed in Grim for this 😔 but I guess I’d reluctantly stick my neck out once I saw how shittily Grim was being treated as Octavinelle’s new dish rag.

I’m overly cautious, so I’d try to negotiate the terms of the agreement with Azul. (I’d probably only want Grim’s freedom and maybe J word as my butler or something). I wouldn’t feasibly be able to retrieve that photo he wanted anyway, since I can’t swim (which is KIND OF a requirement if you’re going to be underwater).

If I somehow still had to go underwater (and Azul still sent the twins to interfere), I think just SEEING their true forms would make me lose my mind because HELLO???? WHY ARE THERE SUDDENLY CYAN EEL ABS??? 😂 IS THIS REAL LIFE?????? They wouldn’t even need to fight me, I’d break down on the spot clutching my stomach and screaming into the water.

I fold like a piece of origami paper and immediately cave to whatever J word asks of me—

I sob at J word’s feet and thank him for evicting me and Grim from Ramshackle—

As I mentioned in the referenced post, I wouldn’t befriend Malleus. In fact, I’d probably think he’s some weirdo that hangs around on my property at weird hours of the night despite me yelling at him to get off of my lawn 😤 You bet I’d phone up Crowley or campus security or SOMEONE to remove the horned stranger from the premises. And honestly? (This may sound pretty mean since TWST tries to present Malleus as lonely and misunderstood, but please remember that I, as “Yuu”, don’t know that going in; we only know this information because of our perspective as the PLAYER, not as the actual isekai’d individual.) Once I start hearing rumors of this “Malleus” person, there’s no way I wouldn’t put two and two together and adopt the same general opinion as most of NRC—“Malleus is dangerous, he is a monster and he should be feared, etc.” If I had a lot of courage one particular day, maybe I’d approach him and ask him to strike me down with his lighting just so I know what it feels like to be vaporized to ashes, but other than that?? It’s safer for me to assume Malleus is dangerous based on his magical capabilities alone, because this is the smartest choice for my survivability. Yeah, I want to fight everyone, but I also need to pick and choose my battles strategically, because if Malleus ends up doing major damage, then I won’t be able to fight everyone ELSE in the cast.

Jamil doesn’t need to Snake Whisper me to convince me to come to Scarabia during winter break, I’ll literally accept any excuse to absorb free food and see what the dorm is like🎵

I’d probably die in the desert if Jamil drags me along for those training sessions/parades, because I cannot deal with hot, sunny weather...

I wouldn’t care all that much during the segment where Jamil’s keeping me locked up in a room?? Like, I’d be mildly concerned, but the situation’s pretty interesting~ It’s like being held hostage and an escape room all in one. I’d still definitely try to get out, but I’d be way less worried than Yuu is shown to be in the game.

I laugh at how silly Jamil’s OB facial hair is and get my ass kicked for it—

I’d fistfight Vil to include Grim as the 8th member of the VDC group and as the c e n t e r 😤 I would also fistfight Ruggie to get Grim’s deluxe menchi katsu sandwich for him because Grimmu deserves nothing less than the best ✨

I would resist the VDC group using Ramshackle as their base of operations for training. I do NOT like the idea of 7 random boys (most of which I barely know) invading my living space 😔 and the lack of privacy disturbs me............... If they somehow still yoink Ramshackle for their training, I’ll just pad around in the background in my fluffy house slippers, sheet mask, and pajamas while staring at them in disappointment from a safe distance away.

I betray NRC to squeal about how cute Neige and the dwarves are, especially Timmy ❤️—

I’m not sitting around and waiting to save Grimmu from STYX 😤 I’m immediately formulating a plan, grabbing supplies, and recruiting a rescue squad because NO ONE TOUCHES MY CAT; I am closing this post as I opened it, with CATS—

[wuxiaphoenix]

On Writing: Naming Characters

Hold onto your hats, people. We’re about to step into a fiction writers’ minefield. Specifically - how much time and effort should you put into finding the “perfect” name for you character?

In the one corner! The extreme of people who flip random pages in the phonebook and throw darts to pick something that seems reasonable to shout across a playground, or a hail of gunfire.

In the opposing corner! People who seek Deep Symbolic Meaning in their work, and give heroes and villains names that echo their particular Inevitable Fate.

Honestly, I’ve used a bit of both. I’m more likely to use the phonebook when I just need a name, any name, for a background character wandering through. For main characters, I prefer the name to mean something. It may not be anything deep and profound; just pretty, or valiant, or something that seems to resonate with what parents wished for their child and how the character’s living now. And it might not be the meaning, specifically, but the name’s historical associations. I named an oni painter after the historical painter Kyosai, who painted a lot of youkai and claimed he’d seen the Makai as a child. Felt like the kind of name oni parents might pick for their firstborn son.

What name a character goes by will shape their existence. Sherlock Holmes likely led a very different life than Sherringford Holmes (Doyle’s original drafts) would have. Modern English-speaking name books often advise that a two-syllable first name with a single syllable last just sounds better than a three-syllable one. Sherlock is shorter, to the point, with cutting sounds; echoing the crisp, clear workings of the Consulting Detective’s brain. Sherringford seems... overly ponderous of thought.

Then there’s the more exotic names found in fantasy and SF. The best advice I can give is to make up names your readers can pronounce. Better yet, determine what real-world cultures you’re riffing off of to create your fantastic ones, and go steal names from them. You can always alter a few letters here and there if you want a change.

...Note, use that last trick sparingly. I love the Safehold series, but I had trouble reading some of the “time-mutated” last names with all the Ys. Too much of that throws the reader out of the story, and that’s the last thing you want.

If you are snatching names from other languages, I advise checking their meanings through internet research, hopefully consulting more than one source. Not only does this give you a better chance of making the impression you want with the character, it also gives you an opportunity to find more nuanced meanings of a name, one of which might be just what you had in mind.

(If so, you might want to put a short Author’s Note in the back of the book, for the linguistics geeks reading your stuff. As a treat.)

I wouldn’t worry too much about the exact meaning of first and last names smushed together, though. Look up your own names and see how weird the combo is. There’s a case in the U.S. of a family named Hogg, who named three children Ima, Ura, and Hesa.

...No, I don’t know how the kids avoided parental homicide either.

Most of all have fun. And if you go through the story and realize your Harriett should be a Juliette, or your Sean a Pierce - you can always edit later!

[sagasofazeria]

My Attempts at Unique Nonhumans Part 1: Elves!

Felt like making a worldbuilding post for wbw since I haven’t done it before! Thought I’d do this ‘cause it was on the mind. (@hellishhin You said you like this sorta stuff so hope you find it interesting!)

•

General:

Besides the typical D&D things, I’ve come up with these: Their ears are articulated, and can swivel around, and are very expressive. Elves are also always double-jointed and more often than not have an extended range on all their joints (equivalent to joint hypermobility in humans, but it doesn’t harm them). Additionally, a large amount of elves are born with the ability to make slight changes their physical features and/or change their physical sex after a full night of sleep (as opposed to the usual half-a-night trance thing). Also, their babies develop even slower than human babies do, and they reach full maturity at about 30, then their development slows way down and they live anywhere from 500-1500 depending. Most don’t make it to 1500, it’s very rare. The average is probably somewhere closer to 700.

High Elves:

They come in rainbow now. I don’t make the rules. High elves will also take on characteristics of the magic around them. This can manifest in a million different ways, because magic is weird, but it lends itself to fun character design. Additionally, it’s common for high elves to have up to 7 fingers on each hand, or even an extra set of eyes/ears in some cases. These extra eyes/ears actually sense magic rather than being normal organs (as if they were on a different wavelength). Definitely went with a highly magical theme here.

Dark Elves/Night Elves:

Their pupils and eyes in general tend to be huge. Skin tones range from blue to purple to black to translucent white for those that live even deeper underground. Also, they’re bioluminescent! Not only does their blood glow but they also have nearly invisible markings that glow when exposed to the right light conditions. (*chanting*: glowy elf rights, glowy elf rights, glowy elf rights)

I also altered the lore here a bit! I always like the night elves from Warcraft, and I wanted to make them into D&D, but there wasn’t a good place for them, so I wasn’t sure. Plus, I didn’t like the um... questionable... lore behind the Drow, so with a sprinkling of Fey fuckery and kinda smushing the Drow and Night Elves together I came up with a species of elf that lives underground, but close enough to where they come up at night to hunt and travel and etc etc. (They can’t come up in the day, because of the sunlight sensitivity). Their magic is far closer to the Fey than the high elves, hence all the illusions and things. Some of them obviously live Underdark deep (the translucent ones I mentioned above), but in general they’re a bit closer in my world. I like to think they’re a bit more in tune with the Fey ancestry, even the darker sides. (Many dark elf cultures, that is. Obviously this doesn’t apply everywhere.)

Wood Elves:

Wood elves can sometimes have wax-like coverings (like a leaf), small antlers, tiger stripes, quills in their hair like a porcupine, tails of various sizes, or any number of cool little features. (*wild gesturing* It’s about the character design! The endless possibilities!) Wood elves are also able to do a form of photosynthesis if they rest in direct sunlight (will work in a pinch, but isn’t their primary source of energy, and not as efficient as plants). Also, their ears are even bigger than other elves, nearly double, and their eyes have an extra membrane for darkvision. Their bodies are also extremely light, so they can walk on leaves without them crunching and walk on snow/sand without sinking. Despite all of this they usually look the closest to humans, bc of all the earth tones. Although they do have very long prehensile tongues.

Ice Elves:

The ice elves are actually a creation of mine, so they’re pretty different than all the other elves anyways. (Unfortunately they don’t show up in either of the stories I plan on sharing here, which is sad cuz they’re pretty cool.) The ice elves are not only light enough to walk on snow (obviously), they also have facial markings that protect them from snow blindness. (Even then, they usually prefer to hunt at night because it’s just easier.) They usually have fangs and are primarily carnivores due to the lack of plant life in the places they live. They also have a thin layer of fur and don’t sweat (all to keep warm). The fur is usually lightly colored to help them camouflage. They also store energy and their bodies for a long time, so they can stay warm/go without food for longer than the average elf (or human). Lastly, and possibly my favorite detail, is that they hibernate during winter. It depends on the specific civilization of ice elves what rituals are involved in this, but it’s always a big cultural thing.

Desert Elves:

Also a creation of mine, and pretty much the opposite of Ice Elves. They have an extra vein-like structure across their body that is usually invisible (unless they drank a lot of water recently, then you can see it well) that they store water in, and can go for a very long time without drinking thanks to this adaptation. They also have special muscles they use to quickly close their noses/ears to prevent sand getting in them, and have an extra protective membrane to do the same for their eyes. Some desert elves have scaly-skinned areas to help soak up/release heat (as they are a sort of semi-cold blooded species). Also, they’re usually nocturnal to avoid the heat of the day.

•

The reason all the elves are so different, is because in my world, elves are highly adaptable, and they can take on adaptations and characteristics far faster than other species. This is in part due to their descent from the chaos of the fey, and so they retain a lot of that ever-changing nature.

So anyways lemme know if y’all wanna see more of this! Might do dwarves next if so. I enjoyed sharing it, because I so rarely get to share this stuff, so I hope you guys like it too!

(link to part 2)

[marshmallowprotection]

hey kait, so we can tell saerans alters primarily by clothing changes in the game right? well i’m probably wrong, but one time i think you said that you could tell who was who by his eyes? if it’s okay could you please explain how you do that

Well, clothes are a key indicator of a person’s style and choices. I think you can tell right away what kind of person someone is projecting if they can pick what they are wearing and how they are. I know that you can notice it with each alter, honestly. Unknown tends to lean towards grungey clothing, he seems to find a lot of power in being mysterious and dark. I don’t think he cares all that much for looks as long as it paints the stronger picture. 

Ray... doesn’t choose his own clothes. Rika picked them for him and does not show the way that he wants. If he had his choice, he would pick what he wants to wear by choosing dark, muted tones. I imagine something muted, black, tan, brown, earthy in nature. That’s not to say that he wouldn’t pick something pink, I’ve always seen him as partial to it. 

Suit... well, that’s Suit. He wants something flashy and stark to show that he is not that colorful bug. He picks something that is pointed, ritzy, and not too much of grungy. The difference between Suit and Unknown is simply the way that they feel and manifest power and strength. Suit feels like he needs to prove status this way, as most powerful people dress like that. Unknown goes for the other brand o power. 

SE Saeran... is tired, and doesn’t care. He just shrugs on a sweater and jeans and leaves it at that. He doesn't care much and just does what he does. It’s likely that he just got it from Saeyoung and just wears that. He’s not picky and does not care anymore about how he looks. 

GE Saeran is a mixture of Ray and Suit and more than that. He’s just going for a simple look, dressed down, business casual. It just feels right to him. He’s not bound by rules or choices so he can change his style how he wants, I see him leaning towards soft things eventually. 

NOW. ONTO THE EYES. 

Alright, I’ll start with Ray. Notice how his eyes are just a bit wider and give us a hint of naivety. Well, perhaps not naivety, it is more to say that there is still a kind of innocence to him. Don’t think that he’s not capable of destroying or hurting people who get in his way, but there is a somber intensity in his eyes that is just screaming out in pain. When I see these eyes, I see someone who is sad, tired, and craves to please others. There’s someone in these eyes that wants to be rescued.

Ah, yes, Suit. His eyes are in a constant narrow, and his brows are always feathered. He looks at you with a kind of boredom, or perhaps it’s rage, maybe it could even be intrigue and confusion; Honestly? Saeran isn’t sure what he feels for you. There are vengeance and anger in these eyes. There is someone that is going to hurt before being getting hurt. There is a struggle for power inside of these narrowed eyes, and they are not be confused with Unknown, there is still a sense of urgency for help in this eyes if you look beyond the anger and pain. 

GE Saeran, my darling. There’s light in his eyes again and the smallest trace of a smile on his lips. Ray and Suit are extremes, they are both urgency, need, joy, sadness, desire, want, fear, anger, resolve, and more than that. He is the utter combination and yet, much more than just two halves smushed together. These eyes are tired but open wide to the truth that he has long been denied by those that promised to protect him. 

Unknown is here. Apathy. Tired. Angry. Uncontrollable. These are the eyes of someone that has seen and been through too much. Notice how his gaze is firm and almost very bored of you. You’re a means to his revenge, a puppet, a tool, a toy for him to get as a bonus as he crushes the RFA, the redhead, and V. He’s not afraid to do anything. He will do what he must. He fears not. These eyes are lacking their luster and are lost to elixir, and if you dare get too close to him without knowing how to react... I pray for your safety. 

SE Saeran...  he’s tired, and the weight of what he’s done is going to weigh on him for the rest of his life. He has a lot of trauma and a lot of pain, guilt, sadness, and a strange sense of something else in his eyes. You can tell that he feels a lot of remorse and that he really needs to get some sleep for once in his life. His eyes seem to become a bit clearer and a bit wider, but he will forever be marred by his sins that’s why his eyes are downcast and he feels nothing but dread and shame. He is sarcastic and tries to push people away. 

I’ll do V’s after ending as a treat. These are the eyes of someone that has realized what happened to him and has seen the weight of those actions. He wants to make up for it, and he realizes that he was manipulated and hurt. He knows that he wasn’t left behind how he was told, These eyes are the widest and brightest. Ray was rescued at his lowest moment and had a chance to recover in the safest way possible, giving him a chance to hold onto that light that still existed deep in his heart. Yet, you can still see something bittersweet in those eyes... perhaps of what he lost. 

[gumnut-logic]

Fanfic Asks 2

This one is for @hedwigstalons who asked for A F L Q along with @fictivekaleidoscope , @willow-salix , @coffee-and-lenna and @janetm74 who all asked for Q. You guys are so kind to me ::hugs you lots::

-o-o-o-

A. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Star Trek: TOS…I’m a Trekkie from way back. Discovered it in 1986 through books in my school library (it wasn’t on TV and hadn’t been since 1975 of which I had the vaguest of memories…and yes, I’m old :P ). I wrote my first fanfic as a teenager, by hand in a notebook. It was submitted to the local club printed fanzine (which I still have lying around here somewhere along with a stack of classic printed zines). Looking back, it had a strong concept behind it, but it was horribly written. I do not have an electronic copy, though sometime ago I thought to re-write it, but never got around to it. You can find my second ever fanfic, written when I was eighteen on FF.net – Goodbye, Spock – it was a movie tag, written in early 1991.

F. How long have you been writing fanfic?

Hmm, I think I’ve given that massive number away in the last question :D Yeah, since I was about eighteen, possibly a little earlier. ::does the math:: Okay, that number is scary. Next year it will be thirty years since my first fanfic ::headdesk:: but having said that, I didn’t really start writing until the internet arrived with my first computer and maturity gave me the ability to finish things (sometimes). I really jumped in with Stargate SG-1 fandom in 2003. From that point on I wrote continuously until I had children in 2008. Then I stopped and didn’t really start up again until July 2018 when TAG hit me like a ton of bricks. The last two years have been amazing and I have learnt so much.

Oh, and if anyone ever says writing fanfic is wasting time or will never get you anywhere, writing fanfic and participating in fandom has done wonders for introvert little me:

Led to me getting my job – writing is a skill that can get you many places

Taught me how to blog and how to manage a blog – valuable skills in or out of business

Teaches you multiple online tools – chat, publishing and other multimedia applications – you’d be surprised how many people are not comfortable using many online tools. I use my experience every day on the library floor.

Allowed an introvert to reach out and learn how to converse and gain confidence in conversation – online interactions has many advantages

Is excellent for mental health…and equally unhealthy if you’re not careful – which leads to learning about yourself and managing conflict (unfortunately…which is why I have zero tolerance for fandom wank and will not participate in or create nastiness – I’m here for fun and to hopefully make things more fun, not miserable)

I’ve learnt to type. My first novel length fic was 75,000 words long and hand written before being typed into the computer – let’s just say that that three months back in 2003 finally enabled me to break the touch type barrier :D Which is a skill that I use every day.

If some one does say you’re wasting your time, they obviously have no idea what they are talking about – ignore them. As long as you’re balancing your fic writing with life in general, things are okay (I got addicted at one point and things were not okay, so don’t do that).

In summary, apparently I’m old, been writing forever and have found it a very valuable exercise which will no doubt lead me even further into interesting places.

 L. What is your favorite fic idea that you don’t think you’ll ever write?

I tend to write most things or forget them. There was that random fanfic idea I posted a few days back. It’s a cool idea, but I don’t have time at the moment. ::opens ups fic planning book::

Ideas sitting, not yet started, but might be:

Eos gets hacked by the Hood and injures two brothers before John realises it and saves her.

Episode tag to 3.21 that explores the Mechanic

Alan’s Vlog: I have a note for the next story that I haven’t yet written.

The Kermadec sequel

A fic idea I had the other day inspired by a news article – that one might actually get written at some point.

A sequel to V. T. Green (which apparently is my most popular fic) – which I had a concept for, but haven’t written down, by the looks of it. Oops.

A sequel to Bo where Virg gets buried in an avalanche – this one was started.

Eh, I have lots of ideas, most get lost in the mess that exists in my head. Sometimes I write a note down, but then I forget what the note means. I usually have to grab the inspiration when it strikes.

 Q. If you could pick one fic of yours to rewrite, which would it be?

Love and Sacrifice – I wrote that fic out of order and smushed it together and it shows. It is also full of technical holes. The plotline sucks because I wanted a certain scene and forced it. But it is such an integral piece of the series that I can’t alter it much. The whole of Warm Rain was written in bits. I usually write in order and that experiment shows that I’m not great at writing out of sequence. Most of the fics work okay, but Love and Sacrifice, while having some good scenes in it, is poorly constructed.

A Little Distraction and a Little Too Much Attention suffers from self-indulgence. Virgil wasn’t supposed to get hurt – I should have stopped at A Little Distraction, but apparently, I can’t help myself and the results weren’t great.

Two fics instead of one…there are more, but I’m not supposed to publicly criticise my fics – I do enough of that in my own head :D

-o-o-o-

EDIT: @weirdburketeer reminded me of something I meant to list but forgot regarding the above reasons why writing fanfic is not a waste of time.

The friendships! My goodness, how did I miss that? I flew to Sydney to meet a good fanfic writing friend in both 2004 and 2005, another friend flew all the way from Chicago (as part of a business trip) to Australia and made a special trip to Adelaide, just to meet up with me. It was frickin’ amazing!

And this fandom....I have met some absolutely amazing people here. You guys have influenced me like you wouldn’t believe. As I have said on many occasions, this fandom is just amazing ::drags you all into a massive group hug:: And yes, I have some fantastic friendships forming here ::loves you guys to bits::

[reblogthiscrapkay]

Persephone in “Genealogy of the Pagan Gods″ by Giovanni Boccaccio

Let me tell you a story about how I’m a witch.

So over the last week, I had been living at my best friend’s house because the power went out at my house. One day after watching a documentary about rare booksellers, we went outside to take a walk around and discuss it and there was a package on his deck. He opened it up and it was a book he had ordered by an ancestor of his, a famous Italian author (arguably the second most famous Italian author? he’s definitely been getting some recent press as his most famous work is about a plague). My friend is trying to get translated copies of every book written by him. Because my friend knows about my interest in mythology, he immediately handed me the book and I opened it up to a random page to see this header:

I showed him what I had done and my friend was like, “Well, she’s calling to you.”

So let’s talk about my girl Persephone (or Proserpina in this case) via her mom Demeter (Ceres in this case).

There is so much interesting detail here!

First of all we have Demeter lighting torches. Hecate is usually the one portrayed with torches because of her nature as a crossroads goddess but I’ve also seen a lot of ancient art (especially in Eleusis) of Persephone with torches too. Never Demeter.

The idea of Demeter confronting Hades (how? was he above or she below?) is not one I’ve really seen and the idea that she ate poppy seeds actually made me really excited. The poppy is one of the things associated with Demeter, and this is the first time I’ve seen it included as an element of this myth.

Also, I have to laugh at “Pluto’s pleasure garden.” Because I’m a child.

Demeter making Trip immortal seems to me to be a confusing mistake or possibly Boccaccio trying to make the myth make more sense. In the Hymn, it’s Demophon, not Trip, who she tries to make immortal. Since Trip is the more important one who works for Demeter, I could see why changing this would make narrative sense. Also never heard the idea of her KILLING a king. Also Trip and Demo were Celeus’ sons not “King Eleusis”? This whole thing is kind of a mess.

The mention of Demeter’s son makes sense because this is a chapter on her specifically. A lot of the time I’ve seen the son’s name as Plutus to try to distinguish him from Hades, but since Plutus and Hades are both gods of wealth, the whole thing has always been kind of a mess that clearly shows a bunch of myth meshing over time.

Then we get Boccaccio’s interpretation, which is some of the most interesting stuff because of how it reflects his time (medieval) and place (Italy, so he’s viewing this from an Ancient Roman and not Ancient Greek lens). According to Theodontius (who’s work is apparently mostly unknown except for liberal references made to his work by BigMouth here), Demeter is the wife of the king of Sicily, Sicanus, which makes sense when you consider that Sicily is considered Persephone’s island.

All his talk about the moon and layers of the earth is so unique. And his literary interpretation of Persephone as a crop! So cool, but also tells me as a reader so much about Boccaccio in a way. Through a modern lens and all the 20th/21st century texts I’ve read, we often see Persephone as a symbol of the life/death cycle or as a symbol of maturation (with seeds being more of a sexual thing or of choosing to grow up than an agricultural thing). It makes me wonder if the nature of Boccaccio’s society is more agrarian or maybe he’s more male-fixated and therefore less likely to think of Persephone in such female-focused ways, that makes the crop comparison make more sense to him. He also uses Ovid as justification, which tells me a lot (as someone who has some not-so-positive feelings for Ovid).

Orcus, as it turns out, was basically another Hades idea common in rural areas. Like Pluto, he’s Hades but also not. Orcus also was apparently more of a scary demon type underworld king, than Hades or Pluto. Orcus/Pluto/Hades is what happens when you have too many gods doing the same thing. THat gives me a thought actually. What is someone wrote a story where Orcus and Hades both exist but Orcus is the villain? Or even Orcus is an alter ego of Hades?

All that stuff about Trip is confusing to me. The mixing of mythologies is making my head hurt. 

Glauca I can’t even find anything on. I’ve heard of Glaucus, of course, but I’ve never heard of Hades having a twin sister who died young. Or of the idea that Hades was actually protected from Kronos. That was just Zeus. Hades was swallowed.

I respect Boccaccio citing his sources.

Super minor detail but I often hear of Hades having four, not three horses. I sometimes wonder if the four has something to do with a Biblical conflation.

Also, I have read Ovid (Metamorphosis, but then I don’t know what BigMouth is citing here) and I don’t remember Hades going above ground to check on his roofing, but I got a good chuckle out of it.

Hades having a kid named Veneration is SO Roman. The Romans had so many random gods like this that the Greeks didn’t, most famous being probably Fortuna, goddess of fortune. There’s a bit more on her at the end of the Pluto chapter (with more super Roman ideas and the detail of Persephone being barren, which is super ironic and totally possible):

Back to the main narrative on Hades: I also laughed at “Tricerebus.” And Tisiphone as a guardian of wealth instead of a Fury? Odd.

And then BigMouth’s going off with more interpretation. The idea that a combination of abundance (represented by Persephone) and wealth (represented by Hades) yields nothing 1. would be an interesting way to explain their lack of children and 2. again says a lot about Boccaccio’s perspective.

The notes on naming Hades are really interesting and connecting him with February and funeral rites. And then we have the world dividing and such.

So I used the index to look up more on Persephone specifically and found some other little mentions of her including one that said the Sirens where her companions and when they couldn’t find her, they were turned into marine monsters. We get this absolutely hilarious line explaining BigMouth’s opinion on this, “I think they were companions of Proserpina because by Proserpina is understood the abundance of Sicilian products, from which libidinous sexual craving is especially derived and the delights of food and leisure are supplied” (195). I read this line out loud to my friend because the side of his family related to Boccaccio is also Sicilian so at some point in the last 600 years, BigMouth’s descendants decided that the land of sexual craving and food is the place to be.

We also have the myth of Pirithous:

I have read versions where Persephone is the main one to stop him, Hades is the main one to stop him, and now Cerberus. Also leave it to a man to somehow have a weird moral to this story about manliness.

And finally, we have this incredibly odd tale that is both specifically Roman and also kind of exemplifies everything I’ve said before about how much the Romans messed with Greek mythology by just smushing everything together and then adding new gods from local cults:

“In fact I detest these riddles and ambiguities and gladly lay them aside” (331). You said it, BigMouth. I hope you’d be proud of your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-etc. nephew or son or whatever because he’s one of my favorite people.

[j-hawthorn]

Books and Bubble Baths: Chapter 3

(Find this chapter and my other work on AO3 here! )

It was so easy for Crowley to sow little seeds of evil in the world. And the fact they were able to do so while getting breakfast for their angel was an added bonus. They held an impeccably wrapped package in their arms – a package they had forced the shop staff wrap, then pull apart only to wrap again until it was perfect. It had to be, Crowley wouldn’t allow a half-arsed gift for their angel. You don’t get shown that GOOD of a time and NOT at least buy the person some pastries!

They’d woken up a tangled mess. Arms and legs and huge wings splayed and curled together with their angel. They’d never done that – woken up with the heat of another person. They also hadn’t seen their angel sleep in...forever. Crowley had stayed with him, watching the rise and fall of his soft tummy, his arms curled to his chest. His cheek had smushed against Crowley’s shoulder, giving him an off centre pout.

Crowley eventually crawled out of the bed, legs wobbling. Naked and still fizzing from the night before, they’d snuck into the ensuite. They showered, stole some of Angel’s perfume and examined themself in the mirror. They hadn’t looked any different. Part of them had wondered if there would be something new about them, but there wasn’t – aside from the marks along their neck from their angel’s hungry little mouth. Crowley touched one gently, and smirked. That had certainly been something. While they could easily alter their form and make the marks disappear, they didn’t. Keeping them made everything more real, they couldn’t pretend the night before was just a very realistic dirty dream – it was real, and their angel had claimed them as his.

They had dressed in a tight (and short) black dress, black stockings and black knee high snakeskin boots with dangerously thin heels. With a wispy red scarf tied at their throat (just because they wanted to keep the marks didn’t mean they wanted anyone else to look at their horny little secret) and hair pulled back into two messy buns on either side of their head they slunk out of the shop. Stiletto heels clicked menacingly on the stone street as if to say: watch out world, I’m newly sexed up! I’m mad, bad and mildly inconvenient to know!

Package in hand, they trotted back to the shop, bell tinkling sweetly. They placed the package on the table, stepping back to make sure it was perfectly arranged – the shop bell rang.

Head whipping round, Crowley hissed under their breath. There was a MAN. He smiled when they met his eye. Crowley curled their lip.

‘Hello-’

‘Go away,’ Crowley strode over, making shooing motions with their hands. The man was taller than them, and white with a mess of brown hair. He picked up a book, turning over uselessly in his hands, ‘I just want to look at some books...’

‘You can’t, shops closed. Piss off!’

The man smiled, then held out his hand, ‘Okay. You caught me, I actually saw you outside and wanted to meet you -’

‘- Ew, grosssss, ’ Crowley hissed – He was ruining their morning! Inside their head a 40 foot serpent was smashing its metaphorical fists on a table chanting “BITE! BITE! BITE! BITE!” Their teeth itched. When ever they felt a strong – and often negative – emotion Crowley’s internal bearings would stop pointing at “person” and start pointing towards “reticulated python” taking their corporal form with it.

‘- The names David.’

‘I don’t care!’ Crowley’s whole faced scrunched in disgust, ‘Do you often follow strangers into buildings? How are you not dead?’

‘There’s no need for that -’

‘Get out! Now! The shop is closed, and I have no desire what so-fucking-ever of knowing you!’

The human couldn’t see it, but Crowley could feel their fangs growing, their body gaining vertebra, lengthening, bones threatening to crack and warp -

‘Crowley?’ The most beautiful sound in the world was their name uttered by a puffy faced, bleary eyed angel in a tartan pyjama set and fluffy slippers. The man turned and blinked, ‘....oh.’

‘Who are you?’ The angel frowned catching sight of the man.

‘He followed me in!’ Crowley snarled, ‘Before I could lock the door.’

‘Why did you follow my love in here?’ Aziraphale walked slowly over, eyes fixed on the man.

‘We were just talking-’

Crowley backed away with a snarl. The snake inside was thirsting for a fight, and they were not going to give in – especially not when Aziraphale’s books were in the splash zone.

The angel stood with his hands behind his back, head cocked to one side. ‘We are closed, sir, you really do need to leave.’

‘Hey, she came in here too-’

‘Of course THEY did. THEY are my partner, you are a pillock,’ The angel gave a steely grin. ‘Vacate the premises on your own accord, before I have to force you out myself.’

Crowley barked a laugh, leaning forward to grip the edge of a shelf. Their ribs were on fire. As a defence mechanism, turning into a giant serpent was quite handy. A lot of creatures backed off from the sight of a skinny little person exploding in a cloud of viscera into a 650 pound mass of teeth and scales. But it did wreck havoc on the nerves.

‘She never said she was married...’ The man whined, slamming the door behind himself. Aziraphale clicked his fingers and the locks slammed into place.

‘Are you okay – oh... Oh dear!’ Aziraphale gasped.

Teeth. Crowley was all teeth now, arms limp and useless around their middle. ‘Gotta biiiite ssssssomething!’

‘Hang on, my love!’

Aziraphale trotted to his desk. He rummaged through the topmost drawer. With expert aim Aziraphale threw a large dog toy at Crowley, who’s body twisted and burst into heavy coils. They caught the toy in their huge jaw, sinking their fangs in deep. With each furious chomp the thing squeaked, lost in the rolling body of the serpent. Crush it! Crush it!

Somewhere in the background of their mind, Crowley heard their angel putting on the jug. The air was full of his scent – warm, tired, a little sweaty. It was calming. Their heavy body slowly unknotted itself. Aziraphale came back in, carrying two steaming mugs. He sat on the shop sofa with a sigh, ‘Goodness me, what a way to start the day.’

‘Bad man,’ Crowley rumbled, punctuating the sentence with a squeak of the chew toy.

‘Indeed!’

The chew toy dropped to the floor, Crowley’s head rising above their knots, ‘If I find who invented misogyny, I’ll give them such a dressing down!’

‘Hear, hear!’ Aziraphale held his drink aloft.

‘They’ll get such a bollocking like no one has ever been bollocked before!’

‘Hear, hear...?’

‘And I’ll constrict around their horrible, pitiful little body until their bastarding head pops off and flies into the sun!’

‘Oh, good lord...’ Aziraphale made a face, looking over at Crowley.

‘Bastards!’ The snake snarled at the world, head aloft, fangs bared. They sucked in a deep breath, then slithered over to the sofa. They looped their body around the entire thing a couple of times, large head placed softly on the angel’s knee. They sighed, ‘....bastards.’

‘I know, darling,’ Aziraphale stroked his finger down the centre of their face. ‘I am sorry.’

‘I’m not a girl...’ They sighed, ‘And I shouldn’t be upset that some wanker thought I was one! What even is a gender to a thing like me? I wear a body for fun, but it’s not...anything! I’m like a...a...a Muppet! A muppet with a snake instead of a hand up it!’

Aziraphale blew out a slow breath, ‘You’re very...descriptive today, my love.’

‘But that’s what it’s like! It’s all fake,’ Crowley wobbled their head. ‘So why am I upset!’

‘Because you were mistreated,’ The angel ran his thumb over the top of their snout. ‘He shouldn’t have said what he said. Or treated you like he did. You’re allowed to be upset, sweet one. Because you deserve the be treated with respect and to be seen how you wish to present yourself.’

Crowley nuzzled their snout into his hand, letting their forked tongue gently touch his wrist. He chuckled softly, and Crowley felt a little thrill at the sound. Comforting. Angel was always comforting and warm.

‘Got you a treat,’ They purred, pointing the tip of their tail at the package. Aziraphale gasped, grinning, ‘Oh! How thoughtful. You’re so kind, Crowley.’

‘Ew, stop it, haven’t I been through enough this morning,’ Crowley mumbled, eternally grateful that snakes couldn’t blush. ‘Are you going to have a snake day?’ Aziraphale asked, stroking his hand down the back of their head. They liked it when he petted them, not that they’d ever told him. But, they supposed, maybe he already knew. He had such a way of finding what made their little brain turn to goo.

‘Nah,’ They said, then pried themself away from Aziraphale’s warm, tender hands. ‘Look away while I switch.’ They slunk down behind the sofa, puling their large body tightly together.

‘Darling, I’ve seen you change a thousand times before, why must I avert my eyes now?’

Because you’ve seen me in ways no one else ever has, and maybe ever will, and I don’t know how to cope with the knowledge of being genuinely and wholly perceived in my true state – and to have that state of being be loved so fully. I feel like I’ve been pulled a part, and put back together piece by minute piece, all by your hand, and that isn’t something I have felt since the birth of creation.

Is what Crowley thought. What Crowley said was:

‘Cut me some fucking slack, Angel!’

Limbs restored, Crowley wriggled their little dress back down over their thighs, and gave their hair a quick pat down. Wrinkle free and fangs safely put away, they sat down beside Aziraphale, and smiled. He didn’t return it.

'So...' Aziraphale said, staring into the depths of his tea. 'We need to talk about last night, yes?'

'Do we, though?' Crowley sat on their hands to hide the shaking. Nerves made their stomach gurgle. There was no point trying to hide it, that man-shaped force of love and light beside them could see through them in an instant. He was their best friend. He'd seen them at some of their lowest points, he knew them probably better than they knew themself. And that put him at an unfair advantage.

'Yes, Crowley, we do,' He shifted in his seat, and looked at them. Crowley couldn't make eye contact, so they slouched, crossed their legs, hands folded on their stomach and stared up at the cobweb covered ceiling. Build a little wall, enough to peek over but enough to shelter, they thought. Just in case.

'Okay then, Angel,' they said. 'Fire away.'

Aziraphale sighed, 'You were gone when I woke up-'

'- To get you breakfast!'

'Crowley, let me talk. Please?' He sighed again, 'Waking up without you beside me was...a shock. I've never wondered what it would be like to wake up with you there, but I found I had been expecting that.'

'...Sorry.'

'Oh! No, please, you don't need to be,' He reached over and patted their knee. 'Dear boy, what I'm trying to say is when I awoke and you weren’t there I feared the worst. I was worried I had hurt you,’ Aziraphale said. ‘Or frightened you in some way. I’ve hurt you before, and I never want to do so again.’ ‘Ah...But I got over it, so no harm done,’ Crowley lied through their pointy little teeth. Sometimes, in the dead of night they replayed the rejection over and over in their head, or they dreamt it – often accompanied by the smell of smoke and lick of flame.

‘Hmm,’ Aziraphale sipped his tea, giving them a look. ‘Well I haven’t. So tell me, are you okay?’ Behind their glasses Crowley closed their eyes and silently cursed themself. Why now were they filled with nerves? They had so many years of quietly thirsting over the angel, of openly flirting and teasing, and now, NOW was when their palms grew sweaty and they wanted nothing more than the earth to open up and swallow them whole.

'I'm feelin' fine, Angel,' Crowley said with a lazy wave of their hand.

'You're feeling fine?'

'Yeah.'

'Just...fine?'

'Yeah?'

'Right-o, then,' Aziraphale said, crossing his legs. But something in the air told Crowley it was not right-o. Something wasn't right-o at all.

'I mean,' they started, leaning closer with their hands on their knees. 'More than fine, Angel. Really more than fine. I'm good, great even. Tingly.'

'Tingly?'

'All up my spine and my skin,' Crowley gave an awkward half smirk half grimace. 'It's nice. But also, real real weird.'

Aziraphale gave a warm chuckle, setting his tea aside, 'I know what you mean, my love.' Crowley's heart did a horrible little flip at that. They kneaded their chest. I'm never going to get used to that, they thought, this bastard is going to kill me with pet names.

'Why are you rubbing your breast, dear?'

'I'm not! You're making my chest hurt!'

'What? How?'

'By being all good,' Crowley frowned. 'And nice and pretty and soft. Why are you so soft?' Their chest was really starting to hurt now, like their heart was expanding and strangling their lungs.

'Sit down, Crowley, you’re having one of your moments.'

'What?' They were pacing – when did they get up? The room was too hot – why did the angel never open any bloody windows in the place-?

Cold hands. Cold hands at their throat. Instinct said to bite, to jump, to scuttle away into the dark. They stood stock still as Aziraphale delicately untied their scarf. Cool air washed over their skin, followed by a tender touch along the marks still present on their neck and throat. Strong arms wrapped around their middle, and soft curly hair settled under their chin. Crowley's arms hung limp by their side.

'I'm a numpty.'

'Yes you are, but a lovely one,' Aziraphale chuckled softly. He rubbed their back. Crowley pressed their cheek to the top of his head, eyes closed. He smelled like soap. Good soap. Fancy soap with roses in it. It was the most comforting thing they'd ever sniffed. They never wanted to not sniff those roses ever, ever again.

'You need to work on your emotional regulation, though, maybe get a stress ball? We could take a perambulation through the park later -'

'- I want to go home.'

Aziraphale pulled back, frowning deeply, 'Oh.'

Crowley picked up the box of pastries and strode towards the stairs.

'Where are you going?' Aziraphale asked. They could hear the frustration in his voice. Crowley ran, 'Upstairs! I think I live here now!’

'What the blazes are you on about?' Aziraphale thundered behind them but Crowley had already placed the box on the table and was sizing up the room.

'I wanna put my desk under that window-'

'Crowley!'

'What?'

'You can't just decide something like that! This is my home-'

'-I think you might be mine, though.'

Aziraphale heaved a huge sigh, ‘Oh, my heart. You sweet, beautiful fool.’ He rolled his eyes then smiled, ‘Crowley, I want to be with you and around you as much as possible. You don’t have to grip so tightly, I’m not going anywhere. I adore you. But you can’t just decide that you live here. Do you actually want to move in to the shop with me?’

‘No, it’s kind of ugly,’ They admitted. ‘And your interior decorating abilities are seriously lacking, Angel. I mean really, tartan curtains? Yellow wallpaper? It’d need a complete do over-’

‘Well, golly, thank you for that Crowley,’ Aziraphale laughed, untying the ribbon on the package. He flipped the lid and gasped. ‘Oh! So pretty! Is that almond paste?

‘And custard.’

The smile Crowley got could have lit up the whole world. They could do this. If they could get a smile like that every day, then fuck, maybe they’d be worth something. All they wanted was that smile. That warmth and bite.

‘Maybe,’ They said carefully, ‘We could have a trial run. Of living together.’

Aziraphale nodded, licking sugar powder off his fingers in such a manner that Crowley had to avert their eyes to keep their thoughts on track. ‘Would you move in here? I don’t know if I could move into your apartment-’

‘Nah nah,’ Crowley rocked on their heels. ‘Somewhere neutral.’

‘Neutral.’ Aziraphale hummed, looking out the window, ‘Like...a holiday?’

‘Yeah! Angel,’ Crowley smiled toothily, ‘Wanna go on holiday? Anywhere you like, you pick, I’ll drive!’

The angel leaned back in his dining chair, hands folded on the table. He grinned, ‘I’ll go pack.’

---

Thanks for reading! If you like my work, consider buying me a coffee here!

[singingcookie]

👀👀 SO. THAT LATEST CHAPTER OF DOJ 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

👀👀👀👀 Yes. It certainly was a thing wasn’t it?  👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀 In all seriousness this chapter was really difficult for me to bring myself to work on. And it was mostly because (compared to most of my other chapters) this one was really lacking detail. I had a few moments that stood out but figuring out how to smush them together in a cohesive way was hard. With that said, I’m gonna do something I haven’t done much til now. I’m gonna share my original outline for this chapter under the read more.

I might throw in comments between sections/thoughts. I normally post my outline at the bottom of my chapter documents and gradually get rid of bullet points as I get through them. This’ll be the first time I’ve looked at the outline since I completed, so I apologize for the length this might take on lol. That said....

DOJ CHAPTER 20 SPOILERS READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

Deku’s pov this chapter.

Skip ahead to them at the thing. They’re in Tarasanudo in Kanagawa. Somewhere close to the Tokyo Bay. Last train will leave a bit after 9pm.

I like to preface my outlines with a pov if there’s a change from the previous chapter. Any ones that are continuations (so with chapters 9 & 10 for Deku, and chapters 11-15 for Ochako) don’t really get labelled like this but since it was Ochako for 19 I had to. I knew right away this had to be Izuku that we were hearing from because his thoughts--his perception of Uraraka in the story thus far--have been pretty close to nonexistent. I figured it was about time (especially put into this position) for us to glean an idea of what exactly is going on under that curly hair of his.

The second bullet point is just a point of reference for me so I don’t forget anything 😅 I’ll probably carry it on through my next few chapters too. Again, just so I don’t forget as I go since the setting will be relevant until the festival ends.

We get festival shenanigans maybe just them looking around at things at first. He keeps getting wrapped up in Uraraka. Lingering on whatever she does. Her excitement at the foods, the decorations. The way she sways to the music from each and every stall. Obviously this should be at least a few paragraphs. If not a page.

HAHAHAHA, oh man. So much for that. Deku really went damn wild at the start of this chapter. The whole introduction (before Ochako says the FIRST LINE OF DIALOGUE FOR THE CHAPTER WTF) was 2 pages long on my chapter document. And I remember being shook about it. “This much Deku??? You have this much to say?” It probably would have been less if he didn’t want to retell the whole dang story with the netsuke BUT HE DID WHAT HE DOES I GUESS!!

I also added the okonomiyaki scene pretty sporadically, I didn’t have it in my oultine at all. But I needed an introductory scene into them at the festival before Bakugou and Kirishima showed up. I think it turned out pretty well? I got a lot of questions about my research on that one cause it was so specific! 😅 Truth is I just look up those kinda details as I get to them mid-writing. Makes it take longer but the learning part is really interesting and fun for me!

And then there’s also the hints of them being followed by at least  two of their classmates, working up Uraraka and stemming Deku’s fear. Also added because I needed to segue naturally between the okonomiyaki and cork gun scenes.

Uraraka points to a cork gun stall nearby and says that she wants to play. They don’t fully approach the stand though, Uraraka standing back to look over the prizes to see what she wants to play for. He wonders why she doesn’t just play and figure it out later. She says that she’ll play better if she has something in mind already “don’t question my methods” she hums for a moment and he kinda playfully regards her. Maybe a mild stirring of something.

She surges forward, reaching for one of the cork guns while she holds the yen out for the vendor. “Hey, take the next one over.” Oh god Kacchan’s grabbed the same cork gun and now him and Uraraka are glaring at each other. Kirishima apologizes for the interruption, telling Kacchan that he can just take the next one over. He greets Deku who replies while still watching as Uraraka and Kacchan glare even while he complies to their classmate’s request. Both of them slam their money on the counter. Aaaaand they’re making it a competition. Great.

Thiiiiiiis turned out more of less the same, clearly. 😂 I had a different concept in my head originally of how these games worked there. Ended up digging hard for videos and photos to find out properly. Ended up altering my image to match but it still managed to work out on that front, regardless.

I knew I wanted Kirishima and Bakugou here with them (not only because I love the ship) but it gave them a chance to unwind and relax. Kind of ease off on the tension of them being stuck alone together. Not to mention that I felt it would be really good for cementing the idea of a “something more” kind of pondering in Deku.

Kirishima and Deku talk about what they’ve been up to since getting to the festival. Maybe Deku wonders about the snack that Kirishima has. It looks delicious. Some kinda meat thing. “Where’s the stall?” Kirishima tries to explain but Deku just looks lost. “How ‘bout me and--Bakugou just show you where once they’re finished?”

“That sounds--” Deku’s cut off by a whoop and when he looks back to the stand, they’re both setting the cork guns back down. Uraraka’s reveling in her victory and Kacchan tells her she only got one more point, so she shouldn’t be so excited. She says he’d be just as excited if the scores were reversed. The vendor has to remind them they have prizes to pick.

Kirishima and Deku kind of just ^^; about it. They get whatever the prizes are. Ochako maybe picked something with the idea of giving it to Inko. Kirishima says to Bakugou that he told Deku they’d show him to the stand with the meat skewers.

This got altered a LOT WOW. I think the reason this section changed so much was because I was trying to find a way to make the chapter flow. I left a lot of details out and mostly went big picture because I knew this part of the festival would involve a lot of tiny things that would be a pain to plan out. Lots of minor minutiae that I knew I’d get annoyed if I had to change a lot.

I knew I had to keep Kirishima with MEAT because he’s Kiri (hello it’s listed as one of his fav things even!) and I knew I wanted to have him almost tripped up and saying “Katsuki” just to hammer home where exactly they’re at rn in their interactions.

I extended their interactions together because saying “hey let’s walk around” only to separate them with narry another conversation felt pointless and stilted. That’s why I added the extended convo about the game (I didn’t have it in the outline that she cheated but when I thought about the game and her quirk, it was too fitting to not include!) and also the thing about their internships and things being “too calm” again. Was really trying to hammer home one last “YOU SHOULDN’T FEEL COMFORTABLE” for all you readers lol

They might get stuck together for a bit maybe up through the fireworks. They only realize after the fireworks are through. Uraraka wonders about if maybe there’s something that Deku wants to do now, especially since Bakugou and Kirishima p much vanished.

Deku says something offhandedly. He hadn’t really been pulled toward anything in particular. Maybe they could just walk around, see if they find some of the others. Maybe some kinda casual conversation. Ochako has them stop because she sees a yo-yo fishing game and she really wants a water yo-yo.

As you can see, the fireworks scene (which apparently everyone adores?) was very much not planned LOL. Nor was Bakugou clearly and purposefully ditching them. I don’t really have much in the way of explanations other than it’s what felt right. I considered including a time skip or two during this chapter...but then I realized how silly that would be over such a short time period. So I ended up including the ditching (including Bakugou literally yelled that “Nope!” and it was like “oh okay that’s what we’re doing cool thanks for the memo?”) and then the fireworks was a clear “time is passing while he’s wistful” kind of moment. I think it went over well and segued pretty naturally into this.

Deku just watches, musing to himself over how nice this has been...how nice she looks...she said something about wanting to give the stuffed animal in his grasp to his mom. As a thank you for the yukata. He still can’t believe that Inko never said anything to him about it. But honestly...what would he have said. What would he have done? He’s seen her in it for a while now and he still hasn’t commented about it to her…yeah, okay, he did try twice. Once at school and once with Eri but since then he hasn’t bothered to try again.

Maybe it’s pointless. Maybe the fact that he did try twice was the universe saying that it was dumb and he definitely shouldn’t. That he would make her uncomfortable so don’t bother.

Or maybe it wasn’t about her. Maybe it was the universe scolding him from trying to say it around other people… Embarrassing her around her friends and their former teacher...yeah. Yeah, no. It was definitely that. He needed to say something. She deserved to hear it. He couldn’t tell her about her kimono during that New Years celebration. Shouldn’t he tell her now? Respect both her and his mother’s efforts? Yes. He should definitely say something now.

As you can see....pretty much nothing here changed LOL. I knew this was exactly right but some stuff got clarified and extended, I feel. Made it feel a lot more stream of conscious like as a result of that.

Side note Deku has a big tendency to repeat himself mentally when I write him....idk why this happens but it does lmao.

Uraraka comes back over with her water yo-yo. She says something idk what. But Deku starts to try to say something about her thing. Bringing it up very slowly and awkwardly but before he can explain properly she interrupts him. “Deku-kun, do you hear that?” He goes quiet as he listens. Then……screaming. 

Then they hear someone exclaim that it looks like the bonfire is out of control. They look and...that’s not a normal bonfire. Those are blue flames.

LOL “She says something idk what” is such a staple of my outlines I cry. 😂 That and “Idk something else needs to go here figure it out later”

Anyway though another case of extension here. I knew I was gonna have to with “bringing it up slowly and very awkwardly” that’s vague and I had to show that happening so it was bound to be. I actually struggled on whether or not to let him say it. But ultimately it felt dissatisfying to let him say it and not give Uraraka or the readers the chance to dwell on it. It needs a moment to itself. It needs to be a heavy, impactful moment--but the problem is the League reveal was heavier so it would have knocked it away just as much as him not saying it at all.

Obviously my reveal (the last bullet point) changed a lot with how I conveyed it...also Uraraka’s line. But when I was writing it I realized that Uraraka would be more horrified than my outline which, as you can see, is really calm in comparison. But I knew the only way to reveal it all was Dabi blue flames. A staple of the League... But having Deku’s last line was a better ending line.

ANYWAY, sorry that took so long but. There you have it. Deeper thoughts and perspective from the planning of the chapter. I hope this was interesting seeing the difference between my outline, but I apologize if my commentary was at all boring lol

Thanks Kat!! Always happy to talk!!! 💖💖💖💖

[meetevieinthehallway]

cus y’laugh is pretty.

in which harry gets his wisdom teeth removed.

-

harry isn’t a fan of drugs.

not like that— the medicinal drugs that they put you under for surgeries, or even the ones that take away headaches.

specifically— the ones that alter the mind and consciousness.

first of all, he doesn’t like needles and he doesn’t understand people who don’t get bothered by them; he thinks it’s absurd someone is okay with a large, sharp object impaling at their skin and altering their immune system.

and the effects they have!

it’s a freaky fucking way to put something helpful into someone’s body.

second of all, he doesn’t like pain. nobody does— but harry fears pain and has crazy anxiety about its intensity, its severity. he’s never had a cavity in his fucking life so he has never really experienced a toothache, what if this is the worst pain i’ve ever felt? it worries him sick and he hasn’t been sleeping well for the past couple days, waking from dreams where he was in the dentist chair and there’s needles and tools and they pinched at his flesh but they didn’t truly numb his nerves and he could feel everything going on—

third of all, he doesn’t like the idea of not having control over his own being, his mind loose and free and with no filter. harry is a man of calculated speech; he chooses his words with care and makes sure they are impactful before they are released. his tediousness and careful words only intensified as he grew in fame— he can’t slip up in the media when he possesses the spotlight.

drugs like these ones—the ones being injected with a tiny needle into his fucking arm—are just keys able to access the locked depths of harry’s mind.

forget the control aspect— the fact that harry won’t even remember how he acts under drugs freaks him out; he won’t know what he said, how he said it.

what if i say something completely inappropriate?!

well fuck, he’s always thinking raunchy or romantically about his fiancée—

what if i embarrass myself? or even her! oh god—

it was these thoughts and nerves that cause harry’s knee to bounce up and down in the waiting room chair, his fingers twitching at the material at his thighs. his eyes have been downcast since they checked in, eyebrows furrowed as he dazes off at the tile floor, worries and concerns and nerves swirling in the pit of his stomach.

he doesn’t want to do it.

he really doesn’t.

i can’t do it.

but another hand rests on top of his, causing his leg to halt and for his eyes to break over next to him.

his lovie is looking at him with soft eyes, her lips pouting. harry gazes at her, his eyes blinking as she thread her fingers through his, pulling their hands into her lap. she’s fiddling with his fingers, twirling his rings and rubbing his knuckles.

“you shouldn’t be so scared, bub.”

he bites his lip.

“you’re gonna be fine, okay?”

he shakes his head, putting his eyes back on the ground, his leg beginning to bounce again.

“harry.”

he looks at her again. her eyes are pleading for him to go through with it—and god, he doesn’t want to disappoint her in any way—but he is so fucking terrified that he might just have to get up and leave.

“please don’t make me.”

his voice is cracking and breaking so sadly and although his brain is moving too wildly to produce any tears, his eyes are glossed over and her hand is squeezed extremely tightly in his,

she’s never seen him this way.

her fiancé is a strong and confident man—for the love of god, he’s worn pink and floral suits and has pranced around like a lunatic—who doesn’t typically let something like this bother him.

he’s been a mess for days— she had to physically pull him out of bed this morning because he refused to get up, mumbling that he wanted to take a rain check. she coaxed him with the promise of starbucks on the way, and he was dumb enough to only notice her trickery when she drove straight to the dentist office, murmuring in a fake-sad voice that oh, i forgot, you can’t eat or drink before this, h!

he hasn’t looked at her since. not until now— with sad eyes that purely begged to just take me home.

she sighs. “bubby.” she turns her body to face him completely. “it’s starting to impact your other teeth and jaw. if they aren’t removed, it’s gonna be detrimental.” her hand cards through his hair.

“b-but… can’t i do it without anesthesia?” he murmurs, his other hand joining in holding hers. “’s scary. people...— people die from anesthesia! i don’t wanna die i—”

“it’s best for you to be put to sleep.” she whispers gently, a hand coming to his cheek to hold his eyes to hers. “with how anxious they know you are… with the pain and everything, h.” she touches his face. “you also have six wisdom teeth, baby, so it’s a bit more complicated.”

he exhales loudly, turning his face. his hands loosen around her palm, breath sighing and hands moving to ruffle his hair.

“harry.” she says sadly.

he doesn’t look at her.

“i love you, and i promise,” she whispers. “you’re going to do absolutely amazing. and ‘m gonna spoil the fuck out of you with cuddles, ice cream and your favorite films.”

he mumbles, dejected, “don’t want ice cream.”

“popsicles then.”

“hmph.”

“even the orange ones...” she coos, and he looks at hers.

“t-the... the orange ones i like?”

“mhm.”

“from th’shop across town?”

she looks a him with gentle eyes, nodding.

harry’s lips pull into a small, lip-trembling, hesitating smile. “okay.”

“okay.” she smiles.

it’s quiet, the only sound the waiting room elevator style music, and he cringes. the room is such a stark white that it’s hurting his eyes, stinging his head and he sighs through his nose.

then his mind drifts.

it drifts off into more pessimism, the excitement for his favorite treat vanishing away as he thinks and thinks.

he remembers back on those loopy videos that he had rewatched incessantly, eyes wide as he bit his lip as the man throws a literal fit in the car, swollen cheeks and a muffled screaming voice.

his love had told him to stop watching them but he didn’t listen, and now he’s sitting here in a stupid waiting room and his brain is rambling because he doesn’t know what he will say when he has no control over his body—

“do you promise to forgive me if i say something inappropriate?” he bites his lip.

she breaks into soft giggles, nodding furiously and squeezing his hand. “absolutely.”

“y’sure?”

“course i am.”

“even if—”

“harry styles?”

the world goes a bit fuzzy as they’re pulled out of their conversation.

they both look and turn towards the soft voice, a dental hygienist in blue scrubs smiling at them brightly. her eyes and smile are warm, welcoming even, and it did nothing to aid harry’s pain and worry.

harry looks at his love and stares at her eyes. they are confident and strong, and at least if he isn’t okay, she is.

he hopes he will be.

he leans over the arm of the chair and kisses her cheek softly, slowly, pulling back and wetting his lips with his tongue. “hold my hand till i fall asleep?” his voice is pleading and quiet.

her eyes flicker to his, head nodding slowly. “of course.”

and that’s all he needed.

so he stands slowly, smiling small at the woman.

he takes his lovie’s hand and pulls her close to his side.

and together, they walk down the hallway after her.

—

“lovie!”

her head snaps up, her coloring book app on her phone forgotten the moment that her eyes land on her fiancé.

oh, boy.

here he is—the man she can proudly call hers—smiling greatly and stumbling with his long limbs despite the dentist holding up eighty percent of his body weight. his arm is strewn in an open gesture, silently requesting a hug from his favorite person, his other arm around the struggling dentist’s shoulders. she stands quickly, hurrying over, biting back a smile at his giggling and his coos. she brings his other arm over her shoulders, helping the dentist hold and walk him. his face immediately bends down and nuzzles into her neck, his voice cooing and humming.

“my lovie.”

he picks his head up and stares at her intently, a dopey smile stretching his swollen cheeks.

she turns to look at him briefly, doing a double take when she realizes how he dreamingly he’s staring at her. “hi” he drawles, moving his head again, this time to nuzzle his face into the top of her hair.

“hi, bub.” she laughs. “gotta help us get you to the car, alright?”

“okie dokie.” he murmurs, picking up his feet only a slight bit more, lazily feigning a march as they left through the door of the dentist’s office.

maintaining to get a six-foot-something groggy and giggly man—arguably child—into the passenger seat is more of a challenge than she originally thought. it’s a mess of unmoving limbs and a stubborn whiny voice and knocking-together-knees, and his love and the dentist both are out of breath by the time his butt hits the leather seat. when he is finally in and situated, he pouts, telling his girl that he doesn’t wanna sit, through a muffled whiny voice from the gauze filling his cheeks.

“’s my car!” he whines, stomping his feet on the floor of the vehicle. “can i drive?”

“no.”

another whine.

“why not?”

“because i wanna be home in one piece.”

she closes the door gently, turning to face his dentist with humored eyes as the man chokes back a breathy laugh. “thought you guys reversed the drugs towards the end?”

the dentist laughs. “poor kid was freaking out so bad, i thought we should just... let him be blissful for as long as possible.”

she smiles, giggling, “you left me with a handful.”

she turns, looking over her shoulder, and she snorts and holds back more laughs when she sees her love staring at her through the tinted window, pouting, his hand pressed to the glass. the tip of his nose is smushed there as well, gently rubbed against the surface as he whines.

the doctor holds back a laugh. “he should be okay, he’ll most likely fall asleep and wake up fine.”

she grins, shaking her head.

after she is done discussing final details with him, she slides herself in the car, sighing lightly and turning to her fiancé.

she furrows her eyebrows.

his arms are crossed in front of his chest, puffy lips pouting and his knees pulled toward one another.

“what is it, bubby?”

he mumbles quietly, voice slurring and lisping.

“what was that?”

“th’dentist took ’m’tongue.” he mumbles softly, words jumbling together. “’s gone.” he frowns.

she snorts.

“your tongue isn’t gone, h.” she leans over the car, grabbing his seatbelt and crossing it over his frame. “’s right in there, sweet.”

he pouts at her, fingers reaching to touch his cheek and mouth. “can’t feel it, feels funny.”

she giggles. “it’s supposed to.” she pries his hand away, putting it in her own palm.

“feels like a balloon.”

she shifts the car in drive and pulls out onto the road, shaking her head with an endeared smile. he simply was adorable like this, widened eyes of wonder and a childish voice that questions every sense around him. he’s pointing at trees and dogs on the roads and gasping and giggling at everyone and everything.

then he quiets, and she is driving a while before feeling harry’s gaze on her cheek. she turns, smiling when he gives her a big dopey smile, giggling and babbling at nothing, bouncing his head to some imaginary music.

“you okay, harry?” she glances at him again.

his lips instantly turn down. the hand that has been clasped in her fingers is immediately pulled away, a wounded and offended look casting over his face. his eyes stare at her, wide, as they water quickly and he sniffles. she’s instantly alarmed, her own eyes going wide at him as she pulls up to a red light and looks over.

“what’s wrong, hm?” she coos at him. “are you hurtin?”

“no.” he sniffles, shaking his head and blinking rapidly.

“what is it?” she murmurs softly, her hand failing in its attempts to grasp his.

“harry.” he whimpers, gauze slipping up to the corner of his lips and muffling his voice.

“what?”

he tucks his hands into his chest, shielding them away from her grasp. “’m not harry.”

“you’re not harry?” she’s so confused.

his eyes stare at her, wide, upset and astonished at how obvious the answer was. “m’name’s not harry!”

her eyebrows furrow. “what’s your name, then?”

he scoffs, mumbling how utterly unbelievable this is. “bubby!”

silence.

she erupts into giggles. she can’t help it, because he looked so devastated over something so ridiculous.

“you call me bubby. buh-bee.” he pouts, voice whining and eyes spilling out tears. “that’s m’name.”

“you’re right, bub. you’re right. i’m sorry.” she says through a fit of giggles.

his eyes narrow at her, and he looks genuinely offended. “why are you laughin’ at me?” he slurs, frowning at her profile.

“nothing, nothing. all is okay.” she grins. “’m not laughing at you.”

“’m your husband. y’can’t laugh at me.”

“oh?” she giggles.

“m-hm. ’s in the rules.”

she glances at him. “the rules?”

“mhm. the marriage rules.”

“yeah? what else is in the rules?”

he huffs, looking out the window as he thinks. his drugged mind makes him feel really floaty, so he is drunkenly pulling all of his energy in to think as his body is swaying as he genuinely ponders through his altered mind.

“y’have to make me brownies.” he says seriously.

she quirks an eyebrow and shoots another glance his way, a smile gracing her lips. “i hafta bake brownies for you?”

“mhm. every day.” he looks at her. “with the— the big chocolate chips i like.”

he’s speaking absolute nonsense and she doesn’t know how to contain her laughs.

“anything else in the marriage rules?”

silence.

“i get t’eat you out every day.”

silence.

she cackles.

her body jolts forward violently and her laughs transform to heavy breaths, and she’s giggling so intensely that her abdomen throbs, arm crossing her stomach as she tries to slow her breathing.

“y’laughing again!!”

he yells at her with a childlike voice, and she holds back another round of laughter as he sounds upset.

“i’m not i’m not... just— saw something funny outside.”

his green eyes are swimming with a drunkeness she’s never seen.

“that’s a lie!”

“i’m not laughing.” she grins at him. “promise.”

he huffs at her, arms folding back over his chest. “sounds like y’are.”

“’m not, bubby.”

harry’s eyes light at the name, and he fails to hide it, his emotions conflicted between happiness and detestment as he looks at his girl. on one hand, she’s laughing at him and that’s just... mean. and on the other—

his hand slowly slides back into her palm, a small smile on his lips starting to hum as he looks out the window.

she smiles, rolling her eyes at his antics and continuing to drive.

it’s quiet for a couple miles, besides the humming from his throat and the raspberries he’s blowing into the air.

then he gasps loudly, causing her to jump.

“lovie!”

she breathes, “yes?”

“i-i—” he stammers, unsure of how to word his sentence. “do— do you realize what just happened?”

“uh... what d’you mean, love?”

“l-like… that guy just… stole m’teeth!”

here we go again.

“didn’t steal them, bub.”

“well then—” he challenges, “where did they go?”

“on... on a vacation.” she says quickly, hoping it would settle his questions.

“...how come m’teeth get a vacation and i don’t?”

“not a good vacation, love. they were bothering you, so they had to go.” her voice is soft, gently suggesting so she wouldn’t have to tell his drunken mind that they ripped his teeth from his skull.

well, harry has to think about that.

he sits back in his seat, eyebrows furrowed as he mumbles to himself. he touches his lip before she mumbles a stern “hey.” and bats his hand away, his eyes going wide in realization.

“he’s like superman.” he mumbles, awed.

“who is?”

“m’dentist. superdentist.”

his fiancée starts laughing at his seriousness, giggles spilling from her lips. harry looks to her and starts chuckling as well, their laughs blending in the air of the car. she pauses, her giggles dying down slowly.

“why are you laughing?”

“cus y’laugh is pretty.” he grins cheesily, his feet swinging in the space of the car floor. “makes m’smile.” his voice is like a child’s— giggly and adorable and sheepish, his cheeks flushing with pink.

she grins at him, shaking her head gently.

“can i sleep?” he slurs, eyes fluttering and body starting to lean backwards into his seat.

“yeah, baby. y’need help reclining?”

“nuh uh.”

“are you sure?—”

she’s cut off by a snore.

a loud snore that she quickly looks towards, snorting when she sees her love’s face pressed against the glass of the window, body slumped. his heavy breathing increases the deeper he falls asleep, her lips letting out soft laughs at his behavior.

she shakes her head, turning to face the road.

oh, just wait until he hears everything he missed.

[there-must-be-a-lock]

Hey, I just saw your post for pro-kink questions, and heck, why not. I'm trying my hand at writing smut for the first time, and figured I'd start off with something simple: f/f oral. Unfortunately I am a bit stuck. Do you have any general tips? Thank you so much, I absolutely love your writing

Hoooo boy buckle up y’all it is about to get SO GAY up in hurr!

So, just as a heads up, I’m going to go into this assuming you’ve never personally gone down on a girl. If you have, feel free to ignore and/or nod along enthusiastically while I rhapsodize about the joy of eating pussy.

For starters, it’s not simple at all! Like, holy shit, there can be so much more to it than there is when a p goes into a v and they do the whole boom boom done thing. Straight sex is like a straight line graph... erection-shaped, if you will. Builds and builds and boom or whatever the Dean quote is. Lady sex is like a big ol twisty bunch of curves where it builds, you pause to tell her a funny thing you heard the other day, it starts to build again, there’s the grinding (so much grinding; I have a picture on my phone of my inner thighs one morning cause they were straight up black and blue) and the fingering and the making out and the teasing... which brings me to the most important part: girls take their time!

Guys rush to the finish line, girls like to make out and rub against each other and like compliment each other’s underwear for AGES, and even if one person comes, they’re ready to go again real quick, and so a gay sex marathon can be a serious fucking marathon. Remember to hydrate! And file your nails!

And I think a lot of this is going to depend on the context... so again, let’s assume the character has never done this either! If she’s hooking up with a girl for the first time, and has been accustomed to dude-sex, your character is gonna notice some big differences that are gonna dictate a lot of the input from all five senses.

GIRLS ARE SO SOFT. Like, it’s UNREAL. They have lovely soft amazing skin and you can spend a long fucking time just running your hands over it.

Girls tend to be a lot more vocal than guys, it’s fantastic, and they’ll start out making these delicate little noises and end up just totally incoherent and cursing and whimpering. UNF.

Girls smell so good! Perfume/hair products/lotion for starters but also, um, pussy. If you’re not used to that, it’s a huge change in the whole experience. Ballsack sweat is the worst. Pussy ftw.

Obviously things look different. But, like, I just remember this girl getting naked and thinking like OKAY WOW I’M SO MUCH GAYER THAN I THOUGHT because girls are just put together so, so beautifully. So your character’s gonna notice all that too; curves and birthmarks and stretch marks and that shitty stick-and-poke you let your friend do on your ass in college... you know. Stuff like that. And how well it all flows together in these gorgeous soft lines, the little dip under their hipbone that you just wanna bite, etc.

Taste! Yum. And the thing is, no matter how self-conscious girls get, I’ve literally never been bothered by it. And the longer you’re down there, the better it all tastes, cause as they get turned on and things start, like, flowing, the taste changes and is generally sweeter.

Next: again, context will help with this, but think about the relationship and the history between them. Is this a first time for both? Are they friends and comfortable with each other? Or is this familiar and knowledgeable where they know exactly how to touch the other person?

In the most interesting smut there’s sort of an emotional journey that happens; they start in one place and end in another. Sometimes that’s friends to more than friends. Sometimes it’s HOLY SHIT I WANT YOU to sweet cozy comfortable cuddling. Sometimes you get all vulnerable and realize you care. Sometimes you start out just fooling around and they find some incredible new way to touch you that turns into surprising mind-blowing world-altering sex. But in general, writing smut, try to remember that it’s not just bullet points of tricks and movements; there are people here, and they’re feeling things, and the emotional story is just as meaningful as what their bodies are doing.

I think the last thing I’d say is that you want to keep it human and real and messy; ground it in details. Because going down on a girl is so much fucking fun and also so ridiculously intimate. But it’s MESSY. Half your face ends up wet, your fingers get all wrinkly and pruney like you’ve been in a bath, if they have stubble you’re in for some seriously chapped lips/chin/cheeks... and most dudes tend to go at it all tentative, just licking. But if you’re really into it, it’s like you’re totally surrounded by skin and could maybe possibly suffocate. Thighs shaking around your ears, mouth smushed around her clit, your lips are soaked, her hips are twisting up cause she’s trying to hump your face and there’s like bones under there, y’know? grinding all over your chin and you’re worried she’ll buck up and get your teeth... so you wrap your arm under her thigh and hold her in place with a hand on her lower belly and that nice soft tummy is just so squeezable under your fingers, she’s not making cute little ladylike noises any more she’s just saying “fuck fuck fuck” over and over, and the view when you look up? Underboob and everything shaking and her making weird crazy screwed-up faces? It’s EXCELLENT.

It’s so much more messy and dirty than most people would imagine, I think, but almost all sex is. Think about those nasty intimate up-close details, not just “my hand was on her leg” but the way it looked when you dug your fingers in and scratched. Make it real.

Tl;dr: SEX WITH WOMEN IS SO WONDERFUL.

I hope that helps a little?

[perspicacious-dragon-of-welkin]

How did you know which major to choose in college?

TL;DR

Basically my advice is this:

Follow your gut. Find what feels right.

Keep your options as open as possible, but don't be afraid to dive deep into something.

Changing your mind is 100% OKAY. So many people take time off from school to figure themselves out. And maybe technical school is a better fit for you if working with your hands is your thing?? Or do a year of something and switch programs! Your courses might just count as electives in another degree.

You will be scared. Life is like that. But never make a decision out of fear. Never choose not to do something because of how you fear it may turn out. Decide based on what good could happen from each of your options.

Work hard, play hard. Join clubs, join groups, meet people. Your classes are only half of school. What you learn out of fun will stick with you way longer and be so much more helpful.

Finally, TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF. You can't pour from an empty cup. After you graduate no one will care about your grades. A degree is a degree. And you can't work if you are drained. Your mind and body is a machine. It needs fuel, it need maintenance, and it needs appropriate rest. Keep yourself running well, and your life will become so much easier.

Haaaaaa...

Honestly? I didn't. Still don't really. But that’s okay.

See, the way it went was in Grade 11 (Where I live, high-school ends after Grade 12), so in grade 11 I started going to info fairs and stuff and hearing people's sales pitches for their programs, and universities and colleges. My grades were always best in Maths and Science courses, and I enjoyed those the most so I knew I was gonna go for something in STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics). I'd had a few people say I'd be good at Engineering, and I'd taken like 30 online quizzes to find out what career would be best for me. I got things like "Custom Boat Builder" (What?? I mean, cool! But what?? Dude, I live in the prairies. Not many boats around here.), and "School Counsellor" (I felt my INFJ coming out in that one), and "Tour Guide", but Engineering of some type was usually somewhere on most of those lists, and it seemed most reasonable and attainable for me. My social skills aren't the best, and while I don't suck at talking to people it drains me a lot, so I really wasn't sure I wanted to make a career out of anything like that. Engineering held esteem, and good prospects for yearly salary, the stereotype around here is that Engineers can't communicate (mostly true) so expectations wouldn't be high for that... It was a good, safe choice, and presented a challenge for me. Everyone told me it would be hard. The hardest thing I'd ever done. I wanted to prove I could do it. So I did. Grade 12 I went to four or five engineering info sessions for local colleges and universities, and I researched any place I could possibly afford to go to in Canada. The list wasn't big.

Many universities were much more competitive than the one I chose, but mine was known for a very.. intimate? Student population? Small, but not too small, and students were known to join up and work together to get through things while some Universities had stories of students sabotaging other's work to gain a higher standing in their classes. The University was one of the cheapest ones (I really didn't have much money saved up. Student loans are definitely a thing), but it wasn't the cheapest on the list. It was one I felt would be of good quality. It wasn't too far from home, that I couldn't travel back in a day, but it was far enough it felt like I was starting something new on my own. I applied within the first four months of grade 12, about 8 months before the time I'd start classes there. I got accepted, found a place to live and completed my first year of General Engineering. After the first year in Uni we were able to request our discipline (what type of Engineering, e.g. Civil, Chemical, Mechanical, etc.) And we had had some opportunities through the year to hear what each discipline was about. I thought I would be going into Chem Eng when I started first year, but decided that was definitely not for me after I took my first university chemistry class, and heard what most chemical engineers did. I decided instead on Engineering Physics despite not really enjoying physics as much as the other sciences in High-school. There was just so many cool things to learn!! And they also told me Eng Phys was "the hardest discipline". It included an extra calculus course above the other disciplines and many other physics courses generally considered very difficult. Again, I wanted to prove I could do it. I went HARD. Studied hard. Took two classes per term above what the university recommended because that was the program. Honestly I think I burnt out. I worked too hard for too many years without taking proper care of myself. Averaging 4-6hrs of sleep a night and eating about 1 meal a day for two years.

***Seriously, take my advice: school is great and important, but TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF. Go out and make friends. Don't neglect your work to party, but don't neglect your social life to study. AND PLEASE eat and sleep at least close to the recommended amounts***

Anyway, I did some planning and altered my course load, changed some habits, started going to the gym regularly, and I'm doing better now. But you want to hear about major's right?

Basically I didn't choose. In my second year, I took my first ever coding course. I spent the least amount of time on that course and received my highest grade ever in university (still nowhere as high as my high-school grades, but it's uni.) Many of my classmates registered in a program that offered a computer science bachelor's degree alongside your engineering degree for 12 additional courses, which for engineering is about 1 year - 2 terms. I signed up immediately. Those classes have been a great confidence boost, average boost, brain break, and bonding experience with classmates also in the program.

So to tally this up, I'm then registered in

- BEng in Eng Phys, and

- BSc in Comp Sci.

Then, third year. We took the mandatory communications class (remember everyone says engineers can't communicate). I loved it. Decent grades. Not as great as my Comp Sci, but better than my Physics. The classes are in rhetorical theory and persuasion because when you do the math and actually know how something works, it's important you be able to tell people what you know and have them believe you. My professor was the incoming dean for a 'school of professional development' that had recently opened in the college. They were offering a certificate (6 courses, a.k.a. 1 term, half a year) in rhetorical theory and professional communication. Guess who also signed up for that?

So if you've been keeping track, that's a 4yr BEng, 3yr BSc (done in one yr due to double counting courses) and a 0.5yr certificate. That's 5.5yrs of undergrad I've suddenly racked up. And remember how I burnt out just a while back because my BEng program wants be to take 7 courses a term instead of 5? Well I made it 6yrs and smushed some courses over to fill that last year so I don't have toooo many more mental breakdowns or go completely insane.

And I mean hey, what's an education if you can't use it right? So I've been looking for summer student jobs to I can learn about the industry. Last summer I got one of those jobs. Hated it. Worst job of my life. I'm still hoping that experience wasn't representative of the entire industry, but we'll see. So I'm 4yrs done my 6yrs of undergrad, I've racked up an almost unimaginable amount of student debt, and I'm sitting in my bed wrapped in a blanket thinking I should have gone into psychology. I wanna help people. Everything I do is so cold. So calculated. I wanna exist where feelings are more than something to be smothered and exterminated. But hey. I can't stop now. So I'm gonna finish it all off. The great thing about EP is that the variation of jobs for this degree could be anything from Pixar animation studios to a technician at Nasa or JPL or SpaceX to Uranium mining. So my options are still open, I just gotta carve myself out a path. Nowhere to go but forward, right? And I have a full 180 degrees of forward to choose from! :)

So that's my story. Sorry for the length, but hey, you asked. Basically my advice is this:

Follow your gut. Find what feels right.

Keep your options as open as possible, but don't be afraid to dive deep into something.

Changing your mind is 100% OKAY. So many people take time off from school to figure themselves out. And maybe technical school is a better fit for you if working with your hands is your thing??

You will be scared. Life is like that. But never make a decision out of fear. Never choose not to do something because of how you fear it may turn out. Decide based on what good could happen from each of your options.

Work hard, play hard. Join clubs, join groups, meet people. Your classes are only half of school. What you learn out of fun will stick with you way longer and be so much more helpful.

Finally, TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF. You can't pour from an empty cup. After you graduate no one will care about your grades. A degree is a degree. And you can't work if you are drained. Your mind and body is a machine. It needs fuel, it need maintenance, and it needs appropriate rest. Keep yourself running well, and your life will become so much easier.

[arpmemething2]

Arrowverse Starters

Was too lazy to do a bunch of individual memes for each series, so here’s one giant meme with quotes from all of them.  Some of these have been slightly altered to take out specific names and/or make them more generic.  Feel free to send in for my muse’s reaction.

"You have failed this omelet."

"I just watched a half-man half-shark take on the fastest man alive. I love this city!"

"Congratulations. You have the wit of a youtube comment."

"I think the seam was starting to split."

"Nobody breaks up my family, you son of a bitch!"

"No offense, but I never met a building I couldn't break into."

"Because I like men. And I like women."

"A jedi craves not these things... No one's feeling that quote."

"I didn’t get to where I am by running and hiding from a fight."

"You two have each other. Most people, in any time period, aren't that lucky."

"You guys are like 10 seasons of Ross and Rachel but smushed into one year."

"I'm from East London. Oh, and the future."

"What kind of tool steals a yellow Humvee?"

"I'm not a murderer. I'm a force of nature. A servant of fate. I enable destiny."

"If you can't kill your enemy, weaken him. If you can't cut off his head, take his heart."

"I want a wife to grow old with. And a kid. And I don't want them to wonder all the time if their dad is in trouble. "

"If we have the power to change the world, don't you think we have the power to change our own fate?"

"You're lucky he didn't knock out your teeth. THose puppies don't grow back."

“I was always too good at forgiving myself. You were never good enough.”

"To run a corporation is not the same as ruling a country."

"I don't believe in fat. I believe in choices."

"We go out for one lousy drink and you guys somehow manage to pick a fight with Bobba Fett."

"I have tried everything I can think of. Last night I helped a family assemble their Ikea table. It’s still not enough."

"If there's one thing pirates love more than treasure, it's a good story."

"In my defense, they were happily corrupted."

"He fights for justice and he cares about this city which is no different than any other officer here as far as I'm concerned. "

"Living is not for the weak."

"You and I, we've been through too much together to let each other down now. Please, let me help you."

"Best team up ever!"

"You're the best person I ever knew. You may not think you're a hero, but you're a hero to me."

"Sometimes I want to repay that violence with more violence. I wanna make someone hurt as much as I do."

"In order to live, we must keep daring."

"I hearby christen this building as the bomb."

"More drinking, less feeling."

"All four of you standing there doing nothing, you look like the attractive yet non threatening, racially diverse cast of a CW show."

"Alright? We've been kidnapped!"

"Usually I find the person and then I put the fear of God into them until they talk. But we can try your way."

"We all have regrets. But we can't undo the things we've done."

"You know us billionaire vigilantes, we do love our toys."

"If I’m going to be a hero and prove to everyone that I know what I’m doing, I’m gonna need practice. Start small, get better."

"I'd tell you to go to hell, but you'd probably just feel at home there."

"Finally, I realized some people are just bad. But you can learn to protect yourself.”

"We might want to rethink that whole "we screw up things for the better" motto."

"We fight to live as long as we can. That's the only way to live and to be able to live with yourself."

"That film is surpisingly scientifically accurate."

"To quote every 'Star Wars' movie ever made, I've got a bad feeling about this."

"I'll take a nightmare that's real over a dream that's a lie."

"If you want to harness your power, you need to learn to control your fear."

"We only break the rules to help people."

"Somebody once told me that secrets have weight. The more you keep, the harder it is to keep moving."

"It turns out at the end of the day, love is worth the risk. None of us can do this alone."

"Get me a salad for lunch. I don't care what kind as long as it has a cheeseburger on top."

"There's something about me that for most of my life, I've run from it. But last night, I embraced who I am and don't want to stop."

"I have no interest in this being a fair fight."

"Say, didn't I kidnap you once?"

"Really? We're trying to save the world and you're lifting wallets?"

"(S)he’s the kind of girl/boy that you take home to your parents, and I am the kind you take to an exorcism."

"We protected the humans of this city by killing a monster."

"You can't change the things you did. But you can change what you become."

"You have failed this city."

"Call security. I haven't seen eyes that crazy since I had fondue with Ramona Singer."

"Do you remember when you told me you had nothing left to teach me? I guess you had one final lesson. How to be a cold son of a bitch."

"I'll go get the alien. You get the girl."

"I have a feeling she'll want to hyphenate."

"Nazis? I hate Nazis."

"It's not a big deal, I got into a fight. I thought you'd be proud of me. I went for the nose, just like you told me."

"They are mostly a jerk. But every once and a while, they could be a dick."

"You're joking. You're working with the man who threatened to kill my entire family?"

"I've spent my whole life searching for the impossible. Never imagining that I would become the impossible."

"Your goodness is your strength."

"Having a nemesis is stressful."

"How can you speak 6 languages and sound like a dick in every one of them?"

"Forgive me, but to me, you've been dead for centuries."

"I'm sorry; I didn't realize being a fake lawyer was more interesting than getting revent on the bastard that kill them."

"Great things are never easy."

"Totally rather get shot than look like a Sears model."

"Well, that's what I am. I'm very boring and really normal."

"You could have just used the door."

"Out of everyone you could've picked to rob, you picked me?"

"If we make the wrong move in here, these cuffs are gonna be the least of our worries."

"Not every hero wears a mask. Some heroes save the day in the simplest of ways. By just being there for us, or letting us know we're believed in."

"There's no bravery without fear."

"You're on fire! You don't seem that bothered by the fact that you're on fire."

"Your choice insisted I not walk around your house naked, so I found one of your dresses. You're out of milk."

"Cops'll never hassle a dad buying diapers in the middle of the night."

"Well, research skills are kind of a superpower."

"They are the objective just not the priority. Not this time."

"No hero can save everyone, but a real hero never stops trying."