#THANK YOU EM

[yuckydraws]

What would Red, Vant, Wine, and Mal think if their s/o would often wake them up in the morning by gently stroking their face?

They'd trail a finger gently over their nasal ridge, caress their cheek with a knuckle, or, sometimes, they even give them soft kisses until they start to stir.

I’m going to preface this by what kind of sleepers these guys are: Vant and Mal are both extremely light sleepers, the smallest movement from you will probably have them stirring already. Wine is a pretty light sleeper too, but would likely not stir until you touch him. And then there’s Red 💀💀 he sleeps so heavily.

Anyways now onto their reactions!

Red: If he’s sleeping peacefully (which, next to you, he tends to) he sleeps so deeply and you’ll likely be able to get away with lots of soft touching to his face before he stirs. If you want him to wake up, that trailing of your finger over his nasal ridge will do the trick. His face will scrunch up as he lets out a whuffle, then a grumble as he cracks open his sockets. He’s liable to pull you close to him, tucking your head under his chin as he rumbles something unintelligible. He seems grumpy, but he’s just not a morning person. Deep down? He loves lazing about in bed with you in the morning.

Vant: He’s cracking open his sockets the moment your hand moves towards him. His lights blearily take you in, as his expression, usually tight with a scowl, is all soft and confused with sleep clinging to him. Though he wakes suddenly at your movement, he has no objections to your touch, heavily leaning into your affection and letting out those quiet, deep purrs as he does so. He’s a bit grumpy in the mornings too (let’s be honest, when is he not grumpy?) and might grumble sleepily or close his sockets in attempts to get a second sleep in, but you can convince him to get up, especially with those soft kisses.

Wine: His vinaceous lights are a little fuzzy with sleep as his sockets open slowly at your gentle touches. He’s faster to wake than the others, always seeming to have endless energy, even when he’s tired. He’ll capture your hand in his and press a kiss to your palm. And then a little nuzzle to your wrist. Little nibbles to your finger tips - his lights bright with mischief as he gets you giggling with his antics. “Good Morning, My Dearest.” He’ll rumble, voice still rough with sleep. He can be convinced to laze about with you, but you better work quick because once this man is up he’s not laying back down.

Mal: Much like Vant, he’ll also be stirring once you shift and move your hand towards him. His violet lights will focus pretty quickly, though he won’t mind the gentle touching, honestly thinking it’s adorable. He’s a morning person, but wouldn’t mind lazing about with you, for a little bit. Depending on his mood he might return the favor, gently and carefully exploring your face with his clawed fingers - or he may just cheekily pull you in for some more kisses.

[marbledwings]

Hello lovely! Just stopping by to say hello and that I'm so happy to be sharing a fandom space with you. You have such a kind, thoughtful presence. I see you on my dash or in my notes and I think of a perfect spring day. Maybe it's the pfp lol but I do genuinely also think it's you and all those gentle, loving vibes you give off. Every time I see I have a comment from you on AO3 I have to sit back and prepare myself because I know I'm just going to be overwhelmed with the thoughtfulness. So happy that our paths crossed in this fandom! 💕

Oh ♥️🌻♥️

Thank you for this lovely surprise. I am very happy to be the butterfly landing in your inbox with comments!

I am very happy to be sharing this corner of the fandom with you 🫂

[youshouldseemeinadeerstalker]

Oh HELLOOOOOOO you are a goddamn delight and I'm so happy you're in the OFMD fandom. 💕

🥺

[pixiedust347]

When u get all these i'd go from the bottom up - that way the chaos makes more sense :)

I did exactly that ;)

& THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I really appreciate you, taking time out of your day, just to spam my asks :DD

[p0is0n-is-th3-cur3]

me when my friend says I’m like an older sibling to them:

[sparklestheunicorn]

Thank you for tagging me @vanillalipstick66 💖💖💖

15 questions

Are you named after anyone?

My middle name is my nan's name

When was the last time you cried?

I dont really remember, but probably one night when I was trying to get to sleep and my parents were making Noise in recent months

Do you have kids?

I have me and that is enough responsibility for a lifetime

Do you use sarcasm a lot?

No. I am the most genuine person you will ever meet. (I say sarcastically. Yes yes I do)

What's the first thing you notice about people?

Hair I think

What's your eye colour?

Blue 😔 I can never stare directly at the sun

Scary movies or happy endings?

Anything that isn't a scary movie. I will not touch one with a ten foot pole

Any special talents?

I can and will drop taylor swift lyrics into everyday conversation

Were you born?

No I was spawned Yes

What are your hobbies?

Reading, writing, baking, procrastinating, shopping, eating

Do you have any pets?

No

What sports do you play/have you played?

Swimming for about 7 years, gymnastics for about 6 years, netball for 4, skiing I have been doing since I was about 3 and still going

How tall are you?

🤷🏼‍♀️ average? A little shorter than average? Idk

Favourite subject at school?

Art

Dream job?

A job? Like the capitalist thing? No thanks

Tagging @billydaisy @oop-theregoesgravity @theodracrain and anyone else who wants to!!!!

[satelliteaccident]

hi there i recently read main and perdition and i just wanted to say (again) how much i liked it. you said that you may have some pointers on how to write in the style of the game and i actually wanted to come back to that because i want to try to write some myself soon. if you've got any tips i'm all ears. hope this isn't weird or anything 😅

hi em! not only is it not weird, you've made my day. thank you for the kind words, and thank you for giving me the chance to blather about writing and (hopefully) be useful.

*clears throat* *takes off "just chillin" hat and puts on "guy who sometimes knows what he's talking about" hat, which mostly means remembering how to find the shift key*

Hi! I'm Six. I'm an editor who has worked in the publishing industry for about ten years across print, web, radio, podcast and television.

I also write Disco Elysium fanfic. In the process of planning and writing Main and Perdition, I worked hard to craft something that I hoped would play, intelligently, in the DE sandbox.

I didn't wholly succeed. Time permitting, I'm happy to grab a figurative highlighter and point out spots where I failed, why, and what to do differently if you don't wanna do the same dumb things I did.

But this post is not that post! Instead, it's...

How To Mimic Style: Tips For Writing Your Disco Elysium Fic

Pick your playthrough.

One of the most beautiful, epic, fascinating things about DE is its multivariance. That trait extends to Harry. Is he a pacifist sober Sorry Cop who throws his gun into the sea, or a fiery anti-racist who throws hands and roundhouse kicks, or a ~mystic visionary~ who hears voices and does pyrholidon about it?

Yes! And no. Which is phenomenal to experience as a game player, but it's table-flippingly antithetical to writing a fic with a coherent emotional through-line.

So decide which Harry you're writing. It'll help you narrow down what your guy might or might not do, and it'll also help you write characters (Kim, Jean, Judit, Garte, Sylvie, and so many more) whose responses greatly depend on how Harry behaves.

It'll also help you spot places where the game, in its richness, has left space for you to write into questions it leaves unanswered -- but more on this when we get to tolerating discomfort.

Embrace the skillset.

It's daunting at first, but working with it rather than avoiding it helps you understand who's in Harry's head, what they do, and how mighty they are. (It also helps to pay attention to how they talk, but that's less about writing DE fic and more about honing an eye and ear for dialogue -- yet another possible future post.)

To help me with who and what when I was drafting M+P, I made this spreadsheet:

It was my zero-draft bestie because it helped me figure out what skills might comment in any given moment, which I suspect contributes to the places where the fic succeeds at feeling similar to the game. Feel free to use/share if it helps you, too.

As for how mighty, that's where stats come in. I didn't do a full stat sheet for M+P Harry, but I did decide his base attributes (INT-PSY-FYS-MOT). The game lets you put a total of 12 points across them; a base of 3 is average, with 1 being shithouse and 6 being HARDCORE TO THE MEGA. I also chose his signature skill (Inland Empire, which is my favourite one to write because I too am a middle-aged white bi-sexual sopping-wet-dog guy who never became a poet or an entroponaut).

I could then do the maths when deciding, "How hard would it be to succeed at [thing happening in the story]? Is that something this Harry is capable of? If so, is it obvious to him that he'll succeed, or would it *Princess Bride voice* take a miracle?"

And then, when I'm on my A-game, I follow up with my favourite DE-writing question: Regardless of whether Harry *could* succeed, would it be a chewier, more compelling story if he failed? (Yet again, more on this when we talk discomfort.)

So. Difficulty levels: know 'em, check 'em, put 'em in a stew fic. I worked from this screenshot, though I don't remember where I took it (this was at least a year ago, ack). Apologies to whichever wiki I have failed:

Let shit go wrong.

This is hard. It requires tolerating discomfort -- which is already hard -- in a situation where you are at the keyboard and can make it stop, which makes it that much harder.

But shit going wrong is the absolute beating heart of DE.

Let's weave some threads together. In the first section, I mentioned writing into spaces the game makes with unanswered questions; in the second, I mentioned making space in your fic-writing process for skill checks to fail.

Letting shit go wrong is how we as fic writers can expand into those spaces -- and when we do, sometimes, something beautiful is allowed to happen.

While I leave it to each reader to decide whether anything beautiful did in fact happen, here's one example of how this process unfolded in my practice.

I hated reading the solution to "Rigorous Self-Critique." *Hated* it. I hated what it showed me about Harry's callousness, his violence, his utter disregard for boundaries. Most of all, I hated this:

You held a young woman by the arm and kept her in your apartment for 20 minutes against her will. 

What the fuck. What the fuck? Who *does* that? (Harry.) *Why?* (Because he wanted to.)

*Fuck*.

This section, you may have noticed, left me feeling kind of a lot of discomfort.

I could've pushed that feeling away. I could've made excuses. ("I mean, the pale makes people confused about which memories are theirs and which are someone else's, right? That must be what happened, because Harry would *never* do that.") I could've done mental gymnastics to avoid the conclusion that what Harry did was wrong. ("Well, maybe he was *helping* her, and he just doesn't remember!")

I wouldn't have been -- and you, person reading this, wouldn't be -- bad for doing any of those things. Life is hard. Sometimes, elective hardness (shush) is too much. That's okay.

But I sat with the discomfort. I followed it into the space in the game: what happened in those 20 minutes? Who was this young woman -- did Harry even know or care? How did she escape? I followed it into the space in my story: what would happen if Harry, as he is post-Martinaise, failed a check (in the fic, he "succeeds", but the outcome of that success is failure #justlittleelysiumthings) and recalled what happened?

And I ended up with M+P.

It's not a perfect fic. It may not even be a *good* fic; I've spent too much time with it to have an opinion on its goodness. But it is absolutely an answer-through-story, and I feel less discomfort and more satisfaction, more joy, for having written it. I hope this post helps you have that experience, too.

[wajjs]

11, 13, 99

11 - Take My Breath

13 - Gloria

99 - Griftwood

[chloesimaginationthings]

The FNAF animatronics aren’t evil,, just jolly

[benevolenterrancy]

"If the original novel had given this thing more than ten words of description, there was no way he wouldn’t have remembered!"

[kimtaegis]

JIN HUGS JIN HUGS! for @jinstronaut ♡

cr. namuspromised, dwellingsouls, 0613data

[eliotbaum]

just perfect

LMAO I screamed

[newttxt]

and thats a wrapppppppp!!

from the 10th and final chapter of utilities included

masterpost

[serendipnpipity]

Thank you for living your truth, @danielhowell. You've helped me live mine, too.

Image Description under the cut:

[illustrated YouTube notification: “Daniel Howell uploaded ‘Basically I’m Gay’”]

Five years ago today, I was lying on the couch in my family home, watching the words of a person I had grown to find pieces of myself in as he bared his soul to the world just to make somebody like me feel a little less alone. 

[girl lying on her stomach on the couch, looking at phone]

He said something at the end of that video,

[Illustrated video screenshot of Dan saying “You are valid. It gets so much better.”]

And I’ll never forget hearing those words. Never forget drying my tears, quickly, before my parents came back. 

[Three panels: girl wiping tears from face, putting phone down, silhouette walking through front door]

See, the girl on that couch was planning far, far away futures. She couldn’t believe his words just yet, but now she could hope to. 

[open shoebox with rainbow flag inside]

Five years later, today, I wish I could tell her:

You don’t have to move halfway across the country to set a flag out on your desk. 

[school building and stack of books]

Your parents are coming over tomorrow to help bring you home for the summer. (They’re only an hour’s car ride away.)

[cartoon sun and car]

And see that?

[rainbow flag in a mug with a cat whiskers design]

Yeah, that’s the one decoration you haven’t packed yet. 

And that something he said at the end of the video, I still quote it to this day. 

[computer playing the Dan birthday livestream with "Misty" on a Zoom call in the corner]

Better yet, I believe it now. 

[same girl, older and with shorter hair, holding mug with flag and looking back at someone off-camera that’s saying “Ready to go home?”]

Happy five years of Basically, I’m Gay!

[minhosblr]

Lee Know ☆ SKZ Code Ep. 55

Bonus:

[p0is0n-is-th3-cur3]

Me when my friend makes fanart of the cat from my fic (it’s the friend I named the cat after)