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amarantine-amirite · 1 year ago

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Be Careful What You Say

The universal college experience, no matter your major, is learning how remarkably fucked everything is. The sole exception is business majors, who never learn this because they don't have exams.

I used to think that the thing about business majors was true. Something happened that made me realize that it wasn't: what happened with my course in Operating Systems.

We arrived in class on the first day. Our instructor, a skinny blonde woman, came in with a stack of syllabi. “Good morning everybody,” she introduced herself as she passed out the syllabi, “my name is Dr. Palmer, and welcome to Operating Systems.”

Kids looked at the printouts. “Now, if you look at the syllabus, you will notice that there is no final exam despite being a sophomore-level course,” she said with a chuckle. “We actually can’t assign finals for this class anymore because of a problem we had last semester.”

She then proceeded to tell us about all of the glitches that made the previous semester's final impossible to complete. The exam had 20 questions, but no Question 13. Some of the kids took it just assumed they skipped it on purpose due to superstition, like some buildings do with the 13th floor on the elevator. A Spanish question preceded a calculus question, neither of which had any relevance to the course. Some questions inquired about your sex life. To nobody's surprise, loads of people decided to duck away from that one, and when they did, they discovered the "pass" button, meant to skip questions and come back to them later, wasn’t working. One of the questions was written in Wingdings font, and nobody could make heads or tails of it.

Kids complained. Nobody finished the test and their grades reflected it. The complaints made their way to the board of directors and the dean’s office.

To everybody's shock, the dean's office forbade anyone teaching second-year OS design to create a final, and to assign a term paper instead. The argument was that if you can't complete your test due to one or more problems with the test itself, that’s on The course staff, and that penalizing students because of it was tantamount to fraud.

The term paper was always on an extremely niche area of the subject. Dr. Palmer assigned topics randomly. The topic I got was so niche that I could find only one text on it. It was a good source with a three-page-long mathematical proof. I cited this proof as the fulcrum for my paper.

About 4 weeks before the deadline, Dr. Palmer left, and Dr. Mendez took over the class. The night before his first class back, he sent out an email instructing us to turn in my rough draft. It caught me by surprise, but I managed to put together a bibliography, get it legible, and hand it in.

Roughly a week after I handed in my draft, I got an email that said this: you have been founded gilty of ploariozaiton on yr term paper.

I couldn’t help but laugh that an email from the university had that many spelling mistakes. I was positive it was a joke.

The following day, Dr. Mendez pulled me aside at the end of class. I discovered that the email wasn’t a joke. “You wanted to speak to me, sir?” I asked timorously.

“Ah, yes, Sophie,” Dr. Mendez said

I pulled up the email on my phone. “would it be related to this email that I really hope I read wrong?”

Dr. Mendez dug my draft out of the pile on the podium of the lecture theater. “Look at this bibliography, tell me what you see.”

I looked at my bibliography. It only had one text cited. “the book with the proof?” I asked as I pointed to the lone item in the bibliography.

Dr. Mendez slammed the paper down on the podium. “You plagiarized this paper,” he barked.

“Plagiarized?” I asked in horror. I clearly cited the book, I couldn’t have possibly plagiarized anything.

“You used the wrong style of citation,” Dr. Mendez scolded, “That constitutes plagiarism.”

“The instruction sheet for the assignment said to use APA format”

Dr. Mendez shook his head. “It's supposed to be Chicago format,” he said. He had his mind made up and didn't want to be confused with the facts.

“Even still, it was what I was instructed to use at the time,” I shrugged, “It's only a rough draft, I can fix it later”

I hoped he’d listen to reason. He didn’t. “Doesn’t matter,” Dr. Mendez blurted, “the citation style is still wrong.”

“But, this isn’t plagiarism,” I said, gesturing to the paper hard enough my fingers hit the page.

Dr. Mendez got his bag and left. “Well, that’s for the council to decide,” he said as he exited

My hearing took place the following week. I showed up on time, and Dr. Mendez showed up half an hour later. Someone from the Academic Accountability Office arrived to take notes.

The people at the student union told me that they let the student speak first. Before I could say anything, the notetaker passed me some printouts. “Sophie, do you recognize these?” he asked

I did. The printouts were hard copies of my long-since deleted LinkedIn profile from high school.

Yes, I had LinkedIn in high school. I had to take a careers class that required us to make a LinkedIn profile for ourselves. I only used it for that class.

About a month after the class ended, I got up in the middle of the night and saw a guy on LinkedIn named Jose was flexing his salary and boat. I very stupidly made a comment involving the words "No way Jose."

It swiftly devolved into madness. People made racist death threats, 25 people got their accounts suspended, and Jose ended up committing suicide.

Dr. Mendez glared at me. “Sophie, do you remember what happened next?” he hoped to hear me say my account got suspended.

“Well,” I began, “after the Jose incident, I threw out the old LinkedIn account. I didn't get back to LinkedIn until after I graduated high school.”

Dr. Mendez fixed his gaze on me like a laser drilling out a part. “Your stupid joke killed my son,” he growled.

My jaw dropped. “Jose was your son?” I asked.

Dr. Mendez sighed. “Yes, and you need to learn your lesson,” he stood up and slowly lurched in my direction. “I gave you that topic because our library only had that one book on the subject. Honestly, I just thought you’d simply photocopy the proof and hand that in.”

The meeting ended like that. Not only did they find me guilty of plagiarism, but they found grounds to immediately remove me from campus. They usually only reserve that for kids to get kicked out due to violent behavior, not cheating.

The next day, they told me I had 6 hours to pack my things and leave or they would call the police and I would be found guilty of trespassing. I cried as I had to quickly pack my things and move back in with my parents who would be beside themselves once they found out.

I couldn't get everything packed in 6 hours. I had to leave about a quarter of my stuff behind. I’m not even allowed to go back there, so I can’t even pick it up.

It doesn’t matter whether you have an exam. College teaches you everything is fucked.

@write-it-motherfuckers

#Writing #Writers #writers on tumblr #short stories #short fiction

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watching-pictures-move · 1 year ago

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Put On Your Raincoats | The Fashionistas (Stagliano, 2002)

In the Rialto Report’s interview with John Stagliano, I remember him citing this as the artistic highpoint of his career. This is notable for being shot on film in the early 2000s, when I think such a thing was getting rarer in the hardcore genre, and swept the AVN Awards the year it came out. So it’s definitely White Elephant Art as far as porn goes. And while I’m being a little harsh and I don't have the greatest sense of the genre during this particular era, I don’t think it speaks well for its state that in the ‘70s and ‘80s we were getting genuinely stylish films with daring subject matter, while in the 2000s we’re getting something that looks like a TV show you’d catch at an off hour and where a good chunk of the plot hinges on the hero Rocco Siffredi navigating a DVD menu. (Speaking of White Elephant, I assume that’s what he calls his equipment. Elefante Bianco.)

And I do think to an extent the higher production values work against Stagliano’s artistic instincts. The features of his that I’ve seen… all the way through… were firmly in the gonzo style that he pioneered, with longer takes and free flowing camerawork that roved to whatever attracted his eye. Namely butts. That still happens here, but with film cameras, that I assume are heavier and limited in how long a shot can go, the visual style at times seems a bit neutered. You might hope this would result in some storytelling discipline, and there is a decent amount of plot here, but this is also over four hours long. (I watched it over a few days, I’m not a maniac.)

I’ve also alluded to Siffredi being pornography’s equivalent of Klaus Kinski, a quality I find off putting and is very much on display here. Some of this falls into matters of personal taste, and I’ll concede that the first sex scene here, between Siffredi and his neighbour, I found pleasingly energetic up until the halfway point when it tipped over to a level I found excessively rough. I do think it’s a bit jarring how stiff and dead-eyed he can be in the story scenes and how aggressive and unhinged he can be during the sex scenes, and the way that first sex scene is followed immediately by a deer-in-the-headlights expression is particularly severe in its whiplash. But from a narrative perspective, he’s supposed to be intrigued and seduced by the titular Fashionistas into the world of BDSM and rough stuff, a dynamic he very much fumbles.

So I was struggling with this early on, but I was eventually won over, and a lot of the credit goes to Belladonna. Whereas a lot of the other performers here are very polished in both their appearance and their screen presences, she has a naturalistic, unassuming quality that radiates a certain warmth. This movie is in part a story of her learning to stand up for herself to her dominant girlfriend and boss Taylor St. Claire (who navigates the tricky territory of being both regular mean during the plot and hot mean during the action), and I think had it been framed more consistently from that angle and concluded less abruptly, I would have enjoyed it a lot more. I should also note I found her bangs, gap teeth and skull sweater super cute, so perhaps I am not being entirely clinical in my appreciation of her performance. Also, as anyone who’s seen her in action can attest, she’s a freak in the sheets, so no matter how rough some of the later scenes get, she credibly remains an active participant, which makes the proceedings a lot more enjoyable.

I’ll also say that I found the sex scenes after the first one a lot more enjoyable, thanks to a greater emphasis on sexual variety and the changing up of dynamics, sometimes within the scene. Again, some of this comes down to matters of personal taste (I guess I prefer when ladies are meting out the roughness instead of dudes), but I think Stagliano occasionally produces some clever ideas, like when he cuts between Belladonna stripping and then being dominated by Taylor St. Claire and a DVD where Belladonna is being dominated by another woman. This is also the scene when his visual style seems the most on point, the camera moves and use of shadows working with the flow of the action, particularly during Belladonna’s initial strip routine. (The ass closeups are a particularly appropriate choice in this case.) So it’s my favourite part of the movie, although the later sex scenes are not without visual or erotic interest.

Other notes:

The other significant male character is Siffredi’s assistant, played by Manuel Ferrara. I know he has his fans too, but he mostly seems to be in this for Siffredi to outact. That being said, I don’t think the standard porn trope of ensemble casts is too much of a detriment here, as most of the sex scenes are centred around one or more of the main characters, and Siffredi is more charismatic when he plays off some of the better actors in the cast, especially when he gets to drop some Italian.

Siffredi at a few points looks pretty sharp in a white suit, but then when he visits a sex club gets called out by almost everyone he meets for dressing inappropriately for the setting.

This, being a product of the early 2000s, is very much couched in the era’s ideas of cool. Not necessarily a bad thing, as the groovy alt rock song that plays during that Belladonna / St. Claire sex scene works out pretty well. And Stagliano’s editing is more conservative than the nu metal style of filmmaking popular in the mainstream at the time.

This being about fashion, there is, not unexpectedly, a flamboyant gay fashion designer who wears a necklace that says “BITCH”, although the character is generally depicted likably. As far as the fashion in this movie goes, it is not to my personal taste, but I guess it suits the story.

Given how much of the story hinges on some DVD menus, the menu design here is pretty amazing. But even better is the cover of the tabloid magazine capturing Siffredi’s personal troubles, and the scene where Belladonna draws devil horns and a Van Dyke on his picture using a graphic design program.

#film #movie review #put on your raincoats #the fashionistas #john stagliano

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thishasgonehorribly · 2 years ago

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Treasures in Gusilamal

We're nearing the end of year 3 and we've had a handful of moods, and a fascinating array of objects and information passing through.

I didn't keep good chronological order notes, but I think our first mood was Kol. She was one of the militia commanders when we battled that troupe of little grey monkeys, and she's got small scars on her arm and chest, and a nick name from the incident.

It's a pretty basic weapon rack. She claimed it as a family heirloom for a name I didn't recognize, and for some reason it's listed as shady Udil's family heirloom in the objects list. (more on him later)

I let her put it in her room

(everything's full of water and it's taking me forever to stockpile stone, and I don't know where my barrels keep going, so building material for doors is stretched kinda thin)

Before his wife became our Baroness, Aban got into a mood and commandeered a clothier shop.

He made short pants.

I lost track of some things, and had been assuming he was the one that crafted a perfect carnelian.

Turns out it was actually Shady Udil, he named it The Dragon Of Illness.

I put it in Rith's dining hall

Fish Eater took over a stoneworkers shop, and I guess she was feeling impatiant because she went for the closest things, which was bitumous coal.

There was also a visitor I let take up residency, and I completely lost track of who it was, but once I approved their petition, they dropped an artifact bracelet they were carrying.

You might notice the description of this artifact looks different

and that's because it was stolen!

Udil Egullolor plotted with the goblin Fira Baldsprings, aka Rodi Braidbust, aka Usbu Bronzebad to steal our artifacts and over throw our government.

The short pants were also stolen!

But that was before I had a sheriff, it's Kol the monkey fighter, and still don't have any leads.

Melbil, a bard I gave residency, took over a workshop, and started asking for leather, and to be safe I had a goat and a horse slaughtered, but then he ended up only needing one sheet of elk bird leather to make an "asymmetrical dress"

a style of clothing I can't find any reference to in Dwarf Fortress resources

it's invisible.

Lorbam Mozibrakust, a glass maker with a pet chicken, made a glass goblet.

It's deocorated with glass gems and draltha leather. I haven't put it on display yet, and it's getting used as a cup.

A bunch of artifacts we seem to know about, but not own are family heirlooms of someone named Uzol Fightsteels. No idea who they are or who they might be related to

I commissioned a figurine to see if I could get more info, and all I learned so far is that they got divorced.

We also have a ton of written works in circulation, but I think visitors keep taking them.

#dwarf fortress #dorf fort #Gusilamal #df: the past universe

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katakaluptastrophy · 2 years ago

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One thing that's cool is that in the Cohort Intelligence Files, whether people are born "at" or "on" a location seems to indicate whether it's an installation or a planet.

The Sixth is the exception to the on/at rule, as Palamedes and Camilla are described as being born "in the Library", but the Sixth is unusual for a number of reasons... And it's fairly well established that it's Mercury.

Dulcie is born "at Rhodes" while Protesilaus is born "on Cypris". Palamedes talks about the health impact of Dulcie "breathing recyc at Rhodes" and we later learn she spent time recovering at Pro's farm. So Cypris is probably what we would call the planet Venus ("Cypris" is another name for the goddess Venus), and Rhodes is presumably an atmospheric installation or space station. There's a famous statue of the goddess Venus that was found at Rhodes in Greece, which is presumably where the name comes from.

Ianthe and Coronabeth are born "on Ida". There is a planetoid called Ida between Mars and Jupiter, but since nothing else kept its name, I'm going to assume this is another mythology one, and this is a moon of Saturn - Saturn is another name for the god Cronus, whose wife Rhea had the infant Zeus raised by the nymph Ida.

Abigail was born "at Koniortos" while Magnus was born "on Rhax". Magnus parodies Fifth poetry in Harrow as "I come from climes of sulphur gas/I shine in plasma sheet/Er-hem-er-hem-er-hem, surpass/My spot a crimson feat", so the Fifth is presumably Jupiter. "Koniortos" means "dusty" in Greek and probably refers to the rings of Jupiter. Combine this with Abigail's description of her childhood bedroom with a vit D panel instead of a window and a cubby to shelter in if "a zonal jet made it past the winnow", and it sounds rather like Koniortos is some kind of installation in Jupiter's upper atmosphere. Rhax is presumably a moon (though there's no obvious mythological Rhax as with some of the other ones. I've seen it suggested that Rhax is - or was - a shepherd world or colony of some kind.)

So that's Mercury, Venus, Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn (probably) accounted for.

In the Nona flashbacks, Jod talks about his plans to "repopulate the installations on each planet—or to finish the work begun before the bombs, or to improve on it" - and he mentions a few bits of pre-res space infrastructure, including "the Mars installation", "the Kuiper platform" (presumably in the Kuiper belt between Neptune and Pluto), and "the shell [being built near Uranus]". It seems reasonable to assume these became the roots of some of the Houses.

For reasons of both mythology and practicality, the Mars installation is almost certainly the Second: Mars is the god of war, and if the House numbers are the order of founding, Mars is probably the easiest one to colonise. Marta is described as having been born "on Trentham", which suggests that either they're in some kind of hab on the surface of Mars, or the planet has been terraformed or otherwise rendered habitable by the resurrection.

And I've seen a general consensus that the Eighth are Uranus because that is absolutely Tamsyn's style of humour... So that's the shell accounted for - maybe again another atmospheric installation.

The Kuiper platform could be the prison above the Ninth, assuming the Ninth is Pluto. Or, it could be the Fourth, as Neptune is still unaccounted for. Isaac was born "on Tisis" and Jeanmarie "on Ops", and Neptune certainly has a lot of moons.

It took me ridiculously long to realize that the Houses are located in the Solar system.

I first thought about it fairly early: "oh, there are 9 houses, and one of them was not supposed to be there, this reminds me of smth". But then in my infinite wisdom I thought "but hey, many of the planets are literally gaseous, noone can live on them, it can't be" and this has been it until Nona, where I saw that the Earth was flooded and thought that Canaan house must be on Earth.

#the locked tomb #tlt #nona the ninth #harrow the ninth #gideon the ninth

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insertdisc5 · 2 years ago

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Devlog #12: Localization Milestone and Key Art

Hello everyone! Welcome to this month’s devlog!

If you just stumbled upon this, I am Adrienne, also known as insertdisc5! I’m the developer, writer, artist, main programmer, etc of the game. The game being In Stars and Time, a timeloop RPG, which is also the next and final game in the START AGAIN series, following START AGAIN: a prologue (available here!). You can find out more about In Stars and Time here!!!

LET’S GET TO IT. This month has some localization news, as well as a breakdown on key art! What’s key art? Where do you use it? Can you eat it? Read and find out.

The first pass of the Japanese localization is done and implemented!!! You can play the whole game in Japanese from beginning to end now!!!

The next step now is the localization QA, where the localization team plays the game and makes sure the Japanese script works in context. The team got the script in an excel sheet and I tried my best to give context for scenes where I could, but playing through the game themselves allows them to get The Most Context. All Of The Context. So they can make changes to their localization so it can be the best!!!

That’s it for news. Other things are chugga-chugga-chuggin’ behind the scenes as well, and I can’t wait to share it all with you all!!!

Today’s topic-since-I-don’t-have-much-to-talk-about is: key art!

“Adrienne what on Earth is a ‘key art’” This above is the key art.

More generally (and keep in mind this is my layman self talking, I’m sure you could get a better answer elsewhere, but also you’re here, so you might as well learn something huh???), key art is The Big Art that games (and, I assume, other mediums???) use to show off their style and visuals in things such as store fronts, articles, and other such things. It’s Mario jumping in a cool way with his lil star buddy while the planets are behind him. It’s Kratos and Atreus on a boat. It’s sad Siffrin in the foreground, surrounded by stars, while his friends are having fun in the background. It’s The Art!!! It’s the first thing people see about your game!!! It needs to be cool and represent your game!!!

Here’s some examples of the key art being used for Steam store assets. Itch.io is very kind and asks for like 2 assets, but Steam asks for a whoopin’ 30 assets, all with different sizes and orientations, so it means one of the biggest things your key art should be is MODULAR AS HELL. From a massive 1440x3160 vertical banner to an itty-bitty 231x87 horizontal button (called a capsule, it’s the small banner above, and since it’s usually the first thing you see about a game it is THE MOST IMPORTANT ASSET), your key art needs to be ready for anything!!!

For the prologue, I did not plan for this very well. I learned pretty late in development that store assets for itch.io (and later, Steam) were gonna be a thing I should worry about, so I ended up deciding to use the title card art. Which, like, it worked out.

BUT! I had to redraw Siffrin to make sure their hat and body weren’t weirdly cut out, and had to remake the pixelly gradient like a thousand times for each asset to make sure it wouldn’t hide Siffrin’s face. And that’s without mentioning the hell I went through to make sure the massive title logo would fit. Why did I think “START AGAIN START AGAIN START AGAIN: a prologue” was a good title. It was so hard to make it fit in its entirety every time (because, of course, Steam asks you to show the logo in its entirety in every single asset). Why did I choose this title (I’m a Kingdom Hearts fan and my heart is rotten and thinks long titles are funny)

So since I went through hell with START AGAIN’s store assets, for ISAT I made sure to think about the key art way ahead of time teehee.

Every so often I become an absolute genius so I only had to sketch the key art once, as you can see above. You don’t need to understand it because I do and it’s all that matters. Teehee!

Here's the rough illustration! I made it to block out the shapes, and figure out where that dang logo would go. Once again, reminder: if you have text of any kind, figure out where it goes in the rough stage. Future you will thank you. I also had Siffrin look directly at the camera in this rough stage, and then figured. That it would look sadder. If Siffrin looked emo-ly to the side. I do like the look at the camera though. He Is Looking

To talk about The Meaning very quickly, I wanted to show Siffrin front and center, since the whole story is about them. And I wanted to show the whole party, but clearly separated from Siffrin- Siffrin is stuck in a time loop, feels completely apart from them, and I wanted to show that in the key art! With the expressions too- everyone else is happy or engaged in something, interacting with each other, while Siffrin is in his emo phase. And also stars everywhere. Because of course.

Here are all the layers I used- I made sure to draw them on a vector layer in Clip Studio Paint, which means the lines never become pixelated even if you zoom in a lot! As a side note, the full file for this is 4000x3000, which I thought would be too big, but is actually just the right size for all those dang assets.

I also made sure that Siffrin would look the most detailed, since I knew that while everyone could fit for the bigger pictures, for the itty-bitty small ones (or the extremely horizontal ones), I would only show off Siffrin’s face. MODULAR!!!!!

In the end this key art worked pretty well to make the store assets, but if I could talk to past me I would tell them. Make the circle bg taller so it’d fit the more vertical assets. And find a way to leave more space for the characters in the background. I had to remove them/rotate them/zoom them out very often because Siffrin hides them too much because Siffrin is just too dang big. But that’s still manageable, past me. You did a good job past me

So, TLDR, from my experience, what you need to keep in mind when making your key art is:

-make sure it has enough layers to be able to move things around as needed, but not so many layers that you become lost

-fun art that represents your game and its vibe well

-cool everywhere, but able to get by if you zoom in on one thing (which usually for ISAT’s assets is Siffrin’s face)

-able to work in a vertical and horizontal format and at many different sizes

I hope my key art made people interested enough in the game to try to find out more!!

That’s all I have to say for today! Let me know if you have any questions, or if there’s any aspect of the game development struggle you’d like me to talk about! See you next time!!!

AND DON’T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ON STEAM ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THAT’S THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!!

#devlog #indie dev #in stars and time #start again start again start again #indie game #reference #video games #sorry if the post breaks i had to format this whole post on my phone. pelease clap

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duhragonball · 2 years ago

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Dragon Ball Super 018

“Welcome to my dojo. Here’s an outfit I made that’s just a shitty redesign of your classic look.”

“Wow, I bet I’ll be wearing this for years to come!”

“Ha ha ha no.”

So last time, Goku got Whis to accept him as his student. This wasn’t particularly difficult, as Whis seems to have his own motives for training Vegeta and Goku. I’m not sure this ever gets spelled out in the show, but I’m assuming this was meant to foreshadow the Tournament of Power, and somehow Whis had anticipated some sort of inter-universe competition, and wanted to make sure his universe would be ready to field warriors for such a contest.

Anyway, Goku was in such a hurry to leave that he forgot to go to the bathroom first, and Whis wouldn’t let him pee in interstellar space, and Vegeta won’t let him go over the side of Beerus’ castle-tree thingy. Sucks to be Goku.

So what exactly has Vegeta been doing this whole time? Goku is anxious to find out, especially when he senses how much stronger Vegeta’s gotten in the last six months. Well, it turns out much of Vegeta’s day is spent on chores. For example, he has to change the sheets on Beerus’ bed while Beerus is still sleeping in them. This means waiting patiently for a chance to remove the sheets without waking Beerus up, since he will murder them. Goku nearly blows this about a hundred time, since he can’t shut up, and he won’t stop whining about the chores, and he doesn’t like wearing the apron. You know, for a guy who wants to train all the time, he sure complains as lot when he finally gets to do it.

Somehow, Beerus grabs Goku and puts him in a figure-four leglock, which hurts Goku like hell, but it gives Vegeta the perfect opportunity to change the sheets. All Goku has to do is levitate himself and Beerus above the bed. Vegeta takes his sweet time with it, because fuck Goku, that’s why.

From there, the boys have to.... uh, mop the branches of the castle, clean out all of the Oracle Fish’s bowls, and hand-cut all the grass on the lawn (it grows back within a day). Goku finds this training intense, but Vegeta explains that none of this is the training. Whis is just having them do chores to pay him for his services.

The actual training is for them to lift these ultra-heavy weights with their forearms and carry them around the grounds. Goku can barely move his, and while Vegeta had gotten pretty good at this, Whis doubled the weight on it to increase the difficulty.

Also, Whis starts making the track behind them disappear, so if they fall behind, they’ll... well, fall down. Whis says something about them not being able to use flight to escape, and they’ll end up in some other dimension, but whatever.

Now, you might have noticed that Whis’ exercise really isn’t that different from the sort of thing Master Roshi was having Goku and Krillin do way back in the day. Heavy weights, manual labor, a little mortal peril for motivation. This is why I find it amusing when fans complained about the scene in DBS: Super Hero, where Vegeta was meditating and Goku seemed oblivious to the benefits of meditation for training. “But we’ve seen Goku meditate before!” Yes, of course we have. That’s the point. He keeps re-learning the same lessons over and over. Each instructor gives him new angles and tips, but it ultimately comes down to the same hard work and self-discipline Goku had to learn when his grandfather taught him kung fu in the woods.

And maybe that’s why Goku has trouble retaining the lessons he’s learned, because it’s variations of the same things each time. He’s meditated before, so he thinks he’s already graduated from that part of the process. But there’s no finish line for this stuff. That’s true of any kind of learning, really.

Later, Whis spars with the boys, but they just get in each other’s way, and even if they could coordinate their attacks, Whis is too fast for them. He explains that they overthink their movements, which slows them down. Instead, they should strive for an ideal style where their bodies move independently of their conscious thoughts. Like when you drop a hot potato before you even feel the heat.

While Whis explains this, Goku notices that he stepped in poop. So we’re now officially in the DBS adaptation of Resurrection F, and we still don’t have an answer about whose poop that is.

Meanwhile, Sorbet, the commander of what’s left of Frieza’s army, has decided that they have only one hope of holding on to their territory.

Also, Champa and Vados are roaming the universe, apparently destroying planets in search of something. Champa looks just like Beerus, only fatter, and he has Vados destroy things for him, because he’s even lazier than Beerus. And Beerus literally slept through this whole episode, so that’s saying something.

And that takes care of all the filler episodes between BoG and ResF. Unfortunately, we now have to turn our attention to the Golden Frieza arc, which is mercifully short, but also widely considered one of the worst arcs in the entire Dragon Ball anime. Well, one thing at a time.

#dragon ball #dragon ball super #2023dbapocryphaliveblog #goku #vegeta #beerus #whis #champa #vados #sorbet

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atlafan · 4 years ago

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Part One - “Call me Jane.”

a/n: here’s part one of nanny!H, I’m very excited about this series. I’m not sure how many parts it’s going to be, so please don’t ask lmao. Once I know how many parts it’ll be, I’ll make a master post for it. I’m just too excited not at least share the first part because Harry is just too cute in this! Feedback and reblogs are super helpful, and keep me motivated, especially when it comes to writing series. (not proofread) You can support me here if you’re able!

Warnings: none...for now

Words: 4.1K

Pairing: Harry x OC (Jane Watson)

Master Post

Harry found himself in a real bind. He was twenty-six years old, had an early childhood education degree, and the daycare he worked at was going under. He had just been promoted a month prior too, how could things go wrong so quickly? Times like this he really hated that he stayed in the states. Childcare services weren’t nearly as fucked up back home. His dream was to save up enough money to open up his own pre-school at some point, but it was really tough.

There was this weird stigma that if adult men wanted to work with babies and toddlers then that made them a pedophile or something of the sort. That wasn’t the case with Harry. His minor in school was psychology because cognitive development intrigued him. He also loved babies and little ones. He loved watching them learn and discover.

Only now, he was without a job in an already struggling field. He and the other employees weren’t exactly given a big notice before they were told the business was going under. Harry mostly felt bad for the parents of the kids that had to find new child care centers. He knew he’d have to compete with his co-workers for any available jobs, and he knew they were bound to find places before him because they were women. It was their fault, and he knew it. He was experiencing a prejudice that they must face all the time.

He looked into Care.com, but none of the jobs on there seemed like long-term gigs, and he didn’t want to just be a glorified baby sitter. He figured if he could find a well paying nannying job, he could do that for a bit until finding a job at a new facility, or even set up his dream pre-school. During his search on Indeed, he saw a position for a live-in nanny – jackpot! Live-in meant long-term, and long-term meant lots of money. It also meant he could get rid of his apartment and not have to pay rent for a while. He clicked on the ad that was posted only a couple of weeks ago.

Live-in Nanny Needed for Help with Eight-Month-Old

Minimum requirements:

· Bachelor’s in either early childhood education or elementary education

· At least two years’ experience working babies/children

Three professional references required

Applicant is subject to thorough background check for the safety of the child and mother.

Other tasks as needed include:

· Cooking

· Light cleaning

· Grocery shopping/running other errands

If applicant is selected, they will be paid a flat rate of $1600 bi-weekly, will live in “in-law” section of the house, and a car will be provided for them. A resume, cover letter, and three professional references may be sent directly to [email protected]

After reading everything over, this seemed like Harry’s best bet. Some of it seemed a little too good to be true, but this was a risk he needed to take right now. He just hoped the position hadn’t already been filled. That night he spent some time updating his LinkedIn, making sure all of his privacy settings were up to date on all of his social media, and then wrote out a resume and cover letter. The last part was his least favorite because he knew a proper resume and cover letter had to be curated to the specific job, and it made things all the more tedious. By the time he was done, it was late. He didn’t want to seem unprofessional, so he waited to send the email until the next morning.

Subject: Nannying Advert on Indeed

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Good morning,

My name is Harry and I’m interested in the nannying advert you’ve posted on Indeed. For the last four years I’ve been working at P.B. & J.’s Child Care Center, and was recently promoted to team lead. Unfortunately, the business itself couldn’t remain afloat, and I was laid off.

Attached are my resume and cover letter. I’d be happy to provide the three references if I end up being considered for the position.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Harry

Treat People With Kindness

He closes his laptop with a satisfied sigh after proofreading his email ten different times before he hit send. He takes a sip from his coffee, and sits back on his sofa. Now all he had to do was wait.

There was radio silence for two days. Harry was starting to think he would need to keep job hunting. He had bills to pay, and the last thing he wanted to do was ask his parents for help. They already looked down on his profession as it was. If he had his own car he’d become an uber driver or something, but he didn’t so he couldn’t. Then, by some stroke of luck, at 4:55PM on a Thursday, he gets an email from the address he had been hoping to see pop up.

Subject: Re: Nannying Advert on Indeed

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Good evening Harry,

My name is Jane Watson, thank you so much for your application. My apologies it has taken me a couple of days to get back to you. I am usually more responsive, but things have been a little crazy at work as of late. Upon further review of your resume and over letter, I would like to offer you an interview this Saturday at noon, if you are available. I can be flexible if that day and time do not work for you.

If you are able to come, and are still interested in the position, I ask that you please bring your references with you. I will want to call them right away. I am sure you can understand me wanting to thoroughly look into you before letting you into my daughter’s life.

I look forward to hearing back from you soon.

All my best,

Jane

Harry responded to her right away, he didn’t care how eager he seemed. He told her Saturday at noon worked great, and that he would definitely have his references, and anything else he needed to provide. She emailed him back an hour or so later with her cell phone number and address. For the first time in a while, Harry felt like he could breathe again. He knew it wasn’t a done deal that he’d be getting the job, but he was being given a chance, and for that he was thankful.

He wanted to make a good first impression on Saturday, so he made sure to wash his hair in the shower, and use his good mousse so his hair would look more orderly. He shaved to give himself that clean and sleek look, this was not a day to appear scruffy. He knew he didn’t need to be overly dressed up, but he also knew that you’re supposed to dress for the job you want and not the job you have. He irons a pair of tan slacks and pairs it with a blue button up. Not to brag, but his bum looked great in these slacks, and it was giving him all the confidence in the world. He puts on a floral tie, just to show a bit of his personality, makes sure his nail polish isn’t chipped, and makes sure all of his rings are looking shiny. He takes an uber out to Jane’s house. It was in a gated community, which he was expecting since he looked up the house beforehand. He wondered what she or her husband did for work to live in a place like this. Or perhaps she inherited the home? Either way, he was excited.

He thanks the driver, and knocks on the door as he was instructed to do. A woman with silver hair that was up in a nice bun opens the door.

“Hello, you must be Mr. Styles.” She smiles.

“Yes, hello.” He smiles back.

“I’m MaryAnne, please come in.” She steps aside to let Harry in.

“Thank you.”

“Miss Watson is just pumping, but you can wait for her here in her office.” She leads Harry down a corridor where he meets a grand double door. MaryAnne opens them and shows him inside. “Make yourself comfortable, dear. Can I get you anything? Coffee, water, tea?”

“I’m all set, but thank you very much.”

The woman nods and leaves him in the room alone. He stays standing as he didn’t want to assume where he should be sitting. There was a gorgeous desk with two chairs on the other side, but there was also a small round table with four chairs around it in the corner. She clearly held a lot of meetings here, or so it would seem. To pass the time he looks over her bookshelves, scanning over what she might be into. She seemed to be into fiction, but he had never heard of any of the books on some of the shelves, or the author. She had several by the same person. Before he could look further, he heard the clacking of heels on the hardwood floors approaching him.

Everything stopped when she walked in. Jane had her hair up in a flowing ponytail, a white blouse covered her top half, he notices that the first few buttons were left undone, probably to help with her pumping, and she had a black pencil skirt on that just came to her knees. She was short, and a little voluptuous, not that Harry was checking her out.

“Hello, Mr. Styles, I’m sorry to keep you waiting.” He goes to stick his hand out for her to shake, but she walks around him and sits down at her desk. “Please, have a seat.”

He swallows and sits down.

“Y-you can just call me Harry if you like, Mrs. Watson.”

“I’m a Miss not a missus.” She says as she takes out a folder with a few sheets in it and a pen. “It says here you graduated Summa Cum Laude from Lesley University. That’s an incredible place to get a degree in education.”

“Thank you, I got a pretty decent scholarship, it was my reach school. I minored in psychology as well. I did my practicum hours at a daycare center that specialized in caring for children with disabilities. So, I’ve worked with all sorts of children. I prefer working with infants and toddlers, though.”

“And why is that?” She looks at him, clicking her pen, ready to take notes.

“Well, I just have more fun with them, to be honest. I like watching them discover new things. My favorite thing to do while working in the baby room at my last job was working with the babies on their tummy times. It was always rewarding to watch them get stronger. I feel like I just bond with them better.”

“I need to ask you some personal questions since this is a live-in position.”

“Of course.” Harry nods.

“Are you in any sort of relationship with anyone?”

“No, I’m single.”

“Have you ever been arrested, or do you have any sort of criminal history?”

“No.”

“I’m not one to judge, I think everyone deserves a second chance, I just have to ask these sort of things.” She says.

“I don’t have a criminal record, Miss Watson.”

“History of drug use?”

“I smoked a bit of weed when I was younger, but I don’t anymore. An edible once in a while, maybe, but never when I’m on the clock.”

“Just marijuana?”

“I’ve done shrooms a few times, but nothing other than that. Stupid kid stuff.”

“Again, not judging. I’d prefer you don’t have any drugs in the house, unless they’re for medical use. I know edibles can be prescribed by doctors for anxiety and whatnot.” Harry nods at that. “What about alcohol? You’re twenty-six, you must enjoy a drink after a long day.”

“A glass of red once in a while, sure.” He nods. “But I’m not really a heavy drinker, I never have been. I’d say if anything I’m a social drinker, but you watch me carefully at a party you’ll notice that I nurse the same drink.” He smirks.

“I’m the same way. A little bit of a buzz is fun, but anything more can be a bit scary. I actually cannot remember the last time I had a real drink.” She looks off in thought.

“Well, can’t you drink now that the baby’s here?”

“And have to succumb to a pump and dump?” She scoffs. “No way, that would be a total waste. It’s torture enough to sit there while a machine sucks the milk out of my-“ She stops herself. “Sorry.” She shakes her head. “Anyways, your resume was impressive, and you were quite articulate in your cover letter. You’re the only candidate I’ve invited for an interview.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” She nods. “I really wanted someone with experience, not someone fresh out of college looking for a place to live. You’d really be okay with living here?”

“Honestly, you’d be doing me a favor. My long-term goal is to either have a daycare or pre-school of my own someday. Not having to pay rent for a while would really help me save up for that.”

“That’s an incredible goal to have, Harry.” She smiles, impressed by his ambition. “What questions do you have for me?”

“I just want to clarify, your daughter is eight months?” Jane nods. “And what’s her name?”

“Lilly.” Jane smiles.

“That’s a beautiful name.” Harry smiles. “Why exactly do you need a live-in nanny?”

“I work a lot.” She sighs. “And I’m a single mom. I want her to always have someone here that she can depend on and feel comfortable with. Sometimes my work drags me out in the middle of the night, or I have to take a phone call at an odd hour. I just want someone else here in case I can’t be if something comes up.”

“So, her father’s not in the picture?”

“No.” Her features sour a bit. “He doesn’t even know she exists to be perfectly honest with you. I found out I was pregnant after we broke up, and I decided not to tell him about her. He was a deadbeat moocher, he would have been useless.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but thank you for telling me. May I ask, how old are you?”

“Twenty-nine, does that matter?”

“No! No, I was just more so curious. You seem pretty successful to be in a home like this. In the advert, you stated I’d be given a car as well, that’s not exactly cheap.”

“You’ll be given access to one of my cars.” She says. “I’m not giving you a car, make no mistake about that.” She smirks. “I’m an author, a successful one.” Harry tries to think if he’s ever heard of a Jane Watson before, but he’s coming up blank. “You’ve never heard of me because I have a pen name. If it’s all the same, I don’t really want to share it with you. Not yet, anyways.”

“Sure…wait…are you offering me the job?”

“Not quite. I’d like you to meet my daughter. I want to see how she interacts with you.”

“I’d love to meet Lilly.” He smiles.

“Great, before we do that, do you have more questions?”

“Yes, who’s MaryAnne? Is she, like, a maid or housekeeper?”

“No.” Jane laughs. “She’s my personal assistant. I usually answer the door myself, but pumping took a bit longer than usual.”

“When did you publish your first work?”

“When I was twenty.” She smiles. “I was still in school, and I decided just to self-publish. It took off, and a few companies reached out to me. I eventually got an agent, and the rest was history. I’m a fast writer, I’m able to churn out more projects than most people, and for whatever reason they keep becoming hits. One of the reasons I travel a lot is that a couple of my works are being turned into television shows, and working out those contracts is a lot. I want to be a part of the process to make sure the stories are told correctly.”

“That’s incredible!”

“it is.” She nods. “I never thought I’d be a television producer, but here I am. I don’t really want Lilly around all that, so there’s another reason for having a live-in nanny.”

“This may seem like a silly question, but will I have time off?”

“Oh my goodness, of course! The salary is negotiable as well. You’ll have weekends off, as well as all bank and national holidays. You’ll also earn vacation time and sick leave like at any other job. You’ll be given a benefits package as well, if you need health insurance.”

“You…you provide stuff like that?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I?”

“I’ve just never heard of a nannying job quite like this before.” He blinks. “It feels too good to be true.”

“I’m just a firm believer in compensating someone properly. I believe in investing in the people you have.”

“Right.” He swallows. He almost starting to feel like he was going to be her sugar baby or something, but he obviously knew that wasn’t the case. “You asked me about my dating life, what about yours?”

“I’m also single. Lilly is my top priority, and then comes my work. I’m completely fulfilled as is.” She stands from her desk. “Come, I’ll give you a tour of the house, and of the in-law space, and then you can meet Lilly.”

“Okay.” He stands up and follows her out of the office.

She shows him the living room, which felt more like a study. There was an entertainment room with a huge flat screen, deluxe loungers, a pool table, and bar. She shows him to the kitchen which was equally as extravagant. She brings him upstairs to show him all of the bedrooms.

“This is Lilly’s room.” Jane says proudly.

“it’s beautiful, I love the light purple.”

“So do I.” She says. “My room is down the hall, don’t think you need a tour of that.” She laughs and they head back downstairs. “Here’s the inside entrance to the in-law, but there’s also an exterior entrance you can use…or if you have guests over.” Harry’s in awe of the space. It was larger than his apartment. “It’s a one bedroom flat essentially. There’s a full bath en suite, and there’s a half bath over there. Open concept kitchen and living area. It’s fully furnished as well. Feel free to decorate it however you like. I just ask that this space stays yours. There’s really no reason for you to bring Lilly in here, you know?”

“Sure, yeah. This is amazing.”

“I’m glad you like it. Let’s just hope Lilly like you.” Jane smirks, and they head back to the main part of the house, and into Lilly’s playroom. She was sitting with MaryAnne in a large rocking chair. “M, you can feel free to go back to your office if you like. Harry’s going to get acquainted with Lilly.”

“Of course.” MaryAnne stands up with the baby, and hands her over to Jane.

“She has an office here too?” Harry asks.

“Of course she does, and one of the guest rooms upstairs is hers to use when she needs it.” She kisses the top of her daughter’s head. “Lilly,” she coos, “I have someone I’d like you to meet.” She gestures for Harry to take her, and he happily does so.

“Hey, baby girl.” Harry coos. Bright hazel eyes look up at him in wonder. He lets her latch onto his index finger. “It’s so nice to meet you.” He looks at Jane. “She’s precious, Miss Watson.”

“Isn’t she?” Jane beams. “She’s really been enjoying her bouncy, and messing around with her blocks. I have some CD’s I like having her listen to as well. Oh! We did a paint with pudding night as a sensory play thing, it was a hoot.” She chuckles.

“Those are great, aren’t they? Very stimulating, and it teaches the child that sometimes messes are okay.” He looks down at Lilly and smiles. “May I sit with her in the rocking chair?”

“Please!” She gestures to it, and she sits down on the loveseat in the room. Harry sits down with Lilly, cradling her carefully. He adjusts her so she’s able to stand on his lap. She bounces herself and giggles. “Look at that!” Jane exclaims. “I love it when she does that.”

“She’s awfully sweet.” Harry smiles, and then he looks at Jane. “How much do you feed her?”

“I give her roughly twenty-four to thirty-two ounces a day. You’ll know how hungry she is or isn’t in the moment. I’ve started giving her pureed butternut squash, mashed bananas and strawberries, she’s got that puffed baby cereal as well. I’ve also started giving her ground chicken in really small doses just to get her some protein, but right now I’ve mostly been sticking to fruits and veggies. You must know a lot about what foods to give a baby?”

“I do.” He nods. “You’re still producing that much milk to give her daily?”

“I’ve almost been wishing I’d dry up. I get so sore somedays.” Jane sighs. “But I figure it’s good for her to have it while I can still make it. I’m not opposed to formular or anything…but I like bonding with her in that way. I got rid of her baby acne by rubbing my nipple on her skin, it was like magic.”

“It’s certainly a trick of the trade.” He smirks at her. “I remember learning that in one of my courses, and I was amazed. You all are super humans.”

Jane watches Harry play on the ground with Lilly for a bit. Harry was already so wonderful with her. Harry starts to smell something, and so does Jane.

“Think it’s time for a diaper change.” He chuckles and picks her up. “Would you like me to change her?”

“Yeah, I’d like to see you do it.”

He brings Lilly over to the changing table, and lays her down.

“I know you’re all warm and cozy, but I need to disrupt that for a moment.” He says to the baby girl who was babbling and blowing little spit bubbles, totally unbothered. Harry unsnaps her onesie, and lifts her legs to detach the diaper. His eyes widen at the type of diaper that’s on her. “You cloth diaper?” He looks at Jane.

“It’s better for the environment.” She shrugs. “There’s a trashcan for the…um, poop, and there’s another can for the diapers. I give her a regular diaper for bedtime just because it’s easier to change her in the middle of the night and in the morning, but daytime I use the cloth diapers.”

“Makes sense to me.” Harry disposes of everything, and grabs a few wipes to clean Lilly up. She took a powerful stinky.

“I blame it on the pureed peas.” Jane laughs.

“It doesn’t even phase me anymore, honestly.” Harry says as he gets a little baby powder on her. He grabs a spare cloth diaper, and gets it on her. He snaps her onesie back together and lifts her up. “There we go, good as new, darling girl.” Lilly blows some bubbles at Harry, and blows some back, making her giggle. Jane beams at the two of them.

“It’s about time for her afternoon nap. Would you like to put her down?”

“I’d love to.”

Harry carries Lilly upstairs with Jane. She flips on Lilly’s white noise machine, and makes sure her favorite blankies are in the crib. Harry sits down in the large chair in the corner of the room and starts to rock her gently, giving her soothing rubs. Jane watches as Lilly’s eyelids start to droop. She fights it at first, but Harry continues to soothe her until she’s out like a light. He carefully stands up and sets her down into her crib. The two back out of the room quietly, and make their way down the stairs.

“Let’s go back to my office.” Jane says, and Harry follows her there. Once they’re both seated, she starts speaking again. “Well, the job is yours if you want it.”

“Really?” Harry felt every worry from his life leave his body.

“Yes.” She chuckles. “You’ve really impressed me, and I think Lilly’s quite taken with you already. I’d love to have you as her nanny.” She takes out a few forms. “May I have your references? The background check will take about a week. How soon could you start after that?”

“Right away, honestly.” He hands her a sheet with his references.

“Here are the tax forms you’ll need to fill out, a form for direct deposit, and some information on your benefits. You can get everything back to me by the end of next week.”

“I can’t thank you enough for this opportunity, I’m so excited. I can’t wait to get started, Miss Watson.” He stands to shake her hand, and she stands as she takes it.

“Please, you can call me Jane.”

#love's divine #love's divine part one #call me jane #harry styles #harry styles imagine #harry styles au #harry styles series #harry styles fic #harry styles fanfic #harry styles x oc #harry styles fluff #harry styles smut #nanny!Harry #nanny!H #nannerry

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quartzwriting · 5 years ago

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Green and Gold

Pairing: Doctor Strange X Fem!Reader

Description: During a visit to Asgard, Stephen is protective over you since Loki always seems to not be able to take his eyes off you.

Warnings: Non

Word Count: 4.1k

A/N: Originally posted to Quotev / I like this one :3

Masterlist | Fic Reading Recs | Ao3 | Quotev | Coffee

The frantic rainbow lights disappeared and you stumbled to get your balance on the solid ground that you were thrown on. Stephen was there to help steady you, at hand at your waist with the other at the ready to prevent you from falling over. You wondered why you all could not just travel here through a slingring portal. But Thor insisted you take the Bifrost. To 'get the experience' he had said before he called for it. The knowing smirk on Stephen's face in that moment told you that you might regret this.

In little time you found yourself in Asgard.

Stephen would come here occasionally to discuss relations between mystical threats and threats to the realms. You came along this time. You wanted to see Asgard, Thor wanted you to come along, but Stephen was hesitant to let you come. He told you that someone needed to watch over the Sanctum while he was gone, you made Wong do it instead. He said Asgardian magic is hard to understand, you reminded him that you were advanced now in your mystical studies that you could keep up. He said that it would only be a night or two, you said that you did not want him to leave you for a night or two.

You won and had convinced him. So now you were at the entrance of Asgard, having just experienced being magically thrown across the universe with possible whiplash and your lunch threatening to come up.

Thor, holding his beloved hammer in one hand, looked over at you. "What did you think, Lady (Y/N)?"

"I think I'm gonna be sick." You mumbled.

Stephen patted you on the back, "You'll be alright." There was a slightly amused tone in his voice and that gave you a sudden urge to kick him in the shins.

You had ended up in the middle of a room that was golden and shaped like a dome. There were circular patterns on the walls and in the centre golden steps that lead to a little pedestal that held a sword. Someone was holding that sword, and you were introduced to Heimdall who was the protector of the Bifrost. He bowed to you like you were important and you returned with a bow of your head. Just outside the room, you could see the bridge sparkling with the same rainbow colours as the way you had gotten here. Beyond the long bridge was the castle in the distance.

Thor gestured for you to follow him, so you fell into step beside Stephen as you exited the small structure. You were now walking on the Bifrost bridge. The view you saw before you was absolutely breathtaking. The glittering bridge was just the beginning. Underneath it was a roaring river of clear water. The palace was beautiful, the structure standing as tall as the mountains in its background. The buildings of the surrounding city were sparkling everywhere. You have seen so much since becoming a sorcerer, but this was something else.

Stephen saw the smile on your face and the look of awe in your eyes. This made him smile, and he was suddenly glad he brought you here. He always loved showing you new things, fueling your curiosity and experiencing new things with you. But there was a little worry in the back of his mind that would not go away.

There was one reason, above all others, that Stephen did not want to bring you along.

Loki would be here.

He hated the way he looked at you. He hated his very being because of it. And the knowledge that you and him would be in the same place made his blood boil. Ever since that time Loki showed his face in New York and he had to take him to prevent him from doing anything, and he looked at you up and down like that, he disliked the god so much. And he was so nice to you, and you were nice to him. Whenever Stephen went to Asgard and ran into Loki, he would ask about you. Stephen did not like it.

But your reaction to the city and planet, and you had just gotten here, made the worry go away a little. He would be by your side anyways, to keep Loki away if he was going to try anything. He would throw the cloak around your shoulders to have it hide you away if he needed to. But at the moment he focused on being with you for your first impressions of Asgaurd and not worry too much.

~~~

You were awoken by a light touch and someone softly shaking you awake. The sleepiness was not shaken however, you groaning in protest as you cuddled up even more into the covers of the soft, silken sheets and thick comforter.

There was a chuckle and you new who it was from the deep tone. You lazily opened your eyes and saw Stephen looking down at you, already dressed and seeming wide awake. The sun was shining through the large window with the beautiful view of Asgard. It looked like the world was awake, but you were not ready to drag yourself out of bed.

"I have the first meeting this morning. Thought maybe you would want to come along but looks like you don't want to get out of bed."

You simply let out another sleepy groan.

Then you did a double take, noticing what he was wearing.

He had on his Cloak of Levitation, but underneath that was something different. He had swapped out his regular blue robes for an Asgardian version. It was made in a different style, but it still resembled his old robes. The blue was more rich in its colour, more royal and regal looking. The wrappings were lined with a golden fabric on the edges, it went really well with his signature red and blue. It was a very stark contrast between the one you were used to seeing him wear verse this new one. But you loved it. Seeing all the beautiful clothing everyone wore here made you happy, and seeing a piece like that on Stephen was astonishing.

"You like it?" He caught you staring.

"I love it," You said groggily but happily, running a hand through your hair and sitting up in the bed.

Straightening the cloak over his shoulders, he leaned over and kissed you on your forehead. "I should head to the meeting now. We'll be done before lunch." With that he left your shared guest room, closing the large door behind him.

You wanted to fall back asleep, but it did not overtake you. It was one of those moments where you just laid there cause you were already awaken. But you wanted to sleep. But you couldn't. So you stared out the window, looking out at the pretty mountain peaks and wondering what that first meeting was about. You also wondered about the other things you were going to do while on this foreign planet. Tour of the scenery, trying more of that delicious food (you were dying over it last night at dinner), learning about its history. Maybe you would learn a little Asgardian magic while you were here. The idea of that gave you a little excitement.

A little while later, while you were lost in a daydream, there was a knock on your door. You got up and grabbed a silk robe that was on a chair by your bedside. "Come in," You said, wrapping and tying the robe over yourself. Two women came through the door, maids of the castle you assumed.

One was holding a pile of neatly folded up fabric in her hands. You got excited.

The two introduced themselves and said that Frigga sent them to wake you and get you ready for breakfast. Since the meeting was going on between Odin, Stephen, Thor, and a few others, Frigga decided to have a little breakfast gathering for you. The women were so sweet, making small talk and asking you about Midgard as they prepared you a hot bath and did your hair in a fancy braid down your back that resembled a French braid.

The moment you were anticipating soon came, and they helped you get dressed.

The dress you were presented with was a deep forest green with golden embellishments. Silk fabric sat in long layers down the skirt, trailing out longer at the back. The neckline did not dive too deep down your chest, just enough for subtlety. The short sleeves clung to the sides of your upper arms, shoulders exposed above the folded layers. The gold piece wrapped around your waist as a belt helped bring out the details. The length slightly dragged on the floor, looking elegant and glittering in the sunlight. You felt like an Asgardian princess wearing it.

It reminded you of someone. Then you wondered who had picked it...

One of the girls topped off your look with a golden pin in your hair, shaped like a flourishing lily tucked above your right ear. The two admired their work and you thanked them from the bottom of your heart. The girl you saw in the mirror was so different then yourself. You saw an Asgardian goddess, not a sorcerer.

You asked them for directions after thanking them a second time, knowing you would get lost in the giant palace. They told you where to go, curtsying to you as a goodbye. You did it back, pulling up the fabric of your dress to feel a little more into it. With one last look in the mirror, and pulling your shoulders back, you made your way out of your guest room and down the correct hallway.

You were directed to a drawing room that was down a tall staircase and a few doors to your left. There was a guard in front of the wooden door, but upon seeing you he bowed and held it open for you. The room inside was not too large, but the big open window gave the impression that it was. Decorated just as nicely as the rest of the place, this room was no exception to the royal aspect and medieval aesthetic to the palace. There were a few comfy chairs surrounding a low table, where Frigga greeted you with a warm smile.

Sitting in the seat beside her was Loki. You had not seen him yesterday when you had arrived. This made you wonder why he had not said hello to you then along with everyone else. He also was not at dinner last night. Weird. He held a tea cup in one hand as he leaned back in his chair, cradling its saucer in the other hand. Seeing Loki sipping tea from a pretty cup with his pinky finger jutting out was a different sight, a contrast to his darker persona you knew was hidden beneath.

You hugged Frigga, which she insisted on, and you sat down with them. You all chatted over breakfast and you sparking up conversation with Loki was a little awkward at first, but once you opened up a little it flowed easily. The tea was amazing and the little pastries laid out on nice platters were absolutely delicious. Frigga asked about your magic skills, and you both began to exchange stories about magic. You had a great time and you were glad you got out of bed for this. Soon Frigga had some business to take care of and had to cut this little gathering short.

When you left Loki caught up with you in the hallway.

"It has been a while since we have seen each other, Lady (Y/N)."

A lot of the people here were calling you that. And people you did not even know knew your name, which always kind of threw you off for a second or two. That told you that you were known here, from either Thor or Stephen talking. The whole 'Lady' thing was out of respect you assumed, and you did not mind.

"It has." You replied as you both walked down the hall together, "It was nice to see you again, Loki."

"How are you liking it here?" He asked with a smile.

"I love it!" You beamed, "It's beautiful, the food is amazing," You then gestured down to the dress you were wearing, "and the clothes are stunning."

He chuckled, "Green looks good on you."

"Easy for you to say, it's your favorite."

"No no," He sputtered, and you thought he looked a little...flustered? "You genuinely look beautiful in green."

A little heat ran up to your cheeks. "Oh, thanks."

There was a balcony up ahead where you saw sunlight streaming in. You picked up your pace to go look out of it, Loki right behind you. It was overlooking the back of the castle, where you could see a beautiful garden down below, before the landscape stretched out into more of the city and the mountains beyond.

For a second or two you wondered what was past those peaks. If the planet simply stopped there, or if there were forests or towns or lakes or anything else that you wanted to discover. This whole place was full of beauty and the idea that there was a possibility for more was just a little overwhelming. But you loved it.

"I'm happy you like my home." Loki leaned on the railing, looking out at the city with you. "Although it was not always considered my home."

"What do you mean?" You asked. You noticed a sadness in his eyes now.

"You know my history."

At that moment you realized what that sadness was. Probably memories flashing through his mind. You did know his history. Lied to all his life, being overcome by the sadness and anger and wrath and desire for revenge. You knew what that lead to, the New York event and everything that came with and after that. Right now, he was allowed freedom back in his home for 'rehabilitation' of sorts, offered a second chance. Not knowing what that was like, you could not relate, but you knew he had gone through pain. It was even painful to see it in his eyes.

"So do you consider it home again?" It was all you could think of to say.

He shook his head in a light nod after a second to think, the look on his features exchanged for one with a small smile. A weird thought crossed your mind, you had not seen Loki smile this much before.

The two of you stood there looking out at the city below, watching the people of Asgard go about their days. It was a calm silence that fell, not a line of tension or heavy weight of awkwardness at all. Just a calm.

"Hey," Loki said out of nowhere, and you turned your head to look at him as he spoke up, "your outfit is missing something."

You raised an eyebrow at him, coming off as almost sarcastic. "Oh?"

A smirk sneaked up on his face and you knew he was going to do something. You braced yourself for whatever it might be, good or bad or a mix of both. With a flicker of green magic, an object materialized in his hands. It was his helmet, shining gold with the curved horns. It was so polished that you could see your reflection in it.

Then he was holding it out to you.

"Oh no, I couldn't."

Loki cocked his head to the side and shrugged with a smile, again with the smiling, "Why not?"

A pause, you did not say anything because you had nothing to say. Something about it was very tempting, but it also felt forbidden. Like if you were to put it on you would be overcome by some spell or just a wave of emotion. Or just the thought of wearing something that was considered 'crown-like', because you were not royalty or a goddess or someone with high power. But it was all calling your name, with a glint of gold.

"I insist." Loki added.

After another moment's pause, you let him put the helmet into your hands. It was lighter than you expected it to be, with pure gold usually being heavy. Probably not made of pure gold then. Just a trick of the eye.

Without waiting anymore, you slowly rested the helmet on your head. Right away you noticed it was a little big on you. It was not made to fit your head, obviously, but you felt something while wearing it. Maybe honour, or pride. Or maybe just pure 'slyness', the same energy that Loki often channeled.

"Looks good." Loki beamed.

"I'm dressed like you," You snapped jokingly, "that's why you think I look good."

He laughed and you did too. Maybe I should wear more green, you told yourself.

As you both continued to watch the city below and make small talk, from down the hall you could hear footsteps. Maybe guards or other people of the palace, you presumed. But as they approached, they got louder. And they got quicker. Heavy boots, you deduced. But suddenly they stopped.

"Nice view."

You nearly jumped out of your skin as Stephen had suddenly appeared right beside you. So those were his footsteps. You had not expected him to be out of the meeting for another while, but there he was. Him and that damn short-range teleportation spell he just loved to use for some reason. There were too many instances of him appearing out of nowhere back home and it resulted to you being more jumpy nowadays. He had positioned himself between you and Loki you noticed. Loki looked just as surprised as you were, the trickster being tricked.

"Where did you come from?" Loki scowled

"Down the hall." He answered blankly. You stiffed a laugh at his demeanor, sly and confident, when realization hit you that those were aspects of his jealous and protective side coming out. Oh boy, here we go...

"I'm surprised you're out of bed," Stephen looked down at you with a raised eyebrow, which made you chuckle. You saw a tiny twitch in the corner of his eye, and something told you that it had something to do with the god opposite you and the headpiece you were now wearing.

Stephen reached forward and gently lifted the gold helmet off your head, care in his eyes and shaking fingers. Once it was off, he (not so subtly) aggressively threw it at Loki's chest who stumbled to catch it, all trace of gentleness gone. Loki gave him a mock offended look, but Stephen's own hard expression was not phased. Your eyes quickly darted between the two, seeing the tension that had now thickened the air.

"Should't you be at a meeting with Odin?" Loki said. You noticed he did not say my father.

"Oh we finished early," Stephen replied in a light tone, trying to one-up the god while bringing out his ego's confidence. "we're having another one this evening however."

Loki looked like he did not know what to do, which made an amused smile spread across the sorcerer's face. Then he straight up asked, monotone voice dropping to sound flat and serious, "Why was she wearing your helmet?"

"Because...it matches her outfit?" The god struggled to find and answer only to come up with a question instead.

"Yea, sure." Stephen mumbled, "Wonder where she got that outfit."

"Some palace maids dressed me," You chimed in, but it felt like you were invisible at the moment. There was too much testosterone in the air that was covering your existence, which made you roll your eyes.

"Green and gold are nice colours." Loki said while trying to sound convincing and innocent.

"Coincidence she's wearing them?" Stephen shot back, suspicious.

"I had nothing to do with it, Strange."

"Oh sure."

"Oh my god." You slumped against the railing and rested your face in your hands. The two went on to snap at each other and argue for a little, but it felt like an eternity. after a period of you just standing there listening helplessly, the heat started to die down.

"If you'll excuse me, Sorcerer Supreme," Loki enunciated Stephen's title like it was a forbidden word, "I should be headed to attend some business."

He tried to walk off but Stephen cut him off, "Oh what kind of business do you have to do?"

"Business that does not require a mere mortal sorcerer to stick his clever nose into!"

"Well, it looked like it was no more important then taking my girl somewhere to be alone with!" The low rumble in his voice made it a little more threatening.

With that, Loki rolled his eyes so hard it looked like it hurt. And he walked away without another word, flipping his helmet over in his hands before jabbing it on his head with visible frustration.

"Well that was a show." You said, having stood there watching the whole thing like it was a theater drama.

Stephen shrugged, "I try my best."

You laughed, "Your jealousy gets to your head."

His facial expression recoiled, "Do you enjoy my jealousy? Do you enjoy his company?"

Your jaw dropped for a second in offence, "God no, why would I enjoy making you upset?" At that you shrugged, "Although it can be amusing."

You felt a pinch on your arm which made you let out a sound of distress. Stephen chuckled, and wrapped an arm around you lovingly as you leaned against the balcony railing together.

"He was just trying to be nice, Stephen."

"I don't think he can be 'nice',"

"He was nice at breakfast,"

"You had breakfast with him?"

"I was with Frigga. He just so happened to be there."

"Okay fine."

You laughed and he gently kissed the top of your head. After a moment of quiet and peace, you felt his softly shaking hand fiddle with the sleeve of your dress, "You look very beautiful."

Blushing, you looked up at him with admiring eyes. His expression mirrored yours. He was still wearing the new robes you last saw him in, the gold linings glittering in the Asgardian sunlight. You were about to say the same thing he said to you, when his expression changed. It was his thinking face.

"What?"

Stephen must have realized something as raised an eyebrow, "There's magic in your dress."

Before you could react, Stephen waved his hand in a quick motion. Suddenly, green waves of energy flowed out of the fabric of your clothes. But they soon changed to orange sparks, Asgardian magic to Earth sorcerer magic. As they flowed over you, the colour of your dress changed. The green was replaced with blue and the gold was replaced with red. There was still a little gold here and there, lining the edges in a familiar way.

"I knew it. He must have tampered with it." Stephen grumbled.

Now your dress mimicked the colours of Stephen's clothes, their original colours. You laughed a little, the person who made your clothes thought they were clever. But also Loki thought he was clever to change it to his colours. You wondered when and why he did that, but you shrugged it off and instead admired the dress in this new perspective.

"That's better." Stephen said, a little proud of himself for some reason.

"I like this more." You giggled.

"Me too."

The dress felt lighter and the fabric shined a little more. It was made for you, perfectly tailored to your body and with the perfect colours to match. It was perfect. And it reminded you of him so it made it all the more special. If they would not let you keep it, then you are just going to bring it home with you anyways.

"Well since the meeting was cut off early, lunch is not for another half an hour or so. What should we do till then?"

"Well~" You drew out, a smile creeping up your face, "I was looking at the gardens from here and I wouldn't mind going to see them."

Stephen smiled. He offered his elbow to you, "Then do you care for romantic stroll, Lady (Y/N)?" He put on his best English accent (which was surprisingly flawless), his naturally low voice making it all the more amusing.

With a giggle, you took his arm. Together you made your way through the castle in a swish of red and blue fabrics.

"Although," Stephen started as you both made your way down the last set of stairs that lead to the ground floor, "you did look good in the green. Even though I hate to admit it."

"Hate to admit it?" You looked up at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Well it was Loki's trickery, but you look good regardless. As always."

#doctor strange x reader #doctor strange #doctor strange fanfiction #stephen strange x reader #stephen strange #marvel #marvel fanfiction #mcu #loki #loki laufeyson #sorcerer supreme #reader insert #reader #x reader

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captainkurosolaire · 4 years ago

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~ Mass Update ~

Mainly going into future plans and intents alongside ideas below cut.

Ton's of things I've in store this will prove difficult to vent it all out. But here we go... First off rehashing and appropriately learning to tag and organize things better on my blog. Each category will have their own corresponding content, I seek to bring or share. [Tales of Goldbrand] -- I intend this to carry a Compendium of all my writes soon that'll have everything neatly in-order including a glossary, so it'll have highlights of stories that even matter or the best stuff. I've written here for a very, long time, there's been many shifts. I want to make it more accessible. While coloring what matters for people who want to learn Captain or his Crew with less chapters. While also giving choice to find it all easily. This is essentially a step-above master-lists. I'll be doing that after the Saga I have going on, right now is done. [Captain] -- Will provide you strictly with Captain screenshots, gifs, photo-sets. This is still his blog despite the Crew thing's will sort of make this a scuffed Multi-Muse blog. I've few more things to edit and tag fix to get all his stuff though. [The Wild Crew] -- Afterwards this story is done Immortal Age Saga, It's something that I mainly wrote as a passion project within three days to get my warm-up process fixed. It's to allow me to get a feel for all his Crewmates and casts, in combat, in-general, to feel their presences. While also giving a bit of their backstories. At any point, I can go back and polish or tweak things in. They're NPC's but... not entirely. All will have their own 'Dreams' and their own 'Disapproval's' they have their own missions even. These things will factor eventually, they might set seeds, to betray or disagree with something, but that's all angst and more stories to be created, but overall, they'll probably always be Crew, eventually. -- I plan on making character-profile sheets of them and putting them in this Tab, it'll have their screenshots, their likes/dislikes. Some RP partners or people can also be shipped with them, but they'll all be monogamous and originally start off probably Pan. This allows them to figure out what they like on their own stories. I've always been someone who likes organic-flow. Although this one story contain all 16 characters or more, the rest will probably be shortened to a Squad of 4 and dispersed when on adventuring missions. Until I do a War Arc, that's my main goal to build too. [Roster] -- Will contain this Crew in just screen-sets dedicated to them, I'll probably randomly produce those. I've PC players among this Crew too. I may not be done either adding more, but this Crew is mainly built around Quality. Most pirate crew's mainly, have hundreds, thousands. Even Fleets. This Crew has personalities, monsters, people who are living life's that exist with piracy. He's an particular leader that had PC players the same way, he's had split-personality serial killers aboard, tribal chieftains, succubus, all sorts of various people once on a Crew. It's often an outcast style, pirates default are chaotic in nature, so this really isn't any different, it's a Fantasy version of it. There's humanization characters aboard too though, so this cast is really decked, everything and person is vital, they matter because they remind or covet something that others can draw upon. If ever played (Three Houses or Mass Effect / Dragon Age Origins) A lot of things like that are relatable too this structure and format. Which, Is something I want to be able to give when RPing. I want a genuine feel of this new world someone else's muse will be the main-character too. Depending on what's interacting everything they'll be scale appropriately to follow the genre they're in and environment even. [Aesthetics] -- Already explainable what you'll find here. [Asks] -- Same thing. [Prompts] -- Trivial things I was tagged too, I plan on compiling later. [Writing] -- Another alternatively to randomly go-down and it works right now. [Logs] -- Will have more individualistic master-lists and posts there, my poems from Sheik Sphere the Bard, etc.

Things of that nature, I'll probably add still. It's where a lot of my creative writing is summed. [Gems of Hydaelyn] -- My main #tag for other characters and artists, creationist. Lot of amazing people easily to find their zones or follow them optionally if you like. Ton's I intend to support and bolster, be a lot less unspoken. I'm never the type who's been strictly inclusive. But I'll do that when I've time to even explore the dash, I'm always still planning ahead with things and projects. [CKS] My original character-sheet it's outdated on something's but not too terrible. I'll give him polishing someday, I swear? [21+F-List] -- Just purely degenerate stuff of Captain. I'm a pirate blog. I will represent that with openness and furthermore. I'm never projecting you some false-image. I started off a smut-writer by stripping that, I no-longer represent the same aura and identity. But those are strictly his stuff and kinks, I'm effective in executing them but they're not all relatable to me OOC. This blog will always be 18+ containing crude or dark material sometimes, romantic things, this Captain is blunt, will literally put his cock on the table in conversations. Swearing and being censored would be too uncommon and displace most of him, but there's more about him then all this. [Other] -- I pay homage to a lot of characters, I originally am a Concept Designer. Which mean's I make characters and ideas like my addiction. Bad characters / villains or other little things I like to share in designs, I'll put there. Some villains might get little photo-sets, even if they died. Just cause I like their design, or maybe I'll give them an AU, where they won. When I've wrapped up things. [Collabs + Ships] -- Is a new project idea. This isn't going to be something limited too romantic only ships. It'll contain, platonic, romantic, friendships, rivals, frenemies, family, PC Crew, all ships. I am desperately working on improving my gif, screenshot, posing game so I can supply 'Screen Stories' this is not only a way to RP that's accessible with even people who are upon time-crunches from work, It gives visual-representation. To impactful stories shared with others and establish bonds. That are all-valid and impactful matter. Lot of people take a lot of their characters attributes into them and are them dialed up, I work with that and bit more, differently. I'm disconnected from my characters and they'll get hurt and injured and killed by me, that's my duty as their Author to give them conflicts and struggles. I'm their major antagonist, but that doesn't mean at-all, it's always SET that way. The characters I like to make have their own life, they live in this setting and are abide by it, they're often nothing, nobodies, and by the interacting with others, they slowly gradually building, more... Through emotional impacts, they alter, these are REAL people by all their beliefs. Each person they come in-contact with are legitimate and treated like that too. They've always impacted or given them insights to grow, or represent more. Otherwise it'd be criminally disrespectful if I allowed any emotional I felt OOC be the grudge to something IC. Captain in-particular is set on defying me. I cannot have that. ...But I can't stop him. He's met and encountered so many people and lived so many scenarios based on the actions of others, he's giving a chance right now to actually do things a lot further than impossible. The more people he meets and encounters, experiences, the more I lose. These stories are emotionally interactive where everything is a factor and adds to the dice, where the other people are the one who get to roll the dice for him, not me. That's something I want to color in. People range in emotions, they have their down's, ups, their own wholesome-grounding people, spending time with your favorite people, there's nothing more cherishing than that, being in your own comfort-zone or 'safe-space' these are all treasures that we live under, today. Contrary if what people assume of me, I'm not another 'blogger' that's came

before, who's wanting to force a harem, then constantly is bewildered when that falls to pieces cause of selfishness or a lack of communication, or the skeletons they have in their closets and beliefs they hid behind and swindled fooled everyone. I'm not looking to be popular or anything really, I just create stories and want to share in those, and I want to also boost others included, upward with me, especially those who make me. There's no ego in anything I do, this is purely love. I've never cared about being replicated or duplicated, I've had stalkers, I've gone through more then anyone would imagine, I've been used OOC and abused, just for my writing and cold-harshly told, i'd never amount to anything other then that or vice-versa. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Passion. That's all I got and am anymore. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Passion is the hardest thing to keep. It's something that can be stolen, quite effortlessly. Few words of discouragement, a bad negative representation, a lack of confidence, or small amount of time, there's many thing's that can put that flame out. Once you lose it. The difficulty to reattain is hundred-times harder than climbing any mountain for real. I've watched the greatest creators crumble from under the pressure, from beaten down by others. I watched many of them do it to themselves because they put a grand vision of needing validation of another and once lost, felt uncompelling to press onward. But passion also can be given BACK and drawn. It can be shown and encourage others, with a soft-triggering, that pushes them. That motivates, that constantly sticks to it. There are many that fuel me. If I ever quit, I let them down, I spit in the faces of people who're better than me in every-way. Or people who've came and given me their precious Time. That have given their character's or dedication to the abundant stories and community-driven things I've done. There's ONLY things you can do, create, give and provide. It cannot ever come to life without YOU. This is a fact. ...I swear, If you let your creativity soar, you'll be amazed by the heights you get. Constantly polish and learn and hone the best you, challenge yourself day after painstaking day, to draw better improvement on something, no matter how trivial or unfamiliar you are. You'll find a confidence only you can give yourself. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Future Plans --------------------------------------------------------------------- For me, I've got so much more stories to give and also explore, I might be taking up soon some other artists and more skilled people from community and hire them for some of my future writes, to up my game or cause something thing's can't be done in-game cause no background carries it. I also got a lot of-set up things and more angst stuff I want to practice, plus I'm adamantly on that grind to produce screen-sets with the intent's to some sort of improving daily. Additionally more people I'll be reaching out too soon for these collab's ideas and things. I look forward to shaking your hands, giving some hugs, show you my respect and admiration, then creating some enchanting stories and giving plots light. Feel free to reach out to me, I get scattered-brain but I'm working on getting better about it. Eventually will get to you though, my goals, if uninterested just say so when I poke, no bites, unless you kinky. Anyways, cheers hearties.

#ooc #update #future plans stuffz #ToG #Work on thinking of daily practice now

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grailfinders · 4 years ago

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Fate and Phantasms #150: Merlin

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re finishing the last build in Observer on Timeless Temple, the man who broke the meta, Merlin! I’ll be honest, I really wasn’t expecting we’d make it this far. Anyway, you’re a Divination Wizard, because no shit. You’re a wizard, you can see the future, you kinda cheat at life, everything else just falls into place. You’re also a Fighter, because you also keep a shortsword stashed in your staff in case of emergencies.

Check out his build breakdown below the cut, or his character sheet over here!

Next up: A dimension-hopping bisexual. That’s not a phrase I ever thought I’d say, but I’m glad I did.

Race and Background

Merlin’s half Incubus, giving him immense magical power. Thankfully we can match that lineage one for one with the Abyssal Tiefling, an old UA that gives you +2 Intelligence, +1 Charisma, Darkvision, Abyssal Fortitude for half your level (rounded down, minimum 1) in extra HP, and Abyssal Arcana. That last one’s a bit complicated, so give us a second.

Each long rest, you randomly get one of six cantrips by rolling a d6 (aside from the one you just had, you have to re-roll if that happens). You can get Dancing Lights, True Strike, Light, Message, Spare the Dying, or Prestidigitation. You can cast that cantrip like you would any other cantrip at your disposal, although awkwardly enough they never mention what ability score you would use to cast it. (I would assume Charisma, but feel free to argue with your DM.) After you finish another long rest, replace the old cantrip with a new one.

Being stranded on the other side of the world makes you the premier Hermit, giving you proficiency with Arcana and Religion.

Ability Scores

You know literally everything, so make your Intelligence as high as possible. You also don’t have much difficulty avoiding the consequences of your actions, so it’s safe to say your Dexterity is pretty good too. You managed to catfish a not insignificant portion of the human race during the Goetia Crisis, so your Charisma is up there as well. Your Constitution isn’t as strong, you’re pretty much unkillable but I’ll be damned if Quetz didn’t try. Your Wisdom is rather low- you thought betraying the second sun was a good idea- but we’re dumping Strength. You are wizard, no big surprise.

Class Levels

1. First level wizards get proficiency in Intelligence and Wisdom saves, as well as History (you were there for quite a bit of it) and Insight (you watch people long enough eventually you notice patterns).

You also learn how to cast Spells using your Intelligence. Like all wizards you get an obscene number of spells, so we’ll just mention the ones that are very important to the character here, though the character sheet has a full list.

Mage Armor, of course is super important for any wizard, as is your caster balls (Magic Missile). I’d also grab Charm Person to make the whole Magi Marie thing a bit easier. You can also get Find Familiar, if you really want Cath Palug that badly.

Lastly, you get an Arcane Recovery, letting you regain spell slots with a total level equal to half your level rounded up on a short rest once per long rest. Not having slots sucks, don’t do that.

2. Second level wizards learn a specialty, and Divination basically lets you cheat at everything thanks to your Portents. At the end of a long rest, you roll two 20s and save those results. At any time before your next long rest, you can use one of those results to replace an attack, save, or ability roll you can see, once per turn. If you roll high, give it to Artoria. If you roll low, still give it to Artoria, it’ll be funny.

You also become a Divination Savant, making it cheaper and easier to copy divination spells.

3. Third level wizards get second level spells, but your Abyssal Arcana also grows stronger, giving you a random first level spell each long rest as well. You cast these spells as if you were using a second level spell slot once per long rest. They are Burning Hands, Charm Person, Magic Missile, Cure Wounds, Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, and Thunderwave. You’re a Grand Caster candidate, so it’s not like there’s a reason you couldn’t cast any of those.

We’re also spending your spells this level to enhance party members, with Enhance Ability and Magic Weapon helping out in and out of combat.

4. I know we just got cure wounds last level, but that’s a one in six chance of using it once per long rest. I’d hardly call that meta breaking. We’ll fix that by using your first Ability Score Improvement to grab the Magic Initiate feat, giving you the spells Light, Minor Illusion, and Cure Wounds more consistently (the last one is still once per long rest though).

5. Fifth level Abyssal Tieflings get one last boost to their Abyssal Arcana, giving them one of six second level spells each long rest. You could get Alter Self, Darkness, Invisibility, Levitate, Mirror Image, or Spider Climb.

You also learn Dispel Magic to break through Tiamat’s Chaos Tide.

6. Sixth level divination wizards have Expert Divination, recharging lower level spell slots after expending another spell slot on a divination spell. The recharged slot also has to be 5th level or lower, but that’s hardly an issue right now. Very useful for someone who’s technically in another plane most of the time.

You also learn Major Image, for stronger illusory power, and Haste to make a chosen warrior more of a hero.

7. We’re now going to bounce over to Fighter real quick, you’re surprisingly quick to pull a sword on someone if you feel like it. The Dueling fighting style adds 2 to your weapon damage with one handed weapons, and Second Wind lets you spend a bonus action to heal yourself.

8. Second level fighters get an Action Surge, letting you add an extra action to your turn once per short rest.

9. For your fourth level spells, Hallucinatory Terrain will give your allies a glimpse of Avalon (healing and NP charge not included).

10. Use this ASI to bump up your Intelligence, and learn Charm Monster to keep Cath Palug from smacking you upside the head for the eight billionth time.

11. With fifth level spells you can finally insert yourself into others’ dreams thanks to the spell Dream. It takes a minute to cast, but afterwards you can enter a trance to hop into a target’s dreams. You can shape the dream to your liking, or just watch the fireworks. You can also turn into a nightmare to deal psychic damage and prevent any benefits from that sleep if the target fails a wisdom save.

12. Tenth level divination wizards can use The Third Eye to gain one special kind of sight each short rest as an action. You can choose form Darkvision, sight into the Ethereal Plane, the ability to Read any Language, or the ability to see invisible objects and creatures.

13. Sixth level spells like Mental Prison make things a lot harder for your enemies, charming one target creature if it fails an intelligence save. If it succeeds, it only takes some psychic damage. If it fails, it takes the damage and it becomes surrounded by an illusionary prison, so it can’t move, see, or hear anything beyond its space. If it’s forcibly moved out, or is attacked/attacks through the illusion, it takes even more psychic damage and the spell ends.

14. If you’re going with the standard array, you’ve probably noticed by now that your intelligence is currently odd. Thankfully we can fix that and make your DM’s life so much harder all at once thanks to the feat Keen Mind, which we’re picking up with this level’s ASI. Your Intelligence goes up by one, you have a great sense of direction and timing, and you have eidetic memory of the last month.

15. Seventh level spells like Mirage Arcane are another bump in power, letting you warp the landscape in a square mile around you. You can even add your fancy looking tower to the illusion now! Still not a lot of healing though.

16. Your last divination goody is the feature Greater Portent, letting your roll three d20s per day instead of two. Yeah, portent’s just kinda busted.

17. Eighth level spells like Illusory Dragon are a massive upgrade, almost as powerful as you usually are. This lets you make a dragon illusion that takes up space, is tangible, and can really breathe fire. I’m not entirely sure how this is an illusion, if I’m being honest.

18. Use this ASI to bump up your Dexterity for less dying and more stabbing. You also learn the spell Demiplane, to create your own Avalon! As long as you don’t mind your Avalon being a 30′ cube room and nothing else. Still, it’s hard to beat that level of security.

19. Seventeenth level wizards get ninth level spells. Seriously, just grab as many as you can. Merlin’s a grand caster, literally nothing is beyond his reach, certainly not anything a D&D character could do.

20. Eighteenth level wizards gain Spell Mastery over a first and second level spell, letting you cast them at their lowest level like cantrips. Silent Image and Magic Weapon are both good for support, I’d pick those. It’s not a huge issue if you change your mind later, too- you can change spells after 8 hours of study. You also learn True Polymorph. Artoria’s gotta father a child somehow.

Pros:

With your maxed out intelligence, plus ways to confuse your enemies and buff your allies, you make for a pretty good support caster. I doubt that comes as a surprise.

Divination wizards are kinda busted? Three portents per long rest can seriously reshape a campaign if you’re smart with them.

Wish is also kinda busted? You know how a lot of builds I mention not getting to ninth level spells as a con? Now you get to find out why.

Cons:

You’re squishy, which also isn’t too surprising. With an AC of 16 and HP barely scratching past one hundred, You probably won’t want to actually use your sword that often.

Despite healing being the big draw of your FGO counterpart, we didn’t really get that much in this build. You get one to two uses of Cure Wounds per day, plus your second wind. Not exactly meta defining.

Most illusions and buff spells use concentration, so good luck holding onto those with a con save of +1. It also means you have to pick and choose what you’re doing at any one time.

#fgo #Fate Grand Order #D&D 5e #DND #Merlin #Wizard #Fighter

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blubberquark · 4 years ago

Text

Excel, Word, Access, Outlook

Previously on computer literacy: A Test For Computer Literacy

If you’re a computer programmer, you sometimes hear other programmers complain about Excel, because it mixes data and code, or about Word, because it mixes text and formatting, and nobody ever uses Word and Excel properly.

If you’re a computer programmer, you frequently hear UX experts praise the way Excel allows non-programmers to write whole applications without help from the IT department. Excel is a great tool for normal people and power users, I often hear.

I have never seen anybody who wasn’t already versed in a real programming language write a complex application in an Excel spreadsheet. I have never seen anybody who was not a programmer or trained in Excel fill in a spreadsheet and send it back correctly.

Computer programmers complain about the inaccessibility of Excel, the lack of discoverability, the mixing of code and data in documents that makes versioning applications a proper nightmare, the influence of the cell structure on code structure, and the destructive automatic casting of cell data into datatypes.

UX experts praise Excel for giving power to non-programmers, but I never met a non-programmer who used Excel “properly”, never mind developed an application in it. I met non-programmers who used SPSS, Mathematica, or Matlab properly a handful of times, but even these people are getting rarer and rarer in the age of Julia, NumPy, SymPy, Octave, and R. Myself, I have actually had to learn how to use Excel in school, in seventh grade. I suspect that half of the ��basic computer usage” curriculum was the result of a lobbying campaign by Microsoft’s German branch, because we had to learn about certain features in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on Windows 95, and non-Microsoft applications were conspicuously absent.

Visual Basic and VBS seemed like a natural choice to give power to end users in the 90s. People who had already used a home computer during the 8-bit/16-bit era (or even an IBM-compatible PC) were familiar with BASIC because that was how end-users were originally supposed to interact with their computers. BASIC was for end users, and machine code/compiled languages were for “real programmers” - BASIC was documented in the manual that came with your home computer, machine code was documented in MOS data sheets. From today’s point of view, programming in BASIC is real programming. Calling Visual Basic or .Net scripting in Excel “not programming“ misrepresents what modern programmers do, and what GUI users have come to expect after the year 2000.

Excel is not very intuitive or beginner-friendly. The “basic computer usage” curriculum was scrapped shortly after I took it, so I had many opportunities to observe people who were two years younger than me try to use Excel by experimenting with the GUI alone.

The same goes fro Microsoft Word. A friend of mine insists that nobody ever uses Word properly, because Word can do ligatures and good typesetting now, as well as footnotes, chapters, outline note taking, and so on. You just need to configure it right. If people used Word properly, they wouldn’t need LaTeX or Markdown. That friend is already a programmer. All the people I know who use Word use WYSIWYG text styling, fonts, alignment, tables, that sort of thing. In order to use Word “properly“, you’d have to use footnotes, chapter marks, and style sheets. The most “power user” thing I have ever seen an end user do was when my father bought a CD in 1995 with 300 Word templates for all sorts of occasions - birthday party invitation, employee of the month certificate, marathon completion certificate, time table, cooking recipe, invoice, cover letter - to fill in and print out.

Unlike Excel, nobody even claims that non-programmer end users do great things in Word. Word is almost never the right program when you have email, calendars, wikis, to-do lists/Kanban/note taking, DTP, vector graphics, mind mapping/outline editors, programmer’s plain text editors, dedicated novelist/screenwriting software, and typesetting/document preparation systems like LaTeX. Nobody disputes that plain text, a wiki, or a virtual Kanban board is often preferable to a .doc or .docx file in a shared folder. Word is still ubiquitous, but so are browsers.

Word is not seen as a liberating tool that enables end-user computing, but as a program you need to have but rarely use, except when you write a letter you have to print out, or when you need to collaborate with people who insist on e-mailing documents back and forth.

I never met an end user who actually liked Outlook enough to use it for personal correspondence. It was always mandated by an institution or an employer, maintained by an IT department, and they either provided training or assumed you already had had training. Outlook has all these features, but neither IT departments nor end users seemed to like them. Outlook is top-down mandated legibility and uniformity.

Lastly, there is Microsoft Access. Sometimes people confused Excel and Access because both have tables, so at some point Microsoft caved in and made Excel understand SQL queries, but Excel is still not a database. Access is a database product, designed to compete with products like dBase, Cornerstone, and FileMaker. It has an integrated editor for the database schema and a GUI builder to create forms and reports. It is not a networked database, but it can be used to run SQL queries on a local database, and multiple users can open the same database file if it is on a shared SMB folder. It is not something you can pick up on one afternoon to code your company’s billing and invoicing system. You could probably use it to catalogue your Funko-Pop collection, or to keep track of the inventory, lending and book returns of a municipal library, as long as the database is only kept on one computer. As soon as you want to manage a mobile library or multiple branches, you would have to ditch Access for a real SQL RDBMS.

Microsoft Access was marketed as a tool for end-user computing, but nobody really believed it. To me, Access was SQL with training wheels in computer science class, before we graduated to MySQL and then later to Postgres and DB2. UX experts never tout Access as a big success story in end-user computing - yet they do so for Excel.

The narrative around Excel is quite different from the narrative around Yahoo Pipes, IFTTT, AppleScript, HyperCard, Processing, or LabView. The narrative goes like this: “Excel empowers users in big, bureaucratic organisations, and allows them to write limited applications to solve business problems, and share them with co-workers.”

Excel is not a good tool for finance, simulations, genetics, or psychology research, but it is most likely installed on every PC in your organisation already. You’re not allowed to share .exe files, but you are allowed to share spreadsheets. Excel is an exchange format for applications. Excel files are not centrally controlled, like Outlook servers or ERP systems, and they are not legible to management. Excel is ubiquitous. Excel is a ubiquitous runtime and development environment that allows end-users to create small applications to perform simple calculations for their jobs.

Excel is a tool for office workers to write applications to calculate things, but not without programming, but without involving the IT department. The IT department would like all forms to be running on some central platform, all data to be in the data warehouse/OLAP platform/ERP system - not because they want to make the data legible and accessible, but because they want to minimise the number of business-critical machines and points of failure, because important applications should either run on servers in a server rack, or be distributed to workstations by IT.

Management wants all knowledge to be formalised so the next guy can pick up where you left off when you quit. For this reason, wikis, slack, tickets and kanban boards are preferable to Word documents in shared folders. The IT department calls end-user computing “rogue servers“ or “shadow IT“. They want all IT to have version control, unit tests, backups, monitoring, and a handbook. Accounting/controlling thinks end-user computing is a compliance nightmare. They want all software to be documented, secured, and budgeted for. Upper management wants all IT to be run by the IT department, and all information integrated into their reporting solution that generates these colourful graphs. Middle management wants their people to get some work done.

Somebody somewhere in the C-suite is always viewing IT as a cost centre, trying to fire IT people and to scale down the server room. This looks great on paper, because the savings in servers, admins, and tech support are externalised to other departments in the form of increased paperwork, time wasted on help hotlines, and

Excel is dominating end-user computing because of social reasons and workplace politics. Excel is not dominating end-user computing because it is actually easy to pick up for end-users.

Excel is dominating end-user computing neither because it is actually easy to pick up for non-programmers nor easy to use for end-users.

This is rather obvious to all the people who teach human-computer interaction at universities, to the people who write books about usability, and the people who work in IT departments. Maybe it is not quite as obvious to people who use Excel. Excel is not easy to use. It’s not obvious when you read a book on human-computer interaction (HCI), industrial design, or user experience (UX). Excel is always used as the go-to example of end-user computing, an example of a tool that “empowers users”. If you read between the lines, you know that the experts know that Excel is not actually a good role model you should try to emulate.

Excel is often called a “no code“ tool to make “small applications“, but that is also not true. “No Code” tools usually require users to write code, but they use point-and-click, drag-and-drop, natural language programming, or connecting boxes by drawing lines to avoid the syntax of programming languages. Excel avoids complex syntax by breaking everything up into small cells. Excel avoids iteration or recursion by letting users copy-paste formulas into cells and filling formulas in adjacent cells automatically. Excel does not have a debugger, but shows you intermediate results by showing the numbers/values in the cells by default, and the code in the cells only if you click.

All this makes Excel more like GameMaker or ClickTeam Fusion than like Twine. Excel is a tool that doesn’t scare users away with text editors, but that’s not why people use it. It that were the reason, we would be writing business tools and productivity software in GameMaker.

The next time you read or hear about the amazing usability of Excel, take it with a grain of salt! It’s just barely usable enough.

#end-user computing #computer literacy

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unhealthyfanobsession · 5 years ago

Text

The Hit List

This is based on a head canon I posted a couple days ago- just couldn’t get the idea of Nesta having an Arya-Stark style hit list; mostly crack and pure fluff if I’m being honest 🤷‍♀️

Cassian and Nesta have lived together for 137 years as of last Saturday. Maybe he should be embarrassed that he has been counting, but when one lives with Nesta Archeron one gets used to ensuring that they are always prepared. The woman has an infallible memory. Cassian knows every date that is of any consequence. He knows the day that her mother died because she always shrinks into herself just a little bit on that day, even after all of these years. He knows the day that they met, the day that the war ended, and the day that their mating bond snapped into place. He knows the day that they got married in a tiny little ceremony that consisted of only them plus Elain and Azriel- even Rhysand and Feyre weren’t present- and he knows the day that she finally, finally allowed herself to admit it to everyone that they had gotten married. Cassian knows everything about Nesta Archeron. He has spent 142 years learning every single piece of her (yeah you can do the math on how long it took him to convince her to move out of that damn run down apartment).

There is nothing about Nesta Archeron that could surprise him at this point. He can read her moods in the tense of her shoulders before she even wakes up in the morning. He can tell whether or not she will be amiable to seeing other people by the firmness or reluctance of her lips against his before they eat breakfast.

Cassian knows Nesta.

He does.

Really.

So why is he crinkling his brow in confusion as he stares at this tiny, ancient looking piece of parchment that has fallen out of her drawer.

Nesta is nearing the end of her cycle and he was sent to this particular drawer (his favorite if he’s being honest, but that is not the purpose of this moment) to fetch her new undergarments as she curses and tries to get out of their bed in the next room.

If it were even a day earlier Cassian would forget the paper. He would sprint into that room and tie her stubborn ass to the bed if he had to. She never rests long enough on her cycle, but this should be the last day so nothing bad will happen if she insists on taking herself to the bath.

Cassian is far too intrigued by this discovery to pay the subtle grunts any attention. The paper looks like it has been folded over and over again, uncreased and re-creased. It looks old, and coming from him that is saying something.

Cassian thinks that maybe he shouldn’t open it, but... he and Nesta don’t keep secrets, so surely if she had one then she would hide it better than shoving it under all of these scraps of lace in her underwear drawer. He smoothes the paper out carefully and his brow only creases farther as he reads it

Hybern

Old bitch Queen

Stupid Glaring Queen

White Queen

Old Fae Queen

Tomas

Beron

Jurian

Tamlin

Devlon

The last 3 names are deeply faded, clearly having been written in lead and then scratched at. Not scratched out in the way the others are, with a single black line through them, but... erased? Or attempted to be erased at least.

Cassian rubs his thumb along the final line, trying to feel the deeply faded and worn through section of the paper. The writer clearly wrote and then attempted to erase this word several times. It only takes him a minute to figure it out.

Rhysand

Cassian has never been so confused. None of these names seem to fit together in any way that he can make sense of. The Queens, he has to imagine refers to the mortal Queens from the war, and Hybern is explanatory enough- but what do 3 High Lords have to do with any of that? (Well... 2 current High Lords and a “woefully” usurped loser that no one will miss). Not to mention a resurrected human, the Lord of Windhaven, and some poor male named... Tomas?

Cassian shakes his head and does what he always does when something about Nesta confuses him. He walks right into their bedroom and asks her.

“What is this?”

Nesta lifts her eyes from the sheets, hands still gripping at her abdomen as she glares daggers at him.

“The fact that males don’t have to go through this torture is proof that the cauldron has always been an insufferable prick” she growls.

“That’s what I love about you, Nes” he grins that infuriatingly charming lopsided grin of his “you could wish that you weren’t in pain, but no no- instead you wish that I was as well”

“That stupid mating bond does claim to pair equals” she grimaces

“Oh so now it’s stupid?”

“If stuck me with you, didn’t it?”

Cassian laughs, moving closer to the bed with a wicked grin “I didn’t hear you complaining last night as I took that pain away in the only way that ever seems to work” he winks

“Hmmm” Nesta considers idly, reaching out to pull him onto the bed beside her so that she can lean her back against his chest “I suppose you do have your uses.”

Cassian chuckles, running a hand through her hair “what is this?” He asks again, holding up the parchment.

Nesta pauses for only a second before shrugging “it’s my kill list”

“Your what?” She said the words so casually, as though she was informing him what she wanted for dinner that night.

“I should think that the words ‘kill list’ are rather self explanatory”

Cassian pauses, looking down at the female that he thought he knew so well.

They are literally connected together. How could he not know what a bloodthirsty little minx his wife is? Well no, that isn’t accurate. He did know, he just didn’t know that she wrote it all down so literally and physically.

“Rhysand’s name is on this list”

“No it isn’t” Nesta shakes her head in annoyance “I erased it last year after he built that garden and named it for Elain” she shrugs “he’s one of the rotating players. Every few years he does something to get his name on the list but then usually he acquits himself within the decade.”

Cassian only nods, long since learning the pattern of Nesta’s speech that indicates when she is finished speaking on a matter and will not give it any more of her time. Of course, he also knows exactly the right buttons to push in order to make her keep speaking, but... now isn’t the time to play one of those cards. Nesta and Rhysand have always shared a tenuous relationship at best, so he supposes that her erasing his name from the kill list is probably about the greatest level of affection she will ever show the High Lord.

“Who is Tomas?” Nesta’s entire body tenses in his arms and Cassian’s mirrors her exactly one second later.

Oh.

Him.

“I’m glad that he is crossed out” Cassian grits through clenched teeth.

Nesta sighs “not nearly as satisfying an end as some of the others I’m afraid. So much time passed that one day I realized it would be impossible for him to still be alive, so I just crossed his name out” she shrugs.

”why does that old Queen still draw breath?” He grins a little, enjoying the strangely morbid conversation as he moves his hands down to gently massage her lower abdomen. She lets out a little moan that he assumes means some of her pain is subsiding.

“Every day that she lives is her punishment” Nesta grins this time, and Cassian sees it as she lays her head back against his shoulder “she wanted to be young and beautiful forever. Now she is an immortal old crone. If I never cross that name off I’ll consider it a type of victory entirely its own”

“What about Devlon, Jurian, and Tamlin?”

Nesta scoffs “they’re all on thin ice, but...” she sighs, an annoyed sort of huff “Tamlin did save Elain in a way and Jurian was playing doubt agent. And...” she pauses “you speak well of Devlon in comparison to the other Illyrian lords so he remains in the safe zone...for now.”

Cassian just grins a little, hands continuing their careful ministrations “I love you” he murmurs into her hair.

“I love you too”

Cassian pauses, straightening up a bit and pulling Nesta with him as he does so.

“Wait” he narrows his eyes “have I ever been on this list?”

Nesta curls her lips into a teasing smirk and gives him the most innocent little shrug as an answer.

Cassian chuckles, resting his chin on top of her head “as long as you always erase it”

“I use a lighter lead when I want to put you on it” she turns over in his arms so that she can look up at him “easier to erase. No smudges”

“I do believe that is that most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me, Nesta” they both laugh as Cassian leans down to capture her lips in his own, and suddenly Nesta’s cramps don’t seem quite so bad.

#nessian #nessian fanfiction #nesta archeron #cassian #a court of silver flames #acosf #sarah j maas #a court of mist and fury #a court of thorns and roses #nesta and cassian #a court of wings and ruin #a court of frost and starlight #acotar

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aggresivelyfriendly · 4 years ago

Text

The Future is What?

Hi all! So my imagination is big, and this was a flapping cape to its bull! Enjoy, or don’t, no judgement!

I owe it all to @dirtystyles

"Did I get it?" He feels like it should be rather obvious, but they've been at this, off and on, for most of the day.

Well, not this particular pursuit, but the pursuit of pleasure, his and hers, since he woke up hard and she woke up willing.

So she's very wet and swollen and sensitive too. The deluge had come and gone and come again, it's fair to say.

She smiled, but that wasn't an answer. Her eyes were hazy and she looked just as fucked out as him. But he really wanted to know, couldn't help but ask, both times.

It had started as pillow talk. "You remember that shirt you wore, like early on?"

She'd worn a lot of shirts, she can't stop herself when it comes to a clever tee, so she just raised a sweaty brow at him from where she is lying on his right laurel.

"You know the one." He nudged her with his hip. And he knew he was blushing and she knew he was blushing and she tried to think of red cheek inducing shirts? But then she started thinking how her lower cheeks were probably red from the friendly slaps he'd given her when their morning side lying fuck had turned into full on doggie. God bless younger men.

"I have a lot of cheeky shirts?" She shrugs, it jostles his balls.

"Heeeey, careful!" He warns but he's smiling and his dimples and eye crinkles are almost meeting so she climbs up to kiss him and lay on his shoulder.

"No, really, just tell me what shirt?"

She can't believe he's embarrassed. They've been dancing around for a month, and had been moved on to the horizontal mambo with glee weeks ago.

It had started innocently enough. Around Thanksgiving, she was texting the group chat how she hated that her kiddos were away and she was alone on the actual day. She'd used some crying emojis- it was dramatic, but she was in the right field for that. There had been a smattering or sympathetic responses, Harry had sent a thumbs down. Then with barely a moments pause he'd texted, "Wanna come over? I'm cooking way too much!" To only her.

"Why? You're not even American?" Had been her response. The shrug emoji made her smile. He was kinda weird, and cute, no, hot. So hot, but cute.

She should know better, she might be accused of leading man-itis.

She couldn't deny she was kinda into him. I mean, he was a dreamboat and they decked him out to full wattage daily on set, but she was his boss and older and had kids and had just gotten out of relationship and, and, and. To all these reasons she had to say, "shut the fuck up!" to her own brain.

He could be just being nice. He was seriously the nicest man she'd ever met.

Or, what if it was a move? Did she want it to be a move? No? Yes? Yes...why couldn't she have nice things? She was a badass, and now a single mom who deserved but didn't require love.

And he was an adult. She'd make sure he knew the playing field and rules. That they'd have to share home court advantage, if they were even gonna play to have rematches in the future.

More than anything, the most compelling thing, was the way he made her smile. She appreciated thoughtfulness, and the way her remembered names, preferences, dietary restrictions and favorite flowers, it just melted her. She really thought she'd lost the ability to melt when her vagina died.

She supposed the impulsive adventurer inside never died, even when made shy by more than one bite.

Of course, she texted back, "Address?" Just to him.

And three hours later she'd had an incredible meal and two orgasms.

Then, even with her warning him off, and some wise voice reminding her she often fell too fast, they'd fallen into each other.

On Christmas Eve, when he'd found her crying that her kids didn't come home until morning, he'd pulled her downstairs to excitedly play Santa and then given her a beautiful Gucci outfit, asked her to be his date at his best friend's wedding, and told her if he had to be away from family for Christmas he could imagine no one better to be with.

She was already on his hook, but line and sinker were now also accomplished.

So much for rules and boundaries, and home court advantage definitely looked like her at his house overnight whenever hers was quiet, and driving his car too.

So, that he was so embarrassed now surprised her. They had dove deeply into one another, been bare emotionally as well, they'd rehashed her divorce and her almost marriage. Then his past, his band, his homesickness and his tattoos. She was amazed he felt self conscious, laying with her naked, whatever the topic of her conversation tees were.

"Just tell me the shirt, baby." She knew that melted him right back. He really loved all the couple things they were falling into, she could see it when he preened at small touches or glowed at pet names.

"Um, well." She can't help but laugh, he's so good at action, both at home and when she calls it on set, but he gets incredibly tongue tied with words. Probably why he did music, too. Easier to share thoughts to a page than person.

"Cmon!" She said against his mouth, "tell me..." she bit his lower lip.

"The one about the future." He waits for her to fill the rest in.

"The voting shirt I bought everybody?" That concerned the future.

"Um," he rolls his eyes, she assumes at himself. "The female ejaculation one."

"Oh!" Oh!! She had worn that one to set. It was when she was kinda starting to feel Harry. She wanted him to think of her cumming. She supposed it worked, though she was a tiny bit embarrassed at her brazenness. Most days she thought of it as her best trait. Maybe it was, it was working for her, clearly. "Yeah, what about it?" He was avoiding eye contact. She wanted him to look at her.

He finally did, and he gripped her hips proprietarily, like he needed to be reminded he could, that he had some entitlement to her for this conversation. "Can you?"

Could she? Could she what? Oh, OH! "Um, I have. But it's not like commonplace." She traced his eyebrows and perched on his hips. That was doing fun things to him. "Have you ever?"

He nodded. "But just once, and I'm not sure how I did it. I'd like to learn to master it." He gave her a smug look, well as smug as he could look blushing. The sex flush and sweat helped.

"Oh, you'd like to master it, huh?" She tickled him a little and he squirmed and they giggled together. "How long do you suppose that could take? I've got all day!" She was joking.

"I've got years!" He raised an eyebrow at her.

Years? With them? Why was that compelling? this was a fling. But so was her first marriage, she supposed. A lovely life changing short lived thing that turned into years.

The butterflies in her belly were familiar, from that lifetime ago.

"Alright." She crawled up and over his face. "Let's see that diligence, Styles."

He's really good at this, and they both seemed to like when she's in charge. That's working for them when she's in her director's chair or using his face as a seat.

That one was too easy. She came, but not like he was hoping for.

His long fingers played her next, and she thinks they may have nearly had it.

After that, he was too pent to just let that erection go to waste. That one may have been a wasted opportunity, if they had added some vibes or she had got her fingers down there they may have got it. Also, if Harry had been able to hold off longer.

"Sorry!" He'd breathed into her neck.

She could only laugh, yeah, sorry for today's first orgasm to her fifth. She knew how goal oriented he was though. "It's ok." She ruffled his hair and kissed him.

The nap was needed and inevitable. He woke up on a mission.

This time, he employed all the lessons they'd learned.

But her body was groggy.

"Harry, baby—"

"Hmmm?" He hummed from where he was beneath the blanket, head between her legs immediately after he pulled out. That'd be hot, but..

"Baby, I need a break." She pushed the blankets off and cupped his jaw before pulling him up. "And food."

"I'll cook for you." He got up naked as the day and she slapped his little ass as he went.

"That did it! It happened!" She laughed and he narrowed his eyes at her.

"You're a menace and a meany." He leaned over to kiss her on her sweaty forehead. "What do you want?"

"Whatever can be ready in the space of a shower, I'm so hungry."

"No!" He shook his head. "Don't wash."

"Ok Napoleón. I'll feel better if I'm clean."

"But it'll be like starting over. We're not finished yet."

"Baby, we have time. There's no rush." She reminded him. They'd talked about this. He was scared too, to many relationships sacrificed to fame. She didn't give a fuck; not her first rodeo and all.

He'd been right though. She'd met him in the kitchen and his breakfast in bed plan was foiled. Then they watched a movie, then a documentary.

Luckily that was boring enough, or they were new enough, a make out had ensued.

So here she was, splayed out on the couch, shaking, and she figured when her brain and legs started working again she'd be pissed there were no sheets to simply change. She had an upholstery cleaner somewhere.

"Yeah, yeah," she mumbled. "You definitely got it." His pleased smile, like when he nailed a take, it's her favorite, along with his kiss.

The future looked bright.

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #Harry styles imagine #harry styles oneshot #silliness

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