#what other characters have people cut off their reading like this

[marveltrumpshate]

Want to participate in Marvel Trumps Hate, but don't know what to offer? Think outside the box!

Stumped on what to offer because you don't write fic or draw? Marvel Trumps Hate welcomes a huge variety of fanworks and fan labor (see our sign-up post), so there are different ways you can contribute. You'll be amazed by the breadth of skills, talents, knowledge, and types of creative expression found in fandom!

Here's a smorgasbord of offers that we've either had before or seen people discuss as possibilities for MTH 2024 or future years to help inspire you. What you can offer is not restricted to the list below; these are just examples to get you brainstorming about what you can auction off because trust us, even if you think you might not have something to offer, you probably do!

ART (VISUAL/ILLUSTRATIVE)

Drawings/illustrations

Single-page and multi-page comics

Pixel art

Paintings (oil, acrylic, gouache, watercolor)

Mixed-media artwork on canvas

Ink-on-bristol art

Embroidery on canvas

Pour paint/spin art

Rotoscopes

Digital coloring books

AUDIOVISUAL WORKS

Fan music or filk inspired by characters, ships, or fics

Podfics

Videos (fic trailers, themed edits, vids set to songs)

Animations (making original art/animation or turning existing art into animation)

BETA SERVICES

Editing

Cheer reading

Soundboarding/planning/development work

Fact-checking

Culture-picking

Sensitivity reading

Knowledge about specific topics or experiences (e.g., identities, lifestyles, professions, interests, fields of study)

Research

CRAFTS & MERCH

Candles

Lip balms

Soaps

Stained glass/suncatcher

Scented beanbag-style sachets

Candy/chocolate/baked goods/jellies/sweets

Fic/character/ship/theme boxes (like book boxes)

Pins, magnets, patches, charms, standees, key chains, ring holders, calendars, stickers, bookmarks, temporary tattoos

Sculptures and clay figures

Ceramic mugs and other ceramic items

Apparel/wearable accessories (shirts, jackets, scarves, gloves/mittens, hats, face masks, regular masks, cowls, pajamas/onesies)

Backpacks, tote bags, itabags with custom window shapes, leather dice bags, wallets, pouches/pencil cases

Plushie animal or Tsum Tsum versions of Marvel characters

Dolls (crochet, needle felt, matte board, hand-sewn)

Embroidery hoops/wall art and cross stitch pieces

Jewelry (diamond painting, macrame, metal, crochet, wire, beads)

Woodwork/wood burning (cheese board, box/chest, USB stick, coasters, photo frame, alphabet blocks)

Glasswork

Custom Funko Pops

Paper cut light boxes

Pillow cases, quilted pillows, baby blankets, dishcloth/washcloths, potholders

Handmade leather journals

Linoleum stamps

Dog/cat/pet toys

Artbooks, paper doll books, and coloring books

Hand-dyed yarn skeins

Custom tea blends

DIGITAL (GRAPHIC DESIGN)

Gifsets

Graphics/edits

Mood boards

Photo manips

Fic covers/posters/banners

Icons and headers

Webweaving

Tumblr or website layouts

Digital calendars

Wallpapers

Custom Discord emojis

FAN LABOR & TRANSLATION

Typesetting

Bookbinding

Recipes based on characters, ships, or themes

Names, tags, and summaries for fics

Audio/sound editing and/or soundscaping for podfics

Book cover design and printing

Art/comic/fic translation

Website/game/AO3 skin coding

Fic rec lists

Fic playlists/fanmixes

Knitting/crochet patterns

Art coaching

Help with launching and organizing fan events

WRITING

Fic

Poetry

Meta posts

Social media AUs

Physical letters written by characters to the reader or between two characters

Remixes of your fic or an existing fic with the author's permission

Whether you can do something on this list or something else altogether (we're sure there are a lot of other things that you can do that we haven't thought about or seen before), we hope you'll consider signing up before the deadline: September 28, 11:59 PM ET.

[wangmiao]

An Incomplete History of Zhang Luyi & Chen Minghao's Friendship

Do you like Pangxie's chemistry in Tibetan Sea Flower? Do you feel that they are really old friends? Besides the fact that Zhang Luyi and Chen Minghao are very good actors, they are indeed old friends, and the earliest record that I can find of them working together dates back to 2006. However, CMH was in the 1996 class of acting at the The Central Academy of Drama, while ZLY was in the 1999 class of directing at the same university, so I figured they definitely got to know each other before 2006. So more or less, on Chinese social media, people usually assume that they've been friends for almost 20 years.

Before I dig into the history, I want to mention that some Pangxie scenes are actually improvised by ZLY and CMH on set. CHM has played Pangzi several times, and is insanely good at it, so he knows about Pangzi and the character dynamics inside out. While ZLY is new to the DMBJ universe, he did read all the DMBJ novels before the filming of Tibetan Sea Flower, so he has very insightful understanding of the characters and relationship dynamics as well.

For example, according to an interview of the director, this iconic & funny "拜年/new year's greeting" scene in episode 6 was improvised, and the director just decided to keep it in the final cut. In a BTS footage, Pangxie putting peanuts on Feng's very wrinkled test paper in episode 9 was also shown to be something that ZLY and CMH came up with during rehearsing.

The History

In the first paragraph, I mentioned that they went to the same undergraduate university. Another thing that connects them even more is that they went to the same graduate school - Peking University's School of Arts, and both have the master's degree in arts. ZLY fans sometimes just endearingly call CMH “师哥/shige" because of all of this.

In 2006, ZLY and CMH were in the stage play 琥珀/Amber. Here are some rare photos of 26-year old ZLY and 31 year old CMH LOL:

Both of them continued to do a lot of theatre works, some tv/film roles, and also attended grad school in the coming years. ZLY got his breakthrough leading role in 2014, and started to lead in shows/films.

In 2016, ZLY and South Korean actor Jang Hyuk starred in the drama 新海/New Sea, and CMH was seen sharing the following scene with ZLY. Unfortunately, due to China's ban on South Korean entertainment content in the same year, this drama will probably never see the light of day.

Then, I think some of you already know this, in late 2016, CMH directed the stage play Big D, and ZLY was his lead actor in this play. According to different news articles, the tickets of this play were sold out in either 5, 7, or 8 minutes (LOL no idea why there were such discrepancies, but they were sold out within 10 minutes for sure).

In 2018, they appeared in The Sound which is a very good variety show about dubbing. Celebrities were asked to dub domestic and international shows/films (sometimes in both Chinese and English) to show case their voice acting skills and language skills. What's really funny is that ZLY is one of the typical introverts who can be a clown when he's surrounded by people he's familiar with, but once you put him in an unfamiliar environment, he gets nervous and shy. So after he and CMH entered the room together, he just naturally and subconsciously stood right beside CMH, the one he was most comfortable with, even though he was supposed to team up with another actress (who was off screen). He got really confused for a minute when all the other guests and hosts were questioning why he didn't stand beside his teammate LOL.

Both ZLY and CMH are really very low key actors in c-ent, so you don't see them in public events a lot. The last time that they were spotted chatting in public was during the premiere of the movie Under the Light last September.

Anyways, thanks for reading! I hope this can bring some insight into their friendship. You can tell they are just so comfortable with each other, and shooting Tibetan Sea Flower seemed to be such a fun experience for them. I hope they get to work together again soon in the future!

[olympeline]

Been thinking about why I found Arthur in the Dark so impressive and it made me realise something kinda significant. Something significant that I’m going to put under a read more because it revolves around a heavy subject. So I wouldn’t advise looking beyond the cut if you’re sensitive to that kind of thing.

Less important, but everything below is a big spoiler and, guys seriously. If you like USUK and can handle darker fiction - no pun intended - give AitD a try. Don’t spoil yourself here. Go try it first and then come back if you’re interested. Try it if you’re neutral on USUK. Or, heck, even if USUK is a ship you dislike but isn’t an outright NOTP. I’d still recommend checking out this comic. Arthur in the Dark is still worth a read in my opinion. It’s that good. But enough gushing. Read on for the meat of this post.

Ready? Here we go: Arthur in the Dark has one of the best depictions of rape I’ve ever seen in a piece of media. “Best” as in most skillfully crafted for narrative purposes. Honestly and truly. Not even kidding. Which is kind of amazing considering it’s a depiction that came from a fan comic based on a jokey, anime gag series. Why do I feel this way? A couple of reasons:

Firstly, the rape in AitD is frighteningly, tragically realistic. Something the majority of fictional rapes are not. We tend to think of rape as taking place in a dark alley in the inner city. Stereotyping up a scene of a bottom feeder, criminal man dragging a (young, attractive) woman away to violate her. They’re usually total strangers and it’s always violent. These kind of rapes do happen, but statistics tell us they’re the minority. The majority of rapes happen like the one in AitD did: between two people who know each other well. Friends, romantic couples, even family members, make up the bulk of rapists and their victims.

Most narratives prefer the less common type of rape. Usually because the creator doesn’t want to tell a story about rape. Not really. What they want is a gut-punch to add easy drama and darkness to their creation. The sliding scale of “irredeemable bad guy” roughly goes: murderer → cold blooded torturer → rapist → child rapist. Making a villain a rapist is one of the worst things he - because 99% of the time it’s a he - can be. Conversely having a character be raped gains them instant sympathy because people are moral and empathetic creatures at heart. Most creators know this and throw in a rape for the shorthand: “Look how evil our villain is!” Which often makes the rape and its aftermath feel artificial. In no small part because the rapist characters, by virtue of being written to be the worst of the worst, don’t come off as very human. They can’t be when their main purpose is to be loathed by the audience. I could go on because there’s tons more to unpack about rape in fiction, but you get the point.

The rape in AitD isn’t like that. America and England know and love each other. Their relationship is complicated (oh boy, is it ever!) but that part of it is never in doubt. They’re each other’s most treasured person and have been for centuries. They’re not a duo made up of a flat, hate bait, villain on a collision course with their victim. Who’s doomed to suffer and be pitied until the creator decides the audience has had enough of their trauma and shuts it away so the story can move on. America and England are two people living together, going through a period of immense change and stress, trying to manage as best they can, and sometimes getting it very wrong. From a narrative point of view, this makes what happens between them so much better and so much more upsetting at the same time.

Which brings me nicely to reason number two of why this particular rape works: the build up. Like everything else in AitD, America raping England is carefully planned out and set up. The chocolate bar scene, man. Brilliant, I have to say. Alarming, uncomfortable, and brilliant. The scene in the garden is not just sprung on the reader for a jarring “Oh no! Oh shit-!” moment. If your typical under written rape is a cheap jump scare, the rape in AitD is a carefully crafted slowburn dread. Early on we start to become aware we’re building to something bad. From the foreshadowing, the art, the atmosphere, etc. We just know a storm is coming. It’s done without America acting OOC too, which is very important. It’s how he can come back from what he did. Something that would be impossible if the author didn’t handle this setup well. America’s actions aren’t right, but they are understandable. That’s the crucial distinction. The psychology of the whole thing is so very well done. America was in love with England and had been for a long time. The guilt he felt tormented him because of what their relationship was in the past. Caught between his human side and his immortal one. The guilt helped keep America in check because he didn’t want England seeing the lustful way he’d begun to look at him. Then they started living together and England was suddenly vulnerable. Vulnerable in more ways than America was aware. Which is another vital detail of how the creator keeps America sympathetic, but more on that in a moment. England willingly went blind so he wouldn’t have to see when America - the man grown from the child he raised - looked at him with lust. The guilt America felt peaked, only to clash with the realisation that he could freely indulge in his fantasies. Indulge and push (again, chocolate bar scene) now the usual moral restraint - England seeing his desire - was removed.

Meanwhile, England himself felt that same guilt but his was also laced with panic and despair. He didn’t want to lose or strain his relationship with the most important person of his centuries long life. Pulled between human standards of morality and the very inhuman existence of nation-people. Incidentally the clash between their existence as humans, while also being something more than human, is brilliantly done in AitD. It’s something that’s hard to get right - especially involving such taboo topics - but Hotama nails it. USUK usually handwaves the implications around England raising America, but here it’s made part of the narrative. Part of the tragedy, part of the resolution. Good stuff. Anyway, England begged Arthur to take his sight away so he wouldn’t have to see the way America looked at him. Then banished Arthur back into the dark in an attempt to run away from his problems. But without Arthur - without his strength - England couldn’t stand up to America when he needed to. Not that America was aware of any of this because he never knew about Arthur. Which brings me to point three: nuance of blame.

“Blame” is a very loaded word in this context, so I’ll do my best to talk about this carefully. Rape in the media is almost always black and white. Absolutely evil, irredeemable rapist. Absolutely blameless, sympathetic victim. But real life isn’t always that simple. Obviously the rapist is always the perpetrator and the one most in the wrong. I need to make that very clear. But the scene in AitD illustrates that sometimes a victim could have done more to help themselves. Not always, but sometimes. This is a delicate subject so I hope you understand I’m not trying to victim blame. Just saying that rape, like all crimes, doesn’t always deal in absolutes. Unlike media, real life is often complicated and tragic. Good people can give in to temptation. Be weak, do bad things, or allow those bad things to happen. England told America to stop, but failed to follow it up when needed. When America pushed for more and used England’s own words to argue he’d already been given consent, that was when England needed to push back. Interpretation comes in here but, personally, I think if England had told America to stop when prompted, America would have. But England didn’t and he gave in instead. Something America took as a tacit “yes.” Again, not right, but understandable in how it could happen. Their power imbalance had grown extreme, stress and feelings were running high, they were struggling to connect as they used to, England’s prior cowardice and separation from Arthur prevented him from being strong when he needed to be, America was ignorant of his problem, and it all came together in a horrible, tragic mistake. All throughout, the rape continued to be brilliantly, awfully realistic. America not noticing - either genuinely or from denial - that England was not enjoying what was happening. England quickly becoming too distracted by the pain to do anything other than focus on enduring it. Then the aftermath where America didn’t realise what he’d just done due to coming down from a post-sex, post-stress euphoria. Awful, miserable, horrifying, tragic, perfectly crafted scene.

Which brings me to my final reason why this comic impressed me in its depiction of rape: where the story goes from there. Where it goes and how the narrative builds from the rape instead of trying to move on because the “shocking” part is over and now we’re in diminishing returns. Going back to my first point, too many stories see rape as something that happens in an isolated part of the narrative. It happened, it was shocking and brutal, now it’s done and we can move on because we didn’t plan to interweve the rape with the rest of the story. So we won’t give it the weight it needs. At best the victim might get a few scenes expressing their trauma later on - maybe a callback or two - but that’s it. It’s shallow. Plenty of fictional rapes could be replaced with a savage beating and nothing would change. In the worst cases you could remove the rape, not replace it with anything, then run the story with minimal problems. Not so in AitD. There, the rape isn’t just another semi-important plot point. It’s a crucial one which couldn’t be replaced with anything else. The whole first part of the story, the engine of the narrative, is built around America and England failing to deal with their changing relationship. A relationship between a pair of humans who also happen to be strange, immortal beings that ordinary humans can’t understand. Changing from platonic/familial to romantic over hundreds of years. With romance comes lust. Lust can be perfectly healthy just like any other bodily appetite. In this case it became twisted by circumstance, and the only “suitable” narrative payoff was rape. Nothing else would have had the necessary impact.

Then there’s how the rape compares to the final sex scene in some classic narrative juxtaposition. The final sex scene which happens to be the only one in the comic that’s fully consensual on both sides. The one that goes beyond sex and becomes real, honest to goodness lovemaking. It’s a perfect contrast. The rape scene had all the trappings of a classic romance. Right down to it being their first time and taking place in a rose garden. But it’s tragic, horrifying, and deeply unsexy. Then, near the end of their story, America and Arthur get lost on their road trip and have sex in their car. Their crappy, cramped car, where they’re surrounded by ordinary luggage, both of them sweaty and a little cranky with each other after a long day. It’s awkward, ordinary, imperfect and gorgeous. If we didn’t have the rape before to show us the nadir of this relationship, the healing and the dawn that came after wouldn’t be half so meaningful. A very strange thing to say without context, but it was a perfectly done rape that gave the audience the payoff of perfectly done lovemaking. It’s no small feat to get a reader to cheer for a romantic resolution after all of the above. Kind of in awe of Hotama’s skills, I tell you what.

Up to this point and I don’t know what else there is to say other than, geez. This comic, man. Blew me away. I’m so happy I rediscovered my interest in Hetalia if for no other reason than I got to read Arthur in the Dark. I’m a bit of a bookworm in my spare time and I’ve read quite a lot of classic literature over the years. Classic literature with rape scenes not crafted half so well as AitD did. Really think about that. An amateur fan comic based on a jokey gag series about national personifications being silly with each other. Did better at something than the books we hold up as the best of the best. Can’t really say anything else than that is genuinely bloody amazing

[drarry-reccage]

Notes on a resurrection by newleaves (126k, M)

Tags: Unspeakable Draco Malfoy, Professor Harry Potter, Bring back Black, Secret Relationships

The Potters stop arguing, for the moment. They look over, their expressions matched in steely irritation. Thankfully, for Draco’s nerves, they’re easy to distinguish besides this. Harry is full of storms, as usual, on his feet as he paces the rug not far from the door, shoulders up around his ears. His father is leaning artfully against the honey-brown Chesterfield sofa, one foot crossed over the other and hands in his pockets, all clean lines and angles. It’s not clear why they’ve been keeping each other company, but Draco supposes that Harry at least can’t resist throwing himself at a problem until it’s either solved or successfully killed him. “Masters and Mistress,” drawls Kreacher, living for this moment. Draco’s often thought that it’s a cruelty, the way that Harry and the others so frequently refuse to let Kreacher express himself. “Mr Potter. May Kreacher present Mr Malfoy…” The pause is exquisite. “And his guest.” This is Lupin’s cue to come out from behind the doorframe, and Draco gets the impression that he’s very nearly run off again. “Just me, I’m afraid,” he says with half a wave. There is the requisite pause as the room takes him in, but then it’s James Potter who reacts – or, more accurately, erupts. Collapsing away from the sofa, he lights up like nothing that Draco has ever seen, breaking into an ebullient laugh, storming movement and a bellow. “You fuzzy cunt, Moony – what?!”

My notes are under cut, containing what could be considered spoilers (though the big plot points I mention didn't come as a surprise to me while reading).

(rec by @dontthrowsticksatme)

Caveat here is that I'm only halfway through the fic as I write this. If the second half is horrible, I apologise, though I can't imagine it to be <3

I LOVE the characterisations in this fic. The way the marauders are portrayed are *chef's kiss*.

I especially love how Harry is juxtaposed with his posh, happy-go-lucky dad. Who, after finding out their old friends Frank and Alice Longbottom have been in St Mungo's all this time, suggests they should have a barbecue. For Neville. If the weather's nice.

Or with cute Lily and her thick accent, and the way her love for Harry sparkles off the screen immediately and in every way. Or little shit Teddy meeting his dad, and the way Draco only encourages him by setting up a prank the day the two meet.

Drarry is almost - but not entirely - secondary to all these family relationships, but their love is a very sweet one, sketched in moments woven throughout the story.

Draco's character comes through in subtle ways, throwaway lines, funny actions and mostly the way the other characters look at him, interact with him. He has the worst blind spots for how much people like him.

And you cannot help but love Harry through Draco's softly adoring eyes. I want to wrap him in my arms and hug tight. Actually, I want to wrap all of them in my arms and hug tight.

[ahotmesswithprivilege]

Happy Ever After - Chapter 5

paring: Jake Seresin x female!librarian!reader

wordcount: ca. 5800

synopsis: When Javy signed up his best friend for a dating website it was quickly dubbed the "stupidest idea in the history of fucking drunk fever dream ideas" and none of the Dagger Squad had expected it to lead somewhere, let alone to Hangman entering a museum on his own volition. That's where he'll meet his chaotic librarian for the first time and even though things are not as they seemed, he is happy that they are the way they are.

note: I had an outline for a scene in the museum including a bunch of infodump rants about different pieces but I couldn't bring myself to write that so yeah 🤷🏻 That's why I cut it and because I thought that it would have been more filler than anything else. I hope you still enjoy the slow pace this is having. Now we can enjoy those two idiots (very affectionate) trying to figure out how to communicate and how to be around one another. Much fun.

And if anyone knows someone who is more graphically capable who would like to help a girl out here, I'd greatly appreciate the pointers or else I'll probably use the same 3 gifs every chapter XD

Trigger Warning (for the entire series. Things can be added over time. If I forgot something or you want me to add to the list, my inbox is wide open. You are responsible for your media consumption, proceed with caution, you know the drill): kind of arranged date situation, talk of mental illness (depression and suicid*l ideation are mentioned specifically here) and disability, disabled!reader, plus-size!reader, service dog, accessibility issues, body shaming (self and others), self-deprecation, cursing, non-canon (not even sure if this is canon compliant so, take that as you will), nsfw/smut (later chapters), written by a non-native speaker, not beta read, reader is addressed by her nickname Belle (she's got the books, she's got the beast and she's got the kind heart), probably classifies as soft!Jake Seresin but you'll be the judge of that.

Chapter 1 || Previous Chapter || Masterlist || Next Chapter

banner by @firefly-graphics divider by @sweetmelodygraphics gif by @karlmschwartz (I know it's not Jake but the gif just fits so well I couldn't resist)

Taglist is open. Please come to my inbox and specify if you just want to be on for a specific character/series or everything

!!!Minors do not interact! I block blank blogs/without age/Minors!!!

Jake is not surprised when he sees the chain with the dog tags around the guy's neck, but he sure as hell is disappointed. He wasn't above pulling rank on other people on base or putting the fear of god in some idiot at the Hard Deck but he drew the line at women and children. He swore an oath to protect this country and its values and harassing innocents was surely not part of that. But on the bright side of things, his rank at least shut the guy up for long enough so security could get their act together and get the man out of the building.

He heaves a sigh, muscles relaxing as he turns back to check in on you but you are nowhere to be seen. Eyes flittering around in panic he’s searching for you until he sees you sitting on the floor in a small alcove next to a bust of some 18th-century moneybags who probably donated big time to the museum or something along the lines. You are resting your head against the marble wall and your service dog sits in your lap, his head resting on your shoulder while your fingers are buried in his fur. When he stepped a little closer he could see the marks of tears running down your cheeks.

Fuck this was bad and he had no fucking clue what he was supposed to do right now. It's not like there was a protocol he could follow or points on a list to cross off. At least none he was aware of. His focus had been all on you when he heard muttering and as soon as he looked back over his shoulder, he saw people who had gathered, staring at you, one even having her phone out. She wasn’t really filming you, right? God, why were people like this?

He straightened his back as he turned around, making sure that he was towering at his full height over them as he walked towards them. "Ok, people. Party is over", he spread out his arms, almost herding them away from you, following the woman with the phone. "Ma'am", she froze, the guilt on her face surely showing that she knew that she had done something wrong. "I want you to delete whatever footage you have taken right here and I will have to insist that I see the proof", he's in full-fledged officer mode right now and considering the look on his face it was no surprise that she just dropped the phone in his hand. After deleting the video and checking if there were any more, he handed it back to her. "I am trusting that this is not saved in some cloud. If it is, you better delete it. If I see it online I will have no qualms about finding you and holding you accountable for it, have I made myself clear?", his voice is dripping with authority. "Yes, Sir" "Good. Have a nice afternoon, Ma'am", he nods at her before he turns around and his focus zeros back in on you.

You still hear the blood rushing in your ears and your heart hammering in your chest when you feel Vakarian manoeuvring you back against the wall and you just follow. He knew before you even realised how lightheaded you were after this shit show and so he brought you to a safe space to sit down. You plop down on the floor, the cool marble against your back is a nasty feeling, but you have bigger problems right now. Vakarian gets into your lap, putting his weight on you and resting his head against your shoulder. It was not as comfortable as him laying on your chest but considering where you were, sitting was the much better option. Your fingers automatically start tangling in his fur, petting and scratching him to calm your heart rate and slow down the racing thoughts in your brain.  

Hangman watches the scene, trusting that it's not the first time your furry companion has done this and the longer you sit there, the more your breathing evened out. He crouched down in front of you, strategically placing himself in between you and the room full of people to make sure that all someone could film now was his backside and when he saw you move your head as if you start taking in your surroundings, he couldn't help the wave of relief washing over him. "Is there anything I can do for you, Ma'am? Someone to call?", he asked, that charming smile on his lips and you just shook your head.

Now that your breathing had calmed down Vakarian got up from your lap and pulled the emergency water bottle from your backpack to drop it in your lap. Even after 6 years of him by your side it never fails to amaze you how good he is at this. God, you were thankful to have someone like him by your side. "Thanks", your voice is really rough and raspy and you need the drink if you want to even get a single remotely coherent sentence out of your mouth.

You take the bottle and open it, that's when the light catches on your ring Jake cannot help but stare. The silver ring on your left index finger, the perfectly manicured red nails, the sunglasses you wore even on a rainy day inside the building... "Belle?"

Your eyes shoot up to meet his for a second, the intense green gaze makes your eyes flitter away again and you look for something different to focus on and choose the silvery metal of his dog tags. And then you nod, gulping down some water before you close the bottle, nails nervously clacking against the plastic.

Jake is utterly perplexed but the more his eyes are wandering over your frame the more puzzle pieces fall into place. The shirt that stretches over your chest reads "Save some brain cells. Read a book", you always said that you carry too much shit around and you showed up with a backpack that is stuffed to a degree it barely closes. It all makes perfect sense.

It is right there when you see how shocked he is that it dawns on you. You never told him. You remember thinking while writing that first answer that you should let him know he'd meet Vakarian anyway because he's your service dog. But you didn't and now he's not only here meeting a woman he never saw before but also a woman with a disability he did not sign up for. And you lied to him. Well you didn't lie, you just didn't give him all the facts, but at the end of the day, it's the same.

"I'm sorry", your voice is quiet as your gaze moves from his chest down to the water bottle, nails drumming a rhythm against the plastic. "I wanted to tell you in my reply to the first message that you'd meet Vakarian no matter what because he's my service dog, but I got so carried away that I forgot. Usually, I double and triple-check everything but this time...", you are trailing off and Jake can see how much this weighs on you. "This is not what you signed up for, so I could...", you begin but he shakes his head and places his hand over yours, forcing your eyes back up to him. "It's ok" "No, it's not. First I don't send you a picture and then..." "Belle stop", his voice is soft and it brings tears to your eyes to think that this wonderful man was here because you strung him along by withholding crucial information.

"You are the woman who wrote to me, right? The woman who asked me to come to the museum with her to see the riad they rebuilt here. The woman who wrote me a borderline essay-length message on the nightmare that's resizing those patterns for the adapted scale. The woman who checked in with me if I needed a transcript of the first voice message she sent in case I couldn't deal with the audio. The woman who argued for two hours with a homophobic asshole about his inquiry to ban a children's book about a gay bunny and when said book magically disappeared you not only bought a new one out of pocket, you made a bulk order for the English and Spanish version you probably spent almost a month's wage on to bring it to your library and others in the area", you nod as you stare at him with wide eyes. You never really told him the last part. Well yes, you said that the homophobic ass was annoying and you sent him a picture of you unpacking the order and said you couldn't wait to donate them, but those were small snippets, more footnotes than part of the real conversation and yet, he not only noticed but it mattered enough for him to remember. "Good. Because that's the woman I came here for", his smile is blinding and you feel how he gently squeezes your hand and you choke up again with tears in your eyes.

"Come. I'm gonna bring you home", his voice is soft and when you look up at him like a deer caught in headlight and shaking your head he stops in his tracks. "You already got the tickets", you point at the exhibit guide and the tickets he used as a bookmark on the floor next to him.

He came early to have everything prepared because this mattered to him. Meeting you mattered and that asshole and your brain had to fuck you over like that. "You'll be surprised but they actually sell these", he points behind him to the counter and gives you a wink. It's his attempt at making a joke, at lightening the mood knowing this was something that not only weighed on you because of the asshole who had cornered you but also because you felt guilty for everything that happened before. "But..." "Belle two museum tickets are not gonna break my bank account. I'll even manage two more this month so if you need the break after what just happened, then I'll gladly bring you here again when you feel like you are ready"

You take a deep breath and check in with Vakarian who is lying right next to you. Most of the time you cannot feel what's going on with your body before it's too late, so he is the best way for you to gauge where you are standing with this. And he seems calm, almost relaxed with his head on your thigh.

Jake follows your gaze and sees the way you study your dog. He doesn't know what you need help with exactly and what the dog can do for you, but he does know that he's a lifeline to you, so he waits there calm and quiet until you focus back on him, eyes glued on his dog tags.

"I'm fine, Jake. And I don't just say that because I really really wanna see the exhibit with you", your fingers are tangled in Vakarian's fur, scratching him right behind his ear the way he loves it most, prompting him to thump a hind leg onto the marble floor and it makes you chuckle. "He wouldn't be like this otherwise", and that's when Jake realises that your dog is not just for crowd control and to calm you down, but he's your barometer. He's the indicator that tells you how you are doing, so Jake makes a mental note to check in with your furry companion on the regular while he's around. "You sure" "Yeah. Never trust me with anything I say about my state", you smile gently as you look back down at Vakarian,"But the floof is always right" "Good. Anything I need to know? Any rules to play by?" You ponder for a moment before you look back over to him, your eyes not meeting his. "All in all you did pretty stellar so far. Let Vakarian do his thing, make sure no one bothers us and I do have a tendency to ignore his alerts because I think it's not that bad and then I crash so it would be nice if you could give me a pointer" He nods. "Any boundaries to keep in mind?" You bite down on your lower lip, attempting to find a way to put things into words without sounding like you don't want to be here with him or you try to push him away. "Touch can be difficult, especially with people I don't know well. Also, people getting too close in general. Vakarian is really good with crowd control, but sometimes", you shrug," And eye contact is difficult. It's one of the reasons why I wear the shades. That and the fact I feel like someone is pointing a stage light right in my face if I don't" The more he learns, the more he realises that this will not be a normal date and pretty much everything he's ever learned about those is worthless around you. This is a whole new adventure and it's as exciting as it is daunting and he had never been the kind of man to back down from a good challenge. "And it might take a bit until I can answer a question or that I have to ask if I got something right. It’s not that I don’t care enough to listen or ignore you. My brain just has a tendency to run 100 miles an hour with 10 different trains of thought and I struggle to keep up sometimes" "Good. I'll try my best to keep these in mind", he says, giving you a gentle smile before he gets up from his crouching position and reaches out his hand to you. An offer you know he wouldn't fault you for not taking but you miss the feeling of his large hand taking yours, so you take it, even if it makes you a bit uncomfortable too, setting off a whole new train of thought full of doubts that you had no business having.

Your legs are a little wobbly when you get back onto your feet, causing you to crash into his chest. "Careful Belle", he whispers and you cannot help the flush on your cheeks as you hold onto his arm and the other hand pressed flat against the plains of his abs. You take a deep breath while your eyes wander over his face. With your sunglasses on you feel safe enough to do so. There is no social norm or expectation of how long it is appropriate to look if he doesn't even know you are looking, right? "Didn't have a chance to wear these in a while", you point down at the boots with the cuban heels, "I'm usually more of a hiking boot kinda gal"

Jake nods, thankful for every little puzzle piece he finds out about you. His eyes wander from your feet up your calves, over the poofy circle skirt you are wearing up the shirt with the quote and the cute owl with glasses that holds an open book over your neck and stops at your face. He wished he could see your eyes, wondering what colour they are and if you are eying him up too. If you like what you see now that he's right in front of you in person. The thought of you in hiking boots makes him smile and he hopes that he'll get a chance to see you wearing them. Maybe when he takes you out on that beach stroll he offered way back when. "I am glad I could help with that", he gives you a smile and for a moment he wonders if you zoned out but a short glance down to Vakarian tells him that you are ok. Just quiet.

You see the way his eyes go down to Vakarian and you can't help but beam. Other than with Kelly you can't remember the last time meeting someone went this smoothly.

The moment you step back to untangle yourself from Jake he feels an unease creeping up his neck. He liked the way you were pressed against him, the feeling of giving you stability and an anchor to hold onto. The feeling of being needed, but he remembered that you had trouble with touch so he promised himself to reign his hands in more from now on. You were the one who'd decide the pace for this and he'll wait patiently for you to feel more comfortable around him.

You had shared a locker to put your jackets away before you picked up your backpack. "I can take this for you", he offers, knowing that by the way you handle it, it's heavy as fuck but you just shake your head. "I'm fine, but thanks" The southern gentleman in him finds it difficult to accept the answer but he respects you too much to insist. You've been mindful of his boundaries so far, so he'll honour yours.

Side by side you walk up to the entry, Vakarian following you like your own shadow. You wait patiently for your turn and Jake hands over your tickets when the guy is eying you up and down in a way that makes your skin crawl. "Backpacks of any size are not allowed inside the exhibition. I have to ask you to put this in a locker", he states, making your hands tighten around the straps. Not again... "Those are the essentials for me and my service dog" The guy wants to say something and you are making yourself ready to argue but then he looks behind you and for whatever reason he steps aside. That's when you feel his warmth and when you turn around you see Jake, his formerly stern stare morphing into something much gentler as he looks down at you. "Let's go. The riad is waiting for us"

You walk up the stairs and Jake sees your skirts swooshing right to left with every movement as he follows until you suddenly stop in your tracks and turn around, skirt flying and forcing him to stop too, which means he takes a moment to find his footing. “Sorry”, you apologise immediately, hands reaching out to help him stabilise. But the moment you realise what you did you pull your hands back, looking down at your fingers as if you did something wrong. As if you overstepped. “It’s ok, Belle”

There is a pause, people making their way around you as you stand there in the middle of the stairs. “We need to talk”, the words are heavy in the air between the two of you and he’s not sure if this is you telling him that you need to go home or if you didn’t want to be on this date but no matter what, his heart sank at the thought that he’d have to let you go so soon. “Of course”, you nod at him, walking up the last few steps before you head over to a stone bench, place your backpack on the ground and sit down waiting for him to take the seat next to you and Vakarian lying down by your feet.

“You said it’s ok that I didn’t disclose my disability from the start” "And I meant it, Belle. You don't owe me anything, least of all sensitive medical information", he cuts in. He doesn't want you to feel like there is anything in this relationship, whatever it might grow into, that you are forced to do. "I know, Jake but...", you begin and he’s fully ready to repeat his stance time and time again until you believe it, but when he saw the way you turned your ring, eyes glued to the shining silver, he held himself back. He doesn’t see Vakarian alerting or anything but that doesn’t mean that this is not difficult for you. "I've had too many people in my life tell me that if only they'd known from the start, they wouldn't have bothered", the pain in your voice hits him right in his gut.

"So, full disclosure. I am an AuDHDer, which means I am autistic and I have ADHD because one wasn't enough I guess. The autism diagnosis means that social interactions are difficult, so is sensory input", you tap against your shades and then point to your earplugs, "and then there is repetitive behaviour. I sometimes repeat words or phrases from conversations or quote any form of media and I love to listen to the exact same song for days on end, quietly saying the lyrics the entire time and without my headphones I cannot leave the house period" Your eyes are glued to your ring, fingers turning the silvery metal. "That's one too. It helps me focus and deal when it feels like the world is collapsing onto me", there is a smile on your lips but he's pretty sure if he'd see your eyes, that smile wouldn't reach them. "The ADHD diagnosis means that I cannot regulate my focus. It's either I cannot do it no matter how much I want to or hyperfocus kicks. It feels like falling down a rabbit hole and the world around you stops existing. Can be 4 hours, can be 14. It's one of the many things he's helping me with", you nodd in Vakarian's direction. "I am also dealing with a recurrent depressive disorder caused by my late diagnosis and I've dealt with suicid*l ideation in the past, though that hasn't been an issue for a while. All in all, I am pretty stable with medication, but that doesn't mean my brain is magically neurotypical. I am still wired differently and that means that I have special interests I obsess over to a degree neurotypical people would never. I forget things I don't want to forget or I am late for events because I fell down another rabbit hole or I cannot do things that are paramount that they get done and then I panic and have to do them late", you heave a sigh before your eyes wander back up to him. "And it means that I take things terribly literally. You say something and for me, it reads like you mean that thing even if you only consider it as a joke. As someone who's dealt with my bullshit for three decades give or take, I can tell you there are days when it gets really exhausting and there are many of them, so. Now you know", you meet his eyes, for a moment before your eyes flitter to the place between his eyes.

The silence between the two of you grows and you start wondering if that's the moment he'll get up and leave. It's not like you'd fault him for it because you knew better than anyone else how hard living with you was and you were yet again glad that you could hide behind your shades so he wouldn't see the tears that were glittering in your eyes.

He took a deep breath and you waited for the words but instead, he asked you. "Can I take your hand, Belle?" Your eyes widen in shock, eyes finding his green ones trying to figure out what was going on in that mind of his. You nod but he doesn't move. "Please use your words, Belle", his voice is gentle and you cannot help but keep looking into those green eyes that are so focused on you and every move you make without making you feel uncomfortable. He wasn't gawking, he was only trying to read you right, to make sure that the communication between the two of you was going ok. At least, that's the impression you got. "You can take my hand", your voice is barely above a whisper and then you feel his hands wrapping around yours. They are much bigger and stronger than your own and for the flicker of a moment, you wonder what these hands have done in their life. How many lives did they take and how many have they saved in return? But then you feel the gentle squeeze of his fingers and your focus is right back with his eyes.

"I still don't believe that you owed me any of that information, but I appreciate your honesty", his eyes were flittering around all over your face and body, trying to gauge the situation. You had just bared your soul to a man who is as good as a stranger to you because you felt like you had to. Because people made you feel like it was your responsibility to accommodate them without getting any of that courtesy in return and it made him so goddamn angry. "And my point still stands. I came for the woman I wrote with in the past week and I want to have a chance to get to know her better. That is, if she'll have me?" He's asking that question not because he doubts that you want this, that you want to see the exhibit and you want to do it with him around, but because he wanted to give you the power back, to enable you to make the choice. Seeing you feeling so small made his heart ache and this was the only way he could think of right now to remind you of the power you actually wielded.

You let the words settle in. It takes a while but it makes you smile nevertheless and that smile is Jake's great victory of the day. "Good. And the moment..." "The moment I stop wanting this I'll let you know. But the same goes for you Belle" "Promise?", you lift your free hand and offer him your pinky, a small chuckle rumbling in his chest. He couldn't remember if he ever swore a pinky promise in his life. But there was a first for everything. "Promise"

You feel like you are on cloud nine when you put the key in your lock. Jake had been the perfect gentleman to the very end and on top of that, he actually wanted to see you again. It was hard to believe that even after all the ranting and the things you told him about you he chose to stay. Not many people made a habit of doing that and it thrilled you to think that someone you've actually grown to care about does. When you open the door you are still completely caught up in your thoughts as you walk down the corridor and are stopped in your tracks by a moan.

Automatically you close your eyes before you say. "Please Kelly, tell me I didn’t walk in on you fucking your girlfriend on our couch" There are shocked gasps followed by chuckling and giggling. “No. I didn’t fuck her”, Kelly replied and she could practically see you roll your eyes under your shades. “Is it safe to look or would I need to bleach my eyes afterwards? No offence Natasha” “None taken”, you can hear the way she’s holding back her laughter. There is a bit of shuffling before you hear Kelly's voice again. “You can look now”

You still see the dishevelled look of them both, clothes not quite where they are supposed to be, hair a tousled mess from fingers running through it and swollen lips. Yeah. Those two had very obviously ignored whatever they were watching in favour of getting lost in each other. ���How was your date?” “It began with a guy yelling at me to get my mutt out of the museum before he went on to tell me that I'm not disabled and just faking. You know the drill ” Kelly’s heart gets heavy. She had seen you struggle with the same prejudices time and time again and it’s exhausting to watch. She doesn’t even want to begin to imagine what it feels like to deal with that bullshit every day of your life. “Oh Belle…” “But at least for once, someone stepped in”, a small smile plays on your lips as you take off your shades and place them on the kitchen counter. “It was a full-stop knight in shining armour moment, he even pulled his rank and all…”, you remember the snippets of what happened. The way the warmth of his body behind yours felt, the way he put that asshole into his place, the way he got himself between you and the guy to shield you. “Belle?” Kelly’s voice pulls you back, realising you’ve been playing with your ring the entire time and staring at the silver that is wrapped around your finger. “Sorry” “And who was your knight?” “Jake, actually. He didn’t know it was me when he stepped in but he recognised me afterwards. Like I didn't even have to introduce myself. He never saw a picture of me and yet he knew it was me just by what he learned about me from the messages…”

You are drifting off into memories again and Kelly knows, so when she feels that her girlfriend wants to say something she puts her hand on Natasha's arm and shakes her head. You need time to process first. “Good for him”, she says, leaving you a bit more space to sort out your feelings before you look over to them on the couch again. “I’ll tell you the rest tomorrow ok?” You know you don’t have to ask. Of all the people you’ve ever met Kelly was the one who was the most supportive, the one who not only respected your boundaries but helped you enforce them even when you couldn’t. “I’m marking it down as a hot brown beverage date”, she winks at you and you nod, making your way over to your bedroom, your shadow glued to your side.

“What do you know about the guy she’s seeing? Other than that his name is Jake?”, Kelly looks over at her girlfriend surprised. She knew that Natasha cared about you. Cared a lot actually and to see her this alarmed made her pause. “She said he’s Navy, stationed here at North Island like you” Natasha’s heart was slamming against her rib cage. This couldn’t be. Of all the singles in fucking San Diego... “You know his last name?” Kelly shakes her head. “You know how bad I am with names. Took me long enough to learn yours” “His username?” Kelly thinks for a moment feeling how her own fear is seeping in. Since she met Phoenix she hadn’t seen her that worried. Like ever. “It was something weird but I can check”, she picked up her phone and pulled up the app. You had never bothered with changing the password and when she scrolled down the messages she found his. “Here we got him. Lieutenant Jake Seresin and his username is” “Hangman”

Kelly looks up in surprise and tilts her head. “How do you know?”, she asks while Natasha is shooting up from the couch, she undoes the updo that had become second nature since she started military training. Running her fingers through her hair she starts walking up and down the room, pulling on her roots. This couldn’t be fucking true. “Natasha what is going on?”, her behaviour alarmed Kelly. Did she know something about that guy? “It’s fucking Bagman of course it had to be”, she growls, so pissed at herself. She should have asked from the moment Kelly said he was military. Should have asked more questions when she saw Bagman sitting in their commons room with the website for the Islamic Art exhibit pulled up. He wasn't the type for it and he also wasn't the type to go for people who did this. It was a major red flag and she had just put it off as something to laugh at. "What?" "Seresin's callsign is Hangman, I just call him Bagman"

Kelly gets up now too. Phoenix had told her about everyone in her squad including Bagman, the cocky asshole who was too pretty for his own good and loved to pick up a new tag chaser every night at the Hard Deck. “I cannot imagine that your Bagman and Belle's Jake can be the same guy. She described him as patient and kind and funny…” Natasha gives her a look to stop her right there. “You remember when I told you that Coyote had the stupidest idea in the history of fucking drunk fever dream ideas and how pissed I was that I let him rope me into it?” “Yeah” “He made Bagman a profile to shut up his whining about how no one ever really loves him”, she’s throwing her hands up in the air and really wants to scream but she can’t. You’d be here in a matter of seconds and she’s not in the right mindset to explain to you why the guy you went on a date with is not worth your time and effort. “Oh my god”, Kelly’s voice is a whisper and Phoenix can hear Jake’s voice echoing in her ear ‘No darling. You can call me Hangman’ and it makes her wanna throw up. “You have to tell her Kelly. He’s a playboy and serial tag chaser fucker. That guy hasn’t had a serious relationship since high school and that would mean you are generous enough to call high school relationships serious”

Kelly is fighting hard with herself. She wants to protect you, even more so than Phoenix. You were her sister, not by blood but by choice but she had seen you in the past week and you made leaps past anything she could have ever imagined. You were actually happy. Like honest to goodness that man made you smile and it felt cruel to take that away from you before it even had a chance to start. “No Kells” “What?” “I know that fucking look on your face. It’s the everyone deserves a second chance kinda look and I tell you right here right now that Bagman is not a man who does" Kelly is arching her brow. Of all the people to give her a line like that it had to be her girlfriend? Phoenix, the one who rose from the ashes of her own disasters? "You know why we call him Hangman?" She leaves a pause, walking closer to look straight into her girlfriend's eyes. "Because he'll always hang you out to dry. It doesn't matter if it's in the air or at the Hard Deck, he'll do whatever it takes to get that kill, sacrifice everything under the sun, holy or otherwise, to get the pat on the back for completing the mission" Kelly's eyes widen at those words. Never before did she hear her girlfriend talk about a squad member like this, not even Bagman. "If you put your faith in Jake Seresin you are fucking lost and Belle deserves better than that"

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[incoherentbabblings]

Unpopular opinion mayhaps, but if your Steph characterisation is formed from comics pre-2004 only, and if you don't include anything from the last decade in your understanding and conceptualisation of her, you have perhaps missed the entire point of her character and I don't care to hear your thoughts on her.

[brittlebutch]

finally found a place to read With the Light online and i'm thrilled; if you haven't read this manga i do Legitimately recommend it

[girlscience]

I hate getting into something that has a canon(ish) sapphic couple, but I only end up caring about one of the two women 😭😭😭

[luminiera-merge]

i think my tolerance for moe (ie the anime stuff) is in freefall rn

[wovenstarlight]

physically pained by today's class where the prof's asked us to take turns reading aaloud. some of you do not fucking know how to read for the class and it SHOWS!!! you have to PROJECT YOUR VOICE so everyone can hear you, you have to ENUNCIATE so you can be understood, you have to speak with some fucking ENERGY so it isn't just a flat incomprehensible stream of words, i want to know if this sentence is a question or a statement or a comparison from the tone of your voice!! holy shit!!! if i wanted to listen to white noise i would turn on a fucking fan!!!

[weaselle]

i want to talk about real life villains

Not someone who mugs you, or kills someone while driving drunk, those are just criminals. I mean VILLAINS.

Not like trump or musk, who are... cartoonishly evil. And not sexy villains, not grandiose villains, not even satisfyingly two dimensional villains it is easy to hate unconditionally. The real villains.

I had a client who was a retired executive for one of the big oil companies, i think it was Shell or Chevron. Had a home just outside of San Francisco that was wall to wall floor to ceiling full of expensive art. Literally. I once accidentally knocked a painting off the wall because it was hanging at knee height at the corner of the stairs, and it had a little brass plaque on it, and i looked up the name of the artist and it was Monet's apprentice and son-in-law, who was apparently also a famous painter. He had an original Andy Warhol, which should have been a prize piece for anyone to showcase -- it was hanging in the bathroom. I swear to god this guy was using a Chihuly (famous glass sculptor) as a fruit bowl. And he was like, "idk my wife was the one who liked art"

I was intrigued by this guy, because in the circles i run this dude is The Enemy. right? Wealthy oil executive? But as my client, he was... like a sweet grandpa. A poor widower, a nice old man, anyone who knew him would have called him a sweetheart. He had a slightly bewildered air, a sort of gentle bumbling nature.

And the fact that he was both of these things, a Sweet Little Old Man and The Enemy, at the same time, seemed important and fascinating to me.

He reminded me of some antagonist from fiction, but i couldn't put my finger on who. And when i did it all made sense.

John Hammond.

probably one of the most realistic bad guys ever written.

If you've only ever seen the movie, this will need some explaining.

Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park in 1990, and i read it shortly thereafter. In the movie, the dinosaurs are the antagonists, which imo erases 50% of the point of the story.

book spoilers below.

In the book, John Hammond is the villain but it takes the reader like half the book to figure that out. Just like my client, John is a sweet old man who wants lovely things for people. He's a very sympathetic character. But as the book progresses, you start to see something about him.

He has an idea, and he's sure it's a good one. When someone else dies in pursuit of his dream, he doesn't think anything of it. When other people turn out to care about that, he brings in experts to evaluate the safety of his idea, and when they quickly tell him his idea is dangerous and needs to be put on hold, he ignores his own experts that he himself hired, because they are telling him that he is wrong, and he is sure he is right.

In his mind, he's a visionary, and nobody understands his vision. He is surrounded by naysayers. Several things have proven too difficult to do the best and safest way, so he has cut corners and taken shortcuts so he can keep moving forward with his plans, but he's sure it's fine. He refuses to hear any word of caution, because he believes he is being cautious enough, and he knows best, even though he has no background in any of the sciences or professions involved. He sends his own grandchildren out into a life-threatening situation because he is willfully ignorant of the danger he is creating.

THIS is like the real villains of the world. He doesn't want anyone to die. Far from it, he only wants good things for people! He's a sweet old man who loves his grandchildren. But he has money and power and refuses to hear that what he is doing is dangerous for everyone, even his own family.

I think he's possibly one of the most important villains ever written in popular fiction.

In the book, he is killed by a pack of the smallest, cutest, "least dangerous" dinosaurs, because a big part of why we read fiction is to see the villains face thematic justice. But like a cigarette CEO dying of lung cancer, his death does not stop his creation from spreading out into the world to continue to endanger everyone else.

I think it is really important to see and understand this kind of villainy in fiction, so you can recognize it in real life.

Sweetheart of a grandfather. Wanted the best for everyone. Right up until what was best for everyone inconvenienced the pursuit of his own interests.

And my client was like that too. His wife had died, and his dog was now the love of his life, and she was this little old dog with silky hair in a hair cut that left long wispy bits on her lower legs. Certain plant materials were easily entangled in this hair and impossible to get out without pulling her hair which clearly hurt her. When i suggested he ask his groomer to trim her lower leg hair short to avoid this, he refused, saying he really liked her usual hair cut.

I emphasized that she was in pain after every walk due to the plant debris getting caught in her leg hair, and a simple trim could put an end to her daily painful removal of it, and he just frowned like i'd recommended he take a bath in pig shit and said "But she'll be ugly" and refused to talk about it anymore.

Sweet old man though. Everyone loved him.

[jytan2018]

I read the comic in one sitting less than an hour after finishing the movie, and wow I have many Thoughts™.

- It's very obvious the two versions were meant to cater to different audiences AND tell different messages. I don't get why people are going "But the comic was better! It had more nuance!" just because Nimona was easier to root for in the movie.

- The comic was written back when ND Stevenson was still trying to process a lot of stuff, so all the characters are morally grey/straight up evil and the climactic battle is between a Ballister who regrets turning against Nimona, even if it was to save others vs. a Nimona who's too hurt to care if her lashing out was going to hurt innocent people.

- By the time Nimona got a movie adaptation, ND was a lot more secure in his sexuality, so the climactic battle was Nimona vs. the Director, the symbol of religious oppression and bigotry. It's not just about your friends turning on you because you're "too much" for them anymore, it's also about a society that would rather bring itself to the brink of ruin than coexist with you.

- (I totally get why people were upset about Ballister's surname change, though. Like come on, the media dubbing him Blackheart just to be mean was RIGHT THERE).

- Nimona's metaphor for not shifting is such a neurodivergent thing. Even in the comic, Nimona's parents insisting she's a monster who replaced their daughter is reminiscent of the changeling myth, which is what many parents thought their neurodivergent kids were—changelings who replaced their "real" children.

- Ambrosius being trained to cut off HIS BOYFRIEND'S WHOLE FUCKING ARM instead of merely disarming him is a very cop thing to do. As much as cops claim they're trained to de-escalate situations, their training still teaches them to treat everyone as a potential threat, and that level of constant vigilance can turn anyone into a trigger-happy/arm-choppy bastard. Even the Director, who can use a sword but probably hasn't actually fought someone in ages, STILL can't see Ballister reaching for the squire's phone without assuming he has a weapon.

- And on that note, the Queen getting killed simply because she was trying to reform the Institution and allow commoners to become knights? That's the best "no such thing as a good cop" metaphor I've seen. Because even if there ARE good cops and they ARE in leadership positions, the system will crush them before they make any meaningful change. It's not a good institution that turned rotten, it's an institution that only exists to spread its rot and refuses to be good.

- That's why Ballister's characterisation is so different in the movie vs. the comic. Comic Ballister had 15 years to come to terms with his trauma and the Institution's evildoing, while Movie Ballister is still freshly traumatised and hasn't found a way to define himself beyond the role he was assigned by the Institution.

- Not to mention Comic Ambrosius was not very noble to begin with and genuinely believed Ballister was better suited to villainy than heroism, while Movie Ambrosius never wanted the glory that came with his lineage in the first place and only antagonised Ballister because of indoctrination he needed to unlearn (which he did, all by himself, after witnessing the lengths the Director will go to just to kill Nimona).

- It really shows how important it is to surround yourself with loved ones who are open to change. Comic Ambrosius can love Ballister all he wants, but he'll still blast his arm off because he thinks Ballister deserved it anyway. Movie Ambrosius will stop to question what "the right thing" even means, even if he didn't love Ballister enough to defend him unconditionally.

I have so many more thoughts bubbling beneath the surface, but I'll probably address them some other day. In conclusion:

[ID: A pink-haired Nimona grinning evilly while holding up a knife.]

Watch Nimona. This is not a request.

Edit: Added more thoughts!

[moondaeznuts]

When you find a new webnovel that looks interesting but there's no fan tl :')

Now we suffering through mtl (I gave up reading LMAO)

reading action genre mtls is my enemy

Action fantasy is my most worst enemy to read mtl

[derinwrites]

The Three Commandments

The thing about writing is this: you gotta start in medias res, to hook your readers with action immediately. But readers aren’t invested in people they know nothing about, so start with a framing scene that instead describes the characters and the stakes. But those scenes are boring, so cut straight to the action, after opening with a clever quip, but open in the style of the story, and try not to be too clever in the opener, it looks tacky. One shouldn’t use too many dialogue tags, it’s distracting; but you can use ‘said’ a lot, because ‘said’ is invisible, but don’t use ‘said’ too much because it’s boring and uninformative – make sure to vary your dialogue tags to be as descriptive as possible, except don’t do that because it’s distracting, and instead rely mostly on ‘said’ and only use others when you need them. But don’t use ‘said’ too often; you should avoid dialogue tags as much as you possibly can and indicate speakers through describing their reactions. But don’t do that, it’s distracting.

Having a viewpoint character describe themselves is amateurish, so avoid that. But also be sure to describe your viewpoint character so that the reader can picture them. And include a lot of introspection, so we can see their mindset, but don’t include too much introspection, because it’s boring and takes away from the action and really bogs down the story, but also remember to include plenty of introspection so your character doesn’t feel like a robot. And adverbs are great action descriptors; you should have a lot of them, but don’t use a lot of adverbs; they’re amateurish and bog down the story. And

The reason new writers are bombarded with so much outright contradictory writing advice is that these tips are conditional. It depends on your style, your genre, your audience, your level of skill, and what problems in your writing you’re trying to fix. Which is why, when I’m writing, I tend to focus on what I call my Three Commandments of Writing. These are the overall rules; before accepting any writing advice, I check whether it reinforces one of these rules or not. If not, I ditch it.

1: Thou Shalt Have Something To Say

What’s your book about?

I don’t mean, describe to me the plot. I mean, why should anybody read this? What’s its thesis? What’s its reason for existence, from the reader’s perspective? People write stories for all kinds of reasons, but things like ‘I just wanted to get it out of my head’ are meaningless from a reader perspective. The greatest piece of writing advice I ever received was you putting words on a page does not obligate anybody to read them. So why are the words there? What point are you trying to make?

The purpose of your story can vary wildly. Usually, you’ll be exploring some kind of thesis, especially if you write genre fiction. Curse Words, for example, is an exploration of self-perpetuating power structures and how aiming for short-term stability and safety can cause long-term problems, as well as the responsibilities of an agitator when seeking to do the necessary work of dismantling those power structures. Most of the things in Curse Words eventually fold back into exploring this question. Alternately, you might just have a really cool idea for a society or alien species or something and want to show it off (note: it can be VERY VERY HARD to carry a story on a ‘cool original concept’ by itself. You think your sky society where they fly above the clouds and have no rainfall and have to harvest water from the clouds below is a cool enough idea to carry a story: You’re almost certainly wrong. These cool concept stories work best when they are either very short, or working in conjunction with exploring a theme). You might be writing a mystery series where each story is a standalone mystery and the point is to present a puzzle and solve a fun mystery each book. Maybe you’re just here to make the reader laugh, and will throw in anything you can find that’ll act as framing for better jokes. In some genres, readers know exactly what they want and have gotten it a hundred times before and want that story again but with different character names – maybe you’re writing one of those. (These stories are popular in romance, pulp fantasy, some action genres, and rather a lot of types of fanfiction).

Whatever the main point of your story is, you should know it by the time you finish the first draft, because you simply cannot write the second draft if you don’t know what the point of the story is. (If you write web serials and are publishing the first draft, you’ll need to figure it out a lot faster.)

Once you know what the point of your story is, you can assess all writing decisions through this lens – does this help or hurt the point of my story?

2: Thou Shalt Respect Thy Reader’s Investment

Readers invest a lot in a story. Sometimes it’s money, if they bought your book, but even if your story is free, they invest time, attention, and emotional investment. The vast majority of your job is making that investment worth it. There are two factors to this – lowering the investment, and increasing the payoff. If you can lower your audience’s suspension of disbelief through consistent characterisation, realistic (for your genre – this may deviate from real realism) worldbuilding, and appropriately foreshadowing and forewarning any unexpected rules of your world. You can lower the amount of effort or attention your audience need to put into getting into your story by writing in a clear manner, using an entertaining tone, and relying on cultural touchpoints they understand already instead of pushing them in the deep end into a completely unfamiliar situation. The lower their initial investment, the easier it is to make the payoff worth it.

Two important notes here: one, not all audiences view investment in the same way. Your average reader views time as a major investment, but readers of long fiction (epic fantasies, web serials, et cetera) often view length as part of the payoff. Brandon Sanderson fans don’t grab his latest book and think “Uuuugh, why does it have to be so looong!” Similarly, some people like being thrown in the deep end and having to put a lot of work into figuring out what the fuck is going on with no onboarding. This is one of science fiction’s main tactics for forcibly immersing you in a future world. So the valuation of what counts as too much investment varies drastically between readers.

Two, it’s not always the best idea to minimise the necessary investment at all costs. Generally, engagement with art asks something of us, and that’s part of the appeal. Minimum-effort books do have their appeal and their place, in the same way that idle games or repetitive sitcoms have their appeal and their place, but the memorable stories, the ones that have staying power and provide real value, are the ones that ask something of the reader. If they’re not investing anything, they have no incentive to engage, and you’re just filling in time. This commandment does not exist to tell you to try to ask nothing of your audience – you should be asking something of your audience. It exists to tell you to respect that investment. Know what you’re asking of your audience, and make sure that the ask is less than the payoff.

The other way to respect the investment is of course to focus on a great payoff. Make those characters socially fascinating, make that sacrifice emotionally rending, make the answer to that mystery intellectually fulfilling. If you can make the investment worth it, they’ll enjoy your story. And if you consistently make their investment worth it, you build trust, and they’ll be willing to invest more next time, which means you can ask more of them and give them an even better payoff. Audience trust is a very precious currency and this is how you build it – be worth their time.

But how do you know what your audience does and doesn’t consider an onerous investment? And how do you know what kinds of payoff they’ll find rewarding? Easy – they self-sort. Part of your job is telling your audience what to expect from you as soon as you can, so that if it’s not for them, they’ll leave, and if it is, they’ll invest and appreciate the return. (“Oh but I want as many people reading my story as possible!” No, you don’t. If you want that, you can write paint-by-numbers common denominator mass appeal fic. What you want is the audience who will enjoy your story; everyone else is a waste of time, and is in fact, detrimental to your success, because if they don’t like your story then they’re likely to be bad marketing. You want these people to bounce off and leave before you disappoint them. Don’t try to trick them into staying around.) Your audience should know, very early on, what kind of an experience they’re in for, what the tone will be, the genre and character(s) they’re going to follow, that sort of thing. The first couple of chapters of Time to Orbit: Unknown, for example, are a micro-example of the sorts of mysteries that Aspen will be dealing with for most of the book, as well as a sample of their character voice, the way they approach problems, and enough of their background, world and behaviour for the reader to decide if this sort of story is for them. We also start the story with some mildly graphic medical stuff, enough physics for the reader to determine the ‘hardness’ of the scifi, and about the level of physical risk that Aspen will be putting themselves at for most of the book. This is all important information for a reader to have.

If you are mindful of the investment your readers are making, mindful of the value of the payoff, and honest with them about both from the start so that they can decide whether the story is for them, you can respect their investment and make sure they have a good time.

3: Thou Shalt Not Make Thy World Less Interesting

This one’s really about payoff, but it’s important enough to be its own commandment. It relates primarily to twists, reveals, worldbuilding, and killing off storylines or characters. One mistake that I see new writers make all the time is that they tank the engagement of their story by introducing a cool fun twist that seems so awesome in the moment and then… is a major letdown, because the implications make the world less interesting.

“It was all a dream” twists often fall into this trap. Contrary to popular opinion, I think these twists can be done extremely well. I’ve seen them done extremely well. The vast majority of the time, they’re very bad. They’re bad because they take an interesting world and make it boring. The same is true of poorly thought out, shocking character deaths – when you kill a character, you kill their potential, and if they’re a character worth killing in a high impact way then this is always a huge sacrifice on your part. Is it worth it? Will it make the story more interesting? Similarly, if your bad guy is going to get up and gloat ‘Aha, your quest was all planned by me, I was working in the shadows to get you to acquire the Mystery Object since I could not! You have fallen into my trap! Now give me the Mystery Object!’, is this a more interesting story than if the protagonist’s journey had actually been their own unmanipulated adventure? It makes your bad guy look clever and can be a cool twist, but does it mean that all those times your protagonist escaped the bad guy’s men by the skin of his teeth, he was being allowed to escape? Are they retroactively less interesting now?

Whether these twists work or not will depend on how you’ve constructed the rest of your story. Do they make your world more or less interesting?

If you have the audience’s trust, it’s permissible to make your world temporarily less interesting. You can kill off the cool guy with the awesome plan, or make it so that the Chosen One wasn’t actually the Chosen One, or even have the main character wake up and find out it was all a dream, and let the reader marinate in disappointment for a little while before you pick it up again and turn things around so that actually, that twist does lead to a more interesting story! But you have to pick it up again. Don’t leave them with the version that’s less interesting than the story you tanked for the twist. The general slop of interest must trend upward, and your sacrifices need to all lead into the more interesting world. Otherwise, your readers will be disappointed, and their experience will be tainted.

Whenever I’m looking at a new piece of writing advice, I view it through these three rules. Is this plot still delivering on the book’s purpose, or have I gone off the rails somewhere and just stared writing random stuff? Does making this character ‘more relateable’ help or hinder that goal? Does this argument with the protagonists’ mother tell the reader anything or lead to any useful payoff; is it respectful of their time? Will starting in medias res give the audience an accurate view of the story and help them decide whether to invest? Does this big twist that challenges all the assumptions we’ve made so far imply a world that is more or less interesting than the world previously implied?

Hopefully these can help you, too.

[starlightbright]

RIP Ricky September they had to kill you because it would have been unrealistic to not keep you on as a companion 😔

EDIT: I've noticed some people taking this post really seriously, so to clarify: no, I don't think Ricky was literally a perfect uwu anti-racist angel. This post was mostly a joke about how he was running around doing companion shit and, most of all, how the Doctor and Ruby both thought he was a hottie. My actual feelings about Ricky are that he's a complacent white liberal. Character reading under the cut if you want an explanation.

I do think the implications of making him unplugged from the racism bubble, paralleling him with the Doctor (man who shows up with knowledge about history and technology and guides the other character through dangerous situations), and directly contrasting to Lindy (including being open to trust the Doctor without second guessing him the same way Lindy and all her friends did) are supposed to be that he wasn't like the other people there and is thus LESS racist since racism comes to be what defines their society. I've seen some people basically ask "then why'd he move to White People City?" but within the text it's actually Rich People City; the reason everyone there is white is because systemic racism financially benefits white people. Making him LESS racist is NECESSARY to giving his death any meaning - because if he definitively would have called the Doctor a slur and walked away, then the Dot killing him quickly was a mercy kill because we KNOW all the other residents are going to die in the wilderness.

THAT SAID, I also don't think he was a progressive anti-racist. Do you know what Ricky actually is? A white liberal. He might disengage from the White People Bubble, he might not be outwardly cruel to black people, but he's still surrounded by people who are and benefits from a system where ONLY WHITE PEOPLE ARE RICH. The culture might be fucked, but he still benefits from it without doing anything to actually fight it. It's like how many a white liberal will read about the history of slavery, feel sad about it, and then be uncritical of prison labor. If Ricky was meant to be progressive, there'd be something, ANYTHING in the text about how he's tried to educate his followers on their society's problems, but it got deleted. He is COMPLACENT.

That's sort of the point, I'd say, since the theme is about how priviledged white people put themselves in a bubble of people like them and choose to look away from what's wrong in society. Those people become complacent at best with no effort to actually speak out or change things. Hell, even within the text, Ricky SEES a problem others are looking away from (the slugs eating people), but only tries to fight it by making a TikTok about it and becomes complacent again, accepting that people are just going to be eaten.

So tl;dr: no, I don't think the white liberal kid literally would have been a companion. I think if you stuck him in the Ood episode, for example, he'd have shaken his head when he found out about their plight, maybe made a TikTok with sad music playing over footage of them, and then said "welp, nothing else can be done." I think it's FUNNY to imagine another companion that the Doctor and Ruby both are giggling like schoolgirls over.

Also I kind of thought he was ugly - no offense to the actor but the makeup they had him in combined with the lighting and closeups made him look way older than 27 so he gave off this uncanny "how do you do fellow kids?" look.

[wordstome]

how c.ai works and why it's unethical

Okay, since the AI discourse is happening again, I want to make this very clear, because a few weeks ago I had to explain to a (well meaning) person in the community how AI works. I'm going to be addressing people who are maybe younger or aren't familiar with the latest type of "AI", not people who purposely devalue the work of creatives and/or are shills.

The name "Artificial Intelligence" is a bit misleading when it comes to things like AI chatbots. When you think of AI, you think of a robot, and you might think that by making a chatbot you're simply programming a robot to talk about something you want them to talk about, and it's similar to an rp partner. But with current technology, that's not how AI works. For a breakdown on how AI is programmed, CGP grey made a great video about this several years ago (he updated the title and thumbnail recently)

I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend you watch this because CGP Grey is good at explaining, but the tl;dr for this post is this: bots are made with a metric shit-ton of data. In C.AI's case, the data is writing. Stolen writing, usually scraped fanfiction.

How do we know chatbots are stealing from fanfiction writers? It knows what omegaverse is [SOURCE] (it's a Wired article, put it in incognito mode if it won't let you read it), and when a Reddit user asked a chatbot to write a story about "Steve", it automatically wrote about characters named "Bucky" and "Tony" [SOURCE].

I also said this in the tags of a previous reblog, but when you're talking to C.AI bots, it's also taking your writing and using it in its algorithm: which seems fine until you realize 1. They're using your work uncredited 2. It's not staying private, they're using your work to make their service better, a service they're trying to make money off of.

"But Bucca," you might say. "Human writers work like that too. We read books and other fanfictions and that's how we come up with material for roleplay or fanfiction."

Well, what's the difference between plagiarism and original writing? The answer is that plagiarism is taking what someone else has made and simply editing it or mixing it up to look original. You didn't do any thinking yourself. C.AI doesn't "think" because it's not a brain, it takes all the fanfiction it was taught on, mixes it up with whatever topic you've given it, and generates a response like in old-timey mysteries where somebody cuts a bunch of letters out of magazines and pastes them together to write a letter.

(And might I remind you, people can't monetize their fanfiction the way C.AI is trying to monetize itself. Authors are very lax about fanfiction nowadays: we've come a long way since the Anne Rice days of terror. But this issue is cropping back up again with BookTok complaining that they can't pay someone else for bound copies of fanfiction. Don't do that either.)

Bottom line, here are the problems with using things like C.AI:

It is using material it doesn't have permission to use and doesn't credit anybody. Not only is it ethically wrong, but AI is already beginning to contend with copyright issues.

C.AI sucks at its job anyway. It's not good at basic story structure like building tension, and can't even remember things you've told it. I've also seen many instances of bots saying triggering or disgusting things that deeply upset the user. You don't get that with properly trigger tagged fanworks.

Your work and your time put into the app can be taken away from you at any moment and used to make money for someone else. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people who use AI panic about accidentally deleting a bot that they spent hours conversing with. Your time and effort is so much more stable and well-preserved if you wrote a fanfiction or roleplayed with someone and saved the chatlogs. The company that owns and runs C.AI can not only use whatever you've written as they see fit, they can take your shit away on a whim, either on purpose or by accident due to the nature of the Internet.

DON'T USE C.AI, OR AT THE VERY BARE MINIMUM DO NOT DO THE AI'S WORK FOR IT BY STEALING OTHER PEOPLES' WORK TO PUT INTO IT. Writing fanfiction is a communal labor of love. We share it with each other for free for the love of the original work and ideas we share. Not only can AI not replicate this, but it shouldn't.

(also, this goes without saying, but this entire post also applies to ai art)