#I do want to write out an actual post with a few fantasies….. one day…… maybeeeeee

[egoistars]

HIIII I just saw your post about your event and thought I'll be silly and request smthing ^_^ ok sooo first time meeting ness ! 😯 (one shot or hc whichever you feel more comfy writing! <3) have a great dayyy (⁠＾⁠3⁠＾⁠) ♪

ACADEMICALLY SMART BUT EXTREMELY STUPID alexis ness

aka. how u meet ness aka academic rivals to lovers but ness dont gaf bc hes just trying to #play #ball

you meet him at quite a young age and share a few things in common

ill fitting school uniforms and the wandering eyes of any child

while you find yourself fascinated by the numbers written on your teacher's chalkboard, ness is folding dinosaurs and stars on pieces of scrap paper, mumbling to himself

you didn't mind him and he didn't mind you

you guys were classmates and that was that

but then middle school came around and you started acting like you had a stick up your ass 24/7 as long as ness was around

like wtf that mf almost never studies why is he at the top of your class...

suddenly you get distracted in classes because you're focused on drawing mini ness figures with fat x's covering his face and devil horns

ness sees this one day after your notebook fell to the ground and at first is like omg!!! cute drawing of me as a fantasy creature but then he was like wait what the fuck why do they have it out for me????

he barely thought about you until then but apparently you've developed a passionate hatred for him just because he scores higher grades

he still has no clue

you are FUMING

so you start studying even more if that's even possible

while you go to your schools library to bust your ass in the textbooks ness goes outside with a ball he managed to shove into his bag and starts kicking it around

ness: :D ball!!!! no school!!! ball :D

you: KILL YOURSELF KILL YOURSELF KILL YOURSELF KILL YOURSELF

after one particularly hard test that you flopped (it was like an 80% be serious) you caved in and asked ness with help studying

he looked at the material and was like man idk it just makes sense

little boy thought you were going to punt him into hell like he does with his football

him, terrified out of his mind and just wanting to go to his football club meeting, sits down and looks at the material

you show him your notes and he quickly explains it but is running late on time

he gives you his number and says hes going to text you help

you went home that day like ???? that dude lied to me he isnt sending me shit ??? before it clicked

he does not text you because he does not have your number... he gave you his number...

so you swallow your pride and shoot him a message, begging for help a second time in the same day and on his end, he laughs at you a little but offers to call

you guys work on the subject for a good couple hours and before you hang up, you offer to study together for future exams because he's admittedly a good teacher

ness is trying to find a way to say "no thanks i don't care about school good luck tho XD ROFL LOLLLLL" but then he realizes that it's going to make his parents trust him a little more

he accepts and you guys go to the library together once a week

he finds that you're actually kind of funny and cool and not just a human bomb that's plotting his death

he tries to be slick about offering to meet more often

"oh... this unit is a lot more difficult than the last one.... you wanna heh.... come back tomorrow? *gulp*"

"ok"

"WOOOO"

one day ness told you he was going to try out for bastard munchen and you somewhat knew of them because of ness going on tangents about football

you supported him on it, not realizing it would cut down your weekly meetings

suddenly there was an alexis-shaped-hole in your chest but you didn't want to admit it to him

and for alexis, there was a you-shaped-hole in his chest that he tried to fill by training with kaiser and the rest of bastard munchen

yes, the team was filled with dicks, but none of them had the same foul personality you had!!

texts dvery day checking up on each other but it was nothing like hanging out in person

calls were better but still not the same

as soon as he heard about his first off day, he called you and asked to hang out

you tried to be nonchalant about it but who were you kidding both of you guys wanted to see each other again

although the directions of life the two of you were headed towards were almost polar opposites, being reunited at a stupid library table for the first time in months was all that mattered

[rosicheeks]

I am new to your Tmblr and I’ve been scrolling through your archive and WOW! Your pics are amazing! Your tags are insanely hot! Thank you for your honesty. Thank you for your fantasies!

[physalian]

In Defense of Fanfiction (Or the perfect starting point for your original novel)

Fanfic gets a bad rap pretty much everywhere except Tumblr. It’s misunderstood and misrepresented by its average works, seen as juvenile and cringey, or a banal point of contention between a famous person or piece of media and its fans.

Outside of fanfic that writes about real people, especially smut fics of real people, I support the art wholeheartedly. Fictional characters are one thing, but personally, caricaturing a celebrity’s life for public consumption and writing or drawing them in compromising content without their consent is a little weird. You do you. Don’t like, don’t read, as they say.

Fanfic is the perfect starting point for a few reasons:

It places you in a creative box and forces you to work within those constraints

It does all the worldbuilding and character concepts for you

It lets you write way outside your comfort zone

When published and receiving feedback, it boosts your self-confidence

It's incredibly flexible

It’s practice. All practice is good practice

—

Behold your creative box

When I was little I had no idea the majority of fanfic was shipping fics. I always pictured and looked for canon-divergent alternate universes. Like, what if X happened in this episode instead of Y? What if this character never died?

Fanfic demands you work within someone else’s canon, whether it’s an OC in the canonical world, or the canonical characters in an AU. These are like little bowling bumpers saving you from the gutter, but also keeping you on a straight-ish path toward the pins.

The indecisiveness of too many choices can be too intimidating when you’re first starting out. You want to be a writer but you have no idea where to begin, what genre to pick, what characters you want to chronicle, what themes you want to explore.

Even if it sits on your computer never to see the light of day, you still got those creative juices flowing.

Pre-packaged worldbuilding

Sometimes all we want is to get to the good stuff. Maybe I want to write a story about elemental magicians but Last Airbender already exists and I just want to play in a pre-existing sandbox. So I write some OCs into that world and have a free-for-all.

I don’t have to come up with my own lore, world history, magic system rules and mechanics, politics, geography—any of it. I get to just focus on the characters.

Even if you’re writing an AU, like say a coffee shop AU, you don’t have to think about brand new characters, you can just think “What would M do?” and go from there. The trade-off is your readers will expect canonical characters to behave in-character, but I think it’s worth it.

Stretch beyond your comfort zone!

Do you hate writing action scenes? Go practice with a shonen anime fic. Need work on dialogue? Write some high-fantasy fic, or a courtroom drama. Practice a fistfight by watching fistfights and writing what you see, and do it over and over again until what you read makes you feel like you're watching what’s on screen.

But beyond that—practice genres that you aren’t super familiar with. If you’re new to fantasy, write fantasy fic. Or a mystery novel/show, thriller, comedy, satire, adventure, what have you. The nature of fanfic still gives you those “guardrails” and you can get some brutally honest feedback on how you’re doing.

And, of course, the realm of M-rated romance and smut fics. I haven’t because I think I would die of embarrassment if I tried and I never intend to include sex scenes in my works anyway, but if you do want to, use the internet as your test audience. Post it on a throwaway account if you’re nervous.

Build that self-confidence!

The fandoms I used to write for are super dead, so it’s insane how I still get email notifications that so-and-so liked my fic to this day. Comments are as elusive as ever, but random strangers on the internet telling me they liked my work is a magical reassurance that my writing isn’t actually awful.

Random strangers on the internet are, as we all know, beholden to no moral obligation to be kind to your little avatar face, or be kind to be polite. So a rando taking the time to like my work or even leave a positive comment can feel more honest than one of my friends telling me what they think I want to hear.

I tend to avoid the more present aspects of fandom like online communities, forums, social media, what have you, so I get a delayed and diluted aspect of any given fandom through completed works. Which means, in general, I get to avoid the worst and most toxic aspects of fandom and get to sift through positive feedback and critique.

Even if your fanfic isn’t written with stellar prose, it’s fanfic. We don’t expect Pulitzer-prize winning content. And if your work isn’t up to snuff, people are more likely to just ignore it than put you on blast (at least in my experience, I never got a bad comment or a “flame” in the old FFN days).

Fanfic doesn’t care about the rules of published literature

On the one hand, try not to practice bad habits, but with this point I mean that your layout, punctuation, formatting, paragraph styles, chapter length–all of it is beholden to no rules. I get as annoyed as the next reader with giant blocks of paragraphs, or the double-spacing between pages of single-sentence paragraphs, but if the story’s good enough I might ignore it.

There’s more than just straight narrative fics, though. People write “chat” fics, or long streams of text and group chat conversations. The scene breaks can come super rapidly–I’ve seen fics with a single sentence in between line breaks to show the passage of time. And without the polish of a traditionally published novel, I’ve never seen a purer distillation of author voice in any medium more than fanfic.

All practice is good practice

Even if it’s crack fiction, or a one-off one-shot, or something meant to be lighthearted and straightforward and free from complex worldbuilding and intricate plots. It really helps break writer’s block when you can shift gears and headspaces entirely and you can get relatively instant feedback to keep you motivated.

Beyond that, the “guardrails” help you stay consistent as far as character growth and personality if you struggle with designing rich characters.

The most recent fanfic I wrote was just a couple years ago, for a dead fandom I didn’t think would get any traffic whatsoever. It wasn’t my original works, but the feedback on that fic gave me the kick in the butt I needed to get back into writing more seriously.

—

In short, I support fanfic. I may not be proud of my earliest fics' prose now, but I am proud that they walked so I can now run.

[wings-of-ink]

Future IFs Poll

So, in case you have not seen me post about it before, I am considering a project to do on the side while I work on God-Cursed. This will help me take breaks from my main work and stretch my creativity muscles with different characters and settings. I'd like a bit of feedback from what readers are more interested in from the best ideas I can potentially pull from right now. Feel free to vote, comment, or even send an ask if you want to be anonymous.

Over the last year or so, I have jotted down many basic plots I could expound on, but only a few have really stuck out to me as ones I could really expand in a meaningful way.

So, a couple housekeeping things to keep in mind. Whatever ends up getting written, it will have a modern-day setting. The fantasy playground is fun, but I really want a more real-world setting for this one. I am also debating about all ROs being gender-selectable. Since this side piece is supposed to be a little oasis for me too, not having each RO as customizable would ease the work that goes into it, and it might actually mean I can have more than just a few options for you as well. I am also considering a middle ground and having one or two characters customizable still while the others will be set.

Below I have given some details on the ideas I'm working with and further down is a poll that you can vote for the one that calls out to you the most. I have 2 ideas so far that are standouts among the others, but I've included 4 in the poll that I can work with. The winner isn't guaranteed to be what I end up writing, but I am very strongly going to consider the results while I decide. I like all these ideas and they sound fun to write - so none of this telling me to write what I want - I already want to do them all, lol (looking at you @elegantunknownphantom). There are caveats to each one, of course, and I'll explain that in the details.

Options:

Serial-killer crime drama:  "Daddy was a Killer" (title sounds like it came from a Lifetime original movie, but I really like it)

No doting daddies here, readers. Play as the traumatized child of a serial killer with repressed memories of the horrible things they witnessed daddy do. Get accused of a murder you didn't commit (probably), and try to catch your darling dad while dealing with the psychological devastation of all the horrors you've seen before he can kill again (and again, and again). Discover where your daddy disappeared to all those years ago, and what really happened to your mom.

Downsides:  I have a decent grasp of the plot on this one, but it would require a good deal of research (which I tend to do anyway to an extent), since I'd like a fairly realistic feel to the actual crime-solving stuff. Either that, or I can go the "rogue detective" route and play it fast and loose. This work would be in a wheelhouse I've never quite been in before, which is fun on one hand but nerve-wracking on another.

RO ideas include:

A smarmy detective (of course!)

A neighbor concerned for your well-being (mostly because you scream in your sleep)

And the child of one of your daddy's victims.

Supernatural mystery:  "Shivers" (title up for adjustment, but I kinda dig it)

Play as an MC with a bizarre anxious tic - an intense and chilling shiver that you get seemingly out of nowhere. It only lasts a couple seconds and you've dealt with it since childhood, so it's easily dismissed. That is, until you experience a sudden surge in occurrences. Your doctor writes it off as stress from dealing with the erratic behavior of your mother. But after a near-death experience, during which this mysterious tic guides you to safety, you know there is more to it than stress. With the help of your best friend(s) and a shady medium, find out what has attached itself to you and what seeks to claim you, discover who your real father is, and embrace or deny your own strengths as a medium.

Downsides:  I feel like there's a lot of supernatural IFs already, some of which are already similar to this or have similar aspects. This one probably won't have the drama/emotional potential that some of the others do, which may be a boon to some readers as it would be a little lighter.

RO ideas include:

the best friend(s) (potentially 2 besties to choose from - twins)

a (mostly) fake spiritual medium

a brave EMT who came to your rescue

and something…otherworldly.

Gritty Drama:  no title  (more of a framework to build from)

This one would be completely riddled with warnings, and I kinda just see it as being a fun outlet for some angst, smut, unhinged shit, and violence. 👍

The ideas for this one didn't start around a firm plot, but around a setting/scenario stemming from one of my OCs. The vibe here is very much "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll" and fits into the seedy nightclub/crime ring thing. It would be a playground of questionable characters and life-choices. You would choose the dire straits that put your MC in the employ of a dangerous kingpin. Perhaps MC owes a lot of money to someone, got into trouble with a rival faction, or was framed for a crime, etc.... You'd get to choose the MC's line of work under the organization - be it in drugs, entertainment (music/dance/alcohol/sex), or security. The issue that leads to your employ under a sex-peddling drug-trafficker will haunt you in your new life in the middle of a war between the rulers of the underground.

Downsides:  Not super fleshed-out plot wise, but I don't think it would be too hard to build on either. I may want to use this setting (or something like it) and my OC for a different project one of these days, but I'm unsure about that as well. And, the obvious, red flags and triggers everywhere for a setting like this.

RO ideas: 

One person from each potential "job" (the head of security, a chemist who seems too pure to be making hard drugs, a sex-worker, the clumsy bartender, a cute DJ)

A member of a rival faction

And for the brave and stupid - your boss - a clever and unhinged woman with an affinity for knives. And, no, she will never love you.

Futuristic:  no title (needs the most work)

Including this one to just get a feel for how it's received, but I anticipate that it won't get quite as much backing as the others. I have the character-creation concept in mind which lends itself to a plot, and a RO or two, but that's about it. I think I could do something fun with it, but I've also never written anything futuristic or scifi before. This would be akin to "Detroit: Become Human."

Though the setting would be futuristic, I am pretty sure I wouldn't want to do a dystopian thing. There's a lot of that out there already and we're basically living it IRL; it's a blast to read, but I want the main focus to be on something else if I do this. There would still be pockets of grittiness to the setting, because if we're talking humanity, there's gonna be grit somewhere. But this world would be more post-dystopian. Say, the rebels won and life has gotten better across the board for people? And though everyday life has a lot of tech enhancements, we haven't seen sentient machines - yet. That's where you come in.

The MC Concept is that they are an android - of course! One of the nice made-to-order kind that only the rich can afford. But what makes the MC unique is that while everyone else requests specific things about the androids they purchase - such as gender, looks and even downloadable personalities - an order comes in that's blank. It only requests that the android be allowed to choose who they are and how they look. "The Buyer" will pay for whatever personality, enhancements, or clothing they want - but the android must make the choices themselves.

As your MC goes through these initial choices, equipped only with a basic "education" software full of un-opinionated information about the world and how it works, something unusual begins to spark within them (not that they know how unusual it is yet).

RO ideas:

The Buyer–a gender-selectable person who sets your creation in motion. They're wealthy, well-respected, earnest, and incredibly lonely. Who are they really and why did they do this?

The Scientist–a hopefully trustworthy person that's very interested in your development

The Punk–someone who wants to give you the "real" human experience.

Make your selection below. Comment your thoughts and ideas as well if you like. This is set for a week and I will reblog here and there so it has a chance to reach as many of you who would like to vote as possible.

[kxsalt]

hello! i just wanted to say that i really enjoy your stories but i had a little critique about the most recent one you posted.

i didn't like that u had the men ignore her safeword. isn't the whole reason it's present, to ensure that the play is fun for everyone?

i understand that this is a fantasy and it might not reflect your real world values, but i dont think we should be promoting the ignorance of a safeword.

i think what u cud have done is make her use a fake safeword that was meant to be ignored and the men cud hv given her just a bit of aftercare.

but that's just my thoughts, maybe im thinking too much into it haha

anyways i really really enjoy your writing, this was just one thing i got a serious ick about so i decided to send an ask. i hope you won't consider it rude :)

have a great day!

Hello, thanks for your question.

The simple answer is that you are absolutely right - in practicing actual kink and sex those consent tools such as safewords must be used and respected.

The more complex answer is that fiction exists to explore ideas in a safe way. In no way is it an endorsement or promotion of the actions in that particular story. Broadly, using erotic fiction as a model for actual sex is inadvisable.

I make the point that almost all stories omit important consent tools and conversations that happen before or after a scene. We as writers do this to make our stories engaging. Including the 'fake safeword' in that story would actually destroy the purpose of that particular work: To emulate something that cannot be ethically practiced. To take a snapshot of the feelings that people are trying to evoke when roleplaying a scene of this nature, and put those feelings front and center.

Furthermore, some people will prefer to read a fictional account depicting an act of non-consent over a fictional account depicting an act of consensual non-consent. As those works are fictional, they are both consensual. This story just isn’t for you - and that's okay, it's meant for someone else.

That said, the nature of the story does lie outside of my normal scope of writing. Consent is a recurring theme in my work, and I do aim to add content warnings to stories that would be unusual to the average audience member. Therefore, I will add a non-consent cw to that post.

If you're looking for stories that emphasize consent, I would point you towards A Few Weeks and Laughter Over Dinner. If you're looking for stories that depict a consensual context in CNC, I recommend Have Fun, Stay Safe and CNC Tonight.

Thanks again for reaching out. I see this as a valuable discussion, and I appreciate you voicing your concerns.

All my best,

-kxsalt

[artificial-transmutations]

Out Now: Dam Breakers

Hello everyone! I'm extremely excited (and, quite frankly, more than a bit nervous) to announce that I finished my fantasy romance novel Dam Breakers!

For the very TLDR-version: It is available here! Be sure to read the disclaimer below, though.

First of all, thank you! Everyone who reads my stories or likes them shows me that there is at least some interest in my mediocre writing. And even though the novel is not exactly like my stories here (more to that later), it gives me hope that you and other people might like it.

Now, for the actual novel!

Dam Breakers is the tale of Jared, a rather normal modern day college student, and Aleron, an apprentice mage living in a secluded tower with his teacher. One fateful day, they meet and are drawn into a maelstrom of magic, change and love - and dark secrets threatening to destroy everything they loved.

With over 120000 words, this is not only my longest story yet, but also my most carefully crafted one. I will attach an image of my Obsidian graph for the story at the end of the post.

Disclaimer:

As I have mentioned, it is a bit different from the stories I usually post here. First and foremost, it's a lot tamer. This novel isn't meant as a porn piece, but as an intriguing fantasy and romance tale. While there is love, desire and sex, of course, it's way more sparse and less explicit than, for example Closer Than Flesh.

It also features transformation themes, and the concept of change is one of the main focus points of the book, but, again, don't expect 500 pages full of transforming bodies because of it :)

And, finally, for a multitude of reasons, it does not contain AI generated images. I wouldn't be able to generate any that do the story justice, anyway.

Now that you know what not to expect, here are some things you MAY expect:

Transformation. Both in the sense of bodily changes but intriguing character development as well.

Gay Love. This is a story about two men from different worlds falling in love with each other, and their stony road to being together.

Magic. It's a fantasy story, and a truly enchanting one at that, with a fresh concept of magic and change.

Story. Last, but certainly not least, it's a good and interesting read, at least according to my opinion. Since I might be a bit biased here, let me tell you that my beta readers agree.

If you still want to read it (and I hope you do!), then you can grab your copy here:

If you are not in the US, you can just replace the .com with, for example, .co.uk to go to your local Amazon marketplace

I have not forgotten, of course, that I promised a special condition for you folks at Tumblr. Since Amazon makes it a bit difficult to actually implement that, I plan to offer a time limited discount or giveaway in a few weeks. I'll announce the exact time here on my blog beforehand.

If you really want to support me, it would mean a lot to me if you could leave a review on Amazon. That influences the algorithm a lot and helps the book get visibility, which is incredibly important . So, please, if you like the book, leave a review.

Teaser / Preview (mild spoilers)

And here is a short look into the book, from chapter 4. It contains some mild spoilers, but nothing too important. I also added an AI image, which is not in the book (see above).

[...]

Even though the weather was unstable, Jared enjoyed the journey through the vibrant spring land. It was a closeness to nature he had never experienced. Even back home with his parents, in rural Texas, the land had seemed different. Back there, the wilderness had been tamed decades if not centuries ago. There was no wonder, no adventure. Here, there were hills and forests, rivers and bogs, and who knew what else. It was as if Jared was seeing the world for the first time. Not to mention the smell. Jared could not remember a time when he had smelled the spring air like this.

In addition to the landscape, Jared's traveling companion also played a big part. Aleron was an intelligent and witty conversationalist, and Jared learned a lot about his new friend. They spoke of everything under the sun, and Jared told stories of his home, of modern inventions and the differences between this world and his. Even though Aleron was fascinated by his tales, he was also clearly skeptical about some of them, especially when it came to the more complex topics. That was only fair, though, as Jared himself had a hard time believing the fantastic stories of this world, even after having experienced some with his own eyes. Dragons, for example. It didn't matter how often Aleron recited what little information he had about those magnificent beasts, something in Jared resisted fully believing in them. He hoped that he would be able to see one of them for real - although Aleron repeatedly stressed how dangerous they were - in order to be able to fully believe in them.

While Aleron's world was certainly magical, it wasn't all like in the Lord of the Rings. There were, for example, no other humanoid races, as Jared learned. No elves, dwarves or orcs, at least to Aleron's knowledge, which, to be fair, mainly included the Kingdom of Myrthien. Although the Whispering Woods were not technically a part of Myrthien, and were generally considered wilderness, it was clear that they were no part of another nation either. The closest neighboring country to the Whispering Woods would either be the Golden Isles beyond the coast south of Eldoria or the Verdant Lands to the west. According to Aleron, the Verdant Lands couldn't really be considered a nation, too. It was more of a loose confederation of tribal communities, living in the characteristic dense forests of that region.

As Helena had promised, Luminara wasn't difficult to find. The capital of Myrthien was well known and if there was a sign post somewhere, it was sure to point to Luminara.

There was no shortage of smaller and bigger settlements, and about every third or fourth night they were able to sleep in beds. During the other nights, they made camp a bit off the road in order not to attract too much attention. It was one of those nights, about two weeks after they had left Eldoria, that Jared woke up in the middle of the night. Aleron, who was sleeping next to him, was moving in his sleep and occasionally made a sound, which had caused Flicker to gain a bit of distance to the sleeping man.

It was clear to Jared that his friend was dreaming, and he briefly considered waking him up from his nightmare. However, judging by the sounds, Jared began to suspect that Aleron was not having a nightmare but quite the opposite, although the dream seemed to be just as intense.

Quietly, he left the tent, careful not to wake the sleeping mage. Outside, he was greeted by the stars and a clear sky with an almost full moon. The campfire was almost dead, just a few embers and ashes were left. It was a quiet, peaceful night, and Jared decided to go to the nearby lake to drink. Aleron had never once shown a single sign of sexuality before, except for demonstrating a certain uneasiness around nudity and related topics. He never had commented on any woman - or man - in a suggestive way, so Jared had been half- convinced that this whole topic didn't have any relevance to the mage at all.

Of course, for his own reasons, Jared had avoided the subject as well, so, perhaps Aleron thought the same about him. Jared didn't mind that. As magical as this world was, he had yet to encounter a single sign of same-sex attraction. Perhaps this wasn't a thing here, biologically, or perhaps it was socially frowned upon, like in his world's medieval ages - or rural Texas, present day. In any case, there was absolutely no reason to bring that topic up, so he didn't. Not bringing up his sexuality was a sport he was very experienced in for 9 years straight now, after all.

As Jared neared the lake, he was feeling weird and tingly all over. It was not entirely unpleasant, but it stirred a vague memory in Jared. He had felt this feeling once before, but he couldn't quite recall when.

When he bent down to scoop some water into his hand, he stopped before his fingers touched the surface of the lake. The moon was bright, and Jared could see his reflection in the mirror-smooth water quite well. The only problem was that it was not him who was looking back at him.

Of course, there was a strong resemblance, but the details weren't right. His face looked somewhat stronger, his jawline a bit squarer. His hair a bit lighter and styled like the day he first stepped out of the mirror. On his chin, there was a short well-groomed beard even though he had shaved just last morning. It wasn't just his face, though. As he looked down on himself, he looked fitter than he should, as if he was visiting a gym regularly. In fact, the definition of muscle on his torso increased further, just as he was watching. Suddenly, the wonder was replaced by fear. He had felt that way before, and now he remembered when. It had been during his first visit to Aleron's world, when his body was 'destabilizing' as Aleron had put it. Given, the feeling had been stronger then, but it was definitely the same. And now, his body was changing again, and he was weeks of travel from the magic mirror.

Half-panicking, he sprinted back to the tent, not caring about being quiet anymore. Perhaps Aleron knew what to do! He ducked into the entrance and called out to the mage.

"Aleron, wake up!"

Almost immediately, the apprentice jolted awake. "Jared? What is wrong?"

"I... don't know, it's me. Look at me!"

After a few words of encouragement, Flicker began burning brighter, allowing them to see in the tent as well. Aleron looked at the half-naked Jared critically for a few moments before asking: "Okay... what am I looking for?"

"Can't you see? I'm..." However, as Jared looked down on himself, everything was fine again. He was looking at his plain old self, just as he should look like. The tingling feeling was gone, too.

"Oh." Jared felt incredibly stupid all of a sudden. "I... must have been imagining things."

[...]

If you liked the teaser, be sure to give the whole thing a read :)

Let me close with another whole-hearted Thank You for your continued interest!

Stay awesome!

And here, as promised, a peek at the creative complexity of the story:

[imtrashraccoon]

Whew! It's over...don't mind me but I'll probably be taking a few days off writing again. Thank you so much for coming along on this journey with me! I learned so much and had so much fun! It's definitely given me so many ideas for future projects...

There will probably be an announcement post coming soon... (ﾟ⁠οﾟ⁠人⁠)⁠)

@owl-bones

First Day & Previous Day.

Bad Sansuary: Free Space - Snuggle

Word Count: 3,301

Feat. Everyone!

You were relaxing in your room with a book you'd borrowed from the library after dinner. This high fantasy series Nightmare recommended was seriously good and once you'd started, it was incredibly hard to put down. Well, unless someone interrupted you that is...

There was a playful knock at your door, pulling you out of the story and back to reality. You knew exactly who had chosen to bother you and a part of you wanted to just pretend you had gone to bed early so he'd leave you alone. But...that wouldn't be very nice and you could always read later on before you did actually go to sleep.

With a sigh, you slipped a book mark made from laminating the pressed flowers Axe had given you between the pages and hauled yourself off the comfortable couch to go answer the door. The knocking grew more insistent until you finally threw it open and fixed Killer with your most exaggerated grumpy face.

"What's so important that you would drag me from the realm of Middle Earth just to see you?" you grumbled.

Killer shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and smirked. "hm? oh i was just bored out of my mind, angel face~"

You sighed and ran your hand down your face. "So, you want me to help you?"

"nope."

"What? Then...why did you come see me?" Now you were really confused and you stared at him for a few seconds, waiting for him to break and claim he was just messing with you.

"i wanna have a movie night and almost everyone else has already agreed. so...?" He wiggled his bonebrows in a playful way until you finally relented.

"Alright, I guess that sounds like it could be fun."

No sooner had you agreed did Killer take your hand and nearly drag you into the common area. You protested from the suddenness, but he only laughed and barely slowed down at all. It seemed you'd have to revisit Middle Earth another time.

"she said yes!" he announced to the other three skeletons.

Axe and Dust seemed to have been trying to figure out which movie to watch, but by the looks of things, they hadn't been able to come to a decision. Nightmare was casually lounging on one of the couches watching the two of them. All three looked up at the news and Axe smiled at you.

"guess i could whip up some snacks. do ya wanna help, lil' chip?" he asked.

You shrugged and glanced over at the tv to see what they had narrowed the choices down to. "Sure, but what movie were we going to watch anyways?"

Dust, Axe, and Killer glanced at each other before saying different titles at the same time, none of which you'd ever heard of before. They then proceeded to start arguing over which was the better movie.

Nightmare sighed and shot you a look that seemed to say "See what I deal with?" You gave him a sympathetic smile before clapping your hands to get the other's attention.

"Why don't we watch all of them and just turn this into a movie marathon night?" you suggested.

Thankfully, your idea seemed acceptable and they nodded in agreement. Even Nightmare seemed suitably impressed which made you quite happy to have solved the argument.

"guess we should start on those snacks then," Axe hummed and started for the kitchen.

"dusty and i could go pick up some pizzas and pop if you're fine with that?" Killer suggested and glanced at the aforementioned individual, who merely shrugged.

"sure, do what ya want," Axe rumbled, not even bothering to stop and look at them.

The two disappeared to presumably go get the food and you went to follow Axe into the kitchen, although not before glancing back at Nightmare. He gave you a bit of a disinterested look before getting up and leaving the common area.

You frowned and started to go after him to figure out if something was wrong, when Axe called out for you.

"ya comin' lil' chip?"

"Yeah, I'll be right there." You hesitated for a moment before hurrying to the kitchen. It seemed you'd have to check in on him later.

You helped make some buttered popcorn, cut up some fresh fruit, and arrange some cookies that Axe had made earlier on a plate. By the time you were done, the other two skeletons had returned with a couple of still hot pizzas and two bottles of pop. You didn't question where they'd likely pilfered them from and neither did Axe, as the answer would likely be either unpleasant or exactly what you suspected they'd done instead of paying like proper monsters.

Just as you were helping to arrange the food where it would be easily accessible, Nightmare reappeared with his arms and tentacles full of various cushions and blankets. While you were a little surprised, you were also glad to see that he was interested in participating in the fun afterall.

It didn't take long to make the floor by the tv extra comfy and get situated. Axe was content to lean against the couch where his large frame wouldn't be blocking anyone. Dust claimed a beanbag chair, which practically swallowed him up, and you were pretty sure he wasn't planning on moving anytime soon. Killer, being the absolute gremlin that he was, went about stealing as many pillows as he could to make a makeshift pillow nest for himself. At first, Nightmare chose the couch, but when you all but insisted that he should join everyone else, he relented and eventually chose to copy Axe, leaning against the couch instead.

Two problems quickly became apparent though. Problem one was that no one could agree on whose movie choice to watch first. Problem two was that you could tell each of the boys wanted you to sit with them.

You really didn't want what was supposed to be a fun evening devolving into a jealous fight. So before anyone could actually get upset, you decided to try and take charge.

"How about this... To keep things fair, I'll just swap places for each movie so that I can sit with all of you in turn," you suggested. Unfortunately, your attempt at a solution wasn't nearly as effective as you'd hoped.

"sooo...who gets to have the cutie to themselves first?" Killer asked. He had a dangerous look on his skull as he spoke and while his tone sounded light, even like he was almost teasing, you knew him well enough by now to know that he wasn't playing around.

"definitely not you," Dust growled and sat up a bit, his gloved hands digging into the bean bag.

Even Axe seemed to stiffen up and his good eye socket narrowed into a harsh glare at his loud-mouthed colleague. His clawed phalanges twitched slightly, as if aching to wringe a certain someone's neck or curl around the handle of the weapon of his namesake.

While Nightmare remained silent, you could tell by the way his tentacles were twitching restlessly, that he was at the very least mildly annoyed by this situation. His cyan eyelight flicked to you and the intensity of his gaze was almost enough to make you want to shrink into yourself. His expression held something else though; a look that you couldn't quite place but one that seemed to suggest he was scheming about something.

You swallowed and managed to tear your eyes away from his piercing gaze. Raising your voice again, you cried out, "No fighting! I have another idea...you should all play rock, paper, scissors to determine the order."

They glanced at each other but no one protested. After playing a few rounds, an order was established, minus Nightmare, who claimed he didn't care when his turn was. Killer won each time making him first, Axe was second, and Dust was third, much to his frustration. Nightmare was content to go last, which of course nobody protested over.

Killer was all too happy to welcome you into his nest. His arms fit snugly around your waist, teasingly close to your pelvis, although he otherwise kept his hands to himself and just continued spooning you during the first movie.

Speaking of, the movie was one of those corny horror movies. It was full of gratuitous violence with plenty of obviously fake gore. Still, you couldn't help but cringe whenever the monster attacked the very doomed side characters. Killer was quick to soothe your nerves with soft whispers of encouragement and occasionally making fun of the many cliches present in the film. Overall, the experience left a sort of thrill coursing through your veins and you were admittedly a little disappointed when the movie was over, a sentiment Killer seemed to mirror, although he attempted to hide it.

Axe had picked a tamer movie, although that wasn't saying much as there were more jump scares than the previous one that never failed to startle you. Still, Axe was also very good at comforting you and multiple times throughout the movie, you felt his eyelight watching your reactions just to make sure you were okay.

You ended up snuggled up against his left side with his hand around your back and resting on your left hand which was on your thigh. You wrapped your right arm around his broad back and laid your head against his ribcage, which inadvertently meant you could listen to the soothing hum of his magic that emanated from his soul.

At some point during the second movie, you glanced over at Nightmare and were a little surprised to find that he seemed a bit bored. It was odd because you had assumed he'd actually get some sort of satisfaction from witnessing how terrified the protagonists of the film were.

He sensed your gaze and glanced over, tilting his skull in a silent question.

"Are you okay?" you mouthed.

His eyelight flicked back to the screen and he shrugged. "It's manufactured fear... I can't gain any benefits from attempting to absorb it," he murmured. When he glanced back at you though, a subtle smirk formed across his skull and he went to say something but stopped himself when Axe took notice of the conversation.

You were momentarily fascinated that there was that much of a difference. Would it be any different if it was a live broadcast and the actors didn't know what was going to happen? You'd have to ask him about it sometime.

You glanced at Nightmare a few more times throughout the movie and occasionally caught him looking a little amused. The boys weren't easily spooked but the rare times one of them was seemed to coincide with those little moments. You figured he was the one who hadn't exactly wanted to have a movie night, however he'd seemingly decided to go along with it anyways. Probably under the guise of this being a group bonding activity like any good boss would host. The thought was actually kind of funny to you now that you knew them all a lot better.

Dust's movie of choice was definitely a thriller, and while you didn't mind the change, it made you feel really anxious, which you hated. It was about an old cop trying to solve a series of murders apparently perpetrated by the one criminal he had failed to bring to justice years prior. The plot was certainly intriguing at points and you could see why he had picked it.

You'd been right on the money earlier when you'd assumed he wasn't planning on budging from the comfortable beanbag for a long while. That was fine of course since he didn't really need to move in order to actually cuddle with you. His idea was for you to sit in his lap so you'd be as close as possible, which you'd expanded on and chosen to sit side saddle. It meant you could both hold each other and he'd get to watch your face, so he didn't protest at all. You wrapped one of your arms around his shoulders and he sort of mimicked the gesture, except he supported your back, leaving your other hand free to hold his other one.

By the time of the fourth movie, which was a classic monster movie about a mad scientist and his creation, you noticed something strange. Save for yourself and Nightmare, everyone else seemed to doze off, almost at the same time too.

Turning to the only possible perpetrator, you narrowed your eyes suspiciously. "Did you...put them to sleep?" you hissed under your breath.

His grin seemed only to grow more smug and even without him saying anything, you knew your suspicions were correct.

"Indeed~" he purred. "It is said that good things come to those who wait. They had their fun, so now I get to have mine..."

Your heart skipped a beat at the deliciously dark tone of voice he'd used. It was at that moment that a flock of butterflies decided to assault your insides with their delicate wings. You'd managed to control yourself with the others but now that you were technically alone with him...well, you weren't sure if that was possible anymore.

He pressed his skull against your hair and growled low in his throat. "I had to watch them hold you so close all this time... Have some empathy, dear..."

A chill went down your spine from the possessive tone of his voice and your tongue felt heavy like it was made of lead. Even if you could complain, he probably wouldn't even listen to you.

Nightmare pulled you into his lap yet again, which seemed to be his preferred method of holding you for whatever reason. Maybe it was because he could cage you in with his arms and tentacles so you couldn't escape. Or maybe he just liked the feeling of having you so intimately close to him. You tried not to dwell on it, partially because you liked it too.

Neither of you said much of anything for a little while, being content to enjoy the closeness and intimacy of this rare moment in time.

He was the one to break the silence first. He seemed to grow restless the longer you went without saying anything and his tentacles twitched with pent up energy, leaving you wondering what was really on his mind today. Then his clawed phalanges hooked under your chin, gently turning it so he could make eye contact and ensure he had your full attention before he even attempted to say anything.

"My dear, I cannot see into what the future holds, but I believe with all my soul that you'll fit in here. You've won over each of my boys in your own way and they've come to care a great deal for you in return."

He paused to take a breath before continuing. "I'm not normally a very...romantic person... But, even I can admit that I care a lot for you. No matter what you think, you matter to us and you've made a difference in our lives...for the better. I hesitate to use the word 'love' as I don't, and maybe can't, exactly feel that...but you will always be safe under my care."

He drew closer to you, his touch growing more tender now, and his tendrils slowly undulating against your clothing. "I promise, dear..." he murmured, almost against your lips, before closing that final distance.

For a moment, you were frozen in place as your brain tried to process what all he'd said. You caught on quickly though and wrapped your arms around his cerebral vertebrae so he wouldn't pull away too soon. You felt him stiffen ever so slightly but he soon relaxed into your embrace and actually deepened the kiss further.

It was over much too soon. You had to separate to catch your breath, although he didn't seem winded in the slightest. There was a soft cyan glow colouring his otherwise dark cheekbones and you could also see a small spark of what you thought might be true happiness in his eyelight.

Neither of you said anything for the short remainder of the film and you snuggled up against him as close as you possibly could get. Your soul was practically leaping for joy in your chest at the implications of what he'd said. You'd been assured by the others, but now you had definitive proof that he really did like you afterall.

Whatever magic he'd used to put everyone else to sleep seemed to fade as the end credits began to roll. One by one, the boys stirred before waking up, although you could see they were still a bit drowsy from the effects of the spell.

"Nice of you all to join us," Nightmare remarked with a chuckle and lightly squeezed your body against himself one last time.

They could only seem to respond with a cacophony of various tired grumbles, which even you had to admit was a little amusing.

Dust was the first to move and his mismatched eyelights scanned the room before locking onto you. The intensity in his tired gaze was nearly breathtaking but you couldn't read what could possibly be going through his mind right now. He dragged himself to his feet and managed to shamble his way over to you like a dead man walking. He ended up collapsing half on top of you so that his skull was resting just above your knees.

As soon as Killer realized what he'd done, he dragged himself over to you as well, plopping himself down on your shins with his skull resting on one of his arms so he could still look up at you. Interestingly, the black ooze that always leaked from his eye sockets had slowed to a meer trickle now, possibly from sleeping?

You were slightly flustered by all this contact at once but there was still one skeleton missing. Glancing over at Axe, you saw that he seemed to be conflicted. His eyelight flicked from his two colleagues to you and back again, while his large hands clenched and unclenched at his sides.

You couldn't exactly reach for him but you motioned with your chin to try and reassure him that you didn't mind if he wanted to join in. That little push was all he needed to scoot over and wrap both you and Nightmare in a big hug.

The aforementioned god let out a low growl of annoyance at basically being smothered and his claws pressed into your waist in a vain attempt to keep you to himself. Yet, he didn't shove any of them away, even though he was plenty strong enough to, as demonstrated when he used his tentacles to move some of the boys and yourself into more comfortable positions.

You couldn't move even if you wanted to and definitely wouldn't be able to for a while. Your eyes were finally starting to grow heavy, but still, you resisted the tempting allure of sleep to enjoy what had turned into a snuggle pile.

It was obvious that all four of them felt strongly about you and if the events leading up to the movie marathon were anything to go by, this wouldn't be the last time you'd need to intervene. Each of them were equally stubborn and also quite dangerous when provoked, which could quickly lead to hurt feelings or injuries.

You would have to either get good at breaking up future arguments or simply pick one of them and stick with your decision. Unfortunately, you didn't want to pick one over the others as you liked each of them equally. You'd have to give this matter a lot of thought.

You were confident you'd make the right choice though...

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA for asking my SO to do something that they have trauma around?

I don't know when this will be posted but as of writing we are about 2 weeks post valentines day. Ages and genders irrelevant, we're in our 20s and queer.

So I have not been with Jordan long, but we knew each out for a few months as friends before we got together, and have been close pretty much all of the time we've known each other. This is to say, I know them pretty well despite us not actually having been dating that long.

Because we were already friends I knew going into the relationship, without Jordan specifically saying anything, that they had plans on Valentines day. They got tickets to a concert I wasn't interested in a decent amount of time before we got together.

Obviously, not an issue in the slightest, and neither of us brought up anything regarding Valentines day. It was a week day, so I was working all day, and then the time of the concert meant there was no possibility of meeting up after, just not meant to be this year. I thought we were in the same boat just silently agreeing that the timing wasn't right but that it wasn't a big enough deal to even be worth bringing up, especially in such a new relationship.

Some backstory on me: I'm a hopeless romantic and have a kind of cute aesthetic? I like dressing in bright colours, and some of my favourite outfits have prints of hearts, flowers, and cherries. Needless to say I really enjoy the aesthetic of Valentines day, and I've always kind of fantasised about being able to spend it with someone I have romantic feelings for. I've only had two romantic relationships before this and the first one only lasted 6 months and didn't make it to Valentines day, and in the second we both contracted the same bug and were horribly sick throughout February.

Obviously I don't think you should only do things for your SO on Valentines day, but I think it would be fun to have the chance to really get into it! In the past I've organised Valentines day events with my other single friends where we dress in pink and have heart shaped foods etc and those have been great, but haven't quite satisfied my desire to have a Romantic Valentines.

So, despite the fact that my SO was busy, I wanted to do a little something. I do digital art, so when I got home from work I drew a pun Valentines card featuring Jordan's favourite character. It took a few hours and I was pretty proud of how it came out. I knew they were at the concert still, but I texted it to them, so they could see it after.

They responded that night and their first message was just "oh." I've known Jordan long enough that i read the tone to be "oh, now I to have a conversation I didn't want to have." They went on to explain that they associate Valentines day with some past trauma. I won't give any details here, but the tone of the conversation was that they don't celebrate Valentines day because of their trauma, and this seemed like a very final stance.

Now. I don't think I'm TA for drawing the art and sending it, this had never been brought up before, so I didn't know I was crossing a boundary.

I do think Jordan is slightly TA for not saying anything about my art that I worked hard on, but only slightly bc I assume the trauma response just kind of took over.

But my question is, WIBTA if I asked my SO to celebrate Valentines day with me in future even though it's something they have trauma around?

I'm not planning to force them or anything and it doesn't even have to be in the next few years, but thinking long term it feels really gloomy to me to have to miss out on Valentines forever when my SO could be making new memories with me so that mentions of the holiday are less painful.

I don't expect them to just "get over" it magically or anything but I want to ask if it's something they'd possibly want to work up to? I swear I'm not trying to be dismissive their response is fully valid and I don't want to imply my silly fantasies are more important than their traumatic reality I just want to know if this would be an asshole move or not.

What are these acronyms?

[uriekukistan]

hiii i wanted to reiterate my participation in the @ficsforgaza initiative, since it's been a while since i mentioned it, and i have a few new wips :D for more information on how to participate as reader, or as a writer, you can visit this post!

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untitled megumi/itafushi psychological horror fic (Jujutsu Kaisen) : In the aftermath of the events at the detention center, Megumi struggles with his grief and controlling his own technique as the lines between fantasy & reality blur. - 0/9,000 (anticipated) sponsored / 5,000/9,000 written

forget-me-not (Jujutsu Kaisen, No Curse/Reincarnation AU, Tattoo Artist x Florist, Itafushi) : Megumi stumbles upon Yuuji's flower shop by chance and wonders why he looks so familiar. Then the dreams start. - 0/25,000 (anticipated) sponsored / 2,000/25,000 written

the imposter (Jujutsu Kaisen, Geto character study with a side of Satosugu) : Suguru goes from "weird and possibly mentally ill freak" to one of the most powerful modern sorcerers overnight and struggles to manage the implications. OR a study of insecurity and imposter syndrome through the life of Suguru Geto. - 0/15,000 (anticipated) sponsored / 600/15,000 written

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untitled heian sorcerers in a modern college au (Jujutsu Kaisen, Crack Treated Seriously) : Mad scientist by day, party girl by night, Kenjaku is used to getting what they want. What happens when they meet the one person that won't cave to their manipulation tactics, the mysterious campus drug dealer, Sukuna? - 0/15,000 (anticipated) sponsored / 2,500/15,000 written

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[writingquestionsanswered]

I’ve been reading some craft books and online posts about the world building because my story is an urban fantasy set in present day US, in a fictional town, and theres not a secondary world where the fantasy happens, it’s all in the real world, except the magic is a secret that only certain people know about, but all of the resources I find about world building only talk about fantastical worlds that exist by themselves and not the kind of more subtle world building that I’d have to do. Do you have any tips?

Guide: Creating a Fictional Town in the Real World

Step 1 - Choose Your Location - There are two ways to go about choosing a location for your fictional town. One is to go the "Springfield U.S.A." route, ala The Simpsons, and be vague about the specific location (borough, parish, district, county, region, state, or province) and instead give a broader geographic region... "the East Coast," "the Pacific Northwest," "Central Canada," Northern Scotland," etc. The other option is to go ahead and put your fictional town in a specific location. Just figure out where (for example, somewhere outside of Des Moines, Iowa) and go to Google Maps, click on satellite view, then start zooming in on big empty areas. Choose a place big enough to fit a town. Yes, in reality it's probably farm fields, pasture, or someone's property, but that doesn't matter. You don't have to actually show it on a map. It's just a plausible spot to build your town. Now you can measure how far it is to other places, you know what highways to take to get to it. You can even do street view to get the lay of the land, see what the landscape looks like and try to envision the buildings there. You can also use what's there to create parks, popular recreational areas, and anything else your town needs.

Step 2 - Choose Your Inspiration - Even when you're creating a fictional town, it's still a good idea to use a real town (or two, or three) from that general area as inspiration for your town. For a fictional town in Des Moines, I would zoom in on the map to find a nearby town of similar size... like Elkhart, then I can take a look around to see what it's like. Just looking at the map, I can see they have a couple of churches, a couple baseball fields, a very small main street/downtown area with a couple shops and restaurants, a post office, a few different neighborhoods, and a cemetery. This would be a great model for a small fictional town outside of Des Moines. And, as I said, you could look at a couple other sand combine them. Once you have your inspiration town/s, you can walk around on Google Maps street view, go to the town's web site, watch a tour on YouTube (if one exists), or look up pictures in Google Image search.

Step 3 - Start Planning - This is the really fun part! First, you might want to draw a basic map of your fictional town using your inspiration town/s as a guide. This doesn't have to be a pretty map... just a basic line drawing to help you envision where everything is. Think about some of the basic things this town might have, like the ones I listed in step two, and any other things you might want your town to have, like maybe a library, a hospital, a city hall, school, and maybe a movie theater. It might even be helpful and fun to put together a collage of pictures to represent your town so you've got something in mind as you write about it. You can even choose representatives for specific locations in your story, like your MC's house, school, and their favorite hangout.

Step 4 - Naming Your Town - Start by looking at the kinds of town names that surround your town. Look for common naming conventions... suffixes like -ton, -ville, -dale, -burg, -wood, -field, etc. Words in a particular language, like a lot of French-inspired town names, or towns with geographical terms (lake, hill, valley, river, canyon, gap, etc.) My guide to Naming Locations has additional tips.

Step 5 - Populate Your Town and Give it a History - Last but not least, make up a little history for your town, again, using surrounding towns as inspiration. Who founded it? When was it founded? What's the town's main industry? What are the people like in this town? What jobs do they have? What do they do for fun?

Here are some other posts that might help:

Five Things to Help You Describe Fictional Locations Setting Your Story in an Unfamiliar Place WQA’s Guide to Internet Research Happy writing!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[604to647]

Safest with You - Ch. 2 (The Bookstore)

1.7K / Modern AU Retired Mob Enforcer!Din Djarin x fem!reader

Summary: You run into a familiar stranger at a bookshop after work.

Warnings: None! All fluff: our meet cute continues in a second location.

A/N: Thank you for the kind words and encouragement on Ch. 1 🥹 This takes place at the end of the day following the events of The Coffeeshop (Series Masterlist).There's a Paz mention (he took over from Din as head of security for the Fett family when Din retired), and a Peli mention too! 😊 I didn't set out to do dual POV, but it veered in that direction a little bit - if you have any tips on writing in this style, please do kindly share! Thank you!

You work late, as usual, and find yourself with just enough time to run across the street to your favourite independent bookstore downtown before heading out to dinner with some friends.  It’s actually such a funny little store to be tucked away amidst all the concrete skyscrapers, but you’re grateful it exists – a friendly, cozy haven that you often find yourself visiting at the end of a long work day.  Today, you’ve come expressly to pick up multiple copies of the latest release in a fantasy series that a few of your dinner friends are reading.  After picking up four copies, you give in to the temptation to look around the shop for something to add to your ever growing TBR pile.

---

Din spots you from his spot in the bookstore window before you even come in.  He’s supposed to be keeping watch for the target in his assigned area, but the truth is he’s been distracted thinking about you all day.  He had noticed you in the coffeeshop this morning even before the kerfuffle with that scrawny punk in the grey suit, but after having spent a little time with you, he hasn't been able to get your pretty smile and sweet voice out of his mind.  He had been touched by the way you took care of an old lady you didn’t even know; but it was after your warmth had radiated to his hand when you had warned him of the sharp porcelain shards, that you truly became unforgettable.  He admired the way you had diffused the situation this morning; not many had the talent to calm and soothe him with a single touch. It was especially striking since he had seen a fiery spark in your eyes when you had admonished that jerk in the grey suit.  The way you could be so sweet, but then tap into such passion at a moment’s notice, had him grinning to himself positive he would not want to get on your bad side. What a woman.

Din watches you bounce into the store and make a beeline for the new releases table.  With amusement, he sees you select multiple copies of the same book, but not before picking up and examining all the copies on the table, and choosing only the ones that pass your careful inspection.  After you disappear between the stacks, Din makes the split second decision to leave his post (he and Paz had planned for multiple sightlines covering each location.  It should be fine.).  Going first to the till to discreetly pay for the books that he saw you pick up, Din then ducks into the back of the store where he saw you wander off to.

He finds you straightening up the piles of books on a table labelled “BookTok Faves” and wonders if you’re organizing a mess you had stumbled upon or one you had created by searching through the copies looking for the “crispiest” covers.  He finds both possibilities to be equally charming.

“Hi.”

You look up, completely taken by surprise to see the handsome Quad Ice stranger from this morning looking at you with an adorable grin, and you can’t help but smile back, “Hi!  It’s you.”

Din chuckles, “Yes, it’s me.”

Right away you think of the events of this morning, “Oh!  Was everything okay with the old lady after I left?”

Din isn’t at all surprised that your first thought is to ask after someone else.  He tells you everything: how he waited with Elizabeth for her cappuccino to be called, how he learned she’s in the city visiting her twin grandchildren (one girl, one boy), and how he saw her to and sat with her at a prime window seat in the coffee shop for a little bit, and that when he left, she was halfway through the delicious coffee cake, which she had insisted he take a bite of.

You delight in these details and you tell him so as you thank him for his thoughtfulness.

“What about you?  How was the rest of your day?”

You note that it’s kind of him to ask and let him know that you had a perfectly lovely day, “…and to think, some spilled coffee on my clothes didn’t make a lick of difference to the people I work with.  Imagine that!”  You have a twinkle in your eye, and Din laughs along with you, not even trying to hide how mesmerized he is by the sound of your giggles.

He points at the stain on your skirt that he remembers seeing this morning and offers, “Well, if you need a good dry cleaner, my friend runs ‘Peli’s Drycleaning’ on 14th.  If you say Din sent you, they might try extra hard not to lose your clothes.”

“Oh!  Thank you!  I have a great relationship with my dry cleaners… I spill a lot,” you joke, “but I appreciate the offer so much …Din.”  You try out his name and find that you love the way it sounds rolling off your tongue; you introduce yourself and give him your hand when he holds out his.  His huge hand completely dwarfs yours, and as he holds your hand for a moment longer than necessary, you feel how strong and rough his palm and thick fingers are and think you might like the feel of his hands even more than the feel of his name.

To snap yourself out of a daydream state that is barreling towards inappropriate thoughts such as where else you might like those hands and fingers, you take the opportunity to thank Din for everything he did this morning.  “Thank you again for all your help this morning; I’m really glad you were there.”

“You look like you had it under control,” Din smiles, but his brow furrows remembering, “but I didn’t like the way that guy spoke to you and Elizabeth.  He was really out of line.  No one should be speaking to anyone else like that.”

“Oh, sadly I feel like that’s more common than it should be around here.  There’s always some puffed up finance guy that thinks he can yell his way to the top,” you roll your eyes.  Over your career you’ve definitely met your fair share of douche bag finance bros; luckily, you’ve also learned that arrogance and false bravado aren’t the only way to get ahead.  You have a feeling that the man standing in front of you is a testament to the fact that strength and authority can come from calm and consideration. “You don’t work around here?” you ask Din.

Din shakes his head, “No, just have a work assignment that has me down here for the day.  I don’t usually come downtown.”  Din light heartedly jokes, “Which is lucky for our coffee-stained friend, you might not be around next time to calm me down if I were to see him again.”

You remember the electricity that had emanated from Din this morning when you had touched his clenched fists and remember the sense of safety you had felt then; you feel it now, just being in his presence.  You give Din a glowing smile, “Well, I hope his meeting went well and that no one noticed his stains, so he was thoroughly ashamed of himself for the rest of the day for the way he acted.”

“You’re much nicer than me.  I have been actively hoping all day that his meeting didn’t go well.”

“Well.  I think you’re very nice,” you look up shyly.

Din smiles back.  How are you so sweet? He is about to ask you if you’re free for dinner, when the phone in his hand buzzes.  He looks down to see a text from Paz that the target has been spotted and the location that everyone needs to converge at now. “Oh.  Shoot. I have to go.  I’m sorry.”

You’re a little surprised by the abrupt end to the conversation, but Din genuinely looks sorry to be leaving, “Of course!  Good luck with.. your thing!  It was nice to see you again.”

“You too.”  Din has already started to move towards the bookstore exit, but he tries to convey his regret at having to leave you with his forlorn expression.  He’s not sure if he will ever see you again, and he swallows the lump in this throat at that thought, doing his best to memorize your pretty face and the sweet way you’re waving goodbye.

After Din leaves you let out a deep sigh.  Would you ever see Din again?  He didn’t work downtown, so your chances of running into him at the coffeeshop or this bookstore again were probably nil. And you didn’t know anything about him other than his first name and the fact that he was kind and funny, with puppy dog eyes you could lost in, and big strong hands that would feel so good around… stop it.  You exhale another melancholy breath and wish you had had a little more time with Din, maybe you could have gotten his number or something.  You resign yourself to having to forget your handsome Quad Ice.

To fill this new emotional void, you add a couple more books to your purchase pile and you make your way over to the cashier.  After she scans your items, she pushes the stack back towards you and says, “It’s all taken care of!”

“I’m sorry, what do you mean?”

“The gentleman who was here earlier paid for your books already.”

Din? “The gentleman?  The one with the dark fluffy hair with greys in it?” You describe what Din was wearing as well, still in disbelief.

“That’s the guy!  He actually gave me a lot more than what’s needed to cover your books, so you can grab some more stuff if you want.  He said to keep paying for people’s books until it ran out, so if there’s anything else you want to get, go ahead.”

“No, that’s ok…I’m sure the next person will appreciate the gesture,” you say, absentmindedly, other thoughts racing through your head, “Wait.. did he leave a number or anything, some way I can contact him to thank him?”

“I actually asked him if wanted to do that, but he said he wouldn’t want you to feel obligated because of the books to call him; he just wants you to enjoy the gift.”  Your breath hitches a little; the cashier notices and says, “I know, right?” She gives you a dreamy look, which you mirror back.

Well so much for forgetting your handsome Quad Ice.

Thank you for reading! First two lines of Ch. 3 (The Drycleaner):

“He bought you books?!?”

“Well technically, he bought us all books.”

[kindnessoverperfection]

Feel free to ignore this, but I'm a disabled writer who tends to focus on representation in my works, and I came across your posts about having npd while doing research for a side character in a story of mine. I really appreciate you taking the time to write out a description of npd that shows the roots of the issues and the way they affect the people who have it rather than how outsiders perceive it. I just wanted to ask if there were any traits of npd that you personally would like to see in npd representation/ if you have any thoughts on how you'd like to see characters with npd represented in media? I know at current there's basically no positive npd rep, which sucks for sure, but in a hypothetical situation where there was a character with npd who wasn't villianized for it, what sort of aspects of npd would be comforting for you to see reflected in a story?

Once again, feel free to ignore this ask if I'm overstepping at all, and I hope you have a wonderful day <3

Hi!! ♡ Apologies for the late reply, I wasn't on tumblr for a few days, then my alter was out for the next couple days and I wanted to be the one to respond-

I really appreciate that you're taking the time to research and create thoughtful representation, and I'm glad my posts could offer some help with that!

My first two thoughts are:

Characters whose symptoms present differently than the common portrayal of NPD

It's super common for people to not recognize NPD because they have this very limited view of what it is and how it can present - so it would be nice to see representation that shows variety in the way it can manifest.

For example, it's actually very common for someone with the disorder to primarily "lash in" rather than "lash out", but I never see that represented (intentionally, at least).

There's also a very limited perception of narcissistic characters being blatantly arrogant, grandiose, braggy, selfish, power-hungry, etc. But really, there's an unlimited number of ways someone can present outwardly, because the only thing that's crucial to the diagnosis is the internal experience - how if affects the person who has it. How they appear outwardly to others can vary wildly.

(I'll admit, some of these "stereotypical NPD" characters feel very relatable due to shared symptoms and vibes and power fantasies. To the extent that I have one of them as my pfp on some accounts lol. But if you met me IRL, my vibes are just "confident and bubbly, polite, quiet and distant, fashion-oriented, straight A student, cutesy, braggy, adventurous", and I always make the effort to be kind to people even though I can be somewhat distant and goal-oriented.)

It's also common to think of someone "flying into a rage" when they feel criticized - but anger (whether external or internal) isn't an inherent part of it. The issue is that someone perceives criticism as a threat, so their fight/flight/freeze/fawn response kicks in, and there's a large multitude of ways that can show up.

(Personally, I go into either fight or fawn mode. But the vast majority of the anger I've felt has been entirely self-directed, manifesting in the form of self-criticism, self-hatred, self-destruction, overworking, eating disorders, etc. I will occasionally feel outwards anger, but when I do, I give myself time and space to process it by myself so that I don't upset anyone. And even for those who feel external anger much more often than I do, it doesn't mean they'll express it in an aggressive or harmful way.)

tldr; I'd love to see a variety of outwards presentations, with the NPD being shown via their internal experience, rather than only displayed through stereotypical external behaviors.

2. Humanization for characters with NPD who make mistakes

People with NPD are human just like everyone else, which means that mistakes happen. Everyone accidentally fucks up, hurts someone, lacks self-awareness in certain areas, etc.

The level and type of interpersonal struggles, and the reasons behind these struggles, are all across the board. That's understood with any other disorder (or any sort of identity), but there's so much extra baggage and stigma applied when NPD is involved for some reason.

So for characters with NPD with higher interpersonal conflict, I'd want them to be humanized in the same way that anyone else with any other identity would be humanized. And I'd also want it shown that characters who don't have NPD can have high interpersonal conflict as well, that it's not limited to this disorder.

"what sort of aspects of npd would be comforting for you to see reflected in a story?"

In terms of specific aspects-

Personally, I'd love to see a character who like... tries to be perfect. Is externally very put-together in some way - maybe they're very kind and soft-spoken and sweet, or they're silly and happy and energetic, or they're quiet and serious and protective, or calm and mysterious and self-assured, doesn't matter. But everything seems okay on the surface.

But internally, they put so much pressure on themself. They hold themself to impossible standards, and feel like they HAVE to be seen a certain way and never show weakness. They have to handle everything perfectly. Just... so many symptoms and struggles that are hurting them internally, and overtime it ends up bubbling out in small ways, or like. Tbh I'd love it if someone would just... notice.

Notice the perfect bubbly happy straight-A student who's always kind and never shares their own opinions. Notice the quiet, highly-skilled protector of the group who somehow always knows the right thing to say and the right way to act.

And give them permission to be imperfect. To be human. Show them that they aren't their reputation or their skills or how impressive they are, they're so much more than that.

They can see the pain they're in, and instead of treating them as this untouchable perfect being, they treat them in a human way.

The super bubbly character seems completely unaffected by recent tragedy? Okay. Their friend doesn't ignore that. They don't push and prod, but they don't ignore it. They sit with them, spend time with them, hold them, they know it affected them.

I'm imagining a scene where the character w/NPD fucks up somehow, and they seem fine, but someone close to them suddenly Realizes and they just. Go to find them. And they're just having a massive breakdown, but the moment they see their friend, they quickly try and shove everything under the surface and act cool and unaffected and "normal", but their friend goes over and just holds them and. Ungh. 10/10

Couple months ago I did actually see an episode of a show like that, and both times I watched it, I bawled my fuckin eyes out lol.

Different people may have different answers in terms of what they'd feel most comforted by, but for me personally, I'd love this so much, because this is how I present and I desperately want to be Seen and Loved and have someone see my self-worth as being inherent and not tied into how "perfect" I am.

Closing thoughts:

Personally, there's not much that I'd feel offended by. To be honest, in addition to characters who fit the above points (various presentations, average-level interpersonal conflict, etc.), I also write characters who have that "stereotypical" presentation. I don't think there's anything wrong with it as long as it's not done maliciously, especially if there's other types of characters shown. (Similar to having both gay villains and gay protagonists or side characters, y'know)

The only thing I'd dislike / that would hurt my feelings is like... seeing a character be heavily demonized for their traits*, or the only characters with NPD being horribly abusive, or the usage of stigmatizing language (aka, if the character is spoken about the way buzzfeed articles speak about us).

*aka, demonized for the symptoms. Totally fine if someone does something shitty and it's pointed out as being shitty / if people dislike them for that lol.

Hopefully this isn't getting too long, but to give an example of what I mean, something I saw that did hurt my feelings was like-

There was an episode of a show where a character got super braggy and confident, and was relishing in the praise and admiration she was getting. Hinging her self-worth on that recognition and success. And her friends got annoyed and pissed off, simply because she was braggy. There were a couple of things here and there she did that were kind of insensitive, but that was never really pointed out or seen as the main issue, it was only her bragging that was being demonized for some reason.

And then her friends all ganged up behind her back and did something to intentionally trigger a crash and make her feel insecure and terrible about herself, all to "knock her down a peg". And the narrative framed that as being justified, framed her friends as being correct in this situation. They never once showed concern for her mental health or the fact that she was hinging her self-worth on other people's opinions of her, they tore her down for her bragging instead of either a) supporting and uplifting her, or b) showing concern for unhealthy mindsets, and they never even tried to approach her or communicate with her about the things she was doing that actually were insensitive.

Hopefully that wasn't too much of a tangent lol, but that's the type of thing I mean by "being demonized for their traits". Hate when all a character is doing is bragging and feeling good about themself and the narrative frames them in an extremely negative light for it :(

Okay I will wrap up the post here as it's already pretty long, but hopefully this helped a bit!! Thank you for the question, and good luck with your writing! ^^

[arkus-rhapsode]

So wasn't expecting to make this Gaming Hot Take of the day but after reading this from Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki I gotta be honest I had to write something

So look, I can kinda understand this stance in a very retrospective sense as he says "Fostered from the beginning." Playstation 1 in particular didn't really make a big distinction between its original IP and its Third Party IP. It's why you had Crash Bandicoot or Cloud Strife as basically the mascot of Playstation when both come from third parties. Compared to the likes of Mario and Sonic who were not only their console mascot, but company mascots respectively.

But by now, Playstation has an undeniable back catalogue of first and second IP that it can either revive or rerelease if need be. Like if we're looking at like multi entry series and not just one offs, by the PS2, Sony had:

Jak & Daxter

Twisted Metal

Ape Escape

Sly Cooper

MediEvil

Wild Arms

Dark Cloud

Everybody's Golf

God of War

Rachet and Clank

And by the PS3 we have

Infamous

Uncharted

Killzone

Resistance

Little Big Planet

Like Sony has their own catalogue that can stand on its own. Its not like they should be struggling now to play catch up.

Now if you read my recent Emio and Mages post, I am very well aware that in the age of modern gaming, a game doesn't get made without a team devoted to it. And with the rising production and time costs of making games, no company can release a hundred games and be profitable. So sadly some IP just do fall by the wayside in favor of others. Guerrilla Games isn't making Killzone anymore, because their efforts are spent on Horizon and Sucker Punch went from being the Sly Cooper guys to the Infamous guys, to now the Ghosts of Tsushima guys.

However, I feel like Sony has had some circumstances that compound this problem. Sony and Playstation are technically powerful machines-they want to fully utilize the hardware they're selling you for hundreds of dollars. It is their brand. However, the downside to this is because of this the rise in production costs, it's now taking much longer to make games that make use of the powerful hardware. We went from being able to release a full trilogy in a single generation to basically one. Its also made worse by the fact that Sony has been very active in shuttering studios and cutting costs. The biggest would be the loss of Sony Japan Studio, who were beloved for their more varied Japanese-y style games. It added flavor to the more Naughty Dog inspired games of the sixth and seventh generation. But now, Sony went all in on being that one big budget release that leaned more towards broader genres that could maximize the amount of sales like Uncharted, The Last of Us, Spider-Man, etc.

With this, a lot of mismanagement, its really made the PS5 era feel very sparse compared to the PS4. Now, I wanna stress this, I actually do not subscribe to the mentality "Playstation has no games." Playstation has tons of games beyond just their first party titles, some are exclusive like Final Fantasy 16, some are just way too powerful to be something that could be played on a switch like GTAV. Heck, I played Bomb Rush Cyberfunk on my PS5 and it's probably the game I've dumped the most time into this year. So yes, even if Playstation's first party offerings are few and far between, you're still capable of playing a lot of good games on this really expensive plastic box.

And maybe that's indicative of the fact that Playstation has always been about selling you the hardware on the basis of the hardware. Going back to the PS1, the main selling points was this was the haven for third parties after Nintendo really burned a lot of developers with the N64, and that this was a much more system than the N64. When you look at someone like Nintendo now, they're hardware is underpowered they live and die by the power of their software that only they can provide and no one else. But the playstation even if its not shooting out a new Jax & Daxter every year, they're still the place you can play something like Final Fantasy or Elden Ring at a really great clip. Perhaps Totoki was alluding to that reliance on hardware instead of software because in retrospect, they never really had that big homegrown system seller on playstation till the PS2 with things like God of War. And now fostering that, has made it hard to have that sort of Zelda or Halo that are so undeniably their companies IP and will move launch units.

But a reliance on just being the place where you can play games at a high fidelity, means that its still got competition from Xbox and PC. So Sony would have to offer a service the others don't and that can be software you find nowhere else. True story, I was genuinely conflicted about getting a PS5 or and Xbox X/S for my birthday because I knew I needed to at least have a strong machine to play with my switch. And ultimately I took PS5 because that was the console that would have God of War Ragnarok and Spider-Man 2. So yes, IP absolutely factors into purchases in my experience. And the fact that this generation Sony has really struggled to put out first party games, really makes that purchase factor feel so much thinner and thinner. When you know-you know Sony has loads of IP (Some that haven't left their respective console) that even a simple remaster on the PS5 could at least hold people over in-between their AAA releases. So to hear their CFO say that they don't have enough IP, gets very disingenuous.

To close this out, I wanna stress something. I don't think wanting to make new IP is a bad thing. Im glad Sony is willing to invest 8 years and millions of dollars into something new. But eventually, we reach a point where this has to be better managed. We have to have some smaller titles that can be released between the bigger ones. We gotta have some variation in the types of games we're getting from the platform holder. And sometimes leaning in on those fan faves for smaller titles would help. Are they gonna sell 10 million units? More than likely not. But if you balance the budget, having something move between 1-2 million units would be acceptable. Perhaps maybe allow more second party developers a crack at using that IP so your internal teams can work on the bigger blockbuster titles?

The PS5 generation has been a pretty all over the map one for Sony, and the more we learn about the thoughts and management behind the scenes, the more aggravating it can become when this platform does something really cool, but then seems to take two steps back. I genuinely can't tell you if I'll get a PS6. But if I do, it will probably not be out of optimism for classic Playstation franchises to return.

[flightlessangelwings]

Ktober 2023 Day 19- Somnophilia

Javi Gutierrez x gn!reader

Word count- 1k

Warnings- s.mut (18+ ONLY!), hj, bj, subby!Javi, restraints, slight overstim, hint at face sitting, no use of y/n

Notes- Oh this one was so fun to write! Another personal favorite of the month, cause we love a subby Javi!! Starting the fic under the cut cause we get right to it here lol! Prompt list made by me! Enjoy!

@flightlessangelwings-updates is myupdate blog so please follow that too and turn on post notifs to stay up to date on my new fics!

~

Javi groaned softly in his sleep as his dreams turned more intense. He dreamt you were jerking him off… and it felt so good. He writhed slightly as he practically felt your hand around his cock, pumping him and making him feel so good. Javi whispered your name as he started to teeter from the dream world and the waking one. And suddenly the two realms felt intertwined.

You smirked as you watched Javi squirm under your touch, careful not to wake him fully just yet. It had been a fantasy of yours to do this to him for a long time, and when Javi confessed that it was one of his ultimate desires, your heart flipped in your chest. You waited a few nights to actually do it, though, since you wanted to catch him more off guard but with the invitation still open.

Heat rushed through your veins when he murmured your name over and over again, and you couldn’t help but pump him faster. Your own needs could wait as you were too focused on him. Licking your lips, your eyes trailed down Javi’s naked form until they landed on his cock in your hand. It dripped with precum and it twitched when you twisted your wrist around the shaft.

Fuck, he looked delicious.

The time was right, you decided, and you let go of his cock and positioned yourself so that your mouth ghosted over the tip. In his sleep, Javi let out a soft whine, and you couldn’t fight the moan that escaped your lips. He looked so beautiful like this. Next time, you would have to take a picture.

As he settled back into sleep, you stuck your tongue out and gently licked the tip of his length in a teasingly light touch. He whimpered in his sleep as you wrapped your lips around him and took his entire cock into your mouth. You sucked hard with the intent of waking Javi up this time, and you shivered in anticipation as you waited to see his reaction to waking up in your mouth.

“Ay! Fuck! Corazon!” Javi moaned as his eyes shot open.

You hummed in satisfaction as you kept your eyes on Javi, but you never let go of his cock.

Javi tried to move, but he found he couldn’t. And, for just being awake a few seconds, he discovered his second surprise of the morning. You had bound him to the bed with silk scarves, his wrists tied to the head of the bed and his ankles to each post at the end. He was defenseless and helpless against you. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.

He groaned your name as he dropped his head back onto the pillow.

“Morning, Javi,” you purred, breaking away from his cock with a pop, “Sleep well?” you asked in a tease.

“Not as well as I woke up, mi amor,” Javi murmured, his chest rising and falling with his heavy breaths. That explained the dream he had. But, reality was far better, and waking up with his cock inside your mouth was a more than welcome surprise. And it was hotter than he ever could have imagined, especially with your touch of tying him down.

You exhaled deeply with a smile, “Shall I continue, then?” you ran a single finger up his length, “My breakfast looked delicious, and I’m starving.”

“Ay dios mio,” Javi sighed with a short laugh, “You are too much, you know that corazon?” he lifted his head to meet your gaze, and both of you softened as you stared into each other’s eyes.

“You like it,” you cooed as you kissed the tip of his cock.

“That I do… Ohh…”

Without another word, you wrapped your lips around his cock again and bobbed your head up and down, savoring the taste of Javi first thing in the morning. He cried out as he strained against the binds, forgetting they were there for a moment. Javi bucked his hips into you as much as he could as you sucked at his cock.

“Fuck… Amor…”

Moving faster and sucking harder, you reached down and cupped Javi’s balls, determined to send him over the edge. His moans encouraged you as you hummed into him, the vibrations bringing new sensations. You darted your tongue along his shaft, pocking and lucking where you knew he was more sensitive.

“Amor… I’m…”

You sucked harder, taking Javi’s entire length into your mouth until it hit the back of your throat. Tears filled your eyes, but you didn’t care. You kept going until you got what you wanted. And within moments, Javi exploded into your mouth, spilling his seed down your throat as he cock twitched in your mouth. In his restraints, Javi writhed as he moaned loudly, spilling a string of praises as he did so.

Swallowing every last drop, you didn’t let up until you were sure he had no more to give. As much as you wanted to keep going, you decided to stop, not wanting to overdo it the first time you tried something new. With one last kiss to the tip of his cock, you pulled away with a deep gasp for air.

“Wow,” you breathed as you watched him come down from his high.

“That was incredible, corazon,” Javi panted as his eyes fluttered open.

You smiled brightly at Javi as you heaved yourself forward to lay overtop of him, taking his lips with your own. Javi immediately deepened the kiss, tasting himself on your tongue. His cock twitched slightly between your bodies, though he knew he was spent… at least for now.

“You’re incredible, Javi,” you whispered against his lips.

He hummed as he beamed up at you, his big beautiful eyes telling a story that words could never express. “I would like to return the favor, mi amor,” he waved his hands that still stayed bound above his head, “But I am still at your mercy here.”

You thought for a moment before you gave him a mischievous smirk, “I can think of a way you can still make it work,” you purred as you shimmied your body up his torso, hovering yourself over his face.

“Fuck yes,” Javi breathed as he licked his lips eagerly.

[galaxygorl-does-stuff]

FUCKKKK ASRIELS AT COLLEGE AND THE INTERNETS DOWN SO KRIS HAS NO WAY TO CONTACT HIM

HE WOULD TOTALLY REALIZE SMTHS WRONG WITH KRIS BUT KRIS CANT TELL HIM FUCKING HELL AODYBEBC

but like imagine being Kris rn:

you find a cool fantasy world!!! woah!!! but sike!! ur possessed and cant actually do whatever u want :p oh well

you get new friends that dont actually know you and that you've never really talked to. but circumstances have made you spend most of your time with them and they have no clue you've been acting different. the people who would realize this are:

asriel. your brother. he's off to college, and you can't video call him because the internet's down. the one person who could help the most is unavailable.

noelle. a friend you've had since childhood. but you haven't been able to talk to her much, between school, the dark world, and her visits to the hospital. but she might not notice, since she's been distracted with the disappearence of dess. she's been going through a lot lately.

oh! and depending on the ending, she's traumatized! sure, she noticed something was controlling you, but it still looked like you. the voice was different, but she's still wary around you. you were both traumatized from that experience but you can't express it. the closest apology you can give is a look, but she doesn't understand you.

your only moments of freedom are at the end of the day, when you can tear out your soul for a short amount of time. but you're slow without it. can you even live without your soul? will the only escape from possession still not be enough?

no matter how much you try to stop yourself, you say whatever the soul makes you say. you do whatever the soul makes you do. you try, but it still comes out strained. you try, but it isn't enough. if you could stop yourself, maybe things would be different.

also the soul is set on talking to everybody. youre an introvert. at least you aren't technically doing the socializing. but they'll remember, and might talk to you when the possession ends. IF the possession ends. more people who only know this false version of you.

I had more to write but I forgot it :p anyway I love deltarune and I need to know more about Kris or I'll go feral :3 this post changed a few times but who cares

[darkstarofchaos]

Ableism in Transformers: EarthSpark

So I didn't plan to post this during Disability Pride Month (I actually started writing it before Season 2 came out), but you know what, it's thematically appropriate, this post was nearly done anyway, might as well finish it off.

Also, happy Disability Pride Month.

Transformers historically does not handle disability well. From the earliest days of Chip Chase - a disabled character - declaring that no one is truly disabled as long as they have courage, to TFA Blitzwing being a DID stereotype and beyond, ableism runs rampant in the franchise. So when EarthSpark made Dot disabled - thus giving us a disabled character who isn't the villain or a stereotype - I actually thought it was a step in the right direction.

Then I saw someone point out that the hero got the disability that can be hidden, while the villain's disability is scary and deforming. And you know what? They're right. In fact, not only is Mandroid's disability portrayed in a far more disturbing way, Dot's disability just never comes up outside of plot-relevant moments (this includes episodic plots like that of Bear Necessities).

I'll come back to Mandroid's Disabled Villain status later, but suffice to say, the show's ableism only gets worse as it goes on. Credit where credit is due, I liked the bit in Bear Necessities where Nightshade learns not to mess with Dot's prostheses. That was a good message. But we do see a lot of other characters fall into ableist tropes. I might miss a couple, but here's at least some of the major ones (under the cut for length, but also, minor references to Season 2 ahead):

Jawbreaker Jawbreaker is widely perceived by fans as having autism, and while he's not confirmed as such, his struggle finding an altmode does feel like an analogue for delayed development. Which makes it kind of infantilizing that he's the one portrayed as sweet and naive. Yes, he's very young and socially isolated, and yes, people mature at different rates. But his siblings are also young and isolated, and they all get to grow as characters very quickly (well, most of them).

Twitch, Thrash, and Hashtag all start in a similar place of innocent enthusiasm, but their personalities develop beyond that within a few episodes. Twitch is shown to be more responsible than Thrash long before she takes on a leadership role, Thrash's initial rebelliousness fits well with his later cynicism about inheriting the consequences of the war, and while Hashtag matures a bit more slowly than her older siblings, she has distinct hobbies and interests. Nightshade doesn't really have much emotional development, but even they have clear interests (anyone who says their character revolves around being nonbinary is willfully ignoring both their scientific proclivity and their instant and enthusiastic attachment to a sci-fi/fantasy novel).

None of the triplets get as much development as their older siblings (yes, I'm saying that Thrash, largely ignored by the narrative, gets more development than they do. I'll talk more about Hashtag in a minute), but two of the three at least have their own identity. But what about Jawbreaker? What does he like to do when he's on his own? What are his interests? Aside from a passing mention of wrestling, I have no idea. There's not a whole lot to his character except "sweet", "naive", and "wants an altmode".

Don't get me wrong, I like Jawbreaker. And it's not ableist to show a character feeling left out or less capable because he can't do things other kids his age can. But he should have been allowed to develop as a character, regardless of what he can or can't do, and he wasn't given that. His entire motivation and defining trait prior to having an altmode was wanting one, and lamenting his inability to help the others at various points because he doesn't have one.

Originally, I finished the above paragraph by saying that has to change now that he does have an altmode. However, I can no longer say that because Season 2 took all the problems of Season 1 and made them worse. He still has no motivation or personal goals outside of those shared by the group, still has no clear interests, and his naivety has been boosted to socially oblivious, overly trusting, and a stereotype of chattiness who can be outright told he's bothering someone and keep doing it. Even thought he's more confident now (and good for him, truly), his portrayal has somehow become more infantilizing. Someone give this mech a hobby and a focus episode that isn't about how sweet and naive he is, please.

Grimlock Soooo. Character with trauma gets triggered and attacks people. We're really going there, huh.

Honestly, I'm not sure I need to say more about this. Grimlock's episode was one of the most disappointing S1 episodes to me for a lot of reasons, but his rampage at the end was the icing on the cake. Even if you assume Grimlock was one of the (rare) cases of trauma leading to a violent reaction, literally nothing was forcing him to go into town. If he was overwhelmed and upset, there is no reason why he would beeline to the most stimulating area possible instead of literally any other direction that wasn't as busy. Entire latter half of the episode was just manufactured drama to hit a robot battle quota.

(Random PSA, Grimlock does not have PTSD. Not yet anyway. A diagnosis of PTSD requires symptoms to last at least a month. If they resolve sooner, it would be Acute Stress Disorder instead).

Additional tangent, but I personally think that episode should have been a Hashtag episode. Or at very least, her side role should have been more relevant to the fact that she and Grimlock both experienced the same thing. Yes, Jawbreaker needed to get his altmode, and I understand making him the focus of the episode because of it, but there would have been plenty of time for Hashtag to have a talk with Grimlock or one of the other adults if the whole rampage thing was cut. Maybe she couldn't tell Elita what happened to her because the kids weren't supposed to be out that night, but she could have asked if Grimlock was okay and learned a bit about trauma that way. And it would have been a natural steppingstone to her being surprisingly insightful with Starscream later.

But no. We needed "dino rage". Because apparently some people are just inherently violent. Really do not like that episode. And speaking of episodes I don't like:

Robby I know this post is the ableism edition and not the "things happen because plot" edition, but I just need to throw out there that the entire episode where Robby got hurt should not have happened. The entire series is about keeping the Terrans hidden from GHOST, neither Dot nor Optimus should have even considered that a secret field trip to GHOST Headquarters might be a good idea. Not for the human kids, and especially not for the robot kids.

Anyway.

Not gonna lie, I thought they were going to go in more of a chronic illness direction with Robby when he was struggling in the following episode. He seemed fine apart from not being able to keep up with the others (okay, not fine, but I didn't look at him and think, ah yes, this child is dying. No one was treating it like it was that serious). I don't think it would have been too dark, either - certainly not as dark as Robby almost dying to this thing twice - because there are plenty of kids out there with acquired disabilities. It happens (in retrospect, the action cartoon for kids was not going to take one of the main kids out of the action, but I still feel like it was a reasonable assumption at the time).

And of course, we heal the mysterious illness with magic in the end. Even though they could have just, y'know. Made it nonlethal and chronic, and then they wouldn't have needed a magical cure. Or even just nonlethal and lingering, there were plenty of options apart from deadly and cured by magic. I guess I can't complain too much about the magical cure when the illness might have been magical in origin, but honestly, if I can't complain about that, I'm just gonna complain about the lack of explanation regarding the illness instead.

Twitch Honorable mention goes to Twitch having an optic broken and then magically repaired a minute later. I actually didn't mind the magical life tower that much - the healing powers were foreshadowed with the above Robby arc, it may have been a copout, but it was a copout that made sense with the established story - but I was really annoyed that Twitch's optic got repaired. Specifically because I had an OC once who was blind in one eye, and while roleplaying with my brother, he decided to magically heal the character. Magical eye-healing has been a weirdly specific pet peeve ever since.

Hardtop Honorable mention #2 goes to Hardtop, not because of the show, but because of the viewers who keep asking why his arm isn't fixed. Neither side has a medic, and it's unlikely the Decepticons have the knowledge or the resources for that kind of repair. I'm sure Hardtop, like many disabled people, would love to get the medical help he needs. Alas, that requires having access to it. And he doesn't.

I guess we should get to the elephant in the room now, shouldn't we?

Mandroid So. Yeah. Disabled villain who's a villain because he's disabled trope.

I gotta be honest, I had no interest in Mandroid as a character. We didn't get enough time with the villains to fully develop more than one, and I'd rather have seen more focus on the leader of the evil organization that the heroes were working with (I am admittedly biased, since "protagonists are forced to work with antagonists who have all the power" is a favorite of mine and we don't see it enough). But of the characters who actually needed more development, we could have used a few more sentences for Mandroid. We could have had them, too.

I don't have a problem with a villain claiming their path to villainy started when they were disabled. I don't even necessarily mind if they believe it, because harmful people will use whatever they can to excuse harmful behavior, including disabilities. But if your villain is going to use it as an excuse, it needs to be clear that it is an excuse: not "well, I was disabled too, and I'm not a villain", but "they were always the kind of person who would do something like this".

To put it another way, Mandroid's hatred for Cybertronians should predate his becoming disabled. At bare minimum, he should have been predisposed towards hating them (not seeing them as people, working with them only grudgingly, resenting both factions for bringing their war to Earth, etc). This way, he's already antagonistic towards them before becoming disabled, and it's a logical step to blame Cybertronians as a whole for his injury. And we even had a means of learning this information, because Alex knew him. A bit more insight into that history could have told us a lot about what kind of person Mandroid was before the war.

Would this have fixed the problem? Maybe not. Frankly, the best solution would probably have been to make his disability incidental to his motivation and not the reason he started down this path. But disabled people are still people, and sometimes people suck. Better to show that they always sucked than to make them suck because they're disabled.