#MICROSOFT WORD HERE I COME !

[mysterycitrus]

because im spinning so many plates at once AND i finally have a computer so i don’t need to touch type on an ipad…. the current fics ive got in progress (in chronological order) are

1. the dick grayson + jason todd brotherism fic (cain and abel, the god and the man, the flier and the buried, etc)

2. that time damian wayne steals a manatee fic (nightwing 93 and its messy, painful aftermath + hijinks at the new york aquarium)

3. persephone…. tbc (self explanatory)

4. persephone companion fic with alternating POVs (jason todd’s internal monologue about seeing robin, freshly stripped of feathers — in motion he is unmistakable - dick grayson has never needed wings to fly.)

5. aftermath of persephone fic (uh oh spaghettio, dick must experience the mortifying ordeal of being known)

[pleasantboatpress]

so, you wanted to start bookbinding?

so @princetofbone mentioned on my post for "factory settings" about wanting to know more about the binding style that i used for it. so i thought i might make a post about it.

i was as terrible as i always am for taking in progress shots, but i can link you to the resources i used in order to make my book. i would also like to point out that "factory settings" is my 120th bind, and i have been doing bookbinding as a hobby for just over 3 years now. unfortunately this means some of the methods that i used for that bind aren't particularly beginner friendly, just in terms of the tools and methods i have used, but i would love to point you in the right direction when it comes to resources. i dont say this to sound pretentious which i fear i might come across, just so that youre fully informed. getting into this hobby is fun and rewarding, but it can definitely be intimidating.

with that caveat, heres a list of links and resources that i have used for bookbinding in general, with additional links to methods i used specifically in regards to this bind.

ASH's how to make a book document. it gives you a great introduction into typesetting fics (where you format the text of fics to look like a traditionally published books) and then turning them into a case-bound book (the style i used for "factory settings"). it is comprehensive, and explains how to use microsoft word to do your bidding. it was invaluable to me when i was just starting out! currently i use affinity publisher to typeset/format my fics for printing, but i only bought and learned how to use that after i had been binding books for a year and a half. i made some beautiful typesets with word, and some of my close friends use it still and design stuff that i never would be able to in my wildest dreams (basically anything by @no-name-publishing)

DAS Bookbinding's Square Back Bradel Binding. a great style to do your first bind in! this method requires, when making the case, to attach the cover board and the spine board to a connecting piece of paper, which makes it so much easier to match the size of the case to the size of the text block (your printed out and sewn fic). using this method is what allowed me to get much more accurately fitting cases, and made me much more confident with the construction of the books i was making. a well-made book is something that is so wonderful to hold in your hands!

DAS Bookbinding's Rounded and Backed Cased Book. This is the specific method that i used to create my bind for "factory settings"! even before i could back my books, i found that watching DAS's videos in particular helped me see how books were traditionally made, and i was able to see different tips and tricks about how to make nicer books.

Book Edge Trimming Without... i trim the edges of my text block using my finishing press and a chisel i have sharpened using a whetstone and leather strop with buffing compound on it. i follow the method for trimming shown in this video!

Made Endpapers. i follow this method for my endpapers, as i used handmade lokta endpapers, and they can be quite thin, but they look beautiful! i used "tipped on" endpapers (where you have your endpaper and then put a thin strip of glue on the edge and attach it to your text block) i used for a very long time before this, but these feel like they are much more stable, as they are sewn with your text block.

Edge Sprinkling. this is the method that i used for decorating the edges of my text block. but the principle is basically clamping your text block tight and then sprinkling the edges. i do not believe you need to trim the edges in order to do sprinkles on the edges, and that's what makes it accessible! i personally just use really cheap acrylic paint that i water down and then flick it onto the edges with my thumb and a paint brush.

Double-Core Endbands. i sew my own endbands, which i followed this tutorial for. that being said, it's kind of confusing, and this video is a bit easier to follow, but it is a slightly different type of endband.

Case decoration. i used my silhouette cameo 4 to cut out my design for "factory settings" in htv (heat transfer vinyl). i also used my cameo 4 to cut out the oval of marbled paper on the front, as i honestly didn't want to try my hand at cutting an oval lol. i also glued some 300 gsm card with an oval cut out of the centre of it onto the cover before covering it with bookcloth, to get a kind of recess on the cover. i then glued the oval of marbled paper onto the top of the recessed area once it was covered with bookcloth, so that it was protected. the images i used were sourced from a mix of rawpixel, canva and pixabay. a more accessible way to get into cover decoration is by painting on a design for your cover as described in @a-gay-old-time's tutorial just here. or even doing paper labels, which look classy imo.

physical materials. sourcing these will depend on your country. i am located in australia, and have compiled a list with some other aussie bookbinders of places to buy from. here is a great post describing beginning materials for getting started binding.

@renegadepublishing. this tumblr is great! its what got me started bookbinding, and being in the discord has been inspiring, motivating, and honestly just one of the best online experiences i have ever had. it is full of resources, and most people in there are amateur bookbinders, with a couple of professionals thrown in. the discord is 18+, and anyone can join!

i'm sorry this post got so long, but i hope that this has a lot of information for you if you would like to get started bookbinding. its one of the best hobbies ive ever had, and i genuinely believe i will have it for the rest of my life.

[physalian]

You don’t have to pay for that fancy worldbuilding program

As mentioned in this post about writing with executive dysfunction, if one of your reasons to keep procrastinating on starting your book is not being able to afford something like World Anvil or Campfire, I’m here to tell you those programs are a luxury, not a necessity: Enter Google Suite (not sponsored but gosh I wish).

MS Office offers more processing power and more fine-tuning, but Office is expensive and only autosaves to OneDrive, and I have a perfectly healthy grudge against OneDrive for failing to sync and losing 19k words of a WIP that I never got back.

Google’s sync has never failed me, and the Google apps (at least for iPhone) aren’t nearly as buggy and clunky as Microsoft’s. So today I’m outlining the system I used for my upcoming fantasy novel with all the helpful pictures and diagrams. Maybe this won’t work for you, maybe you have something else, and that’s okay! I refuse to pay for what I can get legally for free and sometimes Google’s simplicity is to its benefit.

The biggest downside is that you have to manually input and update your data, but as someone who loves organizing and made all these willingly and for fun, I don’t mind.

So. Let’s start with Google Sheets.

The Character Cheat Sheet:

I organized it this way for several reasons:

I can easily see which characters belong to which factions and how many I have named and have to keep up with for each faction

All names are in alphabetical order so when I have to come up with a new name, I can look at my list and pick a letter or a string of sounds I haven’t used as often (and then ignore it and start 8 names with A).

The strikethrough feature lets me keep track of which characters I kill off (yes, I changed it, so this remains spoiler-free)

It’s an easy place to go instead of scrolling up and down an entire manuscript for names I’ve forgotten, with every named character, however minor their role, all in one spot

Also on this page are spare names I’ll see randomly in other media (commercials, movie end credits, etc) and can add easily from my phone before I forget

Also on this page are my summary, my elevator pitch, and important character beats I could otherwise easily mess up, it helps stay consistent

*I also have on here not pictured an age timeline for all my vampires so I keep track of who’s older than who and how well I’ve staggered their ages relative to important events, but it’s made in Photoshop and too much of a pain to censor and add here

On other tabs, I keep track of location names, deities, made-up vocabulary and definitions, and my chapter word count.

The Word Count Guide:

*3/30 Edit to update this chart to its full glory. Column 3 is a cumulative count. Most of what I write breaks 100k and it's fun watching the word count rise until it boils over.

This is the most frustrating to update manually, especially if you don’t have separate docs for each chapter, but it really helps me stay consistent with chapter lengths and the formula for calculating the average and rising totals is super basic.

Not that all your chapters have to be uniform, but if you care about that, this little chart is a fantastic visualizer.

If you have multiple narrators, and this book does, you can also keep track of how many POVs each narrator has, and how spread out they are. I didn’t do that for this book since it’s not an ensemble team and matters less, but I did for my sci-fi WIP, pictured below.

As I was writing that one, I had “scripted” the chapters before going back and writing out all the glorious narrative, and updated the symbols from “scripted” to “finished” accordingly.

I also have a pie chart that I had to make manually on a convoluted iPhone app to color coordinate specifically the way I wanted to easily tell who narrates the most out of the cast, and who needs more representation.

—

Google Docs

Can’t show you much here unfortunately but I’d like to take an aside to talk about my “scene bits” docs.

It’s what it says on the tin, an entire doc all labeled with different heading styles with blurbs for each scene I want to include at some point in the book so I can hop around easily. Whether they make it into the manuscript or not, all practice is good practice and I like to keep old ideas because they might be useful in unsuspecting ways later.

Separate from that, I keep most of my deleted scenes and scene chunks for, again, possible use later in a “deleted scenes” doc, all labeled accordingly.

When I designed my alien language for the sci-fi series, I created a Word doc dictionary and my own "translation" matrix, for easy look-up or word generation whenever I needed it (do y'all want a breakdown for creating foreign languages? It's so fun).

Normally, as with my sci-fi series, I have an entire doc filled with character sheets and important details, I just… didn’t do that for this book. But the point is—you can still make those for free on any word processing software, you don’t need fancy gadgets.

—

I hope this helps anyone struggling! It doesn’t have to be fancy. It doesn’t have to be expensive. Everything I made here, minus the aforementioned timeline and pie chart, was done with basic excel skills and the paint bucket tool. I imagine this can be applicable to games, comics, what have you, it knows no bounds!

Now you have one less excuse to sit down and start writing.

[phantomrose96]

Hey not to go all "tumblr is a professional networking site" on you, but how did you get to work for Microsoft??? I'm a recent grad and I'm being eviscerated out here trying to apply for industry jobs & your liveblogging about your job sounds so much less evil than Data Entry IT Job #43461

This place is basically LinkedIn to me.

I'm gonna start by saying I am so so very sorry you're a recent grad in the year 2024... Tech job market is complete ass right now and it is not just you. I started fulltime in 2018, and for 2018-2022 it was completely normal to see a yearly outflow of people hopping to new jobs and a yearly inflow of new hires. Then sometime around late-spring/early-summer of 2022 Wallstreet sneezed the word "recession" and every tech company simultaneously shit themselves.

Tons of layoffs happened, meaning you're competing not just with new grads but with thousands of experienced workers who got shafted by their company. My org squeaked by with a small amount of layoffs (3 people among ~100), but it also means we have not hired anyone new since mid-2022. And where I used to see maybe 4-8 people yearly leave in order to hop to a new job, I think I've seen 1 person do that in the whole last year and a half.

All this to say it's rough and I can't just say "send applications and believe in yourself :)".

I have done interviews though. (I'm not involved in resume screening though, just the interviews of candidates who made it past the screening phase.) So I have at least some relevant advice, as well as second-hand knowledge from other people I know who've had to hop jobs or get hired recently.

If you have friends already in industry who you feel comfortable asking, reach out to them. Most companies have a recommendation process where a current employee fills out a little form that says "yeah I'd recommend such-and-such for this job." These do seem to carry weight, since it's coming from a trusted internal person and isn't just one of the hundreds of cold-call applications they've received.

A lot of tech companies--whether for truly well-intentioned reasons or to just check a checkbox--are on the lookout for increasing employee diversity. If you happen to have anything like, for example, "member of my college Latino society", it's worth including on your resume among your technical skills and technical projects.

I would add "you're probably gonna have to send a lot of applications" as a bullet point but I'm sure you're already doing that. But here it is as a bullet point anyway.

(This is kind of a guess, since it's part of the resume screening) but if you can dedicate some time to getting at least passingly familiar with popular tech/stacks for the positions you're looking into, try doing that in your free time so you can list it on your resume. Even better if you make a project you can point to. Like if you're aiming for webdev, get familiar with React and probably NodeJS. On top of being comfortable in one of the all-purpose languages like C(++) or Java or Python.

If you get to the interview phase - a company that is good to work for WILL care that you're someone who's good to work with. A tech-genius who's a coworker-hating egotistical snob is a nuisance at best and a liability at worst for companies with even a half-decent culture. When I do interviews, "Is this someone who's a good culture fit?" is as important as the technical skills. You'll want to show you'll be a perfectly pleasant, helpful, collaborative coworker. If the company DOESN'T care about that... bullet dodged.

For the technical questions, I care more about the thought process than I do the right answer, especially for entry-level. If you show a capacity for asking good, insightful clarifying questions, an ability to break down the problem, explain your thought process, and backtrack&alter your approach upon realizing something won't work, that's all more important than just being able to spit out a memorized leetcode answer. (I kinda hate leetcode for this reason, and therefore I only ask homebrewed questions, because I don't want the technical portion to hinge at all on whether someone managed to memorize the first 47 pages of leetcode problems). For a new hire, the most important impression you can give me is that you have a technical grasp and that you're capable of learning. Because a new hire isn't going to be an expert in anything, but they're someone who's capable of learning the ropes.

That's everything I have off the top of my head. Good luck anon. I'm very sorry you were born during a specific range of years that made you a new grad in 2024 and I hope it gets better.

[adrunkskeletonsduck]

Heyy!! Can I request something cute and romantic with Aonung x fem! metkayina reader. Maybe some romantic confession and laying in hut and just being in each other arms

3:24ᴘᴍ

➜ Pairing: Aonung x fem!metikayina!reader

➜ Warnings: fluff, none

➜ Word Count: 0.9k

➜ Notes: I would have gotten this out sooner but microsoft word literally stopped working for like 2-3 days and i went through probably one of the most traumatic experiences of my life and was super out of it for a few days. My writing drive has also been run into the ground lmao.

Anyway hope y'all enjoy!!

Aᴠᴀᴛᴀʀ Mᴀsᴛᴇʀʟɪsᴛ

“He really did a number on you,” you mumbled with a shake of your head and Aonung scowled at your comment, making your lips curl in amusement. You found what the Sully boys had done to him almost humorous given the fact he had been picking on them non-stop since they arrived. You weren't sure why he’d been so mean to them, but you figured he’d have to warm up to them eventually since they seemed to be staying.   

“I didn’t come here to have it shoved in my face,” he snipped back dryly, moving to sit against the wall and stretching his body out in the empty hut. You snorted as you turned, looking through the basket of medical supplies you had and beginning to patch him up.   

“I don’t know what you expected skxawng, you’ve been nothing short of awful to those kids since they got here.” He simply huffed wordlessly, letting you work on him in a silence. You tried to work quickly, disinfecting the small cut on his cheek bone and slathering his bruise with a paste to help with the pain.   

“What do you think of them?” Aonung blurted the question once you���d finished, breaking the silence. You hummed thoughtfully at his question, putting away the supply's and pushing the basket by the entrance of the hut so you wouldn’t forget it on your way out.   

“Well, I haven't really had a chance to talk to any of them yet, but they seem like a nice bunch of kids,” you answered after a moment.  

“But you're not interested in any of them, right?” he asked, and his question made you furrow your eyebrows in confusion. You were unsure of why but it almost sounded like he was worried you had taken an interest in them. His cheeks flushed a light pink and he attempted to clarify what he meant, "I mean – like – you don’t think either of them are attractive-”   

You laughed, cutting him off and making his face hot with embarrassment as a deep blush made its way up his neck to the tips of his ears. He was aware of how he sounded, but as ridiculous as the question was, it had been eating at him since they’d arrived.   

“Aonung what are you talking about?” your voice was teasing, full of amusement as you spoke.   

He refused to look at you as he answered, “Well Tsireya has a crush on Lo’ak, so I was just wondering if you also might have been into one of them, because-” he began to ramble, very obviously flustered. You suppressed a giggle behind a smile, you couldn’t remember the last time he had gotten so worked up like this, let alone over you. You thought it was quite cute.   

Placing a hand on his cheek you attempted to bring him back to the real world, “Aonung,” you said softly, and the sound of his name coming from your lips had him swallowing whatever words that sat on the tip of his tongue, and his breath hitching in his throat.  

“Yeah,” he whispered back, and your smile only widened.   

“Why would I ever look at them, when I could look at you.” The words themselves sounded like they should have been a question, but they came out as more of a statement. They had Aonungs heart racing and eyes widening. Were you saying what he thought you were saying? You had to be, he thought, what else could you have meant? This was most definitely not the way he had imagine a confession between the two of you going, for starters he had always imagined he’d confess first.  

Hesitantly he leaned closer to you until he was just a hair's breadth away from you. The proximity had you swallowing harshly, your eyes dropping to his lips and making your cheeks warm. Your heart was pounding out of your chest as he closed the gap, and you were sure he could hear it as you slipped your eyes shut and let yourself be immersed by the feeling of him.   

He was tentive at first, his lips just barley brushing against yours, allowing you time to pull away. Instead, you leaned in, pressing your lips firmly against his and making him smile into the kiss at your reciprocation. One kiss after another your lips molded against each other perfectly in a short flurry of passion that left you breathless. The both of you drew out the kisses as long as you could, until the simple need to breathe burned your lungs and you both had to pull away.  

It was your turn to be flustered as you avoided his eyes now, fixing your gaze onto the floor firmly and ignoring the deepening blush that was blooming across your cheeks and kissing the tips of your ears. It made him smirk, a sense of pride that he could pull such a reaction from you bubbling in his chest.   

He reached out, threading his fingers with yours wordlessly and pulling you into his chest. You yelped as you were pulled on top of him, muscles tensing at the sudden, involuntary movement, but quickly relaxing as he wrapped his arms around you. You shifted, tucking your head into the crook of his neck and getting comfortable. The two of you could talk about what all this meant for the both of you later, for now you would simply enjoy holding each other. 

[cerastes]

The internet is carried on the backs of sub-10k subscriber tech support youtube channels that have the most specific ass solutions to the most specific ass system errors, tech stuff is the one thing I recommend not Googling and instead slamming in a Youtube search. 

All the top hit pages in Google for tech support and how to fix this or that are “10 Ways to Fix Error!” and then they go on a soliloquy about what Windows is to fill word quota. We KNOW what Windows is. We make fun of online recipes where the author tells you about how much those mashed potatoes were a beloved family tradition dating back to 1937 when the author and her sister would play in the woods and get bitten by ticks and get Lyme Disease and then after a lot of playing, they’d come back home and eat the most generic ass recipes, yeah, we do that, but we oughta start doing that with tech “support” pages too like god damn, “10 Ways to Fix Error!” except the first 3 “ways” are “Reboot your computer <3″, “make sure you updated your PC <3<3″ and last but not least, the world champion heavyweight nothingburger, “open the Command Prompt as administrator and run sfc/scannow </3″ LOCUSTS UPON YOU, MAN, if I can’t fix the problem, and it is a problem, no fucking way Microsoft software is gonna do jack fucking shit.

The “way” number 4 is, you know it, the sponsored product of the day. Install Krunklo Driver Manager! The best Driver Manager software out there! Here’s a trial version that has fuck all and the paid version is 39.99 each second.

Way number 5 through 10 are various things like exsanguination, putting mercury in your bloodstream, a jar of snake oil, or leaving aromatic substances near your vagina so your hysteric uterus comes back betwixt your loins.

So you just wasted an hour or two on the equivalent of vigorously dancing around the flames the rid yourself of the malaise, and all your god said was “well it’s just 39.99!”, FUCK that, you go to Youtube, copypaste slam whatever the error was in the search bar, and there’ll be one specific ass person out there in the world that solved this and made a video on how to solve it, just for you. The video will be from 2019, and you didn’t even know computers existed back then, but they DID, and this FUCKER OF MOTHERS, may they fornicate many parental figures of their preferred disposition, made this video for YOU. There is meaning in you perusing that video.

It’s 1:14 minutes long and immediately eradicates the problem decisively. You are now oathbound to take a bullet for this beloved stranger, your computer is back in action, and you are not 39.99 poorer. Krunklo Driver Manager will not have its day.

[tobbotobbs]

what about cod men with reader who BLASTS music like ayesha erotica, nikki minaj and etc randomly while chilling or has headphones and does that while on field

Ohhhh I think they would probably be all so confused or worried if it happened in the middle of a mission lol, here my thoughts to that scenario:

When Ghost heard you playing Nasty from Ayesha for the first time on the middle of interrogating someone they captured and kept alive on their mission, he was very irritated. Soap tried to get the new, right information out of the soldier meanwhile you two and Gaz stood in the darker corner, staring at the horrified man as you quietly sang the lines of the song playing over your headset.

,,Damn I'm sorry I blew you off, I was doing lunch with Microsoft. I'm sucking off a C.E.O, if he's not a millionaire then I've got to go~"

,,What the hell?! Y/n quit that singing! What even is that?", Ghost looked disgusted at you, questioning why he was even befriended with you in first place but quick to remember that you're actually his favorite person on earth, except for when you were listening to sich filth. In the middle of a mission. He quickly became used to it though, just told you once in a while to keep it down or put the music off if the operation was in need of your attention. He didn't enjoy the music as it was, the text too vulgar and flithy for his liking, but he couldn't deny that the melodies of some of your songs were quite catchy sometimes. Of course he grew even more annoyed when you and Gaz would play songs together on base and Soap would jump in on it with his ugly singing.

He didn't knew you were listening to that kind of music. He sometimes heard you playing some songs as loud as you could in your room, but he never understood a thing of what was sang and your door was always locked, as if to keep people out from seeing you dance some kind of risky dance to this music. Oh boy, if he knew.

Emo Boy was suddenly playing. It scared the shit out if Soap, Kyle and yourself even though it was your ringtone.

,,Oh shit! Sorry guys, Mama's calling. Don't wait for me with the movie!", you were smiling at them and quickly picking up and talking to your mum over the phone.

,,Was that-", ,,Emo Boy by Ayesha Erotica?", ,,Oh. My. God. I heard that right?!!?", ,,Yeah...I didn't know Y/n would listen to that type of music Soap!", ,,Me neither Gaz...it's a catchy song though", ,,Oh it really is. Probably why he chose it?", ,,Yeah...you think he's also into other songs of that genre?", ,,Maybe. Are you?", ,,Oh hell nuh. Not me, no no".

Gaz raises a brow at that and smirks. Then they both start laughing. ,,Oh you are so listening to this kind of music man!", ,,Pah, and if I am? You knew the song by name and artist by just a few seconds of melody playing!", ,,Ah yeah you got me there mate heh"

,,Alright guys, I'm back! Let's start this movie night shall we?", you grinned and sat next to Kyle again, who just smiled at you and nodded, reaching for the remote control. ,,Tell me, is that the music you alway listen and dance to in your room?", ,,Uhm yeah, whx Kyle?", ,,...Wanna show me one of those dances someday?", he grinned suggestively and you just giggled at that.

Oh this man showed you this tyoe of music, actually. He was playing some song from Doja Cat on the radio of the car from his so nicely called "Hype or Horn Me Up" playlist. You were confused at first. The words used in the songs were...interesting. And Soap was dancing and tapping to it like he was in some dance off. It was amusing and fun. Of course his taste in music wore off on you and so it surprised noone on the team when you were running past them on the field, gun in hand while looking as if you had the time of your life, the could hear for a short time the music blasting through your headphones as you went to go for the next kills.

,,I ain't tryna be cool like you hmmhmhmhmm", you sang while aiming to shoot an enemy, the new song coming on another Doja Cat favourite of you and soap. Hitting the target clean in the head you smirked. ,,I'm bitch. I'm a boss. I'm bitch, I'm a boss, I'm a shine like gloss!", ,,Oi yes you are Darlin!", Soap beamed from behind you. Price was just sighing and pinching his nosebridge while Ghost was just standing next to him like an annoyed older sibling.

You guys would play this type of music all around the base, 24/7. All week long. Until Price got so mad he made you do the dishes and gave you one month of cleaning duty. You did in fact not keep it down afterwards and everyone just had to live with it. Some of the younger recruits actually enjoyed it and envied you guys for that, made them feel less stressed and more relaxed.

Oh boy. Oh. Boy. He nearly died. First time you blasted that music on the car ride to some pub out of town because you guys all got some time off duty? He was thinking about how he could never go to heaven now, or even just into a church. He would perish just standing on the steps of a church. But then he remembered, he wasn't even religious. So that was fine. But then he thought "Why the fuck is this muppet listening to THAT?!!?!?". You currently sat in the driver's seat and danced to S.L.U.T by Bea Miller. Before that a song way worse was playing, Price recalled (it was I Want Your Bite by Cara Cunningham). This one now wasn't too bad. It was quite nice actually. Way more innocent than ghe other one. John was thankful for that, he grew very hot and was all flustered by the other song which made him feel a little uncomfortable.

,,Oh we're nearly there Cap!", ,,Y-Yes. Just...just put the car to a stop yeah?", ,,Whatever you say Captain!", you smiled while the next song came on. ,,Oh my god this one is so good!". Price looked over to you, awaiting something more innocent again like before. He thought wrong.

,,Ride it, slide it, bite, get inside it

Come on, touch my body

I know that you like it, you can't hide it

Come on touch my body

Hotter, bigger, faster, longer, thicker

Come on touch my body!", you sang loud and proud to the lines of Treat Me Like A Slut by Kim Petras. John officially was a tomato now. He loved seeing you having your fun, but this was surely and never will be his kind of music choice.

,,Treat Me Like A Slut, little dirty bitch I love to fuck!", ,,Okayyy I think it's- oh look there's the pub! Get us a good parking lot and then we'll have some fun kid, a'right?", ,,Yes!".

Poor guy always gets all red when he hears some of his boys play such music. And with Soap and you, and occasionally also Kyle, on his team that was a lot of times. But he wouldn't be too mad about it. Just sometimes id you played it too loud or while he was in an important meeting. He did enjoy seeing you all have your fun so he is not too strict with punishments.

You are playing some pretty filthy, nasty song in your shared house. Ale just came back from grocery shopping, Rudy in tow helping him with the bags. You were wearing just a shirt and boxers while singing to the song, looking through some magazines on the couch and just waiting for Alejandro to be back. He new of your guilty pleasure for those songs, this kind of music. He adored the way you would get all red sometimes when he talked about it to you, but he doesn't judge. He actually listens to songs like this as well. Obviously in spanish. He showed you some in his native language and you enjoyed them, even if you didn't know what was said.

Alejandro would laugh sometimes when you randomly put the music on while you were in a fight. It always made his mood go all the way up hearing and seeing you enjoy this music, especially if you would listen to the spanish ones he had shown you. For him it is no problem. He trusts you with being focused on missions so he allows you to listen to music, sometimes you even listen together over the radio.

The same goes for Rodolfo, but the poor guy would be worried sick if you would start blasting loud music on missions out of nowhere. Give the little guy a warning beforehand so he doesn't shoot you out of shock hehe. He also shows you songs in spanish, some that are not as filthy as yours but have the same kind of energy and he translates them for you.

Little german/austrian boy listens to filthy music himself. He is the biggest Rammstein fan there is. One of his favourite songs is probably Bück Dich (Bend Over) and Dicke Titten (Big Boobs/Big Tits). He also really enjoys Labyrinth by OOMPH! It's not really filthy with words but the meaning is pretty dirty. It's also a banger like, he was so happy you enjoyed listening to music with him. To that kind of music as well. He really wantes to visit a Rammstein concert with you someday, if you said yes.

He doesn't listen to music on the job though. And because he's your colonel he asked you kindly to not do it either. On the flight to wherever the mission was? Yes of course he will even listen with you to calm his nerves. At the base? Sometimes he even gets Horangi to join you guys, who really hates this kind of music because he heard too much of it in hia home country (he absolutely hates kpop and all the horny people coming with it).

When you showed him some of your favourite artists and they would sing too fast or use words he didn't understand, you would try to translate for him and the most funny german ever. He told you it was fine to try to explain in english but you really wanted to make him happy and maybe even laugh a little when you tried to explain that the person in the song just sang "Ich möchte in deinen Titten ertrinken" (I wanna drown on those tits/boobs of yours). He is so sweet if someone came up and would make fun of you listening to such music, like he would finally use his rank for once and make them regret for ever saying that to you.

[eamour]

method﹕scripting

definition

to script in a manifestation related sense means to write a text from the perspective of having your desires already, planning out what you would do, how you want yourself, your reality and everyone around you to be like — similarly to journaling. the main purpose of scripting is to get into the state of knowing that you own your manifestation(s) and experience the feeling that comes with it.

consequently, when you script, you become the author of your story. you are the director, the stylist, the composer — everything! with scripting, you can change what has happened in the past (revision), declare what is happening right now or predetermine what's gonna happen in the future.

good to know

you can script from any perspective. usually, people like to script from their own perspective (first person, singular), but you don't need to do that. you could write from the perspective of an omniscient narrator (third person, singular) or someone you know (maybe your friend, your enemy, your family member, your pet...).

you don't need to go into detail. the point of your script is to write something that you understand. it's a personal and private writing. you're not writing it for an audience.

you don't need to know everything. if you think you have forgotten something or don't know how you want something to turn out, you don't need to worry about that. your subconscious mind knows you the best — meaning, you will get exactly what you want.

you can make mistakes. now, what i mean is that you shouldn't pay too much attention to spelling mistakes, punctation or paragraphs. the way you write it, and where you write is entirely up to you.

you decide when and where to script. there is no universal law that says that you need to wake up every day around 10am and script the upcoming day and do that for about half an hour. you script when you feel like it, not when you force yourself to do it.

you don't need to be logical or realistic. this is your script. your magical paper that grants you all of your desires. treat it as such!

what to script

your desired self. how do they look like? what do they like? how do they behave? what are their hobbies and interests? how does their everyday life look like? do they attend uni or school? what do they study? do they go to work? do they have their own business?

your desired family and friends. who are they? do you want to manifest a new person into your life? do you want to change your family and friends entirely? what are your parents like? what's your best friend's name? what are some core memories you have with them?

your desired residence. where do you live? do you live in a house, an apartment, a mansion or a penthouse? what's your neighborhood like? how do the rooms at your place look like? who do you live with? do you have pets? what are some of your favourite pieces of furniture or art in there? do you have a collection of something? what's an eye-catcher?

your desired everything. literally, whatever comes to your mind, you can script it and make it manifest. don't hold back, you can have anything you want!

where to script

it doesn't really matter if you decide to write down your script on a single piece of paper, a notebook or on your phone. but if you want to do to it digitally, here are some useful apps:

your notes app ⋮ for free

google docs ⋮ for free

notion ⋮ for free

tumblr ⋮ for free

standard notes ⋮ for free

zinnia ⋮ limited

microsoft word ⋮ limited

notability ⋮ not for free

goodnotes ⋮ not for free

make it manifest

when a script has been finished writing, you know what follows? the act. the embodiment of that script. the play. so, when you are done writing your script, how do you act?

you continue to live in your imagination! just because you are done writing it doesn't mean you are done experiencing. because when you were scripting, you were exactly doing that. you were experiencing the feeling of having your desire. and you still have your desire. so keep it! think from the end. think from having what you want.

where do you have it? in your imagination. and you know you need to claim it in your mind first in order to let it unfold in your physical reality. therefore, look at your script and feel as if it really happened or is gonna happen. you know it happened. you know it's gonna happen. there is no way you cannot manifest it. it's done, creation is finished. it has to show up in your 3D reality.

don't make the mistake to put away your script and ask yourself "where is it?" or "when is it gonna manifest?". you aren't waiting for your desire. you aren't hoping it will manifest. it cannot appear on its own. it needs to be recognised by you first. you need to know that it's yours already. because what you have in the 4D has no option but to be reflected in your 3D.

keep in mind

you don't necessarily need to script.

scripting only "works" if you think it will.

it's supposed to be fun!

with love, ella.

[utilitycaster]

Do you think part of the D20 journalistic bias comes from D20 being edited? It gives the appearance of much more effortless play and lets them control the pacing in a way unedited play like CR simply can't do. They get to (potentially) hide a lot of stuff people would jump on as flaws while CR has no choice but to let it all play out. I greatly prefer CR's approach, despite it biting them in the ass a bit through no fault of their own.

Answering these both together to group cause and my opinions, and I do want to note this is specifically about journalism/press coverage, not their respective fandoms even though there's obviously some overlap.

I think there's a couple things, but I do want to note this was actually prompted by Daggerheart, not Critical Role. The response from several prominent voices in the Actual Play journalism community, whom I will not name here but whom I do not respect intellectually, really was, within hours of the open beta (which as far as I know they didn't have early access to - more on that later) "um it could be better, I don't like xyz and also it's sooooooo important to have criticism" and again, it is important to have criticism, but also you act like D20 has never had a mediocre moment and that Kollok is brilliant, so.

This...got away from me a bit. I'd say I'm sorry but actually I adore writing thousands of words about actual play and it will happen again but I'm putting the detailed answer below a cut. The short answer is I think a lot of Actual Play journalists actually sort of fell into their jobs through being vaguely involved in nerd spaces and aren't actually equipped to talk intelligently about TTRPGs and actual play as a medium that should, at its best, be a perfect fusion of narrative and mechanics. So instead they're distracted by flashy edits and bright lights and cool noises and some abstract concept of "novelty" and write only about that. Also Critical Role is the 700 lb gorilla in the AP space (though not, actually, the TTRPG space) and doesn't give them early access and that's meaaaaaan. Indeed, for all I think a lot of their coverage of D20 and Worlds Beyond Number is obsessively fawning, I also think it's extremely surface level, frequently factually wrong, and fails to get at what's truly excellent about those shows either.

I think, honestly, the biggest one is that I don't actually think a lot of Actual Play journalists watch series in full. I was looking for Polygon coverage of Fantasy High Junior Year and they have one glowing article but it's more about Fantasy High as setting and institution and D20 "changing the game" (also more on this later) to the point of outright contradicting the pull quotes they used from interviewing Brennan Lee Mulligan (also more on this later). So I started looking through their coverage and actually, quite a number of their write-ups are based on only one episode, or half a season. Clearly, they haven't read the full open beta (nor have I, but I think their complaints about the character build process belie a profound misunderstanding of what TTRPGs are, also more on this later). So editing is certainly part of it because it's really easy to see cool special effects and sound design within one episode and shit out a hacky article about it, whereas actually getting to the substance - character relationships, cohesive narrative, storytelling - requires work that I do not think they're doing. And on the one hand I do kind of get it, because yeah, if journalism is your livelihood then you perhaps do not have the time to watch 4 hours of D&D a week for 2-3 years if you're only going to get one article every six months out of it. But I don't think the answer is "focus intently on Microsoft Powerpoint-esque scene transition tricks while ignoring that nothing occurring at the table is actually fun to watch." For more on this, see this post.

The second, which is very relevant to Daggerheart but also is actually a big gap in D20 and WBN coverage in my opinion, and which I put in the tags, is that I actually don't think a lot of journalists have a solid understanding of TTRPGs nor of most genres. And I think Critical Role has a particularly good understanding of both these things, actually, if one skewed towards collaborative storytelling that is not rules-light. I think one really big example is that one person within the space is mad at the Daggerheart questions for the character archetypes because what if your character doesn't fit these. I think this is dumb as shit. I actually think that a common criticism of D&D - that you can't play ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING - is not valid, or rather, it's a valid opinion to hold but if you want to play a character who doesn't fit into the available archetypes perhaps you need to find another game. We all inherently understand that Blades in the Dark characters will be members of a criminal organization in a relatively low-magic setting, correct? That you can't show up to BitD and play a lawful good wizard prince because that's not the story being told? Or like, how in Honey Heist, you are a bear and you are trying to get honey, and you cannot play a human child investigating the old abandoned house at the edge of town, but there's a cool game called Kids on Bikes that will let you do that? Great! Why is this suddenly so hard to understand in the realm of heroic fantasy, that you will fit into specific archetypes? Why do people's brains, if they have them to begin with, vanish suddenly? I know I just did a big old rant that included this within it but genuinely I think a lot of people are deeply ignorant of heroic fantasy, or don't like it, and either is fine, but then they get mad at the heroic fantasy game for having heroic fantasy archetypes when the answer is "maybe this will never make you happy because it's not for you." (Frankly, I think this is also why they love D20, because it doesn't really do straight-up heroic fantasy, and that's fine, but they do keep acting like doing a Game of Thrones pastiche is equivalent to the invention of the wheel.) Like...I remember in the Midst Q&A that Xen said they tend to not like playing typical D&D classes, but their solution was to, you know, create Midst instead of sitting around going "actually, because D&D doesn't support cyberpunk narrative and the character archetypes within very well it is an utter failure." (I could go on forever about how actually TTRPGs are not a showcase for your already extant OCs to prance around but that's a totally separate post).

Mechanics and story are inherently intertwined, is what I'm trying to get at (sorry I'm really tired and have a lot to do but I'm passionate about this answer, it will be rambly, she says like 3 pages in) and I really don't think most actual play journalists get this. At all. And I do think that CR, and Daggerheart, and the people working for it, and especially Spenser Starke, Rowan Hall, Matt Mercer, and Travis Willingham, get this more than almost anyone else in the field. I also think Brennan Lee Mulligan and Aabria Iyengar get this, and the thing is, for all the praise showered upon them, much of which I think is deserved and most of what I think is undeserved is not because they are lacking but because the person writing about them is an idiot crediting them for things they (Brennan and Aabria) would never claim to have invented, their mechanical prowess is rarely if ever written about well. Fantasy High Junior Year's downtime mechanics actually fill in a famous gap in D&D, namely, downtime, and provide an excellent marriage of story and mechanics in my opinion, and I haven't really seen any discussion, because that would require watching the part of the TTRPG show where they play the TTRPG, and knowing the vague word on the street about D&D criticism that isn't just "*nods sagely* capitalism is the BBEG."

And finally: related a bit to the edit but Critical Role used to not be able to provide any early access to press, because it was literally a live show, and I suspect they never broke the habit, and I think that is for the best. As discussed a lot of D20 coverage actually feels like they watched the press screener and then never returned to the show. And I do not know the politics about them, but given that several of these publications (notably Polygon, but some others) have been shitting on Critical Role for several years, and just generally given the way CR's leadership vs. how D20's leadership respond to fandom pressure, I suspect Critical Role does not give these journalists a ton of early or increased, if any. Honestly, why should you, if you're getting interviewed in Variety? And I think the journalists are mad, because they think they're special and should get treated as such.

I do want to wrap something up, and I want to thank @captainofthetidesbreath for talking a little about this in game design/ttrpgs and giving me the idea, but in story, you should be challenging your audience, expanding their horizons, and being new and interesting. In the actual playing of TTRPGs, especially a new one, it is vital to be inclusive and easy to understand and patient and provide points of reference. I really feel like many Actual Play journalists and some TTRPG ones as well have this equation flipped and are looking for challenging concepts that most people will never be able to get a group to be willing to play, and bells and whistles in production, but leave story as an afterthought. Critical Role designs games to actually be played and to be used specifically to tell good stories, and puts story before production, and I think that undercuts those journalists' whole deal.

[ladylooch]

Odds were against us - John Marino

A/N: My submission for @wyattjohnston Winter Fic Exchange 2k24! This is the first time I have participated in a fic exchange and wow has it been really fun for me! Thank you so much, Demi, for being a gracious host and your rockstar organization!

@pcttymcrlecu I hope you love this as much as I enjoyed creating it for you. Also, I am IN LOVE with the song inso for this. I listened to it on repeat the entire time I was working on this. Thank you for sharing 🥰

Song Inspo: Solider by James TW

Word Count: 2.5k

The odds were against you. 

Well, maybe not right away. You did grow up two houses down from each other. 

But once you moved away for college, the world seemed to keep you apart as much as it flirted with the idea that you two could be together. 

Growing up, it was the Masschusettes version of the three musketeers: John, Paul, and you. There was never a Marino brother around without you. Living on the same street had great perks, like a hockey net to shoot at, a ton of legos, and endless nights spent on their backyard play set.

From the beginning, John and you had a connection. Even as his twin brother was supposed to know him the best, you always seemed to be on the same page with your buddy. For years growing up, you and John had been tango-ing with will they, won't they, before he went to Harvard and you went to theUniversity of Pittsburgh. The next three years, every time you were both home, the tango continued. Both dating other people, never wanting to ruin the friendship, finding excuses for why you could never talk about the elephant in the room. 

Then, John left Harvard after his junior year to play for the Pittsburgh Penguins. You were thrilled to show him the city! You took him to your favorite restaurants and introduced him to your college friends. It was you sitting next to his brother and his parents, in a freshly pressed Marino jersey, as he did his solo rookie lap in black and yellow. 

It was you who left Pittsburgh a year later.

While others in your major wanted to be at Google and Microsoft, you wanted to use your computer science degree for good. When the call came for your dream job at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, you knew you had to decide. You loved John, but he didn’t know, and it was hard to imagine a life where you stayed on the sidelines for potential. So before you decided, you nudged the situation to see what John would say when he was faced with the possibility of losing you.

“I got a job offer!” You exclaimed to him at happy hour. 

“Whoa! Of course you did! You’re so cool.” He puts his chin in his hand, giving you googly, heart eyes in admiration. He is joking, but it puts a silly smile on your face. He sits back up, taking a sip of his beer, waiting expectantly. “So tell me everything. Will you get an office? How close will you work to the arena? And can I come to have lunch with you every day because that is a requirement. We have spent too much time apart.”  Your stomach drops out of your body. You look away, taking in a heavy breath. 

“That is the one downside.” You bite your lip, then continue. “It’s not here.”

“Oh? Is it like out in the boonies or Philly?”

“No. Like Colorado.”

Surprise slaps across John’s face. Then he looks away, trying to gather himself quickly.

“But you just got here and maybe I shouldn’t go...” You trail off. You hold your breath, wanting John to say something. You know this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. But a yearning inside of you begs for John to tell you to stay with him in Pittsburgh. 

“You should go. This is everything you’ve been wanting. You deserve this.” John’s words are everything he should say, but they fucking sting. Tears build in your eyes and you nod. “I’m proud of you.” John finishes with a dainty whisper. He licks his lips, looking away. “Look at us.” He tries for a laugh but it comes out like a cough. “Both of our dreams are coming true.” 

You want to ask him why it feels like your chest is imploding?

But you don’t. 

Instead, you hug your childhood best friend while telling yourself how selfish it would be to confess you’re in love with him before you go

- - - 

Three years later, so much has changed since you hugged John on that bar stool. You have been promoted twice and received national recognition for your work in solar energy. John had rough seasons in Pittsburgh, but has found a new, comfortable place in New Jersey. Paul is with the L.A. Kings in California. You make it a point to meet up with John and Paul when John visits on his West Coast road trips. John and you connect when he is in Colorado. When you’re back home, you make the commute to Jersey and fly home out of Newark. Otherwise, you’re texting daily, sending GIFs and memes and tiktoks back and forth while keeping each other abreast of your busy life. 

You’re closer than ever. More in love with him than ever too. But how would it ever work? 

The repetitive thoughts consume you as you stir the queso you had been making for your taco night at your new home in Golden. It has been a long, competitive process to get this house, but you are so proud of it. A dream home to match the dream job that the dream boy will see tonight. 

A knock sounds on the door. The dream boy waits for you on the other side of the wood.

“Hi!” You squeal when you see John. “Welcome to MY home!”

“Uh, Ma’am, where is the owner of this home? You’re too young and single? It couldn’t be you?” He jokes, then pulls you in for a tight hug. “Thought we could celebrate.” He tilts the bottle of wine at you. It is nothing fancy. In fact, it's Cook’s, the bottle you two had stolen from your parents’ bar to have after prom on the beach.

“Let’s get this expensive gal in a nice lil ice bath.” 

“There is nothing nice about an ice bath. Or that wine.” He snorts, shrugging his coat off. 

“You can put that in the closet right there.” You point to his right. He opens the door, settling his jacket between two of yours. A warmth spreads through your body at his clothes mingling together with yours, gathering each other's scents.

“Don’t dawdle in the doorway, Johnny. Come into my kitchen!” You’re giddy as John's sock covered feet slide across your wood floors to join you in the open, modern space. 

“Gas range?” John oos and aws at all the fixtures you show him. He hypes and gasps at all the right moments. Your cheeks hurt from grinning as you become Vanna White against your refrigerator. 

“Go best friend!” He cheers as you do a little spin and dance for him. You laugh at the end.

“I’m so glad you’re here.” You tell him honestly.

“Me too. Glad we got in early.” He opens his arms for you. The weight of you settles against his chest, creating a bonded connection. John squeezes tight, his chin on the top of your head. He works you both into a sway, enjoying the weight of each other’s arms. This version of John is your favorite. The one who blurs the lines between best friends and lovers. You breathe in the fresh scent of his cologne, then wait, making him be the one to break your embrace. 

“So is there an upstairs?” He wonders. 

“There is! They gave me two whole levels!” 

“What! Scam. It’s all a scam.” 

“Look at my wall of pictures.” You point out as you head up the stairs. There is a whole gallery wall of frames and people, many of which John is in. Paul too. 

“I know these people!” He grins, looking at their decades of memories. “My favorite night.” He points to a picture. It’s the New Year's Eve you were pretty sure you almost kissed. 

“Mmm, it’s up there for sure.” You agree, waiting for him. His eyes trace the memory like he wants to burn it into the membrane of his brain. Then he turns to you, grabbing your hand and leading you up the stairs, becoming the tour guide. 

“So up here we have uh…” He looks around. “An office!” 

“Oh! And a standing desk?! She works on her fitness.” You fill in. 

“We have very different definitions of fitness.”

“I hope so, NHL player.”

“And over here,” He tugs you by your fingers. “We have a guest room. You would never have blue as your color. It is not boring enough. This can’t be your room.”

“Shut up! I love neutrals! They’re in!” You shove at him as he howls with laughter. 

“Paul’s room for when he comes to visit. Your parents and sister too.” You can’t help but notice John doesn’t include himself in that.

“Oh here we go.” He gets to your room, pushing the cracked door open to expose your favorite space in the house. He pauses in the doorway, taking it in.

Two lamps on either side of the bed illuminate the room as the sun sets behind the mountains outside. Your white walls are warmed by their dim light. The bed is made with a plush, white comforter and a light tan blanket draped along the foot of the bed. The walls had been painted the faintest of olive green. Various shades of cream and tan pillows create the look of a bed you want to jump into to mess it all up. A black and white picture of waves sliding onto a Nantucket beach is above the headboard. 

John has gone still and silent. You are nervous as he continues to look around the comfy oasis you have created as your escape from the world. You were meticulous in your quest for homey, comfort items that would dull the sometimes harsh world out there. Does he hate it? 

“What do you think?” You finally ask.

“Honestly?” He murmurs.

“Yes!” You giggle, trying to cross the distance you feel separating you.

“I wish this was our house.” 

You freeze. John keeps looking at the bed, eyes ravenous over the clean bedding like he is seeing something else. 

“I wish this was our bed.” He sighs. “I wish I was the one who got to sleep here with you because this is so clearly your dream house and I wish I was your dream man.” He stands there with his hands in his pockets, still not looking at you. This is when you realize he really doesn’t know. How does he not know?

“You are.” You whisper. 

It’s John’s turn to be still and dumbfounded. 

“You’re my dream man, Johnny.” 

You bite your lip and John rushes towards you. His hands grip your face, tugging you into his lips. Your head falls back, delirious at his mouth finally being on yours. He holds your head up, working his lips to an angle so his tongue can devour your mouth. You never want to breathe again. His tongue and lips on yours are everything you’ve ever wanted. How will you stop? 

Need takes over and you break apart begrudgingly. John rests his forehead on yours, thumbs delicately stroking your cheek bones. 

“I’m in love with you, Johnny.” 

“Good. Cause I am deliriously in love with you. And I’m sick of not telling you that every day.” You grin, inhaling heavily as tears fill your eyes. 

“How are we going to do this?” 

“I don’t know.” John sighs, gripping your face tighter in his fingers, like that will stop the rest of reality from intruding on your moment. 

“I’m scared. We live so far apart. I don’t want to lose you as a friend.”

“We’ll have to be brave, sweetheart.”

Being brave is your second act.

The next 6 months you navigate the journey from friends to lovers while trying to mitigate the 1,700 miles that separate you. A 2 hour time zone difference weighs heavily on your relationship, along with two careers that threaten to ground you before your relationship even has a chance to take off. Then the off-season comes and John decides to train in Colorado with local NHL players at altitude, convinced it will give him that next step in his game. 

The season begins again and your bed is as empty as it was before. You’re miserable. Lonelier than you’ve ever been and it spews mean thoughts in your brain at all hours of the night. John feels the same. You both discuss it openly, but neither of you have solutions for this next roadblock. Something will have to give, you both know it, but neither of you can speak it.

Right before Thanksgiving, your fist feels heavy against his Jersey City apartment door. He isn’t expecting you, but the relieved sigh when he has you in his arms tells you how welcome you are here. He ushers you in, pasting his lips against your skin as you try to set your bag down. 

“What are you doing here?”

“Accepting my job offer.” John bolts up.

“No.”

“Yes.” 

“No, babe. Don’t do this for me.”

“I’m not going to pretend it isn’t because of you. Of course it is. But this is a really good career move for me too. We can have it all.”

“Your house-” 

“-will always just be my house. I’m ready to upgrade to our house.” You lock your hands around his neck, fingers guzzling up every bit of warmth from his skin. “I know what I want to do in my life and it’s to be where you are.” John groans then hugs you into his chest desperately.

In another month, you cut those 1700 miles down to 0. You and John move into your new place together. While you’re unpacking the neutral bedroom decor he makes fun of, John walks in then pops down to one knee. 

“Can’t wait another minute.” He confesses. “I’ve been downstairs trying to talk myself out of doing it and why? For what? Because there isn’t an audience? There isn’t a photographer? Your nails aren’t done? That’s not us. This is us. So, marry me?”  Your bottom lip quivers. A blink sends tear tracks down your face as you nod enthusiastically, telling the man, who is still your dream boy, “YES” you will marry him!

The wedding is a fast plan, you need to do it in the off-season and neither of you care for anything super fancy anyway. It’s a quaint ceremony on a similar Nantucket beach that hangs above your now shared bed. You and John stare in awe as you take turns reciting written vows that may as well be a decades long love letter to each other.

“Let’s keep betting on us, baby.” John finishes. You laugh, nodding vigorously. 

When it’s time to seal the deal, John winds his hand around your waist, then tilts you down, kissing you so fully that you’re dazed when he brings you back up. 

Like it has for thousands of years, a kiss between two lovers seals your fate. 

It’s been decided.

A forever commitment.

One that binds you and John as partners, who keep bending the odds and winning anyway.

[sprout-fics]

Since you've talked about AI scraping Ao3 for works to improve its own writing... Google Documents and Microsoft Word use AI scrappers as well, which cannot be turned off.

As a former Google Docs truther... I fucking hate this news, but thought I'd share for people to see!

So, I did a little digging on this. Here is an article written by a fellow author that talks about how Google has announced they use public data to train AI models. However, the key word here is public. Google docs belong to the realm of privacy. However, there could be disclaimers buried in the terms and conditions that nobody reads that detail that google is in fact using things from Google docs. Google has been known for some shady business practices when it comes to algorithms and privacy, so it would not surprise me if this was the case. However, at the moment Google has yet to announce they are scraping people’s private docs for AI.  

I couldn’t find many sources that state Microsoft is explicitly scraping people’s data from the cloud/OneDrive or online Microsoft suite. However, what I did find was a thousand and one articles explaining for individuals to purposefully scrape data from Word docs. So theoretically, an individual could copy paste your work into a word doc and then use tools to extract data from that. Which is the same as scraping data from Ao3 or Tumblr. The difference is (from what I can tell) that these are individual programmers and not mass generated AI bots.  

One thing I found in the first article is mention of NextCloud, which is essentially a private server safe from AI scraping. It’s a program similar to Microsoft Office, just more secure and safer from AI data scraping. Keep in mind I have not used this program, so I cannot guarantee the authenticity or operationalization of this, but it might be something to look into. 

So, here’s the thing: At this point in the game, it’s pretty much a guarantee that we all will face some sort of AI scraping of works in the near and imminent future. As these tools rapidly evolve, the tools to combat stealing of works struggle to keep up. There are steps we all can take, we can restrict works on Ao3 to users only, we can stop posting on Tumblr, but in the end, there are ways to navigate around this if people are hellbent on stealing your works. It is endlessly frustrating, and it seriously makes me re-consider the benefits of sharing content online, knowing my works can feed programs that are designed to eliminate the need for my creativity.  

[olderthannetfic]

As someone who's college age: yeah, there's a TON of people my age who don't know how things work and don't try to learn. Can't unzip a zip file, want to know where to download anime but haven't tried looking it up, ask things on subreddits a Google search or quick search on the wiki would answer, ask questions answered in FAQs or by professors or in the syllabus, say they can't download and install a new browser or app or program because they don't know how and they never think to look up how to do so, go months without logging into their student email because no one explained to them how to do so and they never thought to ask anyone how to do it, go months without washing their laundry because they don't know how and they also don't know how to look up instructions on how to do it, don't know how to cook and can't Google a recipe so they throw things in a pan and pray it works out, don't understand how to back up files, don't know how to attach a pdf to an email to send to a professor, cannot manage to put stuff on a USB drive + go to the library + print it off of the library computer, etc.

I spent most of freshman year teaching people things. The year after, my patience got more frayed and "Google it" started coming out of my mouth a lot more. This last year I gave up and now if people fuck themselves over, that's their decision. I'm not going to stand there begging people to do basic things they should already know how to do.

It was really funny when someone from Career Services came to talk to us about resumes and said we didn't need to put down 'can use Microsoft Excel' on there because everyone knew that and all but three people said actually no, they didn't. People who are 40+ really think we're all good at tech by default, like we fall out of the womb clutching a little phone already making spreadsheets in Excel or coding computers or whatever.

Meanwhile in reality you see a ton of people posting on tumblr going, "How do I post fic on tumblr?" whose blogs proudly state that they're under 18. The thought that you could just type into a Word doc and then copy and paste onto here never hits. And it's not going to.

I hate to break it to millennials and older people but yeah, actually, my generation does in fact have morons. We're not a moron-free demographic. I'm pretty sure moron-free demographics don't exist, tbh.

--

It infuriates me that my father (in his 80s) is always saying to me that he needs to find a 12-year-old to explain his tech to him. I (40s) keep telling him it's more like a bell curve or something. We had a blip of people being taught in school or having their asses kicked about technology. But then it went away again.

I think we made computers and then phones much more accessible, which is great, but we forgot we still need to teach people things. I know not everyone got explicit instruction in school even in my era, but it seems like the US, at least, phased some of that out as we started assuming The Youth automatically knew it all.

That said... in my day, college freshmen were also terrible about doing their laundry, so some things never change.

[keymeadoww]

Threesome

To change Y/N to your actual name, click here: https://interactivefics.tumblr.com/download for chrome, firefox, and microsoft edge downloads!

Fandom: Helluva Boss

Pairing: Blitz x M! Reader (platonic)

Pronouns: He/Him

Warnings: drinking, mentions of cheating, joking about cheating, swearing

Word Count: 1.0k

Stumbling into a pole, he chuckled at his drunken mess. He giggled as he walked towards his office building, where he knew his boss would be. It had been an hour since Blitz claimed they needed to talk, but he wasn’t in any hurry. Blitz was known for being very… clingy. It wouldn’t be too strange if he called out of the blue.

Y/N sloppily opened the door and reached the elevator. As he was about to press the button, the elevator opened to reveal Blitz himself. His eyes shot up and he groaned, “Oh what the fuck.” He walked out and hoisted his arm over his neck. “I say I need to talk to you and you just get fucked up?” 

He laughed at Blitz’s reaction, “Oh, calm your tits, Blitz.” He slurred, “ I’m here, aren’t I? What do you want?”

Blitz rolled his eyes, “Maybe if you weren’t drunk off your dick then you’d know this is important.” He sounded annoyed but not angry. 

“Can we just hurry this up?” Blitz dragged him over to his car, “I want to go home and see Fizz-”

“Okay, stop,” Blitz said as he positioned him into the seatbelt. He got on the driver's side and started to drive. He seemed hesitant to respond. “Okay, your boyfriend is a fucking dick.”

Y/N’s brows furrowed, “Hey! Don’t say that about him, you fucking -”

“No, Y/N, seriously.” His brows furrowed as he listened to his boss. “You don’t know what I saw. Fizzarolli is an asshole. He cheated on you.”

“What?” The thought seemed to put an end to his drunken stupor. “What do you mean?”

Blitz seemed uncomfortable as he sighed, “Look, don’t take this the wrong way, I definitely do not care, but I walked in on Fizzarolli making out with a certain someone.”

A mischievous thought appeared in his mind as he listened. Did Blitz not know that Fizz was dating someone else too? That Y/N himself was dating another person too? The inkling that maybe it was someone other than Ozzie was there, but he pushed it away in favor of messing with Blitz.

“He did what?” He hissed, a convincing anger in his eyes. Blitz gulped nervously.

“Oh, uh, yeah-”

“Where is he right now?”

“Last I saw, he was in his buddy’s penthouse.”

He almost laughed, clearly he was talking about Ozzie. Why would Fizz know any other big bad in a fucking penthouse? He remained quiet for a moment, gathering himself, “So he’s cheating on me with Oz-Asmodeus, huh?” If Blitz noticed the slight slip-up, he didn’t say anything.

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

He gave a convincing sigh, “We’ve had this issue before.” 

Blitz was silent as he drove over to Asmodeus’ penthouse. He grabbed his guns and strapped them to his belt. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s go fuck these bitches up.” 

Y/N laughed silently as he followed. The elevator ride was silent save for the slow music playing in the background until it dinged at the 13th floor. The doors opened and Blitz immediately pulled his companion into the room. It was Asmodeus’ living room. Blitz glanced around before “sneakily” walking towards the stairs and climbing up to where the bedrooms were. Y/N followed in a less… obnoxious way. 

“AHA!” Blitz screamed as he kicked in a door. “Hm, not in here, huh?” He mumbled to himself before going to the next door and trying again. It amused Y/N to see how many of his belongings were in plain view but went unnoticed by Blitz.

Eventually, the last of the doors came. Blitz huffed as he kicked in that door, appearing faint as he fell forward, “Ah-hah!” He mutters softly from the floor. He glanced up and quickly jumped to his feet, seeing the culprits canoodling. “See Y/N! I told you! He’s a bastard!” 

Playing along, he ran to the door and gasped, faux tears filling his eyes, “Fizzarolli! How dare you do this to me! I thought you loved me!”

Fizz glanced up from where he was hugging Asmodeus with a confused frown, “What? I haven’t even done anything this time.”

He laughed internally as he brought the acting up a notch. He put a hand on his forehead dramatically, “Oh, woe is me! I feel heartbroken!” 

Blitz rolled his eyes, “Is this a fucking joke to you or something?” He lifted his hand, pointing a gun to Fizz. “Want me to just, I don’t know, shoot him for ya?”

Fizz stared at the barrel of the gun, “Blitzø-”

“Oh, no you don’t. You don’t get to speak after CHEATING on poor Y/N.” He attached himself to Y/N, wrapping his arms and legs around him. 

Fizz looked confused for a moment before noticing the amused look on his boyfriend’s face. Fizz’s expression changed into one of fake despair. “Oh, darling! I am so sorry! I didn’t realize how much I loved you!” 

Asmodeus looked around, utterly confused at the sights he was seeing. Blitz, on the other hand, looked proud of having Fizz “confess” to him. It took just a moment seeing the look on his face for Y/N to break, falling to the ground in laughter. Fizz joined in, laughing maniacally. 

“Woah, woah, woah, what about this is funny, asshole!” Blitz screamed.

Y/N wiped his eyes, “Right, right, sorry, Blitz.” He gestured to the clown and the deadly sin, “Fizz is dating Asmodeus. Asmodeus is dating Fizz. I’m dating Fizz. Asmodeus is dating me. We’re all in a relationship.”

It took Blitz a moment to wrap his head around what he was saying. When he did, his eyes widened, “You’ve had a THREESOME before?!”

His eyes twitched, “THAT'S ALL YOU CARE ABOUT?”

Blitz shrugged, “Well you lied during that game of ‘Never Have I Ever’ last week.”

He glanced over at his boyfriends who looked dumbfounded, “Ah, sorry, babes.” He said, scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment. “I wanted to mess with Blitz a little bit after he found me and told me Fizz was cheating on me.”

Fizz laughed, slinking over and throwing a hand over his shoulder, “So your first thought when he said I was cheating was, let’s fuck with ‘im?” He cackled, “That’s my boy!”

Asmodeus huffed, “Just- Don’t do that again.” He said, coming over and hugging his two boyfriends. “You worried me with that acting.”

Blitz groaned from across the room, “Great, this has been great, not really. See you in hell, bastards.”

“We’re already here, Blitz.”

“Fuck offff.”

[snek-panini]

It's been a month since Binderary ended but I've still got books to share! This is @worse0mens's (hi!) wonderful Good Omens series, The Blossom Realm, which starts with Omens of Another Kind. This is very much a longtime favorite of mine, an AU with a really compelling combo of worldbuilding and characterization. This is a believable grand romance that's also a court drama and a fairy tale, and it's really long (the full series is about 220k words) so it will keep you reading for a long time. This is one of the fics I learned bookbinding for, and it was the first really long fic that I typeset (and redid once I learned more about typesetting). It's been a long road but it was so worth it.

More photos under the cut!

Couple of photos of the spines. The series doesn't divide easily, with one very long work, one medium-length one, and several shorter pieces. The main story is nearly 200k on its own, the longest single volume I've ever made (about 500 pages), and I was worried about it getting too unwieldy, so I put all the other works into their own volume of about 100 pages. They make a disparate set but I love them. The cover is done in skiver green faux leather from Hollander's; I've never worked with this brand before but I loved it, and one sheet was big enough to do both books. The titles are done in cricut brand gold foil htv. There were some issues with that, as I'd bought a multi-pack with a few different colors and only found out after applying the front cover graphics on both books that one, I didn't have enough to do the backs and spines; two, that the gold in that pack is a totally different color than the gold they sell on its own; and three, that no one in my area stocked it anymore and I had to order it from Europe. Here's what the back looks like:

It's the same graphic as the front but without the title in the center, and it's one of the fanciest backs I've ever done and it took forever to weed all those little cutouts. The graphic was free to use on rawpixel. The font I used on the spines and front is a basic Microsoft font called Harrington that worked incredibly well on the cricut, even at small sizes; a lot of basic fonts are too thin, especially fancy ones, so this was a delightful surprise.

Photo of the top, with ribbon bookmark and handmade double core endbands. The endbands didn't come out as well as I'd have liked; they're a little uneven and the color changes aren't that evenly spaced. Double core ones are harder than I expected and I need more practice. The endpapers are chocolate silk moire, and I chose them because there's a very important massive tree in the fic and I thought they looked like wood grain. I did a little experimenting with the shorter volume that's visible around the edges of the endpaper. I wanted gilded edges but the longer book had to be rounded, and I thought I'd try paint instead of foil since I don't know how to foil a curved edge. But I did my experiments on the smaller volume and I couldn't get good coverage, so the edge had to be trimmed off. The watered-down paint had leaked into the edge of the silk moire too far for me to trim, so it's still there. But it's kind of pretty, so I'm going to call it an aesthetic choice.

The title pages are the same, with free graphics from rawpixel. I got lucky and found a similar set of roses that I used for the chapter headers:

These had to be positioned by hand for each chapter so they'd fit around the text properly. It was a pain but they look so pretty. The final photo contains a story spoiler, so proceed with caution if you don't want that:

The scene break image in both volumes is this tiny snake. This was one of the first aesthetic choices I made for the books. A lot of the plot is centered around a prophecy about a monster snake that everyone thinks will destroy the kingdom, and of course in the manner of Good Omens fic it's a wildly inaccurate misinterpretation and not a threat at all. I wanted something like this because the snake is not only non-threatening but it's been here the entire time and there was never any reason to freak out about it. It was surprisingly difficult to find a snake image that was both simple enough to still be clear at this size and also didn't look dangerous or like a cartoon character. I looked at so many snakes before I found this one, it's ridiculous.

And that's it! I hope the author likes it (and remembers me since I asked to do this almost a year ago). There are three more binderary posts forthcoming, though I don't know how long it'll take me to get to them. It was a busy month.

[qqueenofhades]

coming from one of those "born in mid 2000s and is now suddenly an adult, making everyone feel old," people, do you have any resources to learn how to bullshit your way through getting a job with zero experience. cause i cant even put like "babysitting" or anything since covid prevented literally any teenage-typical jobs and i kinda dont know what to put on a resume beyond the university im currently attending and the high school i graduated from. and they still dont teach you this in school even though we've complained for years 😭

Okay my chilluns, listen up. This is how to bullshit your way into a basic 1-page resume even if you think you have absolutely dum-dum-diddlysquat to put on it. I completely feel you, as it's hard as hell to get a job even in the ordinary course of things, and especially when everything seems to want 10 years of experience and a bachelor's degree (and still pays like shit). But you gotta be persistent anyway. So here follows the step-by-step guide of How To Resume:

Open a new Word (or other word-processing software of your choice) document.

Pick a nice, professional-looking font (for the love of God, no Comic Sans). Times New Roman is fine; you don't have to overthink it. My own CV is currently in Perpetua, because it's a nice serif that looks crisp and a little different, but it is still clean and readable. Garamond or Cambria or other starter typefaces are fine too. Make sure it is the right size, usually around 12pt.

Put your full name at the top, centered, in BOLD CAPITALS. Increase the typeface size a few more points on this, to make it stand out and to make it take up space.

Underneath this, in regular-sized text, put your contact information: mailing address if you're comfortable sharing it, or if not, at least your phone number and email address. Use a school email if you have it, and not some weird/in-jokey personal email.

Start a new paragraph. In a slightly smaller font (italic if you want to make it look classy) write a few words about yourself. This should be something like I am a [Major] student at [University] looking for a part-time, entry-level position in [sales, retail, office, etc]. A [year] graduate of [High School] in [City, State], I am [prompt, reliable, detail-oriented, mature, friendly, etc] and a hard worker who is eager to gain experience and positively contribute to your business.

Start a new paragraph. Change the alignment from Center to Left. Create a new heading in bold underline labeled Education.

Under this, fill in your education (college first, followed by high school). Include the institution name, city, and state, the year you graduated or expect to graduate, any honors or awards, any extracurriculars, any grade-point averages if they're good (i.e. 3.0 and above), and your expected major in college.

Start a new paragraph. Create another heading: Experience.

This is where you put absolutely anything you can think of (in chronological order, most recent first and counting backward). Did you volunteer for something ever in your life? Put it down! (Title of work, dates, location, brief description of work). Did you do yard work for someone for a weekend? Put it down! Were you (or are you) part of a student club or organization in high school or university? Have you organized or taken part in any local initiatives in your community or neighborhood? Put it down! Basically, absolutely any kind of work, paid or unpaid, that might be relevant, regardless of how long it was or when it took place.

Under that, put the new heading/paragraph Skills and Interests.

Have you worked with Microsoft Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Adobe, Photoshop? Put it down! People love that shit! Do you use social media and/or know how to work it better than the average grandma? Put 'er down! You get the idea. Think of anything in your daily life that can be put in Job Language and then see if you can do that. You are in university; do you have any projects, papers, or other things that you're proud of? Have you successfully managed a (gasp) group project? Do you make any kind of art? Are you a registered voter who has taken part in civic/political organizations, drives, or events? (If not, REGISTER TO VOTE! This is your angry grandmother speaking). All of that can go down. Even if it's not job experience per se, it's life experience and shows that you are someone who is engaged with the world and working to gain more.

Last paragraph and heading: References. Ask a few trusted adults who know you well and aren't related to you, such as a favorite high school teacher or a university faculty member/degree advisor, if they'd be willing to serve as referees. Put down their full names, titles/place of work, email addresses, and phone numbers.

Voila! You have a full page resume, probably even a little more if you're lucky. Proofread, make sure the spacing is even and the alignment is right, it doesn't look weird, the text is a consistent size, it's all the same color, there are no glaring typos or grammatical errors, etc. etc. Save it as a PDF.

Boom. Done. You are now a Job Hunting Maestro.

If you get an interview, you don't need to pretend that you have tons of experience or that you're something you're not, but you can present what you ARE in a positive light anyway. Don't apologize for yourself or play yourself down pre-emptively; be confident about yourself and what you can offer. You're a college kid looking for your first part-time job, COVID prevented you from a lot of normal teenage work experience, you're willing to work hard and learn new things. Here's your resume. What would be a good time to talk again.

Good luck! I believe in you.

[messers-moony]

Lukewarm Coffee | T.D

Pairing: Tim Drake X Fem!Reader

Summary: All Tim wants is a breath of fresh air, and after seventeen years, he gets one.

Word Count: 1.0K

He felt like a lukewarm cup of coffee. 

It wasn’t quite hot enough to be enjoyable, but it wasn’t cold enough either. His planner sat open on the table in front of him. Notes were scattered throughout the little box on the left. Things were written over other scribbles, and each day had a plethora of words within the small boxes. They really need to make these little things bigger for people with a lot of shit to do. 

Tim sighed. His pen in his hand had somehow been taken apart. He figured he must have done it without paying attention. There was black ink all over the wooden table, and he grabbed a napkin to hide the mess he had created. All the napkin did was smear it even further. It was a lost cause. He grabbed another pen from his bag and put it carefully next to the spiral agenda.

The window was nice, in any case. It was a rare sunny day in Gotham, and its light was coming through the window onto Tim’s lap. He was always cold, so it felt nice against his black pants. It brightened up his already pale complexion and made his features seem sharper than they were. His pen tapped against the book, and his teeth caught his lower lip. It had taken him no time to leave the Manor today. 

He felt guilty. Granted, he always felt guilty, but more so, especially after last night’s fight. He didn’t know where he had gone wrong. Tim had tried so hard to be the big brother that Dick always was to him, that Jason was to him now. Damian never budged. It was the degrading comments, pretending he wasn’t there, constantly trying to compete with him.  Finally, Tim had said something, and everything had just unraveled. The ball of twine was finally in a heap of string on the floor. 

Bruce had given Tim that disappointing look, and that was all it had taken. Everything was his fault, and he knew that, but he didn’t understand. So Tim took all his belongings and placed them in a backpack except his laptop, which he worked on until morning. When the clock hit seven, he got dressed, grabbed his bag, and promptly left the Manor without another word. 

There was a nice coffee shop near Wayne Enterprises that he had always wanted to try. Tim opened the door to hear a little ding and found a booth in the furthest corner of the shop. Before heading in that direction, he asked and paid for a black coffee with two extra espresso shots. The girl smiled and complied. He placed his bag on his right, closest to the window, and unpacked all his belongings. His coffee sat on his right, with steam flowing from the cup into the air. 

He looked down at the clock to see he had been sitting there for three hours. His computer screen had Microsoft Word pulled up with case notes from suspicious activity near Crime Alley that Jason had asked him to look into. Jason was concerned that kids were being taken from the streets and used for something. Tim was about to continue when a girl slid into the seat in front of him. 

“Hello,” She seemed shy, “I’m here with my friends, and they dared me to come speak to you.”

Tim almost snorted because, of course, he was always on the brunt of a joke, “Well, you’ve spoken to me, so.”

“That came off wrong. I’m sorry.” She apologized, and Tim tilted his head slightly, “I thought you were cute, and I didn’t have the nerve to come up to you without some form of peer pressure.”

“Oh,” He felt the blush creeping up his cheeks, “I’m- I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to be rude then. I’ve just had a rough night.”

She chuckled, “I can tell. You have ink all over your hand, cheek, and jaw.”

Tim felt himself smile, “What’s your name?”

“Y/n. And yours?”

“Tim.” 

“It’s wonderful to meet you, Tim.”

The blush crept further up his neck, “You too, Y/n.”

He didn’t know what to say. He had never really been in this position before. It was always girls coming up to Dick or Jason. They had always seemed to know what to say and how to act, but all Tim felt was nervousness about doing or saying something wrong. He didn’t want to scare her away. She seemed kind, and her body language was open, which meant that maybe she actually had some interest in him. Her eyes seemed interested, and she didn’t look scared and-

A hand was on his cheek, and something wet was on his other cheek. Tim snapped back into reality to see her leaning over the table. One hand was cupping his cheek, and the other had a wipe of some kind, slowly taking the black smudges off his cheek. His cheeks and ears burned bright red. He was able to better examine her from here. Y/n’s eyes were kind, and her lips were tilted in a subtle smile. 

She pulled back too soon for Tim’s liking. She showed him the now grey-looking wipe, “Sorry, it was driving me crazy. I hope I didn’t cross any boundaries.”

“No- No!” Tim stuttered, “You didn’t. Um, thank you.”

Y/n smiled, and it made him feel at home. For once, he didn’t feel overwhelming stress on his shoulders. He didn’t think about Damian hating him, Bruce’s disappointed look, Jason’s glare whenever he thought Tim wasn’t looking, or Dick’s look of pity that he felt he could hide. For once, all he saw was kindness, interest, and admiration. It was a breath of fresh air, and he never intended to let it go. 

“Would your friends mind if you ditched them?” 

“If they did, why would that matter?” She had a look of mischief on her face, “They’re the ones who did this. Plus, I’d much rather sit here with you than them.”

He smiled, “I’ll go buy you a coffee.”

Tim slid out of the booth as she recited her coffee order—an order he would never forget again.