#typist problems..

[endofradio]

PERSONAL JESUS – PROLOGUE: THE HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS

READ ON AO3

notes: what’s up gang! decided to officially get started on a full-length father joseph steiger fic because the ritual has been living in my head rent free lately. i will never understand the hate for that movie. anyways! i really want to take a unique approach to things with this fic. i’m going to occasionally sprinkle in some diary entries (like i’m doing with the prologue here) to add a bit of nonlinear storytelling as well as use some bible verses for titles and chapter introductions. i’m locking the Fuck in for this. gonna force myself to make it a slow burn too.

summary: not too much happens in this prologue except for a diary entry by iris of her talking about her feelings for father joseph (some foreshadowing/a sneak peek at what’s to come 😏), then it cuts to her arriving in earling, iowa some months earlier with her parents. the following chapters will be much longer. sorry this one’s short and kinda sucks 😭

warnings: none!

word count: 1.3k

tags: @hesawifebeaterdanusethegun @daniirosie @nettlesomecorvid @rachaeljurassic @astrangegirlsmind @berrysemifreddo @viennagirl71 @the-ghosts-that-haunt-me @maria-allegra @beautifulthingsarefragile @dopewitchtrash @stringcheezeislife @shrimpella21 @maggotssmichael @professional-sinner @trelaney

“The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings." - Jeremiah 17:9-10

The following is a diary entry written by Iris Newton, dated "Mar. Friday 16, 1928."

"I haven't really written in this diary much since arriving in Earling a few months ago. There hasn't been much for me to write about anyway, because this is such a boring little piece of shit town. Ha, makes sense why Mom and Dad chose to drag me here. I haven't had enough interesting things happen to me to write about, except for getting a job as a typist (which isn't that great of a job because it's boring, the pay is shit, and it's loud. I'm only taking this job because I need the money and am decent at typing, I suppose), and meeting the priest for the local parish, St. Joseph's. Funny enough, his name is actually Joseph. Father Joseph from St. Joseph's. That's funny. I didn't know about him much until last month when Mom and Dad decided to invite him over for the same thing they've called multiple other priests for — "fixing" me, since they've unfortunately caught on to my semi-regular nightly habit of leaving the house again. When we came to Earling, they expected me to finally behave. Of course, I didn't listen to them, they eventually found out, and now we're back to where we were before — talking to priests.

Naturally, I didn't really know about Father Joseph's presence in this town because Mom and Dad have given up on trying to force me to attend Sunday Mass with them, so they just go by themselves and allow their disappointment with me to fester as they sit in the uncomfortable wooden church pews.

What I was not expecting this priest to be was young, handsome (and very handsome at that), friendly, and funny. I'm obviously used to talking to judgmental old priests, but this one? No, I think he liked me immediately, obviously much to Mom and Dad's disappointment. I don't like priests. I don't like Catholics. I think that most of, if not all of them, are the same — judgmental puritans and prudes that tell you how to live your life according to their personal values. So, when I met Father Joseph, of course I was expecting him to be just like every single priest and Catholic I've met, so I was surprised when he told Mom and Dad to give us privacy to talk in peace. He was actually interested in who I am as a person. I'm used to being treated like a problem to be fixed, but this priest instead asked me about my interests, what I like to do, what brings me joy, and things like that. He wanted to know about me, not all the issues Mom and Dad claim I have. It was weird but flattering. Aren't priests supposed to try and fix supposedly "sinful" people? They're great at judging, much like most Catholics. I guess this one's just special.

If I were to tell my younger self that she'd fancy a priest one day, she'd probably laugh. But here I am. I've known this priest for a month now, and I can't believe that I genuinely wish he wasn't a priest. He's got all the qualities that I wish the stupid, scrawny boys here all had. He's tall and pretty and kind. He doesn't look at me frothing at the mouth with his tongue lolling out like a rabid dog. I know priests take a vow of celibacy, but I heavily doubt that this man's been celibate his whole life. He's got the face of a man who's known the touch of a woman. I like to wonder about what his life was like before he entered into the boring and miserable world of priesthood. I wish that I would've gotten to know him before he became a priest, but based on what he told me, that meant I would've been a teenager with a 36-year-old boyfriend.

As strange as it sounds, Father Joseph makes me feel lonely. I know that's obviously not what he wants, it's just that every time I'm around him, it's just a reminder of how I'll never find somebody like him around here. For as long as I can remember, I've longed to be held and loved by a beautiful, tall man who can tenderly make love to me, worship me, and adore me. I only fuck to make me feel less empty, only to feel empty afterwards. Father Joseph is one of the most decent men I've encountered, but he's a priest. That's how it's always been for me — the best men are the ones I can't have. Even in Chicago, I had no luck. I want a man, not a boy, and all the guys here are just boys and not men.

You know, maybe I'm overthinking it, but I'm mostly certain that Father Joseph flirts with me at times. It's his body language and the things he says. Perhaps I am overthinking it, because why would a fucking priest flirt with me? Everybody knows that priests never have families of their own, except for a special few cases, and I'm certain that Father Joseph would never be one of those special few cases.

Shit, this was much longer than I'd anticipated. Oh well. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to find a man one day who could be Father Joseph's long-lost secret secular brother, though I doubt he has one."

EARLING, IOWA – NOVEMBER 4TH, 1927

Well, this is quite a miserable place.

Those were Iris's first thoughts when she and her parents arrived in Earling. The population was less than 400. If she hadn't seen the sign for the city, Iris probably would've guessed that the amount of people who lived here was probably even less than 100. The place just looked so… desolate. It was hard to believe that it was a city rather than a village. It sure as hell didn't look like a city.

People live here?

There were the basic necessities, such as stores and a massive church Iris could see that wasn't too far away as well as other buildings. People's houses weren't anything too special, mostly small and single-story. It was almost like her parents were genuinely trying to isolate her from society by moving to such a dreary, barely-populated little town. Hell, she'd be lucky if she could even get a job here. She'd probably have better luck up in Harlan.

What is there to even do here?

The Newtons' new house was a little nicer than most of the ones she had seen, being a two-story one, situated in a neighborhood that seemed to be just as quiet as the city itself. The closest neighboring homes appeared to be uninhabited, which made the atmosphere feel quite… eerie. Iris didn't know what the hell it was, but something didn't feel right.

"Are you sure people live here?" she asked her mother, awkwardly looking around. "Don't think there's any signs of life over here."

A couple then drove past in a Model T, which only made her feel somewhat better.

"Well," Iris's mother sighed. "Maybe that's exactly what you need. Anything to keep you away from the many Godless scum roaming around and tainting the earth."

She was surprised that her parents were still convinced they could do something to "fix" her. After all these years, she figured that they would've given up by now. When she saw the giant church in the city, all she could think about was the multitudes of priests called upon her by her parents to "help" her.

Yeah, yeah. Sure, Mom. I'll behave.

If she had to go through any of that bullshit again, she'd go insane.

But she would not allow herself to be cooped up in a house with religious fanatics for parents.

[frangipani-wanderlust]

How To Call 911

So most of my followers know now that I started working last May as a 911 dispatcher. Super proud of myself. And now that I am starting (very much still starting) to settle in a bit, I want to offer some tips on how to call 911. So, hold on to your hats.

(no-color version if the yellow text isn't rendering on your screen correctly)

When in doubt, call 911. Don't take this as me encouraging you to jump at shadows. Your neighbors' loud party is not an emergency, google the local non-emergency line and call that. Neither is the dry cleaning not giving you your clothes (I actually got this call on our 911 line). Nor is the fact that you saw a fox inside city limits (also something a real human called 911 about). But if you see a situation unfolding and you think "this seems dangerous, maybe this is 911-worthy" then it's 911-worthy. Don't hesitate. Call.

If you call 911 and you are freaking out, that's okay. If you're in a crisis, you may not remember a single tip I'm about to give you. We are trained for that, we can handle it, just do the best you can. It's not the end of the world to have a hysterical or frightened caller, and these are tips, not rules.

Location, location, location. We can't send you help if we have nowhere to send it to. Ideally, know the address. Failing that, know the name of a business or a church or an intersection. It is not cheating if you read this off a sign. There isn't a set of invisible rules that says you have to have your exact GPS coordinates memorized. Be prepared to describe the location somehow. That way, if our connection drops and that's all you can tell me, I can still send some police out to come find out what's going on and they can ask for medics or firefighters or whatever if needed. But we absolutely must know where to send assistance, it is the first thing we're going to ask.

Location again, but with a twist. The first thing our office says for emergencies is, "911, what is the address of the emergency?" If a building is on fire, tell us where the fire is. If your neighbors are being robbed at gunpoint across the street, give us their address. If you witnessed a car accident, tell us where the accident happened. The location of the emergency isn't necessarily the location where you are. Don't send police and fire to your office building if the wreck is on the freeway.

Answer the questions that you are asked. If the calltaker asks "Is the patient breathing?" don't start in about the seizure they just had (if they aren't breathing, the seizure they just had is not the biggest problem). If the calltaker asks, "Which way did the man you saw go when they ran?" don't tell them about how they broke down your door (if they are running away, knowing they broke your door down does not help the police know which direction to start looking). The particular question you are asked is being asked for a reason, and that reason is not frivolous but in an emergency, we aren't going to stop and explain everything.

Do not launch into a speech. If you're asked a yes/no question, yes or no is all the answer you should give. Your impulse will be to explain the yes or the no because more information is better than not enough, but overexplaining is its own problem. Now, we are hired for good typist skills, and are encouraged to get better and faster, but infodumping means things can get missed. The calltaker is going to have some information they're going to ask for by protocol and probably the option to drill down on some of it if clarification is needed. If you spend five paragraphs explaining your last answer, it delays getting other pertinent information.

Do not launch into a speech, part the second. You don't call 911 for things that happened last week, or even yesterday. Tell me the emergency that is happening right now. Ideally in one sentence. If someone is having a medical issue, and you call 911 about it, when the calltaker asks exactly what happened, do not tell them about how the patient had a surgery 5-and-a-half weeks ago. You called 911. What is the emergency that is happening right now. Don't be telling me about their surgery when the problem you called about is a broken leg. Yes, the surgery may have led to generalized loss of balance that has yet to return which caused the patient to fall which caused them to break their leg. Understood. But you didn't call because of all of that. You called because of the broken leg. Apply this principle to all emergencies.

Don't launch into a speech, part the third. When asked a specific and direct question, do not give an explanation instead of an answer. If the calltaker asks you "Is the weird person on the side of the road actually in the lanes of traffic?" do not explain to them how it's a very narrow roadway (see parenthesis for the story here). Aside from the fact that we're not asking these questions to be funny (see part the second), there's also the fact that now you are coming over as suspicious as hell. If I asked "how did that person on Facebook know what this supposedly missing kid is wearing and where he's going to be at 3:00 today?" and you say "well Facebook is a good way to spread information" I am now extremely suspicious of you.

(Also an actual call I have taken. The man was a totally ordinary guy out for a walk to the store, but this blue collar man walked through a Rich Person Neighborhood™ and according to Lady Catherine De Bourgh on the phone with me, that merited a call to the police. When I asked her if he was actually in the lanes of traffic [traffic hazard call type] versus not [suspicious person call type, on a technicality but technically...], she tried explaining three times that the road was narrow before she finally got the message that I was not going to stop asking until she told me the actual answer and answered "Well, I suppose so, yes." At this point, because she'd been so reluctant to answer me, I no longer believed the man actually was in the lanes of traffic and to this day believe that she lied to try and manipulate the police into a stronger-level response than was actually warranted. Because determining whether she was lying for sure is beyond the scope of my job, I put down what she said, but I didn't believe then and still don't believe now, that she told the truth. The totally ordinary and probably very nice guy was not arrested or hassled at all and was instead given a courtesy ride to the store.)

Be prepared to describe relevant people, maybe including yourself, and that includes race. If you have an asthma attack at a football game, the medics need to know how to find you in a crowd. If you are a black woman, that's gonna rule out everyone who isn't that. If you are a black woman wearing a yellow shirt, blue jeans, and a blue bandana over your hair, that excludes nearly everybody and when the medics arrive, they'll know exactly who to look for. Most of the time, someone's race isn't relevant information. When describing someone to emergency services, it absolutely is and it is not racist to accurately describe the relevant person or people.

There are more tips in the world, and I may come back to this post and add them as they occur to me. In the meantime, please enjoy this short treatise on how to call 911.

[kinkteez]

Hi hi! This is a new poly-ATEEZ kink themed ask blog :)

I’m a lone typist for these eight beautiful, kinky muses. Please ask them anything about their love lives, polyamorous relationship, or kinky play that you want to know :) Some of them are a bit shy, but I promise you that they’re on board with sharing their experiences.

An important feature of this blog: You’re welcome to specify headcanons for the members in asks, and I’ll make them canon for the purposes of that ask & answer. This means: If for example you go “Jongho, as a trans man how do you feel about XYZ,”, then he’s trans for the purposes of that answer. If you specify that you’re asking a question of an autistic Yeosang, then Yeosang will be autistic for the duration of that interaction. If you ask omega Hongjoong which alpha has his favourite scent, I’ll decide who the alphas are on the spot. (This is not to say they can’t be autistic and trans (or omegas) unless specified; I’ll default to whatever version of them feels natural to me for each ask.)

What I’m saying is, there is no 100% “canon” version of this blog’s ateez members. They’re subject to change on my whims and yours. I can’t promise I’ll be on board with absolutely everything, but I’ll do my best.

HOWEVER, please don’t say things that go direcly against kink dymanics I have established. So like, I won’t be making Mingi into a hard dom, for instance. You’re very much allowed to ask him how he would feel about the idea of being a dom and suggest things for him to try, but I hope you can see the difference between those two things.

As for do’s and don'ts,

- DO feel free to ask blanket questions for all the members at once. Whoever has something interesting to say, will pop in. - DO get into angsty and dark themes if you’d like. don’t worry about making me uncomfortable, genuinely. - DO get creative and ask questions of any ship, poly of course included, that you want to hear from. - DO get cheeky and nosy with the boys, they don’t mind at all! - DO get just real nasty. Get unhinged. I’m a freak I’m a weirdo or whatever radiohead said. - DO feel free to tease the members lightheartedly, I promise that I and they will take asks in good faith. We’re all just here to have fun! - DO send asks about non-sexual kink, too.

- DON’T interact if you are a minor! This should go without saying. - DON’T assume that I’ll be able to answer every single ask I get, let alone super fast. If I simply don’t vibe with a question or can’t think of anything to say in response, I’ll answer it privately and let you know. This is completely fine and it’s not a problem if it happens, don’t worry :)

Kinks I don’t care for and will probably not want to write about: Public sex, blood play, scat, vomit, spit, food play, tickling

Meet the members:

SH: Hello everone! I'm Seonghwa, frequent wrangler of my very silly partners. I mostly dom, but I do make exceptions on occasion. Ask me anything you like; I'm not shy. If someone is keeping information from you, you can nudge me about it, and I will give them incentive to open up~

HJ: I'm Hongjoong. Hyung made me promise to participate in this, so I'll answer your questions. I guess. Don't get too nosy though.

YS: Pleased to meet you, I'm Kang Yeosang. I hope you enjoy what you find here. Although it is a bit embarrasing, I'll do my best to answer your questions. I... Like to do well. And to be good.

WY: It's your boy, Wooyoung! Get your gremlin mode switched on, and ask me and the others anything and everything! >:) Don't be afraid to get personal, trust me when I say we all like to share. I'm everyone's favourite sub and the best boy, but don't tell anyone I said that. Please.

CS: Hello readers, it's San here. I'll do my best to tell you everything you want to know, so please treat me and everyone kindly. For now, I myself am mostly a submissive, but I may be a bit curious about expanding my repetoire. Love you<3

JH: Hi hi, it's Jongho. Hwa hyung got this idea to share some of our kinky adventures, so here we are. I'm a switch, and I like to do whatever my partners need. I like to take care of them. Please treat us kindly, thank you!~

MG: what's up, it's mingi! and i'm not a sub! where did you get that idea. if you ask the others, they'll say i am, but they're lying. i just like to enjoy myself and not have to think. is that a crime?!

YH: Hello everyone, my name is Yunho. It's a little bit embarrassing to admit, but for kinky stuff, I am a bit of an all-rounder. I don't usually go super hard in either direction, I just like to have fun. Often. Stay safe out there :)

[the-aleator]

endeavour musings, xv

featuring: Striker (s8e1) 1. I am always up for moments of Fred Thursday badassery. Handily dodging a strike from a pipe and taking on a pickpocket is quite satisfactory, thank you. The silhouette of the hat in shadow, the noirish greeting, "Hello Alf," 10/10 would gif this scene, if I could. And of course, the striking contrast with Morse, drunk and smoking at the bar, and Strange, at his desk but totally focused on the football. 2. The plotline of this episode reminds me of the New Tricks episode, "Gloves Off." Hmm, famous sports star, career about to be scuppered by a thrown match, former girlfriend marries best friend who happens to be violent towards her & also associated with the terrorist organizations / criminal underworld. Manager throwing him under the bus. 3. Duke Ward is clearly supposed to be a parallel with Thursday in this episode re his feelings for Morse (taking the bottle away from Martinelli). I see it. It doesn't do anything for me. Normally I'm all about these kind of "parallel" moments, but I really think that the issue here is the Thursday-Morse relationship problem. The parallels only work when they match-up to the intimacy expressed between Morse and Thursday. 4. RL has an interview where he talks about how the big wigs don't like it in the show when Morse and Thursday are on the outs. Me, at my screen: this is correct. The whole show is the relationship between the two of them. I also think Drunk!Morse who is both Disinterested and Aggressively Bitter just isn't that interesting.

5. I don't like how the COW only works in this episode because (1) Morse is totally incompetent at bodyguard duty but never called on it (2) Everyone else (Thursday, Strange) has apparently stopped being a competent police officer and only Morse can solve anything (see, e.g., only Morse realizing what the typed thesis means, even though Thursday searches the flat. Me: any competent police officer would be building her recent movements / relationships. Thursday's been in Oxford for nearly 25 years -- isn't likely he would have seen a typist taking on extra paid work on the side?) 6. +25 pts for Thursday quoting poetry, here "The Charge of the Light Brigade."

7. Bright uses the word "razzamatazz."

8. Miss Newell is my favorite character in this episode. 9. Yes, yes, Thursday is missing Sam and also trying to connect to his surrogate son Morse by talking about activities he used to do with Sam, but Morse is having none of it. (See #4.) 10. I have no idea where the Max Bygraves song, "Decimalisation" appears in the UK version, but despite the NARM factor it is totally catchy. The other music in this ep doesn't do anything for me at all.

11. I think one of my other issues with this episode is that it doesn't balance the drama with humor at all. And also, that Morse once again gets away with the Talk Down the Killer strategy while Thursday provides the firepower to make him disarm, even though George Sellars literally just shot a policeman in cold blood. 12. I give 100+ extra points for Thursday, brooding at the dining room window over Morse being late, and also "I chose you."

If you can tell, I agree with everyone else that this episode is pretty meh. There's just a lot of talking about what happens, and not much actually happens. Anyway, it's done: I suspect I'm not going to rewatch it in a hurry, which makes me sad.

[ruthryry]

A list of things that didn’t make it into Masculine Pursuits, on account of it was already Really Fucking Long:

The first person to blow their secret is actually Alan. Violet corners him and demands to know why Edwin is looking at him Like That. Alan makes the reasonable choice to admit to the foursome (unverifiable as an invisible intangible purple dragon in your garage) rather than fess up to being the Roman (ten years of public evidence, a warrant will turn up unpublished drafts).

Violet of course chats about this with both Jack and Maud. Jack, knowing that Robin will always be honest with his little sister, takes it upon himself to intervene with Maud before she can inflict the most uncomfortable conversation known to man on both herself and her brother. They still talk about it, obviously, but Jack deals with any gory details she tries to ask for and makes some suggestions about which dogs to just fucking let lie. Perils of sharing a friend group with your sibling! Sometimes you get up to sex party shenanigans and you just really don’t actually need your sister to know that you know what all your friends' junk looks like! It’s good to be honest, it’s also good to have boundaries about what sorts of questions you ask!

Robin is responsible for fessing up to Adelaide, though. She’s his wife, she’s still his typist, she runs his calendar, by proxy she half-runs Edwin’s calendar, and god was she upset by the idea of a “little get together” with “just the boys” before it was clarified that this was a sex thing rather than a sexism thing. It was a brief moment of fear that the friend group’s male contingent had gone off the deep end, but it was a very intense brief moment of fear.

On the night of the foursome the girls get together at Spinet House and… drink whiskey and smoke cigars. Maud’s not very good at it and it’s very cute. Maybe they switch to wine because whiskey is Terrible, Actually. Probably Violet blows a lot of very impressive smoke rings (that might just be illusion magic). No threesome because that’s not Addy’s bag but they do have a very nice time. Maybe Kitty is also there? I like Kitty so I say yes.

(Incidentally if I were to write a foursome with the women it would be Maud/Violet/Polly/Phyllis. I bet Polly can still Get It and am Interested in the kind of weirdo MILF domme that Phyllis-the-ancient-fey-hermit would likely be. Imagine the things that Maud and Violet can learn from those two ladies! Imagine Maud and Violet introducing them to the latest DevicesTM!)

In amidst the negotiations about sex Jack finds a bit of time to ask Robin how to go about telling Alan and Edwin that he’s going to buy them a small publishing house. He doesn’t want to hear their stupid conversations about grammar, but he does support their bordering on Marxist politics re: deciding that what magical Britain really needs more of is pamphlets supporting servant’s/gardener’s/women’s magic first and refusing to explain anything that can be easily turned to violence or control. He’s also (rightly) convinced that both Alan and Edwin will be mad at him for solving their censorship problems by throwing money at them. 

Alan absolutely does get to interview Robin about his past sexual adventures, which could theoretically turn into a whole series of Roman books. Edwin is a little bit surprised at exactly how much Robin downplayed the volume of his past sexual experiences, but of course, Robin isn’t lying when he says that a high volume doesn’t mean much in terms of quality. Future Roman novels include, of course, “a bloody-nosed boxing blowjob”, “gangbangs in the change rooms”, "sadomasochistic hazing", and “highly sexually charged initiation rituals”. Robin is delighted by the flights of fancy Alan takes in these books, and resists Alan’s desire to have any blatant implausibilities revised out before publication.

My wife and I debated at length about how much sexual experience Edwin had before Robin. Eventually I came around to her way of thinking: aside from the canonical mentions of furtive boarding school and university encounters, there was a period after his relationship with Jack where Edwin decides that he, you know, misses sexual contact/physical contact generally, and goes through a Sad Handjobs In Bathhouses Phase. He never really gets the hang of the nonverbal communication required for much more, but he does manage the Subtle Longing Stare often enough to get the occasional furtive handie.

[thgfanfictionlibrary]

E Rated Fics Masterlist (61)

Part 1 -Part 55 / Part 56 / Part 57 / Part 58 / Part 59 / Part 60 /

Created: May 28th, 2025

Last Checked:-----

Alice-MockingJayFlyingFree (ao3) Summary: It’s 1942, and the world is at war. English typist Katniss Everdeen meets Australian Peeta Mellark under the most unusual of circumstances – on a dirt road in Malaya, where they are both prisoners of war. When Peeta steals bread from Japanese Captain Snow to help her, he has to pay for his crime with his life. Or so Katniss thinks. A Midwinter Night's Dream-MockingJayFlyingFree (ao3) Summary: Katniss made it to 18 without being reaped. Her friend Madge talks a very reluctant Katniss into going to her first Midwinter Dance. It’s a decision she instantly regrets. A Pair of Lucky Shorts-Miffy (ao3) Summary: Katniss is stressing out over a final, so Peeta gives her his good luck charm – his Mario Party boxer short. A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing-Meadowlark27 (ao3) Summary: Katniss and Peeta have hated each other for years. But when her mother and his father announce their engagement, Katniss realizes the fight has only just begun. Begin Again-Michelleleahhh (ao3) Summary: The problem is that he’s married. No matter how much Katniss wants him or needs him, he’s forever forbidden. Forever out of her reach. And even if Peeta wants her like she wants him, they’re vowed to other people. Behind blue eyes-maxwellandlovelace (ao3) Summary: Katniss Everdeen is a hard working Ph.D. Student with her mind set on getting her degree. But on the inside she is trying to cope with the loss of her family. Then she meets Peeta, who makes her see things in a different light and after years of struggles, she feels hopeful again. But Peeta seems to suffer from a painful past as well. Broken and Dysfunctional Heart-Miffy (ao3) Summary: Katniss Everdeen gets news that shatters her world: the life she’s leading has a chance of ending sooner than later. All of her loved ones try their best to help her in the best ways they can, but it’s a new acquaintance named Peeta Mellark, that gives her the hope she can survive. But is Katniss, the girl who swore of love, ready and able to love him with her entire heart? Or is her heart just too broken and dysfunctional? Don't Stop Believing-Michelleleahhh (ao3) Summary: Katniss stands up, juts her hip out, and looks around. She hates tourists, with their money, with their leisure. She hates that they can take what they want and use whoever they want. She hates being taken advantage of, and she won't let this Abercrombie model use her from his Aston Martin. She may be a prostitute, but she's no pushover. So, if Peeta wanted directions instead of her, he'd have to pay. Based off of Pretty Woman. Gladiator-MockingJayFlyingFree (ao3) Summary: “Rich matrons pay well to be pleasured by the bravest champions.” General Peeta Decimus Meridius was charged with treason when he refused to swear loyalty to immoral Emperor Cato, after Cato killed his own father. Against all odds, Peeta escaped his own execution, but at Emperor Cato’s orders, Peeta’s family was murdered, and he is now a slave and a gladiator. Katniss, Cato’s sister, is stunned when she finds out that her former lover is still alive. In a desperate attempt to convince Peeta to join the rebellion and help her overthrow Cato, so her son can be safe, Katniss makes a clandestine visit to Peeta in the dungeons deep below the Colosseum. But Peeta is not particularly willing to help her. Icarus-maxwellandlovelace (ao3) Summary: An exploration of Peeta's mind during some of his time in the Capitol and arrival in Thirteen.

[buckbuckbarnesstuff]

Ongoing/Unfinished series

Get yourself a snack, enjoy these wonderful series and leave some love for the creative writers :)

♤ - includes sexual themes

Bucky fic recs Masterlist

Also, his hair is so perfect

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Time after time [60.6k+] @intrepidacious

Bucky x time witch!Reader

Summary: After what starts out as a fairly normal mission, you find yourself stuck in a time loop. Which would already be bad enough in itself if it didn’t also mean having to watch Bucky die over and over again.

{personal comment: Everything about this is perfect. From the characters, to the tiniest details. I'm in love}

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Reflections @breadqueen95

Bucky x Hydra experiment!Reader

Summary: Steve and Natasha lead the fight against Hydra in 2014, they had no way of knowing just how many secrets there were left to uncover. They suddenly have one more person to add to their list as they search for Bucky Barnes.

Fast forward to 2018. Bucky Barnes is living with the team at the Avengers Compound, trying to settle into life as an Avenger and as a free man. Steve and Natasha, with the help of the third part of their leadership trio Tony Stark, have finally managed to track down the human subject that escaped four years ago.

And you...you've been on the run for four years. Desperately avoiding any detection by hiding your identity, resisting your memories, and suppressing any flicker of power raging to get out. What happens when an unexpected arrival forces you to face everything you've been running from?

{personal comment: This is the first series I've read on this app and it's still stuck in my head. It’s that good}

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Smog & Spirits @artficlly ♤

Gangsterboss!Bucky x Witch!Reader (fantasy 1920s Gang au)

Summary: Barnes, the leader of Sootstone's Smog Boys, needs a favour. A nasty curse has been cast on him, and he needs a witch to help him break it.

{personal comment: I'm so excited about this. I love the reader's powers and the storyline is so interesting. I'll be patiently waiting for more of this delicious piece}

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Friendship is Mandatory @sarahwroteathing

Bucky x reader

Summary: With the help of a new therapist and a recklessly kind and unapologetically damaged new roommate, Bucky learns how to start living instead of just surviving.

{personal comment: I enjoyed the insights in Bucky's therapy session and how they grew a friendship. Also I love the reader's sarcasm. Would certainly love to read more of this}

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Moth to a Flame @tmpestuous

College!Bucky x College!Reader

Summary: Bucky Barnes was the love of your life, and you were his. There was no denying it. But after two years of dating, you found yourselves on different paths and decided it was best to go your separate ways. The only problem was how drawn you’d always be to him even after moving on.

{personal comment: I was so anxious when I started this and it gave me so many feelings. I truly appreciate and love how soft and sweet Bucky stays even after the breakup and the way they still interact and communicate with each other. It’s beautiful and I'm so excited to read more}

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All We've Got is Time @hispeculiartreasure

40s!Window Washer!Bucky x Typist!Reader

Summary: In a world where Bucky never falls off a train and Steve lives after crashing the plane, Bucky is trying to adjust to a new peace-time normal. Spring 1946, Reader starts a brand new typist position in one of the many New York office buildings after being displaced from her factory job once the war ended. An unconventional friendship starts which leads to all the romance and fluff.

{personal comment: This is such a wonderful series, so deeply touching and meaningful. I love all these characters and interactions and even if this won't ever be continued, I'll keep it in my heart and hope people will stumble upon it, it deserves more recognition}

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Ashes to Embers @redwing4life ♤

Firefighter!Neighbor!Bucky x reader

Summary: When an unfortunate event forces you to confront the crush you’ve had on your neighbour since you moved in, you learn that Bucky knows you better than you know yourself. As the two of you grow closer, how does he deal with his past without pushing you away?

{personal comment: Loved Bucky being vulnerable and letting her be there for him. I also enjoyed the teasing and the way it got so heated, damn}

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The Day after Yesterday @bombsonboard

40s!Bucky x reader

Summary: Time travel is volatile, dangerous, playing god. And then sometimes  it drops you in just the right place at the perfect time. It’s a matter of perspective. You decide.

{personal comment: This made me realize just how much I love 40s!Bucky! He's so charming and the storyline is really interesting and I'm dying to read more of it}

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The Bet @bucky-at-bedtime

College!Bucky x College!Reader

Summary: You’ve been at college for a year and have managed to avoid the party lifestyle. That is until you meet Bucky Barnes and he decides to educate you on the benefits of being social.

{personal comment: I love oblivious idiots in love! This is wholesome. Bucky is lovely and I enjoyed the many friendships with the others}

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Point of Ignition @sunriserose1023 ♤

College!Fighter!Bucky x College!Reader

Summary: A fresh start.

That’s what you’re focusing on. You’re leaving your past behind you and starting fresh, joining your best friend at college. You’re focused on your studies and nothing is going to get in the way of you being “normal,” for once.

Enter Bucky Barnes.

The campus bad boy has his sights set on you, but you are determined not to become just another notch in his bedpost. When his best friend falls for your best friend, the two of you are stuck in close proximity, and you are set on staying strictly in the friend zone.

However, the more time you spend with him, the more you like him, and the more time he spends with you, the less he feels like hanging around anyone else. You’re set on being just friends, but Bucky has other ideas on that, and he’s determined to convince you to follow his lead.

{personal comment: So glad I stumbled upon this, I'm obsessed. I love this dynamic between her and Bucky and I can’t wait to read more}

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[jisforjudi2]

THE FAITHFUL SECRETARY

Chicago Tribune

UPDATED: August 10, 2021 at 12:23 a.m.

Before the women’s movement, back when Father knew best and network TV made room for Daddy, when Mary Tyler Moore was Laura Petrie, not Mary Richards, actress Barbara Hale was playing a single working woman on TV.

Hale, now 71, remembers what appealed to her about the role of Della Street, secretary to lawyer Perry Mason on the series that was based on the mysteries by Erle Stanley Gardner.

“When we started (in 1956), it was the beginning of women not working at home. I liked that she was not married. My husband didn’t have to see me every week married to another man, and our children didn’t have to see me mothering other children.

“When (my son) Billy was in the 1st grade, we went to school for the first parent meeting, and on his desk were little projects he’d made-pictures of Daddy and Mommy and his sister and his animals. And underneath my picture-I wish I had it now, but the teacher kept it-he’d written in inch-high block letters, `This is my mom. I love her. She is a secretary.”‘

On Friday, the latest Perry Mason two-hour movie, “The Case of the Telltale Talk Show Host,” will air on NBC, one of seven productions that will carry the courtroom stalwart and his unflappable Girl Friday into 1994.

“I guess I was just meant to be a secretary who doesn’t take shorthand,” she quips. “My assistant wants you to know I’m a lousy typist too-33 words a minute!”

The Emmy award-winning actress is a Hollywood survivor-going into her second half-century in a profession she never dreamed of pursuing. A veteran of the old studio system and of television’s infancy, her co-stars in those early years were household names-Sinatra and Cagney and Stewart and Mitchum-when she was the ingenue.

RKO Studios was her “paid education,” as she puts it, her training ground. She met her husband, actor Bill Williams (who died several months ago), over coffee at the studio commissary.

Today, she still offers ample evidence of the effervescent beauty she was in the ’40s and ’50s-and even earlier, in Rockford High School, when her buddies entered her in a May Queen contest and she won. “I still know them, dear, and we 15 get together every three years. It takes three years to get over the three days we spend together!”

Her career seems to have evolved from being on the right Chicago street corner at the right time.

The daughter of a Rockford horticulturist and a homemaker, Hale (born in DeKalb) was studying at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, living at the Harriet M. McCormick branch of the YWCA and planning a career as a commercial illustrator and portraitist.

One day, as school let out for the summer, she was standing at the corner near the Drake Hotel with a girlfriend who’d come to town for a couple of weeks to look for modeling work. While they were waiting for the bus taking them to the North Side, a car drove up and someone tossed a card at them. It referred them to a modeling agency.

“A couple of weeks later, I went to see my buddies, and I told one of them the story about the card,” she recalls.

“She said, `Barb, you’re kidding! I was sitting in the little coffee shop at work this morning, and a lady came in and sat next to me, because it was the only seat left. She was pouting. I asked if she had a problem, and she said, “Yes, darn it. I have a model agency and I saw this kid on a corner, in a red coat, and can’t track her down. She’s exactly what one of our ad agencies is looking for.” Barb, what coat did you have on that day?

“I said, `My red coat-it’s the only coat I have.’ And she said, `Barb, I think that card was meant for you.”‘

It was. Hale went in to the Seaman Agency, and stopped Connie Seaman in her tracks. “She said, `Oh, my God-honey, don’t move! Al, get over here quick!’ Al came in and said, `It is her! Let’s see-we’ll shape her eyebrows, put on a little more lipstick, pull her hair back … ‘ and I said, `Just a minute, sir-what are we talking about?”‘

Hale was “a green 19” when she began fashion modeling, and after about a year and a half, RKO offered her a six-month tryout. The day after she arrived in Los Angeles, she visited the studio and its casting director, Dick Stockton.

“As I was shaking hands with him, the phone rang. He took the call, and as he listened, he started looking at me. `Yeah, yeah, yeah, just a minute.’ He turned to me and asked, `Honey, can you say a line?’ I said, `I don’t know.’ He said into the phone, `There’s a kid in the office right now. I think she’ll work. I’ll send her right over.’ He told his assistant, `Take her to wardrobe, take her to makeup, take her to Stage 6. One of the kids is sick. We’ve got to have a girl there immediately.’

“It hit every paper the next day. Cinderella story. First day on the lot, she gets-of course they said a starring part. I had one line, but you know about those things.”

Apart from that walk-on, in “Gildersleeve’s Bad Day,” she made her debut in 1944 in “Higher and Higher,” opposite Frank Sinatra.

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Ginger Rogers and Jane Russell were all at RKO then. So was Burr-who would be her TV series co-star about a dozen years later.

Hale studied dancing and singing at the studio. She began to appear on screen regularly-four movies in 1944, two in 1945-and eventually won leads in such movies as “The Boy With Green Hair,” “The Window,” “Jolson Sings Again” and “The Jackpot,” performing even while pregnant.

“I told Billy (her son, actor William Katt, who starred in the television series “The Greatest American Hero”) he should put on his resume that he was in `The Jackpot’ and `Lorna Doone,’ and he said, `Mother, I wasn’t,’ and I told him, `Oh, yes, you were!”‘

She continued her movie career and was a mainstay of television dramas until 1956, when a producer offered her the Della Street part in the pilot of what turned out to be a 9 1/2-year run. Hale went on to win an Emmy for best dramatic actress for the role in 1959.

“We did 36 shows that first year,” she says. “And we’re still doing it!”

She says that Della “was-and still is, to a great degree-a woman who knew what everybody was thinking. She was informed, and very observant of everything that went on. That was my challenge as an actress-to be a necessary part of the office without being too aggressive. Della was quietly overpowering: She knew when to speak and when to keep her mouth closed.”

Hale sees Della as having remained constant, to an extent. Her task is basically the same. But there have been some subtle emotional changes.

“I think she’s a little more at home, relaxed, showing her knowledge not only of the case, but also of her boss. In the early days, it was all business. Today there’s more of a camaraderie between them, a little more humor and more sensitivity to each other, which comes with years of being side by side.

“She’s trying to see that he stays healthy,” she says. “She’s taking him off coffee.

After nearly 300 episodes, “Perry Mason” folded in 1966.

In the mid-1970s, the show returned briefly with other actors and faded quickly. During the ’70s and early ’80s, Hale worked sporadically. She was in the original “Airport” in 1970, and appeared opposite her son in a 1978 surfing movie, “Big Wednesday.”

In 1985, producer Dean Hargrove asked her what she thought of the idea of a “Perry Mason” reunion show. She told him, “it would be divine, but we are 25 or 30 years older than we were then.” He said the intention was to use them as they were and to bring in a few new young actors to replace cast members William Talman, Ray Collins and William Hopper, who had died.

“Dean said, `There’s a young blond kid in town. I want to talk to him, not his agent. He’s done a series-“The Greatest American Hero.” But I can’t reach him.’

“I said, `Oh, well, that young man is in Kansas City doing “The Music Man” right now, and I can get you in touch with him if you want.’ And Dean asked, `You know him?’ I said, `Dean, I changed that boy’s diapers!’ Billy played in the first nine (Perry Mason) movies, then went on to another series of his own.”

“Perry Mason Returns” in 1985 was a Nielsen triumph, and with Perry stepping down from a judgeship to defend Della against murder charges in the first episode. From then on, the Mason bunch have visited America’s living rooms every few months.

After nearly four decades, Hale says the role of Della still offers unexpected moments.

“This week, at the end of the show, very quietly and very surprisingly, Perry plants one on Della,” Hale says. “It’s a first!”

Originally Published: May 16, 1993 at 1:00 a.m.

www.chicagotribune.com/1993/05/16/the-faithful-secretary/

[youghostandyoutrick]

Sisselcon Reference Post

My Sissel, specifically designed for my canon-divergent AU fic Promise You'll Keep Going, is a young woman in her early 20s. She enjoys cycling, ice skating, stealing her fiancé's nice clothes, and watching original Star Trek together with him.

As of current fic canon, PYKG!Sissel is unemployed, but prior to Yomiel's death worked in an office as a typist. She is affectionate to the point of clinginess and very hardworking, though she is prone to keeping her negative feelings to herself.

While Sissel never kills herself in my AU, she is actively concealing from Yomiel the extent to which his death caused her life to fall apart, primarily because she doesn't want to add to his problems. She also doesn't get along well with his well-meaning but ill-behaved cat, who doesn't have a name yet.

Aside from Yomiel and the cat, the only canon character she knows personally at this point is Alma, who is only an acquaintance to her. However, she's uncomfortable around the police after Yomiel's death, which would extend to Cabanela and Jowd if they were to meet.

~

As stated, my Sissel is from a canon-divergent fanfic, linked above as a further reference for her personality and behaviour. (The fic is archive-locked, so it can't be viewed without an Ao3 account.)

Additional art of her can be found here, here (last image only, not drawn by me), here, here, and here.

I'm open to most genres of work for her, angst, fluff, romance, whatever. I'm okay with suggestive material, too. As for outright NSFT, I'll probably also be good with that, just give me a heads-up first. I'd prefer not to receive gore art, or anything shipping her with someone other than Yomiel.

[piratesexmachine420]

ICF VIII

Here's an amusing little product: the TI Keyboard. I've mentioned it on this blog a few times before, but I don't think I've ever really highlighted it until now.

This works exactly how you think it does. The cradle is nothing more than a strangely-shaped calc to calc serial link cable with one end that will only physically accept devices in a TI-83 style chassis.

You can even just use the cradle as a link cable, no problems.

Setup is pretty easy, just slide the graphing calculator into the cradle and plug the other end of the cable into the I/O port of the keyboard.

All communication is done asynchronously over an unusual variant of TI's normal D-Bus protocol*. This limits compatibility to just the contemporary (2002) graphing calcs with upgradeable OSes (i.e. flash storage): the TI-83 Plus, -83 Plus Silver Edition, -89, -92 Plus and Voyage 200. (The TI-92 Plus and Voyage 200 require using a normal calc to calc link cable, as they won't fit in the cradle. Also, apparently in 2005 a revised cradle was released that let you use calculators in a TI-84 Plus-style chassis -- these seem much rarer. One's sitting on eBay right now for ~$50. I'm not pouncing on that.) TI would've included a CD with up-to-date versions of TIOS and AMS when they sold the TI Keyboard, but I bought an out-of-box unit and only have the keyboard and cradle myself.

As another side note: I don't own a TI-73 and thus can't check this myself, but I don't see a technical reason why it wouldn't also work there. Apparently TI just didn't think it was a good fit? (I'm inclined to agree.)

Oh, and you'll also need to make sure the keyboard has fresh batteries -- three AAAs -- the link cable interface doesn't provide any power.

Once you're up and running, you can just start typing away! On the 68k-based TI-89 and -92 Plus, AMS will give you full keyboard support everywhere, including shortcuts like copy+paste. Built-in apps, optional apps, and third-party apps all work. (This is a consequence of the event-driven way 68k apps work, and the way they construct their UIs from builtins, but I digress.) IIRC even ASM programs can use it in some capacity, so long as they use getkey routine instead of trying to read the keyboard directly. Don't quote me on that though.

You'll probably just want to stick to the text editor, though. Try to do anything...calculator-ey and you'll rue the lack of dedicated keys for stuff like 'integral' or 'theta' or 'degree'. They're all still available under keyboard shortcuts (■+7, ■+H and ■+F, respectively) but those are annoying to remember and often inobvious. At least the diamond key makes more sense: it just works exactly like the normal diamond button does.

On the z80s, support is essentially the same but a little messier. It's mostly about the keyboard shortcuts, they behave differently across TIOS and NoteFolio (a note-taking and text editing app that was also included with that CD I mentioned before), and AFAICT it's pretty spotty in all other apps. StudyCard will let me use ◆+1 for F1, but ProbSim won't. Also, TIOS proper doesn't have support for lower-case letters, so shift and caps lock have no effect on letters outside of NoteFolio.

(NoteFolio was also available for the 68-based machines, but I haven't tried it out myself. I'm doubtful it was a significantly better experience than the built-in text editor, unless Microsoft Word compatibility [yes, really] was something you were desperate for.)

What you're probably really wondering is what it's like to type on. Not great! It's a membrane, and not a very good one. Keys are soft and mushy, travel distance is weird, and it's also kinda slow and kinda laggy. I'm a terrible typist, but if you weren't I imagine dropped inputs would be a problem. Additionally, the arrow keys, page up and down, and delete keys are all in a highly annoying places -- especially the arrow keys. It's not a good experience, but it does still beat the TI-92's stupid tiny chiclet keyboard. (I love the 92, but you aren't getting more than like 30 WPM on that thing.) If I had to type up a document on a calculator, I'd want to use this.

In the end though, I'm not sure exactly who this product was for. Were there people who actually wanted to type documents on their calculators? Were TI envisioning a future where classrooms of students would be taking notes on these tiny 4cm x 6.5cm LCDs? It might save paper over a physical notebook, sure, but it's soooo limited and cumbersome. What if you want to draw diagrams? What if you want to pretty print a math expression? What if you, heavens forbid, you want to draw a graph? Now you're out of luck. Especially since you would've had to spend $44.95 on this thing. That's almost eighty USD now.

I myself only bought it because I thought A) it was odd and b) it would help me turn a calculator into a goofy sort of desktop computer if I also bought a TI-Presenter or ViewScreen (one day...), which also wouldn't be a super helpful addition to my life but would probably earn some nerd cred.

Anyways, I leave you with a slightly humorous cut from the TI Keyboard Manual:

Use two hands to type ◆+H, TI? Why would I want to do that?

Not pictured: my shoulder contorted so hard that my elbow is in the middle of my chest.

*It took me ages to find documentation about what exactly was different about it. I apparently eventually tracked down a zip file full of TI-made pdfs about it, including the technical documentation I was looking for, but I have no memory of how I got it. All I know is that it's sitting in my downloads folder now. I might've ended up crawling through the Internet Archive? It was a real slog.

[myemuisemo]

Laura Lyons, the mysterious typist of Coombe Tracey, has my heart in chapter XI of of The Hound of the Baskervilles in this week's Letters from Watson.

Watson himself does not. He is determined to be lyrical in his diary, and it sometimes bites him.

I had no difficulty in finding her rooms, which were central and well appointed. A maid showed me in without ceremony, and as I entered the sitting-room a lady, who was sitting before a Remington typewriter,

Sherlock Holmes would have deduced twelve things from the furnishings of those rooms, before he got as far as bowing to the lady. On the plus side, knowing that the typewriter is a Remington, we can now browse this database of historic Remington typewriters.

The first impression left by Mrs. Lyons was one of extreme beauty. Her eyes and hair were of the same rich hazel colour, 

Let's presume Watson means "golden brown," as the greenish-golden-brown that hazel commonly means in the present-day U.S. would not be a successful hair color.

and her cheeks, though considerably freckled, were flushed with the exquisite bloom of the brunette, the dainty pink which lurks at the heart of the sulphur rose. 

Here's a beautiful picture of Rosa hemispherica, the sulfur rose. Note the lack of pink at its heart.

There was something subtly wrong with the face, some coarseness of expression, some hardness, perhaps, of eye, some looseness of lip which marred its perfect beauty.

Sure. Jan. I mean, John.

After much to-ing and fro-ing about the letter received by Sir Charles Baskerville -- because society was not kind to women in her position -- Laura Lyons reveals a reason for the letter.

“My life has been one incessant persecution from a husband whom I abhor. The law is upon his side, and every day I am faced by the possibility that he may force me to live with him. At the time that I wrote this letter to Sir Charles I had learned that there was a prospect of my regaining my freedom if certain expenses could be met. It meant everything to me—peace of mind, happiness, self-respect—everything. I knew Sir Charles's generosity, and I thought that if he heard the story from my own lips he would help me.”

The Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857 had made civil divorce possible for ordinary people, which is not the same as making it easy. A man could obtain a divorce for his wife's adultery -- which Mr. Lyons does not want, so either suspicions that Laura Lyons was "loose" are simply wrong or he doesn't care. A woman had to prove both her husband's adultery and an additional cause, such as desertion (not applicable here since he wants to get back with her), cruelty (difficult to press due to social acceptance of domestic violence), bigamy, or incest.

From what little Laura Lyons discloses, it seems most likely that her husband has another living wife somewhere, giving her bigamy as the additional grounds. She still has to prove it! The evidence-gathering, travel, and court appearances could take years and cost a great deal.

“Then how is it that you did not go?” “Because I received help in the interval from another source.”

Watson then decides there's nothing he can do but look into whether Laura Lyons did indeed file for divorce. Personally, I'd be looking to see if someone helpfully murdered Lyons. And yes, I'm curious who or what the other source was. In real life, this would be none of my business, but this is a constructed story where Laura Lyons' connections and motivations contribute to the plot.

In a disappointing show of male solidarity, Watson has no problem (other than boredom) with socializing with the litigious Mr. Frankland, estranged father of Laura Lyons. I'm also disappointed in Mr. Frankland, as his law suits now appear to be nothing more than mischief-making.

Meanwhile, count off another invisible person -- Dr. Watson has had no idea that all this time, he's been followed and observed!

[thedevillionaire]

If I may be greedy, 3, 4, 6, 9 (yes I am 👀ing Cerb) & 11 for Cerberus and Kia?

Greedy is totally fine! This is a nice bunch, too. :D

3) What song describes your OC?

Cerberus has two main "theme songs": Dance With Fire by Operus, and The Cage by Attrition. He's had more than one Underworldian song written about him, too, though I don't have actual music for those, just lyrics, due to me being a craptacular singer. Only one of these is currently anywhere online: Green Fire

For Kia, Love An Adventure by Pseudo Echo.

4) What song describes your OC and their partner/love interest?

As a couple, they have a few, actually, but the main two are A Touch of Evil by Judas Priest, and Body and Soul by the Sisters of Mercy.❤️

6) If your OC is in a fantasy setting, what profession would they be in the modern day?

Cut time!

This is really tricky for Cerberus, actually, and the only thing I'm confident of is that he'd be his own boss. Possibly the world's hottest occult bookstore owner/operator lol. But I can also see him not working a "regular" sort of job at all, and being the kind of super-successful investor that can live off passive income and do whatever he wants in his (significant) spare time, and that may not be a whole lot different - although with a "mortal plane" skew, of course - to what he does now.

lol maybe he'd be a cult leader. 🤣 He was mortally pyrokinetic, after all. Kia had all sorts of odd jobs when she was mortal. She's been a masseuse, a supermarket checkout chick, a fashion consultant/assistant, a pole dancer, a telemarketer, a typist... She'd probably settle into something customer-service focused that didn't require a degree/formal qualifications.

9) How does your OC handle their physical health? Do they take care of themselves?

Cerberus is excellent at this...until he gets sick. 😂😂 He's very physically fit, in great shape, looks after his physical needs overall extremely well. Eats well, exercises, is very hygiene-conscious. He's kind of a workaholic and should almost certainly take more time off for just relaxation, but that's about as lax as he gets about his general physical wellbeing. And he doesn't often get sick at all. BUT. Partly due to infrequency/unfamiliarity with getting ill, partly just that he's always so resentful that it even happened, how fucking dare this happen, that he's just...patently terrible at accepting his fate about it. 😅 So when the Healing meds don't instantly and completely cure things, he's prone to completely disregarding everything he's told to do, because it's already proved pointless again, as usual, so why not try [insert probably bad idea here] instead. Kia's made things way better for him in this regard, and he's the best of all possible selves with her around, but still. He's a notoriously dreadful patient and he deserves every bit of that reputation lol.

Kia is also very fit, although less hygiene-conscious, and also far more likely to socialise in large groups, etc. She gets sick a regular amount, and is much better at looking after herself when it happens, too. She gets a bit cranky about it at times, sure, but she's pretty accepting of it as just a part of life, and just...deals. Not to say she doesn't enjoy a good spoiling when she's unwell. Cerberus, for all his failings at being a good patient, actually makes a wonderful caretaker.

11) What was your inspiration for your OC?

Cerberus was supposed to be a one-off serve-a-purpose temporary creation and problem-solver. I made too many OCs in early Underworld times and thought if I just had...like half of them killed off in one fell swoop, sort of thing, I could get back on track, haha. Anyway, so, he was meant to just come in, do damage, fuck off.

He...did not do that. 🤷‍♀️ I mean, he absolutely did do what I, um, brought him in for. He just also decided to stick around and take over the place afterwards.

IDEK. I'm just a dumb scribe lol. And I genuinely do not remember what/who inspired Kia, but she was also an unexpected "success story". She was an Incept, brought into the Underworld's Vampirism Caste by another OC pretty much nobody's met here - Vesuvius - and just...went about being Kia. And here we are. 🫠

[luckybyler]

From an actually good question posted on Reddit, here’s how I think the Stranger Things grandparents are:

Joyce: I think she had low-ish-income parents who were good people with good values, loved her and fulfilled her basic needs (fed, roof over her head, clothes, school), but for some reason couldn’t take care of her or guide her much. Maybe they had problems with drugs or alcohol, or maybe they were old and frail (or her grandparents because her bio parents weren’t in the picture), or had some illness. That made her driven, self-reliant, but also drove her to make some bad decisions. However, because she remembered what actual love looked like, she was able to correct course and protect her kids. Probably dead by the time Jonathan was born.

Hopper: I’d say he grew up in a non-abusive, but strict, home, with a father who valued honor and war and stuff. I imagine his mom was a little homemaker lady who baked cookies and loved him a lot, but who also instilled the fear of God in him and in dad. Basically a “men rule the world and women rule the home” type of family (which is actually a super hyper traditional mindset).

Lonnie: Could have been literally any kind of parents, because his fucked-up-ness seems entirely like a Lonnie problem. He could’ve had the worst or the best parents in the world and it wouldn’t have made a difference. Maybe he killed them for the insurance and made it look like an accident.

Karen: She was super popular in school, so her parents must have been at least middle class, the picture of a perfect 50s marriage and active in the church. Not rich tho, so they encouraged her to latch on to her older boyfriend from a good family for dear life to remain financially stable.

Ted: Likewise, except I imagine his parents were slightly more affluent than Karen’s. I imagine they were the pronto-Ted and Karen and Ted was a proto-Mike as a kid, until life and depression beat every ounce of joy and personality out of him.

Sue Sinclair: She most likely had loving, strategic parents most likely went ABOVE AND BEYOND to give her EVERY. TOOL. at their disposal so she could have the middle class life she ended up enjoying, keeping in mind that she grew up as a black girl during Jim Crow. In Lucas on the Line Lucas says his dad met his mom when she was in typing school or working as a typist. Her parents probably made sacrifices so she (and her siblings, if any) could have a higher education. They couldn’t afford to make a single wrong choice or even to let her become a homemaker and depend on a man.

Charles Sinclair: We know what his white foster parents were like: assholes. He fled out of there the second he was allowed to (or had to) and probably went immediately to the military recruiter. That crucial decision made the difference between a life of poverty and the comfortable life he ended up having.

Claudia Henderson: Most likely loving, reasonably progressive parents who encouraged her to get some sort of higher education or to work. I think she has only known healthy relationships.

Mr. Henderson: no idea, but judging by Dustin and Claudia’s personalities, he was probably a loving, caring husband and father who died (and most likely left them a pension or life insurance). Maybe that means his own parents were ok people.

Susan Hargrove: Probably very traditional parents who taught her that women should be seen and not heard, or at least that being a housewife was her only alternative for a decent life. Maybe she rebelled against her parents by choosing “love” instead of convenience, and so ended up dating and/or marrying a long line of losers and abusers. Her parents gave her zero tools at all for her own life so she depended on whatever dude entered her and Max’s lives.

Mr. Mayfield: described in Runaway Max as a smart but unmotivated and undisciplined man who commits petty crime, he probably comes from a long line of petty criminals who don’t feel any drive to better themselves, not even for those they supposedly love.

Neil Hargrove: Most likely raised in an abusive home and grew up to perpetuate the cycle of abuse.

[dragonz-r-kewl]

Hello there, fellow Farsight enjoyer. I have enjoyed your characterization and ideas about Farsight, and if it does not inconvenience you too much, could you tell me a little about what you think her and Mastermind's relationship was like? I personally agree with the fact that they were close, and I agree with how they both had respect for each other's knowledge and intelligence and academics in the other fanfictions. Yet, there's a lot that puzzles me with their relationship, like how Mastermind claimed correctly for years that Starflight was his, yet Farsight refused to say it in Prisoners, and then 2 years later they're seen standing next to each other in the prologue of Moon Rising. From some speculation (piecing together mentioned events from The Dark Secret, Prisoners, and Moon Rising), I have figured out that Mastermind and Farsight must have had some sort of interaction in 5004 A.S. to conceive Starflight, but she's noticeably absent from Prisoners when Fierceteeth is 7 in 5010 A.S., and then she's already dead for a few years by 5011 A.S. That means that they would have known each other for a few years in that timeframe. What do you think the course of their relationship was like? You mentioned that it was going downhill for a while, and I'd like to hear your take on it. Thank you for also receiving my speculation. It's very nice that you and I both are Farsight enjoyers on here.

Hi and sorry it took me so long to respond! I've been a bit creatively bankrupt lately and had to sum up the energy to digitally infodump. (and then it took me like a month or five because i took so long that i kept psyching myself out :p) But! I have Thoughts about this!! Even if it's been like a month or more since I've posted to this damn website!

I've never actually thought about it in terms of a timeline before, considering I do most of my thinking in pre-canon limbo and applying like. A human-ish timeframe to things. Still, the canon course of events wouldn't disrupt my idea of them too much- if anything, it brings a lot more structure to it.

I do think they would've been acquaintances since, I don't know, the dragon equivalent of high school aged?? Farsight would've been the bubbly, friendly type who likes to talk with everybody, while Mastermind appreciated companionship but had other priorities at the time. They would drift apart for a while in their young adulthood, persuing different things after their lives were shuffled around by the volcano having a flare-up.

Then again, this has taken several months for me to write, and I've warmed up to the idea of them not knowing eachother aside from maybe one or two meetings

A few years later, though, by the time Fierceteeth exists (so around 2003 A.S. with a few months' allowance either way), due to more nebulously defined happenstance, Farsight and Mastermind end up running into each other again and getting to know eachother much more closely.

More specifically, I have this notion that maybe Farsight's job was to be a scribe or a typist/stenographer (depending on how much technology dragons would have-- Tui seems to add technology to her world based on what *feels* old-timey, making it ambiguous if it's medieval or post-renaissance or another thing entirely. I find it funny to call it The Calculus Problem, based on how they seemingly have invented calculus but not gunpowder-- in a warring, fire-breathing species no less!) , and they would have met again when Mastermind began to work under Battlewinner directly and would be made to start attending the meetings. (you know what I mean by the meetings, right? idk i haven't read the dark secret in... a while...)

Anyways, the start of their relationship happens very quickly and out of nowhere and all at once. Depending on where in the year the brightest night is (it's never directly exposited iirc) it might be over the course of a bit over a year or less than it. Why it happened so quickly, I have a few ideas as to that also.

Mainly, they were both lonely and their home was slowly being destroyed. Farsight had whoever Fierceteeth's father was die on her, her friend(?) Secretkeeper is often busy with her life in high places, and it's unknown how much else she has going for her. Mastermind, meanwhile, is pretty much an outsider within their society (source: he hides in a room all day and people don't seem to like him) Companionship, at this point, seems very desirable, and so they quickly end up romantically entangled.

Aaaand then Starflight happens, and the weirdness/canon mystery regarding this relationship becomes impossible to ignore.

My thoughts on the situation go like this:

Farsight knows Mastermind is Starflight's father, and so does Mastermind. They both know that the other knows, and are perfectly open about it... to each other.

For a time, they just don't tell anyone else about their relationship, let alone the egg's parentage because of... social reasons I guess? Lots of which relate to the prophecy and stuff.

There are a few reasons I've come up with, but personally, I've landed on the following for now:

Harsh but plausible; (almost) no one likes Mastermind, and he's still there just because they need a science guy and he's the one ensuring they still have a water supply. However, based on what we have seen of him, he is unemphatic, far from personable, and difficult to work with. He's unpopular, essentially, and somehow high up in the pecking order despite that, and Farsight knows she'll have enough dragons in her face to begin with just having an egg that lines up with the prophecy in the first place. She wants to keep their relationship- especially after the egg- under wraps, and Mastermind agrees for her sake. After she dies (or just after things cool down- more about this later) Mastermind is more willing to mention it occasionally, but anybody who pays attention doesn't really believe him.

Or maybe they were normal about it and Morrowseer is out of touch and dragons just don't believe anything Mastermind says sometimes because. The mastermindl

Regardless, they grow closer at a fairly steady rate, and they get along well! Things are stable and sane, except for the looming anxiety of Starflight's egg being taken because they should know that, really-

There are two (wow, only two for once?) possibilities with Starflight here; either his being a prophecy egg was deliberate, or coincidental. Based on Farsight's feelings about him, at least, I tend to fall in the latter camp.

Logically, if an egg's hatching can be accurately predicted to the day, apparently, they probably knew from very early on that Starflight would hatch around the brightest night at the very least. Mastermind knows this, and logically, Farsight should too- but based on her behaviour in Winglets, it seems like she hasn't fully processed or come to terms with it, even though she definitely *knows*. At the very least she wants to pretend like she'll get to spend all that time with it and raise it as long as she can.

And then the egg is taken.

And Farsight doesn't take it well.

In Winglets, Fierceteeth menitons her "moping" and it being "so annoying". Based on how scared Fierceteeth seems to be of emotions, I generally take this as meaning it was bad. Fierceteeth essentially lost her mother all the way back then-- Farsight was grief-stricken, depressed, and inconsolable. They were both unable to handle the situation and it ruined their relationship for good.

However, as much as I would love to go on and on about Fierceteeth and Farsight and the tragedy of it all and how it's nobody's fault and it's everybody's fault and it's Morrowseer's fault in a way but he's a jackass and it doesn't count because everything is his fault BUT that's another infodump for another day, I want to post this within this century, and the main point of this is Farsight and Mastermind.

So, Mastermind.

OH GOD MASTERMIND I NEVER KNOW WHERE TO START--

I do think Mastermind would care about Starflight, and earnestly, too! (He strikes me as a very earnest character, just a weird, morally dubious one.) He's just not very emotionally literate and has a hard time caring.

Where Farsight so instantly and completely loves, Mastermind is a lot more reserved. He's slower to care about things, slower to get attached, more easily put off-- he's not friendly.

So he doesn't care horiffically much about the egg at first, not any more than an extension of Farsight and his relationship with her. Sure, he hopes it goes well, if only so Farsight-whom he already has grown to love-is happy and well.

However, seeing it taken, seeing it somewhere where he is unable to see it, and seeing Farsight so utterly distraught, it gets him to start caring. He wants her to not be so consumed by grief. He begins to miss that egg too, and in this shared understanding, he wants nothing more than to comfort her.

One problem: he's bad at that!

Again, he's not emotionally literate, he's not the most empathetic, and he only has some vague idea of how to comfort someone. It only works some pittance of the time because Farsight, always caring, bleeding heart, actually got to know him Farsight, can tell he's trying to comfort her and appreciates it.

Their only relief from the situation is the fact that the other understands. It's a weird place to be, and it's hard to get empathy for: their dragonet has been taken from them before it hatched, presumably to a place where it will be happy and alive, but it was still TAKEN, and there wasn't much say for them to have in it. Considering the conditions on the island, they might die before their child can come back home, and even then they'll have missed its entire childhood. Any sense of grief or loss could very easily be tainted by guilt, because their dragonet was alive-- so many others weren't.

Regardless, they are stuck together, even with feelings and lives and pursuits that are all falling apart and collapsing and becoming so dysfunctional, because the other is the only one that really understands. It's probably not the greatest thing, but there's not really anywhere else to go. The only way out of it, really, is for someone to die.

And then Farsight goes ahead and does die! Effectively, it's the end of the relationship, and it has some very interesting implications on Mastermind's behaviour's afterwards.

I've seen the idea shared before (i think i was spectating the fandom wiki forums, of all places) that Farsight was Mastermind's moral compass or something like that, able to stop him before he went to before. I don't quite hold that so literally, but it's totally understandable that, with that one stable pillar in his life gone, Mastermind would be a good deal less well adjusted.

I'd imagine Farsight's death would give him a bit of a mortality crisis of sorts, realizing that she died on the dying island, too weak from stress and starvation to hold up a fight, before ever getting to meet the child she cared so much about. And suddenly, despite the growing despair and workload and apathy, Mastermind cares very much about his work, maybe too much, because he doesn't want to die there like she did.

I've always imagined Morrowseer as Mastermind's supervisor--well, he's in charge of a lot of people, but not quite so directly--and using that kind of rhetoric, of not wanting him or his tribe to die on the island, to try and push Mastermind into duties he was reluctant to do. After that, it really begins to work.

And, when they need an experiment that may very well secure their future, but is messy and unsafe and underfunded and needs more than one researcher and just in a way he hasn't been raised and taught to be able to place gross, he's willing to agree. He just wants to live long enough to see a way out of there, and if he can help make one, that increases the odds for him, and reduces the number of dragons that have to die like her.

And, hey, he gets his wish.

In my opinion, Farsight's shadow looms heavy over the RainWing experiments. She weighs so heavily, suffocatingly heavy, over nearly every damn interaction Starflight has with his surviving family.

The scene where he first meets Starflight hurts. He's just so happy, and proud, and just has this sudden turn in mood... to me, from my brainrotted headcannon haze, it feels like the first reason he's had to light up so much and so genuinely in AGES. (I've seen the opinon where he's just happy to have someone to sit around and make him feel better about himself, but I've never really read him as sinister in that way, just emotionally stilted in one way or another.) It's the closest he's gotten to seeing Farsight in ages. The only moment of apathy we get from him around Starflight is when he gets to the desperate, dead-end, most uncomfortable part of his WORK--

The exact thing that turns Starflight away from him. He doesn't even really notice.

Because integrity and good moral standing died like everything else in this place. Where all the dragonets were slowly killed in one sense with the "nightwing superiority" rhetoric they were taught for generations, and far more literally as the environment crumbled around them. Where Mastermind and Farsight's relationship died slowly, too. It was a place where everything not already rotten was going, going, gone.

Or something like that. The best part about their relationship is the room for interpretation, I guess.

So yeah! Mastermind x Farsight! And to think this all happened so quickly, too... They never really had a chance, but they really did end up loving eachother.

I am SO SO SO SORRY this took so long, I've just been stuck in an exhausted dysfunctional funk for months. I can't tell when this ask was even sent anymore--October I think?-- and i am very sorry. I'm getting back into the groove, though, and more than happy to exhange ideas about Farsight and related subject matter in the future.Obsessing over fictional characters that appear twice is something I'm always willing to indulge in. I promise it won't take as long lolll

Anyways, my fellow Farsight enjoyer, it has been very fulfilling to get this all out in text, and I'm very curious to see what you think! I am not proofreading this so if something makes absolutely no sense, sorry about that too.

So yeah! Thanks for the ask, I appreciate it loads :]

[plural-affirmations]

I have a question, I see people say sometimes that typing quirks can be (not always) involuntary and some people can’t translate theirs at all, I’m photosensitive so can’t read it at all if it’s got numbers or anything. I’m just wondering why some people can switch between typing quirks and regular and others can’t? If there’s a reason we know? Genuine question I hope it doesn’t sound rude

(First off, lemme say: none of this is directed at you personally, I just have very intense feelings on the subject. I appreciate the question though!! /gen)

So, this is probably pretty controversial to say, but I genuinely believe that all typing quirks are translatable. Anyone who acts otherwise is being, frankly, ableist.

Typing quirks pose a whole slew of problems for those with low/impaired vision, I/DDs, TBI patients, dyslexia, photosensitivity like you mentioned, etc.

I get that they come naturally for some, and they require effort to translate, but it's just thinly veiled inconsideration and rudeness to imply they're completely involuntarily and there's Absolutely No Way to fix that issue.

More often than not, I'd argue that they could be fixed by the typist themselves. But, let's play devil's advocate: even IF it's in a circumstance where they can't, someone else in their system or server or whatever can do it for them.

Typing quirks in public spaces (or in places where disabled people are present) should be required to be translated, full stop.

Accessibility and accountability do not exist on a sliding scale depending on how convenient it is for ableds.

🖤💜💙💚💛

[vvatchword]

Freewrite Traveler versus Alphasmart Neo 2

So I have an Alphasmart Neo 2 and a Freewrite Traveler. One of these cost me about $300. The other cost me $30. And I'm about to give you a review because I love one of these things more than the other.

The Alphasmart Neo 2 is from the 00s and was used in classrooms to help kids practice typing without the distraction of a computer attached to the Internet. They come with some basic little functions like a calculator and are powered by three AAA batteries. They have eight files that can contain 10,000 words each, can copy, cut, and paste, and you can go back into the document to edit. There are no Undo or Redo functions. To transfer the files to your PC, you hook up a cable while the Alphasmart and your word processor of choice are turned on. That easy. The batteries last for-e-ver. I'm taking about years. I am on my second set of batteries and I've owned this dealio for five years or so with almost daily use. This thing cost me $30 plus s&h a few years ago. Word has gotten out about these, so they're more expensive than that these days, but not significantly so--maybe $50? You'll see some being sold for $100 or so but that's ridiculous tbh.

At the time I purchased the Alphasmart, i had already backed the Freewrite Traveler on Kickstarter for about $300. I felt pretty dumb and wondered if I would regret my choice.

As it turns out: yes. I do.

The Traveler uses the same kind of screen as a Kindle, has three files of infinite words each, is rechargeable, and can back up your work to the cloud and send your files to your email address. It's sleek, small, and exceptionally cute. I just like looking at it. But after getting it, I couldn't help but compare it to the Alphasmart, which kicks its ass every day.

Recharging sounds fine, but it runs out of juice FAST. A full day's work will knock it out; I ran out of juice anywhere from three days to three weeks, depending on how much I was using it. Inevitably there is a point you forget to recharge and wham bam fuck you ma'am, it's going to take four hours to charge now and you can't use it if it wound down to 0% while you were sleeping. It posts to the cloud, which you'd think is great--infinite words! Back it up anywhere you find free WiFi!--but to do this, you need to sign up for Postbox, a service through Freewrite, which means that if the company dies, so does the cloud feature. You can also transfer your files via the charging cable, so they thought of this, but it feels dangerous and a little disingenuous, not gonna lie.

Unlike the Alphasmart, you can't copy, cut, paste, or edit. When I say you can't edit, I mean that you can't arrow up to some previous point in the story and add or delete. The point of this feature--and it is a feature!--is to emulate typewriters and encourage first draft flow. Problem is, that's just not how I write. For $300, or whatever it's selling for now, I want to be able to use cut, copy, and paste, maybe even redo and undo, and I want to be able to go back and add extra bullshit. Also, the full-sized Freewrite has a backlight, but the Traveler does not. Why does my $300 machine not have a goddamn backlight.

The Traveler also has a hint of lag and it drives me fucking crazy. This may not be a problem for you if you hunt and peck or are a slower typist, but I type almost as fast as I think. I have gotten up to 190 wpm before. Long story short, Traveler can't keep up--but Alphasmart can!

The Alphasmart is also more comfortable to type on and takes up about as much room in a bag as the Traveler does--just lengthwise rather than width-wise, if it makes sense. The Traveler is better for a purse, perhaps, but it's just bulky enough that I sometimes found it troublesome to make room in my bags. It's about the size of a clutch when folded up.

At one point, I got caught in a rainstorm while my Alphasmart was in my backpack. The rain seeped into my backpack and ruined a book. Meanwhile the Alphasmart was like lol whatever do you feel like writing queen?

Anyway, I'm going to see if I can't sell my Freewrite. I'd rather have a second Alphasmart rofl