#which makes actually writing them really difficult

[thelazyhermits]

After reading the first TWST novel and seeing how Yuu/Grim's first meeting with Ace went there, I decided to write a drabble about how that encounter went with my Yuu, which I'll put underneath the cut.

Also, I've gone back and edited An Unlikely Team as well as Grim/Ace's chapters in An Unlikely Friendship, although there was only a minor edit in Grim's chapter as compared to Ace's chapter which got a whole different dialogue added in the final scene thanks to me getting inspired by the novel.

I hope y'all enjoy the new content! 😊💕

He’s definitely up to something.

That was the first thought that crossed your mind upon meeting Ace Trappola, a first-year student who introduced himself after approaching you and Grim while you both were studying the seven statues on Main Street that, for some reason, look exactly like popular Disney villains.

Grim, however, obviously felt differently since, ever since Ace showed up, he’s been amicably chatting with the redhead about the statues, all the while not looking the least bit suspicious of Ace.

Meanwhile, you’ve been working on cleaning the surrounding area, which is the job that had been assigned to both you and that procrastinating monster, because you really don’t want to risk getting in trouble with Crowley for not doing your job since said job is the reason you now have a free place to stay as well as a means to make money for food and everything else you'll need to survive in this strange, foreign world you've somehow found yourself in.

Plus, you had wanted to put some space between you and Ace since you don’t trust him and that fake smile of his, especially since he’s wearing the kind of fake smile that looks so genuine that only someone like you who’s grown up surrounded by adults, who use their professional fake smiles to take advantage of others for a living, would be able to see through his façade.

The whole time you’ve been cleaning, you’ve been surreptitiously scrutinizing Ace, trying to figure out what his hidden agenda is, all while simultaneously listening carefully to all the information he provides about the statues - information that matches well with what you know about the Disney villains they resemble.

Except for the fact that everything Ace says makes these villains sound like actual decent people who are worth revering rather than the scoundrels they were in the movies from your world.

Every time you hear Ace compliment the people the statues are based on, you have to fight the urge to scoff since so much of what he says is just so difficult for you to believe.

I can’t believe these villains’ stories got so twisted that they became people who are seriously revered in this world. You incredulously shake your head. Even worse, the Queen of Hearts’ story is pretty much the same as it was in Alice in Wonderland, meaning these people seriously didn’t mind a crazy queen who decapitates people as a regular form of punishment.

Just what kind of world have you found yourself in?

You wearily massage your temple. Hopefully, all that nonsense is just a part of this world’s history and not its present. Otherwise, I’ll need to steer clear of the part of the world where the Queen of Hearts reigned for the sake of my own well-being, although I can’t see myself leaving this school anytime soon, considering traveling requires money among many other things.

Obviously, I’ll need to do some more research on this subject. You muse. If I’m gonna survive in this crazy world, I need to learn as much about it as I can since knowledge is power.

Plus, you’re genuinely curious about this world’s “Great Seven” and want to see if there are any more commonalities between them and the movie villains from your world whom they so greatly resemble.

“Pretty cool, huh? Not like some piddling weasel.”

You’re abruptly pulled away from your thoughts when Ace’s previously friendly and cheerful voice suddenly becomes noticeably cold and malicious.

While Grim makes a surprised sound, you quickly focus your now narrowed gaze on the redhead. So he’s finally making his move. It’s about time. Now, I’ll finally find out what his deal is since I couldn’t get any clues from his earlier behavior when I was watching him.

“Pfft! Ah ha ha! I can't hold it back anymore!” Ace declares as he starts laughing, hard enough that he doubles over. “It’s too funny! I can’t breathe!”

For several seconds, his loud, wild laughter fills the air, and during this time, you give Ace an unimpressed look while Grim just stares at him with wide eyes, appearing stunned.

Once he eventually manages to compose himself, Ace wipes away the tears of mirth from his eyes. “Come on, you're the ones who turned orientation into a fiasco, right?”

“You two seriously stand out.” Ace sneers as he points at you. “A total normie, the perfect punchline to a disappointing joke. Every eye in the school focused on you last night, and you can’t even use a drop of magic.”

Completely unfazed by his mocking words, you maintain your unimpressed expression, which you can tell bothers him because his face briefly appears annoyed when you don’t give him the kind of reaction that you know he was hoping for.

Since he clearly won’t have any fun with you as his target, Ace quickly moves onto his next one and points at Grim. “And a monster who wasn’t even summoned by the Dark Mirror in the first place but crashed orientation anyway and got beaten to a pulp by my dorm leader.”

Wearing a cold smile, Ace gives both you and Grim a once-over before saying, “You’re perfect for each other.”

“W-What are ya-” Grim briefly stammers before scowling, “Ya don't gotta be a jerk! Comin' at us all of a sudden like this!”

“It’s not all of a sudden, dude.” Ace smirks, “The look on your face when they picked you up and tossed you out was hilarious! It took everything I had not to burst into laughter right in the middle of the ceremony!”

After giving you and the cleaning equipment that’s beside you a particularly withering look, Ace snickers, “So, in the end, neither of you got admitted, and now, you're janitors? SO lame!”

Upon realizing that Ace seriously is only here to taunt you and Grim, the tension in your frame eases as you roll your eyes. Really? That’s it? I was worried he might be someone secretly dangerous since his fake smile is so convincing, like the ones I always saw back in my world, but he’s really just an immature brat. I don’t know if I should be relieved or disappointed.

In direct contrast to you, who has calmed down now that you’ve realized Ace is no threat to you, Grim becomes increasingly more irritated. “Shaddup, you! I’m gonna be a student at this school in no time!”

“Nuh-uh! No way!” Ace shakes his head. “You're so clueless you don't even know who the Great Seven are. Not a one of them! Maybe before you try getting into the academy again, you ought to take a second crack at kindergarten?”

Unable to help yourself, you dryly retort, “Really? YOU’RE the one who’s saying someone should go back to kindergarten - the grade that so obviously suits you way better?”

Caught off guard since you’ve been silent pretty much the whole time he’s been here, Ace, along with Grim, turns to look at you in surprise.

Soon after, Ace’s surprise turns into annoyance. “And what’s THAT supposed to mean?”

You raise an eyebrow. “Isn’t it obvious? Even though you could’ve been doing way more productive things with your time, you instead went out of your way to come taunt us ‘cause you hated how much attention we got thanks to the orientation fiasco, like an immature, jealous brat.”

“Not only that, you’re getting in our way when we have work to do.” You huff before making a shooing gesture. “So can you just leave already? I have way more important things to do than listen to someone whose opinions I don’t give a damn about.”

Once he overcomes his surprise, Grim starts guffawing, “Way to tell him, Henchman! That’ll teach that jealous brat not to mess with the Great Grim! Myahaha!”

“I am NOT jealous!” Ace scowls, “Why the hell would I be jealous of losers like you two who are only still around ‘cause you got lucky enough to get a job cleaning up all of the WAY more important people’s trash?!”

After saying that, Ace angrily stomps over to where you’re standing and jabs a finger at your chest, glaring all the while. “You have a lotta nerve looking down on me when I actually earned my place here fair and square after working my ass off, unlike you who just waltzed right in and did whatever you pleased. A magicless loser like you has no place at this school, so get off your damn high horse already before you get knocked off.”

Completely unfazed by his anger since you’ve gone up against far scarier people in Japan’s underworld, you boredly swat away his finger. “I’m not looking down on you.”

Faster than he can react, you reach out and grab onto Ace’s shoulder with a tight enough grip that makes him cry out in pain.

Using your grip on his shoulder, you push down with enough strength to force the redhead, whom you quickly realize has no real fighting experience, to his knees.

In hopes that he will refrain from bothering you and Grim in the future if you give him a scary enough warning, you fiercely glare down at the shocked boy who’s now kneeling before you. “NOW, I am, and if you don’t want to end up in way worse shape, I highly recommend that you leave me and Grim alone and just focus on your studies like a good little student.”

As expected, upon being on the receiving end of your heated glare, Ace flinches and becomes noticeably paler.

Unfortunately, it would seem Ace Trappola is not as smart as you had originally thought he was since, rather than follow his instincts, which have surely identified you as an opponent he has no hope of ever beating by this point, Ace, whose fear quickly turns into ire, instead immediately shoots back up to his feet and tries to grab you by the collar of your hoodie. “You arrogant bastard! Don’t you dare make fun of me!”

Naturally, you smoothly avoid his hands since he’s nowhere near fast enough to grab hold of an experienced fighter like you.

“Alright, Henchman, you’ve done your part! Now, it’s time for your amazing boss to take over! Myaaaaah!”

Catching you and Ace off guard, Grim, who had been laughing on the sidelines up until this point, decides to get in on the action and proceeds to use his fire magic on Ace who just barely manages to avoid Grim’s fireball attack.

“Whoa!” Ace exclaims before turning to scowl at Grim. “What are you doing?!”

Grim smirks, “Now that my henchman’s had a turn, it’s time for me to dole out some payback ‘cause no one makes fun of Grim, Master of Fire, and gets away with it! I'll make ya regret messin’ with me!”

Ace scoffs, “You wanna throw down with me, shorty? You got some guts.”

Realizing that the two boys look like they seriously intend to fight, you face-palm. This is not what I was hoping to accomplish when I tried to intimidate Ace. If I had known this would happen, I wouldn’t have done anything to him.

Just when you think this situation couldn’t possibly get any more exasperating, several NRC students, who had been on their way to class, start approaching the area where you, Grim, and Ace are, obviously curious about what’s going on between Grim and Ace.

Upon realizing that a fight is about to happen, the crowd of boys starts jeering and cheering, earning themselves an exasperated look from you. Boys…

Deciding it’s better to ignore the crowd for now, you quickly get in between Grim and Ace. “Enough! Grim, you can’t use your magic to fight here! If you cause any property damage, we’ll both get in serious trouble with the Headmage, and I do NOT wanna have to deal with that! And I bet you won’t be happy either when your tuna funds get taken away!”

Much to your annoyance, rather than heed your words, Grim scurries around you, moving fast enough that you can’t catch him. “Relax, Henchman! The only thing gettin’ damaged here is Ace’s ugly mug! Myahaha!”

Right after saying that, Grim launches another fireball at Ace. Unfortunately for the monster, his attack misses its mark just like it did last time, although it’s because of a completely different reason.

Instead of moving to dodge the attack like he did earlier, Ace, after pulling out what looks like a pen with a red gem on it, summons a gust of wind that knocks away Grim’s fireball before it can reach him. 

Ace smirks, “Ha! How do you like that?”

As Grim complains about Ace blowing away his fireballs and the redhead taunts him in return, you just blink. Huh, guess magic can control elements here like it can on TV back in my world. Good to know.

Seconds after that thought crosses your mind, realization suddenly dawns on your now pale features. Wait a minute. Fire and wind together? Oh no…

Realizing that this is a recipe for disaster, you shout, “Both of you, stop! If you keep mixing fire and wind magic together, you’ll-!”

Before you can finish that sentence, Grim, who has chosen to completely ignore you, angrily fires off another fireball at Ace, which the redhead once again blows away with his wind magic.

Unfortunately, unlike last time, the fire doesn’t simply get diverted to an area where it can’t harm anyone. This time, it hits a target.

The worst possible target.

Horrified, you watch as Grim’s attack, which became stronger thanks to Ace's wind magic fanning its flames, just as you had feared would happen, lands a direct hit on the Queen of Hearts’ statue, causing the statue to become completely engulfed in flames. Oh, shit. We are so screwed...

And, of course, you were exactly right.

[lilacs-stars]

wait okay I haven't seen anyone talk about this yet (and I'm really sorry if this has been brought up before, to my knowledge it hasn't, but obviously I haven't seen every single post ever), during "perfect revenge" when they first go into the dead fish layer thing whatever, and around the time where uliana says "find that perfect, perfect revenge"

HADES LITERALLY GRABS ONTO MORGIE'S SHOULDERS AND DOES A LIL JUMP?? AND HE'S SMILING AND HE SEEMS SO HAPPY HE JUST DOES A JUMP LIKE

it's soo cute 😭 honestly in my opinion it feels super out of character for him, idk why it was even included but like maybe it shows a part of hades that's super bubbly, which he tries to mask with his apathetic, uninterested demeanor?

but the way he jumped on morgie's shoulders in particular, makes me wonder more about their dynamic? like is it because morgie's so bubbly that hades is like that around him too? and the way that morgie was quick to agree to hades's "yeah let's burn her to a crisp" makes me wish we got to see more of them. like imagine hades always acting so tough and unconcerned around maleficent, but finally letting loose and being super excited and happy when he hangs out with morgie.

anyways just a thought, I figured it would be nice to point it out and see what you guys think about it. that's all for now! :))

(also now I can't get the idea out of my head where hades is being all chill to maleficent like "yo imma go hang out with morgie" and she's like "okay whatever" and then cut to hades hanging out with morgie where they're both squealing and jumping up and down like a pair of teenage girls while one of them spills the tea 😭 I'm sorry I can't this is too funny 💀 I actually need a fic about this like this is some top-notch villain behavior fr)

[buwheal]

BEACH OUTFIT 💥💥💥💥

He used to surf the web back in 98'.

[queerpdsys]

seeing disability awareness posts end with “TLDR; no, read it” is fucking WILD

[skitskatdacat63]

I don't know how I'd ever convey this in art but. Thinking very deeply about how in boy king au, a very crucial part of characterization is that Seb is a wolf in sheep(or lamb more specifically)'s clothing and Fernando is a sheep in wolf's clothing.

Seb is very unassuming, very delicate, seemingly very vulnerable and malleable. But, deep down, he can be very ruthless. It's in the the way he hesitantly declares war, with a spark in his eye and a suppressed smirk. In the way he challenges someone to a card game or a horse race, proclaiming that he's not great, but winning every round and prancing around the room and mentioning it ad infinitum. The way he's able to instantly turn the tide in a debate in one fell swoop. By showing all his cards constantly and letting himself be vulnerable, he's making himself invulnerable. No one would ever consider him to be able to make big moves, so he wins every single time, because no one even thinks to expect it from him.

Fernando on the other hand, is constantly committed to having a looming presence and harsh reputation, but deep down, he's soft. He knows what happens to people when they're vulnerable, and he's not going to let himself be taken advantage of. The way he keeps a brave face when being informed of the marriage proposal, but goes back to his room and cries. The way he proclaims that he was always going to be the rightful ruler of Spain, but confides to Flavio that he never thought there was any real chance of it ever happening. The way he takes himself so seriously in public, but inside feels so giddy whenever he can make someone laugh. Everything to him always feels unstable and ready to crumble at any moment, and he's not willing to contribute to that by letting himself relax.

I think thats why it's very difficult for them to get along at first, because they have completely different approaches to how they carry themselves and make their way through life. Seb is confused at Fernando because he feels that he's very bland and overly serious at first, but truthfully he's not really seeing the actual Fernando. And Fernando finds Seb to be naive and easily taken advantage of, but that's because he's never seen Seb at his most cruel. Seb really loves when he eventually gets to see Fernando being vulnerable, and Fernando really admires and respects Seb when he sees him being serious. I think it just takes a while for them to show the other their full and complete selves, even the parts they can sometimes be ashamed of. There's this very compelling dichotomy in Seb laying out all his cards, but still being very difficult to read, and Fernando keeping his cards to his chest, but his intentions often being easily seen through.

[liquidstar]

a friend who'd wait :)

[moe-broey]

WHY THEY DON'T FUCKING TALK ABOUT IT.

Peony: Thinks everything is all fixed now 🥰

Triandra: Too caught up in her self-loathing and agonizing guilt to even consider speaking with Sharena, the only reason she's on speaking terms with Peony IS because of their closer proximity to each other (being alfar/shared background) and Peony's persistence

Sharena: Talks to Peony, Doesn't talk to Triandra????? Sharena is. The Ignorer. Maybe she wants to reach out, but doesn't know how or even where to begin. But honestly I think she's repressing a bunch of shit too. To speak to Triandra would mean having to Unpack All That.

Alfonse: Speaks to Peony and Triandra on business only. Very professional. Very cordial. Yes there's also the harsh self-criticism and agonizing guilt and holding even his child self to impossible standards like this never should have happened. I should have stopped it. I should have fixed it. I should have been Enough to Prevent This. For my sister to have been in the realm of dreams, her peers being abused and left for dead, what does that say? What does that mean? What happened? How could it have happened? It should have never happened. I should have

[musical-chick-13]

Regarding the previous post, I think the way I approach trying to evaluate a piece of art is asking "Do I think the positive things I get out of it outweigh the parts of it that I don't like?" And when I call something a "guilty pleasure" song/show/book/piece of media/etc. it's really more in the sense of, "Given who I am as a person, the flaws I've found in this should be complete dealbreakers for me, but somehow they aren't, and it makes me feel like I'm having an identity crisis."

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

Adhd will be like “you’re not dyslexic, you just don’t read the whole word. Good luck with math you dumb fuck”

[coquelicoq]

i'm now looking at my list of least favorite french words to pronounce and going "too many r's" for about 40% of them and "skill issue" for most of the rest. some of these are actually very fun to pronounce i just couldn't wrap my tongue around them a year or so ago, but now i can i guess??? so that's very exciting. makes me hope that someday i'll be able to pronounce the rest of them. this is a bit pie in the sky because i really don't see myself ever getting there with procureur du roi but you never know. and luckily the french abolished the monarchy so it's not like i'll ever have to use that phrase in modern conversation.

anyway here are the words i actually love pronouncing now: décaféiné diététicien filleul pneumonie

i now feel normal/neutral about these words that used to be hard for me: automne, condamner douloureux électricité, énergie inférieur, supérieur, etc. itinéraire lourdeur salmonellose sclérose subodorer succincte

words that are definitely within the realm of my current capability but i haven't practiced them enough: bugle hiérarchisation méditerranéen phtisie

words that are still the bane of my existence but i live in hope: [yʁ] plus at least one other r or [y] sound: chirurgie, fourrure, marbrure, moirure, nourriture, ordures, peinturlurer, procureur du roi, prurit, purpurin, sculpture, serrurerie, structure, sulfureux, tournure all words beginning with ur-, hur-, or sur- other difficult sequence of r's and vowels: construire and other -truire verbs; lueur and sueur; utérus too many r's: marbre, martre, meurtre, opprobre, proroger, réfrigérateur, rétrograde, rorqual difficult sequence of vowels and/or semivowels: coopérant, extraordinaire, hémorroïdal, kyrie eleison, météorologique, micro-ordinateur, micro-organisme, mouillure, quatuor, vanillier not pronounced the way i would expect from the spelling: indemne, penta-, punk just hard for some reason: humour

[altruistic-meme]

i am once again shaking myself upsidedown over my laptop in the hopes that the words i want to write come tumbling out of my ears

[crossbackpoke-check]

wait you got me so invested in the stammer & heddy tailor au....

this is my standard disclaimer that i have never posted a fic on ao3* and for however much i say “au” i truly mean that it’s a universe that lives in my head & i am absolutely delighted to tell you all about, all the time <3 if it helps i ALSO got me so invested in the heddy & stammer tailor au

ok now that the author’s note is out of the way here’s some notes about the not!fic heddy & stammer tailor au:

stammer as the tailor from gent’s playbook, very reserved, quiet, with an excellent eye for details (honestly the evidence i have for his style sense is just that he’s best friends with pk subban so it has to be there somewhere if only by proxy irl) is hired by victor hedman, star of the tampa bay lightning who is every other tailor’s nightmare to dress (huge, opinionated, fashionable)

heddy is decently well-known throughout the league for being very well-dressed & becomes quietly well known for also being one of his new tailor’s favorite loyal customers [heddy has the nicest fabrics. he has his suits the first day a new collection drops & e v e r y o n e is jealous]

stammer’s business booms after heddy takes a chance on him as his first big client & promotes him, heddy sees him grow in popularity & get more clients

heddy also moonlights as a model for stammer’s suits on instagram, initially to help him grow his business because then he won’t have to pay for a model and then because he’s over there all the time anyway because they’re dating (that’s why the model’s face is never in the pictures)

there’s not really a plot to this besides the vague idea of a plot where stammer makes heddy his lucky suit that he wins the cup in & sews a special little tag into the lining of his jacket that says i love you

because love sometimes is picking out the perfect right color pocket square to match your husband’s beautiful suit that you fitted like a kiss to the curves of his huge body

& also sometimes love is making your beautiful husband who makes you beautiful clothing enjoy nice things for himself once in a while, like the fancy watch you bought him or the nice suit you custom-ordered for him (from him) just so you could take it off of him

[scarlettcryptid]

hardcore projecting my avoidancy onto dabi in this soulmate au thing i started in november

[skitskatdacat63]

I feel uninspired and lack motivation for art again so I thought of an ask game for me :)

Send me(or comment) a number from 1-34 and I will draw my corresponding oc

I mentally struggled over whether I should make this post, because ik ocs are niche and probably not many people care for it, but I realized I could have been using those hours to y'know. Actually draw something. So I might as well just post it

[porcupine-girl]

An important message to college students: Why you shouldn't use ChatGPT or other "AI" to write papers.

Here's the thing: Unlike plagiarism, where I can always find the exact source a student used, it's difficult to impossible to prove that a student used ChatGPT to write their paper. Which means I have to grade it as though the student wrote it.

So if your professor can't prove it, why shouldn't you use it?

Well, first off, it doesn't write good papers. Grading them as if the student did write it themself, so far I've given GPT-enhanced papers two Ds and an F.

If you're unlucky enough to get a professor like me, they've designed their assignments to be hard to plagiarize, which means they'll also be hard to get "AI" to write well. To get a good paper out of ChatGPT for my class, you'd have to write a prompt that's so long, with so many specifics, that you might as well just write the paper yourself.

ChatGPT absolutely loves to make broad, vague statements about, for example, what topics a book covers. Sadly for my students, I ask for specific examples from the book, and it's not so good at that. Nor is it good at explaining exactly why that example is connected to a concept from class. To get a good paper out of it, you'd have to have already identified the concepts you want to discuss and the relevant examples, and quite honestly if you can do that it'll be easier to write your own paper than to coax ChatGPT to write a decent paper.

The second reason you shouldn't do it?

IT WILL PUT YOUR PROFESSOR IN A REALLY FUCKING BAD MOOD. WHEN I'M IN A BAD MOOD I AM NOT GOING TO BE GENEROUS WITH MY GRADING.

I can't prove it's written by ChatGPT, but I can tell. It does not write like a college freshman. It writes like a professional copywriter churning out articles for a content farm. And much like a large language model, the more papers written by it I see, the better I get at identifying it, because it turns out there are certain phrases it really, really likes using.

Once I think you're using ChatGPT I will be extremely annoyed while I grade your paper. I will grade it as if you wrote it, but I will not grade it generously. I will not give you the benefit of the doubt if I'm not sure whether you understood a concept or not. I will not squint and try to understand how you thought two things are connected that I do not think are connected.

Moreover, I will continue to not feel generous when calculating your final grade for the class. Usually, if someone has been coming to class regularly all semester, turned things in on time, etc, then I might be willing to give them a tiny bit of help - round a 79.3% up to a B-, say. If you get a 79.3%, you will get your C+ and you'd better be thankful for it, because if you try to complain or claim you weren't using AI, I'll be letting the college's academic disciplinary committee decide what grade you should get.

Eventually my school will probably write actual guidelines for me to follow when I suspect use of AI, but for now, it's the wild west and it is in your best interest to avoid a showdown with me.

[haootia]

goals for june are to reread/watch media that makes me Feel Something and hopefully by july i will be able to synthesize that into meaningful artistic output