#the other was just randomly in the middle of me working on some art over Instagram and i was like | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

causenessus · 5 months ago

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part 0.05. intros

EXHIBIT TWO: RIDE OR DIE BROS FOR LIFE

suna rintarou °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

middle blocker for the msby volleyball team and wanted to major in something art related but ended up going into athletic training with sakusa. in high school, atsumu, osamu, and him would very frequently sneak out at night usually to graffiti a wall and atsumu and him have kept up the tradition. whenever they travel to other cities to play an away game, they’ll try and find the time to go out and leave their mark on the city. in college, he started to do things like leave little snippets of lyrics from romantic songs on walls in sharpie or spray paint </3 he first met y/n in high school and they didn't talk much despite being in the same friend group. he a her from afar but never said anything because he didn’t feel like she knew him well enough that she would return his feelings if he told her. as a result, ever since graduation, he’s been finding small ways to be closer to her. although he isn’t majoring in art, he started to hang around the art department more, and would follow her around whenever she came to develop photos. she’d let him come with her into the department’s dark room and explain the process to him. he tries his best to listen but most of the time he get distracted while looking at her <3 eventually he started to invite her to come wander the city with him in search of street art and told her he’d start sending her photos of art that he found in other cities (which he's totally not making and then sending to her as if he's just randomly stumbled upon the most heartwrenching, romantic art ever). as long as he’s with her he couldn't care less what they're doing; to him, the real artwork is right next to him <3 she’s taking photos of something written on a wall while he’s looking at her <3

miya atsumu & miya osamu °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

atsumu

setter for msby <3 made his bio in retaliation to his brother and then got upset when osamu didn’t care. didn’t even want to go to college but really wanted to play for msby and didn’t want to be left out of everyone else going to school so he’s chilling in communications with bokuto. loves to come to onigiri miya on days y/n works because she gives him discounts and he jokes that she’s a better cook than osamu (which psychologically, for him, is probably true. samu cooks for tsumu and curses the food while y/n tries to put at least a little bit of love into what she makes for him). at some point tried to flirt with y/n and then realized she did not love when he visited because of him but bc he would bring suna. often comes by himself to onigiri miya or brings bokuto with him to ask yn how things with suna, completely ignoring the fact that she has a boyfriend (which leaves her confused about every single life choice she's made) and then will immediately text suna being like “y/n and me are talking about u rn LL sucks to suck i bet ur wondering what she thinks of u"

osamu

always gives suna discounts when he comes and will immediately take over whatever order y/n is working on so that she can make suna’s foof <3 he’s like a double agent for both sides but doesn’t get too involved because things with suga are making it difficult. he’s definitely someone suna goes to a lot for advice and although suna tends to only come on days when y/n works, sometimes on late nights after practice when osamu is the only one left working, suna will come in and they’ll share a drink and talk about y/n and more

bokuto koutarou & oikawa tooru °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

bokuto

wing spiker for msby and self proclaims himself as the ace <3 sakusa and him beef a little bit about it but the entire team is made up of doubles anyway so they kind of share the title. he’s matching users with atsumu and oikawa and also asked akaashi if they could have matching headers <3 akaashi sent him his current header which bokuto immediately started using <3 my guy has got so many friends and is loved by everyone so he’s actually having the best time of his life in college!!! besides when exams come around. then he’s hiding under a table and it takes the collective effort of akaashi, atsumu, and oikawa’s to get him out.

oikawa

second setter for msby! atsumu and him actually lowkey connected immediately and the team often uses a 6-2 rotation to utilize two setters and it’s been working out pretty well. other volleyball teams quiver hearing about msby’s lineup LMAO. he’s also a photography major which has led to suna often asking him how y/n is doing <3 does a lot of portraits and posts his works on a separate photography account. has started to join atsumu and suna when they sneak out while on away games to find somewhere to leave a piece of art.

extras <3

suna, atsumu, osamu, bokuto, and oikawa all live together

it is either very peaceful or a living hell

atsumu and bokuto will get riled up about something together and start having an energetic burst while suna isolates in his room (or more often is slipping out to go hang with y/n)

oikawa’s pretty chill and is in his actually-studying-for-exams era

osamu’s usually busy at work

so it’s peaceful (according to their definition) when not everyone is home but sometimes atsumu will start beefing with osamu about something and shit hits the fan

suna is heavily heavily heavily inspired by this guy named @/greg_goya on instagram

when i had this idea for street art i really spent an hour on instagram and google combined looking for this guy bc the art he does is totally what i was going for

and when i say inspired i mean suna is literally greg goya. i will probably use screen shots from my man greg in this smau so ty to him in advance he's a king 👑

both "exhibits" or friend groups are lowkey one big friend group but there's a small natural divide bc most of the ride or die bros are from inarizaki and some of them (cough atsumu cough bokuto cough suna if he didn't want to be around y/n 24/7 cough) said that they NEEDED a bros only gc

taglist: @wyrcan @oyasumeii @froyaoya @gyuijns @nbcvs @milkteade @eggyrocks @0moonii @guitarstringed-scars @makkir0ll @mylahrins @cherrypieyourface @vivian-555 @sharkerino @bluebeanbee @r0seandth0rns @staileykout @lunavixia @thvvluvr @elliott0o0 (form to be added to taglist! <3)

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#suna rintarou #rintarou suna #suna #sunarin #suna x reader #suna smau #suna x reader smau #haiykuu smau #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu #hq #hq x reader

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graysnetwork · 1 year ago

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HAVING KEEGAN AS UR BROTHERS BSF

IM HAVING THOUGHTS RN

CHAPTER |

BROTHERS BEST FRIEND — Keegan Russ X fem!Reader

Notes— he will now become a character in my heart and in my blog bc I love him. And so will the friend in this story.

Info: it’s cannon for me to believe his character drives a Mercedes. he has black hair. He’s got red cheeks (I’ll probably post a pic of what I’m thinking of) idk if it’s like Rosacea but I think it’s smtg he would probably have. Keegan’s three years older than you, (your a sophomore and he’s a senior). Idk if you can tell… but this is totally ooc and set in like this time.

Warnings: none!

Summary: you’ve been crushing on Keegan for years now and he has been too.

Your brother was a pain in the ass, so annoying, But. His best friend on the other hand, was so kind to you, and handsome.

Keegan had been your brothers “best friend” for about 5 years now. They’d been friends since middle school and now they were going to graduate, Keegan was apart of the family at this point, he’d stayed at your house for so long that he would come in unannounced and go into anyone’s bedroom, parents included.

Sometimes he’d go into everyone’s rooms just to say “goodnight”, which was really funny, especially when you were a kid.

For instance, he was staying the night at your family’s home, and you were going to say goodnight to your parents but you got anxious because it was late at night, so he grabbed your hand and said goodnight with you so you wouldn’t be alone.

Keegan seemed to like caring for you, he always took the blame when you did something stupid, he’d say “oh I told her to do it, I’m sorry”

He just did it and never asked for a thank you back from you, he enjoyed taking care of you. And as you got older, all the things he did for you made you feel all warm and giddy inside. He was so sweet, how could you not have a crush on him. And when he came over and got in the pool, it made you feel all dizzy seeing him without a shirt.

And he wasn’t big on dating, he dated some girls throughout his whole five years of high school, but he never stayed for long, mostly because he couldn’t make enough time for them due to all the football practice he had.

But Keegan loved you,he always made time for you. he always liked you but once you got older, got in high school, hit puberty, he became more attracted to you, in ways he couldn’t tell your brother.

Anytime your brother asked him “do you like anyone?” Keegan just had to deny everything saying that he didn’t, and even when the blush on his cheeks was apparent he’d still say “nah, I’m waiting for the pretty girls in college” just so your brother could hop off his dick already.

But he couldn’t ask you to date him, or take you out randomly, that’d be weird, and your brother would most definitely get mad at him, and you. So safe to say that he wasn’t going to be taking you out. Plus he thought that you probably liked another guy in the school, not him— a muscular, black haired, tall, handsome man.

He was graduating soon, he was gonna go off to university and get some sort of degree, so what would be the point of dating him if he was going to leave.

—

Now it was a normal Friday night, the night that your family would spend time together, something that you all enjoyed, especially after a busy week of studying, work, ECT. It was something you looked forward to, and sometimes Keegan joined in if he wasn’t with his family.

Today in particular, he wasn’t with them, he was with you. The two of you were heading to the store to go buy some snacks that you and your family wanted. He was talking about what his family was doing that he decided to not join in on today.

“Yeah, they were saying something about this new small…. Art museu-” he tried to remember “museum, yeah I’ve heard of it, seems really nice, I- I mean I dunno if you’d enjoy it, but it really does seem cool” you finished his sentence and began explaining how cute it looked. Keegan smiled to himself listening to you talk about some art that they had.

He didn’t want to go to this museum with his family, but if you wanted to or offered to take him he’d gladly say yes, just to see that cute smile on your face.

Once he got into the parking lot of the store he turned off the car after parking, and while you were still talking about the art to get your mind off him being so close to you, he just gazed at you, his head tilting a little when you turned to face him.

He thought you looked so cute when you talked about things you loved or were passionate about.

“Cmon kid” Keegan told you as he grabbed the keys and hopped out the car. Kid was always his nickname for you, but it always made you feel so much younger than him and like he only saw you as a sister or family.

The two of you walked around the store, for a while before heading to the candy aisle, you two looked at the snack section and ended with grabbing some chips and cookies. Then you went to the candy aisle as Keegan held all the snack for you, that’s when you spotted your friend.

“Y/n!” She said running down the aisle to hug you. “Hii” she said as she hugged you tightly, “hey, what are you doing here” you asked and she pulled away as her brother came up behind her, “we were just getting snack-” Kim tried to say but her brother cut her off “cause she’s annoying and won’t shut up about these chocolates” he said, you giggled

And Keegan suddenly got all jealous, and a little self conscious, like he was back in middle school and he saw the girl he had a crush on talking to another guy.

“Seems like her” you said and your friend nudged you before taking in the sight of Keegan’s tall figure behind you. “And what are you two doin here?” She asked with a smirk appearing on her face.

She knew how much you liked Keegan, she was who listened to you talk about a small interaction you had with Keegan, and she fed into your delusions.

“W-we’re just getting snacks for movie night” you said, you stared at her and her brother with an annoyed face, her brother also knew you liked Keegan, which helped out because he had some classes with him.

“Yeah” Keegan said and stared dead at Kim’s brother, he looked like he wanted to kill him, and if looks could kills, he would’ve been dead the minute you started giggling.

“Well that’s cutee” kim said smirking even more now, and it was just a matter of time before you could smack her when you saw her in private. “Anyways, let’s go!” Kim told her brother and they turned around and walked out the aisle.

“She’s something, isn’t she” Keegan said turning back to you as you walked to the candy’s. “Yeah, definitely” you smiled back at him and looked at the shelf of chocolates. “Uh.. that was her, brother?” He asked, he wanted to know if you liked him in any way.

“Yeah, he’s like my brother at this point” you said chuckling. “Cool” he said and looked around the aisle.

—

The two of you got in the car, placing the bags down at your feet. He started the car and began pulling out of the parking spot. He was quiet now, Keegan’s not loud or anything, he never has been. but he’s never this silent, you didn’t want to question it as he turned up the volume to the radio.

“So” he cleared his throat “Kim’s.. brother, no feelings for him right?” He asked slowly as he swallowed his saliva, “yeah” you told him— the question didn’t seem odd to you, Keegan’s always been protective of you since he was older than you. But he seemed annoyed.

“Hm, why?” You smiled as you turned your head to look at him “you jealous?” You chuckled a bit before he looked at you with an annoyed expression. “was kidding, sorry” you explained quietly and turned back to the road ahead as you approached a stoplight.

“y’shouldnt be liking or dating anyone in the first place” he said, “yeah my brother would probably kill me” you giggled.

“I know someone you could date n’you wouldn’t be killed for it” he said.

#imagines #x reader stories #fluff #call of duty #keegan p russ #call of duty keegan #cod keegan #keegan russ #keegan russ x reader #keegan x reader #fanfic #y’all better request for BBF! keegan or else I’ll be sad

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 1 year ago

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wibta if i (20'sx) sold/pawned an expensive pair of earrings my grandmother gave me?

context is that my parents are divorced, and have been for a long time. my father's family is wealthy, like "boats, holiday houses, horseback lessons, and trips to europe" wealthy. my mother's family is a pretty normal working class to middle class family, she still rents her house in her fifties, still works (my dad is retired) and works long hours, college debt, etc.

my relationship with my dad is a bit strained because i'm an insane melodramatic faggy rich failson. i do, however, have a pretty positive relationship with the rest of his family. the best of these is with my grandmother, who i love very much and hang out with frequently. she's awesome, very nonjudgemental and has supported me in my queerness and general weirdness since day one, and i'm very thankful to still have a grandmother who's still alive and i can talk to and do stuff with.

occasionally when i come over to hang out with my grandmother, she'll randomly (and very casually) drop really expensive gifts on me. in the past she's given me art pieces, expensive candles, gift cards, money, clothes, makeup, "just because", or because she says that she has too much stuff and wants to get rid of some of it as she ages. i don't think it's because our relationship is codependent or anything, she has a wide circle of friends and supportive family, i think she just likes to be generous.

i came over to her house the other day to have lunch with her, watch some netflix, and help her with her wifi and printer, and she told me that she had some stuff she wanted to give me. i wear and make jewelry and alter clothes, and so she said that she wanted me to look through some of her older jewelry that she doesn't wear and see if there was anything that i might like to have or recycle into my own projects.

while we were looking through her jewelry, she gave me a pair of diamond earrings. i briefly thought, "are these real?", but quickly moved on. it wasn't until later that she told me that they were real and probably worth upwards of five thousand dollars (holy shit), but that she wanted me to have them. not much sentimental value from what i understand, she said she just hasn't worn them in years.

i feel guilty because one of my immediate thoughts was "this money would be really useful for some practical stuff like apartment hunting (i'm in the process of moving), rent, food, car stuff, credit card payments, medication/testosterone payments, etc.". i also feel like it's impolite to immediately turn around and sell a gift someone else gave you out of the kindness of their heart. i also suspect that sometimes she gives me expensive things "casually", but that inside they do actually mean something to her and she's giving them to me because she trusts me. on the other hand though, some money would be super useful, especially for practical things (listed above), giving to community, doting on my boyfriend, putting into savings, etc.

tldr: rich grandma gave me a few thousand dollar pair of earrings, would i be the asshole if i sold them to use on life expenses/put in savings?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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jvngkook97 · 2 years ago

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Muse

synopsis; in which Jungkook is a contestant on a reality show for top artists in the nation and he asks you to partake in a FaceTime interview at the last second.

pairing; artist!jungkook x girlfriend!reader

genre; fluff, humor, established relationship, art of the soul au, drabble

warnings; suggestive dialogue

rating; 18+

w/c; 2,862

a/n; you do NOT need to read the art of the soul series in order to read this, but feel free if you wish to do so! i’ll even leave you a little link down below ;) also, don’t mind me posting this randomly, just trying to get back into the groove of writing again. enjoy~ don’t be a silent reader! <3 feedback is always appreciated and helps to keep this writer motivated to put out more content – like this! all the love, always.

Read AOTS Here -> 01

Calling Jungkook…

The call connects and you’re greeted by Jungkook’s dreamy smile. Your heart skips a beat at the sight of him. Even through a video call, he gives you butterflies.

You watch as his eyes light up when you join the call. His smooth voice is just as sweet as you remember.

“Hi beautiful.”

“Jungkook! Hey!” Your eyes greedily rake over his laxed figure that sits in a random chair. It’s been months since you’ve last seen him in person, the last being the day he left to start filming for the reality show he’s currently partaking in. “How do you look even cuter than I remember?”

“I could say the same about you!” He throws his arms out at you with a gusto, leaning forward in the chair to get close to the phone he precariously has propped up against a stack of decorative books that litter the mock living room set around him. His face morphs into one of disbelief at your own natural beauty he hasn’t had the pleasure of seeing for so long.

“I missed your face.”

You find yourself blushing; the words having slipped out of their own accord. This virtual reunion is stirring up more emotions than you expected. You want to reach through the screen and pull Jungkook close. He smiles softly and leans even closer to the camera.

“I miss yours too. So damn much.”

For a minute, you both just savor each other’s presence – even if it is only through a phone screen. Then, you break it, begrudgingly. You don’t know how much time you have left with him until the interview starts.

“Are you in the studio?”

Jungkook grins and nods, you stretch your neck as you try to take in the scene over his shoulder, as if the action itself could somehow make you see better…it doesn’t. What you can see in your limited view, however, is this. The space is bustling with artists, models, and crew members – filling the studio with chatter that filters in from the background through your own phone speakers.

“Yep! This is where all the magic happens. And the less than magical stuff, too.”

“I’d rather you come make some magic over here.” You give Jungkook a seductive look, and he returns a smirk. A fire ignites in his eyes that you’ve been missing since he left.

“I bet you’d like that.” You don’t miss the way his voice drops when he speaks next that has you subconsciously wetting your lips, reminiscing on previous intimate moments between you both.

Jungkook is sitting at what you believe must be his work station, but his attention is all on you. His model must be taking a break, so you’re both free to gaze into your phones like lovebirds for a while longer.

“I’m feeling pretty lucky that I get to talk to you in the middle of a shoot like this.”

“Me too! How long do I have you all to myself?”

Jungkook shakes his head with disappointment.

“Not long enough. I’m sure they’re going to barge in on us with cameras any second now.”

You pout cutely, it makes his bunny smile appear.

“We’ll have to make the most of this moment then.”

Jungkook offers a content sigh before a mischievous smile spreads across his face.

“Why do I suddenly have the urge to skip the rest of the challenge and talk to you all day?”

Your eyes light up with an idea. You snap your fingers at him, pointing.

“Just do it! Tell the hosts you got locked in the supply closet.” You present your suggestion with a cheesy grin, and you both laugh. It feels good to joke with each other, even just for a minute. Jungkook looks tenderly into the camera at you.

“I missed the sound of your laugh.”

He continues to look into the camera with adoration in his eyes. You spent a beat in silence, content to finally be chatting again, grinning madly. Inwardly, you’re cursing the stupid show rules that don’t allow phones in order to avoid any spoiler leaks.

“Thanks for doing this on such short notice. They literally didn’t tell us about it until there was already paint on our models.” He has a small scowl on his face, and you can’t help but laugh at the mental image of twelve frenzied artists finding out about their bonus challenge.

“No problem! I’m happy to be here, and uh–,” you fidget nervously, looking down at your fingers that sit atop the desk you’re currently using for this spontaneous interview located in your shared apartment with Jungkook. “Thanks for picking me.”

You feel a warmth in your chest as you say it, cheeks gaining a small tint to them at how flustered you feel about him choosing you of all people to be the subject of his interview. You flashback to when he first asked you, only a little bit ago.

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

20 Minutes Earlier - Texting

Jungkook: Baby? Are you there? It’s kind of urgent 😬

Is everything okay? 😯

Jungkook: I’m fine! Just short on time.

What’s up?

Jungkook: I’m in the middle of a storytelling challenge. And they just told us we each need to video call a guest for an interview.

OMG am I your phone-a-friend???

Jungkook: Of course you are 😂

What an honor! I’d love to, I just wish I had a little time to prepare. Lol.

Jungkook: I know it’s short notice…it was a surprise to us too. The director said they want to introduce the top 10 and “share our stories.” There’s no one I’d rather have representing me….no one else gets me like you do. 👉🏻👈🏻

I’ll win the hearts of thousands of new fans for you 😉

Jungkook: I honestly think you would. When I’m talking about my muse, I’m in my best light.

I’m a strategic advantage 😘

Jungkook: I bet together we could shake off some of the negative attention I’ve been getting. I also, obviously, miss you like crazy. What do you think? Can you do it?

I’d love to! Do I get to tell everyone I’m your favorite person?

Jungkook: Of course you do ❤️

I might start gushing about you during the interview, hope you don’t mind 😚

Jungkook: I think I’ll get a gold star if one of us starts crying so….. 😉 Are you ready? I’m about to start the call.

Go ahead 😊

*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

Present Time

Jungkook smiles warmly into the camera. His voice is tender, eyes sincere.

“I wouldn’t want anyone else. Plus, it means I get to see you. It’s so good to hear your voice.”

“I’m just happy I was actually free when you called, though let’s be honest–,” you shrug your shoulders. “I would’ve dropped anything to help you.”

“Thank you, baby. But seriously, right? They definitely thrive on chaos here.”

Jungkook shoots a glare off screen, presumably at the camera crew. He sighs as they move into frame and set up around him.

“Here comes Rick, I think they’re going to start the interview now.”

“Already? I haven’t practiced at all!”

Your heart pounds, but Jungkook eases your worries with a sly smile.

“Don’t overthink it.”

After the camera crew piles around him, a smarmy looking man with a microphone — Rick, one of the celebrity judges — slides into view and sidles up next to Jungkook.

“Hello! Thanks for joining us today! Now, Jungkook, who do we have here?”

Rick’s eyes dart between Jungkook’s and yours with an exaggerated air of excitement, something you’re positive he’s done multiple times being on camera cause he was used to it. However, with your line of work of being a model, you were not.

Interviews weren’t mandatory, only posing for pictures was. And that? You were an expert at. Jungkook could see you begin to fidget nervously and opted to take the attention off you, if just for a moment longer to get your bearings together.

Jungkook squared his shoulders and sat up straight, puffing his chest even a bit in pride before he spoke, his eyes never leaving yours.

“My guest is y/n. My muse.”

You try to swallow your nerves as Rick peers at you through Jungkook’s phone. Your only line of defense is to smile broadly and hope your voice doesn’t crack.

“Hello!” Seemed cheery enough you think, albeit a tad shaky, but if anyone noticed they didn’t say anything.

Jungkook offers a proud smile as Rick effortlessly dons his tv host persona. He speaks directly into one of the studio cameras, flashing a knowing grin.

“You know, I had a feeling Jungkook was going to call you today.”

“I heard Jungkook has been hyping me up.”

Jungkook shrugs as if to say there’s no denying it. He offers a humble defense to keep the mood light.

“I’m a pretty big fan.”

“Yes, we’ve heard a lot about you. If I didn’t know better, I might think Jungkook has a bit of a crush!”

You gulp, unsure of how to respond. Doesn’t he know you’re dating? Before you can figure out what to say, Rick laughs and gives Jungkook a playful nudge.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding! Y/N, I can tell Jungkook doesn’t use the word “muse” lightly. What’s it like to be such a source of inspiration?”

“I would say we both inspire each other. We energize one another, you know? Creatively and otherwise. We keep a fire going in each other.”

Rick nods knowingly, but your eyes are on Jungkook, who is absolutely beaming.

“What a beautiful sentiment. Is it hard to keep that fire going while he is away with us?”

Now it’s your turn to square up your shoulders in pride and confidence, voice strong and words absolute.

“If the episodes I’ve watched told me anything, it looks like Jungkook’s creative spark is alive and well.”

Rick keeps the interview moving at a clip, eager to ask his next question.

“It sounds like you two know each other quite well. How did you meet? Is there a story there?”

Now that you think about it, you don’t think you ever told the world exactly how you two came to meet yet. Though it’s nothing unique, the world will come to find.

“We met online, technically. I’ve always been a fan of Jungkook’s artwork and was interested in purchasing a piece of his. He asked if I wanted to see it in person before making a final decision, so we met up. Hit it off immediately and we’ve been inseparable ever since.”

Rick have a chortle with a shake of his head.

“Ah, the internet. It’s amazing how it brings people together.”

“It’s been a journey for sure! From sending a single message to–,” you gesture around you, eyes wide with disbelief and expression full of happiness. “–all of this!”

Rick raises a hand to his ear, ready for you to spill even more gossip and juicy details. The caricature of it all makes you want to laugh, but it puts you at ease at the same time.

“What is he like off set? Let’s give the folks at home an idea of who Jungkook really is.”

“He’s every bit as charming and fun as he seems on camera, maybe even more.”

“Here on set, we’re getting used to Jungkook goofing around before the challenges kick off. Some people thrive in the spotlight, and I love it almost as much as the cameras do!”

“You can always count on him to put a smile on your face.”

Jungkook gives a sheepish look, clearly flattered but with the fluster of feeling called out.

“Well, I’m not going to shut myself away with twenty other artists without making a few friends!”

The three of you laugh together before Rick clears his throat to ask the next question. Jungkook leans back in his seat with a satisfied grin.

“I understand your relationship with Jungkook isn’t purely an artistic one. Give us the juicy details!” Rick leans forward in his seat with a gusto, using his entire body to show exactly how much he wants you to give something for the cameras and for the show itself.

“We love to have fun and explore our creativity. He has this playful energy that’s so infectious. He isn’t afraid to get messy, so there’s never a dull moment.” You smile wistfully as you try to explain what you find so special about your relationship with Jungkook.

Your heart races as you recall memories of laughing together while you worked on his audition reel. You center yourself by keeping your eyes on him, trying to mirror his relaxed demeanor.

“We always have something exciting going on, televised body painting competitions included.”

“I’m sure the excitement doesn’t stop there.”

Rick gives Jungkook a teasing look.

“It sounds like you and y/n have something really special. How did you pull that off?”

Jungkook keeps his lax position, hands folded on top of his crossed knees. As he answers Rick, his eyes stay focused on yours, sending you a small bunny toothed grin that you can’t help but beam at yourself. Your entire body buzzes with warmth.

“I had some luck on my side the day we met, for sure, but – you’re right, Rick. This is really special. I’m grateful everyday to have y/n in my life.”

You let Jungkook’s words sink in, and they wrap around you like a warm hug. You could lose yourself in the sound of his voice echoing in your head, but Rick snaps you out of your gleeful silence.

“Now, y/n, why do you think Jungkook has what it takes to win the competition?”

That’s easy, you think.

“He can do anything he sets his mind too.”

“Thanks, y/n, that’s really sweet.”

Rick let’s out a sigh only one who has the privilege of being in love can make as his eyes dart between both you and Jungkook’s own lovesick expressions, completely disregarding the fact it’s being caught on camera for the whole world to see.

“What a fantastic way to close out this call, don’t you think?”

You nod, albeit reluctantly to have it end, wanting to spend as much time talking to (or about) Jungkook as much as possible. That interview turned out to be a breeze, and for that, you’re exceedingly relieved about.

“That is just about all the time we have, though. Thanks for joining us, y/n!”

You wave at the camera.

“Bye Jungkook. I miss you! Can’t wait to hug you again!”

“I miss you too, thanks for calling in!”

Rick all but skips out of view, a train of cameras following behind him. Jungkook holds his phone once again, taking a moment to say goodbye before returning to the chaos of the challenge.

“Wait, y/n! Don’t hang up yet!”

Jungkook’s whole face is one of pure panic as he sees you reach to end the video call, you believing that that was the unfortunate end to your time with him. You jerk your hand back away from the button in surprise.

“Oh! Sure! I’m here, I’m here!”

You throw your hands up in front of the screen so he can see, in fact, you’re not going to press anything. He lets out a puff of air and you both laugh a little at what just transpired. Jungkook looks over his shoulder to make sure Rick and the crew are gone before speaking.

“I couldn’t say this during the interview but–,”

“You have very sexy ideas roaming around your head right now?”

You waggle your eyebrows playfully, but the way you bite your lip has him know you’re half serious.

“How did you know?”

“Because I can’t stop thinking of your hands all over me either.”

Jungkook smirks, a hint of wildfire in his eyes. His voice drops with his next words.

“And what, pray tell, are my hands doing exactly?”

“Whatever you want them to do.”

He lets out a big exhale from his nose, nostrils flaring, and jaw clenching from hidden desire.

“I can’t describe it in words, but the next time we see each other–,” you swear you see his eyes turn a shade darker as he says his next words, no, promise. “–I do plan to show you.”

Your body vibrates in excitement and you can’t help but prod him further.

It’s been way too long.

“Can I get a preview?”

He looks around and rubs his neck nervously.

“Not right now, Rick would have a field day with this “scoop” if he overheard us.”

You chuckle. He has a point. With every contestant and crew member close by, the details of this conversation will have to wait. But you can tell from Jungkook’s face that the only thing he wants more than winning is getting some alone time with you.

“Guess we’ll have to wait then?”

“Not for long, I promise.”

You hear a faint voice call his name in the background that has his figure slumping in disappointment, face sullen.

“I gotta go, but I love you.”

He gives the camera a kiss and you do the same.

“I love you too. Text me when you win.”

And, he does.

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starlightshore · 1 year ago

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OH GREAT ONE! Please. . . Can you please give us a tutorial on how to make Pixel Character sprites on Asepeite? You do them so beautifully. . . *Sheds a tear*

please don't call me "oh great one" even as a joke; don't put me on a pedestal. I'm just Some Guy.

anyway there are plenty of cool tutorials on youtube, just search stuff like "pixel art tutorial" or "pixel grass" or "pixel trees" for specifics

but what i'd recommend as my top rule: experiment! make more art! Have fun! just make things and you'll naturally improve

but past that, for some more tangible advice:

look into stylization. pixel art NEEDS clarity and simple shapes to work. you can achieve this by thinking of the shapes (thus the importance of stylization) and by doing simple math or consistent "scales" of going down or up in number. see how the second line goes from looong to long to short shorter then a dot vs. how the left one just does things randomly, there's no scale here. it shows purpose and confidence when you use more math-based art. see how the circle uses the scale/ math vs. this blob where i purposefully didn't?

keep the linework clean:

aesprite has a feature called "pixel perfect" which prevents jaggies, which are these clumps of pixels as you can see on the right.

keep the art consitant. don't use blur effects or gradients, i'd say that's more so for VERY rare circumstances and should only be approached from a more experienced hand. (ie, bigger background pieces and used sparingly)

how you draw the shapes/angles matters a lot as well.

left, i kept things more "blocky" and less "sharp" I also simplified the shape (note the fur on the side of the legs) is more clumped together while the other has a larger emphasis on separating them and making them sharper. overall, the right one is a lot more complex which I don't want for a character who is moving a lot, and seen from a smaller size. its a SMALL cartoon! i want it to be clear to the viewer without any details to muddy things.

note how by making the sideburn fluff more jagged removes some of the room for the white fur. you only see ONE shaded white/blue pixel on the left, which adds more contrast and emphasizes that spot. there's less of a clear distinction between he had and the body.

here's the silhouettes, you cans see how the body on the left is more clear in what part is what. Tail, ear, head, body and legs. the other one, sure, i know what those are, but its less distinct.

add "weight" to the shapes. have one side of the shape be bigger in proportion. note how the head has a wider bottom than the top, even from the jaw to the tip of the head. the overall body is bigger than the head as well.

symmetry is important and your life savior in pixel art. but not EVERYTHING should be symmetrical. look at the head stripe, mouth, chest fluff, and handkerchief. have one side favored or the other and not a perfect head-on position creates this asymmetry as well a more "organic" view of the character. (typically you want to avoid direct head-on looks unless it's for 3d modeling or character reference sheets, otherwise your character won't feel as "alive." it's not natural to stand perfectly 1-1 facing the camera perfectly)

note on legs and bodies: you can't always get an accurate symmetry based on the head size. depending on if it's an odd or even number of pixels wide, it'll affect how the body becomes symmetrical to it. in this case, there's a pixel difference that prevents a gap. note how the middle looks like a SUPER thick line because there's no room for a single pixel line. my solution was to have her favor one leg over the other, which works nicely as it adds a more weighted interest to the right leg while her bangs favor the left, creating balance. toby's solution to this problem was to give the humans one wider leg and it haunts me.

another example of this is toriel

toriel's side mouth would be fine if it was a consistent choice and other characters did it (sonic is famous for this stylistic choice) but because she doesn't even match her family regarding this, it stands out and confuses people. i originally, and many people I've met have thought this was her nose. EVEN THO you can see her mouth open when speaking in-game.

btw even tho this also haunts me, i don't mind it as much cause i know this is a result of early game development inconstancies born from inexperience. its a cute quirk honestly, even if it was an easy fix. i actually ADMIRE that toby doesn't go and retroactively fix things, and instead prioritizes making new things with the information of how to do better now. its very easy and exhausting to go back and fix things rather than move on. mad respect for that.

#personal stuff #sams replies

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cleverthylacine · 6 months ago

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Mending clothes is great, but what if you can avoid it by taking care of them?

I have been reading a lot of posts on this site about mending clothes and that is great and awesome. I also agree that you should avoid fast fashion retailers if you can find the things you want elsewhere at a price you can still afford.

But being an old lady, I have clothes that I've owned for 20 years. Or more. And they're fine, and most of them haven't required any mending. I have blouses from Forever 21 that I bought in 2012 (I know this because I bought them when Erin was living with me, before I met her I never even went in there lol). And they're fine. The fabric doesn't always look exactly the same--sometimes it developd a softer feel and a vintagey slightly weathered look but I actually really like that.

I have two blouses from Shein--one that I just saw and liked, the other because I had to find a dark green lolitable blouse in a hurry--and I'm confident I'll still have them in 10 years. (I own very little from Shein, their labour practises are probably horrible and I try to avoid wearing dupes that may have stolen art on them, but basically they are just another taobao reseller.)

Here are some tips for keeping your clothes alive without mending. Mending is awesome and visible mends on jeans and jackets are the bomb, but maybe you don't want randomly placed colourful embroidery on your white victorian style blouse--you just want to avoid getting it torn in the first place.

The tumble dryer is generally not your friend. Particularly not used with blasting hot air. I don't own one, though I will go to a laundromat to use one if I am washing something bulky and thick that might mildew before it gets dry, like a comforter. But even with jeans--they may be a little stiff when you first put them on after air drying, but the tumble dryer enlarges stretchy jeans by killing the elastic in them and shrinks non-stretchy jeans. It also sets stains if your first wash didn't get them out and you throw your clothes in without looking.

I use a Haier portable washing machine without an agitator for things I do not wash by hand. (I do not wash heavy cotton lolita dresses with skirts that are wider than I am tall by hand. I do not wash jeans by hand.) That's the tall thing in the middle. Agitators damage clothes over time. They are good for getting out dirt sometimes, but even better for getting out dirt is not over-filling the washer, so that all the soap/detergent and water goes through all of the fabric.

Shout colour catcher. Always use one if there are any bright or dark colours in your laundry load. It prevents dye from these clothes from getting into your light coloured clothes.

Wash blouses and lingerie by hand if you can.

If your clothes do not smell, are not stained, and you haven't spilled anything like citrus on them that will come back to haunt you later, air them out, don't wash them yet.

If you get a stain or citrus on your clothes, spot clean immediately if you can and take them off, soak them, and then wash them out by hand ASAP. Don't put anything stained in the dryer if you can avoid it.

Pit smell bad on something you wore too long in the hot sun or working a convention dealers room? Gorgeous clothes in a thrift store with pit smell? Laughed too hard or had an asthma attack and there's pee in your underwear? Work in a hospital? Have a baby to care for? This is why you should have Nature's Miracle Just for Cats! whether or not you own cats. This wonderful product is designed to remove the very strong smell of cat piss from things with enzymes without damaging them. It works equally well on removing smells that were made by humans.

Menstrual blood comes out best in very cold water. Hydrogen peroxide will remove blood, and other organic stains, but it also removes dye.

Always hand wash blood stains or other organic stains.

Cold water washing is easier on the environment but it's also easier on your clothes. It won't set stains. Heat sets stains.

Rather than ironing delicate clothing, remove it at once from the washer and block it out when you hang it up to dry. I use clothes pins on clothes hangers to keep the shoulder seam flush to the hanger so that clothes do not dry out of shape.

If you have a sweater or other heavy item that you don't want to stretch out, in addition to making sure the shoulders are right on the hanger, also attach another hanger to the ends of the sleeves and the hem. "Lay flat to dry" can be a bad choice with thick clothes as mildew is a thing.

Tea stains come out with vinegar but you have to get them right away.

The only stain removing products worth shit are oxi-clean but uh, be careful with bright colours.

If you have a large bust and like button up shirts, sew the placket closed at the widest part of your bust. Gapping in buttoned shirts when you move is caused by the uneven tension between the area around the button and the rest of your shirt. You do not need to be able to open the buttons at the largest part of the item. You can do this by hand by sewing the button in place through the closed button hole and then, since the placket will have multiple layers of fabric, sew the edge of the placket but don't go through the top layer of fabric so it can't be seen.

#fashion #sustainability

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popcornforone · 9 months ago

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MARCH

From the Marcus Pike Fan Fic Diary

Masterlist

February

How are we already in March? Must be time for another diary entry from our writer about her exploits with Marcus.

Synopsis:- Marcus is working away on a case & you just want to chat to him on a Saturday night.

Word count:-1900

Warnings:- DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE UNDER 18! Phone sex,masturbating, innuendo, talk of piv & oral, sexual video, swearing, drinking, pining. remember this is a diary so from the readers point of view.

Thanks as always for the read peoples. All feedback is always welcome. I hope you enjoy.

I hate it when Marcus is away. It not that I don’t like doing my own thing, but I miss the cuddles. I love that I can watch what I want, can eat what I like at a time that’s good for me & not have to worry if he’s going to randomly message going he needs dinner, or planning something & then him last minute saying actually. But I miss his little smile. I miss little suggestive winks. I miss the way he makes me cum. I miss the taste of him spilling down my throat. I just am missing him so bad.

I know it’s only 10 days & it’s important for his job & career but it’s just a huge hole in the bed next to me. I can starfish all I want, but I’d much prefer to be sinking into the mattress with my feet on his shoulders as he asks me if I can take more. Don’t tell Marcus this, I mean you’re a diary so you won’t, but I use his pillow to sleep on when he’s not here. I always make sure the bedding is fresh for when he is back but no I want to smell my man. I have needs & his scent helps me with some of them.

It’s not like we don’t see each other though. We face time & text & send photos to each other, but he’s often tired & a little grumpy. Works stressful when he’s home let alone working on something else where.

I knew he had Sunday off last week so I asked him to have a chill Saturday night & get ready for a phone call. I wanted his soothing voice to send me asleep. But I also wanted to see if he was up for something.

First call he doesn’t answer at 10pm. Maybe he had already fallen asleep. But the second call he answers.

“Hey sorry was in the middle of cleaning my teeth baby”

“I hope you didn’t swallow”

“No swallowing toothpaste isn’t that good for you” I am glad it’s not face time. I rolled my eyes. I wanted to see if things could get spicy. But clearly he was being practical. Yep that was my man there, not taking a hint unless it’s bleeding obvious to him.

“How was today?”

“Good, we think we might be on the red eye on Tuesday if we’re lucky. Latest is still Thursday night which is meant to happen” I can hear a tap turn off in the back ground & the bathroom light button click. I know he’s got ready for bed. I am already in bed. I need to clean my own teeth once the call is over but it won’t take me long. I’ve got a glass of wine on the bed side table which I’m sipping. I’m also in just my dressing gown, & I know I have something to pleasure myself with after hearing my man’s delicious voice.

“What about you beautiful, what did you do today?”

“Saw my mum took her shopping, she wanted a new handbag, she treated me to lunch & then I decided to start sorting out junk in the study”

“junk?”

“Yes junk” I giggle”you know all the stuff we said we’d sort out when we moved i together nearly 18 months ago that we didn’t need or were duplicates”

“Please tell…”

“Don’t worry don’t worry” I hear the panic in his voice “I didn’t touch the comics or anything that wasn’t mine, that’s still for you to sort”

“Oooh thank god…” I hear a sigh of relief down the phone & hear him sit on the bed “because”

We then say in unison “some of those comics are limited print”

“I know Marcus I know, you need to have them valued for insurance purposes” we talk about this every now & then. I have a couple of original art pieces that I got insured last year, after they had just sat in a corner & told Marcus he could do his comics & collectibles at the same time but he said he’d need to go to a specialist. He’s never been.

“So what are you going to do on your day off?” I ask as I sip more wine.

“I want to go to that new art exhibition that’s here…” Marcus has always loved weird art & he knows I appreciate it but not to his tastes it’s a bit to gloomy what he likes, not what you should put up in the house, not that we could even afford it. I let him talk about a few other things too.

“Well on Sunday im going to write in my journal & then I’m going to get on with building those Lego flowers you got me for Christmas, I can’t kill them can I” he giggles down the phone at me.

“Oooh no you can’t murder those. Thank god. I recon you could try tho”

“Would you have to investigate & come home if I did?”

“100%”

“Then I’ll go commit some crime” we both laugh & then sigh. The silence between us on the phone for a few seconds is just perfect. Hearing him breathe is a joy.

“Marcus…”

“Yes baby” I smirk as his voice seems deeper for some reason. I’m going to try something.

“What are you wearing?” I lick my lips as I say it.

“My jammies… you know the blue & black striped ones…I’ve also…” he then goes on to talk about if it’s okay to wear socks in bed or not as his feet feel cold. I’m a little bit gutted. I know he takes things literally but I wanted more or maybe something sexy. Also Marcus only wear his Jammies when he’s away incase he’s woken up at 3am to go look at something. He’s shy at times & doesn’t want any work colleagues to walk in on him hanging out, or with his naked arse in the air. What a peach they would see. I sigh a little which he picks up on.

“Was that the wrong answer?”

“No I just… I wanted something more adventurous.” I’m always honest with Marcus.

“Okay so then what are you wearing baby”

“Well…”I then untie my robe “say the words baby & I’ll start to moan for your listening pleasure”

“Why are you hurt?”

“Marcus!”

“What”

“Is your line tapped?”

“No”

“Well I’m just taking my robe off & am going to enjoy myself in bed” I slip the robe off. “Imagine if we were face timing baby” I whisper “you wouldn’t be seeing my face”

“Well erm…” I can tell he’s flustered & trying to work out how to say some spicy stuff. “Ermmmm… I”

“It really is a good thing we aren’t looking at each other” I smile trying to reassure him that it’s okay if he doesn’t want to.

“No I… I’m just having a moment” the phone line falls silent for a second before Marcus speaks. “Does the bed still smell of me”

“Yea baby”

“Then sleep on that side when you have fun later, I want my side to be a little damp” he’s getting into it even if shyly.

“Do you think of me?”

“Yes baby” he’s dropped his voice it’s getting sexier.

“In the shower?”

“Why do you think I’m always so clean when I come back from a job?”

“It’s not as good as me though…”

“Oooh fuck no!” Is his abrupt response “I might moan & fist harder but it’s not like your bending over in the shower is it”

“I always like to wash your chest, lather you up, caress those broad shoulders…”

“& then drop to your knees like the naughty little slut you are”

“I…” I was not expecting Marcus to get into this so quickly. All it had taken was a few back & forth & he was now calling me a slut down the phone. “Do you like me on my knees?”

“I like you in any position, begging for me”

“The way you face fuck me…”

“…oooh when I can’t tell if it’s spit or my cum or shower water…”

“Getting clean is always such a dirty task”

“Oooh baby” I hear him moan.

“Yes baby, my fingers in my cunt, my lips at your base, in your pubes, steam building up in a hot shower, you gripping my chin thrusting away”

“Down your throat, good thing you had your tonsils taken out, they’d be so swollen” as this conversation goes on, I’ve starting pleasuring my clit, I’ve not used my vibrator yet I think I will need that when the call ends.

“Marcus, tell me I’m a good girl”

“No…” he’s panting”you so naughty, good girls wouldn’t be masturbating on the phone”

“& what does that make you…?” I gasp, arousal is seeping.

“A very bad boy, a bad boy who wants to get on the next flight & wishing his penis was satisfying you instead.”

We moan down the phone at each other getting off to each others seduction.

“I need your mouth”

“So do I”

“69?”

“Oooh baby i’ll get on a plane to you”

“Naked?”

“If it meant quicker pleasure yes”

Eventually we both finish out sexual discussion. For a man who was shy to start with Marcus got into it. He screamed my name as he obviously climaxed & spilled into his hand.

“I think I need a shower” he says breathily “I’ve made a right mess”

“Hmmm” I reply back, I’m contemplating do I clean my teeth now or do I hang up & use the vibrator. “I’m so glad you got into that Marcus”

“I am too, we should try that again sometime”

“Maybe next time we do face time in”

“& me see your pussy gushing without me being able to taste it?” He scoffs “that’s not playing fair.”

“Well finish this case quickly & you can come home for all the shower sex in the world.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that sexy” I know the face he’s pulling even without seeing it it’s a soft but sexy smirk.

“I’m gonna go clean my teeth & actually go to bed now Marcus” I say “thank you for everything baby”

“For once I’m gonna ask you to spit not swallow, it’s not my cum that will be foaming at your lips” I gasp. Marcus finally got my line from earlier.

“I only swallow what’s good for me”

“Oooh you’re so good being bad”

“Night Marcus I love you”

“Not as much as I love you”

Yea that was a fabulous time on the phone to my Marcus. Someone so shy then got so into being so naughty. & I think I unlocked a sexual beast, because once my teeth were clean there was a text on my phone. An encrypted video. With a message underneath.

“Because your vibrator won’t be enough” & the video in question was Marcus handling his throbbing penis, angry & wanting to be buried somewhere soft & warm. It gets me off on both Saturday night & Sunday morning.

April

#pedro pascal #fanfic #my fics #smutt #no minors #pedro pascal cinematic universe #pedro pascal characters #over18 #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal character fanfiction #pedro pascal universe #pedro pascal snl #pedro pascal fic #pedro pascal fan fic #pedro pascal fandom #marcus pike fanfics #marcus pike fanfiction #marcus pike #Pedro

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toffyrats · 1 year ago

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country/city boy javid for @the-woild-is-y-erster :3

i took some creative liberties and made it a college au bc i can. i think it still works. plus for some reason i was imagining uksies javid but u can imagine whatever ver u want

anyhoo i’m also still in high school so just assume i barely know shit abt how college actually works

so. yeah enjoy

david sat on his bed, staring at the wall and picking at his nails nervously. his roommate was supposed to be here around twenty minutes ago, and his phone battery had run out waiting. he glanced around the room, looking for something to do. he could explore the dorm building, but he wanted to be here when his randomly selected roommate came in.

almost all of his books were downloaded on his phone, which at the moment was in the middle of the room, charging painstakingly slowly.

david sighed and stood up, cracking his back with his palms. fine, you know what, i’m just going to walk around a little bit, it can’t hurt. right when he was about to open the door, it slammed open, and a flustered-looking boy stood in its place.

the newcomer jumped backwards, shocked, before sighing and relaxing a little. “damn, you scared the crap outta me,” he chuckled, shaking his head.

“…sorry,” david managed after a pause, stepping aside so the other boy could get inside.

“s’alright. i’m jack, by the way.” the boy- jack- edged his way into the dorm, bringing his suitcase along with him.

“david.” david was a little overwhelmed by all this- not completely because of how rushed his new roommate seemed- and somehow, was still twenty minutes late- but because of how downright gorgeous he was. dark hair, brown eyes, shorter than david by a decently large amount-

“nice ta meetcha, davey.” jack’s voice interrupted david’s thoughts, and in turn reminded him to stop being so gay for once.

wait- ‘davey?’ where’d he get that from?

there was a few minutes of silence as jack started unpacking.

“where ya from, then? ‘round here?” jack asked finally from over his shoulder.

“manhattan,” david hummed, barely paying attention. “so- i mean- yeah, around here.”

jack whistled, starting to fill the drawers on his side of the room.

“is that news?” david asked, flopping down on his bed.

“is to me. i’m from new mexico.”

“long flight,” david replied, his voice betraying his surprise. then again, he had assumed jack lived far away- his voice had a hint of a southern accent, and david didn’t think he would’ve been so late if he lived right down the road.

“yeah. s’alright, jus’ a little jetlagged. i drove, actually.” jack turned and shot a bright smile over at david, whose face flushed at just the small gesture. he hoped to god jack didn’t notice.

“this is my first time ever leavin’ the south. what’s it like in new york?” jack turned back to his suitcase and finished up filling the drawers, turning instead to his bed.

“uh. loud,” david answered weakly. “busy. can you see the stars in the south?” he asked, flipping over to face jack and hanging his head off the side of the mattress so he was upside down.

jack nodded. “all the time. millions of ‘em, pretty much anywhere there’s sky- ‘cept for the small city here an’ there.” he sat down on his newly made bed and snorted at david’s new position. “why’re you layin’ like that?” he asked, snickering.

a light blush crept onto david’s cheeks, his brow furrowing, “is it bothering you somehow?” he mumbled.

“naw, it’s fine, just funny.” jack laughed, laying back on his bed. “you’re turnin’ so red-all the blood rushin’ to ya head.”

that’s not why, david thought, but bit his tongue and tried to change the subject. “what’re you majoring in?” he settled on asking.

“art,” jack said simply, “you?”

“computer science,” david answered, sitting up on the bed- his head actually was starting to hurt now.

“huh. what’s that involve?” jack asked, his voice curious.

“uh- coding, design, little bit of engineering, a pretty good bit of math…”

jack groaned. “i hate math. that was the only class i failed in high school.” his tone made david think it wasn’t the only class.

“how old are you?” he wanted to slap himself for asking. but per his overly nosy nature, he had to know.

“‘re you suggestin’ i got held back?” jack lifted his head and glared daggers in david’s general direction. “because i did,” he finished after a moment of david stressing and trying desperately to figure out what to say. jack burst out laughing, david staring at him, dumbfounded. “i’m 19,” he added when he finally pulled himself together.

“an old man, i see.” david fought a smile.

“what are you, 11?” jack let out another beautiful laugh- not that david thought he was beautiful or anything. “c’mon, you gotta be at least 18.”

“i am. you’re gonna be 20 this year though, right? so, you’re old.” david shot jack a shit-eating grin as he finished.

“shut up,” jack grumbled, waving david off. “he crack i heard goin’ down the hallway was probably your back or somethin’.”

david’s eyes widened. “you heard that??” he near shouted.

jack doubled over laughing, grabbing the headboard of his bed to keep from falling off. “that- that was your back, wasn’t it!?”

“of course it was my back!” david’s jaw was on the floor, and his face was turning a darker red by the second.

jack wiped tears from his eyes, still laughing.

a smile crept onto david’s face as he stared gazed civilly and heterosexually at the other boy, his face beginning to get red for an entirely different reason. with a roomate this gorgeou- enthusiastic, maybe this year is looking up.

I HOPE U ENJOYED 🙏🙏🙏 just know i will almost always accept writing requests so ,,, yk if ya want,,,

it kinda ended weirdly but. yeah

#writing requests #toff writes stuff #newsies #javid #jack kelly #david jacobs #newsies fanfic

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ghostwing404 · 1 year ago

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Memories of a Ronin, A Future Leo Au that has been floating around my head for WEEKS.

Look one of my first ACTUAL post's on tumblr, Elow hoomans! So recently ive been apsolutely obsessed with Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, ROTTMNT. Ive scrounged up all content i can find on them and espetually on the Future Timeline from the Movie, (and the movie in general, Technodrome My Beloved) but this idea in piticular has been floating around in my Brain juices for a bit. Everything goes the same initally, Mikey open's the portal, Casey goes through and yes Leo Dies...but not really. His fam, or some bored Deity wanting to see him both suffer more and heal throws his memories back in time, and only his memories. so shortly after the Shredder is taken down and our boi's are healing from that and the sudden increse in Goverment intrest in Mutants and Yokai (they blew a fucking hole through new york from the hidden city that was Seen from SPACE. The world would have noticed that and you can't tell me EPF isnt imediately Swarming.) plus finding a new home and a long list of other stuff Leo begins having odd Dreams and nightmares, at first its just small things, Flashes of fights yet to occur, both from years in the future and litterally a few hours from now, then they start getting a little too spicific, Mikey and him Eating with "Casey" This kid who he seems to care alot about who looks a bit like Foot Recruit, A Fight alongside Raph who looks much older and is missing an eye, Teleporting around like he was born too and then later memories lacking any Mystic's from him at all. The first real Horrid one he has despite the Mess of dead bodies and horridly messy Kraang Zombies he see's nightly already keeping him from sleep is him loosing his arm, he feels it from his own eyes, just like everything else he's seeing in these dreams, their like Memories and alike memories their not always that clear but this...this was far to...detailed. He Can remember what he saw but while in the Dreams he knows he has more Context, details that slip when he wakes up. some eventually stick, like Casey's name was initally slipping and then Stuck better after a dream where Casey saved him from a fucking Lazer when the kid was like 9...he knows by his own orders the kid wasnt allowed out of the base for a full 3 months after that one cus it scared him so much. As his current life calms down, they settle into the new lair and things go mostly back to normal, With Leo's only worry being Raph's constant attacks on his Judgement as leader (and his messy attempts at being leader...), Donnie fighting The Purple Dragons randomly again over some sort of Shitty charity (its Autism speaks and they faught over it at first, relized they were both trying to tear it apart and started working together to take it down, then faught again on who got to keep the money...) And Mikey's art started to make the place feel more like home his nightmares started to get worse. For almost a year straight Leo spent his waking hours trying to do his job as leader right, and living life and his "Sleeping Hours" trying to not sleep by any means nessicary or wimmpering in his sleep as another person dies on his orders or he finds another Scull of someone who was once an Ally...or he watches Raph Die...that was the worst and when his brothers truely saw the extent of these nightmares. They knew he's been having them but he's always had a hard time sleeping and they assumed it was just from the new stress of being leader and what happened with the Shredder which they were all having nightmares about. then the Screaming, it would be the middle of the day (Da Boi's are Nocturnal) 3pm and Donnie (Twin things) and quite often Mikey and Raph would wake up to Sobbing or screaming from Leo's room. it became routine when this happened for one of them to go and just Sit with him till he woke up because they learned pretty early on, you cannot try to Wake him up or Pizza Forbid Touch him because he will come up Swinging and he does have rather long Claws (Raph has a nasty Scar on his arm from one of these incidents)

And because tumblr decided to be funny and DELETE MY WHOLE FUCKING DRAFT! Ima just give you the TLDR- Future Leo's memories are sent to the past somehow and Mini Leo starts getting them as Nightmares or odd feeling first person dreams that he remembers too well just after the shredder incident, they get worse as things calm down and the bois find a new lair and then rather suddenly get better (for everyone else, Leo just remembered how to Cry Silently on instinct because as the leader of the resistance and dealing with nightmares for over 20 years by boi is VERY good at silently going through it on instinct.) life goes back to normal, Leo's an oddly good leader now taking things seriously and life is good though everyone is noticing something off about Leo as time goes on. a Bad fight with a Newer, more ruthless and unfamiliar villain causes those worries to be quickly justified as Leo kills at least half of them after Mikey is taken down hard enough to lightly crack his shell. he runs off and the group gets a distress signal from across the city almost 3 hours later, they find him bloody and missing his fucking arm with zero explanation as too why or how. (he Cut it off during his Mental break and in the process got back ALL his memories. Why? Imagine being a 38 year old War vet who just lost aforementioned war and then your suddenly shoved into your 15-16 year old self's body but not really cus its just him getting your memories, on the flip side imagine being a carefree 15 year old teen who's lived his life in reckless abandon for years learning not only does one of his own mistakes cause the apocalypse but he's not even really himself anymore as he forcefully is given the memories of his future self. ya that's alot my dude, id have a mental break and cut off the arm i already lost too. anyways that happens, Leo now has to carefully keep up appearances while looking for the key (he made up a good story to explain the missing arm.) he finds the Key, makes an excused about Spending the night with Cassandra (they have been getting closer to her recently) and Steals it, then ends up fighting his brothers because unlike his normal teams of Highly trained miliary soldiers he's instead stuck with 3 chaotic teenage brothers who will easily run off on a mission without So much as Leaving a note for their Leader. Because of that oversight and Leo refusing to reveal his identity beleving he needs to keep the key away from his family too the world is once again in danger because of one Hamato Leonardo. Hours later he's making plans with his brothers to get the damn thing back before they start the ritual (only thing they know so far is that thing is very dangerous in the foot clan's hands and they NEED to get it back imediately, Leo is still Leo so seeing him this damn serious about something makes them all listen) then of of course April comes in with a certain Casey Jones JR and Leo almost breaks, Casey wakes up in barely 5 minutes and the 2 imediately star talking in this...well is defentally a code of some kind (Basicly a bunch of languages, Conlangs and Literial word codes hiding under a trench coat pretending to be a single language, Grammar doesn't exist here and Donnie (whos the one that made it) is Absolutely appalled... no one can understand a lick of it but whatever they just talked about seems to have been agreed on and Leo's now updating their plan to include this RANDOM FUCKING KID WHO AMBUSED APRIL. a light explanation that they know each other and Shadow (Casey short for Shadow Scull a nickname he gave himself when he was 6 and that he never really escaped) was here to help them. This time they get the Key and Leo literally sends it to the fucking SUN but of course everyone is very concerned about WTF is going on with Leo (which is now becoming far more apparent as he interacts with Shadow...something changed) Of course Foot clan are still stupid and Fucking Stubborn and thus we begin dealing with the foot's shenanigans plus Leo's odd behavior, at the same time! woo.

Original inspiration from here and my own Brain mostly.

Spelling went to die i regret nothing

#rottmnt leonardo #rise leo #ROTTMNT AU #rottmnt movie #f!leonardo #Future Leonardo #rottmnt casey jr #rottmnt future au #rottmnt future leo #Memories of a Ronin #MoaRAU #tw light gore #He cut off his own arm but i don't describe it much.

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dietraumerei · 11 months ago

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2023 Book Reviews

Ok, let's see if Tumblr lets me post this (I think it shouldn't be too long?) -- it's all my book reviews from 2023! Entirely unedited and just copy-pasted in, but on the off chance anyone else is interested in it, here it is.

I finished Tolkien and the Great War which was like…¾ very good. The last quarter was a fairly inexplicable and incredibly boring discursion on the early versions of what would, essentially, become the Silmarillion. Although a lot of his early works and early conceptions of what the Middle Earth mythology would be do tie into his life and experiences as a very young man in a hellish situation, this was just like…a recitation. And it was followed by a brilliant analysis of why Tolkien turned to an older medieval storytelling form instead of the modernists that we think of when it comes to the usual WWI writing! It was so good! The good parts of this books are so good! I simply cannot bring myself to care about the phoneme shifts his languages undergo.

It did remind me that I want to return to Paul Fussell’s writing in 2024, so there is that?

Also Tolkien’s bitchy disapproval of the aesthetes is never not hilarious to me.

I finished Hogfather, about which I refuse to give any kind of review other than to say I’ve been reading it nearly every December for going on 23 years now, and it’s a perfect book and I love it.

I finished Congratulations, the Best is Over! and I feel some kinda way about it. I love R. Eric Thomas, but the longer-form essays are sometimes good and sometimes not so good? I didn’t dislike it at all, but I’m also looking forward to what he writes next, as I think every collection gets a little bit better.

I finished The Custom of the Country and oh my god I LOVED IT. The Age of Innocence is still my favorite Wharton because Ellen Olenska, but this was the book that made me scream the most. It’s funny in the way that reality TV is funny, in that you laugh because you are horrified. Undine Spragg is the most magnfiicent monster in literature. She’s horrible. I adore her. What a fabulous work of art/car crash this book is.

I finished the latest Perveen Mistry Mystery, The Mistress of Bhatia House and it was wonderful but oh my god it is STRESSFUL and kind of a hard read at times because everyone is just being a huge dick to each other. (Also there’s a pretty major plot point left totally un-tied-up at the end which is wild, but I guess it’ll get sorted next book?)

I finished Lolly Willowes which tbh I didn’t love as much as I hoped I would, but is a very excellent book with some mind-blowingly relatable bits and I enjoyed it immensely. I love Sylvia Townsend Warner but just need to go in without expectations and enjoy the rather lengthy ride. (For such a short book, it takes awhile for anything to happen.)

I read Dolls of Our Lives and the more I think about it the more I disliked it. I’m tired and lazy so here’s the review I sent a friend:

I finished Dolls of our Lives last night. I found it…okay. The editing is often bad which was depressing. It mostly felt really tonally inconsistent – they’re both historians and know their stuff, but keep putting in schticky little pop culture jokes that are a) not that funny? and b) just appear out of nowhere. If you’re going to look at AG through a pop culture lens, do it properly, don’t just randomly name-drop pop culture stuff. It occasionally dips below surface-level analysis, but it’s not super memorable and I don’t see it aging really well. (I’d LOVE someone to write an accessible book that actually does look at AG dolls both within their own cultural contexts and the context of when they were released, to say nothing of the interplay of doll + book, and maybe with an added chapter on how girls and dolls play, and what it meant to release a doll that wasn’t aspirational in some way, whether it be an adult like Barbie or a baby doll. Okay, maybe I want three books. But it feels like there’s a lot of richness to dig into, and I’ve yet to see anyone scrape more than the surface.) Anyway, 6/10, it was okay but the authors do themselves a disservice. There’s a small section at the end where they talk about themselves and how the podcast has changed them and how it came about and it’s the best bit of the book because it’s actually vulnerable and interesting, with some theory thrown in, and it’s barely shticky at all.

I will now add that I think it’ll age like milk, and I’m super disappointed.

In happier news, I read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd which is simply a masterpiece, and reading it was a deep and abiding pleasure. I know the twist and it still worked wonderfully on me – if you don’t know how it ends, I REALLY urge you not to spoil yourself and also to read it, for it’s wonderful and you will scream at the reveal.

I finished When the Angels Left the Old Country after @lesbrarian recommended it and it might be my favorite book I’ve read this year? Top five, certainly – it’s tense and beautiful and funny and full of love and very Jewish, and it just filled me with joy to read, even the sad parts. The comparisons to Good Omens are unavoidable, but really I find it a very different story in a lot of ways, although certainly with connections. I adored it, and it’s one of those books I can’t wait to re-read. Also every time I think about the angel too much I want to cry, but in a good way.

I also – finally, after many breaks – finished The Path the Power, the first volume of Caro’s LBJ biography. Oh my god, this book. THIS BOOK. The next time I do this I’m going to update every week on what I learned that week because there is just so much in this tome. I want to visit the Pedernales, but not in summer. The description of grass-growing was riveting. The descriptions of the lives of the farmwives before electrification was riveting (and horrific). The play-by-play for elections in the forties literally kept me up past my bedtime. And I have not even touched on Pappy O'Daniel (a real person!! who was apparently toned down CONSIDERABLY for O Brother Where Art Thou) or Lady Bird or how Caro more than once makes sure to mention that Johnson had a dumptruck ass.

Anyway, Lyndon was a vote-buying absolute fucking weirdo from birth and his mother was just as weird and his father was fascinating and I’m a little in love with Sam Rayburn. Do not let either the Old White Man History or the fact that this book is a fucking doorstop stop you, this is a masterpiece and I see why it won a Pulitzer. (whoops, looks like it was another volume that won the Pulitzer) I cannot wait to read the other volumes, which I estimate will take me about a year per book, but worth it!

I finished Menewood, about which I cannot possibly write intelligently. Hild was and is so important to me and I love that period in English history so, so much, and the immersiveness of the books, how heartbreaking and hard and wild and wonderful they are! It did push me to plan to get Hild in non-ebook format; they’re both absolute bricks so it’s easier to read the e-book but I found it super helpful to be able to easily refer to the family trees and maps and stuff.

I finished Lauren Groff’s The Vaster Wilds and as a certified Groff stan I loved it. It’s gross and hard and has the most amazing end, and like Matrix I am excited to re-read it over and over and unlock more language and more beauty and just more.

I finished Here for It by R. Eric Thomas and loved it. It’s more serious and longer-form than what he writes for his newletter or Elle, and really benefits from it; he’s an incredibly talented storyteller. Not what I was expecting, but all the better for it.

I am DNF for A Lady for a Duke which I had such high hopes for! I don’t think it’s a bad book, but it is not a book for me, unfortunately.

I finished Everything I Need I Get from You: How Fangirls Created the Internet as We Know It and have a lot of feelings! I think it’s a really, really good book that’s respectful of fans and interesting, but it focuses almost solely on One Direction fandom, and I kind of wish that was clearer from the title and the summary? Like, no shade to that being the topic, but it feels like this is being sold as kind of a universal look at online fandom, and…it kinda isn’t?

(yes i’m salty there wasn’t anything about snapewives, yes this was somewhat soothed by chapters dedicated to L*rr*es and B*byg*te, YES I am afraid of 1D fangirls.)

I also read Phoebe’s Diary because I adore Phoebe Wahl and it was cool to read a middle-grade novel/graphic novel from her! (Most of the book is typeset, but there are lots of great little cartoons and drawings interspersed. I really, really liked it, although sometimes it’s a little hard to read because a) it is very realistic which means it’s like 95% about boys and boyfriends and that gets kind of old and b) it is very realistic and made me so unbelievably grateful that I never ever have to be 16 again. I would be extremely curious what a contemporary sixteen-year-old thought because it’s kind of a semi-period piece (set in 2005-6) and a few bits of it sort of…haven’t aged well from that period? (There’s one character who I think we’re meant to dislike but I love her so much because she reads aro-ace.) Anyway, I’m really glad I read it although at times it was painful, 10/10 do not miss being sixteen.

I haven’t finished anything, but I’m DNF for Sarah Vowell’s Lafayette in the Somewhat United States because I found it hard to follow and frankly incredibly boring. (I am going hard for the DNF’s these days, life is too short.)

omg so much! I read Learned by Heart in like three days, and it made my Anne Lister-loving heart sing. Truly, it broke my heart and it was so sweet and so happy and sad and just so good, I loved it and I’m hoping it triggers another bout of Lister hyperfixation.

I also read Agatha of Little Neon, which was likewise sad but sweet and happy and hopeful. It had a lot of feelings, but I loved it very, very much, and it just…made me feel good inside?

I was DNF on The Late Americans by about the sixth Sad Gay Man whose personality traits were that he was Sad and Gay and [insert one additional trait here that is shared with at least one other Sad Gay Man]. I love Brandon’s newsletter and his criticism; I did not like this novel.

I FINALLY finished Herzog! For a relatively short novel, it benefits from a slow reading – and I even basically skipped over the philosophical bits because my love for sad mid-century white men only goes so far. Anyway – a little to my surprise, I enormously enjoyed it. I don’t know that it’s, like, the greatest novel ever written and it’s edging into my ‘This got a Pulitzer? Really?’ pile, but a) I can see why it was groundbreaking and amazing and the Saga of the Everyman when it came out and b) honestly it’s really funny and interesting. It’s a little bit Odyssey-like, and Herzog is such a likeable schmuck, and just, yeah. It was great. It’s also a wonderful love letter to both the Berkshires and Chicago, and I loved the very quick Vineyard Havens moment.

Our Wives Under the Sea – a friend said this was the best book she’d read all summer, and I think it’s up there for me. It’s haunting and weird and beautiful and sad and I loved it very much.

Painted Pomegranates and Needlepoint Rabbis: How Jews Craft Resilience and Create Community - hah, I just realized this was a gift from the friend who made the Our Wives rec! I’ve got a little theme of reading about how craft creates meaning in various communities/subcommunities, and this fits right in. It’s definitely an academic text, but I found it extremely accessible. It doesn’t present a very diverse portrait of Judaism – which the author absolutely admits to and apologizes for – but for what it is, it’s a very interesting and valuable text, and I’m glad I read it and it’s part of my collection now.

I finished Big Swiss which is one of those books I ought to hate, but I was…not necessarily loving it, but definitely fascinated as hell with it. It’s such a gross book, and Greta is so majestically self-destructive, I actually could not look away. Magnificent, 10/10 would watch barely-likeable protagonists fuck their own lives up again.

Also, not a book, but I finally read Blackmun’s dissent in DeShaney v. Winnebago County, a landmark case that essentially determined that the government is not actually expected to protect you. (Skip noted segregationist Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s ruling, but the Wikipedia article on the case breaks it down well.) You can read it here – scroll down to the very bottom, his dissent is only 4 paragraphs, and it is beautifully, wonderfully written. The ‘Poor Joshua!’ paragraph is the most famous, but I return again and again to the passage Justice Blackmun quotes from Stone’s Law, Psychiatry and Morality, and particularly the line “What is required of us is moral ambition.”

(I learned about the case and Blackmun’s dissent through the podcast 5-4, which is both excellent, and a good antidote to growing up in the shadow of the Warren Court, as I did. The Supreme Court has always sucked, it turns out. Seriously, it’s one of my favorite Supreme Court podcasts and I subscribe to, um, a lot.)

I read Brutes in about two sittings, it was so good. What a wonderful book about the horror of being a teenage girl, and I mean that in the best possible way. I loved it.

I finished, appropriately enough, Ned Boulting’s 1923 which is a beautiful book about the Tour de France and the nearly-forgotten Theo Beeckmann, and about the covid pandemic and history and tracking people and places down through time. I am an enormous fan of Ned (and David and Pete for any other Never Strays Far fans), and although this book very rarely pushes just a touch into bathos, it is mostly beautiful and wonderful and I’m glad he wrote it and I’m glad I read it.

(I finished it on June 30th, which is rather an important day in the book so I’m proud of my timing too.)

I also read A Half-Built Garden which I have a lot of very complex emotions about. I don’t know if I liked it, but I like how it made me react and think and feel and get grumpy. I’m not even sure it’s all that great, but it sure did make me think.

I finished Fintan O’Toole’s massive We Don’t Know Ourselves about Ireland in the last 50-odd years. It is very good, and sometimes very hard to read (he pulls no punches regarding either the IRA or the Christian Brothers) and I’m glad I read it.

I also finished Secrets Typed in Blood, the third of the Pentecost and Parker mysteries. It starts off the weakest (or maybe I was just in a Mood), but it is, as ever, a good, quick, satisfying mystery.

I read Elizabeth Kilcoyne’s Wake the Bones which I loved – I normally prefer a bit more gothic in my Southern horror, but the very end especially is the most incredible reveal. I could not stand the protagonist and I still liked the book, that’s how good it is.

I also read Scorched Grace, which is apparently first in a series about a crime-solving nun. It’s written as a hardboiled noir and, yep, that’s what it is, which means it’s also not good, but it’s supposed to be kind of hacky, so it works? It’s *gruesome*, but I liked it well enough, I think noir just really isn’t for me.

Oh, and I guess I’m on an Irish lit kick because I read Foster (more a novella than a novel), which I found pretty meh, tbh.

I keep starting new books and I’m now in the middle of at least two Giant Tomes, oops. I did finish Saltwater by Jessica Andrews which is better than the Kirkus review it got! It didn’t, like, change my life but it was good reliving being at Uni in the UK and also I enjoyed it, all I ask of a book.

The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett: umpteenth re-read, a perfect book. I have beautiful editions of all the Tiffany books now, and hope to slowly make my way through them.

Red Shift by Alan Garner: I was heartened to learn that this is one of his most difficult books; I will be honest that I struggled, but it’s lingered in me, and I hope to re-read it many more times and keep untangling it. It is very, very good.

Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford: I’ve been meaning to read this for ages, and it didn’t disappoint in the least. I’m fascinated by the Mitford sisters, and this is such a good peek into them.

It also really drives home how unutterably boring a landed-gentry upbringing was.

Trust by Hernan Diaz: ok you know how people win Oscars nominally for some meh role, but it’s clearly really for an older role that they were overlooked for? That is this book and the Pulitzer, when In the Distance probably should have won. It was fine, but I was kind of underwhelmed. Next time I’ll just read some Wharton.

DNF on Upright Women Wanted which I wanted to love very much and absolutely hated. Next time I’ll just re-read Whiskey When We’re Dry.

I did finish Murder Under Her Skin, the second of the Pentecost and Parker mysteries. It was great fun and a very good mystery and I am excited for the next one.

I finished All the Beauty in the World, the memoir of a Met Museum guard. I have an almost guilty fondness for the Met; it really should not exist, but I love it, and I loved reading this very much. I do miss easy access to world-class museums :/

I also read Michelle Tea’s Against Memoir, which has the best fucking essay of all time about the SF girl gang HAGS, but really I loved the whole thing. I’ve become an absolutely massive Michelle Tea fangirl and use her tarot book all the time and just ugh, I can’t wait to get more of her stuff.

I just finished Elie Mystal’s Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution. Mystal is incredibly funny and smart and is an amazing Twitter follow if you are still on the bird hellsite. It is easy to think that funny writing is unserious, but this is deeply serious, and is a very good argument for pretty much a new Constitution that wasn’t written by enslavers. Also now I finally understand what substantive due process is, and what the difference is from procedural due process. (I also grasp the ninth and tenth amendments a little better too.) Anyway – really, if you are at all interesting in con law, or how much the Supreme Court sucks, or how broken a document the Constitution is while containing seeds of a better document, I deeply recommend this.

I finished The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows, and continue to very much enjoy Olivia Waite! This is *not* an nice, fizzy romance – the romance is, honestly, a pretty small part of the plot, and that’s not knocking it one bit. It’s queer and scary and very good. I definitely would be okay going back to a fluffy romance soon, but I’m glad I read this.

I also finished The Return of the King and words fail me, honestly. It’s been so long since I read the trilogy, but I truly cannot wait to re-read it; Tolkien is so much better than what came after, and it’s been good to re-learn that. The battle of Pelennor Fields is the scariest thing I’ve ever read. I have discovered four new emotions. I cried at the end. I mean, *you* sum that book up! (I have precisely zero desire to watch any of the new shows and whatever else comes out; the original trilogy was lightening in a bottle, and I will keep my memories warm and good, tbh.)

I finished Square Haunting, about women writers between the war and Mecklenburgh Square. It was quite good and interesting, and it was nice to build on the writers I already knew about (pretty much just Dorothy L. Sayers and Woolf), and learn about Eileen Power and just…that whole London set. I don’t know if tons of it will stick with me, but I’m pleased I read it.

Remembering Denny, by Calvin Trillin. It’s about a classmate of his from Yale, and about how people change and show different sides of themselves, about being gay pre-Stonewall and about the Silent Generation. It is very, very good. (Also FULL of people! Larry Kramer shows up at one point! And early on there’s some stuff that unexpectedly linked to my own life which was just WEIRD and kind of wonderful too.) I love Calvin Trillin so much.

Fortune Favors the Dead, an excellent little queer noir mystery, I am excited to read the next one.

The Hollow Places, I really love T. Kingfisher, love a good quick horror read. This hit a lot of the same beats as The Twisted Ones, which isn’t a strike against it, but I’m hoping for something new with the next book. Still, A++++++++ landscape horror.

I read Women Talking which was…fine? It was okay, I wasn’t blown away I have to say.

I read Hérnan Díaz’ In the Distance which I truly ought to have hated, and I don’t know if I *liked* it, but it’s going to stick with me a long time. It’s a Western, kind of. It’s dreamy, and violent, and lovely.

DNF on Charlie Brown’s America: the Popular Politics of Peanuts. There is a great book to be written on this topic. It is not this book, which quickly proved unreadable.

And I finished The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics which was fun and lovely and a nice fizzy romance, especially after In the Distance, lol. I’ll def read the next books in the series!

I have been reading at a good clip! Let’s see, I finished Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens which is about a ghost and George Sand and Chopin and making decisions and it was so joyful and so lovely and very queer. I re-read Lauren Groff’s Matrix and loved it even more the second time; I was able to snag a signed hardback copy from a friend and I’m delighted to own it because the book itself is beautiful, and it’s a dreamy read. And finally I read Calvin Trillin’s The Tummy Trilogy which is a collection of his three books that collect his food writings. These essays are glorious, hilarious, charming, a celebration of good food and good eating and regional food. I will say, though, that the final book is really by far the weakest, and I will skip it in future; the first two books are perfection. (FYI, if you do pick this up, and I really recommend it, note that he was writing in the 70′s and they are a bit of their time, but in a way that is good-humoured at least.) I’ve also got his Remembering Denny and I’m really excited to read that soon.

I finished Times Square Red, Times Square Blue and enormously enjoyed the first essay about Delany’s time in the porn theatres of Times Square. It’s character sketches and talking about how people meet and relate, and I loved it. The second essay is vastly denser and more theoretical, and I will be honest most of it went over my head. I liked most of what I grasped, although his plan for how to end catcalling of women is…certainly there.

I also read Kate Beaton’s Ducks in basically one sitting and it’s so, so good. It’s much sadder and harder than I thought it would be, but it’s worth reading.

I read Bad Land because Jonathan Raban died last week, and I am absolutely gutted. He was a magnificent writer and Bad Land was so good and so rich and a bit funny, and it got me up in my feelings as I read about him driving over the pass into Seattle, following the trail of Montanans, while I was flying into Seattle (and then going north through the rain). It’s so, so good, and I will miss Raban so much.

I also finished The Two Towers, about which I can only say that it’s kind of a weird bridge book, but it has some of the best and loveliest lines and also jesus I can’t write a review of Lord of the Rings, it holds up, ok?

I finished Bill Bryson’s 1927, his history of a fairly amazing year in American history. The occasional fatphobic jokes were…weird and not funny, but the man can write a good popular history book. It was my airport reading coming back from the east coast, and very good airport reading it was.

I finished Homewaters, which is a gorgeous book about the natural and human history of the Puget sound region, and I loved it. It’s not the fastest-paced book going, but it’s a fantastic history and goes into the biodiversity of the area, and I’m so glad I got it.

I also read A Prayer for the Crown-Shy in one sitting on an airplane. I did not glom onto the Monk and Robot books as much as I thought I would, but I liked this a lot, and found it really lovely. I hope very much that there will be others.

Finally, last night I finished reading Shadowlands: A Journey Through Britain’s Lost Cities and Vanished Villages. Some chapters are better than others (or maybe I was just more awake?) – I found the chapters on Skara Brae and St. Kilda genuinely riveting, but still don’t quite remember what happened at Old Winchelsea, for example. The last chapter, on Capel Celyn, was startlingly hard to read; I have mostly left my time in Wales in the past. Not in a bad way, but there’s no point in it being in my daily life, but it was much more painful to read about my once-home than I thought it would be. (It’s also just an absolutely gutting story.)

#weekly update #sort of

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snailor-bee · 1 year ago

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Stay with Me, Sway with Me

Finally posting this on Tumblr for @cebwrites! <3 We did a trade ages ago and he was kind enough to wait a while for my school semester to end and for me to get some other stuff done. ;o; His art was AMAZING and I super loved it. I hope this was worth the wait!

Law x M!OC / SFW / 2.8k Summary: Law's not having a great time. Kirin makes it better. (Maybe? Kind of.) Notes: He/they for Law.

Law watched the gathered mass of not only his own crew but Kirin’s as well. Somehow they’d just ‘happened’ to meet up, again .

Randomly. With no previous agreement.

In the middle of the ocean.

After their so-called ‘guests’ left he’d go through his crew and try to figure out the traitors among them but Law knew already—a headache building behind their temples—that it was a fool’s errand. The two crews had become, he shuddered to think about it, friendly and none of their glares would break anyone, he’d come to find out. Not even Bepo.

Annoying. Everything about it was just so annoying .

Gold eyes scanned the crowd, the music thumping uncomfortably in his ears. The lounge on the Tang wasn’t really built for this but people were making it work as best they could, bodies squeezed in too closely together. At least it was slightly less packed than it had been at the start, as people split off together to squirrel away in more private areas of the sub, or perhaps back to the ship that was tethered to the Polar Tang, both bobbling harmlessly on calm seas.

A sitting duck for any passing enemies.

Law hutched into themselves closer, scowling at anything that came into his peripheries.

The scowl didn’t scare off the one person he really, really didn’t want to see.

“Law!” Kirin’s voice yelled over the music, throwing a thick arm around their shoulders as he collapsed into Law’s side. “How you doin’?”

“Denki-ya,” he greeted, gritting his teeth. “Waiting for your crew to leave. Hasn’t it been long enough already?”

Frustratingly, that seemed only to make the silver-haired man laugh.

Law didn’t think about the fact that it might be a nice sounding laugh, especially not when he threw his head back, offering an attractive view of the curve of his throat, allowing their eyes to follow the line of it down into a well-defined chest that was struggling within the confines of a tight low-cut shirt.

No, no, definitely not.

“Oh, come on! We’re having fun!” The smirk Kirin shot him simply made them scowl even harder. “It’s team building or whatever.”

“We’re not a team ,” Law hissed. “We’re not on the same crew or even allies.”

Kirin just smiled back passively. He was still plastered against Law’s side, the heat settling uncomfortably against their skin, adding to the overall heat of the room. He felt sweat begin to form at his temples.

“Aw, come on captain!” Ikkaku’s voice interjected, sounding gleeful. “Play nice! We’re just here to have a good time, make some friends.”

“Here for a good time, not a long time!” Penguin agreed with relish and the two thumped their drinks together, causing ale to cascade down the edges and land with a splatter on the ground between them.

Law was exceedingly thankful he was captain and therefore exempt from swabbing. They didn’t think his blood pressure could survive the incurring wrath from cleaning after his drunken crew and their friends .

“I’m not interested,” he said, finally shoving off Kirin’s arm. The man just leaned back a bit, hands held up. Law’s eyebrow twitched when they realized that Kirin’s leg was still plastered against the side of his.

“By the way, Kirin,” Ikkaku and light gold eyes slide away from his own to look at her, one white eyebrow raising in silence question. “Is it true that you pranked Penguin and Shachi?”

Immediately, Penguin started sputtering as Kirin laughed again. “Sure did!”

“Spill!” Ikkaku demanded, a hand in Penguin’s face, holding him back as he tried to protest.

Law was definitely not sulking between them, as they talked back and forth over his head.

They crossed his arms, wishing he had Kikoku to have something to do with their hands, but his sword had been swiped from him almost immediately as soon as the party started.

Feeling like he’d been left out of the conversation long enough, idly listening to the prank that Kirin had managed to pull off with a few of his crewmembers, Law straightened out of their slouch, a smirk playing on their face.

“I can't imagine what poor woman would end up subjected to your shenanigans whenever you get a girlfriend, Denki-ya,” he said, once the story had been finished and Ikkaku had been left laughing clutching at her gut while Penguin moaned with embarrassment.

There was a lengthy pause, and Ikkaku’s laughter abruptly cut off. Uneasy, Law shifted in his spot. What was the awkward silence for?

Kirin’s face pulled up into a lazy smirk, a challenge glimmering in his eyes. “You’re probably not wrong. I do prefer men though, captain.” He shot Law a wink before standing and sauntering away, his heeled boots putting a sway in his step as he went off to bother someone else.

Ikkaku and Penguin were both looking at them with twin stares of disbelief.

“What?” they asked with annoyance, not quite understanding why he felt mildly embarrassed.

“That was real smooth, captain,” Ikkaku said with a snort.

Penguin nodded in agreement. “You gotta step up your flirting game.”

“My what ,” they hissed before looking around anxiously, suddenly concerned someone might be listening in. “I’m not flirting what gave you that impression?”

Ikkaku’s eyebrows rose with mock disbelief. “Uh, he literally had his arm around you the entire time you guys were sitting here?”

“I shoved it off.”

She snorted. “After an extraordinarily long time for you.”

“And you didn’t move away! You guys were like, plastered together,” Penguin added.

“It’s a small couch.”

By this point, Penguin started snickering and Law leaned forward with a pained groan, burying their face into their hands.

He could sense the two of them gearing up to tease even more so he muttered just loud enough to be heard, “One more word and I’m throwing you both overboard.”

“Come on,” Ikkaku said with glee, “let’s leave the captain I think they need to work some stuff out.”

Law almost protested that he did not but the butterflies in their stomach said otherwise, as well as the heat that was expanding down the back of his neck, which only happened when they were embarrassed.

Oh, they were fucked, oh so fucked. He’d written Kirin off as unavailable in his mind and now? Now they weren’t sure what to do with the information that not only was Kirin available but also faced with that knowledge, he was seemingly extremely interested.

Fuck.

They tracked Kirin’s movement as the other man flittered about the room, joining in various groups to talk and at some points getting pulled into a dance either with a partner or a group of wiggling bodies in a semi-circle.

A plan was starting to form in his head.

It was stupid, they really shouldn’t but even if on the inside, Law was an awkward, anxious mess and his crew made fun of him for it, on the outside with others people saw him as a sarcastic, hard-edged captain.

The Surgeon of Death didn’t mean much to him, other people assigned them that name, but Law bristled at being made fun of. He wanted to have the last word whenever possible.

So. The plan.

Briefly, they spoke with the so-called DJ of the group before making his way through the gathered crowd. There was a sort of make-shift dancefloor in the middle, but Law paid it no mind. His eyes were lasered focused on one individual.

Heart beating so loud in his ears, they could hardly hear the thumping of the music, he swallowed, their throat a desert.

“Denki-ya,” he greeted coolly, coming up to his side. The other man was taller than him by a few inches and with his heeled boots that difference was even greater as Kirin turned and raised an interested eyebrow.

“Captain,” he greeted back with a small smirk. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Law bit back a growl. He straightened instead and held out one hand, their yellow nails flashing briefly in the light. They were vaguely sweaty and hoped Kirin wouldn’t notice. Instantly, all their previous planning went out the window, and mind blank they blurted a tense, “Dance with me.”

Fuck. He’d meant it more as a question.

Lucky, Kirin’s expression dropped into a brief look of surprise before it cleared out into what could only be described as hungry .

“Oh, I’d love to,” he purred, grabbing Law’s outstretched hand.

He’d planned it perfectly, (thank god , some small part of himself exclaimed with relief) the last notes of the previous song fading away as they pulled Kirina into the middle of the dancefloor, shipmates clearing out a space for them.

When the instruments start, Law is rewarded with a wide smile from Kirin. Not a grin, not a smirk, an honest-to-goodness smile . It makes their heartbeat quicken even more, which considering the fact that they can feel his heartbeat in his ears is saying something.

Rusty old lessons come to the forefront and Law arranges his hand on Kirin’s waist. It should be silly, them taking the lead like this but Kirin doesn’t comment just grabs onto Law’s other hand, while the other comes up to rest on Law’s shoulder.

When marimba rhythms start to playDance with me, make me sway

Once the singing began, Law pushed out with one foot. Kirin easily popped back his own, making Law realize that the other man had experience dancing, as he followed Law’s lead effortlessly, his eyes never leaving Law’s, gold on gold sparking between them. That was fine, made it easier on Law, to be honest. But the rush of competition started to echo, and everything faded away. Leaving Law with eyes only for Kirin and surprising him for once.

Like a lazy ocean hugs the shoreHold me close, sway me more

Pushing out with the hand on Kirin’s waist, he went easily, and they dance around the room as Kirin made faces to the crowd, clearly having a good time. With a chuckle, Law reached out for him and Kirin grabbed his other hand.

Using them he spun Kirin until he was facing away from Law, raising both their arms in the process. Their hands swapped before Law guided them back down, before he started walking to the side, Kirin following their lead. The other man popped his hips and made a show of it.

Like a flower bending in the breezeBend with me, sway with ease

Distantly, Law registered that there was cheering but nothing else existed in this moment but them, Kirin and himself. The feeling of Kirin’s body dancing around his, bending so perfectly around each other.

When we dance, you have a way with meStay with me, sway with me

They fumbled a few times, Law unused to dancing after so many years. Still, he was grateful to his parents for insisting in this moment. He remembered years of protests at the lessons, thinking they were useless. Even watching his parents dance around the living room, so in love, their bodies swaying together close until they broke apart, creating music with their bodies dancing alone but still somehow together, the beat and their steps in sync even if they weren't touching. They always seemed to know where the other was, finding each other again effortlessly, swaying together once more.

Even that hadn't changed their mind.

Now, they can see the point. How electrifying it was to dance with someone. How all of your attention got absorbed into your partner until they were the only thing you could see, the only thing you could feel.

Other dancers may be on the floorDear, but my eyes will see only you

One of Kirin’s hands buried itself into the back of their hair, their hand doing the same for him. They were close, gaze locked on each other, circling each other. Everything seemed to be going too fast and yet somehow not fast enough. The intensity between them was a heady, weighted thing.

Only you have that magic techniqueWhen we sway, I go weak

“I didn’t know you could dance,” Kirin said with a smile. Each press of his hands on Law’s body felt like a brand, burning long after the other man moved away.

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me.”

Kirin laughed, panting a bit by now, though Law wasn’t fairing any better. “Ooooh, cryptic.”

Law didn’t bother with a reply as they spun him out. When Kirin came back, he cocked his head in a way that looked tantalizing, and Law was positive he knew that, the bastard.

“I’d like to,” Kirin said. “You’re just full of surprises, captain.”

The music swelled and Kirin’s hands grabbed the back of his neck and theirs automatically went for his waist. Kirin popped his upper body back, one knee coming up to make a great arch of his body and Law took on his weight, oopf ing quietly under his breath as the last note faded and they pulled Kirin back up straight.

They were allowed enough time for their eyes to meet and exchange smiles before they were rushed by their respective crews.

Immediately, Law’s shoulders went up as a crowd formed around them, voices overlapping as they demanded to know where that came from.

Something like an itch they couldn’t scratch lit up in his mind and over their body. Hastily, Law backed up from the crowd and made his escape. This time no one stopped them as he made their way through the sub, far, far away from the party.

Once they found a silent corridor, he leaned against the bulkhead, squatting enough to hang his head in between their knees and breathe out slowly.

He sometimes got like this. Law hated crowds and large gatherings. After a certain point everything just started… rubbing him the wrong way. He itched, his anxiety started spiking and he just wanted to leave .

Disappointing that it hit right after the dance though… he’d been hoping to see more of Kirin’s reaction.

Oh well. They sighed.

Hearing the sound of clicking echoing through the otherwise quiet hall made their hackles rise. They peeked around the corner to see long legs covered in black and white, cutouts going attractively down the sides, showing off peeks of skin. Oh. He knew who those belonged to. And looking up, they weren’t disappointed to see Kirin looking down at them, hands on his hips.

“Hey you,” Kirin greeted and Law immediately scowled. The other man laughed before coming around the corner and leaning against the wall next to Law. He left enough of a space between them that they weren’t touching.

“What do you want,” Law said flatly.

“Ohhh, nothing much. You ran off so suddenly after our dance though! I just wanted to make sure I didn’t scare you off.”

Law hutched his shoulders. “You didn’t.”

Kirin hummed. “That’s good.”

A quiet descended over them.

“Look…” Kirin started slowly, Law trained their eyes at the floor. “I meant what I said before, about wanting to know you better. I know you’re all like—” Law peeked up just in time to see the man do a sort of lofty hand wave “—prickly and stuff about things. But you can be surprisingly cool when you wanna be. And I’d like to have another dance sometime.”

“’Surprisingly cool’?” Law repeated with disbelief, gaping up at the other man. Kirin just giggled.

“Yeah, that’s what I said. Come’re, let’s get you off the floor.” He held out a hand for Law. They stared at it for a moment before reaching out to take it, and Kirin easily pulled them up onto their feet.

Kirin started brushing him off, twisting and pulling at Law into different angles for him. Law was surprised at himself that they allowed it.

Once the other man deemed him suitably cleaned, Kirin patted both shoulders with his hands then left them there. “Say, at the next island we’re both at, how about we dance again?”

Law scrunched up his nose, thinking about their crews bomb-rushing them again after the fact. Kirin laughed at his expression before leaning in close to whisper confidingly, “It can just be us.”

They couldn’t help it, he blushed. Kirin just smiled and didn’t use it as an excuse to tease (for once).

“Sure,” Law found himself agreeing.

“Great!!” Kirin’s hands tightened on their shoulders before he leaned in and pressed a fast kiss to the corner of Law’s lips. “I’m looking forward to it. Make sure you come up with new ways to surprise me, hm?” Then he winked before releasing Law and walking away, the line of his body nothing but graceful as his hips swayed with the motion.

Law swallowed hard, heart suddenly in his throat. They pulled down their hat to cover his eyes as they felt his face flush up even more.

The man was going to be the death of them, they were sure of it.

#bee writes #bee writing #one piece #for cev #law x oc #trafalgar law

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larcenywrites · 1 year ago

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that pic of rdj doing his wing chun moves on the red carpet makes me think that tony'd probably know wing chun and many kinds of other martial arts and whatnot and he'd always be doing those moves around the house. and sometimes he would even try to teach you some moves and he'd totally let you win your little wing chun playful fights lol or he'd just come up to you randomly and start doing the moves on you (not seriously ofc, just pretending to hit you) and eventually he just throws you over his shoulder and throws you on the bed/couch and starts cheering with his hands up as if he's just won like a big UFC fight. he's an idiot but at least he's your idiot <3

Oh young Tony would do this too, except he doesn’t actually know any real moves 😔 but Tony definitely knows at least some martial arts etc, considering who he works with and what he does! Maybe he can even teach you some self defense if you don’t already know things like that! Given that he doesn’t wanna end up play wrestling instead in the hopes you’ll let him have some nice floor sex 😏

At my uni we had a requirement where we had to take certain types of physical education classes and some of them were like self defense, karate, etc, and it has me thinking that it would be funny if young!Tony didn’t take a class like that but you are, and he’s busy doing fake hand movements and is like show me what you got 😈👊✋and then you just sweep him to the floor in the middle of the living room 😩

#anon #anonymous #answered #larstalks

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wroteonedad · 2 years ago

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Sims 2 DS Is GOATED

Just before Christmas, I decided to purchase a 2DS. A pink one to be exact, I've been looking for one in pink for what felt like the longest time. I thought most of the other colour combinations of the 2DS weren't cute, but the pink one??? Slay. I bought it for two reasons. The first reason being my beloved DSi that I've had for 12 years finally decided to pass away and never turn on again and secondly because I never got to play the 3D games that came out because I never had the model. This console was on Facebook Marketplace for a mere £30 and so I bought it. Though it was a little embarrassing because I sent my grandparents to collect it for me and I got a message from the lady that said 'I hope your daughter uses it more than mine.' It's me, I am the daughter. But since I got the 2DS, I've been spending some time playing my old DS games, and I can't get over how good Sims 2 actually was. The card stopped reading in my DSi and I thought that meant I was going to have to go and buy another game, but thankfully it was just the console itself.

Here's how the story of Sims 2 DS goes because it's nothing like the life simulation game we're used to on PC and other consoles. Your car breaks down in this dead end village, you run a few errands and suddenly you find out the old hotel manager has conveniently just walked out and alas you are left to run this hotel and get to know the people of Strangetown.

After you've built a casino aka the first room you need in your hotel and killed Emperor Xizzle by spraying water on him, you start earning money to build more rooms in your hotel. These include lounges to go DJ mode, a gym where you can tan until you become a different race ??? the art gallery where you can paint to your hearts content and learn whether or not your work is garbage or if you've just created your magnum opus. My personal favourite room has to be the secret warehouse purely on the grounds that you walk into there and Bigfoot is living in there. All you need to do is feed my man every day until he becomes your best friend and then he leaves the basement and sort of just resides somewhere in your hotel until the end of time. The entire hotel is like a giant tardis, the size of this hotel from the inside simply is not correct if you are looking at it from the outside.

Some of the music is really creepy. I remember being scared to leave my hotel to defeat the aliens in the square just because of the alien song that plays and how the game drops to 2 framerates per second. Seriously. This was the same with the goons and the sudden robot invasions that would happen. You couldn't make up how insane this game was. I want to know what the game developers were on when they created this game and the narrative because I want what they're having. The game almost felt creepy and eerie. How was the town full of NPCs but how did the town look empty the whole time? Why was I completing a mission for a creepy mobster who wanted me to plant a bomb in the town hall? And why can you dig up alien mummies in the desert and then perform surgeries on them in your government base room that is just placed randomly in the basement of your hotel? To add to this, how did this small little town come to light when it is literally smack bang in the middle of this endless desert, and people never leave. You check them into your hotel, they check out say 2 days later and then you come back to your hotel lobby to find that they are there all over again. I can't say I blame these Sims for going insane, pissing on the floor and wallowing in pity all the time, I would be too if that was real. Your Sim also runs off a sanity meter which runs down depending on environment and needs. If this sanity bar is empty then your Sim seems to have a nervous breakdown and ends up waking up in the manager's suite in a vegetative state. They would hobble around for a little bit before going back to normal again.

Let's discuss notable characters, briefly and efferently.

Emperor Xizzle. This little alien that lives somewhere deep in the desert wants to take over the hotel, who knows why. He likes to invade the town square and sometimes will kidnap your Sim. All in all a weird guy.

Lord Mole. I'm in the middle of replaying the game at the moment and so I don't quite remember his full story, but I really wish that he would stop chewing at my powerlines. Prior to his storyline I feel like this guy probably lived in the walls.

Ava Cadavra. Thanks to this little lady, I had Prime Heifer in my basement and half of my hotel guests hypnotised. She wears a rotten egg coloured lipstick which says it all about what type of a person she is.

Horus Menhoset IX. Dug a mummy up in the desert after receiving an anonymous text to tell me about the dark evil in the town and it was this guy. Insane.

Optimum Alfred. Some big robot who was obsessed with cleaning but who was also plotting to mass murder everyone in the town. I am still unclear as to where this maniac spawned from in the first place. I was also given the Ratcave soon after he took over the penthouse so now my Sim gets to karate chop robots and goons ????

Tristan Legend. His girlfriend was literally taken away by scorpions so he chose to catch a meteorite in his bare hands to help him cope. I've seen a lot of mental illness in my time, but this has to be the cherry on top really.

Every character in this game is ultimately insane, from burning your paintings when they're in a bad mood to getting upset from a ghost spawned into the hotel lobby. The glitches, my 13th reason was when Honest Jackson straight up glitched in the game not long after the arrival of Ava and has not returned to the town hall since despite him saying that he is still there. Also, it is very weird that I can walk around the town and pick up nuclear fuel rods with my bare hands, that doesn't sound safe does it? This game is truly terrifying and for that reason I can't stop playing it.

Here's a fun link to Reddit where they speak about the creepy lore of the game and lastly, a link to the games night time music which is sort of fun and soothing, but also really eerie simultaneously.

youtube

#writing #misc #game review #sims 2 #nintendo ds #ds

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percontaion-points · 2 months ago

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KLO chapters 9 & 10

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Click here for the rest of the series!

Chapter 9

This place is … honestly? It puts my house to shame. Two leather sofas. A glass table with some sculpture thing in the middle. Neat stacks of magazines and, of course, art on the walls. It smells great too. A little lemony and floral. Shiny hardwood floors. Can I move in here?

Why does he work at the grocery store if he’s making enough money to support this?

“If you can afford all of this stuff, selling your art, then … why can’t you just give your dad money? Help out the grocery store’s financial situation?”

Really? That’s the question that you’re asking? And not why he’s doing a job that he hates so much?

“Dream about something you’d like to do tomorrow. When you wake up in the morning, tell me what it is.”

Chapter 9 summary: As promised, Cash takes Lilla dancing. She’s a little self-conscious when she realises that he meant in a club/bar, but he’s quick to remind her that everybody will be too drunk to care or remember. Inside, she ends up drinking a lot, despite telling the readers that she’s a bit of a lightweight. But it does help her to loosen up and actually have fun.

But she’s really drunk, so Cash takes her to his home. He’s apparently doing quite well for himself, selling his paintings and what-have-you. He insists that he can’t help his father out of the debt the store is in… But never once addresses why he’s working at the store in the first place.

However, when it comes to the actual sex… Cash tells her that she’s drunk. So he’s going to have an affair with a married woman, but draws the line when she’s too drunk to consent? Sure buddy.

Chapter 10

PART TWO CASH

Did we need a POV switch?

I want to knock her love out.

Yeah, hi. What the fuck does this mean?

“Can I hide here?” She looks over her shoulder. “My stalker is following me.”

I swing the door closed. “What stalker?”

“This guy Joseph. He keeps following me. Sending me messages online. Posting on my Facebook wall his love and devotion. Changing his status to read he’s married to me. It’s damn creepy.”

My fucking head throbs. “I thought girls loved that shit?”

Literally no girl in the history of ever wants this.

“How about coming up to a girl and just plain asking! I’m so scared to go home. What if he follows me? What if he has a shrine in my honor that he prays to every night, Cash? What if he has skins of other women he has mutilated that he drapes over his body, using them like last year’s Versace? What if!”

“Do you realize how crazy you sound, Georgia? And no offense, but you’re not really that interesting. If I was going to stalk someone, I think I’d choose a chick who is at least mildly amusing.”

You do realise that people who are mentally ill enough to start stalking women are exactly that? Mentally ill?

Simply because Cash doesn’t find Georgia interesting doesn’t mean that her stalker doesn’t.

“I didn’t think I’d feel guilty,” she whispers.

“What did you think you’d feel?”

“I don’t know. Better? Like I proved something? I just feel like shit.”

This should be the point where she realises that having sex with random men isn’t going to magically fix her. That the solution to her problem with Adam rests in divorcing him, not having a string of affairs.

Highlighted cheeks turning crimson as she silently remembers where all these designs came from. How they came to be. Adam at the back of her thought process.

“You.” As intended.

Chapter 10 summary: We randomly switch over to Cash’s POV for this. He is standing over her as she sleeps, painting. She wakes up, and then they finally fuck… but most of it is a fade-to-black.

Instead, we skip over to later the next morning, when Cash’s neighbour starts to pound on his door. She begs for Cash to hide her from a stalker, but Cash finds that she’s hysterical and doesn’t believe her. The entire thing is beyond shitty, but whatever. Lilla comes out, and Georgia warns her away from Cash.

After kicking Georgia out, he makes coffee for Lilla. She’s really quiet, and he demands that she actually speak with him… Because that’s what people in a healthy relationship do: talk to one another. She confesses that she feels guilty, and her problems aren’t magically solved.

#Knock Love Out #bookblr #book review #romance novel #contemporary romance #cheating romance #affair romance

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pomrania · 1 year ago

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I like the title font, it feels right for the vibe of the rest of the "cover", like a decades-old dark-fantasy book; only problem is how it blends into the building-thingy on the left of the image, but that could be easily fixed with just having it outlined in black or something.

...I need to figure out how to draw muppets, one of these days.

I notice "additional writing" has "TBA" there; assuming I'm correct in that it means "to be announced", if this is the Popular Occult Blogger I'm thinking of, are you just waiting until their stuff is all written up so it can be included in the thing, instead of lorem ipsum?

...I literally just noticed now (despite all the drillions of times I've gone over your game texts like this), that not only is the Penguin King Games logo a chess piece (already knew, and I approve of it, it looks nice), but I realized that I don't actually KNOW if it's the "king" piece. I mean I ASSUME it is, but I am Bad at chess -- it works in angles that don't mesh with my brain's geometry -- so I'm not really familiar with what the pieces look like.

Under "what you'll need", there's mild ambiguity as to whether the "per person" applies just to the tokens, or also to the dice. I don't think it's likely to be a PROBLEM for the type of people who'd play this, since they likely have a dice collection already, and/or regularly use online dice rollers; but yeah.

...I kind of want to do up a table now, that takes "value of the Facet" and "number of dice rolled", and gives the percentage change of success; but not only do I have other things I wanted to do this month, I think it might be against the spirit of the game (where you just barge ahead and do dumb stuff and cause problems on purpose and inevitably survive).

Hm, I can't remember if "generate a total" actually was used here or not; I'm ASSUMING it was, because why else would you put an explanation of it here, but that's not actually knowing. Guess I'll find out as I go along. [They're mentioned under "randomly generating your height and weight".]

ARE there still tables with 61-66 left blank.... [I did not see any; there’s just that one “traits” thing left blank, so you can remove that “roll a d5 if possible” bit.]

I see you'd renamed something to "Dizzying Display"; good choice.

...I don't actually know what "langorous" means; I think it's the same root word as "languid", but I barely know what THAT means either -- I know some phrases that include it, but yeah -- so time to look it up. Got it now. Yeah, that fits; it might not be the MOST common definition, but it's well within acceptable bounds of when one's striving for alliteration.

Oh, you've added a water-blast to Amphibious! Cool.

Under "Cunning Crafter", "and even call small objects made of it to your hand from Touch range" feels awkward, but I can't say there's anything WRONG with it.

"Dexterous Digits" feels like it's lacking something, in comparison to the others so far, but I can't say that it's incomplete; maybe it's just the rhythm break, of that entry being shorter.

...is there a synonym for "stinky" that begins with L? I can't imagine there's a common one, otherwise you'd have already put it there, under "dizzying display"; but I WANT there to be one. Failing that, I'm just going to imagine it says "lstinky".

Under "Superior Sense", my preference would be to put the final bracket within the sentence.

Under "playing your facets", it doesn't make sense to me that "unusually low/high" is "all the possible values that aren't in the exact middle"; "unusually low/high" would be 3 or 7; 4 or 6 is just "low/high".

For the Art of Autonomy, can you just open stuff for other people, or do you have to actually go through the thing yourself? Like, can you touch a safe "okay it's unlocked now, have fun" or do you have to be the one who opens the safe? Actually, does something only count as a "barred portal" if it's intended to prevent a person from going from A to B, or would a locked box count?

Hm, "seven heartbeats" is a bit of an odd time measurement, under the Art of Conveyance; why was that chosen? Is it because it feels right thematically, or is it a reference to something? [“Seven” comes up regularly in the other Arts, so I get that bit; but why “heartbeats” and not “seconds”.]

Under "Making Tests" and "Choosing a Facet", plurality mismatch: "correspond to a particular approaches".

IS there something that would modify the Stress Limit? Vague idea it might be under levelling up, but not sure. [Yeah that’s it.]

Typo under "Effect", "towards the its goal".

Typo under "Complications", "not spent in ths way".

Under 'Reversal', I think "rewritten" is a valid word, so was there a specific reason to use "re-written" instead?

"Their actions succeed or fail as the GM sees fit; if the players disagree, they can call for a test to put a stop to it", I just really love this okay.

The next revision of the playtest draft for Eat God is now up. This version includes all of the missing rules from the previous version – advancement, Progress and Calamity Clocks, etc. – as well as numerous expansions and clarifications; the game is now considered feature-complete, though it still needs worked examples, pre-made scenarios, and a whole pile of Big Stupid Tables™.

The most noteworthy addition to this draft, however, is (mostly) complete character creation rules. All but one of the remaining blanks have been filled in, and many Traits have been revised to make them more flexible and add a few interesting new rules toys. You can more easily stat up horrible little gargoyles, there's a little something for the hypno kink crowd, and also you can be a (very small) werewolf now.

(The one remaining blank alluded to above with that "mostly" is the 36th Trait, which I'm leaving off for now because I can't decide exactly what to slot in there and I don't want to spin my wheels on that any longer; for now it just reads "reroll".)

Last but not least, Eat God now has a cover illustration, thanks to the very talented @magpiemalarkey. We decided to be forthright about the game's inspirations; for legal reasons, the depicted characters are not Muppets. (To be clear, only the illustration is their work; the text design for the game's title is a placeholder I threw together myself using a commercial font, so don't blame them for that part.)

As always, questions, criticisms, and bizarre rants are welcome – and if you'd like to give it a spin but don't have a group, character creation is its own little self-contained minigame, and all you need is six-sided dice to give it a try; feel free to post your creations in the notes!

You can find the latest revision at the links above, or below:

https://penguinking.com/eat-god/

#gaming

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