#would love to learn more about developing and scanning etc

[gaytobymeres]

Stepping off the Royal Mile

Leica M3, Ilford HP5

[orphiclovers]

I'm thinking about a canon adjacent au here okay hear me out. what if pre-scenarios hsy actually thought/knew she had DID?

with the blank spots of memory and lapses of time and tiredness and weakness etc hsy started to worry she had a brain tumor or something. went to a doctor & all the scans came back clear so she was directed to a psychologist instead. she learns of DID and is kind of excited to meet this apparently other person living her life (she's maybe 20 yo atp) yet her hopes are shattered bc her alter is apparently the most. uncomunicative bastard in the world. ignored all her sticky notes saying hi, all attempts at journaling or deligating tasks or following appointments on the shared calendar or working together on anything. radio silence from them, except for throwing the notes in the trash so she knows they saw them.

hsy is annoyed. the therapist suggests they don't feel safe or secure enough to talk yet and hsy begrudgingly accepts that.

its not like the other hsy is actually putting them in danger, as far as she can tell, they spent all their time on the computer doing who knows what (browsing data is always deleted after)

their body was literally collapsing under the weight of stress though, so even if the other her wouldn't help, hsy had to start managing this shit somehow. she's forced to be the responsible one and plan her day around the other her. has to take care of things like cooking and cleaning and eating and bathing in her own limited time awake, on top of things like friends and events and of course writing for work. has to choose to rest sometimes when she wanted to go out because of the other her.

she resents the other hsy for this at first - this is one of the things she spent a long time working out in therapy (among other issues besides the DID. apparently her childhood had fucked her up more than she realized) the therapist suggested the alter may not speak directly, but they're still communicating through their actions - to try to understand them and what they might be feeling. hsy does, even though she didn't want to.

the other hsy didn't seem to have any friends or leave the house, they didn't feed themselves or drink water on their own - hsy often woke up ravenous and thirsty and they were paranoid- han sooyoung found knives under her mattress once.

hsy knew these things, they were annoying, but looked at them in a new light now. for her to act like this, her other half must be damaged and cautious - the therapist had expected it, says these conditions don't develop on their own. it was a sobering thought. hsy can deal with a couple of inconveniences if it means she can stay the carefree and extraverted person she is, not miserable and lonely like the other her. maybe that's selfish but she deserves to be selfish sometimes doesn't she?

in the beginning, she tried to force the other hsy to come out - they spent a lot of time on the pc, so she took a weekend and went to the countryside, hiked to a camping spot and set up. she had her phone but no internet and wanted to see what the other her would do.

she woke up at midnight, dirty and sweaty, muscles screaming, in the closest bus stop with her phone at 2%. she could still feel the panic and adrenaline in her trembling arms, the way she had ran here. it scared her, she didn't try to force the issue again.

as for 1863, when young hsy tried to talk to her through notes she thought "oh shit oh fuck" but then realized its not like she can get kicked out (probably?) so decided to ignore her until she gave up. she tries not to interfere with her life more than necessary.

one time she woke up in a shrinks office, freaked out, threatened to stab the therapist and fled out the door. in her defense, she hadn't talked to a real life person in a month and really hadn't expected this. (for young hsy this was actually a breakthrough in therapy. she was very excited, gave her weeks of material to work on. after apologizing profusely.)

I just love this dynamic of twitchy, very maladjusted survivor who cares about very few things in life and herself is not on that list, and the exasperated young writer who wants to enjoy her life but has to deal with bullshit at home. frustrated, but at the same time curious and sad for the other her.

How this ends is. han sooyoung wakes up at the train station, looks around, and sighs with exasperation. the other her must have left her somewhere again. there is an odd hollowness in her chest that she writes it off and then the apocalypse happens.

hsy gets the avatar skill and wryly thinks its like it was made for her. she had always wanted to talk to the other her and now after so long she finally got the chance. she creates her, sees her for the first time- older than herself, skin tight around the eyes and a hard twist to her mouth like she hadn't ever smiled. shoulders hunched, she's got a confused, lost look in her eyes.

hsy says "hey, calm down, it's okay- well. things are crazy right now but you're mostly safe, I can explain."

the other her looks at her own palms, drags them up her forhead to clutch her hair, shaking her head and groaning. she stumbles away. "what have you done?"

hsy's throat feels strangled. "I- wanted to talk to you. what- what's wrong?"

the other her doesn't answer, looking blank, and then she bolts. hsy shouts and gives chase but eventually loses her, panting for breath and holding her knees in the street. "Fucking damn it!"

canon proceeds as usual. epilogue happens and hsy remembers everything, or more accurately, the other her comes back but this time without the walls dividing them. hsy feels complete for the first time in her life, and the hollowness she felt the day the scenarios started is gone.

post epilogue domestic bliss ensues where they actually get to know each other and talk openly about their experiences, after so many years.

[friendly-neighborhood-boricua]

Squint And You'll See It

Summary: Sirius and his potions partner are trying to brew Polyjuice Potion for class, and he can't seem to figure out why she won't wear her glasses.

Notes: Sirius Black x shy!reader. All fluff, really. This is the most self-indulgent thing I've ever written. I'm weirdly self-conscious about the sounds I make, how loud they are, if they could annoy/distract people, etc. so I wrote this just to comfort myself about it lol. I ended up using Y/N a bunch because using too many pronouns in a row makes my brain bristle so oh well. Still though, this is the sweetest thing I think I've ever written. Enjoy! <3

Y/N squinted up at the blackboard as Slughorn collected the class’s attention once again, and Sirius just about melted. The all-too-familiar scrunch in her nose and the crease between her brows gave him more comfort than he probably should have taken from her struggles to see the properties of Chinese Chomping Cabbage from so far back in the classroom. After an especially rapid flurry of blinking, she scribbled a couple notes on her parchment before fisting her knuckles in her eyes tiredly.

Sirius nudged her gently. As if it wasn’t already, the honey-doe eyes she gave him had his heart overflowing with a plush fondness. 

“Your glasses, love,” he whispered, nodding to her book bag, which hung off of the back of her chair. Y/N looked at it, then blinked twice. The glasses were a new and quite helpful development—one she hadn’t quite gotten into the habit of using yet. She eyed the bag again.

“I’m alright,” she whispered back and returned to her notes. 

Sirius frowned. “You sure?”

She nodded, giving him a light smile. 

Sirius frowned slightly but returned to his notes when Slughorn chided him for having his eyes elsewhere. But how could he be blamed? Only a madman would rather learn about ingredients than watch her. 

For a surprisingly long while, Sirius managed to stay focused on his notes, sometimes copying Remus’s, who sat on his right side, and only occasionally sneaking glances at Y/N, who sat on his left. After what felt like an eternity, Slughorn finally let the pair work on their Polyjuice Potion at a work table in the far back of the classroom. Sirius had come down with a nasty case of spattergroit several weeks previous and missed a week and a half of the brewing process. Unfortunately, Y/N had missed several days herself due to a family matter (now resolved with nothing to worry about, she had assured Sirius countless times), ending in the complete devastation of their original Polyjuice batch. And so, Y/N, unwilling to take a bad mark, and Sirius, ready to do just about anything to keep spending time with her, decided to make another batch. 

“Do you want to gather the ingredients or shall I?” she asked as Sirius scooted his stool closer to hers (to better reach the cauldron, of course).

“I can get the ingredients,” he said, flashing what he hoped was his most charming smile, and she blushed.

“Alright, I’ll, erm … I’ll work out our next instructions …” Sirius nodded as Y/N fell into her reading, smiling to himself as her brows furrowed once again to scan the page. 

Sirius skirted the classroom towards ingredient shelves, passing by James, Peter, and Remus, who all raised their brows at him with smirks. He simply rolled his eyes, rummaging through the shelves until he had gathered the correct ingredients. But when he turned around, ready to make his way back to Y/N and their Polyjuice Potion, he was met with a horrible sight: Remus, holding a tight-lipped frown in a near-futile attempt to ward off a smile, Peter, doubled over with laughing cramps, and James, turned around in his chair and arms wrapped around himself, raking them up and down his back in a sultry fashion as he pretended to make out with someone. 

With a peeved sigh, Sirius chucked a bundle of knotgrass at James, seed pods bursting and small nettle-like seeds clinging to James's hair. Of course, the three burst into peals of raucous laughter. Sirius groaned, and quickly made his way back to the back work table as Slughorn chastised the rest of them.

“Sirius, are you alright? You’re looking a bit … erm, warm.”

Sirius’s ears burned even hotter, and his eyes flew to examine the grout between the floor tiles.

“Yeah, yeah, ‘m perfect, lovie.” He set down his armful of glass jars and clay bowls, trying desperately to change the subject. “Found what we’ve got to do yet?”

“Mhm,” she hummed. “Just here, it says we must add three bits of boomslang skin—”

“Got that here.”

“—crush the bicorn horn and add that—”

“Got that as well.”

“—and then there are some cooking instructions, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“Sounds good to me, love.” Sirius smiled warmly. 

The two worked in harmony, Y/N checking and double-checking that she was measuring everything correctly and Sirius adding the ingredients once she had prepared them. The two worked in sweet, warm peace, managing only one easily-averted disaster, all while keeping quiet as Slughorn continued to teach the rest of the class. There was a strange sort of domesticity to it that made Sirius’s heart skip beats, and he imagined himself with Y/N in their future home, huddled around a cauldron and brewing something to keep them warm on a Siberian night—

“How long should it be at a high temperature again?” Sirius asked, forcing himself from his daydreaming and adding the crushed bicorn horn.

“Erm …” Y/N’s nose practically brushed the page with how closely she peered at the instructions. With the smallest sound of annoyance Sirius had ever heard, her head moved to allow her eyes to travel along the far wall, where a dozen or so posters displayed recipes for a variety of potions. She sighed lightly, squinting heard and pushing herself on tiptoe (as if it would help).

“Use your glasses, love,” Sirius suggested but was quickly brushed off.

“‘M fine, really,” Y/N murmured, eyes still squinting. 

“Sweetheart,” the word caught Y/N’s attention, and she fell back onto her heels, eyes barely meeting Sirius’s before drilling into the bubbling cauldron, “you’ll give yourself a migraine. Use your glasses.” Y/N glanced uneasily from Sirius to her bag on the back of her chair and back. Sirius’s brows furrowed. “What is it, love?”

Y/N shook her head. “Nothing, it’s nothing.”

“Then … wear your glasses,” Sirius reasoned, and she let out a little huff. “Why don’t you want to wear them, lovie?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to wear them, it’s just …” Sirius watched her with soft, almost concerned eyes.

Y/N sighed, pushing herself onto the stool with knees pressed together. The thought was silly, but she had known Sirius long enough to know he wasn’t going to let this go. 

“The buckle on the bag, it’s …” Sirius’s knee knocked gently against hers. “It’s loud—it clatters about when I open it. Catches people’s attention. And my glasses are in the bag, so if I open the bag, people will stare, and then people stare at me when I have my glasses on anyway—not that I’m not grateful for the glasses! They’re a great help for seeing the board during cl—”

Sirius couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle, and he almost felt bad at the pout Y/N dealt in return. “First of all, love, people stare at you and your glasses because you look fucking divine when you wear them. I should know.” He brushed her arm playfully with his, and she flushed a brilliant shade of red-pink. “And second, no one thinks anything about your loud bag buckles, I promise.”

Y/N rolled her eyes. “I just—I don't want to disrupt them is all …” 

Sirius chuckled again, but still, Y/N didn't make a move for her bag. It took only a moment and a half of contemplation before Sirius burst into the most fake-sounding fit of coughs ever created in the history of this Earth. Nearly the entire class turned to stare at him as he seemingly hacked up a lung, and he hung himself dramatically off of the table’s edge to play it up just that little bit more. 

“Mr. Black, are you quite alright?” Professor Slughorn asked, eyes slightly wide with concern.

“Y-yes, Pro—” Sirius coughed a dozen more times, discretely winking at Y/N, who seemed to get the point and quietly retrieved her glasses from her bag. Not a soul noticed.

[le-panda-chocovore]

I think that BNHA is kinda too long (like it's better if it were shorter, more compact) and JJK is kinda too short (there are still many plotholes). What do you think?

You know what series that have the perfect length and ending for me? Haikyuu! I really love this series. What an amazing series with great characters... Don't you agree that Haikyuu might have raised our standard a little too high on (shounen) manga endings....

You're not completely wrong for BNHA even though I think it's okay for a Shonen to have that many chapters. I think the main problem with BNHA is that the author underestimated how deep and philosophical his story was, and the seriousness of some subjects. BNHA is optimistic and idealistic and I can't blame it, it's a superhero story where the good guys win and the country is safe, and the people are happy in the end. It's a cliché but we should have expected it. The problem with how long it was is that it gave us too much content about villains and their convictions, about the heroes society's flaws, and it went through many potential ending options before the real conclusion. So in the end I'm still disappointed.

JJK is short but that's not a bad thing, the problem is that it ended too soon. I don't need the story to be 100 chapters longer, but I would have liked 10 more chapters to explain to me what happened to everyone and how they learned to cope with everything and how the Jujutsu Society really works now. It's not "too short", it has been rushed. The Sukuna fight arc was too long, but it ended in 2 chapters and it just felt wrong. Honestly there are 15 or so chapters that are completely useless, they could be deleted from the story it wouldn't change a single thing, and the ending would still feel weird.

Haikyuu is great, I actually haven't read the manga but I've seen the anime and I know most things about the timeskip. I simply avoided being spoiled about the match results and who won the Nationals etc. I wouldn't say it raised our standards though, Haikyuu is kind of an exception tbh, I don't compare every manga ending to Haikyuu's. Maybe other people do, I don't know. But Shonen's endings have always and often been disappointing, look at Naruto Shippuden for example. It's nothing new. We have a good one from time to time, is all.

I also think one of the reasons we're rarely satisfied with an ending is the reading format. If you read scan chapters every week as they're published, you are way more likely to be disappointed than if you started the manga when it was already completed so you read it entirely. Because years of waiting for the next chapter makes you have theories and develop a deep attachment (often parasocial relationships) with the characters, and you start having your personal expectations and your own point of view on how the story should end. And obviously what you want isn't what the author wanted or planned, it is not what the story need either.

Anyway I just believe we're all biased and we sometimes ruin the things we like by ourselves ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[magnoliabutters]

• GOODS AND BADS •

pairing: eddie munson x reader (she/her, 18+)

request: from @xxbookdrunkdemigodxx​; reader has been testing eddie’s patience all day, and then she acts out during hellfire club and after everyone leaves. he punishes her. he rolls a 20 sided die to decide how many times she’ll be edged before he takes her home.

warnings: 18+ content, mdni, adult language; angst, dom eddie + sub reader, pet names, choking, kinky kinky, cum denial, edging, rough play, biting, “master” dynamics, (f receiving) oral, public sex, etc.

word count: ~2.1k

note: oh my gerd. yes. 1 million times yes. let’s annoy the fuck out of eddie until he fucks us. let’s go! first request ever so i hope i interpreted your thoughts right or i wrote okay 👌🏼 my anxiety poppin off today!

Eddie has always driven you to school. He enjoys seeing your sweet face fresh and early in the morning. He loves the cinnamon smell that follows you as you carry your hot chocolate. He loves how passionate you are. How you make him feel like he is the only person in the universe. How your body fits perfectly against his. How he never thought of soulmates before he met you. He loves that you were each other’s firsts and that you will be each other’s last. He loves how much of a freak you are. How you both share the same love for music. How you look in just his Hellfire shirt the morning after. How open minded you are and willing to talk about the craziest of things. He loves how your eyes scan over his body. How he will never have to doubt how you feel about him. How you happily will be missus Munson before you know it. He loves you with every fiber of his being, through all your goods and all your bads. He will love you forever.

One of the things he loves about you is the way you somehow always forget things. He likes to be your knight and shining armor, finding a solution to all your simple problems. Most days, he enjoys being the person in your life to remind you of the mundane things. Like, “Don’t you need your backpack?” or “Did you bring your lunch?” But today? No. Today, he fucking hated being that person. 

Today began with an ask for a pencil. You needed a number 2 pencil for your English exam. Eddie happily shared his. However, he also remembered how many times he reminded you about bringing in a pencil for the exam.

Before lunch, you asked to borrow his jacket between classes. He didn’t mind sharing his jacket. He loves seeing you in it. You wear it so well. He did mind the part where he reminded you to bring a jacket and you said you wouldn’t be cold and not to worry. He did mind that it was winter in Hawkins, Indiana and all he had underneath was his hellfire shirt.

During lunch, you managed to return the pencil - snapped in half. He had no clue how that could have happened and he had no intention of finding out. Any reason given would just piss him off more.

Despite your absolute natural ability to annoy him, Eddie would drop everything to be there for you. To be that knight. Your protector. Your lover. And sometimes, even your master. Your forgetfulness is just a fault he is more than willing to accept and love if that means he has forever with you.

All members of the Hellfire club meet after school on Fridays. You rest in one of the auditorium chairs as you watch Eddie’s latest campaign develop in front of your eyes. You always enjoyed how the Hellfire boys would react to Eddie’s crazy plot lines. As the entire group settles at the table, Eddie converses with his sheep and discusses the next steps of the night’s DND session.

All of a sudden, he calls on you. “Y/n, can you bring up the handbook?” he asks as he gestures for you to join them on stage. You immediately sink into your seat, realizing you left Eddie’s DND player handbook on your bed after trying to learn more about the different character classes.

With the hesitance of your movement, Eddie tightens his lips once again and slams his palms against the table. You shudder at the loud sound, knowing that whatever follows will not be good. Now, Eddie is an incredibly gentle, loving man. But he most definitely has his own way of punishing you, and fuck are you going to get it.

“We’re ending early today,” Eddie struggles to say calmly. The entire Hellfire club watches with wide eyes. They slowly begin to pack their things and leave the auditorium, careful not to do anything to further piss their dungeon master off. You gulp as you watch him pace back and forth on the stage. “Eddie?” you whisper. He gestures for you to be quiet as he continues to ponder how he can express exactly how much you’ve tested his patience today.

Several minutes go by but they feel like forever. You keep your head down, only flicking your eyes up every so often to try and interpret Eddie’s facial expressions. “Y/n, come on up here, please,” he instructs with a monotone. You take a deep breath before standing and accepting your fate.

As you reach the stage, Eddie pulls out his 20-sided die. He rolls it across the table towards you with a quick flick of his wrist. “What does it say?” he asks without making eye contact. You reach for it, holding it up to read the number. “Seven?” you respond, confused. “You’re lucky,” he mumbles under his breath.

Eddie nods very slowly as he places his hand to his chin. Although it feels like he is deciding your fate, you cannot help but to smile at the sight of him. His curly brown hair, gliding over his shoulders. His hellfire shirt, rolled up to his elbows. “Come here,” he demands as he points to his end of the table. You walk over solemnly, unsure of what is to come.

“Pull down your pants,” Eddie says as he places some distance between you two. You shoot him a wide eyed expression, gesturing for him to look at your surroundings. “We’re in the auditorium,” you mutter. “Pull down your pants,” he repeats. You roll your eyes as you unbutton your jeans and slide them down to your ankles. With one of your legs, you reluctantly flick your pants over towards him. Knowing full well if he repeats himself for a third time that he will make you pay for it three times over.

Eddie slowly walks up to you. His hands quickly grasp onto your ass cheeks. He grips on so tightly that the muscle pours from his ringed fingers. A gasp escapes your lips as you watch him lean firmly against your body. “You have tried my patience too many times today, my darling,” he mumbles. His hand slowly raising up your stomach, between your breasts, and lightly onto your neck.

“I’m sorry,” you pout as you watch him with those doe eyes he loves so much. “It’s too late for that,” he hisses through his teeth. With a quick movement, he picks you up and places you atop the table. His other hand provides firm pressure onto your neck. He holds you down, pressed firmly against the table. You peer back at him, a devilish smirk paired with those innocent chocolate eyes.

“Stay,” Eddie demands. When he gets like this, you know it’s your place to just button up and stay quiet. You are no longer a being. You do not get a say. You are his play thing, and for him to enjoy in any way he pleases. Exactly where and who you want to be in this moment. He shimmies your panties down to your knees. You rest, exposed for him. Vulnerable to him.

Eddie abruptly grabs your dangling legs and props your ankles onto the table. Your legs wide for him, just for him. You rest your head against the table, looking up to the dimmed stage lights. All your senses focus simply on touch. Where will he start? Where will he touch you? What will he do to you?

Without saying a word, Eddie bites into your inner thigh. Another gasp escapes your lips as you instinctually raise to grip his soft curls. Your legs clench together, which Eddie must not have liked. He harshly places his cold hands against your inner thighs and pushes down until you are spread wide open for him again.

“Do not do that again,” Eddie instructs sternly against your inner thigh. You feel his breath as he speaks lowly against your sensitive skin. It leaves you shaking, feeling completely overstimulated with the smallest touch. You nod, as you firmly place your head against the table. He trails his tongue up your thigh, leaving shivers and electricity throughout your body. “I didn’t hear you,” he mumbles. With a gulp, you respond, “Yes, master.”

Eddie slowly brings his tongue to the delicate space where your leg meets your groin. He places a light kiss before indulging in another monstrous bite. The pain of his teeth digging across your skin leaves you heaving for breath, but it also makes your entire body hot and excited for more. The air intensifying the pain of the bite once he’s left behind that reddened, bruised spot. Your nipples harden as he sloppily licks closer to your lips.

“You’re so wet, baby,” he mumbles as he drags his tongue across your folds. You desperately try not to clench your legs as the sensation almost pulls you over the edge. You whimper as he laps his tongue lightly against your clit. “Hmm, you taste so good,” he moans against you. The vibrations of his low toned words feel incredible on your most sensitive bits.

Another wince lets out as his finger makes its appearance. Your waist jolts at the unexpected feeling, but you quickly try to keep yourself planted to the cold wooden table. Eddie smirks as he rubs a thumb against your thigh. “Good girl,” he murmurs before diving back into you.

With each tensed lick, you find yourself struggling to hold on. Struggling to keep your legs down, your hips, your head. You want to see Eddie. To see those beautiful eyes peer over you as he laps up your wet pussy. But this isn’t about you. This about him, taking whatever he wants from you. You are still trying to understand where your punishment will come into play.

Your body tenses as Eddie circles his tongue around your hole. “You going to cum for me, dirty girl?” he asks as he grips tightly against your thighs. He feverishly pulls you closer onto his mouth with a huge gesture of his muscles. “Yes, m-master,” you say as you whimper from his touch. He gradually dips his tongue within you. You suck in as much breath as you possibly can. So close you can barely stand it. But how can you communicate? When you’re only allotted the words “Yes, master” without consequence.

Eddie dives himself deep within you. His hardened tongue dragging in and out of you. His thumb softly flicking your bean as he extends deeper within. “I can feel how close you are, baby,” he mumbles against your folds. “You want to cum, don’t you?” he mutters as he lathers his two fingers with your slick. He slowly pushes himself within you. He curls the tips of his fingers to brush against those familiar bumps. “You’re so tight for me, baby. I can feel you tightening around my fingers,” he mumbles as he breathes in heavily.

Eddie’s eyes close as he shifts his focus towards the feeling of his fingers. Your eyes close as you hone into that frivolous pit in your stomach. The way your toes desperately want to curl. How your thighs want to collapse around him, squeezing him against you forever. How you have to split your attention in two by remaining still and enjoying this oncoming mind numbing orgasm. With just one more thrust of his fingers within you, you whimper, “Please can I cum, master?”

“No.”

Your eyes quickly shoot open. Your body so close to the edge, yet told you cannot jump into the pleasure below. Almost leaving you without a choice, Eddie quickly shifts his speed by slowing his thrusts. Slowing his rubbing of your clit. Almost as though he was starting all over again. His lips gently kiss upon your thigh. “That’s one,” he mumbles against your skin.

“No, fucking way,” you loudly express. Finally, you understand where his punishment begins. You are swiftly met with a light slap of your inner thigh. You gasp once again to the burning sensation on your leg, met with the hotness of the air meeting your new love mark.

Eddie places a sweet kiss upon the top of your knee as he leans between your legs. He rests on his hands beside your waist. His hips tight against yours. A sweet feeling of his denim against your groin. “Six more to go,” he whispers. That beautiful smile returns to his face. He gnaws on your knee, finally showing some kind of empathy for your pained pussy. As your clit throbs and your body aches, you slowly lift your head to make eye contact with Eddie Munson. With a huff, you lightly rest your head back and widen your thighs once more.

“Did I really annoy you that bad today?” you ask.

“Yes,” Eddie answers.

  note: hope i made you proud, bestie <3  feedback puhlease

• nav • no-no plagiarism • one shot • requests open •

[imfkinconfusedbro]

print('hello, world!') | Ashtray x Reader Platonic

Author's note: This one is about hacking and coding and stuff so anything that isn't common knowledge Ill have listed below with an explanation. To Be honest, I only know a little bit about this stuff so yeah. Hope yall enjoy!

python - a computer language (like java, java script, c++, etc)

print('hello, world!') - beginner string of code in python used when first learning

nmap - a security program used to scan networks

backdoor - basically a back door to bypass security within a system to secure remote access

masterlist

“You hackin or somethin?” Ash questioned, hovering over my shoulder.

“Technically yes.”

“What do you mean technically? It's a yes or no.”

“What I’m doing is ethical hacking. They hired me to try to hack into their system so they know if there are any weaknesses that they can fix before someone else does it illegally.” I explained.

He silently nodded, pulling up a chair. “So how do you know what you’re looking for?”

“Ok so first I need to know as much as possible about the system I intend to hack. I use nmap which basically scans everything. Then when I find the weak spots, I try to exploit them. Once I'm in, I wanna maintain access to the system so I install backdoors.”

“Why do you wanna maintain access? I thought it was like a one and done thing?” Ash asked.

“If you were gunna hack someone for money, would you want to get in their shit once and that's it or would you want to be able to access it again if they don't pay up? You have to remember once you tell them I hacked you, passwords are changing and security is gunna be upped. You wanna be in there before that happens.”

“I gotchu so after you install back doors then what?”

“That's the part I’m working on now. I'm clearing my tracks. I don't want any evidence of an attack left behind. One sign of an attack and that's it for the attack, security is upped before a ransom is ever talked about. The whole point is basically to act like a hacker that is exploiting the system for personal gain. Then I write up a report and send it to the cyber security department and they gotta take care of whatever weaknesses I found.”

“How’d you get into this shit?”

“I was a kid like you who spends too much time on the computer doin shit I shouldn’t be doing. I developed a knack for it so I figured I might as well go to school for it and make money off it.” I answered.

“You wanna teach me?” He asked.

“Ill teach you but under one condition.”

Ash sighed. “What is it?”

“Nothing illegal. I don't want the feds busting down my front door.”

“Fine. I promise I won't do nothin illegal.” He responded, pinky held out.

I smiled, linking my pinky with his.

“I’ll be right back.” I said, getting up to get a book from Fez’s room.

I handed the book over. “You have to start with the basics. This book is really good and I wrote lots of little notes in there for myself so start with this. It's basically just about coding and learning python. It will teach you how to do little projects to get a feel for it.”

He eagerly took the book, mumbling a thanks as he went to his room.

That was almost a year ago and boy has Ash learned quick. He is pretty good for being so new at it. He recently started learning how to hack which Fez has become a victim of. Ash’s first project was a device connected to the tv that allows him to remotely turn it on and off whenever he pleases. Ash made it when he was mad at Fez and he has been enjoying fucking with his big brother.

“Babee please tell him to knock it off.” Fez begged, trying to relax on the couch.

I couldn’t help but giggle. I didn’t think he would get into it as much as he did. But Ash knew better than to try it with me. I was still more experienced than he was and had no issues hacking his computer. I knocked on Ash’s door before entering.

“Listen, I love that you’ve been having fun with this and I know you’re annoyed with your brother but please stop messing with the tv.”

”Okay okay.” He smirked. “Wanna see how it works?”

“You bet your ass I do.”

[tasteleeknow]

hey i really love your writing! do you have any tips for people that are just starting out? <3

thank you so much! well, to be honest i'm just starting out myself. i started in september so i'm learning a lot all the time but i'll give it a go!

1. do a rough draft/outline first

it's good to just get your thoughts out on the page in any form you find easiest. just type out your thoughts, don't worry about making it actually readable by anyone else. for me this usually means writing dot points outlining what i want to happen and then maybe rough sentences that do very little description but kind of outline the story. i also tend to just write dialogue without any dialogue tags or description or anything literally just the words (i personally find dialogue the easiest part, so this might be different for you). everyone does this first messy outline/draft differently but once you've done that you can go back and actually turn it into something readable. it's much less overwhelming than sitting there and trying to make well written sentences from an empty document.

2. understand your characters and their motivations

if i'm writing something longer and more complex i'll have a table that outlines the characters traits, their backgrounds, their motivations, plot points that represent major character development for them. i'm very much focused on character driven stories rather than plot so i create plot lines that are moving the characters according to their development and motivations. i only do this for complex stories (like hello stranger) not like my 5k words one shots. for my shorter writing i'll include in my dot points (that i'll delete later) a much more condensed, simplified version of the table.

3. dialogue is important

from what people have told me dialogue seems to be my strong suit so i guess if i was to give advice for that... it would be to really think about how people communicate in real life. people stumble over their words, they stutter a lot (even if they don't actually have a stutter), they backtrack, they struggle to get their meaning across. human speech is very rarely perfect and often writing dialogue that way makes it seem unnatural. the imperfections in their speech also depends on what they are feeling at the time. if they are anxious they'll make more mistakes, if they are frustrated it's more likely to just be a long stream of consciousness etc. (oh also side note but adding little descriptions like 'her leg bounces as she scans the pages, pen tapping against the clipboard' or whatever is a lot better at getting emotions across than just saying 'she was nervous') also dialogue is where you can really add character and emotion! the words they use (and even how often they speak at all) does a lot to convey to readers the type of person your character is so it is worth thinking properly about it.

anyway like i said i'm new to this as well but i think there's really no wrong way to do it. you aren't going to love what you produce straight away but you have to try and practice to get better at anything. i truly believe anyone can write something others will love to read so if it's something you wanna do, go for it!

oh also onelook thesaurus is a resource i have open in a tab every single time i write. lifesaver.

one more thing! if you find a writer you really enjoy, take some time to think about what it is you like about them. you don’t have to copy their writing style but studying what you enjoy about their work can help you improve on your own! i do this a lot!

[thewildwaffle]

Allergies

Requested by mytasteinmusic on Ao3

The humans were throwing food. Why? Well, Kahpi sighed, it was anyone’s guess really. For whatever reason, they were making some sort of game out of it. One human would grab a small piece of food and toss it high up into the air and another human would attempt to catch it in their mouths and eat it. For the cleaning team’s sake, she was glad all the foods that were being thrown seemed to be fairly self-contained and held together well even after being thrown. The foods in question started out as colorful candies the humans had brought along with them from Earth. They had been searched and scanned for possible allergens and dangers they could pose to other races that would be on the ship. Kahpi, as head Food Safety Inspector, had overseen the process herself. Some human food could, after all, cause anything from slight to severe damage and trauma to digestive and respiratory tracts of different species that also worked on the ship. This meant that foods that were only safe for human consumption had to be stored and prepared separately from other food supplies, or if they were exceptionally dangerous, banned altogether. The colorful candies being thrown around now, for instance, were safe to be on the ship, but under the multi-colored exteriors was a concoction that contained theobromine and caffeine. The humans called it chocolate. They loved the stuff and used it in a wide array of foods. It was safe for them in modest amounts, and as long as they kept it to themselves, they were allowed to have it. Once the colorful candies were all consumed, and dropped pieces taken care of, the humans moved on to throwing other foods. Pretty much whatever they had in their meal: diced fruit, ripped bits of bread crusts, chunks of vegetables, etc.

Kahpi kept her eyes on their antics as she also made her rounds in the ship’s cafeteria. As boisterous as they could be, their games were no reason for her to fall behind in her own duties. It was, as the saying goes, not her spilled bucket of eesaling to guard. If they wanted to goof off on their own time, that wasn’t her business. As long as it didn’t cause harm to anyone else. Usually by sharing their food with other races without clearance or supervision, they were fine. In any case, it seemed that their food throwing gag was starting to die down. They returned to eating their meals normally, laughing and joking around loudly with each other as was the norm. Kahpi was thankful that few of the crewmembers that regularly spent their time with the humans were not of races that could boast similar skill of great aim and power while throwing. That would help deter others to pick up the food-throwing in the future. Just as Kahpi was wrapping up and about to leave, she overheard a disturbance from the humans. They all started speaking or shouting at once. “Dude! What the- what’s happening to your face?” “Oh my gosh!“ "What’s going on? I think I’m going to throw up!” “Carlton, you’re breaking out!” Kahpi looked over to the humans were now starting to rise from their seats, onsets of panic starting to creep into their body language. “Are you allergic to something?” “I don’t think so?” “What is it? What have you eaten?” “I don’t know, I’ve never had allergies before!” “Oh frewan, some of the m&ms had peanuts! Are you allergic to nuts?” “I don’t know! I used to eat peanut butter all the time as a kid!” “Could it be the nuts?” “I don’t know, I don’t know what else it could have been!” “Chris, you have allergies, right? What do we do?!” Alarmed by the humans’ reaction, Kahpi, as well as several others that were in the cafeteria, approached cautiously to see if any aid could be given. Whatever could spook a group of humans so badly must be dealt with quickly and conclusively. As she approached, one of the humans, Chris, ran off and disappeared down a nearby corridor. She paused. Was he fleeing? And if so, what from? Should she flee as well? The other humans weren’t running, at least not yet. Instead, they were gathering around Human Carlton, who, now that Kahpi had gotten closer and could see more clearly, did not look like he was well. His skin, usually the color of a richly tanned deygbah hide, looked splotchy and red. His eyes were unusually watery and swollen. In fact, everything about him was starting to look just a little bit swollen in parts. Kahpi’s second stomach dropped. Carlton was going to die! “Come on guys, back up a bit, give him some room!” Human Macy, the newest human to the crew, had everyone shuffle back so Carlton could lie down. Kahpi was just about to bolt down one of the corridors nearby that she knew would lead her to the med bay, in her panic forgetting that she had her comm device, when Chris returned from where he’d run off to, carrying a short cylindrical container tightly in his fist. Everyone parted in the small gathering crowd to let him in. He slid on his knees and stopped right next to Carlton who was now lying on his back. With a pull at the wider, blue-colored end, Chris plunged the device into his companion’s thigh. Kahpi could hear a small click and Chris held the device firmly in place for a few tiks. As he pulled the device away, Chris looked up and his eyes met with Kahpi’s. “Get a medic here now,” He said calmly but with an intensity that snapped Kaphi out of her trance. Within a few moortiks, Medics Jeebarul and Minti were loading Carlton onto a stretcher and taking him back to the med bay, Chris and Kahpi were allowed to follow. Later, after a discussion with the humans, medics, and the captain, Kahpi learned that it was indeed a food allergy that had caused this whole mess. The colorful candies that had been okayed for human consumption were to blame, particularly the ones that contained an Earth food called “peanuts.” Alarmed at the news, Kahpi pulled up the files she had access to on the humans. Compared to other species on the ship, and throughout the entire galaxy for that matter, humans had a relatively short list of known allergens. Of the humans on the ship, her records only stated that Humans Chris and Ricardo had allergies. Shellfish and animal dander, respectively. Worried that she had failed in her duty of food safety, she scanned Carlton’s files over and over. “I don’t understand,” her voice trembled slightly as the captain frowned at her, “There’s nothing here. No known allergens.” The captain’s fins pulled back tightly against his face. “Then what happened? What was all that?” Chris, who had returned from helping the medics get Carlton settled, responded, “We’re pretty sure it was the peanuts. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” “But my records-” “Say that he doesn’t have a peanut allergy, yeah,” Chris interrupted, “but that just means he hasn’t been tested for it. He’s had no need to. He didn’t know. He didn’t use to be allergic to peanuts, but now as an adult, he is. Somehow, he hasn’t eaten anything with peanuts or peanut oil or whatever for years, so unluckily, he had no idea he was allergic.” He paused. “Or maybe it was lucky? I mean, we had an epipen on hand and he’s okay now, and now he knows so… I guess it was kind of lucky?” “What do you mean he wasn’t allergic before?” Kahpi sputtered. “That doesn’t make sense! How is he allergic now?” Chris shrugged. “It happens sometimes. You can develop an allergy to something later in life that used to be okay. No one really knows why.” Both Kahpi and the captain stared at him for a moment. The captain was the first to regain composure. “Well, I suppose it was fortunate that the medics had a supply of these… ‘epi-pens’ stocked.” He hesitated a moment in thought and then nodded to the cylinder that was still in Chris’ hand. “I suppose we better request more of those, just in case. What exactly do they do?” Chris lifted the ‘epipen’ up for better observation. “It’s got a dose of epinephrine in it. It’s adrenaline, so it constricts blood vessels and speeds up the heart so blood pressure rises and it helps relax muscles in your airway so you can breathe again.” They both stared at him. After an uncomfortable silence, Chris added, “It’s not very fun. But it keeps you alive until doctors can help.” The captain had a few more questions, both for Chris and for the medics when they came back out. All the while, Kahpi had time to try to ponder on and digest all the new information and implications this would bring to her job. Allergens were a thing among many species, yes. That’s why she had the job she had. However, few, if any that she could think of right now, had allergies that were caused by foods FROM THEIR OWN PLANET OF ORIGIN! Not only that, but some allergens were safe to eat for one human, but not another?! Where is the reason for that? What evolutionary purpose could that possibly serve for a species? Or was it just some weird fluke, one of so so many, that humans just came with? She buried her face in her hands. Well, this whole thing was going to throw a bit more complications to her job now. Apparently even human food wasn’t always safe for humans. Go. Flargin’. Figure.

[cherry-valentine]

Spring 2021 Anime Season

Mars Red is one of two series this season set in one of my favorite periods, the Meiji era. It’s a vampire series that deals a lot with the politics of war as the Japanese military is attempting to establish a vampire unit, supposedly to compete with the British vampire unit (because of course that’s a thing). It focuses on a human military officer named Maeda who is charged with recruiting and managing vampires. Maeda is the type of character I really enjoy. Handsome, a little older than most anime protagonists, chain-smoking, overly serious, and voiced by Junichi Suwabe (who has to have the sexiest voice in all of anime). The series has a classic, romantic feel to it. Its take on vampires is somewhat traditional (they evaporate in the sun, drink blood, sleep in coffins, have super strength and speed, etc.). If it brings anything new to the table, it’s the concept of vampires having different ranks, from S-class down, and how lower ranks naturally fear higher ranks. Still yet, the classic vibe works in the show’s favor. Combined with the historical setting, it gives the show a certain charm. The art is lovely, from the backgrounds to the character designs, and the music is a high point. It easily has the best ending theme of the season.

Fumetsu no Anata e (To Your Eternity) is a unique series. I’ve seen a lot of people comparing it to Mushishi, but with an overarching plot, and that assessment is pretty accurate. The show follows an entity that comes to be known as Fushi. It begins as an orb, and as it makes contact with other objects and creatures, it learns from them and can possibly take their forms. Among the forms it most often takes are a white wolf and a young man. Originally, it’s a somewhat empty shell, incapable of communicating, but as it meets different creatures and learns, it develops a personality and begins to speak. The series is, overall, about Fushi’s journey through this world and all the experiences it gains, both wonderful and tragic. There’s a subtle beauty to the series, with an early focus on nature, but it also has scenes of trauma and violence. The animation is fluid and the facial expressions are amazing. There’s an overall natural feel to it that, like others have pointed out, reminds me of Mushishi (though it’s definitely faster paced than Mushishi). The show also likes to make you cry, so keep that in mind.

Joran: The Princess of Snow and Blood is the other series set in the Meiji era this season, albeit an alternate version of it that has a strange form of technology. To be honest, I’m a little fuzzy on some of the details, but it seems to be about a group called the Nue who work for the government to fight against a growing rebellion. The main character is Sawa, a member of Nue who has some sort of special powers involving her blood, which allow her to transform and battle monsters, or whatever else stands in her way. Her goal is to get revenge for the death of her entire clan (implied to be wiped out because of their power). Sawa is a decent heroine, a woman who craves vengeance and is determined to get it through any means, but is, at her core, a compassionate person who would rather live in peace. It’s this internal conflict that makes Sawa compelling (even if it’s not entirely original). The other characters are interesting, particularly Tsuki, whom I won’t talk much about because it would involve spoilers. The plot and details can get a little convoluted, but the action and animation are solid. When Sawa transforms, the art style changes, and it’s a really cool visual effect. The music is also nice.

Shaman King received a remake this season. I was a huge fan of the original, and so far I’m enjoying the remake, but to be honest, I’m having trouble seeing the point. The art is almost the same (just a lot shinier), the voice actors are the same, the plot is the same. Maybe it’s just that it’s been so long since I saw the original, I’m unable to remember the details and so I can’t tell what’s different. But to me it feels like I’m just rewatching the show. Which is fine, because I loved it to begin with. Maybe it gets different later on. Maybe it more closely follows the manga. I’ll keep watching to find out. For anyone new to the series, it looks like the remake is a solid place to start if you want to get into it. I won’t go into plot details for a story this old, so I’ll just say it’s a top tier shounen fighting series with a unique art style and some very memorable characters. If you like that sort of thing, and missed the original (or you just want a refresher), definitely check it out!

Godzilla Singular Point is a true delight. I’m a huge Godzilla (and kaiju in general) fan. I’ve watched every single Godzilla movie, as well as all the related movies (the Mothra films, Rodan, etc.), but I never watched the previous Godzilla anime that was on Netflix a few years ago. It just didn’t sound like something I’d like. Singular Point, however, is right up my alley. Set mainly in a small seaside town that’s suddenly attacked by bird-like monsters known as Rodans, we have two geeky protagonists using their intelligence to figure out what’s going on while more and more monsters appear. Mei and Yun are excellent heroes. They rely on their wits rather than physical strength, which is a refreshing approach. It’s also interesting that they have little to no face-to-face interaction. Instead, they chat with each other via text as they work separately. They often challenge each other with science questions. It’s adorable. The show’s overall feel is fairly upbeat and energetic. The colorful art and peppy character designs by Kazue Kato (who did Blue Exorcist) help with this feel. It should be noted that Godzilla himself doesn’t fully appear until halfway through the series. It says a lot about the quality of the show that I don’t actually mind that at all. Some of the science stuff does go over my head, but the general plot is easy enough to follow and the action is very well done. It also has fantastic music, with my favorite opening theme of the season. Even if Godzilla isn’t your thing, consider giving this series a shot if you like nerdy science types as heroes.

Burning Kabaddi is a sports anime about an unsual sport. I’d never heard of it before now, and if people in the comments were not talking about the very real sport, I would have assumed it was made up for the anime. The show is aware that the sport is obscure, so it takes great pains to explain the rules and details so that we can all follow the action. The story centers on Yoigoshi, a soccer prodigy who decides to drop all sports once he gets to high school due to all the drama and angst that surrounded him (mostly due to his teammates being jealous of his talent), and pursue a career as a streamer. All the various sports clubs at the school want to recruit him (especially the soccer club, of course) because they’ve heard of his skill and he has an athletic build. He rejects them all, but the Kabaddi club is strangely relentless. He ends up being manipulated into joining (the vice captain of the team straight up blackmails him by threatening to show his online streaming account to the whole school). Despite this rocky beginning, Yoigoshi actually starts to enjoy playing Kabaddi, and more importantly, begins to bond with his new teammates. It’s pretty fun stuff that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The art is serviceable for a sports anime and the music is fine. The series isn’t going to blow your mind, but it’s a fun way to spend twenty minutes every week. Worth a watch if you have a weakness for hot blooded sports anime.

The World Ends With You finally got its anime adaptation and I was so excited. The game is one of my all-time favorites. So far the anime is pretty good. The art is a near perfect replication of the bold, thick-lined art of the game. The battles are exciting and cool. Best of all, the anime often uses music from the game. This is important because the game has one of the best soundtracks, ever. Every time I recognize a song from the game, I almost squeal. If I had a complaint, it’s that the pacing feels a little off at times. It feels like the anime is rushing through the story, but that’s understandable. In the game, it took longer for everything to happen because you were walking from place to place, fighting battles along the way, stopping to scan NPC’s, shopping at stores, spending time in menus, etc. The anime has to cut most of that out, so naturally things are going to move faster. The result is that you don’t get to spend as much time with these characters, and so you feel less attached to them. Anyone watching the anime who didn’t play the game might feel like the emotional beats are lacking. I feel like this anime is definitely meant to be enjoyed by fans of the game, rather than newcomers to the story. But if you are a fan of the game? You should be watching this every week. It’s an excellent refresher on the story, just in time for the second game to come out this summer. Super high on my watch list.

Boku no Hero Academia has a new season. To be honest I don’t remember what number we’re on. This season, so far, focuses on a tournament-style competition between the two main hero classes. I would much prefer the plot to move on to something more exciting involving the villains, but I suppose they have to throw arcs like this in every so often just to remind everyone of which characters have which quirks. The plus point is that instead of being an individual competition, it’s team-based. What this ultimately means is that characters that are viewed as weaker or having more obscure quirks actually get a chance to shine. These are characters who definitely aren’t going to win one-on-one battles. In an individual tournament, it’s pretty much a given that characters like Deku, Bakugou, and Todoroki are going to win most of the matches. But in a team, everyone has to work together. The end result is that the lady characters, all of whom have fairly weak or situational quirks, finally FINALLY get to actually do stuff! Even better, in several of the match-ups, the girls have taken the lead in planning and strategizing. It’s been pretty nice to watch. The girls from the other class have been very proactive as well. I really wish the girls could do more in “real” battles with villains, since it’s clear that they can step up when they need to. Who knows? Maybe this is a sign of good things to come.

86 is a new mecha/sci-fi anime based on a series of light novels. The setup is fairly cool: In a country where everyone has silver hair and eyes, the people live in what looks like a utopia. There is a war going on outside their protected land but all combat is performed by automated robots, so there are no human casualties... or so the government would have the people believe. In reality, there is a district that exists on the outskirts of the country called 86, where people who don’t have silver hair and eyes are sent to pilot the robots and fight to protect the country that shunned them. Most of the pilots are children or teenagers. The mortality rate is high. Only a few people in the government know of their existence, mostly military types that include “handlers”. These handlers each take on an 86 unit and communicate with them through a system called “para-raid”. Using this, they monitor the battlefield from their safe positions and issue commands. Naturally, most handlers view their units as nothing more than tools in the war, and most 86-ers view their handlers as privileged snobs who know nothing of actual battle. The real plot kicks in when Lena, a young Major, becomes the new handler for a particular 86 unit. Lena is sympathetic to the people of 86, but it’s going to be hard getting her notoriously rough unit to accept her. The plot is a bit complicated and the show deals with some weighty themes (racism, privilege, war, child soldiers, death). Lena is a likable enough heroine and the members of 86 are all interesting and fairly well written. The music is fine. The art... well, it’s pretty to look at, but it feels a bit generic to me. A bit too shiny. The mecha designs are great, but I’m not crazy about the character designs, which feel like they could be from any other modern anime. I also find it sad but hilarious at the same time that the women’s military uniforms are clearly designed for fanservice (they include mini skirts, thigh-highs with garters, and a short jacket that opens up just above the chest to show the tight shirt underneath) while the men’s uniforms are just totally normal military wear. To be honest it’s just too stupid to actually be offensive, so it comes across as comical. Thankfully, the interesting setup and plot carry the show, making it good enough to overlook the generic visuals.

Moriarty the Patriot has a new season... maybe? I think it’s technically still season one, but with a split cour. Regardless, it feels like a new season so I’m treating it as such. The series focuses on famous Sherlock antagonist Moriarty, here represented as a trio of handsome brothers (though one of them is clearly the protagonist and the leader of the group) who work as “crime consultants” and basically help the lower classes wage class warfare against the nobility. This season shifts the focus away from the individual crimes Moriarty concocts and instead focuses on larger-scale conflicts that involve government conspiracies, corrupt cops, etc. We’re also treated to a lady James Bond (finally!), fixing one of the very few complaints I had about the first cour (that it lacked strong lady characters). The show remains very compelling, with beautiful art and excellent new opening and ending themes.

Best of Season:

Best New Show: Godzilla Singular Point

Best Opening Theme: Godzilla Singular Point

Best Ending Theme: Mars Red

Best New Male Character: Maeda (Mars Red)

Best New Female Character: Sawa (Joran)

[blindbeta]

I have a question about 2 characters. One is blind because of an accident but he was too young to remember it, the other is deafblind because of Usher syndrome. I was wondering if my story should spend time adressing the differences between the two characters blindness or at least the differences between being deafblind and hearing and blind. And if so how much time should be spent on it?

Hi nonnie!

This is a great question. I’ll address it in parts! I love that you have at least two blind characters in your story, avoiding tokenism. Perhaps include another D/deaf character or even another DeafBlind character if you haven’t already.

The Accident Narrative

I like that you have avoided the tragedy/traumatic aspect of the narrative by having the accident happen when the character was too young to remember. While I would personally prefer no accident, the trope is really that a person who is old enough to remember seeing (often a teenager) loses their sight in a traumatic and/or violent way. Then a sighted writer writes about the grief and pain of losing sight, which is not their story to tell.

So yay on the character being too young to remember. You can simply mention the accident, without focusing on it too much. I think it will be fine.

DeafBlind vs Blind (And Hearing)

I think taking some time to describe the differences between their blindness would be interesting and helpful for readers. I know the instinct is to say “blindness doesn’t define them” and while this is true, it should not stop you from addressing ways it does impact their lives.

By your ask, I can tell you already know, although I’ll add this for the sake of readers not familiar with my blog. Blindness exists on a spectrum, especially when one considers what caused it. Deafness also exists on a spectrum. Therefore, so does DeafBlindness. With what I read about Usher syndrome, the type of User syndrome will lead to different experiences. You’ll want to say which type the character has (Type I, II, or III) and at some point, show the symptoms the character has. You probably don’t have to do much except mention their age (and/or when they went blind or D/deaf as it depends on the type of Usher syndrome they have).

From my understanding, apparent hearing loss before adulthood will rule out Type III, although vision loss in adolescence can happen there as well. Type I and II both include hearing loss at birth (whatever that will look like for your character) and vision loss starting in childhood or adolescence/adulthood, depending on the type. The type will also include something about whether or not that person has trouble with balance.

A better overview of the differences can be found here for any curious readers.

Now, back to you, anon. I think the difference between the characters’ levels of blindness should be given some focus. Blind people, when we first meet and many of us are together, will sometimes talk about our eye conditions, what we can or cannot see, etc. There is a lot of variation among us already, even when all the people in the room are hearing.

Rather than talking about it outright (which might seem a bit stilted if writen by a non-blind person), I suggest using sight or level of access to blind technology in subtle and practical ways. “Can anyone read that sign?” “This part of the menu is too small. Can anyone read or scan it?” “Can someone describe this shirt to me? It has a nice fit and looks fancy so I might get it to wear at the office, but I want to know if it has any weird designs.”

If your characters meet, they can do something like that through whatever communication they prefer. Sign, texting, a different method for each of them, etc. Depending on where they are on the spectrum, the DeafBlind person may even have better vision than the blind person. From my research, some DeafBlind people will lose peripheral vision and develop blind spots or tunnel vision. Depending on the type (when they went blind), they may be recently dealing with vision loss and the blind character, having dealt with it their whole life, could offer some tips. There are a lot of ways you could handle it depending on what the differences between their vision entails.

I would suggest focusing on this throughout the story (or however long they are together) in subtle ways, focusing on building character development and relationships. Readers need to know 1) blindness is a spectrum and 2) DeafBlindness is also a spectrum. This will accomplish educating your readers in a way that feels natural and doesn’t take them out of the story. (Note: sometimes you will be accused of focusing too much or not enough on their disability no matter what you do, and you may be accused of being an after-school special no matter how well you write this. This is ableism talking and you can usually ignore it if it doesn’t come from disabled people.)

As for User syndrome and the differences between the Types, you can include what you feel works best for your story. Maybe include information in the end of the story if you would like. I think it would also be okay to let readers research the different types as they please, with your book as a starting point for that.

You can also include other blind or D/deaf characters for fun. Maybe the blind character has a D/deaf sibling or cousin or parent and learned Sign. Maybe the DeafBlind character has a blind worker (to help with school or something) and this worker is blind in one eye or has low vision or some other thing. I don’t know what you’re doing with your story, so these are only suggestions.

How Much Time?

I would say that, while their disability will touch all aspects of their lives in some small ways and while you want to highlight the differences and similarities in their experiences with blindness, I would suggest not making this the main focus of the story unless it is a short story. My instinct is to spread it out throughout the story and maybe have these parts add up to several pages at most. The number of pages don’t matter. There is no safe or unsafe limit and no amount of time you are expected to spend on this topic. Go with what feels right and have them focus on other things as well.

Being Blind and Hearing

I would spend a bit on this topic as well, just to make it clear to readers that there is a difference beyond Able to Listen to Music versus Not. One big difference is what is accessible. People often get Sign and Braille mixed up or think they’re the same kind of language. D/deafness and blindness often get lumped together and people rarely consider the differences in how they interact with the world, let alone what it really means to be blind and hearing.

My instinct is to devote some time to this also. However, it can incorporated into the story. You can introduce these topics in ways that feel comfortable for you.

Last Thoughts

You can keep track of this by writing a bullet list of what you want to include in terms of explaining things to readers. Come up with ways this would fit into the character development and plot. When the story is done, look at your list and see if you included what you wanted to include. As for time, the next time you re-read the story for editing purposes, highlight paragraph ls where these things come up (not them being blind or DeafBlind but the differences between them) and paste them into another document. See how long you have focused on these things. Do you feel it is too much? Not enough?

Get a few blind and DeafBlind sensitivity readers. D/deaf readers may also be helpful. I would try to have at least two sensitivity readers, although three or four would be ideal for this story. Get a few readers without experience with blind, D/deaf, or DeafBlind people and ask them to read. What questions do they have? Do you feel they are coming from a good place? Can you address them in any way in the story?

I hope this helps. If anyone else with more experience in these communities want to add anything, feel free! I definitely do not speak for D/deaf or DeafBlind people, so I tried to focus on the blindness part of this question.

-BlindBeta

[reachexceedinggrasp]

Would love to hear about your beefs with Lucas because I have beefs with Lucas

(Sorry it took me three thousand years to answer this, anon.)

They mainly fall under a few headings, with the third being the most serious and the thing that I am genuinely irl furious about at least biannually (and feeling unable to adequately sum up The Problem with it after yelling about it so often is a huge part of why this post has been in my drafts for such a long time):

1. His self-mythologising and the subsequent uncritical repetition of his bullshit in the fandom. Obvious lies like that he had some master plan for 10 films when it’s clear he did not have anything like a plot outline at any point. We all know the thing was written at the seat of various people’s pants, it’s blatantly self-evident that’s the case. There’s also plenty of public record about how the OT was written. Even dumber, more obvious lies, like that Anakin was ‘always the protagonist’ and the entire 6 films were his story from the beginning. This is preposterous and every time someone brings it up (usually with palpable smugness) as fanboys ‘not understanding star wars’ because they don't get that ‘the OT is not Luke's story’... Yeah, I just... I cannot.

Vader wasn’t Anakin Skywalker until ESB, it’s a retcon. It’s a brilliant retcon and it works perfectly, it elevated SW into something timeless and special it otherwise would not have been, but you can tell it wasn’t the original plan and there’s proof it wasn’t the original plan. Let’s not pretend. And Luke is the protagonist. No amount of waffling about such esoteric flights of theory as ‘ring structure’ is going to get away from the rigidly orthodox narrative and the indisputable fact that it is Luke’s hero’s journey. Vader’s redemption isn’t about his character development (he has almost none) and has no basis in any kind of convincing psychological reality for his character, but it doesn’t need to be because it’s part of Luke’s arc, because Vader is entirely a foil in Luke’s story. It’s a coming-of-age myth about confronting and growing beyond the father.

All attempts to de-centre Luke in RotJ just break the OT’s narrative logic. It’s a character-driven story and the character driving is Luke. Trying to read it as Anakin’s victory, the moral culmination of his choices rather than Luke’s and putting all the agency into Anakin’s hands just destroys the trilogy’s coherence and ignores most of its content in favour of appropriating a handful of scenes into an arc existing only in the prequels. The dilemma of RotJ is how Luke will define ethical adulthood after learning and growing through two previous films worth of challenge, education, failure, and triumph; it’s his choice to love his father and throw down his sword which answers the question the entire story has been asking. Vader’s redemption and the restoration of the galaxy are the consequences of that choice which tell us what kind of world we’re in, but the major dramatic conflict was resolved by Luke’s decision not the response to it.

And, just all over, the idea of Lucas as an infallible auteur is inaccurate and annoying to me. Obviously he’s a tremendous creative force and we wouldn’t have sw without him, but he didn’t create it alone or out of whole cloth. The OT was a very collaborative effort and that’s why it’s what it is and the prequels are what they are. Speaking of which.

2. The hubris of the prequels in general and all the damage their many terrible, protected-from-editors choices do to the symbolic fabric of the sw universe. Midicholrians, Yoda fighting with a lightsabre, Obi-wan as Anakin's surrogate father instead of his peer, incoherent and unmotivated character arcs, the laundry list of serious and meaningful continuity errors, the bad storytelling, the bad direction, the bad characterisation, the shallowness of the parallels which undermine the OT’s imagery, the very clumsy and contradictory way the A/P romance was handled, the weird attitude to romance in general, it goeth on. I don’t want to re-litigate the entire PT here and I’m not going to, but they are both bad as films and bad as prequels. The main idea of them, to add Anakin’s pov and create an actual arc for him as well as to flesh out the themes of compassion and redemption, was totally appropriate. The concept works as a narrative unit, there are lots of powerful thematic elements they introduce, they have a lot of cool building blocks, it’s only in execution and detail that they do a bunch of irreparable harm.

But the constant refrain that only ageing fanboys don’t like them and they only don’t like them because of their themes or because they humanise Anakin... can we not. The shoddy film making in the prequels is an objective fact. If you want to overlook the bad parts for the good or prioritise ideas over technique, that’s fine, but don’t sit here and tell me they’re masterworks of cinema there can be no valid reason to criticise. I was the exact right age for them when I saw them, I am fully on board with the fairy tale nature of sw, I am fully on board with humanising Anakin- the prequels just have a lot of very big problems with a) their scripts and b) their direction, especially of dialogue scenes. If Lucas had acknowledged his limitations like he did back in the day instead of believing his own press, he could have again had the help he obviously needed instead of embarrassing himself.

3. Killing and suppressing the original original trilogy. I consider the fact that the actual original films are not currently available in any form, have never been available in an archival format, and have not been presented in acceptable quality since the VHS release a very troubling case study in the problems of corporate-owned art. LF seizing prints of the films whenever they are shown, destroying the in-camera negatives to make the special editions with no plans to restore them, and doing all in the company’s considerable power to suppress the original versions is something I consider an act of cultural vandalism. The OT defined a whole generation of Hollywood. It had a global impact on popular entertainment. ANH is considered so historically significant it was one of the first films added to the US Library of Congress (Lucas refused to provide even them with a print of the theatrical release, so they made their own viewable scan from the 70s copyright submission).

The fact that the films which made that impact cannot be legally accessed by the public is offensive to me. The fact that Lucas has seen fit to dub over or composite out entire performances (deleting certain actors from the films), to dramatically alter the composition of shots chosen by the original directors, to radically change the entire stylistic tone by completely reinventing the films’ colour timing in attempt to make them match the plasticy palate of the prequels, to shoot new scenes for movies he DID NOT DIRECT, add entire sequences or re-edit existing sequences to the point of being unrecognisable etc. etc. is NOT OKAY WITH ME when he insists that his versions be the ONLY ones available.

I’m okay with the Special Editions existing, though I think they’re mostly... not good... but I’m not okay with them replacing the original films. And all people can say is ‘well, they’re his movies’.

Lucas may have clear legal ownership in the capitalistic sense, but in no way does he have clear artistic ownership. Forget the fans, I’m not one of those people who argue the fans are owed something: A film is always a collaborative exercise and almost never can it be said that the end product is the ultimate responsibility and possession of one person. Even the auteur directors aren't the sole creative vision, even a triple threat like Orson Welles still had cinematographers and production designers, etc. Hundreds of artists work on films. Neither a writer nor a director (nor one person who is both) is The Artist behind a film the way a novelist is The Artist behind a novel. And Lucas did NOT write the screenplays for or direct ESB or RotJ. So in what sense does he have a moral right to alter those films from what the people primarily involved in making them deemed the final product? In what sense would he have the right to make a years-later revision the ONLY version even if he WERE the director?

Then you get into the issue of the immeasurable cultural impact those films had in their original form and the imperative to preserve something that is defining to the history of film and the state of the zeitgeist. I don't think there is any ‘fan entitlement’ involved in saying the originals belonged to the world after being part of its consciousness for decades and it is doing violence to the artistic record to try to erase the films which actually occupied that space. It's exactly like trying to replace every copy of It's a Wonderful Life with a colourised version (well, it's worse but still), and that was something Lucas himself railed against. It’s like if Michaelangelo were miraculously resuscitated and he decided to repaint the Sistine Ceiling to add a gunfight and change his style to something contemporary.

I get genuinely very upset at the cold reality that generations of people are watching sw for the first time and it’s the fucking SE-except-worse they’re seeing. And as fewer people keep physical media and the US corporate oligarchy continues to perform censorship and rewrite history on its streaming services unchecked by any kind of public welfare concerns, you’ll see more and more ‘real Mandela effect’ type shit where the cultural record has suddenly ‘always’ been in line with whatever they want it to be just now. And US media continues to infect us all with its insidious ubiquity. I think misrepresenting and censoring the past is an objectively bad thing and we can’t learn from things we pretend never happened, but apparently not many people are worried about handing the keys to our collective experience to Disney and Amazon.

4. The ‘Jedi don’t marry’ thing and how he wanted this to continue with Luke post-RotJ, so it’s obviously not meant to be part of what was wrong with the order in the prequels. I find this... incoherent on a storytelling level. The moral of the anidala story then indeed becomes just plain ‘romantic love is bad and will make you crazy’, rather than the charitable reading of the prequels which I ascribe to, which is that the problem isn’t Anakin’s love for Padmé, it’s that he ceased to love her and began to covet her. And I can’t help but feel this attitude is maybe an expression of GL’s issues with women following his divorce. I don’t remember if there’s evidence to contradict that take, since it’s been some time since I read about this but yeah. ANH absolutely does sow seeds for possible Luke/Leia development and GL was still married while working on that film. Subsequently he was dead set against Luke ever having a relationship and decided Jedi could not marry. Coincidence?

There’s a lot of blinking red ‘issues with women’ warning signs all over Lucas’s work, but the prequels are really... egregious.

[thecultoflexithewulf]

Magick: Guide To learning

This post is not entirely completed but it is a rough outline of how I would go about setting up this system. It will be added to as I find more information.

This is a general guide for magick based on my understandings and practices and what I have found to be helpful at each level of development. This scale starts at absolute no knowledge, and goes up to an individual with a practice that can now expand outwards learning everything. This is not done with any other form of tradition rather than mine, and is based on the general understanding of magick, and is to better help with understanding the question of where do I start. you do not need to finish everything in one stage before moving onto another one. what is recommended that you finish as much as possible, because one stage feeds on to the next one. This post is also broken up into my categories of magic. These being Pyrosophic, geosophic, hydrosophic, and aerosophic.

Pyrosophic:

Pyrosophic is associated to the element of fire. Pyrosophic forms of magick, and understanding are fundamental, and active. They are sources that emanate outwards, and act as axioms, and supports for other knowledge, and practices. They are simple, but effective, and are the first things I believe a practitioner should know when they are starting out learning magick. Pyrosophic is very knowledge-based, and energetically based, and it is the foundation that we build upon all other knowledge. It is the first emanation of any particular knowledge, before it incorporates any other advanced features. It contains a lot of beginner information, and energy work.

Geosophic:

Geosophic is associated to the element of earth. Geosophic are things that are a little bit more complicated, and work off the understandings that are figured out in pyrosophic. It takes the fundamental understandings, and gives you tools in order to advance what you already have. Geosophic builds upon the foundation that was solidified by pyrosophic, and makes it a little bit more complicated bringing in object, symbols, and correspondences to work with. A lot of forms of folk magic, and thaumaturgy are going to be here in this category, because of its incorporation of tools, and symbols to manifest it’s desires.

Hydrosophic:

Hydrosophic is associated to the element of water. Hydrosophic focuses on internal knowledge through the acts of meditation, and altered states of consciousness. It allows you to learn more about yourself, and the inner workings of you through the practices, and understandings that it holds. This encompasses everything that takes place within, and that interacts with the inner being that is you.

Aerosophic:

Aerosophic is associated to the element of air. Aerosophic encompasses understandings, and the practices of theurgy, and the higher knowledge of the universe, and source. It is focused on understanding the outer world beyond the practitioner. This encompasses everything that takes place without, and looks for the higher meaning in the whole of reality.

Once you reach the final level of adept you are able to go out, and begin staying in learning even more knowing that you have the foundations of a practice. Other things you may also want to learn about that may help you on your path are Philosophy, Science, History, Psychology, Religious Studies, language, and culture.

There are three stages to this process, and they are known as seekers, student, and adapt.

Seeker | Stage 1:

Pyrosophic:

Learn about how magick works.

Learn about the models of magick.

Learn about the laws of magick.

Learn about the words Magic, and Magick

Learn about what type of magickal practitioners there are.

Learn about different magical, and spiritual traditions.

Learn about how magick is categorized.

Begin keeping a journal of your experiences, and what you have learned.

Learn about (Masculine and feminine energy), and/or (yin and yang).

Learn about mind, body, and spirit.

Learn about the 4 Western classical elements.

Learn about liminality, liminal spaces, and liminal States.

Learn about spiritual energy.

Learn about Energetic Blockages

Learn about Energetic Overflow

Learn about Energetic Burnout

Learn about intention, will, and action.

Learn, and practice centering.

Learn, and practice grounding.

Learn, and practice energy breathing.

Learn, and practice Affirmations.

Learn about the power hand, and receptive hand.

Learn, and practice the spiritual energy ball.

Learn, and practice Pushing, And Pulling spiritual energy.

Learn, and practice Absorbing Energy

Learn about magical protection that you can use especially casting the circle.

Learn about banishing

Learn about Energetic cleansing

Geosophic:

Learn about Nature cycles

Learn about Lunar phases

Learn about Magickal Tools

Hydrosophic:

Practice Visualization

Practice Focus meditation

Practice Clearing your mind meditation

Practice Mindfulness

Finding your Sacred Space

Aerosophic:

Learn about Different types of spiritual entities

Learn about different pantheons and religions

Find and communicate with your deity.

Learn about and do Deity work.

Learn about and go about finding your Spirit guides.

Student | Stage 2:

Pyrosophic:

Learn about Spiritual Energy Scanning.

Learn How to Read Spiritual Energy.

Learn to see auras.

Learn to see energy in the air.

Learn about Energetics system.

Learn, and practice charging, and opening the energy centers.

Learn about Planes of existence.

Learn about Dimensions.

Learn about UPE, USPE, CE, UPG, USPG, CG, VPG, and Lore.

Geosophic:

Learn about Setting up an altar.

Learn about Setting up an shrines.

Learn about Crystal magick, and Geology.

Learn about Herbs magick, and herbalism.

Learn about Color magick, and color theory.

Learn about Candle magick.

Learn about Elemental Magick.

Learn about money Magick

Learn about love Magick

Learn about Sigilcraft, and sigil magick.

Learn about Numerology.

Learn about how to create magical tools such as a staff or wand.

Learn about, and practice enchanting items.

Learn about binding Magick.

Learn about magick that focuses on a specific entity or constructs, such as but not limited to: Wolf Magick, Dragon magick, Fairy magick, Angel magick, etc.

Hydrosophic:

Practice Journey meditation.

Practice Shape-Shifting meditation.

Aerosophic:

Learn and practice forms of divination

Adept | Stage 3:

Pyrosophic:

N/A

Geosophic:

Learn about Making your own spells, and rituals.

Learn about Taglocks, and magickal Links.

Learn about Curses.

Learn about Blood Magick.

Learn about Sex Magick.

Hydrosophic:

Learn about Dream work.

Learn about Past life regression.

Learn about Shadow work.

Learn about Create an Astral Temple.

Learn about Thought-forms.

Learn about Communicating with your higher self.

Aerosophic:

Learn about Spiritual companionship.

Learn about Working with the spirit of the land.

Learn about Channeling.

Learn about Invoking, and evoking entities.

Learn about Astral travel.

Learn about Astral projection.

Learn about Spirit burrowing.

Learn about exorcism.

[heyitsrcoor]

Meet-cute

Genre: Fluff, unrequited love, friends-to-lovers

Pairing: Day 6 Jae x Reader

Length: One-Shot

Meet-cute [noun] /ˈmiːtˌkjuːt/:

(in a movie, etc.) a humorous or interesting situation in which two people meet, that leads to them developing a romantic relationship with each other. (Cambridge Dictionary)

ɴᴏᴡ ᴘʟᴀʏɪɴɢ: Absolutely Smitten (Dodie Clark)

───────────────⚪───────────────────

◄◄⠀▐▐ ⠀��►⠀⠀ ⠀ 1:17 / 3:48 ⠀ ───○ 🔊⠀ ᴴᴰ ⚙ ❐ ⊏⊐

•••

Your 12-hour shift at the hospital just ended. The census hasn’t gone down for days and while you’ve gotten so good at convincing yourself that you’re strong and resilient, you can feel the weariness seep in through your bones.

While walking to your apartment, you noticed that the bookstore on the corner of the street has finally opened its doors. A part of you wanted to walk past it, visit another day when you’re not wearing your nurse’s uniform, tired and sweaty. But the urge to scan the book selection was much stronger and so you find yourself pushing its glass doors. The bell chimes welcome you.

The warm lights and the smell of new books were enough to calm your weary soul. The bookstore was smaller compared to the well-known ones located at the malls, but it had the organic and cozy vibe of a library which you’re very much well pleased with. And the fact that it’s not crowded yet means you’ll be able to roam around freely.

You were feeling giddy when you finally reached the non-fiction section. Your eyes scanned each title, looking for any familiar ones that could be in your TBR list.

Finally, you see a white spine, “When Breath Becomes Air.” You grabbed for it hastily which caused the books beside it to topple down.

You bowed down to reach for the books but a hand beat you to it.

“Oh thank you.” You said as you stood upright. The person was really tall that you had to tilt your head a little bit to be able to see their face. You held your breath as you stood face-to-face with a handsome, bespectacled, human being.

“Was just looking for this.” He smiled as he held the book you accidentally dropped—Being Mortal by Atul Gawande.

You pretended to be cool about it like it’s not at all a big deal to meet your ideal guy (superficially speaking) in one of your most favorite places.

“Yeah? Sorry for accidentally pushing it to its death.” It sounded alright in your mind but having said it in words made you internally cringe.

He held the book and scanned it for dents. He shrugged, “Nah, it survived the fall—despite being mortal, oh God, that was so bad.” He let out a hearty laugh which you swore could melt an iceberg. “Anyway, thanks!” He smiles once more before turning his back.

Your heart deflated a little bit. Sharing a joke with a handsome stranger at the bookstore. Isn’t that the perfect recipe for a meet-cute? Except you’ll probably never meet again. Just another statistic of your “could-have-beens”.

Well, he could have asked for your name or YOU could have offered a book suggestion. Except he probably doesn’t find you attractive enough and you don’t have the guts to make the first move on a stranger.

You shrugged the thought away. Too much Kdramas and romcoms do screw your brain a little bit. You looked at your book once more. Right, maybe you should just fill your mind more with philosophies and thought-provoking stuff. Nonetheless, you can’t contain the smile forming on your face. Butterflies should stay in the gardens and not on your guts.

•••

When you said that book guy is just another statistic of a failed meet-cute, you were pleasantly surprised to find yourself wrong.

Two months later, you’re at a coffee shop waiting in line when you spot him sitting near the window.

He was wearing a white uniform, busy typing on the laptop in front of him. Unlike the scattered papers on his table, he looked serene. He adjusts his eyeglasses and you notice how slender and beautiful his fingers are.

“He’s a student.” You thought. Before you knew it, you started computing for your possible age gap. Given it has only been a year since you’ve graduated, 5 years would be the maximum gap if he’s a freshman. You cringed at the thought of dating someone younger. Moreover, you cringed at the thought that you’d actually date someone out of your league.

“Good morning! What’s your order?” The barista’s voice booms as if calling you out back to reality.

“Oh…yeah, uhh..” You proceeded to recite your order and another 5 orders of your co-nurses at SICU (Surgical Intensive Care Unit).

Waiting for your orders, you purposefully sat on a table that could give you the best vision of him in a very lowkey manner. Whatever that is.

You tried your best to be nonchalant but your eyes would subtly glance at him.

Oh wow, is that a great view from the window? You thought as you glide your eyes to where he was. To your surprise, he was looking at you too.

You dropped your gaze for a few seconds and looked up at him once again. He was smiling and your heart starts to palpitate.

Did he recognize you?

You watch him raise his hand, waving.

Entranced, you almost waved back but a person walks past you, her white skirt blocking your view of him. You watched her sit right in front of the book guy. Your book guy. She was wearing the same uniform as him. A classmate. A really pretty classmate.

You clenched your hand. You felt embarrassed, angry even. Angry at yourself for always expecting that someone would actually look at you. And stupid for thinking that meeting your soulmate would eventually be as exciting and memorable as the Kdramas.

The barista calls your name and you get up. You picked your orders and left without turning back.

•••

The thing about reality and romance is that not every encounter will be explosive. No, it won’t be as fast as love at first sight. Sometimes, love would come in the most mundane and gradual way possible.

A week later, you’d see book guy at your workplace. He’s one of the two med students on their clerkship assigned in your unit. He’d introduce himself as “Jae” and before you could do the same, he’d utter your name and everyone would be curious to know how you knew each other.

You’d dread the fact that he’d recognize your embarrassing moment at the coffee shop but he’d say that he actually recalls meeting you at the book store. And that he just read your name from your name tag.

Days, weeks passed.

Coincidence or not, your schedule would almost be the same and so you’d spend most of your shifts with Jae. You’d almost feel tired answering his seemingly endless questions.

You’d give him a heads up on what to expect on his first observation in the OR and he’d let you borrow a book in return.

You’d still catch yourself sneaking a glance at him but work would eventually drown his presence.

You’d sometimes spend your lunch together and you’d learn that you share the same taste of music and that he plays an instrument too.

You never seemed to run out of things to talk to and sometimes—a lot of times, you’d entertain that idea that he could actually like you.

But you knew that expectations lead to disappointments so you’d eventually settle your heart that whatever you had is just purely platonic friendship and you’d convince yourself that you are totally fine with that.

You thought that once he leaves your unit, whatever connection you had will mellow down. But then he asks for your number and his first text would be “Started benign in the morning, now I just assisted in delivering a baby. Is it normal to feel like crying?”

He’d send you memes about cats and your fave shows and soon you’d develop your inside jokes.

You tried your best to keep cool and ignore the butterflies but then something actually happens.

1 year later, he’d confess to you in the same coffee shop.

"I like you. I really like you." He said.

You’d be left speechless and be teary-eyed.

“How…? When?” You’d ask.

He said he could not forget how he was amused at your facial expression when you were picking your book at the bookstore. He said he would have stricken a longer conversation if not for his dad waiting on his car who was his ride at that time.

At the coffee shop, he noticed you while you recited the lengthy orders of your workmates and he was impressed.

He did smile at you but his classmate and partner in a school activity coincidentally arrived.

And no, he did not read your name tag. He knew about it when he heard the barista called you and he remembered.

When he saw the hospital he was interning at, he wondered if you’d be there. When he saw you at the unit he was first assigned at, his heart felt like it could jump out of his chest. He thought it was “fate” and it felt like fate because your schedules would usually coincide. He said knowing you more each day excites him and gives him joy. You were his kindred spirit and confidant. You just clicked.

And just like that, your unrequited-love streak comes to an end.

"Thank you." You answered and Jae's eyes started to quiver. He opens his mouth but no words came out.

Realizing your mistake you started to say sorry which made everything worse.

Jae forced himself to smile but you can see the pain in his eyes. He thought he was being rejected!

You took his right hand on the table and held it firmly. "I like you too, Jae."

His eyes widened and he started laughing.

"Oh God, I can't believe I'm capable of having 5 different kinds of emotions in less than 10 seconds."

"Cute," you muttered.

"Did you just call me cute!?"

You shook your head and smiled. "I mean... I guess you're my meet-cute after all."

-END-

[hinnyxromione]

“Out of No Where” Harry/Ginny Claim Debunked

So, I usually do not feed into the argument that Harry and Ginny’s relationship came out of nowhere claim because first of all, I’ve always seen it as a misadvised, unjustified argument that stemmed from what the movies presented. However, since I’m quarantined in my house and I’m a social psychologist in training, I questioned whether or not there was a way to quantify Ginny Weasley and Harry Potter’s relationship to find whether or not this “out of nowhere” claim is justified. 

To develop my hypothesis, I did a literature review from social psychology academic, empirical studies on infatuation, relationships, and love in both teenage samples and young adult samples. From that review, I found a popular theory in infatuation which states that what we deem as “crushes” develop at an exponential rate (an example depicted below). 

Think of the x-axis (horizontal line) as the time passed. Think of the y-axis (vertical line) as the number of times a person thought of the person/item of interest. The red line is what we’re interested in. In the exponential graph below, as time passes, the rate of growth in number of thoughts increased “exponentially.” So in a way, think of the corner of the red line as the point in which the subject has identified that they have a crush on the person of interest. After that crush has been identified, the number of thoughts related to that person increases substantially due to the addictiveness and fascination associated with infatuation. Of course this makes sense when we think about our obsession with the Harry Potter franchise. The more we realized we loved it, the more we thought about it. (Or I assume you’ve had this experience being that you’ve read this post to this point).

Hypothesis and Measurement:

So how does this relate to Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley? My hypothesis was that Harry’s crush on Ginny would develop in a similar pattern throughout the six books leading up to their first kiss. To test this, I quantified Harry and Ginny’s relationship through the number of pages the word “Ginny” appeared in the books. Now hear me out: the books for the most part are told from Harry’s point of view (although written in third person) with exceptions in chapters such as the first chapter in the Goblet of Fire, and first chapter in the Half Blood Prince. Therefore, every time the word “Ginny” is mentioned reflects the number of times Harry acknowledges Ginny’s presence in the situation/setting. The number of times Ginny’s name appears can also relate to the strength of her association (or friendship) with Harry, which in my belief is vital in the understanding of Harry and Ginny’s relationship development. 

Limitations of the measurement that should be considered before we discuss the results: (1) since I’m using the number of PAGES that Ginny is mentioned, this number could be different from book to book depending on year of printing, size of the book, size of the font, etc, (2) “Ms. Weasley” or “Ron’s sister” and similar references were not counted, and (3) I used pages because I thought using the number of times Ginny’s name appeared was influenced by dialogue/relevance to the scene. Obviously Ginny’s name will appear more in scenes that she is the focal point of (aka Chamber of Secrets) which is hard to compare with in books where she is not the focal point (like in Prisoner of Azkaban). I hoped by standardizing the number to the number of pages, we’d get a more comparable number that we can use to analyze between book to book.

Results

The following graphic shows the results:

So, was my hypothesis supported? It’s hard to tell. 

Ginny Weasley was mentioned on three pages in the first book which makes sense; they hadn’t met, and she was only seen on platform 9 3/4 in the beginning and the end of the book.

In the Chamber of Secrets, she was the focal point of the climax of the story so obviously she would appear in more pages. Interestingly enough, “Ginny” was mentioned on 25 pages before she was taken to the Chamber at the end of the book.

Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire makes sense because she was not an intricate part of the plots of those books. She is also in the year below Harry so she was not in class with him and therefore is not in many settings where she would just be off-handedly mentioned as being present.

The Order of the Phoenix is the surprising finding. Her name was present on more pages in the fifth book than it was in the actual book where Harry confesses his infatuation for her. This is the portion that really throws the wrench in my hypothesis. However, after thinking about it more, it makes sense, and here’s why. Have you ever watched tv and noticed that the same commercial is on at every commercial break? This is purposeful because of the repetitive exposure effect; the more you see something, the more likely you are to be inclined to purchase that item. There’s a similar effect in infatuation research; the more positive experiences you have with a person, the more you are likely to develop positive feelings for that person (either friendship-related or romance-related feelings). Therefore, it makes sense that Harry would develop some sort of relationship with Ginny when she’s present in his life that many times in a year (127 times). Is it positive? For the most part, his experiences with Ginny in the fifth book are positive in that his experiences with her, even if they are negative in nature like in the Ministry, they are not negative between Ginny and Harry. 

Now why is she mentioned fewer times in the sixth book? After re-scanning through the book, there are many more scenes in which Harry is looking at Voldemort’s memories with Dumbledore which take up a lot of the book. That makes sense, of course, because that is the main point of the book. Ginny is still mentioned on 1/6 of the pages in the sixth book. While in the Order of the Phoenix, Ginny is mentioned on 1/8 of the pages in the book (it’s 200 pages longer than the Half Blood Prince).

Now, in terms of plot, what would dictate the reason behind why there is such a spike in Ginny’s presence during the fifth book? How about this:

“Hermione told me to get on with life, maybe go out with some other people, relax a bit around you, because I never used to be able to talk if you were in the room, remember? And she thought you might take a bit more notice if I was a bit more--myself.” (Pg 647 in Half Blood Prince)

Although never explicitly stated, it can be inferred that this conversation happened in the summer before Order of the Phoenix when Hermione and Ginny were rooming together at 12 Grimmauld Place. After that, Ginny made the effort to relax a bit more and show Harry that she has relaxed more around him. This means that she would have more positive, comfortable experiences with Harry which Harry might take more notice in. 

In addition, it’s important to note that there are a lot of moments that are left out of the books. Obviously, JK Rowling wouldn’t include every single day of the school year; that would make the books incredibly long and cause the books to lose their focus. This means that moments like the exploding snaps game Harry and Ginny had together after the chamber which we learned about in Cursed Child, or the enjoyable afternoons in the sixth book, were not present to include in these results. Also, more mundane events where interactions between these characters could have occurred, such as daily meals where nothing of importance to the plot happens, were also left out because how many times do you really want to read about Harry’s breakfast habits? These events could also show how many more occurrences Harry and Ginny had together and would change how these results appear.

In conclusion, Harry and Ginny’s relationship development makes sense when viewing it from a social psychology stance. Their relationship did not occur out of nowhere, in fact it makes sense that their relationship would develop in the way that it did when analyzing the number of events Harry and Ginny experience together pre-infatuation. In other words, his infatuation developed because of how much time he spent with Ginny in his fifth year. This of course does not even touch on the attractive qualities within each of them that make them compatible in the first place.

Continue arguing all you like about the development of Harry and Ginny’s relationship, but to me, it was done realistically and with common sense when it comes to driving the main plot of the story. I’m logging off and will not discuss this anymore. (I know I didn’t cite the social psychology studies but it’s tumblr and I really don’t feel like doing that right now)

[bnha-scenarios]

Okay, so, first thing first. The second half of September and the whole October has been a wild ride.

Apparently this game blew up on TikTok (and probably some other platform or something?), and now I could see that there are tons of you who downloaded the game. That's just... so... unreal, at least to me. I didn't think this project would get so much attention. Even now, I’m still waiting to wake up from this dream 🙃

Anyway, if you’re new here: welcome! Sit back and relax, ‘cause this is gonna be a long ride!

I want to take this opportunity to say that due to the amount of comments, especially on itch.io page and my Tumblr, I won’t be always replying personally one by one to everyone anymore. I'll still try my best to answer questions and all, but I think by now everyone's common questions should already be answered in the FAQ page. So, moving forward, questions I have already answered inside that page will be ignored.

Still, I want you to know that I do read and treasure every single one of your comments. Thank you so much for your encouraging words, support, and suggestions! I'm sorry I can’t reply to those writing in languages other than English and Indonesian. While I can throw simple comments into Google Translate, every now and then the translator butchers long sentences and gives me garbled translation which I can't understand 😥

  ☕️ Special Thanks ☕️ 

I'd like to also take this chance to say, many, many thanks for the coffee, you all amazing, generous people:

M.L. | Dominique | Genki | Sara | 1 Anon

Even in this hard time, you’re all so kind. Again, I can’t really do much, but as my way of thanking you, your names will be put under Special Thanks in the game ♡ 

Alright, now, to the real essence of this post: progress update.

My work had been pretty demanding nearing the end of this month, and it made me get really sick of doing coding in general. Still, there is some progress on the game, and that’s good enough for me!

More details below ↓

Character Sheet: You / Player / Main Character

Before I get to anything else, let’s talk about ‘you’ first, shall we?

Although the main character's name is changeable, if you don’t wish to pick a name for them, ‘Suzuki Kaede’ is set as the default name.

Why Suzuki? I figured I would just take from one of the most common Japanese surnames.

Why Kaede? I chose it because I wanted a common Japanese unisex name, because the main character themselves is supposed to be gender neutral. So, the name came up as one of the results in Google, it has a somewhat nice and neutral meaning (maple), and I find that it sounds pretty nice, I decided to use it.

To reiterate, throughout the game, I try my best to not mention any physical characteristics and avoid elements which leans heavily to a specific gender in the story. All the characters in the game will also call you with your last name, and only neutral suffix (-san) is used at first. But you could get an event where you would be able to pick how the love interest will call the player, starting from that point in the story (on top of neutral options, there will be choices with gender-specific suffixes which you could pick if you want to). Other than that, all characters will always refer to the MC as ‘they/them’.

Now, moving on to the thing which people has asked about -- the player's Quirk. Here's a text version in case you couldn't see it in the image above for some reason:

What happens when a woman with Enhanced Learning quirk and a man with Camera Vision procreates? A child with exemplary learning ability and a pair of exceptionally observant eyes, apparently! The hereditary Vision you got from your father enables you to focus or scan an object or landscapes. With all the cues and information from your eyes, it seems that you're able to analyze and 'see' particular details of your object of interest in the form of numerical data. Due to the mainly passive nature of your quirk, you have to rely on the traditional weapons for offense, which might not be useful at all depending on your opponent's quirk. It's a plain and nonoffensive ability which isn’t so suited for a hero according to most people, but whatever - you’ll show those noobs the power of a gamer!

In other words, the information in 'Stats',  ' Weapon Proficiency', 'Special Moves', and even the 'Affection' meter, are actually part of the MC's Quirk. This also means, the more you hone your Quirk, the more it could affect your gameplay. I'll talk about that on the Gameplay section below.

There is one thing that’s kind of related to the MC's Quirk and I wanted to clarify. Bakugou did call you this in the demo, and yep, you might have guessed it: “crosshair eyes”. Reticle, crosshair, whatever you want to call it -- it’s that symbol you usually see in the center of your screen whenever you play FPS games. This is the only physical feature of the player's character that I specified (and yes, canonically, Hatsume has a pair of similar looking eyes in the original work). In relation to this, the icon for ‘activating’ your Quirk matches the same symbol.

Gameplay

Introducing: Stats, Special Moves, and Video Games!

Stats

There are 5 basic Stats for all of the characters in the game (brownie points if you recognize where they're taken from!): Speed, Technique, Power, Intelligence, Cooperativeness.

Your own Stats start off low, but you will be able to increase it by doing various activities, such as studying, playing games, winning on Heroics lessons, going to certain places, etc. Different activities raises different Stat, and you're free to choose which particular Stat you want to develop.

What are Stats being used for?

Certain Stat will increase a certain character’s affection, though it won’t be as much as if you hang out with that character.

There are certain places which you can only unlock when a specific Stat reaches a certain point. I’ll talk about hang out places and characters’ schedules in another post.

Weekly one-on-one training matches in Heroics lessons will test a specific Stat or Special Moves each time. Depending on who you chose to become your opponent, that specific Stat will determine the outcome of that match. On one hand, winning these matches can increase your Stat, but on the other hand, there are also special events you could possibly unlock when you lose. Again, I’ll probably talk more in detail about this in another post, since I still don't have the coding part down, so things might change.

Special Moves

Every hero has a Special Move in this universe, and so does the player’s character! While they might not be as flashy as All Might’s iconic United States of Smash, some of your Special Moves will have a direct effect on the gameplay. For example, a certain Special Move could unlock more answer choices for certain scenarios. Another Special Move could be activated to give you hints on how many affection points will be added to a character for the available choices.

You have a total of 5 unlockable Special Moves, and it will be up to you to use this feature: do you spend your time trying to unlock all of it in hope to make your gameplay easier, or ignore them completely in favor of balancing your Stats while pursuing the affection of your chosen love interest? It’s your choice!

(More brownie points for you if you got the reference in that picture lol)

Another use for Special Moves would be in the Heroics lessons, seeing as it might test how your Special Move fares against the opponent you picked.

Video Games

I would say that this particular element plays quite a big role in this game, since the MC learns and develops themselves by playing games. While you do have a set of games which you’ve owned, you’re able to purchase new games from the Video Game store. I would recommend doing this, as there are some neat ones which will help you greatly in your playthrough. But if you're not interested to explore them, that's fine too!

Each video game has a different effect, and it’s up to you to discover them! Or, perhaps, you could unlock a Special Move that allows you to know what effect each of the game has? 😉

What are Video Games being used for?

Most games will only increase specific Stat(s), but there are also others that can unlock Special Moves.

There is one game which helps you to unlock Stats or Special Moves of your classmates, which you can use in the Heroics lesson to pick a suitable opponent based on your current Stats.

In addition to all that, there are 2P games which require more than one person to play, and you could play them with your romance target when they’re available. On top of building your Cooperativeness, choosing the right answers during the gaming session will increase that character's affection.

Others

The basic functions behind some activities like studying, buying video games, and playing video games are done. I will probably move on to code the functions handling the Heroics lesson’s battles and the behind-the-scenes of when the player chooses to go to certain places.

I've also finished the two main custom screens, which is the Quirk and Games page. If I have time and the motivation, I'm guessing I'll be adding the two other additional screens I had thought of doing. We'll see.

Assets

This part is my nightmare, because I’m a perfectionist who’s far too picky when gathering resources…

But no assets = no game, so I did find several assets which I did like. This includes backgrounds, audios, background musics, and some sprites I was planning to use for developing the phone call function. I’m not going to list down all the things I found here, because I don’t think any of you would be interested in a long-ass list, but here’s an amazing background picture which I stumbled upon searching the dark abyss that is the internet:

Full credits to the artist: https://arsenixc.artstation.com/

Writing

I would have to say there isn't too much progress on this side yet, but I did decide on some story elements I want to insert into the game and scripted in a few scenes for the first day. I also managed to code in the dialogs for some common activities / places, like the video game store and a small part of school lunch time.

Honestly, I should probably create a sheet to identify how many scenes I would have to write? So all of us know the progress for this part of the development? ..... Let's see how it goes when my OCD flares up...

Disclaimers

All assets included in the devlogs are not mine, and credits to the asset owners / websites will be included in the game! My Hero Academia / Boku no Hero Academia ⓒ Horikoshi Kouhei

[shadoedseptmbr]

Touch ask for Aedan, all of them if you feel like please and thank you!

Let’s do them all, why not?!

💪 - would your character be more likely to scoop someone up in their arms, or be the one getting scooped?

Prior to the cybernetic boost, Aedan was *trained* to pick someone up but only did so as a last effort to haul a squadmate out of trouble.  She’s not *tiny* but she’s still pretty pocket-sized and scoopable.  Well, Gerte and Kaidan seem to think so!

👍 - what (if any) is a good, safe touch for your character?

Depends on the situation. She’s pretty physical in casual settings, so anything is fine so long as there’s friendly intent behind it.  Hand touches, arm touches, shoulders, stomach pats, hip checks are all good between friends. 

👎 - what kind of touch is not comfortable or generally unwanted by your character?

She doesn’t like it when strangers touch her at all. Probably better not to come from behind unless she knows you’re there (she does generally know you’re there.)  Careful about waking her up with any sort of touch, unless you’re one of a very small group. Hands away from her hair unless you’re Kaidan.  

👐 - can your character handle more than one set of hands on them? do they enjoy it under the right circumstances, or generally not?

Sure.  Group sex is a thing that she’s enjoyed and she’s had enough medical attention in the field that she’s gotten used to it under that circumstance.  Took awhile though, for her to build that particular comfort level.  

🤲 - is your character better at receiving touch or giving it? under what circumstances?

Still, probably better at giving?  She learned by observing what was acceptable in her military circle as Professional touches and applies them as necessary once she’s got her own command.  For most of her life, now, she’s been someone people *didn’t* touch without her permission.  She’s got a certain amount of relearning to allow anyone’s hands on her after she wakes up in 2 (Tali’s hug is the only friendly touch besides Chakwas she gets until Garrus pats her shoulder on the SR2 and then Kaidan hugs her and she doesn’t allow anyone else in again until she hugs Tali) and a tendency to come up swinging for a long time after.  It’s always a moderate surprise to her, when anyone touches her with affection that isn’t just about sex. Kaidan picks up on a tic she has of tapping her foot when she's agitated and will weight down her foot with his, gently.

🤝 - how comfortable is your character with the ‘professional’ type of touching/gestures? (i.e. handshakes, having a card handy, small talk, etc)

In Commander Shepard mode, she’s great at that stuff. There’s a coded technique to it and she’s got it down.  

🤛 - how does your character react to being hit? are they likely to continue a fight if someone else starts it, or try to de-escalate or get away?

Aedan generally won’t start a fight (once she’s developed a professional demeanor) but she will finish one, one way or the other.  

🖐️ - high fives, yes or no?

Oh, yeah.  And fist bumps.  

👋 - someone waves at your character. what do they do?

Waves back if she knows them, professional nod if not and in a professional setting, somewhat unsettling eye contact in any other circumstance.  

✌️ - are there any gestures or touches that your character shares with a friend/team/loved one that are a type of code between them?

She’s likely to drop a light friendly fist on a shoulder with her teammates, in acknowledgement.  Before the Normandy, a shoulder brush with a teammate was her maximum level of professional affection, the “we’re good, we’ve got each other” shoulder brush of approval picked up from Anderson.  She and Garrus will smack each other’s backs or shoulders.  She’s got the art of an affectionate headbutt down, thanks to Wrex and Grunt.  Hip checks with Liara and Tali, and later with Kasumi and Miranda.  She’s way more careful with Joker, tends towards very light pats. She picked up the affectionate stomach pat from Anderson and Kaidan’s usually the beneficiary of that one.  She and Kaidan also trade knuckle brushes and fingers touching, just a sort of connection of comfort.  They do a mission pre-check helmet to helmet bump, too.  

🤙 - how does your character’s relationship with touch change if they get tipsy or otherwise chemically unbalanced?  Aedan’s a cuddler, given the chance but it’s a very, very select crowd that gets *that* side outside of a sexual partner.  She used to have to be a little buzzed to allow anyone to touch her, but it’s gotten better since she left the Reds.  

🤞 - if your character needed to touch someone to check on their physical condition, how would they go about it?

She’s not a trained field medic, but she’s had enough first aid to talk to them first, explain the process, move slowly and  keep her hands visible if possible. treating Jack for a wound is a lot different than, say, Liara or a civilian. 

🖕 - someone touches your character in a way that’s rude or that they just don’t like (i.e. shoves past them, etc). what do they do?

If she’s shoved past in a crowd, she just checks her gun, credit chit, and runs a quick scan to make sure she’s not bugged.  If it’s intentionally aggressive, she’s going to show her teeth.    

🖖 - if your character needed to communicate peaceful or helpful intentions to someone else through touch, how would they go about doing that?

She’s pretty deft at body language, hands up and open and motioning towards an object or doorway or whatever the other person needs.  She’s got a tendency to put people at ease either through a very open expression or body language.  She slouches if she’s trying to throw someone off the track of her abilities, she squares up if it’s someone in authority.  

👉 - does your character gesture to draw someone’s attention to other people/things? are they likely to notice if they get pointed at? if they don’t point, what’s another gesture they might use?

She likes an elbow pat to draw attention if it’s a squadmate or on the crew.  She’ll point or do the knife hand/ flight attendant handwave thing.  Unless she’s stuck in her head (as in parts of the Collector mission), she’s too hyperaware to not notice if she’s being pointed out.