#they have a manifesto!!! okay i'm down to check that out

[protect-namine]

"anti software software club is a not-for-profit software company that hates the software industry" okay, fine, you got my attention with that pitch

[oknowkiss]

23 please!

absoooolutely! combining from your other ask, you requested plantseeker. ~700 words (these keep getting longer and longer i'm so sorry). no rating, but cw for moderate world-building angst.

ghost town - the specials

They should’ve known it wouldn’t end with Voldemort. By the time he died, there were too many on his side who had “seen the light." Too many idealistic torch bearers who understood a proper legacy only starts at death. Sure, a fair few of them had been Imperiused, but most hadn’t. Most hadn’t ever gotten close enough to see the crippling fear at the heart of him, the way the Malfoys had. 

Harry stubs his cigarette with the toe of his boot. “Foolish of them to run,” he says. 

Neville glances up from the map he’s been poring over. Harry’s no good with proper maps, turns out. One of life’s little jokes. 

“According to this,” Neville says, pointing a nail-bitten finger at a group of wavy lines on the paper. “There are caves here, here, and… here.” 

“Lucius Malfoy? In a cave?” Harry snorts. He reaches into his jacket for his cigarettes. 

Only one left. Damn. 

“You have any better ideas?” Neville asks, eyebrows raised. His gaze drifts to Harry’s hands as he lights the cigarette with the tip of his wand. 

“Want?” Harry asks, holding it out between them. Smoke curls straight up. A cold, windless, empty day. Neville shakes his head. Harry sniffs. “Sorry, love. You’re right. It’s a good start. At least then we can say we’ve checked, whenever Robards gets around to asking.” 

They’ve been working this case for so long now that their lives are growing around it, covering it like tree bark over concrete. As one example, when they started this case they were just friends. Years spent undercover, roaming the continent in pursuit of something just out of reach… well. It’s enough to test anyone. 

And that’s the brilliant thing about Neville. He stands up to testing. Life hasn’t been easy, since the war. They had a month to lick their victory wounds before Death Eater cells began popping up on the continent and the Americas. Voldemort had been writing a manifesto, and the Death Eaters who survived the war spread it far and wide, where it has been burrowing into the wizarding community ever since. 

The virus has spread too far for containment, now. Their best hope is to capture cells with name recognition and… Harry’s not sure what. He’s made a point of not asking. Their job is to track the cells, capture the names on their list, and return them to the British Ministry. Alive. The problem is, it’s been three years and they haven’t crossed a single name off their list. 

Harry keeps trying to admit they’ve lost. Neville won’t let him. 

“I didn’t lose hope when we held down Hogwarts from the Room of Requirement, and I’m not losing hope now,” he always says, with that look on his perfect round face, like anything is possible if they believe hard enough. Sometimes Harry thinks about how he ever doubted Neville belonged in Gryffindor. It makes him want to spit. 

And now those steady brown eyes look into Harry’s with all the trust in the world, and Harry doesn’t know whether he wants to kiss him or push him down the cliff. Being loved – carrying someone’s heart and holding it near – is a chore, Harry thinks. Or maybe that’s not right. Maybe it’s wonderful, and Harry’s just too broken and tired to understand. 

It all makes sense at night, when Neville holds his face between those massive, calloused hands and makes everything feel okay, makes Harry believe they really will win this. Neville is the light at the end of the tunnel, bright and smiling and able to see a future Harry can’t yet, because he’s just not close enough. All he needs is to take a few steps forward, and—

“Ready, Harry?” Neville asks, crouched next to him near the entrance of cave number one. 

“Reckon so,” Harry says, instead of the truth. “You’ll be right behind me?”

“Always,” Neville says. Harry can feel him getting into position, ready to attack. The magic in his wand vibrates against the small of Harry’s back. “Let’s finish this and go back home.” 

Harry reaches for his hand, squeezing it once before readying a Protego. Neville squeezes back. 

“Home.” 

(give me a number 1 - 100 & i'll write you a drabble based on the corresponding song on my spotify wrapped)

[nokingsonlyfooles]

The Writers' Strike and Dystopia News Today!

Just finished listening to the most recent Trash Future (it's great, find it wherever you listen to podcasts, because you don't live under a rock and of course you listen to podcasts). It's about the writers' strike.

Their guest (a Hollywood writer) recounted an interview with the Russo brothers (the team behind The Avengers films, among other things) where someone asked them what they were hoping AI would do for movies. The Russos thought it would be super fun to come home some day, tell your smart speaker you want to watch a 90 minute romcom starring your photorealistic avatar, and Marilyn Monroe's photorealistic avatar, and sit back and let it be instantly generated and served. And what's wrong with that?

A lot. There is a lot wrong with that. Just for starters, the uncanny valley lives and you'd relate better to a simplified cartoon cat than a photorealistic Marilyn (who is dead, and whose acting career should not continue without her consent). Also, if AI actually could generate decent movies like that, everyone involved in the entertainment industry would be out of a job, including directors like the Russos!

But the Trash Future crew didn't say this, so I'm gonna: You know what this is? This is capitalism trying like hell to control the means of production. The means of production for a story is the human imagination, and, although it has tried, capitalism has failed to monopolize and control that. It can control the resources you need to publish, and copyright will prevent you from publishing certain things, but that's only controlling the expression, not the thing itself. It can also try to control what you see, but if you really want something, you can always make a version of it yourself and self-publish, even if it doesn't get as much traction as a corporate-approved project.

You know what a creatively sterile corporate executive would really like for Christmas? An imagination that can be built from scratch, altered at will, and owned. And if AI can do that for 'em, they can finally kick all those useless, expensive, delicate human creatives to the curb.

I'm working on my art manifesto. It's slow going because I have a lot of other things to do, and I keep backing away and telling myself, Art doesn't need you to save it. This really isn't necessary. Check your ego, the most you can accomplish is like a wet fart in a hurricane, and that's okay. But stuff like this... These corporate interests that want to kill Art (and not like Dada, I mean REALLY. FUCKING. KILL IT.) have already defined the battle they want to fight and they're making moves.

They want you to stop being a producer. They want you to stop competing with the media they buy and curate that you have to pay them for. Ultimately, they'd rather not even buy these things before selling them to you, they want an AI slave to tell stories that they can own outright. And they want you to come home and plop down on your couch and not even consider writing a self-insert fic to entertain yourself, or finding a Reader/SugarKane (see, that's a character Marilyn played, rather than a reanimated corpse) story somewhere. They want you to pay money to CorpseFucker Monthly (or whatever they'd call it), put in your order and consume it. And when you're done with that, you can slam some more money on the counter and have another one.

We are tired, and we are delicate, and we need support. Telling stories is hard. I've often wished I could just read what I'm writing, instead of doing all that work, because that's really all I want. I want my story to exist so I can read it and enjoy it and connect with other people who read it and enjoy it. I don't want to stare into a white void until my eyes bleed, trying to think of a way to express what X character is thinking and why they're going to do a thing that makes the plot go. I don't want to rip into my trauma looking for Milo's motivation, I just want to feel better seeing him learn and grow.

But although that is what I want, there is not a magic box that can do that for me, and if there were, the people in charge of the box would not ask it to generate my story. I'd have to pay them for the privilege. And if I wanted to share it and build a community around it, I'd have to pay for that too. I didn't make it. It's not mine. All I did was dash off a prompt - that's not special, no one cares, go away and let someone else have a turn with the box. You are disposable, and your story is disposable, all that matters is that rich people got a little richer.

This is not new. The owners have been pushing for this since the advent of the printing press, if not longer. But they finally have a way to do it for real. They just need to frontload as many human imaginations as possible to train the box, after which any further input will not be required.

They already have all our work that they bought, and paid for, and have the rights to. And they have everything that fell into the public domain too. And, of course, they have everything stored on their various servers that they may leaf through and steal.

We do know this, and we're fighting back, but we're fragmented and disorganized and it's hard to pull back and see the whole picture. Yes, we are having a writers' strike, and thank God, but it's for reasonable paycheques and job security. Writers should have those things! But there is no fair compensation for the total commodification of Art. That's like... buying carbon offsets while the planet burns. (I know, I know, we're doing that too.)

Every word, every image we put out there is fodder for the magic box. Copyright is not going to save you from this, that's not what it's for. If they want the rights to your thing, they'll just buy them - probably not even from you. (And I'm giving my thing away, so I'm just as screwed.) They are going to do this, and we're not going to stop them.

The only question is, are we going to be able to build some kind of corporate-independent structure to tell and share our stories, and support each other... or when they yank the rug out from under us, are we gonna fall?

[lone-rhapsodist]

So, in case you missed it… Donna Zuckerberg replied to my email about the Classics project. Which is amazing! I really did not expect it! So now I feel like I have her blessing to contact Sarah Bond, who also worked on Eidolon in its heyday, and is now editor of a Substack called Pasts Imperfect, which is supposed to be on a similar vibe.

The reason why I contacted Donna Zuckerberg is because I am currently slightly dissatisfied with the project and I am looking for advice on how to develop it further. In case you don't know, I have recently created a Discord server for the project and invited people to join. There's about 7 of us at the moment, and it was alright at the start, but then things went cold, and now I am a bit unsure how to go forward. I think it's okay for now because it was always meant to be a community for those seeking help, and if no one needs help, well, that's fair enough! Also, I'm sure that, when more people join, things will pick up again. For now, I really needed someone at the start to check the server out, especially the rules/manifesto, and tell me what they think. Soon, I will put up a permanent invite and see how it goes. Perhaps having more of a community feel, with weekly check-ins, might help. Any advice in this respect is much appreciated!

However, I still think that a Discord server is not the most ideal platform for what I have in mind, and so I feel like, while I do want to keep exploring it as an option and see what works and what doesn't, I would also like on the side to start expanding things further and reach out to other people and communities who may be interested in the project. Hence the email to Donna Zuckerberg, and soon, one to Sarah Bond. But also, I think it is time I start reaching out to people in other places, such as Reddit or Twitter, or even Mastodon? Still under a pseudonym, I reckon. Although, with that said, I have been sending all these emails in my own name, and I do feel like, if there is enough support for the project from all these lovely people, perhaps it will be safer for me to come out in the open and advocate for it in my name. We'll see.

I'm also thinking about going back to writing. It has not been the easiest lately, finding time to sit down and write. I am even considering changing format… making it more interactive. I'm also considering starting a podcast. That is a bit of a weird idea, but I've been thinking about it for a while, as I find it so much easier to speak than to write. I don't know These things are all very much work-in-progress, but not so much that they cannot all happen at some point. The next step is to email Sarah Bond and see what she says. The rest will follow accordingly.

[luckywolfsbane]

Oooh, are we sending asks now? I want to ask a question!

If your ocs had only one day to live, what would they spend it doing?

Ooooo, okay, this is a tough one. I'll try to be concise. I took this literally. Like if they found out they were dying during the story. I'm making this assuming certain curses are broken, so...

Jack: Frantically plans so no one has to do anything for his funeral, burial, or anything else. This makes it so they can all grieve without making hard choices. This little fucker arranges every last detail of his funeral, including flowers. It's his final act of love, a way to take care of his people one last time. He knows he'll be reborn, so he'd decide to make sure to reincarnate asap. He makes and gives Lyris a charm that'll allow her to find his new incarnation if she wants to, so she can check on his next life or be a friend/mentor to him as he grows up. This way, she can choose what her peace will look like.

Lyris: Laughs at her impending demise because, of course, she'd have to anticipate her death rather than fall in some spontaneous blaze of glory. She's going to try to go out in a big way. She will not go quietly into that good night. She's inacting as much massive, positive change as possible before her heart stops beating. She'll take at least one power-hungry monster with her if she gets her way. If there's no massive memorial statues in her honor after she's gone, then her name will live forever in infamy, and she's good with that.

Alex: Goes fishing. I'm not kidding. He's already made peace with his end by the time he gets the news. He just smiles, passes his bear amulet to one of his best friends, and hops on a fishing boat. He's seen enough terror. His impact on the world will come from those he leaves behind. He's just looking forward to joining his previous party and his family in the underworld.

Thalia: Writes down all her secrets and final wishes/will in a locked journal and leaves instructions to find the key. Her loved ones have to go on a scavenger hunt in order to read any of it. Why not break it open, you ask? Because she embued it with her magic. If they break the lock, the pages sprout and grow, destroying the words. She does this to force her emotionally inept friends to lean on each other and accept her absence in order to honor her properly. She knows for a fact they'll do it; that's just who they are.

Roman: Cries for about an hour, then goes to Jack for help. It doesn't matter if they're in good terms, he knows he can go to him. With his help, Roman returns to his hometown to visit his mother and only remaining sister so he can be with them in his final hours. He also wants to be buried in his family's cemetery alongside his siblings and cousins. He hands Jack his personal manifesto after a full day with his last two loved ones, entrusting all his goals and final will to Jack.

Jason: Goes through the stages of grief in near perfect order in only a couple hours. He does so much in his last day, but he doesn't feel it's enough at any point. He already lost so much time, having been asleep for a decade. He cheated death once, but he can't cheat it this time. None of it feels fair. Nearing his last hours, he lands on using himself as a bargaining chip to get some sort of leg up on the BBEG--who has wanted him in their control since he woke up. Against everyone's wishes, he offers himself up in trade for something vital, kisses Jack and Lyris(everyone else gets forehead kisses), and walks into their clutches in an effort to make his death mean something. And it will. No one will let him die in vain.

(Bonus)

Felix: Takes five seconds to bask in the irony, then makes a focus object to allow him to appear in astral/spirit form in the mortal plane. He throws his mortal body back in between life and death and then moves on as a living ghost as if nothing happened.

Okay, so I really hope I don't ever have to use any of these bc they make me so sad.

I haven't deleted any asks! I'm working on the others as we speak! 💛💛💛

[gyll-yee-haw]

Chapter 1

Professor!Jake x Reader

Series information

Series masterlist

---

I would write you a poem, my love.

(For you - Passenger)

---

You drove home feeling like the most stupid person who has ever lived.

You felt like a child who didn’t know teachers had a life when they weren’t in class.

Like he only existed in your daydreams when you couldn’t see him.

Like he waited all week to come alive to you every Tuesday.

Since when did Mr. Gyllenhaal has children? He never mentioned them.

He’s not married. You paid too much attention to his hands to miss a detail like a fucking golden ring.

This is not the 19th century, though. Maybe he just had a girlfriend. Maybe he was divorced. 

It didn’t matter to you. It wasn’t about what you saw, but the realization that he loves or already loved someone else that killed you. And you were so angry at yourself for feeling like that. You had loved other men before him. And he was probably... 10 years older than you? Maybe less, maybe more. But it was pretty obvious he had his own life. 

He was nothing but a teacher you were supposed to forget in a few months.

Maybe that was it. You would prepare yourself to lose him as the semester ended, but you weren’t ready to do it now.

When you entered your apartment, you didn’t feel like doing anything. All you really had to do was wake up from that stupid fairytale.

---

When you heard your alarm and opened your eyes, you wished that any kind of miracle had happened and it wasn’t Tuesday. Maybe you slept for 24 hours straight and it was Wednesday already. But you checked your phone and it said it was Tuesday.

Then you thought about skipping class. Only for a day, it wouldn’t hurt...

But what would happen the next Tuesday? And then the next one?

Sooner or later you would have to see him again. So it would be better to just end this quickly.

---

You got to college early to find a seat in the back. If you looked as terrible as you felt, you didn’t want Mr. Gyllenhaal to notice. 

You sat there in silence, opening your book at a random page, so you would look busy and no one would talk to you.

“Hey.” Wes interrupted your inner drama after a few minutes. “I almost didn’t find you when I arrived, why are you sitting here?”

“Headache.” You lied. You knew Wes already thought your crush was ridiculous, if he knew all the pain you were going through at that moment, he would probably want to punch you. And you knew you deserved it.

“Well...” He sighed and took a seat beside you when he heard the bell ring. “It’s gonna pass real soon. There he comes.”

When you looked at the door and saw Mr. Gyllenhaal walking in, your heart started to hurt again. So you decided to look at your book, at the floor, at anything but him for the next couple hours.

But you couldn’t help it... you started to pay attention to his clothes, to his bag, checked his left hand again, anything that could give you a clue about his personal life.

And your head started to wonder way too far. You wondered if he ever had his heart broken. How many women had the privilege to be touched by him? What did they look like? Was he a good father? Something inside you told you he was a great father. 

---

When the bell rang, you felt relieved. Now you would have an entire week to heal. To forget about him completely.

“Are you feeling better?” Wes asked, grabbing his stuff to leave.

“Yeah.” You lied again. 

The class was getting empty really fast, or you were grabbing your stuff really slow, cause silence soon filled the room. You thought there was only Wes and you left, when you heard Mr. Gyllenhaal’s voice say:

“Hey, Y/N. Can I speak to you for a second?”

A shiver ran down your spine. You looked at Wes and he was just as confused as you.

“See you later, then?” He shrugged as he started to walk towards the door, while you mentally begged him to stay. If this all happened last week, you would be beyond excited. But right now, you just wanted to run.

When you realized it was only you and the professor left in class, you grabbed your bag and approached him, looking at the floor.

“Are you okay?" He asked, sounding really worried. “You didn’t seem to be able to focus today.”

“I’m sorry, professor.” You gave him a weak smile. “I’m just tired. But I’m fine.”

“Really?” He insisted. “You sat pretty far from me, but I could see that your book was on the wrong page.”

“I didn’t sleep well.” You felt the shame deep in your stomach.

Shame for both the way you acted in class and the way you acted the day before. Shame to be standing in front of him at that very moment wanting to cry like a woman who had just been cheated on.

He didn’t believe your words. He didn’t fully understand why he felt like he knew you that well, but he simply did. So he thought for a second before saying:

“Come with me.”

You weren’t sure why, but you followed him outside. If he was going to give you a “disappointment speech” or ask you to try harder next time, he would simply do it right there, so what was he going to do?

He led you to the garden near the building's entrance and looked around when he stopped.

“You’re not gonna tell anyone, will you?” He asked laughing a little.

You had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. He didn’t know what was going on inside your head at that moment. You just wanted to push him away screaming YOU. YOU. YOU. YOU ARE MY PROBLEM. But you just shook your head.

He opened his bag and started looking for something. When you saw a pair of scissors in his hand, you swore you couldn’t get any more confused. He used them to cut a rose from the garden.

“Come closer, let me show you something.” He smiled and you approached slowly. “Give me you hand, but be careful.”

You offered him your hand and he gently placed the rose on your palm. Your eyes met his as he did that and you melted, wondering if he ever showed up at someone’s house bringing them flowers.

“Today I was telling the class about the challenges of teaching Botany.” He told you. “Did you hear that part?”

“I-” You tried to remember, but you really didn’t hear a word he said that day. “I’m sorry, I don’t think so.”

“It’s fine, I’ll tell you now, then.” His smile never left his face, and he was talking to you the sweetest way he could. “We grow up listening to music and reading poetry and if there’s something artists like to talk about is flowers, right? Maybe that’s why we don’t pay attention to other structures that are just as beautiful... well, at least for me.”

You chuckled and it warmed his heart. He knew there was something bothering you that day and he was glad he could get your mind out of it for a minute.

“And it also makes people call those structures by the wrong name.” He continued. “For example, we only think roses have thorns because society believes ‘prickles’ isn’t a poetic word.”

“So... today’s class was a manifesto against social conventions? Sounds interesting.” You joked. He really made the atmosphere a little lighter. “Let’s be real, there aren’t too many pretty words that rhyme with prickles.”

“Okay, the poets are forgiven.” He laughed. “But my students don’t have to rhyme during the tests.”

“Good point, sir.” you shrugged.

“Please, just call me Jake.” He asked.

“Jake.” You nodded. It sounded silly, but it was some kind of new intimacy for you not having to treat him with formalities, even though you knew he never liked them anyway.

There was a moment of awkward silence and you tried your best to keep your eyes on the flower, because you could feel that his were on your face.

“So...” He cleared his throat. “Like I was saying...”

He proceeded to explain the difference between thorns and prickles. You really tried to pay attention this time, but your mind drifted away and focused on the way his hand softly brushed yours as he tried to show you the things he was talking about, using the rose in your hand. You also couldn’t stop wondering why he was doing all this. He had just said all of that in front of 50 students, but he realized that one of them wasn’t listening, so he decided to do it all again. It would be so much easier to not fall in love if he wasn’t so good to you.

“I mean...” He interrupted your thoughts. “I couldn’t give you all the details I mentioned in class earlier, cause I don’t want you to lose your entire break, but I hope it helped.”

“Mr. Gyl... Jake.” You were still not used to this new intimacy. Or at least, what you wanted to believe was intimacy. “I honestly don’t have words to thank you. But you know you didn’t have to do this.”

“Can I be honest with you? About the reason why I did this?” He sighed. Your heart started to beat faster, even though you tried to keep your expectations low. “I know many people are in my class exclusively for the credits. So, I don’t really care if they learn something or not, it’s their choice. But I know you’re different. I enjoy reading your essays. You’re very creative and perceptive. You know... there’s like... a group of 5 or 6 students that I would love to work on a project on my lab with. And I can’t have the number one of them missing a single detail.”

His number one. If only he knew how badly he was hurting you by saying nice things. You had to hold back the tears and decided to hide your emotions behind a joke:

“So... what am I supposed to not tell anyone? That you stole a flower from the garden or that you have a ‘number one’?”

“I guess we have two secrets now.” He laughed. “See you next week, Y/N?”

You nodded and handed him the rose.

“Keep it.” He smiled. “I can’t keep any evidence of my crimes.”

With that, he put his scissors back in his bag and walked away after giving you one last smile.

You looked at the rose and felt a single tear rolling down your cheek. It was so unfair to be special to someone for the “wrong” reasons. You knew the reasons you wanted to be special to him for were the actual wrong ones. But you would let him torture you with his own reasons forever.

---

Taglist! (Pls let me know if I forgot someone, I'm not a very organized person... or if you still want to be added!)

@lady-evans @shay-vaughn  @sogothiamdead  @paosesposts @baby-haz  @billyspotato @gyllenhaalstories ​ @lexie-wayland @gaymysterio