#they need to make a spreadsheet with all their character details or something because I feel like sometimes they forget stuff about them

[darkacademiaarchivist]

i have such mixed feelings about the new night vale episode

[currently-dating-everything]

ahahahhhhh ohhhhhhhhhhhh bestie please could you spare me some timothy crush hcs i’m on my kneessssss 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

A/N: Crush + general relationship hcs for you 2day my mannn. Also forgive me if this is out of character I've only spoken to him like three times and I keep accidentally making him mad hdhdsd

Character: Timothy

Relationship: Romantic

He wants to know every minute of your schedule before you guys get together. And after you get together? He wants to know every second of it, and be there with you while he learns it and drafts a detailed spreadsheet about how your schedules fit together and when you're free to hang out with him.

He's very bad at having a crush. He likes to have at least a semblance of control over himself and the things around him, so sudden romantic feelings are like a figurative bulldozer for his day-to-day roster. He did NOT schedule two hours of yearning for today and it is throwing EVERYTHING off!! Absolutely unacceptable!!!

He's a bit clingy, but covers it up by claiming that you not being around when he thinks you'll be throws his groove off and messes up his schedule. It definitely doesn't have anything to do with the fact that he missed you when you weren't there.

He likes making schedules for you! You don't even have to worry about them being overbearing because he knows you so well that he takes anything you could possibly need into account. Two hours of uninterrupted alone time, one hour of de-stressing after social interaction, 45 minutes for lunch, an hour of hanging out with him, your wonderful boyfriend, etc etc. You can't even be mad because he just writes down a bunch of stuff you would've done anyway.

He gets sooo silly whenever you talk about his interests. Fully twirling his hair kicking his feet, blushing, tail swishing, "please...tell me more about your favorite times of day~"

He's a sucker for quality time, predictably. Any time you want to spend with him, he wants to spend with you. He'll even put you on his schedule and everything, though that does mean that on his busier days you have have to make an appointment in order to see him. He's a bit insufferable like that, but the look on his face when you finally show up is worth it. He's always so happy to see you <333

He has a lot of cat-like mannerisms that he never talks about but are super obvious. He purrs when he's happy (especially with you) and likes curling up on top of you with his full body weight on your chest. Even if you don't fall asleep next to him, you will very likely wake up to him staring you in the face and purring with the volume of a jet engine.

Will make biscuits on your back while you hug. He does not realize he does it. He also does it while you cuddle so he can nuzzle his face against your neck and curl his tail around you. Don't worry, those three hour cuddle sessions are all on his schedule so you've got him for the long haul.

His tail and ears often reflect how he feels, and it happens a lot when he gets flustered. Ears twitching and flattening against his head, tail swishing behind him or curling around your arm or back with a mind of its own (before you got together he was usually able to GRAB IT before it could get to you, but not always).

"My dear", "my love", "sweetheart"- his pet name game is so sappy. All said in his silly little catboy voice, too.

He's easily impressed by any sort of timekeeping/scheduling thing you do. It could literally just be you setting an alarm or putting something in your calendar and he'll think it's cool.

[zepay]

This is (hopefully) the first of many posts with reviews/recommendations of my favorite bagina fics! There's so many incredible fics that I think everyone should read, so hopefully I can give some much needed attention to them! If you ever catch yourself wanting to read a bagina fic, but don't want to go through the hundreds of spiderbit fics that they (supposedly) appear for half a scene, I made a spreadsheet with 100% real bagina content!!! (if a fic is missing please let me know, I still have to add some one of the most recent ones)

a rose quartz promise (the world surrendering its love)

When thinking about what to review first, this one immediately popped into my head. I remember savoring this fic when it came out because it was just too good to be true.

With AUs, I think there are two extremes to avoid. First is making the AU so different from the original that it feels like a completely different story with original character names slapped on top. Second is making things way too similar, creating something that doesn't explore new ideas but just copies existing ones into a slightly different setting.

This fic hits the perfect sweet spot. The sci-fi setting is compellingly different, but the QSMP references are tastefully done, grounding you while introducing different concepts and characters.

The character voices are absolutely top-notch - Tina's mannerisms and weird names (Brad, Mrouse, Tubward), Etoile's hilarious banter, Tubbo's "Slay's" - I could go on about every single character, but it's just incredible.

I'm a huge sucker for demon lore, and this totally delivers. Concepts from the original lore return here (resets, Tina's smell obsession and self-hatred for her horns), but exciting new ones are introduced, like their magic and Tina's more serious debt to Bad.

Bagi is expertly written too. Jorge gets mentioned, which is rare (understandably, since he was a stand-in for the viewer), and her determination and work obsession are well portrayed, along with her adorably pathetic flirting attempts...

The setting reminded me a lot of Citizen Sleeper, which is definitely a compliment - I love the dystopic-urban-intergalactic hellscape we get to see.

Some small details I loved: Tina's wardrobe is absolutely fire - she's always said she prioritizes fashion over function, and she slayed. All the eggs are super cute, and the action scene is awesome.

I have so much more to say, but I'd rather anyone who hasn't read it just go do it!! And if you enjoyed it, leave a nice comment - it's always super encouraging!

[thisuserislilsilly]

Summary: After our first meeting, I knew I had to make room in my tight schedule of laziness to invite Isolde somewhere nice, but the galaxy is always full of surprises

Genre: Action/fluff/wholesome/angst

Pairing: Crae Vullscat (Rogue Trader) x Isolde (Character belongs to @meervalv0 )

TW: Foul language, fluff, bit of smut (or smut implications), heavy subject implications, hints of mental and physical abuse, reader caution in some portions is advised, otherwise you can skip to another part of the one-shot or skip it entirely

SECTION WILL HAVE "******************************" AT THE START AND FINISH OF IT

Goblin tag squad: @finchly-tintinnabulation @meervalv0 @echo-of-damnation

@cardinalcanis @artemisareia @jaghatai-khock

@druidwolf21

I know is a gif from Arcane, shut up

I didn't saw my fair lady for a couple of standard Imperial years after our first encounter; partially because I needed to complete some contracts and deals with other Trader Houses and partially because I had, mostly, ran out of stories to tell her, which was what I thought at the time the only reason she had maintained contact with me at all. Once or twice the Tear's would get a message from her broadcast, asking how I was doing or what fun adventures my crew and I had taken part of; the usual reply was a short message to basically announce I was still alive and that life had gone it's natural course without many troubles or, well, "expected troubles" more than just being shot at by space pirates or your average local Xeno that thinks you are a threat for being part of one of the largest Imperiums in the galaxy that treats their kind not so nicely. Details, after all.

I had been practicing for weeks and months on end what I wanted to say, really, I did, I even had a spreadsheet with all of the possible starters and enders to a conversation I could think of. Knowing she was more of the strong silent murder hobo type of people I asked literally every strong silent murder hobo person I knew in my ship what they would think it was a good place to take a person out for a friendly conversation....nine out of ten told me to go into a giant arena and bash some skulls in; which I was not thrilled to suggest to Isolde taking into account she was so much bigger than me that in this case size mattered a hell of a lot. Nothing convinced me, nothing was good enough for her, for what she deserved to be called and engaged with; she was more than royalty for my father's beards, she was a damn Astartes at best, an higher ranking officer at worst! I was just a stupid, insignificant little Trader that had managed to entertain her long enough to captivate her attention.

Most of all, now that I have the power of looking back at it with other perspective, I was scared she was...real. I was afraid she truly felt something for me, even if it was as little as just friendship; those who knew me well were aware of this, Gertie many times tried to convince me of just dropping the subject, to realize it wasn't worth it to take risky missions and adventures into the unknown only to have a good story to tell and register on my diaries. He was right, he knew why this whole thing scared me more than the Xenos we fought and the heretics we sacked, she had lasted more than any other past fling I ever had or ever would have after her if that chance didn't work out. Gertie and my crew had rebuilt me once, they didn't want to see me torn into pieces again.

Finally one day my crew and I were unpacking some strange artifacts we had picked up in unregistered worlds I received the message I was longing for; she would had a chance at resting, the war campaign she and her legion had been fighting on was drawing to it's closure. She had time to see me. Words fail to express the joy that came over me; faster than a mutant running away from an Inquisitor I threw whatever I had on my hands onto the cargo hold, hurried up every crew member that was packing stuff to do it faster and I am pretty sure than in all the messy crowd of the space port one or two of my retinue was left behind because of how fast I wanted to get out into the Warp and subsequently on the same region in which Isolde was going to be on.

"Can you slow down, Lord Captain, and tell me why the hell are we in such a hurry? Are we being chased by one of your crazy crushes once again? Have heretics discovered you were scamming them? The Ecclesiarchy has finally tried to indoctrinate you into their Imperial Truth?" I heard Gertie heavy breath as I ran up and down my ship looking for my spreadsheets of flirting "No! Nonononono my dear Seneschal, something much better! Lady Isolde has finally some time for herself! Out there, in some fracking system, she is actually resting and off the battlefield! Do you know what this means!?!?!" I shook Gertie in excitement "You are gonna finally carry her to your bed chambers?!?!" "Yes!....I mean no, no I will be finally able to go on a romantic walk with her!" "Ah....wait a date!?!?!?! Sir-....Sir what do you mean a date!!?!?" Gertie stuttered

I could only laugh like a maniac up to this point; as far as I understood it, every second counted if I wanted to have an opportunity of meeting Isolde again in peaceful times. It was this set of thoughts what led me to boss the Navigator around to make the longest Warp jump they had ever done in the fastest route onto Isolde current system whereabouts. Looking back, I should had thought in the inevitable consequences of that irrational order, but not even the Emperor himself would had been able to convince me of not doing it at that moment, such was my rush to get there on time.

This next part is well known by many historians that have covered Vullscat House so I won't be adding too much into the events that transpired whenever the Navigator raised a prayer to the Emperor and took the Warp jump that blew their head off by how potent it had been and that told every Daemon in the Immaterium that there were some fresh meat trapped in a vessel coursing through their realm ready to be eaten by their demonic mouths and digested on their inhuman bellies. I never payed attention to the classes on the topic of Daemons and the manifestations of the Immaterium in my Schola Administratum days so I will spare the reader from my blunt and simple descriptions of those creatures, that would had inevitably boil down to "This one was uglier than my mother, that one had the face of my sister for a moment before I blew their heads off, the one I killed next was as red as my combipistol" etcetera and etcetera.

I won't do that and, frankly, I found that travel too uninteresting to even add it to my personal memoirs, I am sure all will know it by now if the reader has ever read something else about the Vullscat's or a Imperial book detailing the most recent and extraordinary events that have occurred in the Warp.

Editor's Note: What Crae is referring to here is the infamous "Battle at the future's hells", the Tear's made one of the boldest and largest Void jumps that has ever been registered on Imperial Records, approximately traveling 27 different systems and galaxy regions in the span of two Materium days, but that took years on the Warp for every traveler that had the misfortune of witnessing and living it. Product of the long perilous journey, Daemons and one Greater Daemon of rot manifested themselves onboard of the ship, initiating a battle with the human cohort of the Tears that saw the death of 3/4ths of the crew, only managing to survive a few deck officers, Crae, his Seneschal Gertie and a Ecclesiarchy priest that would later on abandon their religion and live a life of a farmer until their final days in an Agri-World never getting over the horrors that they experienced in the ship. In addendum to that already incredible story of survival, it is believed Crae and his crew saw one of the many possible futures of the Imperium of Mankind but the man has been too stupid, or stubborn, to recollect any of what he saw on the voyage and the event is never recalled again in his memoirs; in consequence, all of what is left of that bold journey through the Immaterium are the broken recollections of now atheist former member of the Imperial Truth and the half truths of the Vullscat Seneschal, that has vowed themselves to not reveal anything and carry the knowledge to their deaths.

Whenever me and the five...ten....twenty crew members that had survived the journey exited the grasps of the Warp the Emperor blessed me and my luck once again by finding Isolde ship just as they were making the preparations for a Void jump. I immediately broadcasted to them of my arrival and the most urgent of requests to have the opportunity of seeing Isolde once again. Also because we were so short on staff I requested (begged if I have to be honest) for some of their serfs and servitors to be borrowed by the Tears as we explored nearby planets to recruit some more that could fill the ranks that had been vacant since the flesh of my previous comrades was still fresh in the walls, ceilings and apparatus of the command ship. Luckily the Ship throne had been left intact, if one could see past the Chaos corruption that had impregnated the artifact and the never-ending whispers that would stain my personal command chair for years to come; my only consolation to that fact is that the voices have passed the point of convincing me to commit suicide or submit to dark powers to just feel pity for me and start complaining about all the noise my inner voice makes whenever I am using the throne.

The ships made contact again, the ports between the two spread out so the bridges collided and the Marines formed a line like they had done in the past, standard stuff that had honestly wore off it's might once I had realized it would be a custom that would repeat every single bloody time I made contact with an Adeptus Astartes ship....fun.

As I slipped pass the Marines of the area, giving them the big ol' "I know your boss, let me through" management speech, my feet carried me to the entrance of Isolde room, I just needed to knock and let my presence be known to her. Or, well, more like letting her know I was already there, she would've been kinda told about my general arrival there taking into account I was seemingly the only human being that willingly wanted to see her in the entire ship, red flags? Pfft nah, that was a gift. So there I was, knocking three times and taking a little step back as you do your first time asking someone out, like in college or your average Astra Progenium halls just to get rejected by Margarett you fucking imbecile that had the balls to dare not take my hand to the ball and instead take BLOODY JONATHAN AND HIS SHITTY STUPID WIG-.

Like I was writing before, I knocked three times and nervously awaited for her to arrive, with her loud footsteps getting closer and closer to the door, holding tightly the little piece of paper where I had written my notes to not just stare at her with big eyes and nothing else; the moment finally arrived when the metallic door slid open and her gorgeous visage appeared in front of me only dressed with a simple robe having hanged her armor on one of the far ends of her chambers. She raised one of her eyebrows, most likely expecting me to explain what I was doing there when this sudden and very rare shyness took over my entire body. One I had never felt before, not even the first time I held hands with Margarett and confessed my love only for her to just refuse it and talk about sweet precious Jonathan having conquered her heart and soul and the prospect of getting married to that asshole that most likely cheated on her ass as it was the obvious thing he was going to do it was so Emperor's damm obvious he was just a playboy out to get her SON OF A BITCH.

Editors note: We have purposely jumped to the end of the page and audio log to spare the dear readers and listeners from the ramblings of a man that hadn't gotten over a breakup that had occurred ten years ago.

Minutes passed as Isolde kept looking at the nervous fragile tiny little me stuttering to get a word in after constantly checking my notes over conversation starters until I blurted out just before her hand could reach the door switch

"My fair lady Isolde, I have humbly cum-come to your chambers to ask of you if your highness could...perhaps...maybe" I tried to articulate as best as I could fidgeting with my fingers "Go out with me" "What use would it be to visit the decks of the ship?" Isolde asked, always the pure innocent beautiful lady "No, I uh, no I wasn't referring to literally cu-cOME outside to the hallways, I meant leaving the ship to go out into the planet we have landed on...the two of us...alone....to distract ourselves from the voyage and whatever may be troubling our souls...and...minds..."

If I had to compare my starter to those I have done before and after that day had passed, or if I had to be brutally honest with myself a Rattling high on the most wildest and spicy combination of banned drugs across the Imperium could had gotten their point across faster and efficiently than whatever had just spill out of my mouth that moment. Luckily Isolde does not remember that, she has told me she just recalls how nervous I was and how "adorable" my mumbling sounded; which credit where credit is due, I prefer she reminisces about that moment qualifying me as cute rather than an idiot.

Isolde only laughed at my comment, genuinely having fun with my stupid stuttering and confusing words, I giggled awkwardly to not make the moment worse for my reputation and extended my hand out to her as too symbolize my intentions of walking out of there with her. It would had been a good gesture, really it would've, if not by the fact my hand barely reached hers and I had to walk on my tiptoes if I wished to maintain that gesture all the way to one of her ships shuttles. My physique didn't last that long holding on to her hand, I got tired and dislocated my arm after the third step as she waved me around making my tiny little bone have a panic attack inside of me and popped out of it's intended position; I pretended that nothing had happened and excused myself as I went to a corner and bashed my arm against the wall to forcefully pop the bone right into it's original place; I screamed out of pain whenever that idiotic plan to fix that situation worked, I never told it to anyone but my arm spent months healing itself afterwards and still today whenever I move my arm I can see the bone making contact with my skin...at least it's a funny thing to brag about in parties now whenever I am drunk.

Anyways with or without my arm hurting like the seven hells of the Warp (don't look at their eyes Crae...don't remember their eyes...) we made it to one of the bigger shuttles that actually fit her large frame while leaving me feeling small, my feet were left dangling from the seat whenever I took one of the chairs close to Isolde (for comfort, of course), the only thought that crossed my mind at that point is how the emergency straps would protect Isolde quite efficiently if anything happened but wouldn't even manage to keep me on the chair as my frame was so little I could literally pass my arms and entire body between the bars with no problem whatsoever. I shook that feeling out of my mind as Isolde sighed next to me and looked down at my frame with a gaze I couldn't guess what it could've meant, but looked like if a lion or some hunting animal had their sights on me, weirdly enough.

"So...where are we going?" She finally broke the silence "We arrrrre going toooooo land in..." I mumbled as my finger passed through different name locations on the screen "Domecracka....! It has good drinks, there's a review saying their dishes are not totally disgusting and a restaurant critic just gave it three stars by the ambience alone! Perfect place to spend a good time" "And what we will do there, Sir Crae?" Isolde spoke so gently I felt like I was in the clouds "Why, dance of course! And drink too, maybe sing a few songs if we are lucky and the booths are empty today" I pressed the destination and the shuttle departed from the ship towards the planet surface "What are these activities you speak of? Is there blood to be spilled?" The lady looked down at her sword "Not at all, there we will just be able to sit back and enjoy a cold one while listening to some tunes and talk about-" I looked down at my hand where I had scribbled some prompts "Life in general!" "Huh, it will be a calm battlefield then" She murmured "Uh I think if you take battle out of that word you would be right on the money" I chuckled "What money?" "Well this is gonna be a long date..." I whispered and leaned back on the chair, seeing through one of the shuttle windows how we were about to do planetfall

I will never forget the look of awe in the face of Isolde whenever we exited the shuttle and stood in front of the big pub before us. It is what I like to remember of that first time, not the weird looks the pedestrian around gave us when passing by our side. I waved my hand to invite her to go inside, rambling on about how she was going to enjoy this and how it was now some time strictly for us; it was my way to tell her I hoped nobody, not her "battle-brothers" or serfs, would disturb us by sending messages or Vox audios through her communication systems or anything of the sort, but Isolde took that rambling quite literally when she threw her helmet out to one of the servitors at the entrance of the inn and told them to keep it until she returned for it. I simply shrugged and smiled, she looked completely out of her field there, which was a good thing, it meant she was trying new stuff.

We searched for a seat in sight of the dance floor and where the roof wasn't too low so she could actually sit comfortably. Once again there were a couple of stares headed our way from other patrons, who had most likely never seen someone like Isolde anywhere near those places. She wasn't paying attention to them however, she was looking straight at me, to how I moved, when I ordered some light beverages to kickstart the whole conversation, when I made her look around to see our surroundings and define with sights what a "pub" was and what people usually did there; she was just soaking everything up, listening attentively to everything I was saying, her head was hung low on the table to look at me better. I...I felt seen, I felt someone was paying attention to my ramblings and my words for the first time in perhaps my entire life. Gertie and the crew had their own ways to block out my words and interpret what I wanted to say, but Isolde was listening to all of the words that were coming out of my mouth, no matter how much I jumped from topic to topic.

She didn't say much at first, taking a much more passive role only listening and doing some sounds for me to understand she was still paying attention to me. I rambled on and on about my adventures, then when that had dried up I said a couple of things about the stuff I was wearing or the cargo back in the ship, I even spoke about where I had gotten the Tears and why I had named it that way. Just blurting out anything I had in my mind, anything that could be counted as topics. Isolde was just present, listening, silent, hooked. When the first row of drinks arrived at our table I realized how much I had been talking, I hadn't even given her the chance of speaking up, of commenting something by herself; I cursed when the reality settled in, I had been dumber than an Ogryn and more rude than a commissar that whole time.

"I...uh....sorry for speaking too much I-I...was so excited to be here with you that...um..." I looked downwards, ashamed of my actions "I was listening" She bluntly spoke up, leaning her head against her arms "Yeah but I didn't let you have a go at speaking to me" I coughed to clear my throat "But...I don't have anything to say, your stories are interesting, captivating" She placed a finger on her cheek "Well...you can say stuff, like whatever you want! This doesn't have to be an interrogation or anything of the sort, you know? In here you can just...talk" "What do you mean just talk? Like I don't have to wait for my turn?" Her eyes lightened up "Yeah, you can just...go to town with it!" I smiled "But how can I-" "Like this" I interrupted abruptly, making her eyes open widely "You just-" She pointed at me "I did" "Stop...stop tha-" "Interrupt me" I teased, smirking" "I-I will-!" "Too slow" "Well you aren't talking mu-" "Did it again" I leaned back in my chair as sassy as I could "I'll punch y-" Her cheeks went red "Nah, you won't" "I wi-!" "You won't!" I pointed a finger at her "Yes I w-" "Nuh uh" "Yuh uh!" I almost fell off my chair at that tender moment "Nuh-" "I will!" Her smile widened as she interrupted me "Hah! I did it" "Pfft that? That was just lu-" I smiled when I saw her opening her mouth again "Nope!" Now it was Isolde turn to have a smug smile "It wasn't" "Alri-" "Nah!!" She giggled "Excuse m-?" I pretended to act all offended

We kept on going with the banter for a few minutes, that little game between us, some little space where I felt like a kid making friends again; like if for a while the space surrounding us had faded into the background, I could only hear her voice, she could only hear mine. We were two little stars on a void of endless war and suffering, two laughs between sobs and oaths of vengeance. It was what I wanted to make possible for once in my life, just once, I felt I had a normal life.

"Okay okay...tell me something about yourself now" I wiped a tear out of my face "What is there to say? I serve the Emperor and-" "Uuuuuuuuuuuuugh boooooring" I dragged out the words and rolled my eyes back "Well what am I supposed to say!?!?" She giggled, offended "I don't know your...your brothers! Or your dad, tell me something about them" I shrugged "Well...." Isolde thought for a moment "I used to watch the older Dark Angels train with their swords and plasma rifles...I held my first weapon at, Emperor when was it? I was five?" "Alright, alright we are making some advances, that's good" I took a swig out of my glass "Now tell me something that doesn't include training or killing" "Wha-you just banned half of my life there!" She pouted "Well then fucking tell me about the half I didn't ban!" "My dad used to take me and my brother out for a walk in every single forest we ran into when he was on war campaigns" Isolde drank from her own cup and with the tip of her fingers she made little circles on the edges of the cup "I always got impatient and ran off ahead of them so they could hurry up" "You weren't too much of a fan to look at the scenery?" "No, no I was; just that Leon and dad always walked slower and got on my nerves" Isolde chuckled "Damm, that's an interesting name for a child" Crae pointed out as he grabbed his glass and was about to drink from it "It sounds almost like the Primarch" "Of course it does, Lion named him and mom named m-"

Isolde didn't got to finish the phrase before I spat all of the drink I had in my mouth to the robes of Isolde. My face turned pale, holy fucking shitting Emperor's dick Isolde was the daughter of a fucking PRIMARCH and I was about to propose HAVING SEX with her after hanging out ON A DATE. I couldn't believe it, I couldn't begin to imagine how fucked I was at that moment if I didn't immediately stand up and get the fuck out of there before it was too late and I screwed it up even more than what I already was.

Meanwhile Isolde had opened her eyes widely and looked down at her, now slightly wet, robe. She probably didn't realize what had just happened, what hanging out with me at that moment really meant, hell I wasn't even sure she could understand what that whole date was trying to imply. She had just been spit on by the man that had just made her say a good fond memory. I had to fix that too before she ripped my head off from a single punch.

"Oh for the love of all the Saints I am so sorry Lady Isolde, Mistress Isolde, venerable daughter of all that is pure and holy-" My voice began to break as I grabbed a towel and tried to help her "It-it-it's okay Crae, don't-" Isolde blinked twice "Oh sweet lady of the Angels of the Emperor I ask for your forgiveness on my intrusion of your sacred body in this terrible hour, I plead for my life if it isn't too late already, I don't have kids or a wife at home to feed but I have a little bird named Pidgey that would get mad at me if I don't return to pet it-" I began to ramble out of sheer panic, it didn't help that some of the beer had fallen on her chest area...that I was now touching "What are you talking about!?!?! Why did you change your mannerisms all of the sudden?!?!?" I think she genuinely began to worry that my brain had just collapsed inside of my head, or that I had gone mad "I-I-I....you are the daughter of a Primarch and I just got you to a bar that isn't even the best one there is around here that has some scumbags and mercenaries around oh fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck-" My head was spinning, heart was beating faster, I had what the kids call a nervous breakdown "Crae.....Crae......" Isolde looked directly at my eyes as I was still trying to make things right "I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked I'm fucked-" At this point of the story I don't have any words to add, just read how nervous I was for fuck sake "Crae...I am not my father and I know where I am" Isolde spoke calmly, lifting my chin to look at her directly "I don't wanna be judged by the High Lords of Terra for treason and wanting to sleep with a Primarch's daughter I swear I just thought you were a mutant of some sorts that was just big or that the abuse of drugs throughout my younger years started to affect my perception of reality-" I was shivering

Just like our last meeting, Isolde stood up and lifted me up by the arms to her eye level, my feet were dangling in the air flailing about, my arms went limp to the sides and my eyes stared right at Isolde's. The always confident and totally cool with the ladies Crae Vullscat had been reduced to a mumbling shivering scared nervous fucking mess, not even the most retarded of Orks or intelligent amongst the Ogryns could had ever done justice or come close to the amount of shame I was irradiating from my body movements right about then. Twenty year old me would've shot himself if he had seen me at that moment. Hell even fifty year old present me would had shot myself a couple of times at that moment.

The gesture got it's results though, as my heart rate slowly went down and I took quick and shaky deep breaths to calm myself, Isolde stared at me throughout the whole endeavor like a mother looks at it's problematic child whenever they throw a fit. If I didn't care that other's were watching now I may had been able to notice how everyone including the bartender and a guy that was being shank in the corner of the inn were with their jaws stuck to the floor. As my brain connected itself again to my body, the initial fear was slowly replaced by....pride; fuck yeah I had invited a daughter of a Primarch to go on a date! I had all the charisma on the world to do it! It was coming out great actually, so why didn't the whole universe just suck it up? I was going to do the unthinkable, the stuff legends were made out of! I was going to go absolutely into town with her, might as well just have the roughest, meanest, wildest sex no human had ever gotten with a Primarch descendant and record it firmly in my brain so every detail, thrust, bite, nimble, tit squeeze, suck of my cock, a little bit of biting or choking the hell out of me could be forever in my mind to retell with the outmost detail as possible! I wanted to shout now, to howl in victory, I didn't need to go on dates and fail at them miserably because everyone just considered me a sex toy to explore and sink their little cucks into so they could suck the life out of me and only please themselves while I was left to bear the scars alone of a full life without any kind of sexual gratification and only receiving the low ends of my entire existence just so years later I could reflect I had been used and discarded time and time again until my perception of love had been completely altered and shattered because of my heavy past experiences with manipulative fucks.

Editor's note: To preserve his memoirs as intact as possible, we as editors had to include this and not censor any of the raw thoughts that bubbled to the surface. Just to show the man beyond the smiles, as a team we are not ashamed to show his reality.

Where....where did I had left the story again? Oh...yeah the excitement.

"I...you can put me down now, I'm better" I stuttered ever so slightly "You sure there are no more panic attacks or weird spacing out?" Isolde asked sincerely "I'm...sure" I blinked as she delicately placed me again on the ground, coughing awkwardly

I returned to my own chair in silence, looking down at the beer and just chugging it all down before asking for another round, to hell with it, I was just going to let it all flow just like I was doing it before. With the dizziness of the drink still in effect, I told Isolde to continue with her stories and after a moment of hesitation she did just that, telling me about her youth with her dad, the Lion no less, and her brother, the places she had visited and how closely they all were. A big family, with a big heart as well, they all seemed to get along fine and dandy; which inadvertently lead down to the one topic I didn't want to be on the receiving end of.

***********************************************************************

"So...how was your childhood? What adventures did you have?" She leaned forward, ready to listen "Well...fine...normal like any other. I just stick to go into the Schola where I could learn a few things of the trade and then returned to command the ship that I have ow" I evaded details like the plague "Oh come on I know there must be something else! I just told you mine!" Isolde flustered her eyes, much to my dismay "My little sister always tried to kill me, I just remember us playing with knives as kids and her taking it so seriously" I shrugged "She did what?" Her face turned to a scowl "Yeah, I was the heir like all firstborn children are, so that was honestly almost expected of her" "And your father just rolled with that?" She raised an eyebrow "He couldn't, he was dead" I sighed and stared at my half empty glass "What...?" Her expression changed again "Yeah...the inquisition got him by the time I was ten...I never really had too much of a connection with him, but that's what got me to the Progenium so early in life...my mom didn't had the resources for her t manage the wealth of the Vullscat's because my dad obviously didn't left a will for those things, so I was the heir until I could claim that right" "How was the Schola?" That dreadful question finally came

I stood there in silence for a minute, pondering what to say. Nobody, not even me, wanted to hear how a kid was bullied by their entire class because of the suspicions that had killed his dad, neither nobody wanted to touch or kiss a "tainted" by the Chaos creature like me except for that...woman. For whom I own "growing up so fast" at my late childhood and early teen years. I knew that nobody would believe anyways that a Sister of Silence touched by Slaneesh would ever hide amongst the ranks of the officers of a institution so important like the Schola Progenium and "punish" that child for the sins of his father. Dooming his innocence by her touch forever...

"It was...what I needed to survive" I said in a whisper as to not break down into tears "You don't have to tell me" Isolde placed a hand on mine "Thank you" I looked up at her, my eyes were wet. That touch meant everything, she wouldn't realize it until years later

I wiped the tears off from my face with the sleeve of my uniform, pushing the memories to the back of my head sighing, she didn't need to know, I couldn't spoil something like that, tell her those things on the first serious date I had with her; who would ever get a second date after dropping a bomb on them like that? Nobody, that's who, nobody.

**********************************************************************

Some time passed, unknown to me, I couldn't calculate it then and I still have troubles to do it now, I just remember the music blaring behind us, inviting daring couples to join the dance floor. That was enough to snap out from the mind hellhole I had sank into; I looked up at Isolde, who was still quiet out of respect for the nerve she had inadvertently touched by her last question, and took one of her hands and squeezed it; the faint joys of being around her returning once more to my head.

"Have you ever danced before?" I asked shaking her hands "Yes, I have, sword fighting-" Isolde blinked "Not that....dancing! You know, moving your body to the beat of the music and just closing your eyes and letting the flow get to ya?" I nodded "Oh like chanting of the veterans when they pray to the Emperor?" "....You don't know how to dance...okay let's go" I stood up from the chair and walked over to her, offering a hand "Where?" She giggled "To teach you how to dance, just follow me"

Switching to the arm I hadn't broke yet because of her "handle" of my wobbly human body, I carried her to the center of the inn, everyone watched but I didn't care, Isolde did though when she nervously chuckled and looked around; that facade of formality was completely gone, we couldn't go back to it even if we tried, there was something so unique about it all, it was a change indescribable but real, I felt it, she did too, I like to believe. The trance of her form and eyes had distracted me from the obvious height difference that impede us from forming a true duet; that sucked. So close yet so far from teaching her how to enjoy one of the most beautiful things of being alive and to be human. I couldn't allow it from separating us.

"Now what...?" She noticed our problem too, kneeing to be at my level "No no, don't do that, you can't truly feel like dancing that way...uh...one second" I raised a finger and smirked

I had watched one of the big burly boys that the local planetary system had for their defenses the moment I entered the bar, at first thinking they'll be intimidating but now some other ideas were running through my mind. I ran towards them, all cocky and sure of myself, tapped their shoulder and began to use my charming personality and the privileges of having someone bigger than him behind me as a backup.

"Oi you" I raised both of my eyebrows "What ye want" He looked down on me "I need you for something, how much you charge for the hour" It wasn't a question, I was demanding "Heh heh heh, ye drunk lad, go bother someone else" The big chunky motherfucker thought that would be enough to sway me "Look that's alright, I'll go bother that tall lady...see her? She's bigger than you and right about now she's my friend. You want me to call her here so she can ask you the same question?" I pointed at Isolde, that froze in place at the sight of being pointed at "Twenty" The man spat on the ground "Well that's not so ba-" I shrugged "Thousand credits, or beer for a year here" The big boi laughed at me, actually thinking I hadn't heard that tactic before "How about two hundred thousand big guy" I smirked

The fool didn't even let me finish the thought, just grumbled and stood up. I smiled and we walked back to where Isolde as. She was completely stunned at the sight of someone joining us, like a dandry lizard on the headlights of a roadsounder. I waved my hand in front of her to signal everything was okay, then I shifted my attention to the big guy and pointed to the ground.

"Right, sit, I need to get in your shoulders" "Ye wha-?" He started to protest "Ah, ah, ah" I shook my finger "What about your money?" "Ugh...fimsddskfine" He mumbled and sat on the ground

With the skill honed by a thousand ship boardings I jumped elegantly onto the shoulders of the man and nodded, he lifted me up with all his strengths holding me tightly by the legs; then once I had my point of balance in order I moved my left leg slightly so the man repeated the motion and took a step forward, then I did the same with the right leg and once again the man copied my moves. That is where the fun truly began.

"Isolde...I need you to take my hands" I extended my limbs towards her, trying to keep balance "Crae this is-" Isolde hadn't stopped laughing since she guessed what I was about to do, holding her belly "Just do it!" I said chuckling

Once our fingers were intertwined the lesson truly began. I instructed her that at the sound of the beat she needed to move to one side, then the other, then to the first position once again, then do a spin and so on and so forth. She slowly caught up to my instructions, her body prepared for a thousand techniques and combat stances slowly shook those learnt steps off and started to just improvise, be free on the movements of her heart and soul, soon Isolde was just a blur of white and blue; dancing around me and the guy who could barely keep up with her much to my fucking dismay. Such a beautiful moment I was catching just glimpses of because the fucker with the big belly wasn't moving at her rhythm.

"Keep up with her come on!" I grunted in frustration "OI SHE MOVES TOO FA-" "I DO NOT GIVE A SHIT, YOU MOVE WITH HER, AT HER PACE OR I SWEAR TO THE EMPEROR AND MY ANCESTORS THAT I WILL BREAK YOUR LEGS AND THEN USE YOUR WOBBLY CHUBBY CORPSE TO FEED MY CREW FOR AN ENTIRE FUCKING YEAR SO THEN YOUR CARCASS CAN BE IMPALED ON THE TOP OF MY SHIP AND USED AS A FLAG FOR ALL THE WARP ENTITIES TO SEE YOUR MISERABLE PILE OF SHIT-!" I couldn't explain exactly if I said that out of frustration or I was already too enthusiastic with Isolda to say anything else

The man just stood there silently, seemingly taking the offense very close to his chest; he kept up with the best pace he could, but the lady being a holy beautiful blessed being as just she could be, Isolde was too fast even at his best efforts. I was losing time, tempo and the opportunity to be with her. I grunted and decided to go for one of the most craziest things I had ever done...

"Isolde....catch me!" "Wha-!?!?" She couldn't go further than that when I suddenly jumped out of the arms of the man to land into her chest "What are you doing!?!?" "Just imagine I can touch the ground....! Keep going!"

Isolde hesitated at first, but then kept going. I moved like a rag doll in her arms, holding tightly to not accidentally be launched straight into a wall and turn to "Shait'e Cremieré" on contact with it; but soon enough I managed to intertwine one hand with her and then the other, squeezing her. She understood the assignment and soon enough she was holding me by the waist with one hand and with the other we were holding each other. It was like a balls...if one partner was much larger than the other one that had their feet comically dangling. We locked eyes, we shared laughs and giggles over how silly this whole situation was; under that light, the disco ball reflecting colors unto the dance floor and her face, did I saw her for all of her beauty and heart.

Those once I believed white hair showed it's true colors, I saw it blonde, her beautiful silky smooth hair looked like the sun I always wanted to see whenever I woke up to in the mornings, those two pearls for eyes she had were all the treasures I wished to have and never let go of, that strong tight grip in her hands was what I wanted to pin me in bed whenever we would love each other. I died that day, I died in those warm, squishy, beautiful, comfortable arms of hers. I would go there, write about it, talk about it and return to that moment each and every second of the rest of my life. Those precious minutes I wanted to savor and save in a bottle to never lose them.

I never will, for as long as I live, forget my first dance with my wife.

The music faded, the laughter subsided and gave way for the realization, she stopped moving and I was left there, hanging from her arms, held dearly in them. I lifted my hand with care towards her cheek, caressing it. I coughed to clear my throat and then I delivered what I think were the words that finally showed I was at her mercy forever more.

"Will you lend me the honor and privilege...of kissing you, Isolde?" "You may, Sir Crae" She replied, sweetly.

Editor's note: For as lovely as Crae describes in the next sentences this kiss, footage of that night shows it was everything but ordered and tender. In the personal opinion of the editor, it was messy and sexily unhinged as all hell.

Our lips touched like two puzzle pieces meant to compliment each other, I felt my lips slowly depart as her tongue introduced itself on my mouth, to be fair and not romantic at all I almost choked on it, really, when someone is big in height everything else is big as well so her tongue was already having difficulties to go in my mouth, could you imagine, whoever the heck is reading this, her just pushing a little harder inside of my mouth? If it wasn't for the heat of the moment I would've been trying to stop her before she choked me to death with her tongue. But as a gentleman, I resisted the temptation to stop her, only lightly pushing her so Isolde could get the idea.

Editor's note: The kiss involved their tongues, a lot of saliva, Crae in fact CHOKING for a couple of seconds, inhaling deeply and going again repeating the motion in a morbid yet fascinating display of endurance.

From there I don't know how did we got a room for ourselves, hell I don't remember how we even fit the key in their respective hole when opening the door as we were focused on each other. For not kissing never before in her life and never having these kinds of human connections, I gotta admit Isolde really was a beast on the department of giving kisses even before we practiced how to do less than messy ones after the fact. However what we did not accounted for due to her inexperience was....the intimate moments of having sex.

"Take your robe off..." I panted as I took my shirt off in one single motion "What?" She caught her breath "Yeah your clothes, we-w-we...I mean I thought we were gonna-" I left the phrase hanging "Going to do what?" That....that was a genuine question of hers "Sex? Intercourse...some people call it the horny time or hanky panky-" "Don't ever say those words again" "....Yup that was weird" I scratched the back of my head, what an idiot "How do we manage to do...sex?" She said the word like if it was in another completely different language "With our clothes off" "Then how would we....defend ourselves?" "Pffft from what?!?!?" I was trying really hard to not laugh at her innocence "If an enemy attacks...?" She implied it was so obvious "Nobody is going to attack you here Isolde, trust me" "You would protect me?" She arched an eyebrow "Well I always come ready with one envelope just in case" "You put your sword in an envelope?" "Oh yeah...." "Wouldn't it be too big to fit in it?" "Somehow I make it work" "You gotta teach m-" "Oh my Emperor you were referring to a real sword..." The realization dawning on me made me giggle for a second before biting my lower lip

There was an awkward silence that followed me almost falling from the bed after she had ever so innocently not catch the double meaning of our conversation at all....it felt too cruel to spell it out for her at the moment, it would ruin both the fun and the otherwise pretty intimate moment we were having there. Beneath all of the smirks and jokes I was still a bit afraid that the worries of Gertie and the rest about...what could happen if I actually went through with it was not the most comforting thought ever but I got rid of those thoughts when I thought of Isolde; this was going to be her first time, I had to at least make it good.

It was weird, not starting or anything of the sorts, she herself was fine, very fine, perhaps too perfect under the robes that had held her visage hidden from me. It reminded me of those old Terran books in which Xenos beyond human comprehension told some very scared humans to "not be afraid" as if seeing a ball of eyes and wings descending on them wasn't excuse enough to be afraid and pull out a bolter to start blasting. That same feeling was what I felt at the moment of seeing her naked body and her boobs; I could've cried from the happiness of knowing I was the first man seeing them but I controlled myself just in time.

I am pretty sure her amusement and awe grew too when she saw my cock though; I don't mean to brag but there was a reason I had said before I was the victim of a lot of advantages and usage of my body for purely political and ethical reasons in the past. Oh yeah, a lotta people had used my private parts to get what they wanted out of me and then discard me....what a great fucking thing to brag about I'll stop now.

Editor's note: Not commenting on if the dick measurement was true or not, this editor sincerely adds that from now on those self degrading commentaries about himself will. be censored and not included, both for the readers immersion in Crae tales and to keep a bit of his honor and figure

First impressions aside, it took a while for us to exactly get how....the events were going to play out, due to a quick study of the situation of our differences in....height tolf us pretty quickly we were gonna have problems on that department. Sure nowadays we can do it no problem knowing the ways and limits of one another, but for our first time things weren't so...clear. To make our story short and spare the details of embarrassing attempts, I asked as gently as I could for Isolde to relax and lay in bed, slightly spreading her legs and stay in that position. I aimed, like that, to please her first and then see if I could had some too, rubbing circles with my fingers around her lips to make the flow more bearable and quickly set the mood for her.Isolde responded with some faint but pretty indicative moans, telling me I was headed the right way, even when it was hard for me to tell taking into account it was almost as big as my bloody mouth.

We went well for the first couple of minutes, carrying the process slowly but gently, once my fingers were wet enough I introduced two of them, gently once again, into her insides. Isolde moved around somewhat but still managed to enjoy more than think in what we were doing. Feeling bold I made the one mistake that would end this whole chapter of our relationship in a comical yet still fond way. You see I must have triggered some fight or flight response, particularly the first part of that response, when I placed my head and lips directly on Isolde pussy; to make it "special" I thought in not telling her about this, to make the sensations surprise her in the best of ways.

Little did I know that as soon as she felt my tongue inside of her, her left leg went up to the sky, shook for one second and then came down crashing against my head. The impact made my body bounce off from the bed and down I went to the floor, managing to hear in my last second of consciousness: "Crae....? Crae???? OH BY THE EMPEROR CRA-!"

[lotusclans-luck]

Do you have any tips or recommendations for someone who wants to make their own comic based on their ClanGen save?

ooh man Well. take this with a grain of salt because i am definitely not an expert on storytelling Or clangen stuff lol ! but heres what id suggest/what i do:

log/write down what happens every moon, patrol, etc. personally i write down EVERYTHING (moons, patrols, some relationship events, and each cats personal status) so im certain i dont miss any potential details/scenes i want to add. however this does leave you with way more information than you'll need in the long run so feel free to just log what you want to! dont go overboard if you dont want to

when writing down everything make sure its organized in a way you'll understand later. for example, i use google spreadsheets and have all the information grouped into specific sheet pages; from there i list everything according to which Moon it happened in for timelines sake

if you dont like something that happened ingame and you want to void it because its inaccurate for the story, Void it. If you want to move an event to a different moon so it makes more sense in the story, Do it. you dont have to include every single thing that happens either, pick things you like or think would work best for the story. its all up to you and should be something you're having fun with!

make sure your character designs are ones you'll be able to draw over and over again– dont feel like you cant get creative with them, just keep in mind youll be drawing these characters so so so many times so make sure youre prepared for that

i cant think of much else off the top of my head.. i kind of just do what i Feel like doing theres no real rhyme or reason to it.. as long as you're having fun bringing these characters to life , you're doing it right !!

[lavender-long-stories]

Hello!

For the ask game

14. Where do you get your inspiration?

And/or

17. What's your writing process like?

Thank you for your time!

14. Where do you get your inspiration?

Well, my answer for this used to be (and still in part is) my own stories because there is nothing like writing an interaction with a side character that triggers the 'oh no, they are cute' in you or watching some kind of media would sometimes make me want to write something in a similar theme, genre or vibe.

However, now the answer would maybe be 50% that and 50% the existence of @nikandrros because even if I come up with the idea myself if I bounce it off of Nari, it will come back at me with force, and that force can cause us to spiral into talk about it until we have a full plot in 4 hours. Also, Nari can sneeze, and for some reason, my brain goes, 'I should give a character a cold.' They are a gem.

17. What's your writing process like?

Oh boy.

So. My writing process is both the most erratic and the most organized thing you will ever see.

Keeping track of the date chapters go out? What chapters are done? Edited? Should it be done within the month to keep on personal timeline goals? SPREADSHEETS, CHARTS, MULTIPLE NOTION BOARDS PERFECTLY CURATED.

I can tell you right now how many words and chapters I have written for every completed or ongoing story that I have written in the last two years. I can tell you WHEN I finished a chapter. I can tell how many chapters I need to edit at a glance (the answer is currently 47 o.o help).

My actual story writing process?

Basically, a page that has a pile of, usually unorganized, notes that are everything from 'cute kiss under a tree' to 'Hanabi kills a man and full details on how' on one side and a 'plot' on the other.

The 'plot' is usually a list of vaguely described scenes (what happens and who is in POV) that normally spans no more than 5 chapters ahead of where I am currently writing. When I am out, I sit down and plan the next few scenes and repeat forever. I used to not plot scenes at all and write completely from a blank page and notes, but I found that this system sped up my actual chapter writing without compromising my preferred write-the-plot-as-I-go style.

Sometimes, I know where I am going and have to figure out how I get there because the first 50 chapters have been entirely to get to the one point I wanted the story for in the first place (hello, House Husband), and sometimes (most the time) I have a really strong idea for a story and just know I will figure out where I am going when I get there. I don't mind if it gets slow in the middle. I don't look at it as filler, I see it as slice-of-life. I like that. I don't want to watch action all the time. I want to see the character I'm attached to just live.

I write more in the form of scenes than I do chapters, and I just put as many scenes that fit in the 1.5k-2k chapter size.

Because of this, unless I have posted the ending chapter number on AO3, *I have no clue how many more chapters a story will be, even if I know it's ending soon.* Sorry to anyone who has ever asked. I genuinely don't know. Every guess I have ever made was wrong.

For editing, each story chapter goes through Grammarly Pro and LanguageTool before I do a single read-through for typos (I can't see my own errors. It's a nightmare. It's the worst part. I hate it.), and it gets marked in the database that it is ready to post.

Juggling multiple stories?

If I forced myself to work on one story and lost interest in it, you would never see me again. I write anywhere from 4 to 7 active stories at a time, and I may be working on some other things (unless they develop into unexpected obsessions).

Once a story goes into my active rotation of weekly Monday uploads, we get into my spreadsheets. I like all of my active stories to have a backlog, meaning finished chapters ready to post, of around 2 months, which is 8-10 1.5-2K word chapters per story.

This might sound excessive, but when I'm frustrated or burnt out on a story, I like the room to put that story down for as long as I need, so I don't ever hate it. (Example: I wrote so much of Better Late, at one point, it was 6 months ahead, and then I didn't touch it for a full two months.)

Because of the backlog, I largely just write whatever I want with the occasion 'oh shit' moment of wanting to make sure that the stories I have been less interested in get their attention when I see my *spreadsheets* show me that they are getting low on backlogged chapters.

New Ideas?

I am constantly almost starting new stories, but I have a kinda self-rule that, for me to put a story out, it has to already have a backlog of over 2+ months, or I have to wait until it does. I never want to get stuck and have a story miss an upload because of my poor planning.

So this sound insane now that I am writing it out but I didn't decide this system and run with it this is just want ended up working for me.

TLDR

For posting, I have spreadsheets to track when chapters are released, and I use the digital equivalent of a pile of sticky notes for note-taking. Edit once and add to the pile to be uploaded.

I am going to end my explanation there, I am sure I have more to say, but it took me way too long to write and edit this post already.

I guess if anyone has questions, feel free to ask.

𝙰𝙾𝟹 𝙰𝚌𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚔 <- to see what this system put out Notion Writing Template <- for a watered down version of my chapter tracking system

This post was in reference to this Ask Game

[finnlongman]

tasty data, get your tasty data here

All right, I finished putting TBC2-LL into my Unhinged Spreadsheet, so here are some observations about this text. Long post incoming.

Caveat that this spreadsheet is a work in progress and all the data collection is being done manually, aka trawling the text with my own eyeballs and looking for words. It's entirely possible I've missed some.

A Mo Phopa

There are 47 instances of the word "popa" in this text that I've found.

I had to zoom out to fit them all in. This is so many.

What's really interesting, though, is how terms are paired. If I were to put the spreadsheet back in its original order, showing them in the order they occur in the text, we would see that the use of a phopa for Fergus is almost always accompanied by daltán or a variant ("fosterling, pupil, fosterson"): either Fergus addressing Cú Chulainn as a daltán, or Cú Chulainn identifying himself as such. That means the term in those contexts is firmly established as a fosterage term used with a generational difference.

On the other hand, when a phopa is used by Cú Chulainn to address Láeg, it's very often paired with Láeg addressing Cú Chulainn with an affectionate diminutive like a Chúcúc. The only other person to use a diminutive like this is Lug (or, well, Cú Chulainn's "friend from the Otherworld", who isn't named in this recension), and he only does so once. Láeg does so repeatedly:

By pairing this with a phopa, we're establishing an age difference, but the absence of obvious fosterage terminology and the subversion of expected hierarchies makes this seem more like a "big bro, little bro" relationship, as far as terminology is concerned. A Chúcúc is typically translated by O'Rahilly as "little Cú"; you could also go as far as "little Hound". It's very much both affectionate and emphasising Cú Chulainn's youth.

(In TBC1, by contrast, Láeg only uses a diminutive like this once.)

Putting the rest below a cut to save your dash, because it got long.

Gilla

The term "gilla" is a flexible one: it basically just means lad, boy, servant. It's often used in the narration for charioteers, but I noticed something interesting about its usage in dialogue as a term of address.

Notably, that in TBC1, Cú Chulainn never uses this term to address Láeg, but in TBC2-LL, he does (usually while giving orders, though the spreadsheet doesn't offer that level of detail) (yet). It's used in narration to describe Láeg, I think, but never as a term of address.

Is this a matter of date, and the shifting use of the term chronologically? TBC1 and TBC2-LL are close enough in date that I would be surprised if the term "gilla" had a significantly different meaning at the time of writing.

It does show up quite a bit in late texts, though, so there might be something in that. Need to look into that more.

Comalta, comaltus, daltae

TBC2-LL typically shows a lot more instances of fosterage terminology: comalta, comaltus, and daltae all show up more times. This might just be that TBC2 is wordier than TBC1 and likes to repeat itself more, but the mess of orange on my spreadsheet suggests it also has a greater preoccupation with the web of family, fosterage, and provincial connections between characters.

[ETA: it's just an error that lists one of the comaltas as pupil, fosterling; I think Excel got too enthusiastic with the autofill. The same error occurs below. It's not significant.]

Cú Chulainn once uses the term daltán to address Láeg in TBC1, which doesn't show up in TBC2. I did a post about that a while back; it comes in a line where Cú Chulainn is explaining something to Láeg, so might have a pedagogical usage, although also seems like it might be a little bit sarcastic. Need to explore that one further.

(Note that when Cú Chulainn appears in both the "used by" and "used for" columns, it's because he's describing himself, e.g. Fergus says, "Who's there?" and he says, "It's me, your fosterson and the fosterson of the Ulaid." The relationship given in the column after that is therefore the one being identified in those moments.)

Cara, cairdes, caratraid

TBC2-LL also has more uses of the word cara, friend, for a much wider range of relationships and hypothetical relationships. ("Be it friend or foe" kind of thing.) Cara is used for allies, fosterbrothers, family connections, and some relationships that look like "straightforward" friendship, i.e. there isn't any other clearer connection between the characters mentioned in the text.

The term caratraid for friendship shows up five times in TBC2, and never in TBC1. Three of these instances are to describe Cú Chulainn's relationship with Fer Baeth, one of his foster brothers; one is to describe his relationship with Fer Diad, another foster brother; and one is to describe his relationship with Lugaid mac Nóis, his ally in the Connacht camp (who is also, I think, a foster brother?).

Cairdes shows up three times in TBC2 - twice about Fer Baeth and once about Fer Diad - versus only once in TBC1, where it refers to Fer Baeth (and is in narration rather than dialogue). TBC2 also introduces "cardes sliasta", intimate friendship, with which Medb bribes men.

Fer Diad

Here are all the terms used for Cú Chulainn & Fer Diad's relationship across TBC1 and TBC2-LL:

Let's filter that to get a sense of TBC1 vs TBC2, bearing in mind that Comrac Fir Diad is way longer in TBC2 and therefore likely to have far more terms in it.

TBC1:

TBC2-LL:

So we've got a lot more repetition in TBC2, but we've also got some differences. TBC2 loses some of the endearments, like "a lóeg" and "a airer na súl", which are more typically found in romantic contexts. But it gains two instances of "inmain", beloved (a semantically wider term: we often get a mic inmain between family members, for example). Both use the term "dil" for "beloved", though, inserting it into Fer Diad's name: Fer dil Diad.

Both use the term "cocle", possibly "coicéile": comrade, friend, companion, vassal. TBC2 uses it a lot more, though. It also adds "cara", friend, and the related terms "cairdes" and "caratraid" to describe friendship.

Both use "acme" and "fine", in the same context/sentence: "you are/were my kith and kin". TBC also gives us "fir chomdéirgide", men who shared a bed. There is another reference to bed-sharing in TBC2, but it uses a different term, so this one is distinct. The term "dérgud" seems to refer to the making of a bed, so the vibe seems to be more "men who made a bed together": travelled together, made decisions together, shared intimacy, etc.

The term Cúa is etymologised as an insult in TBC1, but treated as a straightforward diminutive in TBC2. Meanwhile, TBC2 introduces the concept of Cú Chulainn as Fer Diad's "forbfer", or serving man/attendant, introducing hierarchies into their relationship. I was surprised this wasn't in both, but I guess the whole thing is just so much less developed in TBC1, and most of the backstory there comes from Fer Diad's conversations with his charioteer rather than his dialogue with TBC2. I do want to go back and double check it, though, in case there's another related term that slipped my notice.

Conclusions

What is the second recension of the Táin about? Well, statistically, it's about relationships between people.

TBC2 cares a lot about fosterage and the friendships that go with it.

A phopa is the most common term of endearment in this recension.

Combinations of terms tell us more than just looking at terms in isolation.

Spreadsheets can be fun, I guess.

Beyond that, I don't know. I need to add more texts before I can draw more meaningful conclusions about changes over time. But I thought you might like to see where we're at, anyway.

Next up is probably Cath Ruis na Ríg, for vibes, although I also need to add Stowe to this spreadsheet in case it changes anything about TBC2 compared to LL.

[scribefindegil]

71?

71. When it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

A big old messy scratchdoc!! I try to use headings to keep the information somewhat organized, but they work best if I let them stay pretty sprawling. It's usually something like:

Top section: What are The Themes? Why am I writing this story? Are there important symbols or visual motifs I want to keep track of? Are there reminders to myself that I want to see frequently to bring myself back into focus (re: tone, characterization, types of description or details to focus on)?

Character Section: I don't always do this, but for big fics or things with a large ensemble cast I usually lay out each important character, the basis of their arc/conflict, and how they contribute thematically to the story. If it's AU or set post-canon or there are other reasons that information about the character would be different from their canon counterpart, I note it here.

Reference section: Any specific research I've done for the fic. Lists of things like minor characters' names, descriptions of settings or OCs, etc.

Revelation List: I stole this from DMing advice blogs, but any time there are mystery elements to a fic I always lay out the Revelations (what the characters need to learn) and the specific clues or circumstances they encounter that allow them to reach those conclusions. Do they find and interpret evidence? Do they get information from another character? Do they do research? Even if I don't plan out all the details of the plot, I need to understand how the characters are going to reach each of the Revelations or I'm going to get stuck.

Timelines: I don't always do these either; it really depends on the fic, but if there's a specific chronology I need to keep track of (or a secret structure that would get lost in the full outline) I try to write it down

The Plot: Finally!! The actual outlining part! I start by writing bullet point versions of the events I know will happen (I usually have a pretty strong sense of the beginning and climax of a fic by this point, even if I still have a bunch of fine-tuning to do) and then work backwards or forwards to fill in the gaps. If it's a mystery fic (and most of my longer fic has at least some mystery elements) I refer back to the Revelations list to make sure I have scenes that cover all the necessary Leads and Revelations to get the characters to the endpoint.

Snippets: For certain scenes, the outline version doesn't accurately capture the Vibe I'm going for, so I have a section at the end where I write quick, tiny, scaffolding-style first drafts. These usually have almost no relation to what the final scene actually looks like, but it's about pinning down the idea and the atmosphere.

These documents are really big and messy and I usually need to go back and edit them as I go, because my original ideas inevitably undergo some shifts as I figure things out, but that's the fun of it!

It has to be the right type of fic to make this worth it, but sometimes I'll also do a scene-level outline in an Excel spreadsheet, with columns for Scene, POV Character, Location, Characters Present, Events, Reactions, and Plot-Important Info. This is good for super plotty/mystery-heavy fics and fics with big ensembles that I can't keep track of other ways. I have an enormous and beautiful outline in this style for the Owl House Tam Lin AU which I do still want to write someday, bc while I didn't end up loving TOH as a whole I do love a lot of the characters, and also we came up with possibly the best plot twist of my life involving 400 years of moon phase records so. It's on the back burner but it's still on the stove, as it were. And the good thing is that because I have such an exhaustive outline it will be easy for me to pick back up at any time if I want to!

[beaconfeels]

I missed WIP Wednesday for the @steter-bang since I was traveling, so I’m posting now to motivate myself:

It’s getting warmer already, the temps climbing along with the sun. He’s not fond of office work, but it’s something of a relief to sink into his chair at the old desk in the cool, dimly lit office he has near the back of the house. Even after watching at his Dad’s right hand all these years, the amount of paperwork and phone calls needed to keep the ranch running was still the most surprising—and challenging—part of the job when he took over.

He’s always had a mind for details though, and he likes negotiating with suppliers and buyers. He even finds spreadsheets satisfying, a fact that his family never stops teasing him about.

He’s been lost in his work for awhile when Erica pokes her head in. “We met him,” she says, with a broad smile. “What a cutie pie, and smart too.”

“Hmm?” Peter says, shuffling some papers to the side. “Oh, right. Stiles. You like him?”

“Yup,” Erica says, popping the p emphatically. That’s good news actually. Erica’s usually a good judge of character for all her posturing and teasing might hide it from people who don’t know her. “I think he’s gonna be great, and now that he’s here we can make sure that asshole next door can’t hurt him, right?”

“Right,” Peter assures her.

“Good, because I’ve got a good feeling about this one, boss.”

Peter smiles at her. It’s hard not to when she’s in a good mood, especially not when he’s seen her at her lowest moments—when she was a shy, sick kid, so unsure of herself, but desperate to work on a ranch, to do the things she loved anyway. He’s as proud of her as any father could be.

She taps the doorframe twice, and leaves with a little smirk on her lips. It’s good. If Erica likes Stiles, then probably most of his workers will too, and there’s something about the kid that makes Peter want to protect him. Not just from Argent, but from everything else that seems to haunt him too.

[talenlee]

The Brilliant Fool

Normally when I write here about a Transformers character, it’s a character who has some significance to me as – well, honestly, as an example of a kind of person I could be, growing up. Blades gave me a lesson about quelling the want for violence inside me and also how defensive violent bf /softboy medic bf was a top tier pairing, and Dinobot gave me lessons about dying well in the face of oblivion, a lesson that I thought I needed really soon when I got it. There are Transformers I love because of jokes, Transformers I love because of association with toys and there are some Transformers that I love because they are, through no fault of their own, completely useless doofuses.

Let’s talk about Wheeljack

Wheeljack is an OG Transformer. Not only was he present in the original TV series, he was the first ever Transformer to be animated, the first one to appear on a cell and the first one to say or do anything. Wheeljack was also in this privileged position because he was from an earlier time, an earlier toyline, one of the diaclone toys that needed minimal changes to come on over. And not only was this the 1980s but this was a Japanese toy from the 1970s, so his toy was a really nice model that was also, coincidentally, made largely out of die-cast metal and had all sorts of lovely detailing and stickers that you could use to show how good you were at putting on stickers unless you were a fumble handed gallumphus like myself.

Don’t worry, I never had a Wheeljack, but I knew someone who did, and that toy was nice.

Anyway, Wheeljack as a character was one of the huge cast of Transformers who got a personality written up in what feels in hindsight like filling out a spreadsheet, where the writer got a picture of a character and had to devise a name and personality for them and keep moving, while also doing everything they could to keep them from overlapping with one another, which, of course, they did. Did you know that Grimlock (A t-rex) and Fortress Maximus (a city) and Brawl (a little guy about the size of a VW bug) are all listed as the strongest Autobot? Making sense of these original bios was like digging through Biblical harmonisation, but at least Transformers admit they’re making stuff up.

Anyway, Wheeljack got given the personality up front of being a crackpot mad scientist working for the good guys, which meant you took an archetype normally full of potential malice and potential goofiness and then just stripped out all the malice. Wheeljack in G1 was a guy who would invent things, and those things would have to be useful to pretty much only anyone in exactly one episode. This meant Wheeljack was either solving the problem of the episode by techno-babbling up a device that would fix it, or causing the problem of the episode by techno-babbling up a device that unfixed something, and sometimes both.

Wheeljack served a good, steadfast, mechanical role in the story of the show and to that end he hung around a lot. He also had a really easy face to animate – rather than flap a mouth or move a visor, his face lit up when he was talking, which meant you just changed its colour. Real convenient, real nice when you wanted to have him talk at length.

But this is just ‘why Wheeljack showed up a lot,’ it’s not by any means an explanation as to why I liked Wheeljack. What I like about Wheeljack is instead something created in the negative space of the character by what the people making it didn’t intend to do.

Here’s how it cooks out. First of all, Wheeljack is an inventor who is memorably depicted screwing up and eating dirt, regularly. He’s an inventor but it’s easy to feel like his hit rate is half and half, and a bunch of the things he makes have the weirdest solutions to them and ways they work. It’s not true in the comics, mind you, those are written a bit less for, y’know, four year olds in the 1980s, but the ‘crackpot inventor’ element sticks around.

The other thing is that Wheeljack’s disguise sucks.

It’s not that he doesn’t look like a car, he sure does look like a car! But Wheeljack doesn’t turn into ‘a car.’ Wheeljack turns into a sports car.

Well, so what you may say, it’s not like sports cars are that rare.

And then I go, he turns into a Lancia Stratos

And you’d interrupt me, comically, — Well, okay, no you wouldn’t, you’d say what and I’m embellishing for the bit — and say, hey, no no, see, you’ve got a specific name for it, a model, that means it got made in some degree of mass production,

And I respond with yeah, we know how many of his type of Lancia Stratos got made. He’s the Group 5 Lancia Stratos. He has specific racing regalia on him for sponsor material. Because he didn’t copy ‘a car’, he copied a race ready Lancia Stratos Group 5. There were only 500 Lancia Stratos made, and only a small number of them – like, less than ten – were ever put into racing colours, and then they were deomissioned. Imagine if while trying to blend into a location you picked the disguise of ‘recognisable celebrity,’ or maybe tried to blend in at the zoo as an endangered animal of which they knew they only had two. This means Wheeljack was in a position to scan the Lancia Stratos Group 5 (which wasn’t run in many races after it failed!) and then drove around after it left!

It plays into the way that his inventions seemed to fail a lot, or seemed to work in weird ways. It depicts a person who has somehow a skillset that’s suited to making big, impressive, technically challenging accomplishments and not a goddamn lick of sense about what he can do with it. This is a guy who can invent a teleportation machine and his idea of how to use it to solve the war is to let humans move more quickly to and from the base to update them on what the Decepticons are doing. This is a guy who makes a blender with a frappe setting that retasks a satellite. This is a guy whose first appearance on screen is using a machine he built that then immediately backfires and sets the tone for him for the rest of his life.

Wheeljack is one of my favourite Transformers, but only in the way that I love to watch the way fans talk about him, because of the beautiful alignment of super genius and fantastic idiot.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[aribaran]

10 & 19 !

10. write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone? i'm always writing with noise, but it's music. i have some pretty intense playlists for my work, haha. i prefer to write alone whenever possible.

19. when it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, etc.?

so i use scrivener for my project planning and it has a great feature where you can put all of your meta work into folders but it won't be included in the compiles. i usually do character profiles there if i need to, for the hockey books i have full rosters for every team, spreadsheets with all of the team names, etc.

for the rest of it, it's long, so.

it does depend on the book. i structure and write a fantasy novel a little differently from my romance novels (they are m/m hockey books. i know this comes as a huge surprise lol). i always use scrivener for my outlining and drafts, but you don’t have to buy a fancy program, you can do the same thing in open office or google docs.

no matter what the book is, i start with my characters. who are they as people? where are they from? what is their ethnicity and what are their families like? what do they like? how do they interact with others? sometimes guys just show up in my head fully formed and in those cases, it’s a lot easier to write their stories because they’re just…there. like real people. but the central question of every book is: what do these people want and why can’t they have it? sometimes those questions are internal (is this guy incredibly insecure and doesn’t truly believe that his best friend is in love with him even though all of the evidence is right there in front of his face?) and sometimes it is external (these guys are trying to kill each other, but they don’t realize the game is rigged against BOTH of them).

but start with that question and i think then it’s a lot easier to come up with the rest of the story.

after that, i pick a starting point and i usually pick an ending point. i almost always write my last scene first, or at least write some notes. i just like to know where i’m going so i can pace how i’m getting there.

how i ACTUALLY outline is where it really starts to split up based on book. for my hockey novels, it makes sense for me to outline and structure them in an actual timeline, since the plot is based around the season.

each folder is a season, split up into months, split up into scenes. i find it helpful to label whose POV is in which one so i know at a glance if things aren’t well-balanced. and then i just keep doing that until the book ends, which is usually between april and july, depending on if they make the playoffs.

what you end up filling it in with is varied. i usually like to figure out the conflict or breaking point, and where that goes in the general timeline. in my first book it’s an enemies to lovers so the conflict is front-loaded at the beginning, but something external happens to them towards the end that they have to overcome. so in that book, all of the scenes are building from them learning to get along, and falling in love, and then eventually overcoming this obstacle (this is really simplified discussion of this plot lol). in my second book, they’re best friends starting out, so it’s building up to them hooking up, then the process of them really falling in love, and then the misunderstanding/breakup and eventually the reunion and the [redacted really happy thing]. during this time there are obviously subplots, but i find it’s easier to string the subplots along when you have an idea of when the main big plot beats have to happen.

as i am filling in individual scenes, i like to jot a little note about what is going on in the scene in the header. so whether it’s brojobs or a hockey game in a particular city, i have that all in the little title. scrivener has a notes section for each “scene” where i can put any other details i want about the scene in there, and sometimes i will use that to a) put down what i want this scene to accomplish in the larger book, b) any dialogue or things i want to make sure i remember to include in the scene because a lot of the time, i get great ideas right when i’m falling asleep, or in the shower, or somewhere convenient and then i don’t remember if i don’t write them down. but you can also write this down in a separate document.

as for figuring out subplots, i come up with them based on what makes sense for the characters, whether that’s depression/addiction, helping out a rookie, or whatever.

for fantasy novels, the process is less rigid. i usually have to do some worldbuilding first, so that’s a separate document where i just jot down all of my thoughts about the world and how it’s constructed and why it works the way it does. sometimes i will write little “in world” texts to give myself a flavor of how people read or what their culture is like.

again, i come up with the beginning and end up split the book up into sections based on the main plot. so for example in one of my WIPs (and this is a VERY pared down version of what actually happens in this book haha), the first part is the road adventure where one of them is trying to take the other one back to [redacted] and the second guy is trying to escape or kill him, then they accidentally get soulbonded and the section is them learning to work together and trust, and then the third section is the betrayal and eventual rescue. then i fill in the scenes from there. i’ll be honest, some of it is based on vibes–what do i want to write? sometimes i get whole subplots purely because i think they sound like a blast to write (and that’s a bit thing about plotting for me–if it’s not fun and i’m not excited to write it…no one’s going to be excited to read it, either, so some big advice is if you’re really forcing something, it might be worth trying something else).

a lot of my plots come from knowing the characters really well. what situations would make them uncomfortable and react in certain ways? what situations would test or challenge their beliefs, either about the world or about themselves? what character can they fall in love with that would offer interesting conflicts?

so that’s basically my plotting and outlining process.

[hypnotisedfireflies]

Something I personally really enjoy about your take of Tess and Joel (but especially Tess in particular) is how morally gray you've made them, even before the world ended and before they really had an excuse. I feel like so often people try to make them into these really outstandingly great people pre!outbreak who had to completely start from scratch to adapt enough for survival, which is totally fine!!! am definitely not saying people can't see them how they want especially in regards to a chapter in the story that has no canonical basis. But I just.... really really really enjoy the version you've created where perhaps it actually wasn't that hard to adapt for survival because they already weren't all that great in the first place. It just makes them feel so incredibly human and i just love it so much. Like I never would have came up with Tess have a bit of a drug thing pre!outbreak. I never would have come up with them both being TOO comfortable with the idea of cheating on their loved ones. I never would have come up with Tess not being able to connect to motherhood and the difficulties of that. it's just so interesting and a rather different vibe than what I'm used to seeing in pre!outbreak tessjoel and I love it a lot

Also, I'm super curious about what tour writing process looks like if you're inclined to share! with how you weave your huge stories together so beautifully I'm just curious how you organize all that and all your thoughts, you know?

Honestly, I have the loveliest anons. 🥺💛 Thank you for sharing this with me! The feedback really does encourage and inspire me - I mean, I write what I like to read, so it's a huge boost to know that it is landing with readers, too.

I love writing grey characters because there's so many more places you can take them. Sure, it's fun to write about the white hats tumbling into/resisting darkness but we see that a lot and I don't feel there's much I can add to that fun trope. But grey characters? There's so much you can do with that moral flexibility. I also really like writing characters who are in flux in some way - nobody's ever finished cooking, there's ups and downs and progressions and regressions - exploring that is like crack to me.

I think giving my version of the characters that grey blueprint as a foundation to their personalities helps me to ground them realistically, because it's not such a fantastical leap for them to be able to do certain things or act in a particular way. I think if you're going to survive any length of time in this kind of situation you need to already have a certain set of tools at your disposal (whether that be an arsenal like Bill or a mindset like Tess) or you get lucky (Rachel).

My writing process is kind of ... organic?? I'll have notes for a particular story that I'm working on but I don't have anything bigger than that other than a piss-poor spreadsheet. That just lists significant events, when they happened and the season/year/story/chapter they occurred in. Most of it just lives in my head.

I don't want to sound like an asshole but I don't really have a big plan. Most of the time it just sort of happens. I think it helps that all the characters are fully mapped out in my head and I can reach back into them when I need something. There's so much that has never gotten to page that's in the background to give credence.

So for example, Ricardo might say something that's just a line in a story but I know why he's chosen that particular way to say it. I know Iotama's journey from Outbreak day to Sioux Falls. I know why Tess doesn't talk about her brothers (but that can't come out because Tess doesn't need to explain that to herself or think about why that is, and Joel just flat out doesn't know) but with those details cooking in the background everything is ... I don't know, bigger in my head?

So when it's time to write I just think about what I'd like to read and then build some basic structure around it, think about what I've written before and if there's any way to link it in (most of the time, that just happens when I'm writing) and then if there's any way to "power it externally" with the stuff that's in my head as per the previous paragraph. Then I walk my dog and everything starts to come together.

(Actually, "powering it externally" - you've made me realise something, anon. I'm always writing two stories at once. The one that makes it to page and then the one with that doesn't, all the motivations and backstory that are fuelling what's going on but are never articulated. I hadn't thought about that before, but I'm pretty sure that's what I do).

And then I'll get stuck somehow and think, "That's it! The magic is gone, no more words are ever coming." And then I just either go to bed or write through it, sometimes writing and deleting thousands of words until I find a pathway.

This is why I really like accepting prompts because it challenges me to consider things I might not have otherwise thought of, and stops me getting lazy and just writing what I think I like.

I hope that answers your question anon, and I don't sound like a total nut.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

BUT SEEING WHAT STARTUPS ARE REALLY LIKE WILL AT LEAST GET IN ENOUGH TROUBLE THAT IT BECOMES THE TOP IDEA IN YOUR MIND

Startups grow up around universities because universities bring together promising young people and make them work on the same projects. It could be that, because you really would rather raise money from a deal, it's not because they invested at a valuation of $1 million, each partner would have to be on a trajectory that leads to going public. Great hackers also generally insist on using open source software. A lot of people know Google raised money from Kleiner and Sequoia didn't like splitting the Google deal, but it didn't help Thinking Machines or Xerox. Around the age of eleven, though, requires a conscious effort to insulate the other founder s from the details of the process. Which is pretty exciting, considering the bimodal distribution of outcomes in startups: you either fail or make a lot of money can be disastrous for an early stage startup. Suits, for example. You can just use the standard series AA documents Wilson Sonsini and Y Combinator cofounder Jessica is one of those rare people who have x-ray vision for character. The valuation reflects nothing more than the strength of the company's bargaining position. In anything she does that's publicly visible, her biggest fear after the obvious fear that it will seem to have rooted themselves in Tampa on $118k, but they're still money. That type of founder is going to come back with million dollar orders for banner ad impressions.

Real startups prefer to work in their own startups instead. Angels are the limiting factor. Sometimes they even claim to be willing to make themselves feel better.1 And that probably drove the developers harder than any carrot or stick could.2 You might find contradictory taboos.3 As well as gaining points by distancing oneself from unpopular kids, one loses points by being close to them. Adults can't avoid seeing that teenage kids are unhappy. 5% an offer of 6.4 This is true to a degree in most fields, those tend to be calmer and more upstanding; they don't need you, it will be bad is that it might turn you into a consulting firm. Startups usually have to do is to sacrifice unpromising startups. You can or could once make a lot of programmers I know, including me, actually like debugging.5 So it's your choice whether you get diluted.6

Angels don't need to market themselves to investors because they invest their own. Beware valuation sensitive investors. The qualities of the founders of Sun.7 It was just like.8 They'd been thrown off balance from the start by their ambivalence about being a technology company. Probably the most impressive commitment I've heard to having a hacker-centric culture came from Mark Zuckerberg, when he got interested in maths. 5% better in their next round of funding to end up net ahead. Talent probably matters more than the strength of the company's stock. For example, if you get an investor to your cofounder s should be like introducing a girl/boyfriend to your parents—something you do only when things reach a certain stage of seriousness.

Notes

Anything that got built this way. Watt didn't invent the spreadsheet. Investors will deliberately affect more interest than they expected and they begin by having a gentlemen's agreement with the administration. But while this sort of mastery to which the inhabitants of early 20th century cohesion would have gone into the sciences, you might be 20 or 30 times as much income.

Digg's is the odds are slightly more interesting than later ones, and would not produce a viable organism.

If you're a loser they're done, at least, as they turn from their screen to answer the question of whether public company CEOs were J. As I was surprised to find a blog that tried that. The wartime versions were much more analytical style of thinking, but they hate hypertension. They're common to all cultures with long traditions of living in a spiral.

Who continued to dress in jeans and t-shirt, they're probably a real partner. This doesn't mean you should.

I don't think you could turn you into a fancy restaurant in San Francisco. The reason this works is that startups should stay in business are likely to be more at the start, e.

They're an administrative convenience. Which is probably a bad idea. And since everyone involved is so valuable that visitors should gladly register to read stories. If it failed it failed it failed.

Emmett Shear, and thereby earn the respect of their shares when the audience already has to give up more than investors. 5%.

Chop onions and other vegetables and fry in oil, over fairly low heat, till onions are glassy. This is why I haven't released Arc. Technology has always been accelerating.

[fandoms-in-law]

Militant vs Inquisitor

Summary: Annabelle asks how St Trinians got its security and gets Kelly to give a history of a former head girl to a lot of the St Trinians girls.

Authors note: I'm using July to get my pot of fic ideas emptied out a bit and think I'll include each idea when posting.

My idea for today: Get a random word from the dictionary: that is now your characters surname, write about how they embody or rebel against it.

/\/\

After the school challenge and finishing their heist by returning the painting, Annabelle didn’t wonder at the many codes she’d been briefed on at the start of it. She knew the school well enough by then to understand just how careful they sometimes needed to be over people entering the school, as well as the different skills everyone had for defending it.

What she didn’t understand was how it all got set up. Sometimes one of the geeks would have a new idea or gadget and add it into the security plans but most of the basics seemed to have been in place for years.

One evening a call went round the school as most of them were relaxing in their dorms, nothing needing attention really but enough to make her ask “So how did that become St Trinians security anyway?”

Andrea stared at her, sitting up from where she’d been relaxing in her coffin. “It’s always been like this.” She drawled.

“Yeah, we get inducted and trained, first two weeks, same every year, picking how we contribute to it and when.” Taylor called over, as if goading Annabelle to ask why she hadn’t been added to it yet.

Kelly shook her head at both of them, waving Polly over from the geeks. “Judith Militant, head girl a decade ago, set it up. You’ve got the records on her, right Pol?”

“Of course. No way did any teacher set it up.” She agreed, grabbing her laptop to type something in, presumable to find the records requested.

“Really?” Annabelle couldn’t help sounding sceptical.

Taylor laughed, “I bet it was! I bet Cleaver set it up, then went off to get married and do her army time before coming back to teach.”

“Would any of us do that?” Kelly challenged immediately, raising an eyebrow and looking over everyone ready to tear down any protests that they would. Annabelle suspected she could argue it, but didn’t say anything to break through the chorus of disagreements.

“How often are we bailing Miss Fritton out? We’d never get paid!” Taylor said obnoxiously laughing.

“In the black market we bail her out every other quarter and with the bank we’ve bailed the school out twice in the last five years.” Polly stated, turning the laptop around to show the spreadsheet comparing student earnings, school earnings and money transfers within the two for a moment before flicking onto another spreadsheet that was clearly filled with details and a life history of Judith Militant.

Kelly nodded at her, “Precisely, thank you Polly. Does anyone want to hear about Militant or not?”

“Doesn’t her name say it all?” Chelsea asked, having joined them while everyone was rejecting returning to the school later on. “She was militant and set up school security to be the same.”

“You’d think so wouldn’t you?” Kelly stated, looking over the girls around her, all curling up onto beds curiously as more first years and cliques realised a story time was happening. “Let me explain what we know.”

/\/\

St Trinians as a school has always had enemies, had local police trying to impose laws on us and sometimes they got close. None of us thought Thwaites was going to get anywhere with his attempt because we’ve got the plans, we’ve got decent security, and the chance to put assault charges on him for his invasion of the posh totties dressing room but Minister Inquisitor was a threat.

/\/\

“Did someone put Miss Fritton insulting people in charge of names?” Taylor scoffed, interrupting Kelly.

A few snickers followed her words but at the head girl’s glance silence fell again.

/\/\

For three years Inquisitor was the minister of education and during that time St Trinians had to fend off five under cover teachers, and constant surprise inspections.

Militant was a student through this time, only becoming head girl in his final year in the position and she took the responsibility with the resolution to get rid of him. She had a school trip to government planned within a week of term starting and let chaos reign.

Minister Inquisitor met them, assuming it was the students coming to give him support against everything he blamed the teachers for allowing, but instead found himself trying to explain why his ID was showing as the one that almost led the UK into war on our island.

The geeks of the time were the ones to both start and cancel that, having ensured no losses would impact their businesses at the time for doing so.

It got the eyes of the country on him as well as on the school and under cover inspections were joined with reporters. Militant had to do something to secure the school against them all because the chances of letting the press realise how our school runs skyrocketed.

So she got the first years in on it. Suggested they meet the teachers as they come in for interviews, just that, unless they wanted to do more. Would you all do more?

/\/\

At Kelly’s question, Annabelle shot up, “I’d interrogate but everyone of us would do something different. Just going off the cliques we’ve got, posh totties would seduce the guys, probably force the women into a makeover, claiming they weren’t ready for the interview looking like such a mess. The chavs would fight them, or at least threaten them with something. Emos wouldn’t need to but kidnapping is their first thought, teach arrived three days late for the interview in a rush to get home. So putting first years in charge is probably safest. They go with the easy pranks, glue and feathers, deep puddle, nothing that would reveal how dangerous our school can be, unless they’re in chemistry.”

“Exactly, Annabelle, exactly.” Kelly agreed, “You put the wrong girls in charge of facing the people who might teach us and you’ve got reporters already smearing our school. But is that a military approach?”

“No.” Tania and Tara moaned. “We’d get to march them through airport security checks, strip searches, if we wanted full prison security, or for military bases they’d need ID ahead of time and background checks done to pass clearance. We’re not doing all of that.”

“So how did the rest come into it?” Chelsea asked.

Kelly smiled, returning to the story.

/\/\

For three or four months that was enough. The first years would greet and prank the possible teachers coming in and Miss Fritton would do the further tour, assuming the teacher knew nothing of the other subjects from the one they applied for.

Then an article came out, examining multiple classes of the schools and how much engagement they had.

It was good for the school, decent press and very clearly published by a former St Trinian but Militant hadn’t expected it. The details covered the school as it was and very nearly mentioned half a dozen illegal things they’d been doing at the time so security had to change again; Militant wanted eyes around the school and if it wasn’t possible then trip wires for any rooms they couldn’t see into.

The geeks jumped at the chance then, as they do now, to get all the surveillance set up. It had to do and though bedrooms were respected, girls did inspect them still, or got Matron on side to do them.

Inquisitor was still an issue though, and he’d made comments about coming into the school to disprove the article that had made it to press. The hockey team set up the codes then, insisted on it in fact, spreading the pages around to explain what each colour and term meant and how each class should be responding to avoid the press coming in openly to explore the school.

/\/\

“None of this is Militant setting things up. She’s just letting the girls she had in the school set things up themselves.” Chelsea pointed out, half whining at her observation. “I thought you said Militant did all this.”

Kelly smirked at her. “I did, didn’t I? But this is what St Trinians is all about, we make our own rules and the Head Girl is just there to point out what issues there are to deal with. I didn’t plan that entire heist by myself, did I?”

Noises of realisation went around the group, before Annabelle asked, “So did Militant get Minister Inquisitor out of his role?”

/\/\

The first time Code Red Black Eagle was called through the school, Militant met them outside the front of it, introducing herself and offering to guide the Minister and press around. She was refused of course as Inquisitor believed he could manage well enough alone.

The press didn’t question the fact that no other school would allow that, or that Militant, upon being refused, held the door open and called to the receptionist that they could go through. Before anyone asks, this is a few years before Beverly took on the role.

With the press following Inquisitor around, Militant stayed in the entrance way only a brief time, to adjust the signs now the press had taken their initial photos, specifically swapping the science classrooms and the girls dormitories. It wouldn’t cause too much scandal, except for the fact every year group of St Trinians has their seducers and the press turned up at the hour when the ones of Militant’s day would be manning the phone lines, or getting changed if no calls came through.

Inquisitor never stood a chance to avoid charges of pedophilia and trying to make the press aid him in getting pictures of underaged girls getting changed. He’d approached the room claiming it was supposed to be the schools best subject according to grades only to reveal 4 girls very annoyed at having their room invaded.

I think Militant is still apologising for that also. Among all the head girls who do amazing things she’s still in charge of a beauty firm, all used by the fashion designers those girls went on to be.

/\/\

“If it wasn’t for Miss Fritton I really would have done that to Thwaites.” Chelsea commented. “He even had his trousers down when we found him.”

“That was because of the fire ants.” Andrea commented, “If he got stung by them it could be evidence that he was innocent in all except hiding when he shouldn’t.”

Polly huffed, pulling up his spreadsheet, “If we didn’t respect Miss Fritton’s choice, we could probably get a lot more to stick against him in court than you think, but someone else is ruining his life for us currently so I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Should send him the articles on what happened to Inquisitor anyway, let him know just how far we could go.” Taylor muttered.

Kelly nodded, “You get the letter written then, Taylor. You’re right, we should get more extreme in how we take down our enemies again.”

“We’ve got the ideas for it after all.” Annabelle agreed. “So the school really doesn’t have a normal security system at all, does it? Just us.”

“We’re all it needs.” The rest of the girls cheered along with Kelly’s agreement.

They’d be back to tormenting and arguing with each other in the morning, but for now, they were St Trinians and that was enough to unify them.

[t-lane-writes]

No.vember. Im not doing NaNo this year. That was vaguely decided early on, and even if I had a moment of hesitation regarding Duke, about a month ago, in the end I stand by that decision.

I dabbled with Duke (and the B Brothers) in the first half of October. I cleared character baselines and made character sheets. And lemme tell you, there's a lot of characters in this story. The whole crew of The Scimitar.

The man characters are Folami Bolaji Brussards and Dominic "The Duke" Mitchell. Then there are Folami's (titlular B) Brothers: Enitan Bolaji Sinclair, Kayode Bolaji Muriano and Dayo Bolaji Brussard (Folami's twin). Then, there's mysterious Miss Lebeau, and five other crew members, who are also quite interesting. :) I kind of want to make their "faceclaims" or some other intro thing now, dang it...

Anyway. I learned a lot about them, and some character beats will make for interesting plot-points. The detailed plotline still needs some work, as does the spreadsheet, so I don't really have enough to tackle a pre-draft.

I'm alse really thrilled about the worldbuilding for this story -- the four moons, circling around the giant planet Ahella, each with their own culture, taboos, even ways of reproduction.

For example Leine women live very long, like three to five hundreds of years and can only get pregnant once every seven to ten years. Their males live the earthly-human span, so it's only natural that children don't have the same fathers (Bolaji is the mother's family name, and the last names of Folami and her brothers are the names they got from their fathers). Oh, and females are born rarely.

Interesting thing -- because Folami was in the womb with a male, her twin, something got "broken" in her and so far, even though she's over thirty now, she hasn't yet had her first fertility period. Perhaps she never will? That is taboo on her world. And because her mother had twins, all of her brothers are considered risky and no Leine females want to have their children.

Saegi -- that's Dominic -- only have nineteen fertile men on their moon, as most males are born with some sort of defect (due to the fact that their moon, Sharassa, is the closest to Ahella and the planet has strong magnetic fields that damage DNA). I'm not saying females aren't, mind you, but that's a cultural thing, that males were elliminated from the gene-pool because of that (yes, it is eugenics).

Hogan people have three "genders" -- male, true female and surrogate. Females and males produce gametes, but fertilization and pregnancy occurs in the body of the surrogate. No one really knows whether original females lost the ability to get pregnant, or whether they lost the ability to produce gametes, but now the surrogates are considered "incomplete" and they can't raise children. Miss Lebeau was a surrogate and she gave birth to over twenty children during her lifespan. Now she's older, but because she's always been smart and cunning, she is rich, at least.

And then, there are mysterious Poreen, from the moon farthest from Ahella and distanced not only by space, but also because they are very reclusive. Turns out all of them are hermafrodites -- capable of begeting a child, as well as carrying a child begeted by another.

The Scimitar crew are mostly Leine, but there are two Hogan (Miss Lebeau comes in later on), one Saegi (Dominic) and one Poreen, Ochra, Enitan's lover.

Parenthood (or inability to be a parent rather) and sexuality aren't the most important themes of this story, but they certainly play a part. There is a mystery how those people even evolved on the moons? What is their true history? Aren't they destined for extinction due to all the fertility problems?

Beside that big picture theme, there's also love, blood and found family and other shenanigans.

#.

Well. The other half of October I spent on rewriting Ananke. On cutting it, actually, because I want to get its 40k below 20k. That's the maximum number that's accepted by science-fiction magazines for publishing and I lost hope that a 40k novel (novella) will find a buyer. It's too short and I don't have enough passion for it to make it longer, or inspiration to write that other potential 40k story that could be Ananke's companion. I think I'm gonna keep cutting for a week or two (or three) more.

#.

I wanted to figure out which of the other big projects I'd want to tackle next, too, but considering that Ananke is still on my plate, I think I'll get to it another time. In two (or three) weeks, probably.

[flightyquinn]

All right, I'm once again going to be the contrarian.

D&D does not reward system mastery.

In fact, I'd say that it punishes it.

Hear me out on this. In all but a very small niche set of cases, you don't need to do any optimisation to have a functional character. It is, in fact, entirely possible to deliberately handicap yourself and still perform sufficiently well to get through most adventures, except for the ones specifically designed to challenge skilled players.

That's intentional.

Modern D&D is balanced in such a way that even with sub-optimal building, bad party comp, and making mistakes, things should still favor the players overall. It's made so that in organized league play, groups can be drop-in, drop-out, and still provide a fun experience for everyone at the table. It's made so that you can pick it up and play with a short period of learning, and get by, but you'll occasionally realize something really cool that you can do when the stars align, and have a certified "cool guy" moment.

However, it suffers from big time "optimise the fun out" syndrome.

As soon as you start pouring over multiple books to get into the finer details of how systems interact - as soon as you start optimising - the game becomes a dull chore. Bring in a bunch of rules and "hey, you forgot about X" to the table, and the game grinds to a stall. To say nothing of the boredom of having a bloody counsel meeting whenever a decision has to be made to do anything as players compare spreadsheets to decide on the best course of action, and who is most suited to take it.

There is a reason that the Dungeon Master's Guide says it "helps" you to perform the tasks needed to run a game, why it states outright,

"The D&D rules help you and the other players have a good time, but the rules aren't in charge."

This may sound blasphemous to people who are used to games with "hard" rules systems, but you aren't meant to use all the rules, all the time. The rules in D&D exist as a set of guidelines and options. Or, if you like, a grab bag, full of elements that you can employ, but don't have to. You can and should throw things out or change them as needed/wanted. That is actually the intended way to play the game.

The rules aren't a set of IKEA furniture, they're LEGO sets. They may come with instructions on how to build a particular model, but you are fully expected to get creative with the pieces, and it's more fun when you do. This is something that I see even the new generation of D&D players struggle with, and cause a lot of complaints over the rules being too restrictive, because people forgot that "this is just a baseline, actual results may vary" was supposed to be baked into the system.

...and to head off the argument I always get when I bring this up, no, that doesn't mean that D&D is just Calvinball. The baseline exists for a reason. It gives core mechanics and a shared frame of reference.

Anyway, if I could give just one piece of advice to players, it would be that the game is more fun if you go entirely off of descriptions and roleplay until a roll is needed, or you need to pick an ability to use.

For DMs, I would tell them that any time someone says, "Um...actually the rules say X", the correct response (true or not) is, "Yes. I'm well aware."

TLDR; D&D isn't meant to be a "rules heavy" system. It's meant to be an options heavy one.

I think an important part of the "D&D is easy to learn" argument is that a lot of those people don't actually know how to play D&D. They know they need to roll a d20 and add some numbers and sometimes they need to roll another type of die for damage. A part of it is the culture of basically fucking around and letting the GM sort it out. Players don't actually feel the need to learn the rules.

Now I don't think the above actually counts as knowing the rules. D&D is a relatively crunchy game that actually rewards system mastery and actually learning how to play D&D well, as in to make mechanically informed tactical decisions and utilizing the mechanics to your advantage, is actually a skill that needs to be learned and cultivated. None of that is to say that you need to be a perfectly tuned CharOp machine to know how to play D&D. But to actually start to make the sorts of decisions D&D as a game rewards you kind of need to know the rules.

And like, a lot of people don't seem to know the rules. They know how to play D&D in the most abstract sense of knowing that they need to say things and sometimes the person scowling at them from behind the screen will ask them to roll a die. But that's hardly engaging with the mechanics of the game, like the actual game part.

And to paraphrase @prokopetz this also contributes to the impression that other games are hard to learn: because a lot of other games don't have the same culture of play of D&D so like instead of letting new players coast by with a shallow understanding of the rules and letting the GM do all the work, they ask players to start making mechanically informed decisions right away. Sure, it can suck for onboarding, but learning from your mistakes can often be a great way to learn.