#python being based. as always

[qrevo]

holy shit python allows me to turn string variables trans

[katiefrog217]

Walks with Aziraphale were always so amusing, especially when he took one of his different forms. Tonight, Crowley took note of a few different reactions:

1. Much to his bemusement, quite a few people crossed the road entirely just to avoid him (he didn't know why, he thought this particular form was very charming).

2. Those who didn't avoid them either didn't notice at all, or cooed adoringly at his companion. A few snake enthusiasts tried their best to impart advice upon him (Yes, he was aware it was a chilly night to have a python outside. Yes, he was aware that he had a few extra rolls on him, and he would appreciate it if they didn't body shame him, please and thank you).

3. He had a particularly interesting encounter with a stranger who tried his best to buy Aziraphale from him (he didn't know whether to laugh or be offended on his companion's behalf when the person subsequently dropped their price offering upon learning he was male. He turned them down, of course).

This just in: local vampire hunter tries his hardest to look cool in front of his crush.

I said soon and I guess I meant now haha.

I could help but draw Crowley and Aziraphale from @mrghostrat 's new Vampire AU (thanks for the permission btw!!) and I'll be damned if I couldn't pass up the opportunity to draw Ball Python Azi after being deeply entrenched in Ball python morphs and drawing them for the past few years.

I'm also a big sucker (har har) for any kind of vampire au, so I was incredibly excited to draw this!! I'm still not confident in my ability to draw Crowley (or jackets oof) but I tried.

On that, while I have ya'll here, a few fun facts about Ball Pythons and Morphs:

Azi looks to me to be based on a Blue Eyed Lucy (Leucistic) ball python. Leucistic is different from Albino - both lack pigment, but Leucistics only lack pigments in parts, rather than entirely like with Albinism. The fastest way to tell the difference is the eye color.

Blue Eyed Lucies have eye colors that range from Black to Blue - blue obviously being the more popular eye color.

The whiter the snake, the more sought after it is (not all Lucies are pure white, depends on the morph combo)

Unlike a majority of ball python morphs, Blue Eyed Lucies don't have a distinct gene combo that defines them. Generally, their morphs included Mocha, Mojave, Lesser, Butter, etc. The combos are generally endless. A Super Mojave (Mojave bred to Mojave) will produce a fairly grey/white snake, but their heads tend to be a very dusty grey, and isn't an ideal combo for a Lucy.

A snake that seems incredibly white when hatched may change color as it ages and become less white. This is common for all morphs, and their patterns define themselves and get stronger with age.

In breeding, males are generally less desired than females, and run at a lower price generally. This is because a single male can breed multiple females, so it's less effective to have more males in a clutch than females.

Obesity in snakes IS a real thing, and generally hard to manage if you do have an obese snake. Snakes tend to retain weight well, so exercise is really the only method to help bring their weight down (plus smaller meals). Good luck if you have an obese snake that isn't particularly inclined to be active.

Ball Pythons generally tend to have what's called a 1,000 gram wall - in which a snake that hits 1k grams stops eating and will not gain more weight. No one is 100% sure why this phenomena happens, but it's incredibly common.

Not a fact but opinion: Paradox ball Pythons are my favorite morph. If you want to see some incredibly interesting genetics, look them up.

[randombush3]

the end of the world

alexia putellas x reader

summary: just another one of those toxic relationships (based on 'i want you' by mitski, except i don't know the song very well and went a bit off topic)

notes: me? posting incoherent rambling that i refuse to read again? never.

i couldn't be bothered to fish out my journal or whatever

OH ALSO pls ignore the car. i'm not sure how i feel about the fucking toyota yet.

[...]

You want her. 

Alexia is in between your tensing thighs, strong and steady where you tremble and shake. Hands slide up your canting hips; her tongue through your slick folds. The pressure she bears down on you is almost to take, but you take it anyway. You’d take anything for her. 

You want her, and you know you were never supposed to, but that was a risk you took. You’ll be whipped for it, if not lashed by her tongue then by the agonising cane of her absence. She has been clear about what she herself desires, wants. Unashamed to crave your body, her silence has always met your probe for something more. 

You want to tell her about it, too, as she works so relentlessly, so diligently; as blonde hair suffocates your fingers, winding around them like pythons (dead pythons that you force to constrict, mind).

“I think I’m falling in love with you,” you’d say, and the sole card pressed against your bare chest would flutter to the floor. Its patterned back would mercilessly disappear, revealing the worth of your hand. 

It would be a joker. 

Jokers aren’t allowed in this game – whatever it is you’ve got going with Alexia. The rules are fuzzy, a deliberate haze in your mind that acts as some suicidal fog, but this one is obvious. She couldn’t make it more obvious. 

Jokers are also foolish idiots. The dealer was sick and twisted, but the dealer was Alexia and Alexia is between your legs, and Alexia makes you feel both good and bad. Alexia, with a mouth that rivals her other talents, and her fingers that slide into you with such smug entitlement that you can’t help but whimper. 

You beg her for more – what an addict you are – but she decides it is impossible to give you it, and then she is gone. 

But she’s never really gone. 

You crawl into the shower, sobbing. You’re not sure why you are sobbing, nor how you got here, but the only difference between your tears and the droplets of water falling from the shiny head is that one was asked for. Wanted back. And Alexia’s fucked you up properly this time, because you are comparing yourself to a fucking showerhead. 

Is that how worthless she has made you feel? Is this her punishment for you? 

“We’re starting over.” It sounds out from your doorway. You fall to your knees before she crosses the threshold into your apartment. You’re begging her, but, eyes narrowed and unimpressed, she ignores what you mean, nudging you backwards so that the door can close behind her and you can press her against it. Eagerly, she keens into your mouth, holding your head in place. 

You move your lips with your question but there is no answer in her whine of pleasure. You spell it out and she is unaware, and you could scream it at her, you realise, if you’d like. She’d meet your burning throat with her mouth placed on your skin wrapping around the tunnel into the soul you are trying to bear to her. Your voice would go hoarse but she would be deaf to the words you would repeat. 

And it is your apartment she is in, but you are driving away. There is a car parked outside; a nice, shiny Toyota with decent mileage and a full tank of diesel. The seats are unused and they criticise you for it; why didn’t you make an escape earlier? Alexia is in the house and you are in the car, and the roads are wet like your face as though the sky’s copious amount of weeping is mocking you for being so fucking pathetic. The tyres screech and scratch and the bends grow windier as you drive far away. 

Someplace quiet, you think. A field, empty and far from the constraint of Alexia’s city. You scream, out in the open, “how I love you!” But ‘you’ is only the birds that fly away in terror, ‘you’ is the wind that carries your curse into other lands. 

“I want you,” Alexia gasps. 

You’re not actually in the field – don’t be stupid. Why would you get to be anywhere other than where Alexia has put you? 

“I want you too,” you could reply, turning her words against her because it is her power that will shatter the house of glass she has built around herself. The flip would be unexpected; it would shock her. She’d maybe… run? 

From herself. From you. From many other things that she hides in her glass house – plainly in sight but unreachable and untouchable. If the door were to open, your steps would lead to your death: there is no floor here.

You’d keep falling and falling and falling and tumbling and falling. You’d never reach the bottom of the bottomless pit, because no one is supposed to even try. 

Alexia is in the house and you are in the car. 

Alexia, crystal glass, has value. Yours diminishes the further you go from her. 

But you want her. Oh, how you want her. 

[fairyofshampgyu]

Corrupt File !

genre: smut, college au

pairing: programmer! beomgyu x gn reader (afab when it comes to smut)

warnings: nsfw, sub virgin nerd! beomgyu, dom! reader, corruption kink, mentions of p0rn, handjob, riding

word count: 1.8k

Choi Beomgyu. Goodie two shoes in your comp sci class who was the teacher’s pet and notorious for being an ‘excellent’ and ‘strong’ programmer who can program amazingly well in any language and has great debugging skills. Apparently he learnt how to program at the early age of 7 and made his own pac man after a week. 

He’s also a little pretentious bitch. He thinks he’s better than everyone else in the class and doesn’t bother speaking to anyone, giving others judgemental stares. You’ve seen him a couple times on campus with four other dudes though but none of them were in any of your classes. He comes to every single class early with his cute little outfits, sweater vests and cardigans whilst everyone else is in their hoodies and deranged with little sleep, sits at the front and doesn’t talk to anyone but the teacher. 

You? Well, you’re mediocre at programming. You’re not too bad but you prefer other aspects of computer science and your programming skills have always made you slightly insecure because you weren't the best of the best and you didn’t learn it at some ridiculously young age and program 24/7 all types of games and websites and other stuff. You had to work so hard to actually get to a good level of programming whilst it came so easy to people like Choi Beomgyu. He seems so perfect. It made you want to imperfect him. 

You were late to class today, getting a bit delayed by some cats on the way there. They were really cute cats what can you say! And you loved cats. But being late to class today meant that all seats were occupied except for the front row and the spare seat, unsurprisingly was next to Choi Beomgyu. He doesn’t pay you any attention though, waiting for his computer screen to load and then the teacher begins.

“Alright, today I thought our class was in great need of some partner work and we’ll be doing programming today. With whoever is sitting next to you, I’d like you to develop a program with them. It can be on everything and anything and you have the weekend to create it, using Python.”

Wow. It was just your luck. 

The boy besides you sighs, pushes his cute, round, kinda too big for his face, glasses up and turns his body to face you. 

To be honest, you wouldn’t have minded working with him. Despite being slightly jealous, you did admire his skill but with how hostile he was being and how clearly he resented the idea of working with you, you didn’t think this was going to go too well.

“...We could make like a simple video game or something...” You speak up first.

 “On python? And too basic.” He rolls his eyes and shuts your suggestion off.

You’re slightly agitated with him now and you show it with your tone. “Well what do you think we should do then, huh?”

“I think we should make a music suggestion tool. We could make an algorithm run that recommends music based on what we think the user will like.”

He doesn’t wait for you to agree, opening up python and already starting to write some code.

For the rest of the class, you don’t contribute much, just trying to give him some suggestions to add maybe a function over there or a loop over here, maybe trying to find a reason as to why a syntax or logic error came up. You’re already halfway done and sure it would need more refining but now you know it won’t take up your whole weekend which is good. You watch him carefully as he stays very focused, fluffy dark hair falling into his face and eyes and his circular glasses that had drooped back down to his nose. You look down to his hands. He was very fast at typing and his hands were oddly very pretty.

Upon inspecting his features, you come to the conclusion that he was in fact actually pretty attractive. How had you never noticed before?

“We can carry on working on it at my place right now if you want?” Beomgyu asks, packing up his pink laptop, pink pencil case and pink notebook back into his crossbody bag after the class had finished. You stare at your own laptop that just has a black hard case cover, your pencil case that looks like it’s been through three wars, and your notebook that was really just a bunch of lined paper. Wow, he even had a theme going on. 

“Oh I've actually got another class after this that won’t be done until about two hours but I can come after that. Just send me your address.” So you exchange phone numbers and go off your separate ways. 

Apparently you were the only one who wasn’t informed that your class was actually cancelled today, your professor going on strike or something like that. Sighing, you check your phone to see that beomgyu had sent you his address and it’s not that far from the campus. You could go there early then.

knock, knock, knock. He was taking weirdly long to open his door and you could hear some rustling and bustling until he finally did open his door.

“Oh. You’re here early.”

“Yeah turns out my class was actually cancelled.”

His room was exactly how you expected it to look; clean and cute and quite perfectly him. The room had a pastel coloured running theme but mostly just pink and white. Fairy lights, strung across the headboard of his bed, a pastel pink record player in the right corner with an assortment of vinyls underneath, ones you recognised and liked and some you didn't recognise, an acoustic guitar to the left on a stand near his shelf and there was a worn out teddy bear occupying his bed. 

He sits on his bed and you follow...and then you both just sit there doing absolutely nothing for a few seconds in awkward silence.

“Uhhh aren’t you gonna get your laptop? We wrote it on your laptop?” You laugh, awkwardly.

“Uh yeah. Right.” So he gets his laptop, very slowly opening it and he’s just about to open the .py file when his mouse board falters over the safari accidentally and the hidden window was freed with a very suggestive video on it paused and an even more suggestive website. Your eyes go wide and so does his.

“I-it’s not- it’s not what it looks like! I-it’s just when you’re watching on a dodgy website and those pop ups come up! yeah...yeah!” He’s furiously clicking the red button on the top left hand corner to close the window immediately. But you can’t help the grin slowly appearing on your face.

You move slowly closer towards him and he moves back, stopping when his head touches the pretty fairy light headboard. “Oh really? Because it seems like you were jerking off before I was here.” Your face is only a few inches away from his now and he gulps, looking up at you. When he doesn’t even say anything to defend himself, you chuckle at him. “What happened to the little goodie two shoes? I didn’t know you were such a fucking whore.”

“I’m not-i’m not a whore!”  

“Are you sure?” You move to his clothed dick which was painfully hard now, lightly palming it and his whole body jerks, moaning and eyelids fluttering. 

“More, more...” 

You scoff. “Have you ever had a handjob before?” He shakes his head. “Do you want one?” Slack-jawed, he nods his head profusely.

You free his dick and take it into your hands, starting to stroke him and his hands fly to shyly cover his face, attempting to conceal his moans but not to much success.

“Don’t cover your pretty face.” You tut at him, “I wanna see it.” You bring your own hands to remove them away from his face. Not gonna lie, it’s turning you on immensely seeing beomgyu like this. Little put together, pretentious, perfect beomgyu is like this right now, begging you to touch him, clueless and embarrassed. You want to absolutely ruin him. 

 “Aw I bet you didn’t get to cum before did you?” 

“yeah...”

“Don't worry, baby I'll let you cum.”

You use your thumb to go back and forth on his sensitive tip while your other hand grabs the base of his dick and his mouth hangs wide open in endless moans and gasps. You pump his dick fast up and down, ruthlessly jerking him off and his breath hitches.

“Close!” He lets out the loudest moan so far and you abruptly stop. He utters a frustrated whine, hips bucking up and pouting at you, “I thought you said you’d let me cum.”

You can’t help but giggle at him. He’s so cute. “I will. In my pussy.” That seems to shut him up.

You get on top of him, straddling his waist and gently pinning both of his hands to the headboard. He looks at you slightly nervous.

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“But I want to.”

“You sure?” He nods his head.

“Okay.” You inhale a breath before positioning his tip to your entrance and you look to his face again for confirmation and when there’s no sign of uncertainty , you slowly sink down.

“Oh, fuck! Feels so gooood” His face contorts in pleasure and he turns his head to the side, burying it into the pillow whilst his mouth stays parted. You lift up and drop back down hard, making him cry out a loud moan and you begin to ride him slow.

He was already so blissed out by you riding him slow you wonder how he’d be if you quicken your pace so you do, riding him mercilessly now, basically bouncing on his cock and he moans uncontrollably, incoherent words coming out of him with a fucked out face in a daze. Only his moans getting higher in pitch by the second and the noise of skin slapping filling the room.

“C-cumming, cumming!” And with a loud whine and his eyes slightly rolling back, his dick jerks and spills all inside of you with his body trembling.

His face right after being fucked is gorgeous. He’s breathless and panting by his first proper orgasm with his cheeks and chest flushed, face glistening because of the sweat and his fluffy hair completely wrecked now, glasses a bit crooked and head in the clouds.

Yeah, maybe you won’t end up getting the program done in time after all.

COMMENTS AND REBLOGS ARE REALLY APPRECIATED GUYS 😭<333

[oldshrewsburyian]

I don't know if the viking age is your area of expertise, but I saw certain comments in this post about vikings: https://wwwdottumblrdotcom/cracked/160025927549/why-everything-you-know-about-vikings-is-a-lie?source=share

that I would like to ask you about.

The post comes from the comedy website Cracked and states "relative to their era, medieval scandinavians were big-time democrats, feminists and neat-freaks. Vikings were some of the cleanest people in world-history."

In the comment section some people are sceptical of these claims which is kinda understandable.

For example, some question the claim about being the cleanest people in the world because of testimony from the Arab visitor ibn Fadlan: "as a historian, i gotta say, it's highly relative and heavily depends on a point of view. I read a transcript of a info letter from an arab ambassador currently residing in scandinavia. He was disgusted and pretty much said that the northern folk were filthy pigs. Which in terms if hygiene brits < scandinavians <<<<<<<<<<<< arabs"

and

"speaking as someone with an MA in medieval history I feel that he is spinning this a little heavy. I mean have any of you read the primary accounts of Ahmad ibn Fadlan meeting the Vikings?"

and as for feminism, a comment from someone with "historian" in their bio states: "They weren't even that feminist to their own people, its theorised that part of the reason they started raiding was because they'd skewed their own gender ratio badly through gender selective infanticide, so there were more men than women. Women held power in that society because viking men wanted their bodies and had too few to go around.

So men went raiding either in intense competition to get gifts and treasures for a woman, or else to try and take women slaves. The vikings were so not feminist that they unleashed a wave of terror on much of the European coast in a quest to get laid. It doesn't get much less feminist than that."

I want to ask for your takeaway on these statements; is the account by Ibn Fadlan prove anything about hygiene in early medieval scandinavia in general, and would it be possible to conclusively judge whether the "vikings" were "feminist" or not?

Hello! It's been a while! I see that you come to me with... the "historians" of the comedy website Cracked. The short answers to your questions are "no" and "no, but also the Vikings were not feminist, give me strength."

Also, whoever is writing "as a historian" is writing as a history major at best, I'm guessing; they're repeating inaccurate clichés about hygiene and also misidentifying Ibn Fadlan's Rihla as an "info letter."

To address your points sequentially:

"big-time democrats" Hahahaha no. First of all, local governance was the norm in the global Middle Ages, everywhere from China to India to England. (This is why the "I thought we were an autonomous collective" joke in Monty Python is so funny.) At the top of the social hierarchy, some kind of cooperation between ruler and advisory body was also the norm. But because the Vikings had assemblies without crowned rulers, some racists looking for The Origins of Democracy™ have said "Aha! A Proto-Democracy™!" ...no.

"feminists" ...this is based on a lot of hypothesizing. Moreover, it's based on an old-fashioned way of doing history that looks more narrowly at a narrower source base than is the norm today. It's also based on the not-always-correct assumption that raiding parties must have been exclusively male. Anyway, the "feminists" argument rests on the assumption that because women were trusted to manage the economy and everything while the Vikings were off viking (the verb is for raiding, originally), and because they had certain legal privileges, they must have had better cultural status than their peers in other European societies. But again: women being fully involved in the economy is the norm in premodern Europe in ways it is not after Europe invents The Private/Domestic/Feminine Sphere™ in, oh, about 1750. The Private Sphere For Delicate Women, of course, is only for the middle classes. Then there's the whole Viking thing about men being shamed for doing "womanly" magic-use in saga literature.

"neat-freaks" Sigh. I think this comes from one (1) chronicle reference, which I've been failing to track down this morning, in which the male author is bemoaning the fact that the Vikings' comely appearance, braids, and perfumes enable them to entice local women. Taking this claim at face value requires a lot of willful ignorance about how alternate models of masculinity are rhetorically used in premodern sources, to say nothing about willful ignorance about the realities of sexual violence. This is also to say nothing about poor Ibn Fadlan's horrified account of men spitting and blowing their noses into a communal washing bowl.

...There are many affordable, accessible books on the European Middle Ages; series of public-facing online articles; and yet people cook things like this up on Cracked.com. I don't get paid enough.

[is-the-snake-video-cute]

it's currently 3 am as I'm writing this and I have a burning question that I dont really know how to ask so forgive me if this sounds weird or anything but do you ever get to know the venomous snakes that you work with? you've talked about pet snake personalities and how, if they're given the right enrichment and enclosures and all of that, you can really get to know what they're like, what kinds of things they personally like and dislike, etc. and I'm wondering if you get to learn the same things about the venomous snakes you work with. I'm sure this is totally incorrect but even as someone who loves snakes, I've always imagined venomous snakes as being more reserved and aggressive than nonvenomous ones but I'm wondering if theres any you've worked with that are super friendly and social and would be great to have as a pet if they weren't venomous, or if they just never get handled enough for you to really learn those things about them/for them to be like that

Venomous snakes are really just like any other snake! They come up to greet us at the front of their enclosures, they recognize their handlers, they pick favorite keepers. They often have just as goofy, endearing, curious personalities as any other snake!

I have a lot of favorite rattlesnakes at my wildlife center who I just love to work with and who are so sweet, and there are two snakes at my lab who have picked me as their favorite. They're Seth the Egyptian Cobra and Hot Sauce the Gaboon viper - Seth will come up to greet me just like a kingsnake, and Hot Sauce will fall asleep while I'm holding him half the time. My favorite rattler, Draco, is a snake I would take home in a heartbeat if he wasn't, y'know, venomous. He's also prone to refusing rodents based on color, just like ball pythons are infamous for. They're really just normal snakes!

Although we do learn about them and their silly personalities, we'll never really know what it would be like to handle them without hooks and other tools. Everyone's safety obviously takes priority, and we can never treat them like pets, but we absolutely get to know them.

[skepticreadstoa]

The Hidden Oracle: Chapter 11

MEG GAWKED. “He—he really is a centaur.” “Well spotted,” I said. “I suppose the lower body of a horse is what gave him away?” She punched me in the arm. I'm not sure about you, but I'm starting to think that Apollo's becoming more attached to Meg than he's letting on...

“I understand you showed great bravery in the woods. You brought Apollo here despite many dangers. I’m glad to have you at Camp Half-Blood.” All that bother Apollo went through in the woods to get here, and Meg gets the credit. The ego hits just keep coming for him.

We gods are not hung up about such things. I myself have had... let’s see, thirty-three mortal girlfriends and eleven mortal boyfriends? I’ve lost count. My two greatest loves were, of course, Daphne and Hyacinthus, but when you’re a god as popular as I am— Apollo has really been hyping up the identities of his two lovers, just to let their names slip while talking about how the gods are completely LGBT friendly. Win within a loss, I suppose?

Rocky Horror Picture Show brought back fond memories. I used to cosplay as Rocky at the midnight showings, because, naturally, the character’s perfect physique was based on my own.

“I poked that guy Connor in the eyes.” Chiron winced. “That’s nice, dear..." Chiron's playing nice with Meg because he saw her nut shot Sherman Yang, who's an absolute tank of a human being.

“Who’s Rachel?” Meg asked. “Rachel Dare,” I said. “The Oracle.” “Thought the Oracle was a place.” “It is.” “Then Rachel is a place, and she stopped working?” Had I still been a god, I would have turned her into a blue-belly lizard and released her into the wilderness never to be seen again. The thought soothed me. Apollo trying to keep his cool with Meg:

"Phones have always been dangerous for demigods—” “Yeah, they attract monsters,” Meg agreed. “I haven’t used a phone in forever.” So Meg knows how phones attract monsters. I'm starting to want to hug this child more and more.

I was reluctant to say more. I didn’t want to cause a panic without knowing what we were facing. When mortals panic, it can be an ugly scene, especially if they expect me to fix the problem. Also, I will admit I felt a bit impatient. We had not yet addressed the most important issues—mine. Apollo/Lester panicked and said, "Quick, make it about me!"

“Hanging out isn’t a task.” “It is if you do it right. Camp Half-Blood can protect me while I hang out. After my year of servitude is up, I’ll become a god. Then we can talk about how to restore Delphi.” Preferably, I thought, by ordering some demigods to undertake the quest for me. Alright mate.

“I do not understand what is happening, but I still maintain it must be connected to Delphi, and your present…ah, situation. The Oracle must be liberated from the monster Python. We must find a way.” I translated that easily enough: I must find a way. Yep, time for you to do your own work, Oh mighty Lester.

[izicodes]

Hi! I’m a student currently learning computer science in college and would love it if you had any advice for a cool personal project to do? Thanks!

Personal Project Ideas

Hiya!! 💕

It's so cool that you're a computer science student, and with that, you have plenty of options for personal projects that can help with learning more from what they teach you at college. I don't have any experience being a university student however 😅

Someone asked me a very similar question before because I shared my projects list and they asked how I come up with project ideas - maybe this can inspire you too, here's the link to the post [LINK]

However, I'll be happy to share some ideas with you right now. Just a heads up: you can alter the projects to your own specific interests or goals in mind. Though it's a personal project meaning not an assignment from school, you can always personalise it to yourself as well! Also, I don't know the level you are, e.g. beginner or you're pretty confident in programming, if the project sounds hard, try to simplify it down - no need to go overboard!!

But here is the list I came up with (some are from my own list):

Personal Finance Tracker

A web app that tracks personal finances by integrating with bank APIs. You can use Python with Flask for the backend and React for the frontend. I think this would be great for learning how to work with APIs and how to build web applications 🏦

Online Food Ordering System

A web app that allows users to order food from a restaurant's menu. You can use PHP with Laravel for the backend and Vue.js for the frontend. This helps you learn how to work with databases (a key skill I believe) and how to build interactive user interfaces 🙌🏾

Movie Recommendation System

I see a lot of developers make this on Twitter and YouTube. It's a machine-learning project that recommends movies to users based on their past viewing habits. You can use Python with Pandas, Scikit-learn, and TensorFlow for the machine learning algorithms. Obviously, this helps you learn about how to build machine-learning models, and how to use libraries for data manipulation and analysis 📊

Image Recognition App

This is more geared towards app development if you're interested! It's an Android app that uses image recognition to identify objects in a photo. You can use Java or Kotlin for the Android development and TensorFlow for machine learning algorithms. Learning how to work with image recognition and how to build mobile applications - which is super cool 👀

Social Media Platform

(I really want to attempt this one soon) A web app that allows users to post, share, and interact with each other's content. Come up with a cool name for it! You can use Ruby on Rails for the backend and React for the frontend. This project would be great for learning how to build full-stack web applications (a plus cause that's a trend that companies are looking for in developers) and how to work with user authentication and authorization (another plus)! 🎭

Text-Based Adventure Game

If you're interested in game developments, you could make a simple game where users make choices and navigate through a story by typing text commands. You can use Python for the game logic and a library like Pygame for the graphics. This project would be great for learning how to build games and how to work with input/output. 🎮

Weather App

Pretty simple project - I did this for my apprenticeship and coding night classes! It's a web app that displays weather information for a user's location. You can use Node.js with Express for the backend and React for the frontend. Working with APIs again, how to handle asynchronous programming, and how to build responsive user interfaces! 🌈

Online Quiz Game

A web app that allows users to take quizzes and compete with other players. You could personalise it to a module you're studying right now - making a whole quiz application for it will definitely help you study! You can use PHP with Laravel for the backend and Vue.js for the frontend. You get to work with databases, build real-time applications, and maybe work with user authentication. 🧮

Chatbot

(My favourite, I'm currently planning for this one!) A chatbot that can answer user questions and provide information. You can use Python with Flask for the backend and a natural language processing library like NLTK for the chatbot logic. If you want to mauke it more beginner friendly, you could use HTML, CSS and JavaScript and have hard-coded answers set, maybe use a bunch of APIs for the answers etc! This project would be great because you get to learn how to build chatbots, and how to work with natural language processing - if you go that far! 🤖

Another place I get inspiration for more web frontend dev projects is on Behance and Pinterest - on Pinterest search for like "Web design" or "[Specific project] web design e.g. shopping web design" and I get inspiration from a bunch of pins I put together! Maybe try that out!

I hope this helps and good luck with your project!

[aziraphales-library]

Hey!

I greatly appreciate this blog and was wondering if you could help me!

You know the trope where there are two married teachers and one overshares and one is super secretive and no one knows they’re married?? Thank you so so much <3

Hi. Yes, I do know that trope. I assume you want some recommendations?...

That of the Obvious by KaytheJay (G)

No one would have suspected the two of them. Not in a million years. The two were just so different from one another that it didn’t make sense for them to be together. Dr. Crowley was too open with his emotions. He was open enough that the students thought that he might scare off Dr. Fell if they were to ever have a conversation with each other. Dr. Fell had a metaphorical stick shoved so far up his ass that his students would not be surprised to find out that Dr. Fell had a perpetual taste of wood in his mouth.

Office Hours by winter_scldier (T)

Dr. Crowley was one of the most loved professors in the University. His students loved taking his class so much, he had to extend his office hours. All his students can't wait to hear more stories of his loving mystery husband.

Dr. Fell wasn't one of the more popular professors, but his literature students love him to death. He's very quiet about his home life, careful about how much information he gives away to his students.

At night, after a hard day of teaching, the two go home and deal with modern married life.

The Benefit Of Not Making Assumptions by teardrops_on_ghostly_wings (T)

Based on the tumblr prompt "Okay which one of you is going to write the Ineffable Husbands college professor AU with the extremely sweet and over-sharing professor fawning over their spouse and the standoff-ish secretive professor who reveals absolutely nothing about their private life who turned out to be married?"

what their students don't know by thing1_mea (T)

Crowley and Aziraphale have begun teaching classes at a nearby college. While Crowley openly shares about his relationship Aziraphale prefers to keep his private life private... for as long as he can

Something Wanting in My Nature by Mugatu (T)

I saw this tumblr prompt and my hand slipped.

"Okay which one of you is going to write the Ineffable Husbands college professor AU with the extremely sweet and over-sharing professor fawning over their spouse and the standoff-ish secretive professor who reveals absolutely nothing about their private life who turned out to be married?"

It’s Always Been You by renjunsrey (T)

It's no secret that the photography professor, Mr Anthony J Crowley absolutely adores his husband Zira, who he gushes about at the start of all his classes, his intimidating demeanor means nothing when he speaks with the love for his husband every given moment. On the other hand, next to no one knows anything about Mr Aziraphale (first name unknown to anyone except maybe his husband), the only thing about the Literature Professor that anyone knows, is that he loves the instagram for an iridescent python called Adam.

It's the ineffable husbands' wedding anniversary, and they are both very bad at hiding gifts, making Aziraphale think that Crowley is unwell, and making Crowley think that Aziraphale forgot their anniversary, fluff ensues.

Demons and Angel Professors by Ghostinthehouse (G-T) (Series)

They're professors. They're married. Their students don't realise. Cue shenanigans.

Multiple short arcs with one-shots (and often pauses) between them. Characters continue from one arc to the next.

Any ambiguity between being human and being occult/ethereal is entirely deliberate.

- Mod D

[apollosgiftofprophecy]

"Of Bridges Built and Burned" 👀

I really like the title

I think i'm a genius with titles haha

tagging @moodyseal because this is based off some clowning we did together

So. Moody had let slip about a certain "how Commodus could be redeemed" au and I slid into the ask box and we clowned out over it.

Anyway. It's Copollo (obviously- this is ME we're talking about haha) and begins with Apollo and Commodus conveniently being stuck in the same place in TDP and have to talk/scream their dirty laundry out.

This, of course, brings certain things to light. Because, if I recall correctly, Apollo was never the one to bring up The Assassination - Commodus was always the one doing that and getting angry about it.

However, Apollo never did- he only ever talked about it in detail to Jo, then gave the Sparknotes to Leo & Meg. He never actually talked about it, and therefore never spoke of what drove him to do it.

Which means, Commodus doesn't know the real reason(s) why Apollo killed him. He just assumes Apollo didn't love him as much as he thought- but that's where he's wrong! >:)

So imagine them stuck in that room, Commodus ranting and raving about how Apollo's such a traitor, and a lier, you gave me your blessings and then murdered me, you never cared did you? and Apollo's sitting there just taking it until- fuck this shit- and starts yelling back at Commodus, about how people were going to kill him anyway but Apollo couldn't bear to let anybody kill him but him (because that's very healthy, right?🤡) and when he's done they're both standing there in silence.

Oh yeah. While that's happening they've had to work together to get out of the place so when they do get out they just. awkwardly go separate ways.

BUT WE'RE NOT FINISHED YET!

Apollo and company are in a situation (probably because of Caligula) and lo and behold, Commodus does something to help 'em out.

Because reasons.

Then when everything's said and done- Nero's dead, Python's dead, all the fasces and fascists are destroyed...

Commodus is still alive. And now I, Alder, slap on my "start combining history and RRverse" hat and give u a small history lesson! :D

In Ancient Rome, emperors were deified by the Senate. Notable examples are Caesar Augustus, Marcus Aurelius, and...Commodus.

Nero and Caligula were not.

Interesting how Commodus is the only Triumvirate emperor who's been historically deified...

and if we factor that lil' history nugget into this AU...who's to say Copollo still can't prevail? (🤡)

Of course, now I must direct your attention to the "Burned" part of the title. As much as it pains my Copollo shipper heart, neither of them have to forgive/forget what the other has done, and therefore simply may not ever speak to each other ever again- Apollo would leave Commodus be, provide he doesn't go back onto more "end the world" things- and that would be the end of their story.

Painful. Tragic. I love it and them.

though i wouldn't be opposed to them getting back together eventually either...

and Meg dragging them to couples' therapy. and both of them to a therapist in general.

They both need to desperately sort out their own issues before anything, especially if they do reignite their relationship.

Because ah...they were both doing some heavy projecting-of-issues onto the other.

although that's part of the reason why i love them so much they're so toxic and entertaining it's so good

[finch-velutina]

Gear 5 Foreshadowing/Analysis

One of the things that absolutely delighted me about gear 5 was how natural it felt for Luffy. It was Luffy to a T - which is what makes it so incredible! That's the best part of him :)

I learned about Gear 5/Joyboy/Sun God Nika like a month after starting One Piece, and I was just able to see how every element of the show was building up to this.

luffy vs. kaido fight spoilers under readmore

GEAR 5 GEAR 5 GEAR 5!!

Part of the reason it feels so natural is because of how it shows that the Devil Fruit's Awakening builds on Luffy's growth and understanding of his powers, particularly his use of all 4 gears, which are all incorporated and clearly referenced in the Gear 5 fight:

Gear 1- Luffy interacting with lightning!! Because since we have known since Skypiea, rubber is nonconductive, meaning luffy isn't affected by it. Luffy grabbing the lightning strikes and using it to catapult him around? That's gomu gomu no rocket! On top of that, he manages to become the lightning and swoop towards Kaido (in a move that looks a lot like Python). He's able to combine his base rubber powers in a wild and wacky way, and absolutely loves it :)

Gear 2 comes in play in this incredible screenshot from the fight after Luffy restarts the Drums of Liberation. Gear 2 is also about controlling bloodflow and breathing - and by extension, the heartbeat!! Its all there. Thank Gear 2 for luffy's auto-defibrillation skills.

Gomu Gomu no Giant is the logical progression of Gear 4 Boundman, (which builds on gear 2 and gear 3 as well). It's like a version of Luffy without the additions

Gear 3: ... Yeah, this one is pretty obvious.

But the most important aspect of Luffy it brings in from his previous fights is his silliness. From the shocked face Crocodile gives him when he sees Water Luffy to Kaido's eyes popping out as he uses him as a jump rope. Things that seem meaningless, like his Gomu Gomu no UFO move. (I had to include this because I thought about how Joyboy it was from the moment i saw it. He's just joyously having fun in weird ways!! <3)

The magic of Gear 5 is in how everything from before comes together and combines seamlessly, which brings us to section 2:

Foreshadowing of Joyboy

Luffy has always been the sun. Tanjiro has nothing on Luffy for Most Sun Coded Anime Protagonist. Luffy is from the East Blue on Dawn Isle. One could say he rose from the East. The beginning of his story is called romance DAWN. This is from other posts that delve into it more, but luffy has been liberating people from the start- Koby, Zoro, Shells Town. Thats just how he rolls, it's part of his existence- Luffy will see someone oppressed, think "Is anyone going to help them free themselves?" and not wait for an answer. Punching a celestial dragon? That's ridiculous. But Luffy was made to do ridiculous things.

Skypiea, which is where we learn about Joyboy, has Luffy facing off against Enel and winning easily because of his nonconductiveness - the true god destroying the false one.

On Fishman Island, he frees Shirahoshi from her prison and promises to take her to see the sun. Another aspect is the symbol of the sun pirates being changing the celestial dragon's slavemark into a SUN. Luffy also takes away the giant shadow of Noah hanging over them.

Dressrosa? Known for it's SUNflowers.

When Luffy loves and accepts sanji, freeing him, the sun literally dawns on him. One of my fave moments with him. (To go into sanji & his wano arc i would need a whole different 1000 word essay on him. Bbg u are simply so fucked up)

Wano arc amps up the dawn = freedom references by 100. referencing the dawn 24/7, having luffy become a slave

Luffy has always been free because he is himself.

[godsofhumanity]

okay i admit i may have been projecting onto my best friend Apollo, but logically, if Artemis fights a lot with Hera, then I assume Apollo also has a certain level of annoyance/hatred with Hera.

anyways. for Artemis, i say that she is mean, or rather, disrespectful, to Hera based on the following:

in the Iliad, Apollo (on the side of the Trojans) and Poseidon (on the side of the Greeks), come head-to-head. but Apollo, out of respect for Poseidon, chooses not to engage in battle with him. Artemis comes face-to-face with Hera, queen of the gods, and decides that she will fight Hera and even berates Apollo for being a "coward" and not fighting Apollo:

"Let me [Artemis] not hear you [Apollo] in the halls of my father boasting ever again, as you did before among the immortals, that you could match your strength in combat against Poseidon." (Homer's Iliad, Book 21, Line 475)

and then after Hera beats her (somewhat easily lol), she goes and complains about it to Zeus, as if Hera did something wrong:

"Her father [Zeus] caught her against him, and laughed softly, and questioned her : ‘Who now of the [gods], dear child, has done such things to you, rashly, as if you were caught doing something wicked?’ Artemis, sweet-garlanded lady of clamours, answered him: ‘It was your wife, Hera of the white arms, who hit me...’" (Homer's Iliad, Book 21, Line 505)

and i know that this style of writing makes everything a lot more dramatic then it needs to be, but still! Hermes, faced against Leto, decided that he wouldn't fight her because she was a wife of Zeus and it was wrong for him to do so:

"Leto, I [Hermes] will not fight with you; it is a foolish thing to fight with the wives of Zeus, the cloud-gatherer..." (Homer's Iliad, Book 21, Line 498)

evidently, both Apollo and Hermes understood that it wasn't proper for them to fight against their elders, and Hermes explicitly states that it's not right to fight a wife of Zeus, but Artemis alone decides that she can do whatever she wants and tries to contend with Hera... ?? seems like she has a grouse against Hera (and i get why given Leto and Python, etc.).

2. in Nonnus' Dionysiaca, Artemis again does battle with Hera (and loses).

"Against Hera came highland Artemis as champion for hillranging Dionysus [when the gods took sides in the battle of Dionysus' forces against the Indians]... [and Hera] struck Artemis flat on the skin of the breast, and Artemis, smitten ..., emptied her quiver upon the ground." (Nonnus' Dionysiaca, Book 36, Line 28)

now unlike in the Iliad, i do think Artemis was justified here because she was trying to protect Dionysus, but it's just funny to me that Artemis always seems to be fighting with Hera. they never really seem to be on the same page. it's interesting because in the Dionysiaca, Hera seems to explicitly describes Artemis as a foil of Hera:

"... you virgin marriage-hater..." (Nonnus' Dionysiaca, Book 36, Line ~70)

anyways. the most stand-out point to me, is that when Artemis and Hera go head-to-head, there's always this long passage of insults that proceed any fighting, especially on Hera's end. i wont write it out all here, but you can see it in the Dionysiaca, Book 36. that says to me that Hera really doesn't like Artemis, and Artemis surely couldn't like Hera either. they strike me as the kind of people who take every opportunity to be snide and cruel to each other. even Athena, whom Hera didn't like very much in the beginning when Zeus appeared to "give birth to her on his own", Hera eventually became friends with and in the Iliad they seem to have a very close relationship. but Hera never really gets something like that with Artemis,, which is what makes me say that they didn't get along.

i admit, my language might've been extreme in saying that Apollo and Artemis were "bitches" to Hera HAHAH i am a shitposter after all, don't take my word literally. but still, my sentiments stemmed from this idea of Hera and Artemis appearing to fight a lot when they share scenes.

[chenanigans-draws]

Here's the Flockless as each others respective species! Dungeon Meshi was a huge inspiration for this and just my love for my dnd party!

I'll talk about the designs briefly under the cut!

Cherry (Mechanically an Aasimar)

In every form, Cherry is still an Aasimar.

She almost surged due to the Howler, but instead she got a buff, being able to add her Charisma modifier to her attack cantrips.

Frogfolk - Based on the Cape Rain Frog (Breviceps gibbosus). This isn't new info!

Tiefling - She's still small, brown, and has huge eyes. Cherry would always be black and black-coded like all my characters.

Jackalope - Fluffy lil bunny with lil bud antlers.

Kenku - Based on the Canary (Serinus canaria forma domestica).

Yuan-ti - Based on an albino Ball Python (Python regius).

Shelley (Mechanically a Zariel Tiefling)

Shelley's eyes are red and blue, formerly purple, due to a surge caused by the god, the Howler.

Frogfolk - Based on the Amazon Milk Frog (Trachycephalus resinifictrix).

Tiefling - Formerly a Dhampir, she is now some kinda blessed and kinda cursed Zariel Tiefling.

Jackalope - Kept her elegant look as a Jackalope.

Kenku - Based on the Secretary Bird (Sagittarius serpentarius).

Yuan-ti - Based on the King Cobra (Ophiophagus hannah).

Luren (Mechanically a Harengon)

Frogfolk - Based on the Cinnamon Frog (Nyctixalus pictus).

Tiefling - I wanted to keep his cheeky nature in this tiefling design.

Jackalope - Same old Jackalope with a lucky white foot.

Kenku - Based on the Scarlet Macaw (Ara macao).

Yuan-ti - Since he also has an association with the god, Jack the Dealer, I wanted him to have more snake-like proportions.

Silence (Mechanically a Kenku)

Silence's skin is blue due to surge caused by the god, the Howler.

Frogfolk - Based on the Diablito Poison Frog (Oophaga sylvatica).

Tiefling - Their horns are black and white due to their patrons.

Jackalope - They're just fluffy with a blue nose!

Kenku - Based on an American Kestrel (Falco sparverius). This isn't new info!

Yuan-ti - He's a chubby, blue snake!

Cres (Mechanically a Changeling)

Frogfolk - Based on this frog (Hyloscirtus hillis).

Tiefling - Based on one of their forms aka Elia Crescentmoon.

Jackalope - Also based on Elia Crescentmoon if they were a Jackalope.

Kenku - Based on the Common Ground Dove (Columbina passerina).

Yuan-ti - It's their base form, what else can I say?

[lolahasmoxie]

Friendsgiving (E.M.)

Sequel to "Thanksgiving"

This version of Friendsgiving is based on my college days. In 1999, during my first year in college, my friends and I had "Poor Students Thanksgiving." About 7 of my friends arrived at my house the day after Thanksgiving with all their leftovers. We pigged on food and watched "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and "Meet the Feebles." We did that for a couple of years, and I loved how it grew every year. These gatherings are, to this day, some of my favorite memories from my early twenties.

(p.s. I'm immediately going to write filth after this because balance. Specifically, it's about how Eddie's cums too much in you.)

WARNINGS: fluff, casual intimacy, implied sexy times (sexual talk because I can't write just plain fluff anymore, it's gotta be dirty.)

"Bye everyone, see you boys for Hellfire next weekend!"

Eddie smiled as he listened to you usher the last of your guests out of your home. Since Steve hosted last year, the two of you offered to host Friendsgiving this year.

Your first guest arrived at noon. Dustin came with his mom's beef stroganoff, smiling as he and Eddie greeted each other. Eddie was planning to do a quick dungeon for the boys, and you had heard the two laughing and teasing as they prepared for the group while you put the pies in the oven.

The dinner had been a smashing success. Everyone feasted like kings and queens before moving to the living room. While Eddie and the kids did their dungeon crawl, you caught up with Steve, Nancy, and Robin while eating pie.

You closed the night out with movies, Monty Python and Elm Street, before everyone clambered into cars and returned to their homes. The weather was frigid, leaving no doubt that snow would be coming soon.

"Great evening, huh, babe?" Eddie asks as he joins you in the living room to help you clean up.

"It was perfect. It's always nice when we can all get together."

"Listen, I want to talk to you about something."

"Look, if it's about the other night, it's normal to sometimes finish faster than usual. So you had a hair-trigger night; I was flattered and still had a good time." You glance back at Eddie, who looks confused, cow eyes wide with shock. Whoops.

"Uh, not at all what I was gonna say, but we will circle back. It's about Thanksgiving." Eddie approaches, and he takes your hands when he stands before you. He runs his thumbs over the backs of your hands, brow furrowed as he thinks about what he will say.

"Hey," you tell him quietly. You can't help smiling when his gaze meets yours. "You're scaring me here."

"It's good, I promise. It's just that Thanksgiving is when you're supposed to tell the people in your life that you're thankful for them, and I need you to know that I am. You make my life so much better by just being here. You're the best thing to ever happen to me, and I'm thankful that I get to call you mine every day, and I'm sorry I don't say it more."

"Oh, Eds," you say before leaning up and kissing him softly on his plush lips. Eddie responds by cupping your face and tilting your head so he can savor you more. When he pulls away, he leans to rest his forehead against yours.

"Love you, Princess."

"Love you too, babe. But you show me every day you care even if you don't say anything."

"What do you mean?"

"You show me all the time. You show me by filling my tank when you notice I'm low. Or how you get up super early to warm my car before work. You have dinner ready on the nights I come home late. You picked up the newest book by Stephen King for me when I was stuck at work!" Eddie chuckles as he pulls you into a hug.

"Of course I do that; I want my girl safe and happy."

"And I am. I'm thankful for you, too, and I hope we get many more holidays together." You kiss him again and then return to cleaning the living room and kitchen.

When Eddie returns from taking out the trash (and probably leaving leftovers for the raccoons), he finds you putting the last dishes on the drying rack.

"Hey Princess, is that everything?"

"Yes, sir, our castle is now more or less back to normal."

"Good." You shriek when he comes barrelling at you, and with a strength you sometimes forget he possesses, hauls you over his shoulder and starts walking down the hallway.

"Eddie, you're gonna drop me!" His response is a quick slap to your butt, which causes you to let out a whimper which is music to his ears.

"I'm about to show you how thankful I am for you, doll. I also need to make up for the other night. Can't have you thinking I'm some two-pump chump." He drops you onto your bed and immediately begins undressing. You feel your heart catch in your throat as he climbs on the bed and crawls to you, pressing you back until he's hovering over you.

"Eddie, I said it was ok."

"Nah," he says with that panty-dropping smirk. "Ok isn't good enough. In honor of the holidays, I believe I'll start by spending the next 20 minutes or so feasting on my favorite piece of pie."

"20 minutes!" you say with a start as Eddie's hands begin pulling down your skirt along with your panties.

"And that's just to start. Don't worry though, if you're a good girl for me, I'll give you your own cream pie at the end of the night. More than one if you're really good."

"Whatever you say, Eds."

[darlingshane]

Reckless

Pairing: Ethan Sawyer x GN!Reader

Summary: Your whole world crumbles after your brother's death. You push everyone away, including your boyfriend Ethan. He gives you all the space you need, but today he's not having it, and he arrests you in an attempt to make you listen to reason and find a way to get through to you.

Content/Warnings: Language, Heavy Angst, Depression, Grief, Feels, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Tough Love, Established Relationship. + Hopeful ending.

Word Count: 2,4k

A/N: This is an adapted scene from the film that was suggested by the lovely @tazbethxavier98. Hope you like my take on it 💛

— Read below or at AO3.

His gut was right.

And he hated it.

The moment he saw you hanging with the guys, Ethan knew that you were going to try to do something stupid. Potentially dangerous even. Because every single time you get together with your old crew, you can’t help but fall into old habits.

It’s been a while since you’ve gotten together with them, and it’s worth celebrating by doing something memorable that you could look back to, but your definition of doing something memorable goes hand in hand with being reckless; like that time you all BASE jumped from a crane.

Ethan was baffled when he found out later. The fact that you didn’t disclose that right away and had to hear it from someone else was something that caused one of the biggest fights you ever had when you were still a couple.

Eventually, he forgave you after you promised that you'd never do anything as dangerous as that ever again. But since your relationship with him is on pause, there's absolutely nothing stopping you from breaking that promise as well.

Your fierceness is unparalleled, nothing ever fazes you, and Ethan has always admired and feared that equally. Right now, it only scares the shit out of him.

It's been only a few months since you decided to take some time off from him. You didn't call it a breakup back then, cause you just needed some space after your brother's death. Everything went downhill after that, and you're not sure if there's anything else left to pick up.

He did everything in his hand to help you deal with that loss, but the more he tried, the more you pushed him and everyone away.

No matter how much time it passes or how much you ignore him, Ethan Sawyer still cares a great deal about you. No, that’s selling it short. He loves you. He fucking loves you and hates seeing how much you're hurting.

All he ever wanted to do is find a way to get back to you, and what you two had. Despite your differences, being with you was the best thing that's ever happened to him, and he thought it went both ways. Three years, and five months, is how long it lasted. You shared a house, adopted two dogs, and a cat, and almost added a python to the family, if he had let you. With time, he'd given in with some more convincing.

For the past few months, you've stayed at your father's cabin, and split pet duties with him. You go by the house every other day to care for your babies while he's at work, and that's pretty much it.

When you stopped listening to reason, he took the hint and decided to give you that space you needed. He stopped calling, texting, or trying to figure out a better way to reach you. But today he's not willing to not take the back seat and watch you hurt yourself for the sake of proving a point or going against his warning.

Admittedly, he might have contributed to feeding the fire with fuel when he said, “And please do not jump off of shit with parachutes, okay?”

It was aimed at the group, but his stare was fixed only on you. And knowing how much you hate being patronized like that, in hindsight, he should have kept his mouth shut, cause the way your jaw clenched as you looked away with disdain was absolutely frightening.

His words went in one ear and came out of the other.

As he feared, when you leave the bar, you slip into a harness with a chute on your back and hop onto the bed of Jay's truck without thinking twice.

The truck starts rolling and the rest of the guys follow in another car.

Ethan tails right on cue and witnesses your body being launched up into the air by the chute after pulling the ripcord in the middle of the road. You land on your ass in a ditch by the roadside, and as your audience applauds your act, Ethan pulls up on the other side of the road.

Your butt hurts like a bitch, but the rush of adrenaline is worth it, which lessens that blow a little.

You let out another laugh watching Ethan strutting like a motherfucker towards your direction, with that hard-ass stare you don’t see often, sending daggers from behind his aviators.

He has nothing to lose, and since you’re not heeding reason, he's going to lay down the law and some tough love. It's the only card he has left to make you see you can’t keep marching on the self-destructive path of your own making. He's done treating you with kid's gloves, too. It never worked, he’s come to realize.

“What are you gonna do, arrest me?” you grin without an ounce of guilt.

“You’re goddamn right I am,” he barks and then orders your crew to help you get out of the ditch.

Once you back up on the pavement, after slipping out of the harness, Ethan shoves your front against the SUV without warning. He handcuffs your wrists and ushers you to the backseat of the police car.

“Christ, these are sawing my wrists,” you complain behind the partition as he drives away. “Did you have to close ’em all the way down?”

“Oh, does it hurt?”

“Yeah, it fucking hurts, asshole!”

“Good. Maybe you'll learn something,” he counters, unbending.

Ethan catches you rolling your eyes through the rearview mirror and keeps scolding you.

“Hey, eyes on me. Quit your sulking, all right? You got yourself here. This shit is on you.” There's a pause as the car slows down. “Fucking earned it.” He says last before pulling up in front of your dad’s cabin, where you’ve been staying for months.

As he climbs out and goes around the car to release you, he lets out an exhalation and brings you out, manhandling your body without releasing your hands. Not yet. There’s a lot he’s got to say, and he presses your back against the side of the SUV and takes off his sheriff cap to throw it on top of the roof of the car.

“Here's the thing. We both know that had nothing to do with fun, and it sure as shit wasn't an accident, all right? I know what you're trying to do. Maybe those other assholes don't see it, but I certainly do. And I’m not gonna sit and watch you throw your life away cause what? Cause you feel guilty that your brother gave his life to save your sorry ass?”

“Shut up. Shut the fuck up,” you mutter, wrangling in your cuffs.

“Did I touch a nerve, big shot? Stay still, I’m not done,” he presses a hand to your shoulder for a beat, so you stop moving.

“You’ve got no idea what you're talking about,” your eyes well up against your will.

“I was with you, sweetheart. I know better than anybody. Your brother’s death is not on you. He went into that building cause it was his job, whether you were in there or not, he died doing what he was trained to do. And he must be turning in his grave knowing you're risking your life doing bullshit like that again. I get that he was your hero. And that you’re still grieving. But what you’re doing… you’re going to get yourself killed or worse. You think he’d like that?”

Your head bows, looking at the ground as tears start slipping down your cheeks. You agree internally, your brother definitely wouldn’t like that, but you don’t respond to his preaching.

“You think I’d like that?” he rephrases that last question and adds another, “do you think that I don’t care for you or love you?”

“You don’t love me. You just have a fucking savior complex, and it kills you that can’t save me.”

“Don’t love you?” he huffs, irritated; and inhales sharply before turning you around, so he can unlock your hands. “You’re everything to me, sweetheart. And it breaks my heart seeing you like this. I’m not trying to save you… but I can't watch you going down this path. Is that how you wanna honor him?”

“You have no idea how it feels… What else can I do, huh?” you wince, soothing one of your wrists with your opposite hand.

“That's why I'm here. You talk to me about it instead of pushing me away. You're so smart and strong, but so fucking stubborn. And yeah, grief is a bitch, but you can't let it cripple you forever. And if you can't talk to me, at least find someone you trust… There's no shame in asking for help.”

“It's not that easy.”

“Nobody said it'd be a cakewalk. Is that why you failed your evaluation, or you just didn't give a shit anymore?”

“You got me, Ethan. I'm broken. Neither you nor the best therapist in the world can fix me.”

In less than a beat, you set yourself straight and walk past him in the direction of the cabin.

“I… I don't think you should come by the house anymore. If this is over, just call it. I'm not gonna wait around forever for you to realize that I only love you.”

You come to a halt mid-walk. “What about the dogs and the cat?”

“I'll take care of them.”

“But they're mine, too.”

“Well, I got full custody now.”

“Go to hell, Sawyer.”

“Wanna see them? Come back home. That's the only way. There's still time. It doesn't have to end like this.”

Emotionally spent, you exhale and push your feet to move, leaving him without an answer. It does feel like the end to you, at least right now. The void in your chest grows larger every day, and you can't really go back to him before fixing that.

As you reach the porch of your father's cabin, you notice Ethan's stride catching up with you, and you turn your head as he starts speaking.

“Hey, for what it's worth, I don't think you're broken,” his tone is softer than before. “I'm sorry if I was hard on you and that I made this about me… but I needed you to see that you don't have to do this alone. Whatever you're afraid of… we can face it together.”

“Me.”

“You?”

“I'm afraid of me,” you finally confess. “All I want is to stop hurting. And jumping out of that truck was the only thing that made me feel anything other than endless dread. As fucked up as it is. And maybe it was a good thing that I failed my psych eval, cause I don't… I don't think I can do that anymore. Not without him. And without that, I don't know what I'm supposed to do or who to be anymore.”

“I…” his voice dies down in that syllable, processing your fears for a long pause. “There's no quit fix. That's something you'll figure out with time, sweetheart. It's all still very raw. Your whole world turned upside down, I get it. And for a while that's how you're going to see everything. No one's going to blame you for taking some time or quitting altogether. But putting yourself in danger to stop feeling is not the answer. You can't give up on the things that you love. Those are what makes you— you. And I’d hate to see that part of you fade away.”

Ethan has always been insightful. It's not something you've just realized, but maybe you've forgotten. Alas, he's right. You desperately wanna back to some sort of normalcy and find some peace in it, but it’s hard to pull yourself out of that deep hole of pain and sadness that has swallowed half of your being like quicksand. And perhaps that’s the reason you pushed him away, cause you couldn’t bear the thought of him sinking with you.

“I want you to be happy, Ethan. I’m not sure that I can be that for you anymore.”

“I only want you, no matter what. Happy or sad. For sickness and health, and all that shit. I want it all. Even if we’re not married. Just… sleep on it. Don’t make any rash decisions right now. Promise me.”

He deserves at least that.

“Okay,” you say low with a shy nod.

After parting ways, you bury yourself in your bed, in the solitude of the cabin as the sun goes down.

As promised, you sleep on it one night and another, and a third one, as it gets so much clearer that you’ve been an asshole to him all this time. He was harsh, rightfully, the other day, but you’ve been nothing but neglecting the most beautiful relationship you’ve ever had. It wasn’t on purpose, but still that’s another weight to add to your back.

Four days later, you wake up unusually early. It’s still dark when you take a shower and set the coffee machine on. You find a thermos in your dad’s cabinets and fill it with black coffee after pouring yourself a mug.

You’ve come to the decision that you can’t stay here forever. As much as you want to, it’s time to try something different, and going back to Ethan and your babies is the right thing to do.

So, as the sun rises, you take that thermos and drive up to your house. Ethan is still asleep, you’re sure, even before opening that familiar door and being greeted happily by one of your dogs, Sadie, who licks half your face as you bend down to hug her, and kiss her head. Murphy is soundly asleep, and snoring, in his bed below one of the windows of the living room and doesn’t even wake up when Sadie whines after you stop petting her.

You find Rogue, your cat, curled at Ethan’s feet, who’s barely covered by the sheets.

Toeing off your sneakers, you place down the thermos in the night stand and slip into your side of the bed, facing Ethan. You push his hair away from his forehead, and trace the shape of his ear with your finger. It makes his nose scrunch before tiredly opening his eyes, that close in a beat, and open quickly again, wider, surprised by your presence.

“Hey.”

“Hey, baby,” he utters hoarsely, as his lips curve up.

“I brought you coffee.”

“Yeah?”

“Uh-hmm.”

“Are you back?”

“Do you want me back?”

Wrapping an arm around you, pulling you closer, he huffs, “of course, I do.”

“Just checking.”

“How are you, baby?”

“I don’t know… I’m here.”

“That’s okay. We’ll figure it out. One day at a time.” He kisses your temple as you curl against his warm chest, basking in his much-missed embrace.

npt: @anna-hawk, @lucy-sky, @munsonownsmyass

[mountmortar]

do you happen to know any site building tutorials to follow and learn from? been having a hard time finding a place to start with my own neocity but the free reign and customization of them interests me a lot :0c

ABSOLUTELY! I do want to stress one thing if HTML/CSS is something you're not familiar with: It's okay if your website doesn't look like the most creative, eye-popping thing in the world! I've seen sooooooo many people get so discouraged because their beginner websites don't look like the flashier websites you see on Neocities' front page (by people who've been coding for a Long Time, mind you!) and like!!! That's fine!!! The code of my own site was quite possibly the worst thing you've ever seen thrown together into one big CSS soup before I Literally Just Rewrote It Today, After A Year Of Having A Neocities. And so, with that being said:

As anyone on the internet might do, w3schools is the absolute first place I'd recommend to beginners! There are videos, it's mostly a text-based learning site with lots of exercises to test your knowledge. If you'd prefer videos:

My personal favorite guy on Youtube to learn coding things from is Giraffe Academy: Here's his full course on HTML! The video itself is about two hours—I skimmed through it and everything seems to be perfectly oriented towards beginners (I haven't watched it in its entirety, but I have seen his videos on C# and Python [programming languages, don't worry about it] and they did a lot to help explain certain things to me that I didn't know previously!).

BroCode's HTML in 1 hour and CSS in 1 hour are pretty good! His videos do include a little bit on how to implement some JavaScript here and there, but nothing major or terrifying.

Here's a playlist of HTML/CSS tutorials in bite-sized videos, too! Think about 10-25 minutes per video.

I will say that searching for YouTube videos on HTML/CSS will always sort of gear more towards what people in the professional sphere are looking for rather than what you'd see on Neocities.

As for Neocities-specific things (which may be the actual point of your ask! Might've misinterpreted the hell out of it oops):

sadgrl.online is perhaps the most known website on Neocities, largely because the website itself not only has a layout maker you're free to use if you want to make a website now but the thought of writing HTML/CSS from scratch terrifies you, but also HTML/CSS guides themselves! There's also a bunch of links you can use to help fluff up your site a bit, generate HTML code for you, or just fluff up your site in general.

The Melonland Project is also dedicated to providing website development tools and tutorials for beginners: here is its guide to making a website on Neocities! It also provides a link to learnlayout.com, which I'll link here as well—a website for helping you learn CSS layouts!

And, once you've got the hang of how CSS works but are still feeling unable to code it yourself (no ideas? just not feeling up to it? FUCK MAN DO I UNDERSTAND THAT) Eggramen has free CSS pages you can use, and all you have to do is write the HTML for it!

But I would always focus more on learning HTML first before any CSS—and then learning how to integrate CSS into HTML via inline styling (which those video tutorials do!) before worrying about any external stylesheets or whatever. HTML is the actual building block—CSS just makes it look pretty.