#and the tagging system!!! they never have this separate yet visible and interactive system

[cityrun]

the thing that always bothers me about the promotion of "tumblr alternatives" is that theyre all social media platforms. theyre all twitter 2.0 and thats not what im looking for. what i actually want is a blogging platform! thats why im here instead of bluesky or whatever

the next closest thing would be making a website, but that involves so many more steps to get a similar experience and is not as accessible to most as a platform that gives you a customizable template to work with, plus the option to easily find and keep up with countless other blogs

any other blogging sites i know of are either too professional, subscription based, or too bare bones to suit the average internet user for a more casual approach

[small-round-and-angry]

My opinions about the Loki (2021) series. Spoilers and all that.

I took some time off the fandom until I felt it was time to make this post, if only to get it out of my system, so I can finally rest. I thought, since I was so pumped for the series to begin with, before it was launched and everything, and how I waited to expectantly for every episode that was airing weekly, that the empty feeling I was experiencing after it was all done was just because, well, it was all done.

I thought maybe it was the normal empty-chested-feeling you get when you finish a movie, series, or book that you really liked / waited a lot for.

It was not it. It didn’t pass. It got worse.

I’m going to put this under a cut, and under the anti-tags, because I know some people liked this show and not everyone has to be miserable with me.

I want to preface this by saying that I respect everyone that was involved in this project, and I know that it may be gut-wrenching to receive criticism on something that you worked in, but I feel cheated. I feel lied to. It’s one thing to work hard and be thoughtful and still receive bad reviews, but I don’t think this is the case at all.

To start it all, I was so excited to see Loki again. He’s the only character that I maintained any attachment to throughout so long, sometimes more, sometimes less, but I always considered myself a fan since I saw The Avengers (2012) with my parents in the theaters, at the ripe age of 12. To be honest, Loki was what got me into superhero movies, and into the marvel fandom at all. And I knew, or at least suspected, that they would do something different with the character. I was ready for that, after reading the comics and realizing that MCU Loki and Comics Loki are two different versions of the same character (more on that later). And I thought it was even going to be for the best, since Tom Hiddleston, bless his heart, was one of the executive producers and, I thought, would have more of a say on Loki’s character arc during the series.

What I watched was, to be completely fair with myself, not Loki. I couldn’t really pinpoint it at the time, but I keep expecting something to happen after he was captured by the TVA to show us his mind at work. A scheme, a plan, anything remotely smart that he cooked up. And yet, nothing. He kept acting…Not Loki. As time passed, I hoped he was biding his time, fooling everyone, that he would reveal his masterplan at the season finale and go back to the main timeline. The series ended and I didn’t see Loki, any of them, act as Loki once.

Maybe it’s because I am a fan of the older version of MCU Loki. The darker, more complicated one. I didn’t want a redeeming arc at all, I don’t think all villains or anti villains need a redeeming arc. That’s boring. And, to my interpretation of his character, shouldn’t be in his future at all. Loki thrives on the gray area. I love not knowing what he is to the other characters, the chaos, the lying and manipulation, the grand schemes. This new content we’ve been getting, since Ragnarok, depict him as a more comedic, campy character (which is …fine? Meh, I don’t care for it).

And of course, that’s not to say Tom Hiddleston didn’t do a good job. Poor man did his best with what was given to him by the writers. It’s hard to keep a character consistent, however, when every director and screenwriter seems to have a different idea of who they are. He kept it together fairly well when Taika attempted to assassinate Loki’s character, but Kate Herron snapped his neck harder than Thanos ever could. And for what?

Sylvie.

Now, hear me out. There’s nothing wrong with the concepts of Sylvie, Lady Loki, and a Love interest. Separately. In trying to bring everything together in one character, the writers not only could not come up with a compelling woman character, but also had to bring down an already well established character, the TITULAR character, no less, so she could look somewhat presentable, which is insulting. And they Still failed. I don’t like the pairing either, but that’s not what I’m talking about (right now). The truth is, I don’t know Sylvie. She just got here, I have no emotional attachment to her whatsoever, so I won’t feel for her the same I feel for Loki, who’ve I watched for almost a decade. And instead of trying to build an emotional connection between Sylvie and the viewer, they chose to spoon-feed us a romance between her and Loki.

Well, more between Loki and Her, and not even that. I felt like Loki was always trailing her like a lost puppy, and big eyes and expectations, and she was giving him…Absolutely nothing. All the sweet moments between them were initiated by him, all the talking about feeling were done by him, all the looks and gestures…And although I understand Sylvie grew up in apocalypses and Loki grew up in a palace, she still claimed to have romantic partners. Multiple, man and women. And still, showed no visible interest in Loki up until the kiss scene, which I suspect was more to shut him up and send him flying that anything.

Excuse me if I want Loki to have a love interest who is actually invested in him too.

And Why make her a Loki variant at all if she is adamant she isn’t Loki? Why go to the extent of dying her hair blonde (where in the apocalypse did she manage to get her hair blonde? WHY?) and then give her horns? If she was taken as a child, where did she get the very Asgardian like leather armor she used? WHERE IS THIS INFORMATION?

If they were going to go so far to alienate her from the identity of being a Loki variant just so they could pair her with Loki and it not be weird (it was), why make her a variant at all? If you’re going to make a selfcest pairing, at least commit to it. Sylvie Lushton, from where they got the name, isn’t a Loki Variant, if anything She’s an Amora Variant. Why name her Sylvie if she has no relation to Amora?

The plot has so many holes and is so disappointing. I was promising Loki playing around and causing havoc with time traveling. When I saw Richard E. Grant had been cast, I imagined the big bad would be King Loki, like in the comics! Something about Loki seeing what he becomes if he let darkness completely consume him, and finding balance in his chaos, after all. The premise of Loki healing though observing himself, or variants of himself, was honestly good. His variants, however, where so underused, poorly used, made Loki look like a fool. Even he was ashamed of their interactions. And Kid Loki apparently Killed Thor, which makes him the leader (???) and that’s never mentioned again. President Loki, who was a big part of the appeal of the trailer, is gone in two minutes. And then there’s the mirror scene from the trailer, that didn’t even make it to the series.

There are other things that bother me a lot about this too, but it’s not my place to discuss them in dept. To list, if anyone is interested in knowing: The underdevelopment of black character, and the reaction of the fandom, to my knowledge, to said black characters, in special Ravonna and Boastful Loki. The misrepresentation of gender fluid people, which if I can recall was one of the points they sold to us as something they would touch into Loki’s characterization. Some people have pointed out that it was biphobic to pair Loki with a woman after he “came out” on screen as bisexual. I am bisexual, and I disagree, but I can see why it’s an issue for a lot of people, as mlm relationships are rare in MCU canon. What I thought was Biphobic, however, was having Loki not show us he was bi, rather than telling us.

In summary, I am very disappointed, and I am mourning. This series managed to do what End Game didn’t, which was kill all hope I had to ever have Loki back. He’s gone.

[maybemanyskeletonhats]

KISS

Hello, this is for the people who leave the nice comments and tags (yes I look at the reblogs, they really help my morale.) UNEDITED.

Genre: Fluff galore. Seriously.

Edit. There was more to Teldryns scenario. But tumblr ate it or character limit maybe?

Edit 2. It's fixed. Apparently it ate the tags I put on too.

Sotha Sil bares the burden of cruel certainty. And he can say it's something he's used too but it does weigh heavily on him. This is different when it comes to the tantalizing affections of his lover. That being said this mortal turned god knows what he wants. He wants them. It's the rampant thoughts that plague him about how to ask them for it that make him pause. He usually saved the affections for when the doors were closed and he knew no one would intrude yet here of all places his chest thumped and his lips tingled with anticipation. Why wouldn't they want it? A crimson gaze fell on the vestige who sat idle, quiet. Their fingers loose and relaxed around the spear he had given them. He wouldn't tell them where it came from, or rather who it belonged too. But as far as he was concerned. They wielded it as if it was apart of themselves. He hears them say his name, soft, worried. He must have be staring at them. Gods, he doesn't regret any time he spends looking at them. He doesn't respond even as he gently taps the side of their jaw, guiding their face to look at his. After a moment of them staring at one another, the vestige silently nodded. Seht connected their mouths together sweetly. So maybe he can't voice his wants the way other people can, but he did ask for it...in his own way, right?

Almalexia tried to give herself the idea that she never got to the point of desperation. That there was never any time when she felt that she needed to kiss the life out of her vestige. That nothing in Tamriel could make her so happy or so worried that carnal need became her priority. It was when the vestige returned to her, their face filled with exhaustion even as they sat still in the wagon. They are finally home, she thought breathlessly. Gone for three whole months that stretched on like a thousand years to her. They were a hero, a mortal, they saved Tamriel whether she liked it or not. If there was anyone in this whole world that deserved her affections, was it not them? Her feet touched the warm stone beneath her. Her golden eyed gaze widening as they slowly looked up. Eyes making contact with hers. The exhaustion that was filled to the brim in their eyes disappeared, and their slumped position turned into one of high alert. They jumped out, ignoring the distressed cries of the others with them. Ayem began to feel her feet move, unconsciously picking up speed till she was breaking into a small jog. All other thought was gone at the thought of them. It was them. She missed them. She missed them so much. As soon as they collided together, hands fervently gathering each other up. "Can I kiss you?" She asked simply, fingers tracing their lips. The vestige doesn't even wait, slamming their lips onto hers. Rule like a queen, kiss like a queen.

Vivec knows he wants to kiss them. The days after they've come to call themselves lovers drift in and out of his mind frequently. He knows he'll soon not have the luxury of claiming godhood for much longer, not that he's complaining. At least, with whatever time he has left, he wouldn't see them go before him. But for now, let's love like mortals do. He mused quietly to himself. In his lap the Nerevarine gave him an odd look but shook it off. He often said strange things that they would never quite understand. "It's humorous that as you arrive, your immortality comes, and mine drifts away like stars in the morning light." He begins, eyelashes tickling his cheeks. "I suppose that it matters not anymore. Should the Sharmat have succeed, none of us would be here. It was the right decision." He confessed. He didn't feel as conflicted about it, he surmises that that's what bothers him so. Time changes all, something Sil would have jumped to remind him of. He meets their gaze, their nose brushing against his jaw. 'I still love you, god or not. If it means anything.' They murmured, pressing a small kiss to his jaw. It was then he felt completely mortal, not a god, not a beloved figure. But someone normal, someone who grew old like others and got married, had children. "It does." His right hand came down to rub patterns onto their arm. "Am I allowed to kiss you..?" He questioned lazily, arm tightening around their middle. The Nerevarine's smokey gaze locked with his, their face growing warm. 'Like I'd say no, right?' Vehk merely hums, the arm wrapped around their middle sliding up to cuff the back of their neck. The god turned mortal pressed his lips to theirs in a rare moment of unyielding affection.

Voryn Dagoth's heart slams against his ribcage every time they enter a room. He was sure if it got any more louder they'd be able to hear it. Never had he ever so desperately wanted someone to himself. Voryn finds himself wringing his hands as he looks at them, anxiously chewing the inside of his cheek. 'Is something wrong?' They asked, head tilting. Voryn gives a hesitant smile, eyes shining with nervousness. "Yes, yes of course. I'm fine. Just thinking about something so hard it's abit...troubling." They gave him a look of sympathy, comfortingly grabbing his arm. This only made the Chimer man fidget. "I want to kiss you. Very much so." He blurts, instantly regretting it. They arch a brow at him, and nod slowly. 'Then kiss me?' Is all he needs to hear as he presses his lips to theirs in heated desperation.

Neloth leans back against his desk, arms crossed. His lips pulled into a careful line. It's not as though they were doing anything to bother him, they were just sitting there. Yet...he scowled. He was courting them, so it wasn't as if the want for some romance was alien. Neloth knew he could be hotheaded. But he loved them. The elf cursed underneath his breath. Why was it so hard to kiss someone? The Nerevarine's stops their idle humming and rolls their neck to look at him. Amusement shining in their eyes. "Oh you are insufferable aren't you?" Neloth breathes. They knew. Of course they knew. He forgets that they tease just as much as he does. He lets out a noise of exasperation, standing straight. Neloth walks over to them, leaning over their chair, his hands braced on the arm rests. The nerevarine sits still as a statue, grin still visible with the red ting across their face growing. His hand comes up to knot itself in their nape, pressing a surprsingly slow but deliberate kiss upon them. When he pulls back his face feels a lot warmer from where he started. "N'chow, there. It's of my system now at least."

Divayth Fyr usually has his hands occupied with some experiments or research. But feeling up the Nerevarine wasn't that bad right? Hands running up and down their sides he almost felt a need to keep them caged against his desk. If they didn't like it, they would have done something or said something much earlier right? Divayth's slightly stubbly chin runs across their cheek till he can press a kiss to their forehead. "Could always have you...if I wanted too right?" He breathes, nose brushing across theirs in a rare display of affection. His much larger hands come up to separate the small hands that had latched into his shirt twenty or so minutes before. "Want you...want to kiss you. You make me feel things." He whispered helplessly against their skin. Divayth barely hears the quiet consent before he's giving them a slow, passionate kiss.

Mannimarco has rare moments where he feels... possessive. But in a soft, non threatening way. His nose tenderly brushes the crown of their hair, his fingers kneading into their waist. Grip firm and assuring. Maybe he was in a good mood, he mused to himself. Didn't particularly feel that strong, bordering on vicious need to separate them from every man they interacted with. "Don't want you talking to peasants." He huffs, tightening his hold. He hears them laugh and his face burns as he rolls his eyes. Perhaps he should just marry that at that point, make them the King/Queen they ought to be at this point. What was the chances he could make them see his way about things then?

Cold fingers run on their side, feeling the warm body pressed to his cower away from the sensation. He grins mockingly. "Will I have to beg you for affection? Or am I going to have to do it myself?" The Vestige merely grins, the twinkle in the eyes he grew to knew so well the last few months. He scoffs, though his lips threaten to rise upward into a smile. His fingers dance up to nest into their nape, his other coming to tilt their chin up. "Mine.." He says with an uncharacteristic softness in his voice. "Or at least, I'm hoping you are..." His eyes betray him showing the vulnerability inside, in a rare show of open love, Mannimarco presses a firm but gentle kiss onto his Vestige.

Teldryn Sero doesn't cuddle often. Not when they're awake of course. He doesn't like to appear clingy, he's already glued to their side as is. The only spellsword from around Solstheim behind the legendary Dragonborn of Tamriel. The only one of their kind. It's not as though he wasn't getting glory though..he thought, his fingers drifting down the flat of their back. The hammock they've been lying in swaying gently with the breeze. "Your thoughts are too loud." They murmur against his collarbone. Teldryn feels a laugh bubble in his chest. Sometimes, just sometimes they could be more observant. "I'm a spellsword, subtly is not in my arsenal." His lips quirk upward as he fondly rubs his chin across their hair. "Too bad..." They start, fingers tracing patterns on his ribs. "About time you've learned another skil other then making wise remarks." They finish as he feels them smile playfully against him. Teldryn snorts in amusement, eyes fluttering closed. "All apart of the package you bought..." He hears a small 'tch' in response. "Better have a receipt." They fireback, slapping his arm. "No refunds, Sera." This time he grins, angling his face down so he can bring them into a heated kiss.

~°~°~°~°~

Translations:

N'chow is essentially the dunmer way of saying 'Damn'

[capricornus-rex]

A Path I Can’t Follow (9)

Chapter 9: Descent | Cal Kestis x Reader

Summary: It was a matter of life and death—the question is, should it be the life of many or one, the death of many or one? Cal Kestis makes what ought to be the biggest and hardest decision of his life as he is pitted with a question of high stakes and morals. He descends to the Dark Side and becomes an Inquisitor. A choice he openly made for the sake of saving you, even if you didn't know you needed it until it was too late.

Tags: Dark Side! Cal Kestis, Inquisitor! Cal Kestis

Also posted in AO3

Chapters: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 | Previous: Chapter 8 | Next: Chapter 10 | Masterlist

9 of ?

Cere had waited for you outside the Mantis. Using her hand as a visor over her eyes, she patiently surveyed the plains for any sign of your coming. Behind you as the Varan galloped through the wilderness, a trail of dust gathered and then wafted up in the air—like a beacon in Cere’s perspective.

At first, she couldn’t make out much of what she’s seeing because she could only see a black speck in front of a plume of dust. You continuously snapped the reins to regain more speed—if there is any more the Varan could handle—until you became more visible to Cere’s view.

Cere couldn’t and didn’t want to believe what she’s seeing—there was only one of you. She told herself that Cal was probably sitting behind you, but every passing minute as you got closer, she was beginning to believe she was wrong.

You heeled the Varan and it reared in front of Cere.

“[y/n], what happened? Where’s Cal?”

You didn’t reply. You dismounted the creature, held its muzzle close to you for one final pet, and you stuck your forehead on the flat of its snout.

“Go find your way home,” you whispered before releasing the reins.

The animal, wild and free again, darted through the plains, becoming a dark moving speck in the wasteland until it disappeared. Cere repeated her question to you. BD-1 chirped a nonchalant “Hi” to the woman.

“Let’s go inside,” you said sullenly.

Upon your entrance into the Mantis, you were greeted with the same question asked by Greez, Merrin was as equally curious as the other two. You unbuckled the strap of your bag containing the holocron and dumped it on the couch.

“[y/n], what happened?” Greez asked again.

You take a deep breath, gathering the right words and finding the courage to even utter them as clearly as possible. Pacing around in small, tight circles as you look up at the ship’s ceiling while thinking carefully of how you’re going to put it to them.

“An Inquisitor has taken Cal. They’ve already fled the planet, I never caught up to him. I never saw him either,”

“But you two went together to the temple, weren’t you?” Cere pressed.

“We were ambushed by Stormtroopers when we got inside the temple. He told me to get inside the chamber and get the holocron, he held them off. When I got to the holocron, I think the Force gave me a vision of sorts, I didn’t realize that a long time had passed while I was under… then I got out of the chamber and I never saw him,”

“Was he kidnapped? Taken hostage?” Cere pressed.

You shook your head in reply.

“They… The Stormtroopers…” you trailed off at the thought of the massacre at the town, you couldn’t longer repress the tears welling up behind your eyes until they rolled down your cheeks, the sinking feeling in your heart made you choke on your words as you struggled to continue speaking. You lousily wiped away the tears in your eyes with your sleeve. Impulsively, Merrin approached and held you—putting her arm around your shoulder, whispering “It’s okay” while you regain your bearings.

“They slaughtered all of the people in the settlement. Every single person living there. The leader, he… he told me Cal gave the order!”

“And BD told all of that to you?” Cere confirmed.

“He was the only one with Cal that time, he must’ve let go or lost his grip in the middle of that massacre. Why wouldn’t I believe BD?”

“Where is he now?”

BD-1 repeated the same string of chirps and trills to everyone, but only you were able to translate it.

“The Inquisitors have another fortress,” you said softly. “In Koboth, that’s in the Mustafar System.”

“Captain, get ready for takeoff,” Cere firmly said.

“Copy that,”

Cere and Greez immediately strode to the cockpit, not sparing a moment and immediately setting themselves in work mode. You approached the holotable and typed the coordinates until a preview of the planet in its hologram form materialized. Koboth is thirteen parsecs away from Magyon.

The Mantis slowly hoisted itself off the ground while Greez made quick work of pressing buttons and flicking switches.

You sat on the couch—back slumping against the warm leather and arm crossed over your chest—BD-1 hopped off your shoulder and sat on the center table. Merrin sat down next to you, attempting to comfort you.

“Are you worried, [y/n]?”

“I am but… about many things,”

She rests her hand on yours, giving it a tight but gentle squeeze.

“Mostly worried about Cal?”

“Of course. I don’t know what I’ll see when I find him, and I’m not sure if I’m ready,”

Merrin leaned her head on your shoulder as she hugged you.

“I just hope he’s okay,” you sighed, clutching back Merrin’s hand and nuzzling your cheek on her silver hair.

The Inquisitor’s convoy had already gone to Koboth almost immediately after the slaughter was finished and when Cal thought he had finished off Razh. The planet—similar to its neighboring Mustafar—was also a volcanic planet, the only difference between the two alike planets are their skies: Koboth’s skies could be clear, grey, or dark. Large, black mountain ranges dictated the twists and turns of the lava rivers, deltas of magma branched out across the soil, possibly extending to the farthest reaches of the planet, geysers were also scattered across the arid, rocky plains. It was an unforgivable planet, it was a perfect itinerary for someone as formidable as the whole band of Inquisitors.

Another fortress rests atop a plateau, its onyx spire erecting through the cliff top where it overlooks a cluster of geysers on the obsidian plains; at the foot of the plateau, where a river of lava flows through, is an established Imperial facility and base hybrid.

The convoy had landed on the hangar of the fortress; Cal walked along with the Grand Inquisitor—tailed by a couple of Stormtroopers—together they appeared almost like master and apprentice. In the corner of his eye, the Grand Inquisitor glanced at Cal, sensing an inhibition that the young boy.

“Are you troubled?”

“Frankly, yes,”

This whole time, starting from the ambush at the temple until he boarded the Grand Inquisitor’s shuttle, all he could think about was you—what you would say, what you would think—once you see him again. Cal believed that while he may have guaranteed your safety for now, that doesn’t mean you will be immune from every Stormtrooper you bump into in any world you’re in.

He wanted you with him. Anywhere, anything goes—as long as you’re not separated from him.

“Of her? But you have already guaranteed her safety, have you not?”

“I’d much rather have her here with me. You don’t know what she is capable of,”

The Pau’an Inquisitor smirked and scoffed through his nostrils.

“Believe me, boy, I know enough,”

Once they’ve entered the fortress itself, they were greeted by Stormtroopers, straightening their backs and readjusting their grips on their blasters. They eased up when the Grand Inquisitor and Cal have walked past them, and then it was back to slouching. To Cal, it has always felt the same whenever he treads through the hallway of an Imperial base—cold, stale, inorganic—but now, all of it was beginning to change; he had begun to realize this is going to be his new life now.

Along the way, the Grand Inquisitor stopped in his tracks and turned his attention to the pair of Stormtroopers.

“Take Master Kestis to the quarters arranged for him,”

Cal jerked his head to the Pau’an who glanced back at him unsurprised. The young redhead did not say anything. His companion was polite enough to dismiss himself with his own reason before leaving him at the care of the Stormtroopers.

“This way, sir,” the Stormtrooper points to the general direction with his blaster.

The Stormtroopers took the lead with Cal walking behind them, he wondered if these troopers were any of the clones he had met or interacted with before the Purge. He shrugged away the thought and was escorted to a chamber.

“This is it, sir,”

“Thanks,” Cal barely made his mouth move to utter the words. Regardless, the Stormtroopers—having their task done—gave a curt nod at the boy and walked away, assuming patrol work in the base.

Cal stepped in and surveyed his new quarters. One entire wall was a glass window that gave a view of the lava rivers and the geyser patch outside the fortress. There was a single cabinet that was filed with medical supplies and consumables like food rations, stims, even smoke and flash bombs.

“Stims,” Cal muttered to himself. “Well, I guess we can restock, right, BD-1?”

He glanced over his shoulder, his stomach sank to his feet instantaneously when his little droid is nowhere to be found on his back. Suddenly, he was hysterical. He had lost BD-1 and couldn’t remember the last time he was sure that the droid was there clinging on his back.

“BD-1…? Little bud?!” he searched his room, nothing.

He wanted to head out and search his droid, but he was unsure how the Stormtroopers would react—he didn’t exactly fit in yet. He hesitated in stepping out of his room, instead, he opened the door and peeked out to see if BD was there waiting for him outside—probably waiting to open up the door for him.

Nothing. Just an empty hallway.

He retreated to his room, helpless and truly alone. He sat down on his bed.

“Oh no…”

Cal hung his head low, resting his forehead on the palm of his hand while his fingers combed his copper hair. He took deep breaths, hoping that BD-1 would not have been completely lost—he had hoped that you’ve picked him up along the way.

In the solace of his chamber, he sulked for a time, until he decided it’s pointless and attempted to meditate instead. However, he couldn’t seem to focus, something felt like hindering whenever he tried—it was unexplainable; if he strains himself, he loses control and is unable to properly meditate.

The sputtering of the geysers muffled through his glass wall interrupted his focus. He grunted in frustration as he jerked his eyes open. He strode towards the glass, watching the pillars of gas and vapor shoot up from their craters and then into the air, the viscous lava sloshed rather than flowed in streams.

He thought about the feelings he had mere seconds ago. His meditation felt hollow, the silence had terrified him, and he began to ponder what went wrong all of a sudden and why was he feeling like this. By the glass window, Cal ruminated on his choices, the outcomes it had brought, and the sacrifices that were made whether the price was steep or low; but above all of this, you were the first of his many thoughts—your voice, your cheerful laughter that escaped through your sweet smile, and the way you looked at him.

At the corner of his eye, a ship was spotted in the distance and he instantly recognizes it just by the way it did its landing cycle.

The Mantis.

You’ve taken over co-pilot where Cal originally sits, assisting Greez in piloting the ship as you would. As the captain prepared the landing cycle, you stared through the windshield, glaring at the raven-black tower that nestled between the cliff tops. A feeling crept onto you—it was cold and heavy, but there was a familiarity to it.

“Cal’s there, I know it,” you uttered particularly to yourself, you didn’t care whether they heard it or not.

The Mantis finally touches the rocky terrain of Koboth for the first time. You jumped out of your seat, Cere called your name but you ignored it—you were too eager to find him—when a second mention of your name wasn’t enough, she caught up to you and grabbed you by the arm.

“[y/n], please wait!”

“Cere, please! There’s not much time!” you burst.

“I know you want him back—we all do, like you—but please, don’t be reckless,” Cere shook your arm, her grip evidently tightening as she spoke every word.

You finally afforded a moment to calm yourself and breathe. You heeded her words.

“I won’t be reckless. I will find him and I’ll bring him back home,” you firmly swore, looking deep into Cere’s eyes.

She nodded but said nothing. Then suddenly—perhaps because of the emotions swirling inside her—she throws herself to you, taking you in her arms’ embrace. She brought her lips close to your ear.

“Do not let your fear and inhibitions trample on what you believe in,”

Cere may not have seen it, but your eyes lit up—it was the same, exact words that the voice of your master had said to you in the holocron’s chamber—the slight movement of your head proved her that you understood well and have taken the words to heart.

“I won’t,” you replied, embracing her back. “I won’t.”

The woman pulled away from the embrace, but kept her hands on your shoulders, giving them a slight shake.

“Okay,” she breathed. She raised her hand to your cheek, cupping and then caressing it. “Go on now. May the Force be with you.”

You nodded and turned around to the door. When you stepped out of the ship and finally got a feel of the planet’s environment, you had wished you could have brought the Varan along with you—it would have still served its purpose when crossing this kind of terrain. No use in whining about it, you thought, and hiked the entire mile from the Mantis’s landing spot to the fortress.

Little did you knew that Cal had spotted you. Squinting through the glass, he found you sprinting through the expanse of the obsidian flats, the hem of your poncho flapping through the wind as you ran, and he watched you close in on the fortress.

The Force still guided him, even if his connection was reducing into fragments like it was once before he met Cere, it connected him to you, gave him hints on where you might be; with his unseen guide, he darted through the confusing and winding annexes and hallways of the fortress, blatantly ignoring the Stormtroopers that gave him weird stares even with their emotionless helmets.

Cal, please, be with me. You prayed while prowling the hallways, engaging in fights as scarcely as possible.

Cal sprinted and hurriedly followed whatever it is that was shepherding him to you. Clearly, it was the Force—indescribable but certain. Coming from the west, he ended up in the main elevator lobby—the center of it all. Finally, the two of you have crossed paths; your sneaking off and your scaling of the place just to be out of sight from the enemies and the workers there—even if they were just droids.

Your eyes meet.

“[y/n]…” that is all Cal uttered.

For one, you were thrilled to see Cal safe and sound and seemingly unscathed. There weren’t visible wounds on his face, no tears and rips on his clothes—he was perfectly fine. You could’ve sworn you even saw his eyes light up and the corners of his lips curl up when he found you.

And yet you feel something ominous exuding from him. There was no doubt about it and there was no other way of explaining it. Your smile was a short-lived one. You stepped closer to him, close enough to touch him again—you cradled his cheeks with your trembling hands and looked into his eyes—and in that moment, you’ve confirmed what you’ve been fearing this whole time.

It was the Dark Side of the Force.

“Oh, my love, what have they done to you?” you gasped.

[xmxisxforxmaybe]

Decryption_Error: “Undecided”

Summary: Now that the incident in the server room is becoming a distant memory for everyone at CIStech, indecision plagues Y/N as she tries to figure out just what she wants from Elliot. The real question, of course, is what does Elliot want?

Story Summary,  “The Server Room, Part I”,  “The Server Room, Part II”  “The Long Weekend, Part I”,  “The Long Weekend, Part II”,  “The Aftermath”

Word Count: 5000

Tags: @sherlollydramoine  @rami-malek-trash  @teamwolf2411  @limabein  @txmel  @hopplessdreamer  @ouatlovr  @backoftheroomandnotbelonging @alottanothing  @moon-stars-soul  @free-rami  @ramimedley

If you want added, let me know.

Warning: Tiny mention of something R-rated toward the end

By Thursday, the office felt normal, and I was once again left to marvel at how quickly things could snap back into place. People just . . . moved on. They continued to run their daily programs and despite a hiccup in the system, they hit reboot and it was back to normal runtime.

I was no different.

Yesterday was spent looking through the applicant pool, and I had found a few good candidates. I wanted to compile a final list by the end of the day and set interviews for next week. In another two or three weeks, it would be like Julia, Aaron, and Maurice had never even existed in the world of CIStech.

DELETE 10211291.11181514.1312118935.DSET1 PURGE

<Execution_Complete>

Elliot was just as intrigued by people’s willingness to forget a traumatic event. While Tuesday night’s text conversation lasted a long time, the subject matter stayed pretty light. But on Wednesday, we ended up texting a lot about people’s reactions to what went down.

I hadn’t been sure if Tuesday night’s texts were an anomaly until my phone buzzed at exactly 7:00 pm, the same time I had texted Elliot the night before. I actually laughed out loud a little, figuring Elliot was playing it safe by repeating a previously rewarding behavior pattern.

On Wednesday, I had again left work much earlier than usual so I could head uptown to meet my father. He had asked me weeks ago to attend a benefit with him, and I had almost forgotten about it until he called to remind me in the morning. I used my lunch hour to run home and grab a dress and a pair of shoes. I was really looking forward to seeing Dad because I wanted to decompress—if there was anyone in the world I could vent my feelings to, it was him.

When he caught me smiling at my phone and trying to sneak a text without appearing rude, he told me to have Edwin, his driver, take me home and come back for him later.

“I love you, Dad,” I said as he hugged me tight.

“I want to meet the young man who makes you smile like that, sweetheart.”

I rolled my eyes but smiled at my dad’s good intention.

“If only it were that simple,” I said as the elevator doors opened.

He put his hands in his pockets and gave me a long look as the doors closed. I knew he worried I worked too much and abandoning my entire family over Memorial Day weekend did not alleviate his concern one bit. Nor did it help when I finally explained the work emergency that pulled me away.

But for the second night in a row, I found myself texting until my eyes blurred. When Elliot and I said good night, I set my alarm and immediately fell asleep, something that rarely ever happened. I felt like I could breathe freely again. Elliot didn’t seem to be harboring any ill feelings about being reprimanded, so when he and I ended up running into each other in the lobby on Thursday morning, I smiled brightly when I saw him.

We said our bland good mornings as we got on the elevator, then I asked if he had any plans for after work. When he said no, I pulled out my phone and texted him to ask if he wanted to come over.

He glanced at the other people in the elevator who were staring sleepily at the buttons of the passing floors and gave me a tiny smile before nodding yes.

I smiled back and as the elevator doors opened on our floor, he stood back to let me exit before he hurried out and grabbed the door to the office. I thanked him and we went our separate ways for the workday.

Around quitting time, there was a light tap on my door frame, and I looked up to see Elliot, his eyes alert, scanning over the room and not quite willing to focus on me yet.

“Hey—come in,” I said, unable to stop the smile that spread across my face at the sight of him.

He shuffled in, his hands thrust in his pockets.

“I need to run an errand. Will you be here . . . or should I . . .” Elliot trailed off as his eyes desperately searched mine, his own mind clearly wondering if he had imagined our conversation in the elevator.

“I’m planning on working until around 7. Do you just want to meet at that deli on Platt around 7:15? We can get a bite to eat there, then head back to my place?”

“Sure,” Elliot said in his trademark monotone, immediately turning on his heel and exiting my office.

I just shook my head and chuckled, thinking, Sure, Dad. Meet my painfully awkward boyfriend, Elliot.

Boyfriend.

My mouth went dry as indecision began to beat its ugly staccato within my mind.  

What did I really want?

Even more difficult to answer, what did Elliot really want?

A kiss in a heated moment was a lot less demanding of someone than asking them to be with you. And it was Elliot—did he even date? Despite all of our after-work conversations, we never really talked about romantic interests. It just wasn’t something that came up.

I continued to plug away at my analytics, hoping to drown out my thoughts about Elliot. I was about to see him outside of work again, and I would just have to test the waters, which was a scary prospect. If I pushed and Elliot wasn’t ready, I could knock over the foundation we had been so carefully building.

* * * * *

Elliot was waiting for me at the deli, so we grabbed a quiet, quick bite. By the time we reached my apartment and Elliot was standing in my entryway, shucking off his backpack, it was about 8:15 pm.

After he slid off his backpack, he bent to rummage around, and he pulled out my Columbia t-shirt.

I shook my head no.

“Keep it. I like knowing you have something of mine and that maybe, just maybe, you’re wearing it,” I said with a flirty grin.

“Okay,” Elliot said with a shrug as he stuffed the shirt back into his bag.

“Besides. You look good in white,” I said, knowing I couldn’t be deterred by one ignored comment. Elliot was wicked smart and could read people, but that ability seemed to diminish as he got closer to someone. I wondered if maybe that was why he kept his distance from most people—it made him feel too vulnerable.

Elliot looked at me, clearly determining whether or not I was joking.

“And you say I can’t take a compliment,” I huffed.

“You can’t,” Elliot said, seizing the shift in the conversation that would allow him to have the upper hand. “Your legs look good in that skirt,” he said as his eyes looked at me from top to bottom.

I narrowed my own eyes and replied, “Now see. I don’t know if you mean that or if you said it just to get me to say I don’t think it’s genuine, thus proving your point.”

Elliot chuckled. “Point proven. You can’t take a compliment.”

“Such an ass,” I said, smiling. “I should take back my meticulously planned evening.”

“Planned? So, this wasn’t just a random invitation?”

“God no. I have to mentally prepare for all my interactions with you,” I blurted out before realizing how terrible that sounded.

Sometimes it really was a blessing Elliot thought so much before he spoke so I could retract my foot-in-mouth statement, but unfortunately, his face was an open book. I could see the beginnings of hurt twist his features, so I rushed an explanation.  

“I don’t mean it in a bad way. Just in an ‘I think about you a lot’ way. I don’t want to say the wrong thing and have you look at me kinda like you’re looking at me now. Okay?”

Elliot’s brows contracted before he visibly turned his face back into an unreadable mask. It was remarkable to watch—like he just flipped a switch and turned off his emotion.

He nodded, but I could tell he already assigned a negative meaning to my words. I hadn’t meant it that way, but it was exhausting interacting with him at times. I still felt like I was taking one step forward, creeping along nicely, and then boom. I scared him and he bolted and we were ten steps behind where we started.

At least my indecision about pursuing a relationship with him was pretty damn warranted.

“I’m going to change,” I said. “It’s hot as fuck outside, so you may want to put on my t-shirt if you’re not wearing one under your dress shirt.”

“We’re going outside?”

“Yup!” I said, shooting him a grin.

Elliot looked at me with suspicion, but I shook my head and took off down the hall toward my bedroom. I dressed in a pair of shorts and a tank top, and I slid into some flip-flops. I pulled my hair up, knowing it wouldn’t survive any more time than it already had outdoors.

I walked back out to the living room, but Elliot was nowhere to be seen. I had just enough time to wonder if I really had scared him off before he emerged from the bathroom wearing tight black jeans and my white Columbia t-shirt.

“After last Friday, I decided to keep a change of clothes in my backpack.”

“Smart,” I said, eyeing the way his jeans clung to his thighs before sliding my eyes up to his face to appreciate how the tan tone of his skin was emphasized next to the white cotton of my t-shirt.

“Can I have another clue? I don’t really like surprises.”

“Mmmmm, no,” I said, enjoying my facetiousness. “Although, I did give you a clue earlier this week.”

Elliot’s eyes moved around my apartment as he thought back, and then, his face lit up.

“S’mores,” he said with a tiny timbre of excitement in his tone as his eyes connected with mine.

“Clever kitten,” I said as I started pulling out the supplies we had bought over the weekend.

“They won’t be as good as they’d be over a real bonfire, but a charcoal grill will serve the purpose.”

We headed up to the rooftop, which was delightfully empty given there was no special occasion and the work week was still droning on. I used my key to get out the charcoal grill’s supplies from the storage on the roof.

Despite telling Elliot to sit on the couch and relax, he hovered, watching everything I did.

“And now we wait,” I said as I prodded the coals with my tongs, encouraging them to catch. “The more they burn down, the better the taste.”

I plopped on the white couch and looked toward the setting sun. Elliot joined me and we slowly built up to a steady conversation. Away from people and when he was comfortable, Elliot talked a lot. It was almost comical to think of the juxtaposition housed within his lithe little body—it was like two people lived inside of him, one of them plagued by insecurities, and the other, just a normal guy, or rather, a guy who could just about pass for normal if it weren’t for his intellect.

Elliot wasn’t just knowledgeable about computers. He kept up with the news. He had keen insights about society. And he even liked to read the classics, or really just about any book he got his hands on.  

But work was the easiest and safest topic for both of us since that was the baseline for our friendship. I finally asked Elliot how he was doing as the dust began to settle, eager to hear his thoughts in person instead of from behind the safety of a screen.

“It’s weird,” Elliot began before he broke eye contact to gather his thoughts. “People are nicer to me, or at least they seem to be going out of their way to talk to me.”

“Colin is treating you alright?” I asked, curious if he was going to be an asshole about the whole thing.

“It was him, wasn’t it? He insisted on the letter,” Elliot finished with a statement, not a question.

I was quiet for a moment, warring with myself about whether I should say anything or not. It was an HR issue, and those could be tricky, but who would Elliot tell? What damage could come from talking to the one guy who was never going to tell anyone anything?

“I know you would never say anything, but I have to say this to make myself feel better—you can’t repeat anything I say about the . . . incident.”

Elliot raised his eyebrows at me and nodded.

“Yes, it was Colin. He’s kind of a “bro,” I explained, my hands rising to make quote marks in the air. “And since you’re totally not that kind of guy, he has no even ground with you—you’re smarter than him and he can’t deal with that.”

“What makes you describe him as a “bro?” Elliot said, imitating my earlier air-quotes.

“Mmm . . . he loves every sport, plays basketball with some of the guys in the company on Saturdays. He has that arrogance about him, that unwarranted arrogance that a guy who enjoys showing off just how much of a guy he is has. He used to run every day before work and he’d come upstairs all sweaty—and I mean sweaty as in looking like he’d just gone swimming sweaty—and he’d just go “freshen up” in his office. It grossed me out so much I flat-out offered to comp him if he took time to shower at the gym and was late for work. After that, he didn’t come to work sweaty anymore. Don’t get me wrong—woo! Fitness! But gross,” I said, wrinkling my nose just remembering what he looked like and smelled like.

“Every sport?”

“As far as I know—I do think he has season tickets to the Knicks, though. When he first started working for us, he asked me to a game,” I said, volunteering the information to see what Elliot would do with it.

Nothing, of course.

“I did notice he has a Mets pennant in his office,” Elliot said, more to himself than to me.

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Like I said, he’s a dude. Or he at least wants everyone to know he’s a dude.”

“Does he have a girlfriend?”

“No. And I think that’s why he’s been extra Colin-y lately. He has a son with his ex.”

“What’s his name?” Elliot asked, quickly.

“You’re asking a lot from me because I don’t typically store information that has no relevance to myself. It’s something like Chris or Chuck or Chad?”

Elliot nodded.

“Would you want him to go—I mean, if you had a choice? Would you want Colin to leave CIStech?”

I chewed at my bottom lip a little, really considering Elliot’s question.

“I don’t know. That’s a hard question to answer. What I can tell you is that I wish I could clone JaLeah. She’s just a superfreak of an awesome person. I’ve never really met anyone as smart and dynamic as she is—she just makes everyone feel so welcome.”

“I think she’s funny,” Elliot said.

“Really?” I said smiling and arching my brow. “That’s interesting.”

“Why is that interesting?”

“I just wouldn’t have thought you would think about something like that.”

“That’s kind of insulting,” Elliot said, his voice flat and unreadable. “I do enjoy humor now and then.”

I shook my head and chuckled.

“See? I keep learning new things about you?”

“You told me I intrigued you, and that you have to figure out people who intrigue you.”

I reached out and poked at Elliot’s thigh, gently prodding.

“Is there a recording device you’re using to play back every conversation we’ve ever had?”

“I listen,” Elliot said, smiling. “Especially when people intrigue me.”

I looked at Elliot and there was a smile in his eyes even though there wasn’t one on his lips. I felt like I could drown in his grey, stormy eyes when they sparkled, housing the mischief he never really let anyone see.

Our eyes locked, intensely focused on one another for a long enough time that it made me look away, almost embarrassed. I felt sure he could see my interest, naked and wanting before him, but he just didn’t make a move—either to look away or to move closer. Just . . . nothing.

“Alright—let’s get our smores prepped,” I said, getting up to reach for the bag of groceries on the table.

As the sun set and the lights on the rooftop flickered on, Elliot and I made our smores. We laughed, well I laughed, especially when he caught his marshmallow on fire and waved the toaster fork causing the marshmallow to propel into one of the rooftop trees. He looked like a dark-haired version of Denis the Menace, and I had tears in my eyes at the expression of horror on Elliot’s face as his marshmallow went sailing.

I positioned his fork over the coals for the next round and he attentively turned the marshmallow, refusing to even take his eyes off of it until it was perfectly browned on all sides.

“Your hands are healing quickly,” I commented.

“Thanks to you,” Elliot said sheepishly, shooting me a quick smile before returning his gaze to his marshmallow.

After we ate our fill of s’mores, we got comfy on the couch as we waited for the charcoal to burn down until it was safe to leave for the night.

We didn’t talk as much, but relaxed, enjoying each other’s presence, and I sat in the middle instead of on the end so I could test the waters, occasionally brushing a light touch to Elliot’s jeans or his bare arm, and he even reciprocated some of those furtive touches as he poked fun at me, teasing me for my inability to keep the plots of all three of the Back to the Future movies straight.

Eventually I sighed, knowing it was getting late and I didn’t want Elliot getting back to his neighborhood too late. We gathered up the left-over groceries and I shouldered my tote bag.

We said goodbye in my doorway, and Elliot moved in to hug me tight. We lingered for a moment, but he moved away and quickly pressed the elevator button. I watched him get on and we waved goodnight, a small smile ghosting across his lips as the doors closed.

I shut the door to my apartment and leaned back, thunking my head against it.

Purgatory. I was stuck in indecision-purgatory. Elliot was never, ever going to make the first move. If I wanted our relationship to shift, I’d have to do it, but it felt wrong. I was the one in the position of power. It would make more sense if Elliot made the first move so I wouldn’t feel like I was taking advantage of him.

Why did this have to be so fucking complicated?

* * * * *

The next two weeks proceeded much in the same fashion. Elliot and I texted nightly, and once or twice a week, I’d invite him over. We’d come dangerously close to kissing, but then he’d just leave.

I dropped as many hints as I could, especially about workplace romances. I talked about how Miles (my boss) and Jayne (my secretary) had gotten together, hoping Elliot would pick up on the comparison.

If he did, he never said a word.

So, my fear of losing him as a friend left me to continue writhing in indecision. I loved how close Elliot and I were getting, and if I scared him by moving too quickly, I’d lose the first good friend I’d made in a long time.

And what was really funny was that I was certain if I talked to Elliot about this, he’d get it. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Little did I know, fate was about to lend a hand; it was just too bad that fate was such a fucking bitch.

* * * * *

“You can’t be serious!” I laughed, finishing the last of my drink.

JaLeah nodded with emphasis, and we all burst into a fresh round of laughter.

Friday happy hours were always a fun way to wind down from the work week. We had a nice mix of people who went regularly and it was well known I always bought the first two rounds. People like Miles, singularly focused climbers, always underestimated the power of building relationships. That was one of the reasons why what happened with Elliot had stuck with me—I thought I had a better team than that.

People did seem to be closer now, more inclusive. There were several new faces at tonight’s gathering, and as I listened to the chatter around me, my thoughts drifted to one particularly attractive face that was not here. People’s voices became background noise as I thought about Elliot and I felt myself wishing he were here. I knew he’d hate every second of it, but he really was, albeit inadvertently, the reason for tonight’s greater sense of comradery.  

Sometimes, I truly did believe the universe revolved around me, but only so it could fuck me over for one hell of a laugh. Just as I was a million thoughts deep into Elliot, he walked in through the door, close on the heels of Sarah, his hands shoved in his pockets. When he got inside, his big eyes found mine almost immediately and as I coughed, choking a little on my drink, JaLeah looked to see what distracted me.

Her grin was wolfish.

“Don’t say it,” I warned, my voice low so as not to draw the attention of the others at our high-top table.

“I cannot believe he came,” JaLeah said, drawing attention because even when she believed she was whispering, she never was.

“Holy shit—Elliot’s here,” someone said from a few seats down.

“Don’t make a big deal,” I said in their direction as I watched Sarah and Elliot make their way across the bar to our tables.

Elliot ran a hand through his hair as his eyes glanced around as if he were checking for exits. More than a few eyes gave him a once over as he approached and I felt a pull of jealousy. Logically, I knew people were looking at him more out of curiosity than anything else, but logic wasn’t my forte when it came to Elliot Alderson.  

“Hey, everyone!” Sarah said, her smile bright and a bit nervous. “Look who I dragged out.”

Elliot gave the table a small smile as people said hello and a few who were a few drinks in gave a little whoop, which seemed to startle the small smile off of Elliot’s face.

JaLeah almost knocked me off my stool as she pushed me to stand.

“Elliot’s new, so he doesn’t know to cash in on Y/N’s generosity yet. Sarah—you can take my seat. What are you drinking?

“Gin and tonic, please!”

“You got it,” JaLeah said as she pushed Elliot and I toward the bar.

“Hey,” I said, once we were standing at the bar, our bodies pressed together thanks to the crowd.

“Hey,” Elliot said, his voice barely audible as he rested his hands on the edge of the bar, his fingers pressing into the hard surface.

“What can I get you to drink? I always buy the first two rounds for anyone at CIStech who shows up.”

“What are you drinking?”

“Vodka, cran. You want that?”

“Sure,” Elliot said, his eyes still refusing to settle on any one thing.

I reached over and rested my hand on his forearm.

“Are you sure you’re okay with being here?”

“Guess you can’t hold my hand all night this time,” Elliot said as his eyes flicked to mine.

I laughed.

“No, I suppose not. But, if you sit next to me, I’ll see what I can do,” I said as I winked at him.

Elliot smiled softly.

I put our drinks on my tab, along with Sarah’s. JaLeah had already dropped off Sarah’s drink and came back to say she was pirating the corner booth because our table was full and a few more people just showed up.

We followed JaLeah and I let Elliot scoot in before me. We crammed in and I shot Elliot a smirk as our bodies were forced to press nearer to each other. Elliot’s hand was fiddling with his drink until I reached down to pinch lightly at his outer thigh. His hand shot under the table and I gave it a squeeze before shooting him another look. He genuinely smiled as he realized we could hold hands without alerting anyone to our activities, except maybe JaLeah, but I wasn’t worried about her since she knew how I felt about Elliot without me ever having said a word.

As it turned out, the folks who joined us in our booth were good company. JaLeah kept the conversation light and fun, like always, and I could even feel the vibrations of Elliot’s chuckles on occasion.

“You know, JaLeah,” I began. “Elliot thinks you’re quite funny.”

JaLeah raised an eyebrow and said, “It’s about time people truly appreciated my wit, so thank you, baby.”

Elliot grinned at her, either because he’d had a few drinks or because he genuinely liked JaLeah, and said, “You could be a character in an Oscar Wilde play.”

The table laughed and one of the tech’s jumped on the reference to talk about the new play based on Wilde’s life that had just opened.

I leaned over, my lips dangerously close to Elliot’s ear, and said, “See? This isn’t so bad.”

Elliot’s pinky wrapped around my own and squeezed, and I gave him a sweet smile before turning back to the others.

It was one of those nights when people just seemed to be having a great time. We ordered appetizers. The waitress kept our drinks filled. The conversation never lulled, and bursts of laughter kept peppering the air. Before any of us knew it, it was 9:00 and a few people at our table started checking their phones with more frequency.

“Shit—I forgot my wife’s parents were in town. She’s gonna kill me,” Travis, one of JaLeah’s techs said.

“I told my boyfriend I’d be home an hour ago,” another tech said, giggling.

“It’s been a minute since we’ve had such a good night out,” JaLeah said. “See, Elliot? You should come more often.”

“It was cool to hang out,” Travis said. “You’re usually so intense at work—kinda like the big boss,” Travis finished with a chuckle.

I could feel Elliot’s fingers brush against mine. We had been playing this touching, not really, sometimes definitely, game all night and I was wet. I was appalled at myself for being so turned on just by proximity, but I couldn’t stop thinking what if this were normal? What if Elliot were mine? What if we went home together at the end of the night?

“There’s nothing wrong with taking work seriously,” I said, smiling. “That’s why I am the big boss.”

Travis and the others laughed.

We settled our bills and said our goodnights, but I noticed Sarah lingering at the door, clearly waiting for Elliot.

“I think we take the same line home,” she said smiling up at him as we reached her.

Elliot’s hands found their way into his pockets, the material of his dress shirt bunching a bit as he shoved them in.

“I take the 6,” Elliot stated, tension creeping into his voice.

JaLeah was giving out hugs like candy on Halloween, and I laughed to myself. She was such an extrovert, and I appreciated her energy on nights like this. The others slowly went in their separate directions as Elliot stayed close by, Sarah still talking.

“Great! We can ride together. It’s nice to have someone to talk to on the train at night. I forgot my earbuds this morning,” she said, chattering happily.

“Actually, Y/N, I was wondering if you wanted to, uh, come back to my place...” Elliot said, his eyes focused intensely on mine.

I could feel JaLeah and Sarah, damn near open-mouthed and watching this exchange. I felt like I might throw up on my shoes for a minute and I was thankful the street was dark because I knew there was a blush coloring my cheeks. I thought quickly, and shook my head, my words tumbling out of my mouth.

“Oh! That bug—that bug you told me about. You wanted me to run the analytics on it. I’ll send you the pin for Team Viewer and we can do it this weekend—I gotta get home. Taking care of my neighbor’s cat. Probably out of food. Have a good night!” I said, grinning like a madwoman and telling myself that Elliot did not look like I just kicked him in the face.  

I waved to the three of them and took off for my train, thankful it was in the opposite direction. I turned around to see Elliot and Sarah headed in the same direction. I almost tripped over my own foot as JaLeah jumped up and down and mouthed “What the fuck, Y/N?! What the fuck?!”

I shook my head, turned around, and doubled my steps. I felt sick to my stomach. Fate had just laid an opportunity bare, spread eagle on the floor, and I walked away.

By the time I jumped onto my train and collapsed into a seat, I was fighting back tears. The look on Elliot’s face haunted me. I really, really hurt him—and I wasn’t sure I could fix it this time.

[snailcomicz]

Protag’s Path

     A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

Star Wars.TM

The Hundred Years War

Protag’s Path

A little over ninety years ago, the Jedi High Council cast out one Jedi for claiming using the Dark Side of the Force was justified. Outraged, the fallen Jedi retaliated and fought with all of the dark powers and tools they had been acquiring, teaching those they subjugated and those they chose the powers of the Dark Side.

A generation has passed since that first fallen Jedi, but many of those the fallen taught remained firmly convinced in the powers of the Dark Side. They curse the Jedi Order and the Republic alike for denying them that which they feel they are owed.

Recently the Dark Side forces have been slowly losing ground, but the Republic has been confounded at how, around twenty years ago, their opponents sieges suddenly became more effective than ever. They remain entirely unaware of how a single dark Jedi has been unraveling their every attempt to break through contested points along hyperspace routes...

We scroll down to a massive star ship fight above a planet. None of the ships on either side share the distinctive looks of the ships we’ve come to know, although the designs make them look like older prototypes rather than entirely new ships. A small squadron of undamaged ships pops out of hyperspace behind what appears to be a massive blockade, but behind them a small satellite blinks red twice. We follow the route of the signal it sent, leading us past the largest ship in the blockade and several smaller skirmishes to a moderately sized gunner ship. In a room full of monitors, we see the back of a robe position themself in front of the new alert, cast entirely in silhouette by the sharp light. Another alert interrupts the signal from before, announcing “Critical files have been lost due to enemy bombardment. Please reconnect with the core database, or manually input your specifications for a temporary ID.”

You are the Protag, and this is your path.

Born out of a love for the old KotOR style games, an almost insatiable need to worldbuild, and one night I thank the stars my sleeplessly addled brain wrote down what it was thinking about, this writing exercise follows the story of Protag, the person who’s become a -pro- at -tagging- hyperspace routes and has been working for the dark side of the Force for over thirty years. During this first encounter you command a battalion of ships within a greater fleet engaging in a planet wide siege, and get to decide what kind of dark side user you are. You meet your apprentice and your pilot, learn how the game mechanics work, and maybe play around with what talking style you use. At no point during this mission do you get the chance to do something nice or lessen the damage of the battle-

Yet.

You can play through the game without changing anything about this destructive attitude, continuing your dark reign of terror to the Republic and rising to greater and more terrible power. After the first mission, however, you are separated from the rest of your fleet and forced down to a distant planet for repairs. From then on, you can unlock kinder dialogue options, less damaging solutions to problems, and even work to turn away from the dark side entirely.

     Timeline

As mentioned in the title crawl, this game is set at the tail end of the Hundred-Year Darkness, a time relatively unexplored by the SW universe. Thus, every time I’ve said ‘Sith’ in previous posts have been jossed because the Sith didn’t exist yet and I’m going to have to do so much more freaking research about SW for this, because God has cursed me for my hubris and my work is never finished.

I kid, I kid. In setting Portag’s storyline so far back, I don’t have to worry about bumping into either the KotOR or the prequels era of history, and I said I wanted to worldbuild right?

(And if you’re wondering why future characters know nothing about Protag’s story, I’ve got a simple answer for you. Not only was it not a widely talked about point of history by the Mandelorian Wars, but the official record was part of the history lost when Malak destroyed the Dantooine Academy. By the time the prequels rolls around, the story’s lost for good, even if the effects your Protag made are not.)

     Plot routes

DS routes:

Darkest Jedi (embraces DS structure)

Your Protag’s reign of terror holds the galaxy by the throat. You have it all by force, Force or manipulation, only to be cut down by the one that will rule after you. In remaining evil and taking control from others, you forfeited your choice of control over yourself and echo the future Sith-Apprentice tradition. Your Protag may be overly confident or paranoid as hell, but no matter what way you play, you cannot prevent your death by apprentice.

Trapped by the System (makes LS outcomes, but stays in the DS structure)

Your Protag remains within the dark side warmongering culture, but their actions show a reluctance to use the full range of their powers. This is a weakness in your brethren’s eyes, but a saving grace in the eyes of those you help. Your dark side allies turn on you, and you are cut down by their blades, but the end credits show you the positive effects your kinder decisions made on the planets/npcs/situations/companions you nurtured where you could within the structure of evil.

LS routes:

The One who Defected (leaves the DS structure, but still makes DS outcomes)

Your Protag becomes ruthless force user who prescribes to neither the light nor the dark side point of view, and is really only contacted by those who either have the amount of money or the genuine need [depending on how you play] to gain your services. Your companions learn self reliance from you, not trust, and most leave eventually. A few may choose to stay at your protag’s side, if you focused on their needs in game.

Changed for the Better (leaves DS structure and works to make LS outcomes)

Your Protag’s influence has helped re-stabilize several critical situations happening around the galaxy. Organizations as a whole don’t outright trust you, but individuals keep seeking you out, wanting to know how you were strong enough to change. Eventually you realize the ones who seek you out have, by circumstance or decision, been led down dark paths themselves but no one had ever so visibly proven that they could change before. Your companions learn healthy boundaries and trust from you, and even when some of them split off they stay in close contact because they’ve grown fond of you. The war has ended, and it’s time to rebuild.

     Game mechanics

Route exclusive Force rules

The Darkest doesn’t have to worry about the petty concerns of the other routes and are always able to use their Force powers, cunning or strength to the limit. You get to continue growing and evolving their powers without any restrictions and way waste to your enemies, and combat is always fun but a relative breeze. Of course, nobody on the light or dark side trusts you, but that’s not new.

If you are playing the Trapped, as you continue accumulating LS points not only do your dark side allies become more suspicious of you, but your Force powers become less powerful. You’re going to have to find other strategies than just blasting people with your powers, or start acting more evil. If you stay in the land of posturing and evil, it’s not just easier to be a jerk, you lose power you used to have if you don’t.

For the Defector, retaining the dark side points keeps your Force power fully charged, but LS organizations don’t trust you as far as they can throw you. You’ll have to be very convincing everytime you need to face something you can’t handle on your own.

In the Changed route, as you progress in the storyline, you start actively giving up Dark Side Force powers to prove how much you are dedicated to changing. In exchange, you gain other avenues of leveling up and the world around you starts to believe you when you tell them you’ve changed. You also start looking healthier the more you do so, although you never lose the dark side eye scarring.

Midbosses and midcompanions

The basic idea here is to do something interesting and actually logical with the ‘you can only get this character if you do X’ rather than basing it on your gender or such nonsense. When you upgrade your ship’s traveling range you encounter a miniboss that lasts more than one encounter, and a new companion. These are the same two characters in different positions depending on your big choice to stay with the Dark Side or leave and Change, and you will have heard of/interacted with them before you encounter them. With both minibosses, at some point in the fight they get some distance on you and you have to decide if you’re going to pursue them now or wait for a different opportunity. Both choices will have positive and negative consequences further down the line.

Force and forcing

In every route you are able to use the Force and have easy access to a companion who is already trained in the Force [through either Nix or Generek,] but almost everyone else doesn’t use the Force when you meet them. Some of them you can’t train in the Force at all, but following and furthering some of the Force dynamics found in KotOR 2, some of you companions can be manipulated to developing Force abilities but shouldn’t for their own health and wellbeing. They give you plenty of signs that this forcing them to use the Force is not a good idea and you can back off before any damage is done, but continuing to push gives you more fighting power at your companion’s expense.

     Protag

Fourties or older, to reinforce that they’re supposed to be set in their ways. They’ve figured out how to survive and live their life, and they can either go along with what they’ve always done which is easy [dark side routes] or they literally have to reframe every way they act which is hard [light side routes]. They are human to convey age and make them instantly relatable. Diverse character possibilities not tied to the pronouns you choose, although if you chose female pronouns the female coded designs queue up in front of the male coded designs and vice versa. Inventor of the hyperspace tagging system, but you get to decide what that means (you stole idea from another, others had different parts but you put all the parts together, you literally invented the satellites used, etc.)

     Companions

Mariah, Twi’lek Pilot. (She/Her, lesbian romance): Purple skin with darker stripes, wears a variation of a male smuggler’s outfit that exposes as little skin as possible. Outright willingly works for you as a dark side commander from the start, thanks to the money you generate for her and your willingness to let her get away with stealing historical artifacts from any places you raid.

If you ignore her needs, she slowly sinks further into the dark side mindset, losing any care for anyone’s wishes aside from her own and yours. If you tend to her needs, she slowly becomes more open with you and defends your actions.

D0-C9, Utility Droid. (He/him): Looks like someone took a small moving box size metal container, put way too many interfaces and wires on it, gave it wheels and called it a day. Mariah’s copilot, unusually advanced utility droid, and ship cook. His comments show some scraps of concern for Mariah’s emotional condition during the adventure, but outwardly he never seems to show much concern for you or others in your party.

The Droid cannot go against Protag’s orders and he sees no reason to, so his influence is based entirely on how well you treat him and Mariah in particular, and all companions in general.

Runscor, Klatooinian Mechanic.(He/Him, gay romance): Light reddish/brown skin, imposingly large and muscled but tries to slump in compensation for it. Quiet, passive, and often overlooked for how quality a mechanic he is. 

If you tear down his opinion when he tries to suggest kinder actions, he folds at the drop of a hat and digs further into his passive nature. If you encourage his kinder suggestions, he can become your greatest reality-tester.

FK-42, Protocol Droid? (They/Them): Humanoid, sets of eyes on both sides of their head, seems to have anti-sand protection all over. They only say “Valanka”, relying on context cues for all other communication. They are extremely manipulative and unpredictable but if you’re smart, you can harness whatever they’re Cain they’re raising to your advantage.

Their ulterior motives are utterly indecipherable, but they seem to want something? Or someone??? They’re influenced when you try to help them locate whatever it/they are, and you lose influence anytime you try to outright stop what they’re doing.

     Mid boss/companion

Nix, Trandoshan Sith. (She/her): Grey scales with fading brown patterns, no scars aside from the Sith eye scarring (unusual for Sith), tall and stocky. She is always docile and agreeable in her interactions with you, which contradicts her background actions of testing your limits and jockeying for a higher position behind your back.

Dark routes companion: You interacted with her on planet 0 as she’s your apprentice, but lost contact during what happened afterwards until you upgraded your ship. As soon as you land on a farther planet she regains contact with you, and after a mission or so she rejoins your party to resume her apprenticeship under you.

Her constant background pushing back against your decisions do come from some underlying needs, if you ignore these needs she becomes even more subtle in her actions and clearly begins plotting your demise. If you address her underlying concerns she backs off, but it only makes what happens in the end harder.

Light routes midboss: On planet 0 you interact with her as your apprentice, and she does not take lightly to you shifting sides. Your turning has made other Sith question her allegiance, and if she can take you out she can salvage some of her reputation. She uses the Force to the limit, and during the fight she makes a massive cave-in which endangers your allies. You can pursue her immediately and leave them to their fate, or wait for a different opportunity to take a shot at her and let her wreak havoc until you find that chance.

Jonni, Human Bounty Hunter. (She/Her): Dark brown skin, visibly prosthetic eye right arm and both legs, clothes leaning on cowboy-esque while still fitting the time period. One of the better known individuals fighting against the dark side forces, she is oddly accepting of slave and working class defectors. She is known for focusing a good portion of her time in a fight minimizing innocent casualties, and slaughtering those who shows no mercy.

Dark routes midboss: Mariah shows you some recorded transmissions involving her to update you on the opposition before you encounter her firsthand. In the first encounter Jonni tries to lead you away from bystanders, and whether you let her lead you away or you manipulate/wound/kill bystanders determines how hard her following fights will be. She’s a highly mobile opponent, leading it to be believable when you’ve both exchanged some hits for her to get away. You can pursue her immediately during a critical moment in whatever mission you came to this planet for, or wait for a different opportunity to take her out which will let her rally her forces with new intel specifically on you.

Light routes companion: She is first among the big Republic figures to acknowledge your efforts to change, even though she doesn’t excuse your past atrocities. Initially she’s of the talking heads on the Comm Link who updates on ‘official’ missions, but she joins your party when your ship capacity expands to check in on more distant planets. (But you also suspect to keep an eye on you after the first Nix encounter).

If you don’t mind civilian casualties she becomes more commanding and distant, and will not be available as a companion on some missions as she tries to minimize the damage both the enemy and you might cause. If you do account for protecting innocents, she becomes vocally supportive of you and easily handles whatever attitude you choose to have.

Zeth, Human Mercenary. (He/Him, pan romance): Asian heritage, with several battle scars and one massive claw mark tearing through part of his left ear. He looks like a mixed martial artist, with bulk and muscles made for strength not looks, and wears battle armor at all times. He is initially aggressive towards you, but surprisingly kind and non combative towards your allies. In the DS routes you hire him directly for his mercenary services, and he will show up with more chances for recruitment for a couple planets if you don’t recruit him immediately. In LS routes he seeks you out, angry and desperate to know why you changed. It becomes clear he wants to change too, but isn’t sure it’s possible so he’s seeing if you’ll break when pushed. If you don’t find a way to recruit him during this encounter, he goes on his merry way and you never hear from him again. 

If you teach him that kindness and mercy are weaknesses to be crushed, he slowly loses his kindness for your companions, focusing solely on keeping you happy, himself alive, and otherwise it’s every being for themself. If you teach him how to handle what he’s done in the past while continuing to value kindness and mercy, he slowly mellows out towards you and through struggling through some of his issues becomes even better friends with your companions.

Gerevek, Dresellian Jedi. (They/them): Mid range yellow skin, red eyes with pupils, very short. Well kept clothes that can change from highly informal to passing for a formal meeting, and hide how much armor they are wearing. They primarily “fight” by making temporary political allegiances among planets during battles, but your tactics have been outmaneuvering them and they are nowhere near as good in a one on one fight. In DS routes, you can break their spirit by making the allies they counted on turn away in fear of you. They will only give you one chance to recruit them when this happens, as they have no belief left in their old outlook but don’t know how to submit to the Dark Side ideology. In LS routes, they insist on joining Jonni in checking on other planets, but it’s pretty blatantly obvious they’re actually keeping an eye on you. They will literally follow you for a few planets if you try to refuse, pulling in minor favors and trying to get your companions to put in a good word for them with varying success depending on the person.

They are an interesting case for gaining influence, as you have to be willing to take the opposite tac of communication than you usually do to show you’re willing to bend to what other people need. If you’re blunt and to the point you have to be more indirect, if you’re sarcastic and deflect emotions you have to show some sincerity, if you’re manipulative and obscure your motives you have to be blunt and to the point, etc. 

Saiga, Bothan Shopkeeper. (She/Her, bi romance): Black fur with brown streaks, grey eyes and tall. Well worn pastel clothes, carries massive rucksack with them everywhere, yes even in combat. Endlessly, stubbornly cheerful and has no problem with your sordid past. Sees you as a fulcrum to get her more power, but also does look after your interests. Perk of using this final companion is, as a shopkeeper herself, she can haggle down prices of any shop you come by.

If you view your mutual relationship as an even transaction she’ll easily oblige, returning every favor you do for her and staying relatively static throughout the game no matter what good or bad things you do. If you invest more in the relationship than can be divided by favors she slowly starts giving more as well, for good or ill.

This post is the foundation I will be using as I continue working on this project, and I’m super excited to keep building up this idea!

[isavander]

We should make this our promised neverland

I'mma tell you something, and I'm probably gonna be drifted away a lot but I think it's still worth reading, so please stay with me and if someone gets the entire idea then it would be great if they reframed it better since this is too long.

Also this is just precaution that we should take, and I was thinking about it because I would hate it if we don't.

Asides from loving TPN and every single character, meaning they are just so well planed and positioned when it comes to screentime which we all can agree it's one of the hardest things to get right, and I surely have so much to say about them (I personally love Zack the most as a secondary character). What I'm going to talk about is gonna be mainly related to the basics.

I wanted to mention the fandom's behaviour that I've been able to see, I recently came here since I wanted to read the whole manga without any spoiler risks after watching the anime, and beforehand I expected non hostile/ friendly attitudes because dude... they are kids. And I know it's kinda stupid to expect the opposite but you really never know; since we've made tumblr the headquarters of fiction, then we eventually meet unpleasant people. So If I was getting into a different kind of fandom then you just know you would see them coming, but with this one I just hoped I wouldn't for many reasons, one of them visibly being it's freshness but it's not really the one I wanted to talk about, either way I wasn't dissapointed with my expectations.

There are people that are not even that deep on the whole shipping thing just yet so the fandom it's really carefree, but for those who can't help but ship or foreshadow or conspire, I'm excited to see for the first time in a while a post without feeling defensive or attacked, and I understand that have to do with yes, it's freshness, it's popularity on the rise, and their children status. Sadly, I haven't been for a while in a fandom that isn't in an ongoing battle so I'm happy I'm here.

You know this people are getting started, so yet we are not really gonna see something too glorified or biased, and we are going to start doing so once the rising popularity stabilizes and its freshness is over but I trust it won't be antagonistic unlike any other promising manga in the future because of their children status and our past and presence in other fandoms; we just know things get dirty and messy, with just explained hatred and resistance but in The Promised Neverland this ain't it man.

So the children status, give me something more right? I really just want you to stay, and also I'm going to relate it all to shipping so keep that in mind.

Even if I think it has to do with them being kids, because we just soften around them, its rather about the circumstances they have had to face as kids. They just want to feel secured and protected, and if you hate on someone who is around that age in other fandoms, as in trying to bring reasons to your opposition on liking them, the development that they are putting us to see it's connected with ambitious and the path they go through to gain personal satisfaction and empowerment. Those who are willing to be against their choices might just find them boring and they will look for something to talk about negatively: they weren't ambitious enough, they weren't useful enough, and their motivation to talk shit, it's of course, the threat they present to their favourite character and the third "party" that blocks their ship.

But that's the thing, you can't really hate on these kids, theres is literally no explanation that works, and if you look for them it has to be ill-enough. In here their roles also come to the equation, and their survival: you are taking from them their humanity when trying to justify the hate we witness in other fandoms because unlike them, you can't just say they are being boring or useless. As kids, they are doing their best, there is no system that can protect them, and most importantly, they didn't choose this path therefore the risks it implies, which means if they fear, if they get it wrong, if they aren't brave enough, it's too imprecise to use that against them, to just say "you should have know better". If they happen to threaten you, it's impossible to use this against them. And on the contrary, if they are too ambitious, too brave, too fearless, if greatness its their goal it has its roots on survival and aid and if they want to be better, is just so they can be able to reach more families that theirs to help.

So that leads me to the shipping stuff, we know how a ship can be worshiped or hated and I was praying for this fandom to not get there immediately and be victim of such behaviour, which I know, it's odd to think it would've happened but you never know.But then again I trust it won't be that way in the future either. I covered why it's hard to gather any information against them once the characters are more developed but I now want to insist on how it's gonna be as hard if they eventually change.

First of, I think it's really low to act a certain way when it comes to shipping them, and no I'm not really talking about their age this time, because when people ship them I believe they are looking at their potential connection once they grow. For instance I will use as an example Rayemma who are my personal favourite. All I can think about when it comes to them and those pairings that oppose them is that i want them to be happy. Even if they are been foreshadowed for a certain future all I want for all of them is to live in peace. More than anything they consider each other friends and family, they interact with each other daily and put their lives on each other shoulders, and they don't prioritize anything else other than each other's safety. This is not about them being in another classroom or other team and having to instead, interact for time to time or in a new arc and then they suddenly get to meet and people start shipping them. It is a little disrespectful to prioritize romance over their friendship because in this case yes, I'm briging the fact that they are children and as I said we are idealizing their potential relationship who started and we were all part of when they were indeed children, friends, and mutual protectors. The emptiness they might want to fill doesn't have to be fill by that type of love just yet, it needs to be fill with other values like respect and partnership and teamwork, it is already being filled, because those values are the ones that they need now to secure everyone's safety and if any of them eventually fall in love it would be substantiated on those traits only than anything else, if they eventually develop a different type of love for someone else, someone that you don't like, or rather force yourself to not like, it's really hard to avoid that everyone, including that "third party" contributed to the person you rooted for to survive, to their well being and put their lives on their shoulders being afraid as hell, so no, they didn't choose to be comrades and take that risk, they weren't put in the same team and were told they had to protect each other and then developed mutual appreciation, they instead learned how to love each other because otherwise survival chances would be reduced and gave value to any other kid that they crossed because they happened to be part of their "team" for just being human, it's hard to avoid that.

And to reduce ourselves to comparing them or these potential relationships with aggresives means, is really something that first thing I felt when going into the tags we collectivelly decided to not do. And we will collectively decide to not do when this gets huge. We ship them because there's so much good potential for otps, even if we are getting started and the fandom will eventually grow I trust that is gonna be hard as fuck to just annul the appreaction we developed for all of them just for the sake of a ship, because that ship itself would disagree and even be against the values they stand, they would basically be out of character (oc).

This reasoning might not be accurate for some though, and maybe they gathered enough experience to decide that once they were part of this fandom and got involved, they just simply wanted to take it easy because this fandom does feel like taking a break. Itself is breathing. For me it's a mixture of both but what I do know is that it's just really hard as shit to justify hating on any of this characters in comparison from those of other fandoms.

And If we get to see them grow and become older enough in which they might expend time mentioning who they like, since by that time we would have already being through this stage then I trust that we wouldn't change the behaviour I'm seeing either. I know that I wanted to write this because I'm a hardcore shipper in any fandom I'm in, but I don't tend to fight for my beliefs because I'm really not up to it like never, I just enjoy reading positive posts and If I don't I just cringe and make fun of them with the elaboration of a meme, I don't even go on separated characters tags just to avoid drama and hate because I can get really angry but I never have intentions to react on my emotions, especially if on those ships I see potential and work and devotion, like, it just emotionally wrecks me, but it happens that, for as much as I feel like this for the ships in tpn, I was afraid I would feel that way too whenever I crossed something I didn't like and it turns out I didn't mind because for the first time I just don't care. All the time I was thinking I want them all to be happy, there's no fucking possible way to find any of these characters potentially annoying or bad intended and if anyone wanted to bring beef I do believe everyone would attacked them, like look, all the posts about the ships have good vibes, and if anything what you see most are memes, this is the true promised neverland.

So the real intention of all this gibberish is to make everyone understand that yes, is not that hard to be the person that have the initiative to make a fandom be a safe place for everyone especially if it's so promising as this one. In any fandom there is that person when it begins but then they are outnumbered and just starts participating in the same defensive behaviour to protect their favourite character and try to explain themselves by saying "I didn't want to start anything but others did", the things is that they all, if they seek carefully can justify their hate for another character, I don't know about other series but at least for me this is the first time I'm involved in one were everyone agrees that in this series everyone is trying their best and being fucking p e r f e c t, we have the potential in here to make this an everlasting meme fandom and hate free, not for certain groups once this become huge but for this whole fandom to share the same value.

There is so much power in that message and we have been given the perfect storyline to do so and make it work, it's a real great opportunity you know, because our motivation to respect them does not solemnly fall on our morals as individuals and the understanding that everyone is different, but rather than the empathy everyone feels for children, especially those who just want their family and friends to be safe, and that composed all the ships you might have, I know we can make it work because the reason why that girl had the initiative to have an entire respectful fandom with no antis is because she wanted that for the series but she happened to be outnumbered so she joined them, in here is not really like that; this is what the characters would want and they would prefered to not have a "someone-meant-to-be" than a friend and an outsider acting like "well guys I'm taking sides" this is just a reminder that if the fandom in tumblr gets as big as I imagine it will to not forget that I expect it to be as it is now. I don't know about you but I really enjoy entering the tags and looking at either memes or an aggressive reminder of how fucking cute Phil is. That's it, that's how aggressive it can gets. Imagine having a fandom like that that never really change in that sense and for time to time you just scroll and see a fanart of your ship or a rant without subtile jealously and toxic protectiveness, I'm not gonna lie I enjoy those too but this is just different man, we are all on the same team, they are trying to survive, it's like even if we don't see them having screentime, we just know they are doing some important shit and if anything you can justify why they are being important or useful by I don't know just sitting on the floor: everyone gets through trauma differently, by all means we are not gonna tear them down.

It doesn't sound impossible once the second season is out and their arcs are more developed for this to not be as carefree, every fandom goes through this. This is just precaution. I think this has the potential enough to be one of the exceptions like one of the few fandoms from huge franchises that just doesn't care about multiple ships or weird shit, a fandom that is realllly chill, and I think we have enough experience in other series to become like this.

Because It does ruin the series until people adapt and get involved in the drama, you don't want for this big family the same and if you truly enjoy drama let's get that done with memes, like have you seen some of them? I know we were already sort of going through that path but this is just a reminder to make it work, to break the wheel, wouldn't it be interesting to see how it goes?

I edited this so it can be shorter so I basically posted the rest individually

[eleanor-writes-stuff]

sign up now for a free trial! [part v/vii]

Ben catches feelings and decides to take things to the next level with his long-time roommate, close friend, and occasional hook-up. Rey, ever the more sensible half of the duo, decides that they should make sure a relationship between them won’t be a total disaster first.

What they need is a trial run.

Featuring: awkward run-ins with a family member, even more awkward holidays with the whole family, and fluff. So much fluff. All the fluff.

It’s the Christmas Eve episode! Featuring: Luke and Leia being little shits, Luke and Chewie being little shits, and Han’s first appearance. Also, yet another lazy-mornings-in-bed scene because what’s the point of winter break if not to sleep in and fool around?

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV Also available on AO3.

On Christmas Eve, Rey and Ben find themselves on the receiving end of a rather rude awakening.

The morning starts normally enough. Rey blinks away her disorientation at waking up in an unfamiliar environment and rolls around to find Ben leaning against the headboard, phone in hand.

“Morning,” she mumbles, even though it’s probably lost amidst the little sounds she makes as she stretches her sleepy limbs. When she opens her eyes it’s to find Ben giving her the softest smile possible, the one she’d never even seen before this week.

“Morning, sweetheart,” he replies, ducking down to press a kiss to her temple as Rey sighs happily. After a while she coaxes her body upright and reaches blindly for the glass of water she’d left on her nightstand last night. Ben sets aside his phone as she moves to join him, and in a blur of reaching hands and sleepy kisses Rey finds herself in his lap.

She lets her eyes close as Ben leans in to rest his forehead against hers, their noses brushing together and his hair falling forward to block out the outside world. “What time is it?” Rey asks, her lips moving against the corner of his mouth.

“Just past nine,” Ben tells her, hands settling on her waist. She hums in acknowledgement, her hazy mind more interested in kissing than speaking, and he gladly obliges. Cliché and corny though it may sound, time ceases to exist whenever she kisses Ben. It used to worry her, the way she could get lost in him for what could have been anything from five minutes to an hour, with no way of telling which it was until she found the will to pull herself away. Now she chases after that oblivion, sinks into it and relishes the fact that she’s allowed to get carried away with Ben, to lose herself in the way it feels to be with him.

And for the longest time she does, she allows herself to lose all sense of time and being and the outside world, until–

“Ben!” Luke calls, his voice mock-stern as he pounds his fist against the door in quick succession. “Ben, you better not be splitting my favorite student in half with that thing!”

Rey’s eyes fly open, and she can’t tell if she’s flushed from kissing Ben or if the heat in her cheeks is a blush brought on by her professor’s implication that his nephew is–

“Go away!” Ben growls right before he tips forward to hide his face in her neck.

Luke bursts into laughter, loud, self-congratulating guffaws that reach their ears even as his voice grows fainter with distance.

“How does he know…?” Rey finally brings herself to ask, even though she’s not quite sure she wants the answer to that question.

Ben lets his head fall back against the headboard with a thud. “Have you heard about the weirdos who insist on using the urinal right next to you even when the rest of the bathroom is unoccupied?”

She nods, the movement slow with trepidation.

“My uncle is one of those weirdos,” Ben announces with a weary sigh, dragging his hand down his face. After a moment he peeks out at her from between his fingers and asks, almost sheepishly, “Did he ruin the mood?”

“Hmm, let’s see,” Rey flashes him a smirk as she very, very slowly and deliberately rolls her hips against him just once. “Not for you, obviously,” she points out unnecessarily.

Ben swallows visibly. “And for you?” he rasps, his throat dry.

Rey shrugs. “I mean, they’re going to assume we did anyway, right?” she says, words somewhat muffled as she pulls off her top. “Might as well.”

“Might as well,” Ben agrees and this time, there are no interruptions.

“How nice of you two to finally join us!” Luke crows as they enter the kitchen, earning himself a slap on the arm from a passing Leia.

“Grow up, will you?” Leia snaps at her brother before she turns to them. “There’s some coffee left in the pot, but you’ll probably have to make more. There would have been food left too, if my idiot brother here had just called you two down for breakfast when I asked him to.”

Luke crosses his arms under Leia’s withering glare. “What? You said to wake them up and I did. You never said how.”

Completely ignoring his family, Ben places a hand on the small of Rey’s back and guides her to the far end of the kitchen, where the fridge and stove are. “Eggs sound okay?”

“Eggs sound great,” she smiles, and Ben tells her to go ahead and pull whatever she wants out of the fridge while he hunts down the required kitchenware. The large kitchen – which Rey had found just as intimidating as the rest of the house when she first saw it yesterday – allows them some measure of privacy from Luke and Leia, even though she thinks she can still sense the occasional pair of eyes watching her and Ben as they work around each other with practiced ease.

“By the way,” Leia says a few minutes later, while Ben is cooking up their omelets and Rey is pulling out plates and cutlery. “Your father arrived earlier this morning. He’s out running some errands with Chewie, but he should be back before the party starts.”

“Okay,” Ben shrugs, keeping his back to his mother and his eyes on the stove. When she walks past him to gather glasses for orange juice, Rey discreetly runs her hand along his back and watches the way his shoulders relax.

“What time is the party starting?” she asks Leia in a bid to distract her, and even though Leia’s eyes tell her she knows exactly what Rey is doing, she plays along anyway.

“People usually start arriving at three, but those are mainly constituents and their kids, donors, small business owners – work guests, basically,” Leia explains. “Most of them only stay an hour or two – we’ve had some stragglers in the past, but by seven it’s completely family and friends.”

“And that’s when the real party starts,” Luke chimes in, setting down his newspaper.

Leia sighs. “That’s when Luke gets tipsy,” she corrects her brother with a pointed look, to which Luke merely shrugs.

“Anyway, we’ve still got a few things to do before we’re ready for guests,” Leia tells Rey as Ben plates their omelets. “Just some of the stuff we didn’t get around to last night; it shouldn’t take too long. Oh, and the caterers are coming at noon, so hurry up and eat before they take over this place and kick you out.” As if on cue, Ben hands Rey her plate and they join his family at the table.

While they eat, Rey tries to recall the to-do list Leia had presented her and Ben with after dinner last night, the one they’d both helped her work on until one in the morning. There shouldn’t be much left, just small things like making sure all the off-limits rooms are locked and displaying all of the holiday cards Leia has received.

Later Rey finds that she has severely underestimated the number of rooms there are in the Organa mansion and the amount of cards a well-loved Senator like Leia receives during the holiday season. She and Ben are left to sort the cards – “Ben knows the system,” Leia tells her – and display them around the entirety of the first floor, a task which takes them the better part of an hour.

Rey doesn’t mind. If nothing else, it’s a reprieve from the twins tag-teaming her and Ben with their endless teasing. She tells Ben as much when he apologizes for dragging her into this, and he shakes his head.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Ben sighs, carefully arranging a card on the mantel so that the bright, messy crayon scrawl of Leia’s young supporter is clearly visible to all guests – including the majority of the local paper’s staff. “This is nothing. Just wait till my uncle gets drunk.”

She laughs and calls him a drama queen, because how bad can things get?

So, so bad.

To be fair, the first half of the party actually goes pretty well. There’s a moment, early on, when Han walks in through the front doors just as Rey and Ben come downstairs and the tension in the air makes her feel like they’ve stepped on a landmine. But then Han takes one look at their joined hands and his lips twitch with a poorly concealed grin.

“Finally,” he mutters, and when they meet him at the bottom of the stairs he claps Ben on the shoulder, nods at Rey with a smile, and says, “Good for you, kids.”

It’s a major crisis averted, and it’s the only notable moment from the first four hours of Leia’s party. Ben spends most of the afternoon playing the part of the Senator’s dutiful son, and Rey alternates between standing at his side while he makes small talk and hanging out with Luke, who watches from the sidelines and barely ever interacts with anyone.

“Don’t you know anyone here?” she asks her professor at some point, and he shakes his head.

“These are Leia’s people,” Luke says, a small smile lighting up his face as he spots his sister amidst a sea of people, effortlessly winning the hearts of her fellow Alderaanians. “Alderaan has always been her home, but it’s only home to me because it’s hers. You’ve heard the story, haven’t you, about how we were raised separately?”

Rey nods. “She was adopted by the previous Senator Organa, while you grew up with distant relatives in Tatooine.”

“Tatooine never really felt like home either,” the older man confides in her. “For the longest time it was all I knew, it was pretty much my whole world, but it still wasn’t home. You probably know what that’s like,” Luke turns to her expectantly, the way he would in class whenever he knew she had the answer he was looking for.

“I do,” Rey agrees quietly. It’s easy for her to understand Luke’s complicated feelings on Tatooine, easy to compare them to her own feelings on Jakku and Niima House. For so long the orphanage had been both a roof over her head and a cell she couldn’t escape from, and Jakku used to feel like all there was, all there ever would be. It remains a small, desolate town in an endless desert of small, desolate towns, all of them left to suffer the same fate Alderaan had been heading towards before Leia stepped up.

Maybe that’s why Rey has always thought so highly of Leia; some part of her had been hoping, waiting for Jakku to get a Leia Organa of its own, for someone to save the town and all of its inhabitants. It never happened, of course, and eventually Rey grew sick of waiting for someone to rescue her and found a way to rescue herself instead.

But she doesn’t tell Luke any of that, choosing to remain in contemplative silence with him until the next time Ben summons her to his side with a wide-eyed please save me look.

Just a few short hours later, that quiet, contemplative Luke is nowhere to be found. Instead there’s tipsy-bordering-on-drunk Luke trying to be stealthy as he tracks Rey and Ben across the house, waiting for the perfect moment before he bellows, “Chewie, now!”

Ben’s Uncle Chewbacca – the tallest man Rey’s ever met, taller somehow than Ben himself – appears out of nowhere, a feat that should be impossible for a man his size, to dangle a sprig of mistletoe over their heads.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Ben groans as Leia’s guests start cheering and wolf-whistling and calling out for them to kiss.

“Leave the kids alone,” Han grouses as he reappears from the kitchen with a glass of whisky in one hand and a bottle of the stuff in the other. Unlike his brother-in-law, however, Ben’s father can actually handle his alcohol, and he shoots Luke a glare eerily similar to the one Rey’s caught Leia directing at her brother throughout the evening.

Luke has the utter gall to look hurt. “I just want to see my favorite nephew–”

“Only nephew,” Ben mutters under his breath.

“–and my favorite student–”

“Then why’d you give me an A minus,” Rey grumbles to herself.

“–be happy together!”

Ben glares at his uncle. “We were managing that perfectly fine without you,” he points out before turning to Chewie. “And you! What are you doing?”

Chewbacca shrugs, obstinately keeping the mistletoe right above them. “Just proud to finally see you with a girl,” he rumbles in that nearly unintelligible accent Rey vaguely remembers encountering in Jakku, the only reason she’s able to understand him at all.

“See, this is why I never come home for the holidays,” Ben mutters. The guests have lost interest at this point, but Ben, Han, Luke, and Chewie are caught in a four-way staring contest that’s getting more ridiculous by the second, and Leia’s disappeared god knows where with Maz so she’s not coming to the rescue anytime soon, and frankly Rey is just done with this.

She braces one hand against Ben’s chest and surges forward to plant a kiss to the corner of his mouth, mindful of his probable discomfort when it comes to overt displays of affection in a roomful of people he grew up around.

“There,” Rey announces, crossing her arms at Luke. “Now go sober up, professor. This is ridiculous.”

Luke’s eyes gleam with mischief and satisfaction. “Oh, I’m not drunk. It’s just so much easier to get my way when I pretend I am.”

And with that, he and Chewie wander off into the next room.

“What just– did he just –” Rey sputters at their retreating forms, turning to Ben once they’ve disappeared.

“I told you it would get worse,” Ben reminds her, albeit apologetically.

Han sighs. “Welcome to the family, Rey. Sorry you had to make the same mistake I did,” he tells her, pressing his glass of whisky into the hand that’s not still on Ben’s chest.

“Mistake?” She asks Ben once his father has left them.

“Falling for an Organa-Skywalker,” he clarifies, equal parts cocky and in disbelief as if he still hasn’t fully wrapped his mind around it. “And getting stuck with the crazy relatives.”

“Please tell me that’s as crazy as it gets,” Rey pleads, leaning into Ben’s side for support.

Ben wraps an arm around her waist to hold her steady. “I wish I could.”

Luke and Chewie try the mistletoe ambush four more times before the evening is up, determined to make Ben and Rey kiss for real – their words, not hers – in front of everyone.

By the time they finally get under the covers, Rey is utterly exhausted and seriously beginning to reconsider her decision to come here. But at least it’s over and done with, right? And it’s just as she told Ben: if their budding relationship can survive this, they’ll be able to make it through anything.

Warmed by the thought, Rey allows herself a sigh of relief as Ben reaches out to draw her to his chest.

“Good night, Ben,” she whispers, her eyes drifting shut.

“Get some rest, sweetheart,” he murmurs against her temple, sounding just as tired as she feels. “Tomorrow we get to do this all over again.”

Rey’s eyes snap wide open in horror.

I feel like I had a little too much fun channeling Mark "Naughty Nephew" Hamill in this chapter and it's really messed with Luke's characterization, so I apologize for that.

Actually I apologize for all 2500+ words of this chapter, because what even was this? You guys were expecting fun shenanigans and your regularly-scheduled fluff, and this madness is what happened instead. I'm so, so sorry.

Berate me in the comments if you must. Or just say hi, that's always nice. And thank you again for the latest round of comments - those always make my day.

See you guys tomorrow, when Han and Ben cause a little ~drama at the table during Christmas lunch.

[professionalgrowth-julia]

Efficient Time Management by Chris Croft

Can you find ways to automate repeating tasks and problems?

If you are a manager, only solve creative problems

Delegate repetitive tasks to someone else or create systems to avoid repeating problems

Managing repeating problems

Prevent the original problem

Automate or delegate tasks

Improve processes

Notes: - Ask why more than what, dig deeper to the cause and fix the root of the problem - Food for thought: What are your repeating time wasters? 

How to reduce inefficiency?

Start with a reliable foundation - tools you use to run your life

Don’t tolerate anything inefficient or unreliable - it is worth spending money and time to fix it

My Value per Hour:

(Hourly rate) x 2 = Real cost

(Real cost) x 2 = Total value

Annual Salary/2,000 = Hourly pay

Hourly rate x 2 x 2 = Total value

How to improve your desk?

Get rid of the loose papers on your desk

Make sure your desk is well suited for you

Think about your desk’s line of sight

What should be on your desk?

Computer

Jobs-to-do list

Blank paper - paper is better to visualise instead of digital

Pens or pencils

Notes: - A neat list is much more useful than a pile of papers - Messy desk is distracting - Pomodoro Technique - work for a set amount of time and then reward yourself

Put things in the right place

Have spares of everything

Put things in clear sight where you can’t forget them - batch things together to save time

How to reduce your filing?

Use search to find the emails you’re looking for - customer name, company name, product name, date

For paper, try an app like Evernote for photographing and digitally filing documents

Filing system: (1) To-be-filed box, (2) Trash bin, (3) Can’t decide box

Notes: - Set up an auto-tagging system to help organize emails with similar content - Once can’t decide box is full, throw it away

How to maximise spare time

Use technology for work

Have a plan

Carry reading material (book or kindle)

Be idle, enjoy nature, or socialize

Notes: Falling back on TV or social media should be the last on your list

Listen more to save time

Things to avoid talking about: 

Details

Circular situations

Anything out of your control

The past

The future

Yourself

Use a master list

Should include all the big items

List can be in any form that works for you

Putting a list on the wall is preferred (visibility)

Set aside time to create and update your list (~15 mins to get it done)

Reason: - It’s better to know that not know. If list is too long, you need to either delegate or delete it - Allows you to plan and manage your time

Use a daily list

Use a daily list in conjunction with the master list 

Master list: Big-to-dos

Daily list: Smaller parts of larger projects

Should have less than 10 items

It is important to keep the master list and daily list separate

Daily lists must be done daily (not only under stress)

Notes - Writing daily lists in the evening helps because it’s quiet, it gives you closure for the day and helps you overcome procrastination

Get the most out of your calendar

Always keep it with you so that you use it everyday & all the time

Put in appointments with yourself to think & plan (one per day, ~30 mins)

Keep your calendar 25-50% empty to allow for inevitable problems

Use the unbroken chain by noting deadline dates in your calendar

Notes: - Small amount of planning adds up to significant planning

Write everything down

Big items goes into the master list

Small items goes to the daily jobs-to-do list

Timely items goes into the calendar

Reasons: - Helps you to not forget anything - Allows you to plan - Provides time for important tasks

Use paper or not?

Evernote

Multidevice access

Sharable content

Backup capability

Searchable

In a meeting, writing maybe condoned (even on ipad, but writing)

Tips for recording

Use the dictate feature on your phone

Use abbreviations

Hard edges for your tasks

Separate jobs into must do and might do

Never allow system to be ambiguous 

Notes: Read “Getting things done” by David Allen

Filing by date

Great for:

Timely event such as hotel bookings, conference & meeting agendas 

Repeating tasks

Following up on delegated tasks

Two options to do it:

Ring binder

Filing cabinet segregated by month, and then date

Filing by context

By location

By person

By customer

By activity

Notes: - Use “Any do” app that allows you to set Location reminder - Keep all your lists in one place

Tips for typing

Use dictate feature on your phone (beside the type bar)

Try using a bluetooth keyboard

Save time typing

Keep emails short

Learn to type really well

Use auto correct for mistakes 

Standard paragraphs in Evernote

Maximise productivity from apps

Evernote 

Online notebook

Stores text, photos, recordings

Accessible from many devices

Searchable

Includes text recognition software

Wunderlist

Free

Easy-to-use

Syncs across devices

Interactive

Shareable

WorkFlowy

Free

Syncs across devices

Good for brainstorming list

Tag tasks using hashtag

Trello

Similar to Kanban system

Moving things between lists

Good for consecutive task for one or more persons

Notes: - Email isn’t a jobs-to-do system

Make the most of Word and Excel

Microsoft Excel

Pivot tables

AutoFilter

Conditional formatting

Lookup tables

IF commands

Microsoft Word

Use AutoCorrect

Learn keyboard shortcuts

Learn to insert tables

Learn and use styles

Communicate via the cloud

Viewable anywhere

Always up to date

Control over who views and edits

Use the right medium

When to make a phone call?

For back and forth

For gauging reactions

When to use email?

To avoid chatty people

To leave a paper trail

To respect other’s time

To write and think carefully

Notes: - Use the medium the other person likes best

Make email easy for the receiver

Use a clear title

Use one subject per email

Delegate one person per task

Be clear when you CC

Have a detailed footer

*Email tips: include the original email

Make sure you get a reply

Replies are more important than read receipts

Did They Reply (DTR) System

Set up an email folder

Set up a rule to place all messages with “DTR” in the Did They Reply folder

Good for important email

For people whom you do not trust

For Gmail, use labels

Make sure you don’t get a reply!

Reduce incoming emails

Be assertive

Add “reply not required”

Try a different medium

Check emails at the right frequency

Check two to six times a day

Constantly checking emails can be distracting and time consuming

Checking more frequently doesn’t always increase response time

How to empty your inbox

Inbox Zero

Keep your inbox completely clear

Deal with easy tasks now

Add harder tasks to jobs-to-do list

Once you’ve assessed each email, remove it from your inbox

Inbox is just an arrival place, while jobs-to-do list is a list of tasks

If your inbox is too overwhelming, give yourself a fresh start

Notes: - Advantages of Inbox Zero: (1) Nothing gets forgotten, (2) you can decide what tasks to do

Do it tomorrow?

Two-minute rule: If it can be done in two minutes or less, do it!

Do-it-tomorrow rule

Unless the task is urgent, add it to the do-it-tomorrow list

Everything gets pushed back a day

Take control of your time to be more efficient

Tips for filing of emails

Inbox (things i have not seen yet, checked every hour or two)

Deleted

Done

Deal with later

Notes: Important things can be searched and placed into Evernote Boolean search: Search for specific things and exclude others Autofiling: Set up rules to automatically filter emails (not a good thing)

[ohlawsons]

vidcalls | 02

[ RE: MISSING YOU IS LIKE WAITING FOR A DESERT RAIN ]

SUMMARY. Business might keep Sophie and Reyes separated after the conclusion of their work on Kadara, but that doesn’t mean they can’t take time for the occasional message or visit. Or: some f!Ryder/Reyes interactions post-Kadara, because Bioware didn’t give us enough in-game. Spoiler warnings will be marked at the beginning of each chapter. NOTES.  mission: elaaden, no real spoilers for the planet/main storyline in which reyes is a giant nerd and sophie is a hot mess and it was very, VERY hard to resist making an anakin joke LINKS. [ AO3 ] [ FFN ] [ sophie’s tag ] [ vidcalls fic tag ]

With a little grunt of effort, Sophie pulled herself up to sit atop the Nomad. Parked beneath one of Elaaden’s vibrant — and rare — red leaved trees, high up on a plateau above the desert sands, she had a clear view of most of the area they’d already explored.

The Tempest was there, at the edge of the horizon. New Tuchanka was just visible beyond an outcropping to the east. Between them, kilometers of slow rolling dunes and sandy rock formations.

Sophie loved it.

She pulled down the scarf she’d been using to cover her nose and mouth from the sand, squinting as she checked her omnitool’s connection; the call stabilized after only a moment and Sophie bit back a grin, trying to hide just how much she’d been looking forward to speaking with Reyes again. “As promised,” she began, foregoing an actual greeting, “Elaaden, in all its krogan-filled, hellish glory.”

“I thought you said in your last email that you were loving Elaaden?” Reyes asked, grinning. “Has the great Pathfinder finally found a planet she can’t handle?” He looked tired, and the circles beneath his eyes sent a pang of worry through Sophie; SAM could easily calculate local time on Kadara, yet she always forgot to ask and, as a result, had called Reyes in the middle of the night more than once. She wouldn’t mind if Reyes was losing sleep over her, just — not because she kept waking him up with her calls.

It’s approximately eight in the morning, local time, SAM reported dutifully over their private channel.

Oh, thank god.

Outwardly, Sophie returned Reyes’ grin with one of her own. “I do love Elaaden, but that doesn’t change the fact that it sucks being planetside. Lexi won’t let me pick fights with the mercs here, Drack won’t let me pick fights with the krogan, and this fucking heat is killing our life support systems.”

“But?”

“But,” Sophie echoed with a sigh, feeling her shoulders drop as she stared out over the planet, transfixed by the landscape, “it’s beautiful. It’s just… I mean the sand, and the arches, and there’s just no end. And the sky! I’ve never… I don’t know how to describe it. It’s huge, it’s like…” She trailed off with another sigh, unable to find the words to describe the awe she felt being on Elaaden.

It reminded her of why it was worth it, why being the Pathfinder was something worthy of doing — all the exploring and searching and getting to see the splendor and beauty of planets that were still so new and unknown. There was a certain thrill to it all, and she wasn’t sure the novelty of it would ever wear off; it wasn’t an experience that was easily replicated, getting to see a sunset on a world that had once been no more than a blip on a scan thousands of light years away.

“Here. Look.” Sophie adjusted her omnitool so Reyes’ view would no longer be of her, but of the landscape. She made a slow sweep of the horizon, making sure to catch the planet and moon that hung low in the sky. “Isn’t it amazing?” she asked as she swiveled the camera back to face her.

But Reyes looked less than impressed. “That’s a lot of sand,” he offered, clearly not sure what Sophie wanted him to say.

She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “We’re explorers, humanity’s only hope in a new and unknown galaxy,” she pointed out, adding no small amount of embellishment to the words, “and no one seems to want to appreciate all the shit we’re exploring.”

Reyes laughed and shook his head. “I was almost going to say you had a rather romantic view of things for someone so opposed to being told to stop and smell the roses.”

“Why bother stopping when you can smell them at a hundred and fifty kilometers an hour?” She gave the Nomad a loving pat.

With a wide, genuine smile, Reyes simply watched her for a moment, his eyes filled with such a mix of amusement and adoration that it made Sophie a bit self conscious. She glanced out at the sand, only looking back when Reyes spoke. “See, things like this are why I—” He faltered, covering up whatever he was about to say with a rather conspicuous cough. “—why I’m glad you call.”

“Good, because I plan to keep calling.” Sophie debated brushing off the entire awkwardness of the moment with a joke; she held back, not sure if it was the softness in Reyes’ voice or his expression that made her hesitate. “I talked to SAM, by the way. He can figure out what time it is in Kadara Port, so I shouldn’t be calling in the middle of the night any more.” In a quieter voice, she added, “You look like you need the sleep.”

“I’m—” Whatever argument Reyes had planned deflated almost immediately, and he gave in with a sigh. “Yes. I do. With Keema’s help, running things hasn’t been too much to handle, but there have been… growing pains, of a sort, with your outpost. Everything’s fine with Ditaeon,” he assured her quickly, “but it takes up more of my time than I’d anticipated to make sure it stays that way.”

Sophie frowned, torn between guilt that she’d left Reyes to deal with the problems of an Initiative outpost and a sort of pleased satisfaction that he was following through with his promise to look after Diteaon.

Their outpost, he’d called it, and even though she was sure he had been referring to the joint efforts of the Nexus and the Collective, she still felt a shock of warmth when she thought about it.

“I’ll stop by when we’re done here,” she decided. “I can talk to Christmas, see what I can do to help.”

“Just Christmas?” Reyes asked, taking a tone of mock offense. “I may need the sleep, but don’t think you aren’t a woman worth staying up for.”

She rolled her eyes, suppressing a smile at the forced innocence in his tone; Reyes could be a bit of a cheese ball sometimes, but he was her cheese ball, and there was something endearing in that. “Alright, calm down, it’ll be another few weeks so don’t wait up for me. Besides,” she added, lips curling into a little smirk as she matched Reyes’ innocent tone, “you never seem to get much sleep when I’m around.”

Reyes’ response was cut off by the low hiss of one of the Nomad’s side doors sliding open. “Just so you know,” Liam called out, “the Nomad isn’t soundproof, and Vetra’s run out of dextro snacks.”

“Alright, alright,” Sophie surrendered with a sigh; they’d have to head back to the Tempest, anyway — if only so she could get all the sand out of her armor — and now was as good a time as any. It had been a long day. “Hey, Reyes, what do you say I patch you in to the Nomad’s comms? No vids, unfortunately, but then it’ll give Liam a great chance to chat with you.” She knew Liam didn’t have any real issues with Reyes; he’d been worried about Sophie, originally, but she was fairly certain he’d come to terms with everything.

“Yeah, then he can listen to all your commentary on all the camps and ruins we pass,” Liam suggested dryly.

Amused, Reyes cocked an eyebrow. “What did he say?”

“That I’m a fantastic tour guide and he wholeheartedly approves of this idea.”

“Ah. Well, in that case,” Reyes said with a shrug, the combination of his grin and tone of voice suggesting that he was well aware that Sophie hadn’t quite told the truth, “how could I turn down such an offer? And you should know, by now, that I’m always willing to make time for you.”

“Careful, Vidal,” Sophie warned with a crooked grin of her own, “or I might think you’re sweet on me.”

He winked. “That was always the plan.”

[skqq-net]

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google Net Dressmaker (internet make solution for banners)

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High quality internet make tool for online retail outlets

Can maintain to you are planning to launch an online store and coding is never any longer your genuine aspect, Weebly is a correct solution. Providing one amongst the ideal toddle-and-fall editors in the industry, Weebly additionally adapts eCommerce functionality to its internet sites.

With Weebly, you presumably can without issues configure every thing for an eCommerce store: add shipping and payment systems, music your stock, and edit merchandise. But genuine eCommerce instruments is ideal an addition to the easy to make use of internet position builder instrument.

You will seemingly be in a space to offer your internet position by including photos, text, slideshows, icons, buttons, galleries and more. All of which is accomplished by dragging and shedding the aspects you could add.

Moreover this, there are a form of stand out aspects to ensure that that your internet position catches the scrutinize of its customer. Adding video backgrounds or animation are ways of doing this, and both of which add a big dynamic to your internet position.

On the different hand, there may be no point in having a stunning internet position if you happen to don’t maintain any one to gaze it, precise?

Neatly, fortunately, Weebly has you lined – with a differ of internet optimization instruments and the chance to add meta tags, your internet position has more doable to be considered in engines like google. 

And there may be any other correct thing about Weebly.

You will seemingly be in a space to use it free of price and it is one amongst the most less pricey solutions if you happen to preserve in mind its functionality.  The cheapest top rate Weebly plan begins at $5/month. But in sigh for you the beefy eCommerce functionality and the total top rate aspects, the most costly plan will payment $38/month.

With the total plans that Weebly gives, you presumably may perchance well make use of the total elegant templates. There is a sequence of over 60 responsive templates, 15 of that are designed particularly for online retail outlets.

PROS

Free internet position plan available

Intuitive toddle-and-fall editor

eCommerce aspects integration

CONS

Platform lacks flexibility

3. Webflow

Life like make tool for edifying initiatives

Webflow is an online position make tool, recount administration system, and an online hosting provider. All in the identical platform.

Providing CSS, HTML, and Javascript all save together in a natty visible interface, here’s a tool that combines the energy of coding and somewhat easy bettering abilities.

The usage of nothing however the equipped interface, you presumably can attain many brilliant edifying issues. Our favorites deserve to be the scroll-basically basically based and cursor-basically basically based interactions – which suggests the internet position will behave otherwise, looking on the user’s actions.

A total bunch of pre-built parts, comparable to tabs, sliders, videos, and worthy more, make building an online position somewhat easy, as you establish now not favor to make every thing from scratch, or download separate parts from the Cyber internet.

But it absolutely’s more than a visible composer. Can maintain to you could work with code or pass the internet position pattern to any individual who does, you may perchance be contented to hear that every thing you attain on Webflow can accept exported in easy and easy to read HTML/CSS/JS code.

Alternatively, if you happen to’re a developer working with a advertising/recount team, a handy and easy to make use of editor will seemingly be equipped. So others will seemingly be in a space to make changes to your internet position, without causing it any harm by likelihood.

Overall, here’s a big combo chance for those that address to make and maintain an belief on their mind, and folk that deserve to code.

The finding out curve maybe somewhat too steep, but even as you grasp Webflow – it becomes value it. And if you happen to prefer to host your internet position on their servers, you may perchance attain that as effectively.

Talking about the Webflow pricing, you may perchance strive the yarn-basically basically based plan free of price, but it absolutely is never any longer going to consist of internet hosting. In sigh so that you just can offer and host an online position with Webflow, the pricing begins at $12/month and may perchance well mosey as much as $212/month for the most edifying plan.

PROS

Lovely visible interface

Interfaces for both internet position developers and moderators

Cyber internet internet hosting plans available

CONS

Steeper finding out curve

4. Adobe Dreamweaver

Evolved internet position builder instrument 

Dreamweaver is a code bettering application, that supports just about all kinds of code. HTML? JavaScript? PHP? CSS? Creep to all, and there is additionally worthy more. You will seemingly be in a space to additionally upload Drupal or wordpress templates and edit them there as effectively.

It be a ultimate tool for folk that prefer to in actuality grasp coding.

Regarded as one of our licensed aspects has positively been the Live Preview, where you may perchance edit the code and look the plan it affects your internet position. Can maintain to you’re interesting to offer one from scratch – or even edit a internet page on wordpress or Drupal, here’s a ultimate characteristic that will make it more straightforward to mosey making an strive the errors and test the aspects as you kind them in.

That is never any longer the applicable thing you may perchance attain in precise-time. Dreamweaver is big for building responsive designs, as you may perchance look how the pages trade and adapt to varied resolutions.

So yeah, all appears to be like aesthetic and elegant – but as with most issues Adobe, issues mosey south if you happen to launch to preserve in mind pricing. Starting at $20.99 a month, Dreamweaver is without issues the most costly chance on this list. But even as you happen to care for end your coding significantly, here’s the doubtlessly the ideal internet position make instrument to preserve in mind.

PROS

A extraordinarily edifying and sturdy tool

High quality for coding

Live previews assist to offer efficiently

CONS

Very costly

5. google Net Dressmaker

High quality internet make instrument for developing adverts

Basically, google Net Dressmaker is intended for developing interactive and responsive adverts. And while google is 1001 trick pony and if you happen to are the use of a complete bunch google-made merchandise, why no longer decide something that suits into the G gang completely?

google Net Dressmaker (GWD) is a ultimate tool for advertising that works with Mac, Linux, and Windows. This stand-alone, free instrument may perchance well make interactive HTML5, CSS and JavaScript recount for your internet position’s promoting, as we name it – banners.

What’s attention-grabbing is that google tries to homicide two birds with one stone.

It makes google Net vogue designer somewhat easy to make use of for the beginners and giving skilled developers something to play with.

No longer very tech-savvy users will seemingly be blissful to search out the natty and easy-to-use WYSIWYG (What You Scrutinize Is What You Get) user interface, and coding pros may perchance maintain the ability to swap to the HTML code, which is hand-editable.

Default, pre-programmed GWD parts for interactive adverts consist of YouTube, iFrame, maps, image gallery and tap space. And the ideal part is, that each and every ingredient automatically gives you the analytics about the interactions.

Adverts are in accordance with media principles for vogue and layout, which suggests, that they’ll be responsive and must silent fit completely on any show camouflage.

Additionally, GWD internet make instrument gives you alter over animation instruments and recount advent instruments. And, a SHOCKER here – it has seamless integration with google merchandise. That suggests that you just may perchance streamline your workflow by sharing, bettering and participating alongside with your initiatives by ability of the google Force.

PROS

 Fully free

 Switching between code and easy interface

 Seamless google Integrations

Metrics are reported automatically

CONS

 The tool ideal for advert building

What Is The High quality Net position Create Instrument Choice For You?

The handiest internet position make instrument depends fully for your wants and talents. Whether you could offer a straightforward portfolio, eCommerce, or a tremendous challenge internet position – there may be a precise tool for every and every. You will even salvage big instruments for developing merely banners.

So when selecting the ideal internet position builder instrument, preserve in mind our high 5 picks:

wix – the most user-pleasant internet position make solution for all kinds of initiatives.

Weebly – easy-to-use internet position builder with built-in eCommerce aspects.

Webflow – handiest internet position make instrument solution for edifying initiatives.

Adobe Dreamweaver – very ultimate internet position builder instrument for coding pros.

google Net Dressmaker – devoted internet make instrument for easy advent of adverts and banners.

So there you may perchance maintain it – these are the ideas that we maintain. What attain you watched? Have you extinct any of them, or even there may be something else that you just’d advocate? For all of that, please leave a sigh in the feedback below.

The post High quality Net position Create Instrument: Free And Paid Net Create Instruments looked first on Net Cyber internet internet hosting Critiques by Real Customers and Net Cyber internet internet hosting Consultants.

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[viralnewstime]

Yesterday, Twitter rolled out its much-anticipated prototype application to the first group of testers. We’ve now gotten our hands on the app and can see how the current version differs from the build Twitter introduced to the world back in January. While the original version and today’s prototype share many of the same features, there have been some small tweaks as to how conversation threads are displayed, and the color-coded reply labeling system is now much more subtle.

“Twttr,” as the prototype build is called, was created to give Twitter a separate space outside its public network to experiment with new ideas about how Twitter should look, feel and operate. Initially, the prototype focuses on changes to replies, with the goal of making longer conversations easier to read.

However, the company said it will likely continue to test new ideas within the app in the future. And even the features seen today will continue to change as the company responds to user feedback.

In the early build of the twttr prototype, the color-coded reply system was intentionally designed to be overly saturated for visibility’s sake, but Twitter never intended to launch a garish color scheme like this to its testers.

The new system is more readable and no longer color codes the entire tweet.

Below are a few screenshots of what the public Twitter app looks like when compared with the new prototype, plus other features found in twttr alone.

Feedback

Above: regular Twitter on the left; twttr on the right

Before digging into twttr’s key features, it’s worth noting there’s an easy way for testers to submit feedback: a menu item in the left-side navigation.

Here, you can tap on a link labeled “twttr feedback” that takes you directly to a survey form where you can share your thoughts. The form asks for your handle, and what you liked and disliked, and offers a space for other comments.

Reply threads

Left: Original Twitter; Right: twttr prototype

This is the big change Twitter is testing in the prototype.

In the photo on the left, you can see how replies are handled today — a thin, gray line connects a person replying to another user within the larger conversation taking place beneath the original tweet. In the photo, TechCrunch editor Jonathan Shieber is replying both to the TechCrunch tweet and the person who tagged him in a question in their own reply to the TC tweet.

In twttr, Shieber’s reply is nested beneath that question in a different way. It’s indented to offer a better visual cue that he’s answering Steven. And instead of a straight line, it’s curved. (It’s also blue because I follow him on Twitter.)

You’ll notice that everyone’s individual responses are more rounded — similar to chat bubbles. This allows them to pop out on the contrasting background, and gives an appearance of an online discussion board.

Left: Original Twitter; Right: twttr prototype

This is even more apparent when the background is set to the white day theme instead of the darker night theme.

Color-coded replies

Here’s a closer look at nested replies.

People you follow will be prominently highlighted at the top of longer threads with a bright blue line next to their name, on the left side of their chat bubble-shaped reply. Twitter says the way people are ranked is personalized to you, and something it’s continuing to iterate.

Left: Original Twitter; Right: twttr prototype

In the public version of the Twitter app, the original poster is also highlighted in the Reply thread with a prominent “Original Tweeter” label. In the prototype, however, they’re designated only by a colored line next to their name, on the left side of the chat bubble. (See Jordan’s tweet above.)

This is definitely a more subtle way to highlight the tweet’s importance to the conversation. It’s also one that could be overlooked — especially in the darker themed Night Mode where the gray line doesn’t offer as much contrast with the dark background.

In the day theme, it’s much easier to see the difference (see below).

Engagements are hidden

Another thing you’ll notice when scrolling through conversations on twttr is that engagements are hidden on people’s individual tweets. That is, there’s no heart (favorite) icon, no retweet icon, no reply bubble icon and no sharing icon, like you’re used to seeing on tweets today.

Instead, if you want to interact with any tweet using one of those options, you have to tap on the tweet itself.

The tweet will then pop up and become the focus, and all the interaction buttons — including the option to start typing your reply — will then become available.

“Show more”

Another change to conversations is that some replies are hidden by default when you’re reading through a series of replies on Twitter.

Often, in long conversation threads, people will respond to someone else in a thread besides the original Tweeter. Both are tagged in the response when that occurs, but the reply may not be about the original tweet at all. This can make it difficult to follow conversations.

Above: “Show more,” before being expanded

In twttr, these sorts of “side conversations” are hidden.

In their place, a “Show more” button appears. When tapped, those hidden replies come into view again. They’re also indented to show they are a part of a different thread.

This change highlights only those replies that are in response to the original tweet. That means people trolling other individuals in the thread could see their replies hidden. But it also means that those responding to a troll comment to the original poster — like one offering a fact check, for example — will also be hidden.

There are other reasons to hide some replies, notes Twitter — like if the original response was too large or the thread has too many replies. It’s not always about the quality of the responses.

Above: after being expanded

The icon!

Twttr is very much a prototype. That means everything seen here now could dramatically change at any point in the future. Even the twttr icon itself has gone through different iterations.

The first version of the icon was a very lovely bird logo that looked notably different from original Twitter. The new version (which we’ll dub twttr’s Yo icon), is a plain blue box.

Twitter has its reasons for that one… and clearly, it didn’t ask for feedback on this particular change.

Where’s that feedback form again?

Notice our new prototype? @jack and I named and designed it based on old times. It’s called, “twttr." The bird flew away from the app icon representing: Simplicity. Blue sky thinking. We’re re-working. Not there yet; hence, no logo. Bold and a little weird. #LetsHaveAConvo pic.twitter.com/WaNR2mOXO9

— Biz Stone (@biz) March 11, 2019

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2VXOjeJ

[readersforum]

A first look at Twitter’s new prototype app, twttr

New Post has been published on http://www.readersforum.tk/a-first-look-at-twitters-new-prototype-app-twttr/

A first look at Twitter’s new prototype app, twttr

Yesterday, Twitter rolled out its much-anticipated prototype application to the first group of testers. We’ve now gotten our hands on the app and can see how the current version differs from the build Twitter introduced to the world back in January. While the original version and today’s prototype share many of the same features, there have been some small tweaks as to how conversation threads are displayed, and the color-coded reply labeling system is now much more subtle.

“Twttr,” as the prototype build is called, was created to give Twitter a separate space outside its public network to experiment with new ideas about how Twitter should look, feel and operate. Initially, the prototype focuses on changes to replies, with the goal of making longer conversations easier to read.

However, the company said it will likely continue to test new ideas within the app in the future. And even the features seen today will continue to change as the company responds to user feedback.

In the early build of the twttr prototype, the color-coded reply system was intentionally designed to be overly saturated for visibility’s sake, but Twitter never intended to launch a garish color scheme like this to its testers.

The new system is more readable and no longer color codes the entire tweet.

Below are a few screenshots of what the public Twitter app looks like when compared with the new prototype, plus other features found in twttr alone.

Feedback

Above: regular Twitter on the left; twttr on the right

Before digging into twttr’s key features, it’s worth noting there’s an easy way for testers to submit feedback: a menu item in the left-side navigation.

Here, you can tap on a link labeled “twttr feedback” that takes you directly to a survey form where you can share your thoughts. The form asks for your handle, and what you liked and disliked, and offers a space for other comments.

Reply threads

Left: Original Twitter; Right: twttr prototype

This is the big change Twitter is testing in the prototype.

In the photo on the left, you can see how replies are handled today — a thin, gray line connects a person replying to another user within the larger conversation taking place beneath the original tweet. In the photo, TechCrunch editor Jonathan Shieber is replying both to the TechCrunch tweet and the person who tagged him in a question in their own reply to the TC tweet.

In twttr, Shieber’s reply is nested beneath that question in a different way. It’s indented to offer a better visual cue that he’s answering Steven. And instead of a straight line, it’s curved. (It’s also blue because I follow him on Twitter.)

You’ll notice that everyone’s individual responses are more rounded — similar to chat bubbles. This allows them to pop out on the contrasting background, and gives an appearance of an online discussion board.

Left: Original Twitter; Right: twttr prototype

This is even more apparent when the background is set to the white day theme instead of the darker night theme.

Color-coded replies

Here’s a closer look at nested replies.

People you follow will be prominently highlighted at the top of longer threads with a bright blue line next to their name, on the left side of their chat bubble-shaped reply. Twitter says the way people are ranked is personalized to you, and something it’s continuing to iterate.

Left: Original Twitter; Right: twttr prototype

In the public version of the Twitter app, the original poster is also highlighted in the Reply thread with a prominent “Original Tweeter” label. In the prototype, however, they’re designated only by a colored line next to their name, on the left side of the chat bubble. (See Jordan’s tweet above.)

This is definitely a more subtle way to highlight the tweet’s importance to the conversation. It’s also one that could be overlooked — especially in the darker themed Night Mode where the gray line doesn’t offer as much contrast with the dark background.

In the day theme, it’s much easier to see the difference (see below).

Engagements are hidden

Another thing you’ll notice when scrolling through conversations on twttr is that engagements are hidden on people’s individual tweets. That is, there’s no heart (favorite) icon, no retweet icon, no reply bubble icon and no sharing icon, like you’re used to seeing on tweets today.

Instead, if you want to interact with any tweet using one of those options, you have to tap on the tweet itself.

The tweet will then pop up and become the focus, and all the interaction buttons — including the option to start typing your reply — will then become available.

“Show more”

Another change to conversations is that some replies are hidden by default when you’re reading through a series of replies on Twitter.

Often, in long conversation threads, people will respond to someone else in a thread besides the original Tweeter. Both are tagged in the response when that occurs, but the reply may not be about the original tweet at all. This can make it difficult to follow conversations.

Above: “Show more,” before being expanded

In twttr, these sorts of “side conversations” are hidden.

In their place, a “Show more” button appears. When tapped, those hidden replies come into view again. They’re also indented to show they are a part of a different thread.

This change highlights only those replies that are in response to the original tweet. That means people trolling other individuals in the thread could see their replies hidden. But it also means that those responding to a troll comment to the original poster — like one offering a fact check, for example — will also be hidden.

There are other reasons to hide some replies, notes Twitter — like if the original response was too large or the thread has too many replies. It’s not always about the quality of the responses.

Above: after being expanded

The icon!

Twttr is very much a prototype. That means everything seen here now could dramatically change at any point in the future. Even the twttr icon itself has gone through different iterations.

The first version of the icon was a very lovely bird logo that looked notably different from original Twitter. The new version (which we’ll dub twttr’s Yo icon), is a plain blue box.

Twitter has its reasons for that one… and clearly, it didn’t ask for feedback on this particular change.

Where’s that feedback form again?

Notice our new prototype? @jack and I named and designed it based on old times. It’s called, “twttr.” The bird flew away from the app icon representing: Simplicity. Blue sky thinking. We’re re-working. Not there yet; hence, no logo. Bold and a little weird. #LetsHaveAConvo pic.twitter.com/WaNR2mOXO9

— Biz Stone (@biz) March 11, 2019

[sheminecrafts]

A first look at Twitter’s new prototype app, twttr

Yesterday, Twitter rolled out its much-anticipated prototype application to the first group of testers. We’ve now gotten our hands on the app and can see how the current version differs from the build Twitter introduced to the world back in January. While the original version and today’s prototype share many of the same features, there have been some small tweaks to as to how conversation threads are displayed, and the color-coded reply labeling system is now much more subtle.

“Twttr,” as the prototype build is called, was created to give Twitter a separate space outside its public network to experiment with new ideas about how Twitter should look, feel, and operate. Initially, the prototype focuses on changes to Replies with the goal of making longer conversations easier to read.

However, the company said it will likely continue to test new ideas within the app in the future. And even the features seen today will continue to change as the company responds to user feedback.

In the early build of the twttr prototype, the color coded reply system was intentionally designed to be overly saturated for visibility’s sake, but Twitter never intended to launch a garish color scheme like this to its testers.

The new system is more readable and no longer color codes the entire tweet.

Below are a few screenshots of what the public Twitter app looks like when compared with the new prototype, plus other features found in twttr alone.

Feedback

Above: regular Twitter on the left; twttr on the right

Before digging into twttr’s key features, it’s worth noting there’s an easy way for testers to submit feedback: a menu item in the left-side navigation.

Here, you can tap on a link labeled “twttr feedback” that takes you directly to a survey form where you can share your thoughts. The form asks for your handle, what you liked, disliked and offers a space for other comments.

Reply Threads

This is the big change Twitter is testing in the prototype.

In the photo on the left, you can see how Replies are handled today – a thin, gray line connects a person replying to another user within the larger conversation taking place beneath the original tweet. In the photo, TechCrunch editor Jonathan Shieber is replying both to the TechCrunch tweet and the person who tagged him in a question in their own reply to the TC tweet.

In twttr, Shieber’s reply is nested beneath that question in a different way. It’s indented to offer a better visual cue that he’s answering Steven. And instead of a straight line, it’s curved. (It’s also blue because I follow him on Twitter.)

You’ll notice that everyone’s individual responses are more rounded – similar to chat bubbles. This allows them to pop out on the contrasting background, and gives an appearance of an online discussion board.

This is even more apparent when the background is set to the white day theme instead of the darker night theme.

Color coded Replies

Here’s a closer look at nested replies.

People you follow will be prominently highlighted at the top of longer threads with a bright blue line next to their name, on the left side of their chat bubble-shaped reply.

Left: Original Twitter; Right: twttr prototype

In the public version of the Twitter app, the original poster is highlighted in the Reply thread with a prominent “Original Tweeter” label. In the prototype, however, they’re designated only by a colored line next to their name, on the left side of the chat bubble. (See Jordan’s tweet above.)

This is definitely a more subtle way to highlight their importance. It’s also one that could be overlooked, especially in the darker themed Night Mode, where the gray line doesn’t offer much contrast with the dark background.

In the day theme, it’s much easier to see the difference. (See below).

Engagements are hidden

Another thing you’ll notice when scrolling through conversations on twttr is that engagements are hidden on people’s individual tweets. That is, there’s no heart (favorite) icon, no retweet icon, no reply bubble icon, and no sharing icon, like you’re used to seeing on tweets today.

Instead, if you want to interact with any tweet using one of those options, you have to tap on the tweet itself.

The tweet will then pop up and become the focus, and all the interaction buttons – including the option to start typing your reply – will then become available.

“Show More”

Another change to conversations is that some Replies are hidden by default when you’re reading through a series of Replies on Twitter.

Often, in long conversation threads, people will respond to someone else in a thread besides the Original Tweeter. Both are tagged in the response when that occurs, but the reply may not be about the original tweet at all. This can make it difficult to follow conversations.

In twttr, these sorts of “side conversations” are hidden.

In their place, a “Show More” button appears. When tapped, those hidden replies come into view again. They’re also indented to show they are a part of a different thread.

This change highlights only those Replies that are in response to the original tweet. That means people trolling other individuals in the thread could see their Replies hidden. But it also means that those responding to a troll comment to the original poster  – like one offering a fact check, for example – will also be hidden.

  Above: “Show more,” before being expanded

Above: after being expanded

The icon!

Twttr is very much a prototype. That means everything seen here now could dramatically change at any point in the future. Even the twttr icon itself has gone through different iterations.

The first version was a very lovely bird logo. The new version (which we’ll dub twttr’s Yo icon), is a plain blue box.

Twitter has its reasons for that one….and clearly, it didn’t ask for feedback on this particular change.

Where’s that feedback form again?

Notice our new prototype? @jack and I named and designed it based on old times. It’s called, “twttr." The bird flew away from the app icon representing: Simplicity. Blue sky thinking. We’re re-working. Not there yet; hence, no logo. Bold and a little weird. #LetsHaveAConvo pic.twitter.com/WaNR2mOXO9

— Biz Stone (@biz) March 11, 2019

from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/2VXOjeJ via IFTTT

[toomanysinks]

A first look at Twitter’s new prototype app, twttr

Yesterday, Twitter rolled out its much-anticipated prototype application to the first group of testers. We’ve now gotten our hands on the app and can see how the current version differs from the build Twitter introduced to the world back in January. While the original version and today’s prototype share many of the same features, there have been some small tweaks as to how conversation threads are displayed, and the color-coded reply labeling system is now much more subtle.

“Twttr,” as the prototype build is called, was created to give Twitter a separate space outside its public network to experiment with new ideas about how Twitter should look, feel and operate. Initially, the prototype focuses on changes to replies, with the goal of making longer conversations easier to read.

However, the company said it will likely continue to test new ideas within the app in the future. And even the features seen today will continue to change as the company responds to user feedback.

In the early build of the twttr prototype, the color-coded reply system was intentionally designed to be overly saturated for visibility’s sake, but Twitter never intended to launch a garish color scheme like this to its testers.

The new system is more readable and no longer color codes the entire tweet.

Below are a few screenshots of what the public Twitter app looks like when compared with the new prototype, plus other features found in twttr alone.

Feedback

Above: regular Twitter on the left; twttr on the right

Before digging into twttr’s key features, it’s worth noting there’s an easy way for testers to submit feedback: a menu item in the left-side navigation.

Here, you can tap on a link labeled “twttr feedback” that takes you directly to a survey form where you can share your thoughts. The form asks for your handle, and what you liked and disliked, and offers a space for other comments.

Reply threads

Left: Original Twitter; Right: twttr prototype

This is the big change Twitter is testing in the prototype.

In the photo on the left, you can see how replies are handled today — a thin, gray line connects a person replying to another user within the larger conversation taking place beneath the original tweet. In the photo, TechCrunch editor Jonathan Shieber is replying both to the TechCrunch tweet and the person who tagged him in a question in their own reply to the TC tweet.

In twttr, Shieber’s reply is nested beneath that question in a different way. It’s indented to offer a better visual cue that he’s answering Steven. And instead of a straight line, it’s curved. (It’s also blue because I follow him on Twitter.)

You’ll notice that everyone’s individual responses are more rounded — similar to chat bubbles. This allows them to pop out on the contrasting background, and gives an appearance of an online discussion board.

Left: Original Twitter; Right: twttr prototype

This is even more apparent when the background is set to the white day theme instead of the darker night theme.

Color-coded replies

Here’s a closer look at nested replies.

People you follow will be prominently highlighted at the top of longer threads with a bright blue line next to their name, on the left side of their chat bubble-shaped reply. Twitter says the way people are ranked is personalized to you, and something it’s continuing to iterate.

Left: Original Twitter; Right: twttr prototype

In the public version of the Twitter app, the original poster is also highlighted in the Reply thread with a prominent “Original Tweeter” label. In the prototype, however, they’re designated only by a colored line next to their name, on the left side of the chat bubble. (See Jordan’s tweet above.)

This is definitely a more subtle way to highlight the tweet’s importance to the conversation. It’s also one that could be overlooked — especially in the darker themed Night Mode where the gray line doesn’t offer as much contrast with the dark background.

In the day theme, it’s much easier to see the difference (see below).

Engagements are hidden

Another thing you’ll notice when scrolling through conversations on twttr is that engagements are hidden on people’s individual tweets. That is, there’s no heart (favorite) icon, no retweet icon, no reply bubble icon and no sharing icon, like you’re used to seeing on tweets today.

Instead, if you want to interact with any tweet using one of those options, you have to tap on the tweet itself.

The tweet will then pop up and become the focus, and all the interaction buttons — including the option to start typing your reply — will then become available.

“Show more”

Another change to conversations is that some replies are hidden by default when you’re reading through a series of replies on Twitter.

Often, in long conversation threads, people will respond to someone else in a thread besides the original Tweeter. Both are tagged in the response when that occurs, but the reply may not be about the original tweet at all. This can make it difficult to follow conversations.

Above: “Show more,” before being expanded

In twttr, these sorts of “side conversations” are hidden.

In their place, a “Show more” button appears. When tapped, those hidden replies come into view again. They’re also indented to show they are a part of a different thread.

This change highlights only those replies that are in response to the original tweet. That means people trolling other individuals in the thread could see their replies hidden. But it also means that those responding to a troll comment to the original poster — like one offering a fact check, for example — will also be hidden.

There are other reasons to hide some replies, notes Twitter — like if the original response was too large or the thread has too many replies. It’s not always about the quality of the responses.

Above: after being expanded

The icon!

Twttr is very much a prototype. That means everything seen here now could dramatically change at any point in the future. Even the twttr icon itself has gone through different iterations.

The first version of the icon was a very lovely bird logo that looked notably different from original Twitter. The new version (which we’ll dub twttr’s Yo icon), is a plain blue box.

Twitter has its reasons for that one… and clearly, it didn’t ask for feedback on this particular change.

Where’s that feedback form again?

Notice our new prototype? @jack and I named and designed it based on old times. It’s called, “twttr." The bird flew away from the app icon representing: Simplicity. Blue sky thinking. We’re re-working. Not there yet; hence, no logo. Bold and a little weird. #LetsHaveAConvo pic.twitter.com/WaNR2mOXO9

— Biz Stone (@biz) March 11, 2019

source https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/12/a-first-look-at-twitters-new-prototype-app-twttr/

[technicalsolutions88]

Yesterday, Twitter rolled out its much-anticipated prototype application to the first group of testers. We’ve now gotten our hands on the app and can see how the current version differs from the build Twitter introduced to the world back in January. While the original version and today’s prototype share many of the same features, there have been some small tweaks to as to how conversation threads are displayed, and the color-coded reply labeling system is now much more subtle.

“Twttr,” as the prototype build is called, was created to give Twitter a separate space outside its public network to experiment with new ideas about how Twitter should look, feel, and operate. Initially, the prototype focuses on changes to Replies with the goal of making longer conversations easier to read.

However, the company said it will likely continue to test new ideas within the app in the future. And even the features seen today will continue to change as the company responds to user feedback.

In the early build of the twttr prototype, the color coded reply system was intentionally designed to be overly saturated for visibility’s sake, but Twitter never intended to launch a garish color scheme like this to its testers.

The new system is more readable and no longer color codes the entire tweet.

Below are a few screenshots of what the public Twitter app looks like when compared with the new prototype, plus other features found in twttr alone.

Feedback

Above: regular Twitter on the left; twttr on the right

Before digging into twttr’s key features, it’s worth noting there’s an easy way for testers to submit feedback: a menu item in the left-side navigation.

Here, you can tap on a link labeled “twttr feedback” that takes you directly to a survey form where you can share your thoughts. The form asks for your handle, what you liked, disliked and offers a space for other comments.

Reply Threads

This is the big change Twitter is testing in the prototype.

In the photo on the left, you can see how Replies are handled today – a thin, gray line connects a person replying to another user within the larger conversation taking place beneath the original tweet. In the photo, TechCrunch editor Jonathan Shieber is replying both to the TechCrunch tweet and the person who tagged him in a question in their own reply to the TC tweet.

In twttr, Shieber’s reply is nested beneath that question in a different way. It’s indented to offer a better visual cue that he’s answering Steven. And instead of a straight line, it’s curved. (It’s also blue because I follow him on Twitter.)

You’ll notice that everyone’s individual responses are more rounded – similar to chat bubbles. This allows them to pop out on the contrasting background, and gives an appearance of an online discussion board.

This is even more apparent when the background is set to the white day theme instead of the darker night theme.

Color coded Replies

Here’s a closer look at nested replies.

People you follow will be prominently highlighted at the top of longer threads with a bright blue line next to their name, on the left side of their chat bubble-shaped reply.

Left: Original Twitter; Right: twttr prototype

In the public version of the Twitter app, the original poster is highlighted in the Reply thread with a prominent “Original Tweeter” label. In the prototype, however, they’re designated only by a colored line next to their name, on the left side of the chat bubble. (See Jordan’s tweet above.)

This is definitely a more subtle way to highlight their importance. It’s also one that could be overlooked, especially in the darker themed Night Mode, where the gray line doesn’t offer much contrast with the dark background.

In the day theme, it’s much easier to see the difference. (See below).

Engagements are hidden

Another thing you’ll notice when scrolling through conversations on twttr is that engagements are hidden on people’s individual tweets. That is, there’s no heart (favorite) icon, no retweet icon, no reply bubble icon, and no sharing icon, like you’re used to seeing on tweets today.

Instead, if you want to interact with any tweet using one of those options, you have to tap on the tweet itself.

The tweet will then pop up and become the focus, and all the interaction buttons – including the option to start typing your reply – will then become available.

“Show More”

Another change to conversations is that some Replies are hidden by default when you’re reading through a series of Replies on Twitter.

Often, in long conversation threads, people will respond to someone else in a thread besides the Original Tweeter. Both are tagged in the response when that occurs, but the reply may not be about the original tweet at all. This can make it difficult to follow conversations.

In twttr, these sorts of “side conversations” are hidden.

In their place, a “Show More” button appears. When tapped, those hidden replies come into view again. They’re also indented to show they are a part of a different thread.

This change highlights only those Replies that are in response to the original tweet. That means people trolling other individuals in the thread could see their Replies hidden. But it also means that those responding to a troll comment to the original poster  – like one offering a fact check, for example – will also be hidden.

  Above: “Show more,” before being expanded

Above: after being expanded

The icon!

Twttr is very much a prototype. That means everything seen here now could dramatically change at any point in the future. Even the twttr icon itself has gone through different iterations.

The first version was a very lovely bird logo. The new version (which we’ll dub twttr’s Yo icon), is a plain blue box.

Twitter has its reasons for that one….and clearly, it didn’t ask for feedback on this particular change.

Where’s that feedback form again?

Notice our new prototype? @jack and I named and designed it based on old times. It’s called, “twttr." The bird flew away from the app icon representing: Simplicity. Blue sky thinking. We’re re-working. Not there yet; hence, no logo. Bold and a little weird. #LetsHaveAConvo pic.twitter.com/WaNR2mOXO9

— Biz Stone (@biz) March 11, 2019

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2VXOjeJ Original Content From: https://techcrunch.com