#and i know that changes at one point in the novel but i'm really not sure with what vibe i'd like them to have just yet

[bitchfitch]

My mother's bf had a fairly major surgery (he's fine and recovering well DW) and he's going to be housebound for his birthday this year, so I've been enlisted to come up with a fancy birthday meal for the special birthday boy that's primarily fruit and veg, sweeter than savory, and is something he's never had before.

Bc I'm making watermelington. It's beef Wellington, but watermelon. bc my mom only found out recently you can use watermelon as a tuna substitute. And I know that you can substitute most higher quality beef cuts with tuna or salmon.... usually. Anyways the idea fascinates her so I'm hoping to use that for bonus points.

Now he's off his ass on pain killers so I can't like. Ask him if he's ever had something before. so to meet my brief I've decided to just. commit a novel hate crime against the British I guess.

Anyways. I'm writing this because I need to walk myself through this process and think it'll be surreal enough to be worth taking y'all along for.

So, Beef Wellington. In its most basic bitch arrangement is a beef tenderloin wrapped in prosciutto/really thin bacon, with a layer of mushroom and onion mush, that has been further wrapped in mustard slathered puff pastry.

We will be ship of Theseusing this. bc beef Wellington is like. the opposite of what he wants. Which is why it's funny.

Puff pastry-> it's still just puff pastry

this one doesn't have to change (aka I can't be fucked to do pastry prep and I'm just gonna use store bought it's Fine.)

the prosciutto is also just going to be prosciutto.

Thin meat

Beef tenderloin-> watermelon,

Tbh this is a pretty 1 to 1 substitution. I'll bake the slices at like. 250-300 for an hour or so ahead of the rest of prep to dry it out a bit. bc you can't like. Sear watermelon to seal in the water like you can beef. By definition it's a very wet fruit (like me when I fall into the lake). Ill Add salt and chili and lime juice while baking maybe. this is the easy part

The mushroom mush-> salsa done bad style

As the word mush implies, this is meant to be a very soft mix. It adds a lot of nuttiness to the wellington that rounds out all of the salt from the meats. I'm replacing it with white person salsa(the birthday boy can't handle spice). Tomato, lime juice, parsley, avocado, cucumber, feta, and maybe mango so I can have an excuse to have a lil mango treat. I said I wasn't making it spicy. I'm still putting a bit of chili in it. bc it'll be better like that. This is also a ridiculously wet bit of mush, Even the original mushrooms have too much water. I'll figure something out.

Mustard -> jelly

He lives in a big city. those preserve sections are massive. I'll find a weird one. maybe apricot.

Prep:

We're in the mind palace kitchen, I have not attempted any of this. We're just thinking real hard about it and I'll edit as needed on the day and post results.

The watermelon

Preheat oven to eh. 300f? We want low and slow to dry things out without it taking a year. but idk what his oven is like. If it's gentle I'll bump it up another ten-twenty.

Slather some watermelon slices in salt chili powder and lime juice mixture.

bake for 30 min on a wire rack or directly on the oven racks (after cleaning thoroughly) if he doesn't have a wire rack. with a drip try underneath to catch the drippage. check frequently. Have one slice that's for being poked to see if it's approaching being meat. Bake longer if needed.

Salsa bad style

chop everything up and add it to a pan with some oil in it. Tbh I don't think the type of oil you use for cooking matters if you're not like, getting near any smoke points. Most people can't tell the difference unless you made your food bland as hell.

Anyways there's some wildly different moisture contents on the list so there has to be an Order to cook off as much water as possible without getting yucky.

Tomatoes and cucumbers go in together with some salt to get the cucs softening, then the mango chunks and lime juice. Once most of the water is gone the avocado feta and parsley can go in. There is a good amount of water in avocados but they're delicate and don't pan fry well, so we're just going to ignore their water crimes and hope for the best. They just need to be evenly mixed through the rest of the mush.

Putting it together

lay out the puff pastry, cut into sections to wrap each watermelon slice individually with.

Slather in jam

Take the prosciutto and lay it out on half of each section of the pastry,

spoon the salsa onto that

Melon

Another layer of salsa

another layer of thin meat

Fold the pastry over the top and pinch the edges bc watermelon slices are not a rollable shape and I don't want to carve a watermelon into a tube for this because that sounds irritating.

Brush with egg wash and more parsley

Cook in oven following the pastry's preferred temp and time. it's fucking watermelon, you're not getting ecoli from it.

watermelington :)

I'm serving it with baked sweet potatoes and spinach based salad with whatever toppings are left over from making the salsa.

anyways thank you for joing me on this thought experiment. I will post updates once the deed is done. I'm sorry to every British person ever.

[echos-gal]

I was talking with one of my best friends about Star Wars characters being brought back and the possibility that Tech might return in a future work, and realized that even though TBB has ended, Star Wars has a really high track record of bringing back characters in other works, set after their supposed "death." Basically, no one ever comes back in the same movie/show/work they "died" in:

Maul: "died" in The Phantom Menace, brought back in The Clone Wars.

Gregor: "died" in The Clone Wars, brought back quite some time later in Rebels (and The Bad Batch, which comes first chronologically)

Echo: "died" in The Clone Wars, brought back SEVERAL YEARS LATER in the seventh season (I'm counting this as a separate show because it was not continuous - the show was revived)

Boba Fett: "died" in Return of the Jedi, brought back in The Mandalorian. DECADES LATER.

Asajj Ventress: "died" (died? like actually?) in Dark Disciple, brought back in The Bad Batch

Palpatine: somehow Palpatine returned

I feel like I'm missing some, but you get the point. The only ones I can think of who have died and come back in the same series are Ahsoka in Rebels and Fennec Shand in The Mandalorian.

There are also a couple characters whose fates have been left purposely open in order to have the possibility of bringing them back. Sev from Republic Commando is one who comes to mind. He is left behind in a war zone on a mission, and while Karen Traviss (author of the RepComm books) wanted to continue his story in a novel, Star Wars told her no because they wanted to keep plans open for Sev at a later time. We haven't gotten any additional Sev content yet, but his fate still isn't sealed.

Another is Mace Windu. I know George Lucas was like "he is dead for sure" but fans really want him back and so does Samuel L Jackson. I can see George changing his mind. Windu is a badass and beloved by fans. Another character who "fell," no body no death, and people are pretty adamant about getting him back because they liked him so much.

What I am trying to say is that Tech is a fan-favorite character whose story felt unfinished to many viewers. I'd say most of us were waiting every episode of season 3 for him to return, and the writers know that. Jennifer Corbett is on twitter and is very aware that "Tech Lives" is a huge thing in the Bad Batch fandom.

There are more animated works planned, as well: we know that Omega will likely appear again as an adult. There's like a 95% chance that a clone rebellion series is in the works, considering that they set it up in The Bad Batch. And Nika Futterman has hinted that Ventress will be appearing in future works. Tech could (and SHOULD) be brought back in any of these!

So yeah.... TECH LIVES

[curatedspacefiller]

I'm so horny for the fact they wrote the whole 'once you put it out there, they decide what it is. It can get away from you' scene into a show based on work of an author who is famous for threatening fanfic writers with legal action

And that's on top of the horniness I already had for them treating the source material as a light suggestion at best

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

Ive seenyou mention wuxia a few times now and i wonder what that is. Would you mind explaining it to me?

not the most qualified person to explain this as i'm not, in fact, from china; but i've read a couple of wuxia so here goes:

wuxia is a genre of fiction from china specifically, about martial artists in ancient china. i don't think a specific time period is like required? obviously some dynasties are more popular but idk how it goes in that front. it just has to be Not Today and probably Too Long Ago. like pre industral revolution i think. again idk if that's a requirement, but most i've seen are from around the same relative murky pre-electricity era.

xianxia is a subgenre of wuxia that's specifically more fantasy-like, and it's not just martial arts, but also spiritual powers and cultivation (which i have no fucking clue how to explain without two hours and three tangents other than chinese magic system. if you've ever heard of chi/qi as an energy, it appears there). so like- genshin is by all accounts a xianxia, it just doesn't use the more common specific xianxia terms like cultivation. some of those are very weird to translate and probably not common for the average non-wuxia reader, so it makes sense why they're going for alternatives.

chongyun and xingqiu and xianyun are very much straight out of a xianxia. xianyun's entire story quest was the closest genshin has gotten to a straight xianxia plot so far. i highly reccomend ashikai's video on unnecessary visions if you want more info on why genshin is a xianxia hahah

cyanide narwhal has some talk of some stuff from xianxia, but that's mostly because well- fucking liyue, that's how it works there. the whole light energy striking down someone who's getting powerful and giving them godhood if they survive the strike is, while not exactly like that, something that happens in some xianxia as well. like the way adepti work in general is just very xianxia. ashikai does a much better job explaining it than i do tbh but yeah

TL;DR: wuxia is chinese martial arts fiction in ancient china, and xianxia is a wuxia subgenre with more magic elements. also genshin is a xianxia

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Since you've mentioned Scarlet Lady in one of your posts, what's your opinion on it?

I've mentioned before that I'm a big Scarlet Lady fan, which is the only reason that I'm comfortable answering asks like this one. I don't publicly criticize the content of hobby creators. That's wildly inappropriate! Punch up, not down.

The linked post was a general discussion of the adaptation process and how @zoe-oneesama did a fantastic job, so for this one, I'm just going to do some general gushing because I do actually like praising and enjoying things!

Scarlet Lady's chosen format (comic) allows it to have this wonderful conversation with canon where it can rely on the framework of canon to tell it's own story while also using canon for jokes and meta commentary. This means that Scarlet Lady is about as close as fan content can get to a direct reboot because it's able to have moments like this one from the comic's first post:

[Image description: Adrien standing in his room after transforming into Chat Noir for the first time. He is beaming and his eyes are shining with excitement as he exclaims, "This is gonna be awesome!"]

A single picture that communicates everything we need to know about Adrien getting his miraculous. When I've done this same thing in fanfic, I had to write out the full scene because that's how novels work. You have to give the full picture. With a comic, you can just quickly acknowledge this thing that we all already know and then move on to the new stuff. A picture really is worth a thousand words! (Or, in my case, more like two thousand...)

This allows Zoe to keep the same akumas that we get in canon without her story feeling like a boring rehash because she can focus on what's different in her version. A novelization of the same content would have to show both the stuff that stays the same and the stuff that changes for it to be coherent. That's a lot less fun to read and write. It's why I basically never revisit canon akumas in my own stuff. It's just too derivative for the written word.

This is one of the big reasons that I loved Scarlet Lady. Because it was able to have that more directly conversation with canon, it was able to take canon and say, "hey, why don't we embrace the tone that you established in season one and retell the story with that vibe?" That's something that I desperately wanted to see, but that is totally unsuited to my chosen artistic form. It couldn't be a novel. It had to be a comic.

If you want to know what a true formula show version of Miraculous would look like, Scarlet Lady is it. It does everything that Miraculous should have done:

Sticks to a lighthearted tone where nothing is ever super serious

Keeps Gabriel entirely unsympathetic

Has slow character development and background hints at a bigger plot as the only serial elements, allowing the individual episodes to be their own story while never feeling incomplete or rushed

Allows characters other than Marinette to shine while keeping Marinette as the clear main character

Makes Adrien narratively important

MAKES THE LOVE SQUARE CUTE SO I CAN ACTUALLY SHIP IT

Understands that Lila and Chloe can't coexist as antagonists

Reverses the love square, which is the best way to tell their story. Yes, I will die on my "love diamond" hill. It's a good hill. Come join me. I'll bring cookies.

I could keep going, but you hopefully get my point. While Scarlet Lady is certainly not the only way to do a formula version of canon, it's proof that a formula version does work! You don't have to go the serious route for Miraculous to be successful.

I want to take some time to gush about the ending, but I don't want to spoil it, so I'll put that gushing under a "read more" in case anyone hasn't seen it. I'll finish out this less spoilerish section with this:

I feel like some people are surprised when they learn that I love Scarlet Lady because - as some of you have probably picked up - it is quite different from my ideal version of canon. I'm not sure why that would stop me from enjoying a thing, though. It's important to remember that our personal ideals are not the only way to tell a good story. There are lots of ways to take what canon gave us and make something wonderful! It's part of the reason that I enjoy being in a fandom.

If I only wanted to see my ideal take on canon, then I'd stick to writing/imagining my own stories. But I don't want that! I like seeing alternate takes, too. Scarlet Lady is one of my personal favorites. It's completely different from anything that I'd ever think to write and that's why I'm so glad that it exists! I like being entertained just as much as I like creating my own entertainment and I don't want to only read stories that look like something I'd write. That's boring!

Spoilers below:

I've mentioned before that there are many, many ways to properly handle Chloe's character and Zoe did such a good job with her take on that! Chloe isn't absolved of all the things she did wrong, but she's also treated as a young woman with the ability to change.

While the comic bares the name of Chloe's alter ego, she was the never the main character. She never went on a journey. The story kept her to her shallow season-one self: a petty brat who just wanted attention. It did this because that's who Chloe was in canon and who Chloe needed to be for the comic to work.

The first time we see any complexity from Chloe is in the comic's final few episodes, which was absolutely the right call for Zoe to make! In a recent post, I talked about how the end of a formula show is the only time when you can break the formula in catastrophic ways and that's what Zoe did. She kept Chloe static until it was time to end the story and that's when the formula breaks. That's when Chloe gets depth because, once she has depth, the formula doesn't work.

That depth is not used to redeem Chloe, but to show us that there's hope for Chloe. That this petty brat who we've been dealing with has some serious issues and needs help. Help that she's going to get far away from the people that she's hurt because her issues aren't an excuse for what she's done. They don't erase the harm that she caused. At the same time, understanding her issues makes us hope that she can be better now and Scarlet Lady took a moment to give us that hope. To show us the START of Chloe's true story.

That is the kind of ending that I have wanted to see in so many properties!!! It was so wonderful to finally get one that did this right. A story that understood that full redemption to the team and damnation to death/suffering are extremes on a scale of possibilities. You don't have to go to extremes! You can fall in the middle and the middle is a perfect, natural place for Chloe to land in this kind of story. Fully redeeming or even fully damning Chloe simply doesn't work in lighthearted formula content. It's too big a lift as canon has already demonstrated.

I also loved Zoe's take on Emilie. I've mentioned that I don't like evil Emilie in part because it makes her revival feel like the start of a new story. She's back and she'd bad, so we have to take her down now! But I don't want that. I want the story to end when Gabriel is stopped. Zoe does this by giving us an Emilie that is another perfect middle ground. She matches canon's uncomfortable implications without feeling like a true villain who is a threat to society.

[awearywritersworld]

she mumbled that i was peculiar

sukuna x reader summary: impressively, sukuna is still trying to find ways to deny his feelings for you. nevertheless, he keeps you safe from harm when a late night trip to the store doesn't go as planned. will seeing his violent nature for yourself change the way you feel about him? he seems to think so. w/c: 4.2k (oops) tags/warnings: angst to fluff. attempted kidnapping. canon typical violence. depictions of blood. reader throws up. reader is in shock for a bit. cursing. aged up!yuuji. not canon compliant. fem!reader. no use of y/n. *please mind the warnings for this chapter* a/n: i'm sorry this took so long! im ngl, i struggled quite a bit to write this chapter. i'm still unsure about the pacing, but here it is anyway. thank you for reading and i hope you enjoy! series masterlist // masterlist

it's not often that you go out for the evening, but tonight is one such occasion. you leave around seven, excited to meet nobara and maki for dinner.

when yuuji falls asleep a few hours later, sukuna doesn't take over right away. he spends a while in his domain, engaging in what some people might call sulking.

before long, however, he begins to feel restless and he tells himself it's because he's grown accustomed to his finite hours of freedom. of course, it has nothing to do with your absence.

so he assumes control of his vessel's body and pulls a short novel from your bookshelf. settling on the couch, his fingertips brush over the cover: the stranger by albert camus

it's the first time he's ever been alone in your apartment, a fact he's well aware of, and his eyes wander to the front door. it'd be all too easy to pull it open, to make his way downstairs and out onto the street.

how long would it last before yuuji regained control? are you nearby? would you get caught up in the havoc he'd doubtlessly wreak?

the thought makes him grimace. returning his focus to the book in his hands, time seems to pass by faster as he makes his way through the pages.

even so, he deems the narrative a bit boring. in his (what's the opposite of humble?) opinion, dead mothers and nagging girlfriends don't make for the most captivating story, so his mind begins to wander once he happens upon the quote:

"so why marry me, then?" she said. i explained to her that it didn't really matter and that if she wanted to, we could get married. besides, she was the one who was doing the asking and all i was saying was yes. then she pointed out that marriage was a serious thing. i said, "no." she stopped talking for a minute and looked at me without saying anything. then she spoke. she just wanted to know if i would have accepted the same proposal from another woman, with whom I was involved in the same way. i said, "sure." then she said she wondered if she loved me, and there was no way i could know about that. after another moment's silence, she mumbled that i was peculiar, that that was probably why she loved me but that one day i might disgust her for the same reason.

sukuna thinks about you— the woman who forced her way into his solitude.

although, what if it hadn't been you? what if the brat had been involved with another woman? would he have eventually taken an interest in her too?

are you really that special, or is he just going crazy inside the cage that is itadori yuuji? the latter is much more likely, right?

he supposes he prefers the idea of madness over... feelings for some human.

all of a sudden, your apartment door seems much more inviting. would it be so bad if he were to step through it? what did he really have to lose?

yeah, that's right. he'll get up any second now and act on every horrible impulse he's been repressing. any second now... any second...

he can't quite figure out why he's unable to bring his limbs to move, weighed down by some force that's beyond him.

it's at that moment the door clicks open and for a split second, he thinks it must be his sign to go, but then you come waltzing in.

"'kuna!" you greet in an excited manner, disrupting the peaceful quiet.

kicking off your shoes haphazardly, you make your way over to him and promptly drop yourself into his lap. it elicits a bout of unwelcome clarity for the king of curses.

no, he wouldn't have taken an interest in just anyone, that much becomes obvious. it wasn't through a medium as flawed as chance that he came to... tolerate you. you're much too annoying for that to be the case.

"hello???" you wave your hand in front of his face. "i'm home."

"i can see that."

"welcome home, darling," you say in a deep voice, a poor imitation of him. "i missed you so much— that's what you're supposed to say."

yeah, definitely too annoying.

"but i didn't miss you." one of his hands comes to rest on your thigh, a betrayal of his preceding assertion.

"you're sitting alone reading—" you pause to inspect the book lying open beside him. "existential fiction about a nihilistic frenchman. of course you missed me."

he changes the topic rather swiftly. "you're drunk."

"i'm tipsy, at best." you roll your eyes. "can't i just be happy to see you?"

"you'd be the first."

"i don't mind making history."

you place a kiss on his lips, casual and affectionate in way that makes sukuna's body stiffen, and stand up.

"i need to get ready for bed, then we're gonna watch tv together because i missed you— gosh, see how easy that was?"

you run off to the bathroom and his body doesn't fully relax until he hears the shower turn on.

the thought of missing someone is a strange notion to him, because it implies eagerness and desire. for as long as he cares to remember, those emotions have been reserved for proclivities much more sinister.

so he hadn't missed you. he just would have preferred it if you stayed home. that's all.

when you return to the living room around fifteen minutes later, you're wearing one of yuuji's shirts, and as far as sukuna can tell, very little otherwise.

making yourself comfortable on the floor between his legs, you pass a hair tie behind you. "can you braid my hair?"

he's watched you get ready for bed enough times that he's fairly certain he can manage it. taking the tie from you, he still asks "why can't you do it?"

"because i'm sleepy," you frown, reaching for the tv remote.

gathering your hair in his hands and carefully dividing it into sections, he sighs. "you require so much looking after."

"you're not going to die if you can't have cookies tonight." sukuna states dryly, glancing at the clock that reads eleven o'clock.

"please don't trivialize my struggle," you begin, pulling on your jacket. "i want miso butter cookies— my grandma's secret recipe."

most of what you need can be found in the kitchen, but a trip to the store is in order for a few final ingredients.

"my mistake," he huffs, rising to his feet. "how insensitive of me."

"oh, it's alright. just don't let it happen again."

"sure. i'll keep that in mind, princess." sliding the apartment door's chain lock off the track, he does little to hide the vexation in his tone.

just as he reaches for the handle, you stop him and wrap a scarf around his neck, forcing a hoodie into his hands. "put this on. you'll be cold."

he looks at you as if you're crazy. "i don't have to worry about things as insignificant as the weather."

"well, put it on anyway," you insist.

he decides that acquiescing will be easier than arguing for the next five minutes and slips the hoodie over head. when you both step out into the chilly air of night, there are still a decent number of people traveling the streets.

stopping at a crosswalk the next block over, you begin to prattle on about what you need to pick up and the different steps in your recipe. naturally, you completely miss it when the pedestrian sign turns green.

"come on," sukuna commands, his hand wrapping around your wrist and tugging you along with him. "i don't have all night."

you scoff. "to be fair, i didn't say you had to come with me."

"yeah well it's late. you shouldn't be out alone." there's a hint of exasperation in his voice, like he truly had no choice in the matter.

despite that, once you reach the other side of the street, his fingers slide down your palm and thread through yours.

you glance over at him and find he's looking off to the side, so you bite your lip to suppress your pleased smile. is he avoiding your gaze intentionally? you decide that bashfulness suits him better than you would have expected.

offering him a light squeeze of the hand, you hope it conveys your appreciation of his small display of affection.

"so, are you going to help me make the cookies?"

his lips press into a thin line. "as thrilling as that seems, i don't particularly have a penchant for baking."

"you think you'd humor me a little! you know, since i'm your only friend and all."

"if anyone else asked me such a ridiculous question, they wouldn't live to see tomorrow." you ponder whether he's joking and quickly decide that he isn't. "this is me humoring you."

"you're so mean to me."

"hardly."

"fine," you pout. "then you can't have any!"

"now, hold on." the threat does make him hesitate. you've come to learn that if there's one thing he loves as much as reading, it's food. "let's not be hasty."

you're approaching the store, the sliding doors just a few strides away.

"it's only fair! besides, you're not going to die if you can't have cookies," you throw his earlier words in his face.

he exhales deeply. "have i ever told you how irritating you are?"

"woah! now you're definitely not getting any, mister!"

"alright, alright," he groans as you step inside. "i'll help you bake your stupid cookies."

"perfect!" you exclaim as if you knew he'd give in eventually (you did). "then you can start by finding the miso paste while i get everything else!"

you scamper off before he can tell you not to order him around like some common servant. he's never even been grocery shopping, how the hell is he supposed to find anything in here?

wandering the aisles, he stews over how domestic this is. for god's sake— the king of curses, shopping for ingredients and making baked goods. what have you reduced him to?

just as he considers giving up, he spots the item he's looking for and grabs it so aggressively that it knocks a few packets of instant miso soup to the floor. wrinkling his nose in distaste for the entire experience, he sets off looking for you, though his efforts are to no avail.

he wonders where the hell you could have gone off to when a flickering light catches his eye, filling him with a strange sort of unease.

it's emanating from a narrow hallway tucked away in the back corner of the store. at the very edge of the hall, a phone with a familiar case is lying on the floor, the screen shattered.

his blood runs cold, a sensation that is fully unknown to him, and the miso paste slips from his fingers. he appears in the hallway the very next second and the sight that greets him ignites a furious hostility in the center of his being— heavy and consuming.

you're struggling against one man as he drags you out of the backdoor and into an alley. another man is holding the door open, urging his partner to hurry up.

the hand over your mouth keeps you from yelling, but you're unsure you would have been able to make a sound regardless.

one second you're cast into darkness, and the next, the light seems blinding. the flashing is unceasing and it makes your head hurt.

two limbs are wrapped around your torso, keeping you firmly in place, and your arms are trapped at your sides. you might be kicking your legs, but they may just be dragging along too. you really can't be sure.

there's a thrum of a heartbeat at your back. it's pace is unforgiving, the intensity mirroring that of your own. you've a vague concern that your heart may very well beat right out of your chest.

then there's an abrupt shift in the air and a sickening crack echoes through out the night. crumpling onto the concrete, you think it must have started raining before you realize that the droplets on your face are warm.

you wipe at your cheek and your fingers stain crimson, the color matching that of an increasingly large puddle seeping across the pavement beside you.

there's a heap lying a few feet away and you recognize that it's wearing clothes. it's a sight you struggle to make sense of.

needing to focus on something else, your eyes find sukuna and the expression he's wearing is fierce and unreserved. "tell me what you wanted with her."

you've never heard him speak in such a way. his tone is low, his cadence nothing short of threatening.

"s-s'kuna?" your own voice sounds foreign to you and it goes unheard by him.

he has your attacker pressed against the brick wall of the alley, both hands wrapped around his throat. he's too livid to realize the pressure on his windpipe is preventing him from answering.

sukuna throws him to the other side of the alleyway out of frustration, the man rolling onto his back and wheezing to appease his lungs.

"tell me!" sukuna commands again, louder this time. less collected.

the man scrambles away from his looming figure. "th-they sent us, told us they needed her for an important matter."

"who?"

"they'll kill me if i tell you—"

sukuna crouches down, laughing dryly. "and what do you suppose i'm going to do?"

his eyes are almost unrecognizable to you. they're frenzied— a few shades deeper than the scarlet you've grown so fond of.

"you'll k-kill me either way, so at least i'll die with honor—"

"tch. useless." sukuna waves his hand, and you can hardly comprehend what happens right in front of you.

neat red lines appear across the man's body, then it ruptures into nothing at all. the only evidence that he was ever there in the first place is his blood.

the stench of which is perhaps the worst part— intense, coppery, and hot. it makes your eyes water, and before you know it, you're hunched over and emptying the contents of your stomach onto the ground.

sukuna is at your side in an instant, pulling your hair away from your face, but while one of your hands is braced against the concrete, the other endeavors to push him away.

his body doesn't budge at the contact, but he takes a step back anyway in an attempt to respect your wishes.

your mind is a mess filled with racing thoughts— what the fuck? this cannot be happening. what the hell even happened in this first place? that man was there and then he wasn't.

inhaling sharply, you wipe at your mouth and shift to pull your knees to your chest.

"what..." you trail off, surveying the unutterable, incomprehensible scene before you. "what did you do?"

he doesn't respond, though his features noticeably soften. somewhere in the back of your mind, you know very well what he did, but you can't help repeating. "what did you do?"

"we need to leave." it's not that sukuna couldn't handle whoever might show up, but seeing as this is your reaction, he has no desire to. "if you let me touch you, i can take us home."

you take a moment to think about it, then nod wordlessly. as soon as his hand falls on your shoulder, you're met with that same sensation you felt the night gojo teleported you and yuuji home after one too many drinks.

though this time, the sick feeling in your stomach isn't caused by liquor. you don't stand up, you don't so much as move a muscle when you feel the surface beneath you shift from concrete to carpet.

sukuna breathes out your name, his uncertainty evidenced by the way he's shoved his hands into his pockets. meeting his eye, you reiterate the same inquiry once more. "what did you do?"

it's almost as if you want him to tell you that he didn't do anything. that the whole experience was some disturbing nightmare.

"those men would have hurt you."

"that doesn't mean they deserved to die." you choke on the final word.

"yes— it does."

with that, silence hangs in the air like a suffocating miasma.

looking to your hands, you're reminded of the blood you've been spattered with. "i need to wash up."

you still don't move from your spot, too fixated on your flesh and the dreadful hue that it's been painted with. sukuna notices now that you're trembling.

he approaches you hesitantly before extending his hand. "let me help you."

you decline his offer, shying away from him. "i think you've done enough already."

god, the look in your eye is utterly despondent. he struggles to swallow the lump that forms in his throat.

his arm falls limply to his side and he looks across the room, your copy of the stranger earning his attention.

he's overcome with chagrin when he realizes that his concern brought about by camus' quote the other night was wholly misguided. he'd been focused on his own feelings, whether they were genuine or simply wrought by his isolation.

how foolish was he to ever question what you truly mean to him? with the anguish that's settled in his chest at the sight of your current state, the fact he ever doubted it makes him feel like a hopeless idiot.

had he any sense at all, the part that resonated with him would have been—

she mumbled that i was peculiar, that that was probably why she loved me but that one day i might disgust her for the same reason.

disgust. is that what you're feeling now? he's certain it is.

it was just last week that he relayed the story of his past. you're the only person alive to know the truth of how his wickedness came to be, and you met him with unconditional sympathy and understanding.

you pulled him close and embraced him, but now that you've seen him for what he truly is...? you can barely stand to touch him and it's like a knife to his heart.

you're so fucking warm— like the sun against his skin after weeks of endless rain.

and if you're the sun, surely he is the moon— cold and barren on his own, but brilliant when in the presence of your light.

to be without that? to be without you? it's a prospect too terrible for him to bear. it makes his stomach twist miserably.

you're startled (as is he) when his form falls to the floor, his knees meeting the carpet with a dull thud. he calls out your name again, but this time, his voice cracks as he speaks. "please."

he doesn't have a clue what he's even asking for. a chance to explain? forgiveness? a way to turn back time?

you don't say anything, but you do shift your gaze to him. he knows that he needs to fix this, so he wracks his mind for the right words.

"i didn't enjoy killing those men." he's somewhat surprised to find he's telling the truth.

"you didn't?" your voice is so small and timid that he can hardly decipher your words.

"no. my only concern was to keep you safe— to make sure they never put their hands on you ever again. all i felt was rage and... and... guilt. i should have never left you alone and it's my fault—"

"stop," you interrupt him.

there are tears welling in your eyes, making it difficult for sukuna to breathe. he's positive you're going to tell him that his intentions were of little consequence and that you never want to see him ever again.

instead, you push yourself forward and collapse against his body, your own wracked with violent sobs. the reality of the situation is only just now hitting you. it'd been much easier to focus on what sukuna had done, rather than what almost happened to you.

"i was so scared, 'kuna."

and still, despite the way you're clinging to his shirt and burying your face in chest, he's under the impression that it's him you were afraid of.

"i'm sorry," he tells you earnestly. "i never meant to frighten you."

"n-not of you. those men." you're struggling to speak in between desperate gasps. "why did they do that? what did they want with me?"

"i don't know." though, he is going to find out.

sukuna is not a man well versed in comfort, so he's not entirely sure why he begins rocking you back and forth, but he does it anyway.

when you finally start to breathe a little easier, he mumbles into your hair, "come on. let's get you cleaned up."

he doesn't give you a chance to respond before he scoops you up in his arms and carries you to the bathroom. setting you down on the counter gently, he searches the linen closet for a cloth.

it's quiet, save for your intermittent sniffling, as he runs it under warm water and wrings it out. his free hand moves to rest against the side of your neck and he dabs at the blood on your face, rinsing the washcloth every now and then.

he tries his best not to show it, but sukuna is agonizing over what might be going through your mind.

do you still feel safe with him? have your feelings changed? do you still love him, even when you've been so harshly reminded what he's capable of?

when you speak for the first time your words are hoarse, barely above a whisper. "thank you for saving me, sukuna."

he thinks about telling you not to thank him, not when it shouldn't have happened in the first place. he left your side, an error in judgement he'll never forgive himself for.

he considers your mortality— your weakness— in relation to his feelings for you. he's always seen this exceptionally human quality as despicable.

but now? all it does is terrify him.

"in the past, i was only concerned with my own whims and desires." his hand moves to cradle your face, his thumb running over your cheekbone. "though after tonight... you have to know..."

it's clear that he's struggling. his eyebrows draw together and his mouth twitches as he ponders his next words.

"i care about you, angel." his voice is hushed when he adds, "very much."

your eyes widen briefly and you murmur his name, but your mind is still reeling from the events of the past twenty minutes and you can't think of anything more to say. you're emotionally exhausted in a way you would have never thought possible.

it's plain to him too, so he knows his next question is selfish, but he can't go on without knowing. "does what you saw tonight change things between us?"

the silence preceding your answer seems to stretch on forever.

"i thought it would," you confess eventually. it was as if you'd put up a wall in your mind separating sukuna the king of curses from sukuna the man you spend your evenings with.

and it's difficult to reconcile the fact that the hands you saw used to murder two men are the same hands that are caressing your face so delicately.

at some point, however, you realized that the only time you felt fear tonight was when you were without him. his arrival and ensuing actions inspired shock and apprehension, though in some twisted way, you knew it meant you were safe. "but it doesn't."

the next question tumbles from your lips thoughtlessly. "does that make me a bad person?"

he chuckles and some of the tension in the room dissipates. "i think i'm the last one on earth that can pass moral judgement on you."

he tucks your hair behind your ear and scans your face, relief coursing through his body when he sees you smile. in this moment, there isn't anything else in the world he would have asked for.

"i guess you're right."

and now, the hand over your mouth is your own, an attempt to stifle your tired giggles. the light of the bathroom is warm and steady. sukuna's hands rest atop your hips, his touch firm but comforting. while you can't feel your own heartbeat, you're positive it must be beating in time with his.

when you crawl into bed that night sukuna pulls you close, your back pressed to his bare chest. you're thankful for the softness of his demeanor, because you need it tonight more than ever.

he doesn't recede to his domain until yuuji wakes up the following morning. he's determined to keep an eye on you as you sleep, to watch the slow rise and fall of your chest with newfound gratitude.

he knows he needs to speak with the brat about what happened. someone is after you and while he hates to admit it, he knows he can't ensure your safety alone.

and he will keep you safe, no matter the cost.

taglist: @96jnie @ay0nha @sad-darksoul @bbysatoruuu @luciiferian @risuola @lirasmoon @disaster-rose @archivist-ghoul606 @creative1writings @sloppyzengarden @omismicrowave @cecesharktales @tanyeonn @hiqhkey @ruixrei @yellowsubiesdance @thefallofruins @anything-and-everything-here69 @emzalot @elusivemoon @annoyingstrawberryballoon @miabiar @hyeon-yi @iluv-ace @thepup356 @browneyedgirl22 @lantsovheiress // users in bold could not be tagged. if i forgot to tag anyone, my apologies!! just give me a heads up.

[slackerlifewhere]

random thought #1

You know...I had a sudden realization as I'm starting to re-read the novel so I can catch up to the second part (I'm getting really impatient and I just want to read more of their chaos).

Despite how easy he makes it seems, Cale's natural charisma is one of the reasons why a lot of people are quick to trust him.

Like imagine meeting all these distrustful characters (Molan father and son, Choi Han, the kids, Alberu, the dragons) and have them trust, follow, and care for you for the whole story? And he also handles them like it's a piece of cake? He's "scared" but he sometimes lets them get away with doing stuff like a tired old man. Like I know it's a thing that his friends and family are so done with him being a chaotic little shit who faints every few minutes but imagine being in his shoes and dealing with all these dangerous and equally chaotic little shits.

That's basically impossible. It's extremely hard to do the same thing he did. If it were another person, they won't even last a minute with them. They'll probably experience different kinds of trauma or death or worse.

And this guy is completely oblivious to it.

I mean, if you know his past as Kim Rok Soo, it makes a lot of sense but even then, I don't think he was in the right headspace to notice his charisma in his previous world. He's so in denial about himself even in this new world though and I honestly understand why some nobles were so scared of him. Sand Ailan was right. He's like a king.

At this point, I don't know who's babysitting who, especially if you remember the mess Choi Han and Mary did when he was away. Or when Rosalyn did something explosive. Or the kids. Or Ron. I guess it's because he's so extra in the way he does things that it kind of hides how crazy the rest of the characters are.

At best, Alberu, Beacrox, Bud, and Lock are the "normal" ones in the group if you can even call anyone "normal" in this story. You can't change my mind. Even Eruhaben doesn't count. He's also a little shit from time to time and he's proud of it.

[nkjemisin]

Hello NK Jemisin! I'm a huge fan of yours, and I wanted to thank you for writing all of the books you've written, and doing all that you do. You're really awesome and you are doing important work! :) I had a long question, if you have time to answer! What's your commentary on creating fantasy cultures, using real ones as inspiration? You've done this before in your stories, and I wanted to know if you had any guidance on doing it well. I'm writing my first novel right now (fantasy!) and am dealing with a surprising amount of guilt regarding using real cultures as a basis for my fake ones. On one hand, I want to create a really unique fantasy world, not the bog-standard European stuff. It's not only more interesting to me, but I also admittedly want to use my story to help introduce people to concepts that might be helpful in the real world, help readers understand what these real people go through and perhaps inspire change. On the OTHER hand, I don't know if it's 'my place' to do so (I'm Black btw, but I'm not just writing about Black-coded fantasy characters). And I'm worried about representing people in a harmful way, even if it's by accident. I'm even hung up about names! Should I use names from real languages related to the cultures I'm inspired by, or should I just make them up to emphasize that, while yes these people are clearly inspired by real cultures, they are ultimately *their own* thing. I'm really conflicted on this and am hoping you can offer some feedback and/or commentary. Sorry for the long ask. Either way, have a great day and I look forward to whatever work you do next!

If I can rephrase what you're saying here, it sounds like you're concerned about cultural appropriation -- specifically, which cultures you get to "borrow from" and "remix," how much remixing you can do before you've done damage, how to depict people from cultural backgrounds other than your own, etc.

If that's what you're asking, then there are whole schools of thought on how to "appropriate appropriately." A lot of thinking on this has evolved in the past few years, for good and for ill; Own Voices, for example. (The short version: the Own Voices hashtag movement started as a grassroots attempt to get marginalized voices telling the stories of their own cultures, because there's been a nasty trend of only white/Western/Anglophone/etc. authors publishing books about those cultures. The problem? Some publishers and readers started acting as if marginalized writers weren't allowed to do anything but stories in their own cultures -- a restriction, instead of an inclusion/correction. Worse, publishers, etc started using it as a marketing shorthand, in ways that were just... not good. They made it weird, basically.) But I'm still fond of the approach that's in Writing the Other, by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward. It's centered on ethnicity/race, but a lot of its approach can be extrapolated to culture. There's too much good stuff in this book to summarize it easily, but you should read it instead of a summary anyway -- it's short.

I don't see the point of guilt, when it comes to something like this. Guilt is what you feel when you've done something wrong, and admiring another culture enough to want to tell a story featuring it isn't wrong. However, there are things you need to do -- research, conversations, considerations of power dynamics -- to reduce the harm you might end up doing by telling that story as an outsider. And note that no matter what you do, though, you might still end up doing harm. (Even people writing about their own culture can end up doing that.) If you fuck up, apologize, figure out what went wrong, and try to do better next time. That's really all you can do.

And then write whatever the hell you want. There's a persistent pressure on Black writers to only cover certain subjects, certain settings; nah. We get to have range, too. You've just got to put in the work to do it well.

Good luck.

[directdogman]

Hi, I hope you're having a decent day! I'm sorry if this is an invasive set of questions - feel free not to answer - but do you still actively like DSaF as your own creation, or is it more of a "it was fun while it lasted but i outgrew it and it's for the best to leave it behind" kind of project? Do you ever regret making the games? If you knew they would get so popular, is there anything you would have changed about them? Is there anywhere I could read more of your writing.

It fluctuates a bit. These last couple of years, I've really just been sorta nostalgic for it. I've seen a lot of people discuss those games being a source of comfort during bad times in their lives, people talking about how much the characters mean to them and it's hard not to smile when you see that.

It's a funny thing for close friends of yours to see people WITH fanmade DSaF merch out in the wild, or to watch a random youtube video and being hit with a DSaF reference outta nowhere. It happens from time to time, even today. On a few occasions, I've even had a person reference my work to me in real life and not realize who they were talking to, believe it or not. It's really fun to play dumb and get someone to explain your work to you like you don't know what it is.

I certainly didn't think any of that would happen when I first made the series, or even during development. I think the normal assumption would be to look at DSaF as it exists now and assume its release was a peak for it, but believe it or not, the official discord only had 30 people in it shortly before 3 dropped! The archive listing of the series (reposted to a single page after the series ended) is now sitting at over 1.1 MILLION downloads.

People kinda assume the true heyday of something is when it's new, when it's fresh and novel. For instance, some people look back at when FNaF itself was new and see that time as its peak because it had a lot of internet cultural relevance as big new indie thing on the block. But, raw numbers don't lie. The series has been continually growing since its conception and that growth has similarly bled over to its fan projects. This explains why DSaF, despite not having a new series release in almost 6 years, seems to be inexplicably growing.

Just recently, I saw someone post footage of a scene from DSaF 2 on Twitter, which got over 16k likes. People praised its writing and largely celebrated the scene. The ironic thing about that particular scene is that I remembered being unsure if it was good or not, so I showed it off in one of the FNaF community hubs. The response was broadly lukewarm to negative. Now, it's held up as one of the best scenes in those games. That's kind of the point I'm trying to make, my thoughts on the series have certainly changed with everyone's else with years of hindsight.

Heh. I'm not sure if I've talked about this in a long time, but y'know, the very first scene I implemented in-game was actually the very first Phone Guy scene in DSaF 1, more or less exactly how it appears in-game today. This was before I'd even written the bulk of the game. I was pretty unfamiliar with visual novels as a whole, pretty unsure if something like this would be palatable to a fandom that was really just used to sit 'n' survive stuff that were far more gameplay than text. I mean, there wasn't any FNaF fangames really LIKE DSaF before that point. Closest was FNaFb, a jokey turn based RPG made in the same engine.

The engine I made the game in is also not exactly fit for VNs out of the box either, and I wasn't 100% sure the idea would actually work. But, the very first time I added the image of the prize corner, Phone Guy, the audio of that iconic cheesy stock track and booted up a test screen, I had a little moment where I said "Oh. I think I'm onto something interesting here." I kinda remembering instantly realizing in that single moment how much potential the idea had. Over 8 years later, I still remember that moment like it was yesterday.

I think lately, that's the sort of stuff I think of when I see people coming to me and asking about the series. Yes, it's really rough around the edges, yes, there's jokes that've aged poorly. But, it is a source of comfort for people and entertains tens of thousands of people each month. And that's gotta count for something, right?

[krirebr]

More Than This 5

Pairing: Ransom Drysdale x f!reader, Steve Rogers & f!reader

Word Count: ~6.1k

Summary: Arranged marriages have always been used to solidify business deals among the ultra-wealthy. Your stepfather wants to be in business with Harlan Thrombey, so now it's your turn.

Warnings: Heavy angst, age difference, adult themes, institutional sexism, Linda being Linda, all of the Thrombeys being really awful actually, explicit language, references to bad sex, flagrant disregard for HIPAA (actually, just assume that HIPAA doesn't exist in this universe), the slooowest burn - Warnings will be added as needed for subsequent parts. All of my work is 18+ - Minors DNI

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

Series Masterlist

Masterlist

A/N: Oh god. I promise that there will be a point when this isn't so sad all the time and that point is soon. But it also isn't today. I'm so sorry. 😬

Huge thanks as always to @paperweight91 who listened to me whine and read countless fuzzy screenshots, and gave great advice and was just all around awesome. And to @stargazingfangirl18 who reached out with encouragement when the words just weren't coming.

Any comment, reblog, or ask to let me know what you think will be greatly appreciated. And if you need to come scream at me, that's ok too!

As always, thank you so much for reading! 💜

Ransom had the complete collection of Harlan’s books. You couldn’t say exactly why that surprised you, but it did. He even had the two poorly-received romance novels Harlan had written under a pseudonym. You hadn’t known the two of them were so close, but then again, you still didn’t really know anything about Ransom.

So that’s what you’d been doing with your days, making your way through Harlan’s complete works. You were currently reading one about an au pair that had been found dead in her charge’s locked nursery when your phone rang. 

Your brow furrowed. The list of people who ever contacted you had gotten much shorter since you’d moved to Boston. Steve, Ransom, Linda unfortunately. That was pretty much it. You looked down at your phone to see your mother’s name. Oh.

You’d expected her to reach out in some way since your wedding and had tried very hard not to feel hurt when she hadn’t. Everyone’s lives had moved on. You were the only one stuck. But you still hadn’t had it in you to be the one who called her. You took a deep breath and answered your phone.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Honey! How are you?”

You kept in your sigh. “I’m fine. How are you?”

“Good, good,” she said, but she sounded sad. She always sounded so fucking sad. It struck you then, that that’s probably how you’d sound too, in ten or twenty years. Maybe less. Probably a lot less. “It’s so nice to hear your voice honey.”

“Yeah,” you said, and, pathetically, you could feel the tears starting to gather in your eyes. You weren’t angry with her. You couldn’t be. It wasn’t her fault she was so broken. It was inevitable. For all of you. And your frustration with her didn’t change how much you missed her. Missed home. Missed the way things used to be. “It’s good to hear you too.”

“I know it’s been a while,” she said softly, “but I wanted to give you a chance to get settled. How are things going?”

“They’re going fine,” you said quietly. You paused. You didn’t want to say anything bad or worry anyone, but also it was your mom. “I don’t know. It’s different here. I don’t have anything to do.” 

She just chuckled. “Cherish that. It’ll change soon and then you’ll miss this time.” You didn’t know what to say to that so you didn’t say anything. After a few moments of silence, she continued. “And how’s Ransom?”

You stifled a groan. You didn’t want to talk about him. Things had been… better since your panic attack. He came home at a decent hour regularly. You fucked most nights now. But he was still just this looming presence. You didn’t know what to do with him. “He’s fine,” you said with a shrug.

That was apparently the wrong answer, judging by the little hum she made. “I know it’s hard at the beginning. When I first married your father–” she cut herself off with a deep breath. “Remember, honey, keeping him happy is your one job now. It’ll get easier the longer you do it.”

A few tears finally broke free and fell down your cheeks. “I don’t– I don’t know him. I don’t know what makes him happy.”

“Then finding out will be a good use of your free time, won’t it?” You glanced at the book beside you, feeling shamed in spite of yourself. “I know it feels so hard, but men are shockingly easy. They just want to be taken care of. That’s all you have to do. Make him dinner. Keep his home warm. Give him heirs. Don’t argue. That’s all. You’re going to be such a good wife to him, sweetheart. I know you can do it.”

You shrunk down into the couch, wrapping your arms around your knees, making yourself as small as possible. You hated this. Hated that she didn’t want more for you. That she’d never tried to give you more. But you were tired, too, of being upset with her for not doing the impossible. What else was she supposed to have done? What else could she give you when she didn’t have anything herself? “Ok,” you whispered. It was all you could manage.

“Joseph says hello, of course,” she said, and you wanted to laugh. He’d done no such thing. “He’s so proud that you’ve made such a good match. He’ll be happy to hear it’s going well.”

“Mmm,” was all you were able to say. You hated this. You couldn’t do it anymore. “It’s so good to hear from you, mom. But uh, I have to– I have to go.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding disappointed. “Well, alright. I miss you so much, sweetheart. We’ll talk again soon. I love you.”

You could barely hold the tears back now. “I love you too,” you said, your voice thick. “Bye.” The moment you hung up the phone, the damn broke. You couldn’t stop it. You cried for your mom. You cried for yourself. You cried for the way everything had changed and there was no going back. You cried because this was a day when it felt like no one on earth was on your side. A shaking Lola forced her way into your lap and you held her until you were able to calm down.

Once you’d stopped crying, you looked around. You couldn’t sit still, your mother’s words ringing in your ears. Your eyes locked on the kitchen. That was something you could do. You glanced at the time. If Ransom came home at his new regular time, it would be tight, but you could do it if you made something simple. But not too simple. Something that showed effort. That you were trying. 

You got up and looked in the fridge. All those tidy little glass containers full of meals his housekeeper, Carol, made. You’d never felt like they were taunting you before, but now. Now you wanted to smash them. You could do this. You could make him like you. Show him what you were worth. You could make yourself a life better than your mother’s, maybe. Get him on your side.

There weren’t a ton of raw ingredients, but after combing through the entire contents of the fridge and pantry, you found what you’d need for a decent spaghetti. Carol was probably planning it for later in the week. Well, now she wouldn’t have to. You’d do it yourself.

You put some music on and got to work. Losing yourself in the prep. But you’d lost yourself too much maybe, because you were still chopping when Ransom walked in the door. 

Lola, of course, rushed to greet him. It still rankled. She didn’t realize that one wrong move would have him kicking her out. His words from that first dinner had never left your mind. But a few days ago, he’d started reaching down to pet her as she danced around him. You didn’t know what either of them were playing at.

He looked at you, now trying to hurry through the rest of your prep, his brow furrowed. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m making dinner,” you said, gesturing to all your work obviously. You looked at the time. You weren’t slow. He was early. Why the fuck was he early? He was ruining all your plans.

“Why?” he asked as he took off his coat, then shoes. “Carol’s put plenty of meals in the fridge.”

“Because I wanted to!” You said, your knife coming down on the onion under your hand too hard.

The knife hitting the cutting board caught his attention. He looked at what you were doing. “I don’t like onions.”

You threw down the knife more carelessly than you should have. It slid across the cutting board before coming to a stop at the edge of the counter. “Then why were they in the pantry?!”

“How should I know?!” he shouted back, matching your tone. But then he looked at you and stopped. “Have you been crying? What happened?”

You froze. Shit. You hadn’t even thought to check what you looked like. You swiped at your face and turned away. “It’s the onions. Obviously.”

“Your face– that looks like more than onions.” He now stood at the edge of the kitchen, only the island between you.

“I’m fine!” you snapped, then forced yourself to take a breath. “My mom called,” you conceded. “It’s fine.”

“Oh,” was all he said for a moment and then, “You and your parents are close then?”

You couldn’t explain why the question irritated you so much. Maybe it was the assumption of homesickness. Or referring to Joseph as your parent. Or just him being here earlier than he was supposed to be, asking you anything. You couldn’t keep the shortness out of your voice when you responded, “My mom. Sometimes.” 

You looked around at your progress, the mess you’d made, the onions he didn’t want. So much for keeping him happy. What a stupid idea. You felt done. Over everything. You began cleaning up all the food, scooping it into the garbage.

“What are you doing?”

“I changed my mind! You don’t want any of this anyway. Have one of Carol’s fucking dinners.”

“The fuck is going on with you?!” he shouted as he watched you clean up the kitchen.

“I changed my mind,” you repeated, throwing the cutting board into the sink. “I’m not hungry. I’m going upstairs.” You stomped over to the staircase.

“You’re not going to eat anything?” he called after you.

“No! I’m fine!” You shouted as you took the first few stairs.

“Yeah, you sure seem fucking fine,” he grumbled as he headed to the fridge. 

You stopped and glared at him. “Wake me if I’m asleep when you come up. I’m ovulating, so. Tonight’s important.”

He let out a humorless chuckle. “Yeah,” he said, flatly. “I got your text.” That was news to you. He'd never responded to it. As you turned to continue up the stairs, you heard him add under his breath, “Although I’m not sure why you feel like you need to be awake for it.”

You stopped and turned around, coming back down a step. “What was that?!”

He turned to you, one of Carol’s glass containers in his hand, and sighed. “Nothing. I’ve had a long day.” You just stared at each other and then he added, “Aren’t you tired of it being such a chore?”

Something crumpled in you at that, but you didn’t want to stop and look at what it was. “Well,” you said. “The sooner I’m pregnant, the sooner it won’t be.” Then you turned and stomped the rest of the way upstairs. 

When he woke you later that night, he was already ready to go. You didn’t even take off your pajamas, just slid your shorts down to your calves. He was right. It was a chore.

It was a few days later when he texted you in the middle of the day. You were hiding in the bedroom while Carol cleaned downstairs. She was still mad that you’d wasted the spaghetti ingredients. You were reading in bed with Lola when your phone buzzed beside you.

Big family thing at Harlan’s on Saturday. We’ll be expected.

For some reason, it was the ‘we’ that caught you. It was the first time you’d realized you were a package deal now. If Ransom was invited somewhere, you would accompany him. And vice versa if you were ever invited anywhere. You couldn’t imagine it, with how small your world had gotten. 

The rest of his message caught up with you. His family. Linda had reached out multiple times since her awful visit. Every time you spoke to her, you got so small. You worried that prolonged exposure to her might cause you to completely disappear.

Aside from his parents, you’d barely interacted with the rest of his family at the wedding. It would be fine. You would be fine. You’d have to be. They were your family now too. You’d be seeing so much of them. For the rest of your life. You ignored how much your chest tightened at that thought.

Saturday came too soon.

Ransom paced around the bedroom while you both got ready. You’d never seen him like this before. He wasn’t dressed. He just kept walking in and out of his closet. And looking at you. You didn’t know if you were doing something wrong. He didn’t say anything, he just couldn’t keep still. The one time you’d asked if he was alright, he’d barked back at you that he was fine, so you hadn’t asked again. 

Watching him pace around was making you even more anxious than you already were. So you focused all you could on getting yourself ready. You’d asked Ransom earlier if his family dressed for dinner and he’d just grunted in response. But it felt like a no, so you wore one of your favorite day dresses. It was your favorite color. You hoped it would give you confidence. You did your hair. You put diamond studs in your ears, with a matching tennis bracelet on your wrist. Reasonable heels on your feet. A spritz of perfume on your pulse points. It was the best you could do without more information.

You stood in the middle of the bedroom once you were done. Ransom was still undressed, still moving. “Uh,” you ventured, hesitantly, glancing at the clock on his bedside table. “Will we have enough time to get there?”

“Who gives a shit?” he growled, thundering back into his closet. A few moments later he came back out, wearing dress slacks and a cream cable-knit sweater. There were holes in it. You could see them clearly from the other side of the room. 

“Ransom,” you said softly, oddly feeling like you were speaking to a spooked animal, “don’t you think that sweater’s a little worn?”

“It doesn’t fucking matter,” he rasped. “Let’s go.” Then he was out of the room and halfway down the stairs, with you scrambling to keep up behind him. 

The drive to Harlan’s country estate was mostly silent. You’d tried to turn on the radio at one point, but Ransom just turned it right back off. He gripped the steering wheel so tightly, his hands were bright red. You wondered if he was hurting himself. You didn’t know why he was so stressed. You were the one about to walk into the lion’s den, the one who had no idea what was waiting for you. It was his family. He’d be fine. You had no idea if you would be. You rested your hands in your lap, clutching them, and settled into the silence.

You knew that Harlan lived quite a ways out of town, but you still got to his home much too quickly. The large mansion loomed over you as Ransom parked his car amongst the others in the drive. He turned off the ignition and then just sat there, staring ahead. Just as you were about to call his name, he slapped the steering wheel harshly with one hand then growled “Let’s go!” to you and got out of the car. Once again, you scrambled after him, but this time, he slowed, slightly, to let you catch up. Once you had, he put a firm hand on the small of your back and ushered you up the path and into the house. You didn’t have time to react to that or try to figure out what on earth he was doing before you were greeted by a woman Ransom snidely called Franny. She responded with a very curt “Hugh” of her own then introduced herself to you as the housekeeper. She took your coats, and then Ransom’s hand was back on you, guiding you into a sitting room.

The entire family was already there, most with drinks in hand, and they all turned to watch you enter. You felt pinned by their gazes. “Well!” Ransom’s uncle Walt called out. “Look who finally decided to show. And just in time for the food, of course!” 

Ransom stiffened slightly beside you then smirked. “Well, thank god we’re in time for your fifth drink, Walt. Who’d want to miss that?”

Walt scowled as he got up from his seat, then lumbered across the room, knocking his shoulder into Ransom’s as he passed and jostling you in the process. You started to sway a little, and Ransom’s hand immediately came to your hip to try to steady you. Your gaze flitted down to it, but just as quickly it was gone.

Everyone else began to get up and make their way out of the room. Meg, at least, gave you a small smile and wave, but otherwise, you were mostly ignored. That was, at least, until there were only three people left, Ransom’s parents and Harlan. 

Harlan immediately hugged you. “It’s wonderful to see you, my dear. You look so lovely.” He took a step back to look at you both. “I trust you’re taking good care of each other. This is one of the most important times in your marriage. I hope you’re cherishing it.” 

“Sure Grandad,” Ransom snarked, “we’re loving being married to a complete stranger.”

“Ah, now, you’ll only remain strangers if you let that happen.”

You saw Ransom about to open his mouth to say something else, so you jumped in with a quiet, “Thank you, Harlan, we really appreciate that.”

Harlan smiled at you, big and genuine, and then clapped Ransom on the shoulder. “See, my boy,” he said. “I knew she was exactly what you needed!” 

Ransom’s jaw ticked but he didn’t say anything. You didn’t know how to respond either. Harlan’s kindness had a way of making you feel invisible. 

Linda stepped up to you all then. “Darling,” she said, her tone dripping friendliness in a way that made you brace for impact. “I see not even your positive influence can make my son be on time. How disappointing.” She added a little chuckle onto the end, but you took it as the reprimand it was meant to be. You pasted on your most benign smile, but as always, she made you feel about a foot tall. You had no idea how anyone thought you were supposed to make this man do anything. Like he cared about what you thought or wanted. Like you had any power at all. 

“Is that why you married me off, mother?” Ransom asked, matching her friendly tone, but when you looked up at him, his eyes were hard. ��So there’d be someone to handle me?”

“Well,” she said, a placid smile on her face to match your own, “someone has to. Lord knows you haven’t listened to me in years.”

“And yet,” Ransom said, his tone dropping all friendliness, “you still got me here, didn’t you?” 

The look on his face startled you. You’d never seen him this angry. Without thinking, you reached out and wrapped your fingers around his wrist. At your touch, his eyes snapped to yours. You weren’t sure exactly what he found there, you felt lost enough that you couldn’t imagine your expression was much help, but after staring at you for what felt like an age, he gave you the smallest nod and relaxed his posture. 

“We don’t want dinner to get cold,” Harlan called from the doorway.

Linda straightened, finally ending the standoff with her son. “Yes, of course,” she said. Then she looked at you, really looked, her eyes traveling up and down your body, taking in all of you and everything you were wearing. She quirked her eyebrow at you and let out a distinctly judgemental little hum. Then that friendly smile was back and she turned away from you. “Oh, Dad, there was actually something I wanted to talk to you about,” she said as they both left the room.

You stared after her. You didn’t know what you’d done wrong. You’d looked at everyone when you’d arrived and confirmed that you weren’t under or overdressed. She herself was wearing a simple but smart pantsuit. Your clothes were nice, clean, and pressed. You were put together. What could her problem possibly be? You tried to breathe but you could still feel her looking at you and your chest was so tight.

You were brought back to the present by Richard wrapping you in a hug. His lips brushed your cheek as he said, “So nice to see you again, honey.” Then one of his hands on your back traveled lower until it grazed the top of your ass. You couldn’t help the way you jumped.

“Are you fucking kidding me, Dad?” Ransom shouted next to you. “I’m standing right here!”

Richard pulled away and you took a deep breath at being free of him. What the hell had just happened?

“What?” Richard rounded on his son. “I can’t greet my daughter-in-law? You’re so sensitive, Ransom. A little attention is flattering, isn’t it, honey?” 

They were both staring at you. You knew you needed to say something but all you could do in your shock was gape at them. 

Ransom wrapped one arm around your waist to pull you close to him. “You’re a fucking creep,” he growled.

Richard just scowled and made his way to the hall. “Disrepectful little shit,” he muttered as he left the room.

It wasn’t until his father was completely gone that Ransom dropped his arm from around you. He looked you right in the eye, his face so serious, as he asked, “Are you ok?” And there was something in his tone, fear maybe, that startled you just as much as Richard’s hand.

“I’m fine,” you nodded, your voice shaking only the slightest bit. When he still didn’t release you from his gaze, you brushed your fingers over his arm. “I’m alright.”

Finally, he nodded but didn’t really relax. “He’s–” he began, but cut himself off. “Just, watch out for him.”

“Ok,” you said, trying to sound strong. Reassuring. Ransom still just stood there. “Are– are you alright?” 

That seemed to bring him out of wherever he’d been. “What?” he asked, somewhat sharply. “Yeah, of course. Come on,” he said, turning to the doorway. “Let’s get this shitshow over with.”

Everyone else was already seated at the large dining room table when you came in. Ransom guided you over to the two empty chairs in the middle of one side and pulled yours out for you before seating himself. The catering staff moved around the table setting down plates and pouring wine for everyone. But when the server got to you, they moved past you without pouring anything. In case you were pregnant. Of course. That was fine. You just hoped no one else noticed.

“I’m sorry,” Ransom said from beside you and your stomach dropped. “Is there a reason my wife isn’t being served wine tonight?” 

“Ransom,” you whispered, still hoping everyone would just ignore it, but it was too late.

From the other side of the table, Walt piped up liked he’d just been waiting for an opportunity. “Maybe the staff got confused and didn’t realize she’s old enough to drink.” His eyes sparkled and he grinned, proud of himself, as it took every muscle in your body not to shrink down in your seat. 

“Great catch, Walt! You’re right. She is still much younger than me. Like I said before, and I’m sure I’ll have to say again, neither of us chose this. I would’ve thought that’d be a concept you’re familiar with, seeing as how you practically begged Harlan not to make you marry Donna.”

“Ransom!” you admonished quietly. Your eyes cut to the willowy blonde sitting next to Walt, looking like a deer caught in headlights. You had no doubt that he deserved this, but you had no idea if she did. 

Ransom’s eyes cut to you. “You’re right,” he said, before looking back at his aunt and uncle. “I should be nicer to Donna. I’m sure being married to Walt is punishment enough.”

“You little shit!” Walt responded. “I’ll have you know my wife is very happy. Which I’m sure is more than you can say for yours! What’s it been, a month? Two? And she already looks completely miserable.” 

You felt all eyes turn to you again and you weren’t sure you’d ever felt more self-conscious in your life. Your entire body was on fire. You didn’t know what to do. You couldn’t say anything, so you picked up your fork and took a bite of the fish you’d just been served. It didn’t taste like anything.

From your left, Joanie spoke up. “Hey, those first few months of marriage are hard. But so rewarding. I know when Neal and I were first married–”

“Yes, Joanie,” Linda cut in, dryly. “My brother was a saint and we all miss him very much.” She turned back to her son. “There’s no need to get upset, Ransom. We just didn’t want to accidentally serve a pregnant woman alcohol. Better safe than sorry.” She picked up her own fork to begin eating. “Speaking of, if the two of you have an announcement to make, now’d be the perfect time.”

You couldn’t stop your grimace. Ransom stiffened next to you, then answered, “No. No announcement.”

“It’ll come,” Harlan finally joined in from his place at the head of the table. “There’s still plenty of time.”

From the other end of the table, a teenage boy you’d never even met before said, “Maybe not. Maybe she’s barren.” And you felt all the wind go out of you.

“Oh fuck off, you little incel shit!” Ransom shouted.

“She isn’t barren, Jacob,” Linda said, calmly. “We have all her medical records to confirm she’s perfectly fertile.”

You could’ve sworn you blacked out at the moment. You’d known, on some level, that if there was a clause in the contract, it’d come with some sort of confirmation that, at least on your side, it was even possible. But to know that they had your medical records and now were discussing them like you weren’t even here, like you just didn’t matter… You hoped the earth might open up and swallow you whole.

You felt a gentle hand land on your knee but it didn’t really register. Nothing did. You didn’t know where the conversation went from there. You couldn’t hear anything above the ringing in your ears. It was all you could do to keep breathing. But you knew they all kept sniping at each other. And you felt the anger radiating off of Ransom the entire time. 

The clinking of plates and scraping of chairs finally got you out of your stupor as the family got out of their chairs and staff started clearing the dishes. You looked over at Ransom, for help or support maybe, you didn’t really know. But he also looked like he’d gone somewhere else. He could barely meet your gaze.

You were still numb as people made their way back to the original sitting room. You just needed to make it through the rest of the evening. You could do that. Just as you had gotten to the other room, Harlan stopped Ransom with a hand on his shoulder. “I’d like a word in private with you, my boy.”

Ransom looked at you for a moment, then sighed and said softly, “I’ll be right back,” before following his grandfather deeper into the house.

And then you were alone. You were at a loss as to what to do with yourself, so you went back into the sitting room and settled on a vacant couch. Not everyone had migrated there.  There were only a few people in the room now. Jacob sat in the corner, hunched over his phone, but every once in a while he would look up, catch your eye, and smirk at you. It had you sliding further back in your seat. His mother was no help. Donna was slumped over in an armchair, still cradling half a glass of wine. Meg had already shrugged on her coat, giving a hurried wave as she moved through the room. And Richard–

Richard sat down next to you. You slid down the couch as subtly as you could. “You know,” he said, “I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to you at the wedding.”

Alarm bells went off through your whole body. You saw Ransom’s face again, from earlier. How angry, yes, but more than that ashamed and unsurprised. How he’d looked at you. How he’d asked if you were ok. How it’d felt urgent. “It was a busy day,” you gritted out, trying to think of any way to get yourself out of this room.

“Ransom is a very lucky man,” he said, inching closer, his arm draped over the back of the couch, “to have such a beautiful bride.”

“Thank you,” you chuckled uncomfortably. “That’s very sweet.” You looked around helplessly. As he opened his mouth to say something else, you stood up. “I’m going to go get myself some water. Do you need anything?” you asked, but didn’t give him a chance to answer. “No? Ok, I’ll be right back.” And then you fled.

You hurried down the hall toward the kitchen but slowed when you heard voices. You picked out Joanie first, then Linda. You slowed to a stop right outside the kitchen door, trying to weigh just how much you wanted that water. Was it worth facing them? Were they any better than Richard?

“Okay,” Joanie said, “but what do you really think about her?” Your stomach dropped. You tried to reassure yourself that they could be talking about anything, anyone. You pressed closer to the door as quietly as you could.

“I think,” Linda said, then paused while you heard the clink of glassware, “that she will serve her purpose just fine.”

Joanie laughed. “I just have a hard time picturing Ransom with such a mouse.” You closed your eyes. You should go right now. Nothing they had to say would be of any help to you. But, despite your best interests, you were rooted to the spot.

“She definitely wasn’t chosen for her personality, but Ransom understands how good this will be for the whole family. How important it is”

“Oh, of course,” Joanie simpered, and you just hated both of these women so much at that moment, maybe more than you’d ever hated anyone. “I just feel so bad for him. He must be so bored.”

“Listen, I told him that he just needs to get her pregnant, and then he can do whatever he needs to do. Once he has an heir. As long as he’s discreet, of course.”  

Joanie cackled. “You didn’t! Oh, you’re so bad!”

“He might already be behind on that one, anyway,” Linda said, and you could practically hear her smirk. But you didn’t know what she could possibly be talking about. She didn’t know you and there was no one– unless. Oh god.

“Well.” Linda continued. “You know, she and her step-brother are very close, if you know what I mean.”

“Really?” Joanie asked, fucking eagerly.

“Mhmm,” Linda hummed. “Did you not see them at the wedding? They were practically hanging all over each other. He had to be kicked out of her dressing room.”

“No! Does Ransom know?”

“Well, I haven’t told him yet. You know how he gets. I’m waiting for the right time.”

“You know what they call that on the internet, don’t you?”

Linda sighed. “You know that I don’t, Joanie.”

“Stepcest!” Joanie said gleefully.

And that was it. That was all you could do. This fucking family. How– Why? You’d never done anything. You hadn’t even chosen to be here! And they still took so much joy in cutting you down. And if Linda managed to get to Ransom and tell him… Who knows what he’d do?

You moved as quietly as you could back down the hall, swiping at the tears beginning to gather in your eyes, hoping not to call any attention to yourself, when shouts suddenly erupted from the other side of the house. As soon as you recognized one of the raised voices as Ransom’s, you began to hurry in that direction. 

You hadn’t made it very far before he came barreling out in your direction. “Get your coat,” he growled. “We’re leaving.”

You didn’t argue, more than ready to get out of there yourself. You followed him to the closet, and then once you both had your coats, out the door. The crisp night air was bracing after feeling suffocated in that house for hours. Neither of you said anything as you got into Ransom’s car.

It wasn’t until you were fully off Harlan’s property that you felt brave enough to ask, “Is everything alright?”

He glanced at you before returning his eyes to the road and letting out a humorless chuckle. “Sure,” he said.

“What– What did he want to talk to you about?”

“Just his same old bullshit,” he scoffed.

“I–” you had no idea what to say. “Is it always like that?” You felt foolish as soon as you asked. Of course, it was. You could tell.

“Oh, no,” he said, and his tone was so cold, so detached, that you couldn’t help but stare. This felt like a brand new Ransom. “Sometimes it’s really bad.”

You didn’t say anything to that. You had no idea what to do with this sudden urge to comfort him, this man who had so much power over you, this man you couldn’t even say you liked most days. Especially after what you’d just been through. So you kept your hands in your lap and stared out the window.

After a few minutes of silence, he surprised you by being the one to break it. “So. I bet your family looks like the fucking Waltons compared to that.”

You thought of dinner with your own family. Joseph crowing loudly about his successes. Your mother cowering the moment any small thing went wrong. Steve getting into screaming matches with his father. You feeling invisible, on a good day. “No,” you said, hollowly. “Not really.” He turned his head sharply to look at you and you held his gaze for just a moment before he had to look back at the road. There was one large difference though. You’d always had Steve. As far as you could tell, Ransom didn’t have anyone.

That thought led you back to what you’d heard right before you’d left and your anxiety returned. “Steve and I–” you blurted out. “He’s my brother.”

Ransom’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Uh, yeah, I am aware of that.”

You shook your head. “No, I just– I know we aren’t related biologically, but– Nothing’s ever happened between us. Not ever. He’s my brother.”

“What the fuck?!” he called out as he made a left turn more sharply than necessary. “Why would you–” he cut himself off. “Did someone say something to you?”

You ignored his question. “I just–” you said, “I just wanted you to hear it from me.”

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. Neither of you said anything else for the rest of the drive.

When you got back to his house, Ransom went straight upstairs while you let Lola out one last time before bed. When you joined him in the bedroom once that was done, he was already in bed. “Listen,” he said softly, “I know you’re probably even more anxious about this whole thing after– I just, I’m really fucking tired. Is it ok if we don’t– If we just go to bed?”

You nodded, relief flooding through you. You were just as tired and didn’t think you could deal with all that after everything else that had happened that day. You quickly went through your nighttime routine in the bathroom. When you came back out once you’d finished, you found Ransom still awake, lying on his back staring at the ceiling. Lola was curled up at his side and he absently scratched her belly. You climbed into bed and turned the lamp off, turning onto your side. You felt him move behind you, scooting closer, not enough that you were touching at all, but you could feel his body heat. It was oddly soothing. You closed your eyes and hoped sleep would come fast, ready for this day to be over.

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[heretherebeturtles-comic]

How long does the process take you to get one (or more) comic page done? I love the idea of making comics but i suck at structure, you know with the script and posting/layout. I was wondering if you had any tips or what you wish you knew before you started.?

Sorry if this had been asked before

OOOooooo a fun question for me!! I love talking about comic creation :D

I do my best to keep the full process under 2 days (or 12-14 hours of work) per fully coloured page. I'm trying to get faster, but speed comes with time and experience.

Hmmm as for tips and things I wish I knew... so many things... I should let it be known that I am an artist and not really a writer, but your questions are focused on script/planning/structure, so I'm going to focus the advice on that.

Start with something small - Learn about making comics and find a comfortable style through making a couple smaller comics and then try your passion project. Writing and planning smaller comics with fewer pages takes a different kind of puzzle solving and thought process. Smaller page limits can force you to try new things which you can then apply to larger projects to save time; limitations breed creativity after all. Every attempt made (even an unfinished project) is knowledge gained that you can apply again for future projects.

Study comics! - It's hard to create if you aren't feeding the mind and giving it things to learn and create from. Read comics made by professionals and study how they handle pacing. How many pages are they dedicating to each moment? What do you think of their pacing and what would you change? Take a sketchbook and make small rectangles and draw out the panel layout from that comic. What are they doing that works and what don't you like about it? How would you do that differently? ... I think this is me assigning homework... i am so sorry.

Set a hard page limit - Try to get your story told within that limit, and then add more pages if necessary. More pages = more time you have to spend working on it. Most standard single issue American comics are roughly 24 pages. I try to work inside that limit using a rough 5 page per scene structure.

Condense or Cut - I struggle so hard with this one, but comics aren't written in the same way as a novel is. They have a slightly different plot structure and a much more limited amount of pages to tell the story in. Obviously it depends on the story being told, and what kind of scenes are important to that genre of story, but in general, unnecessary scenes should be cut out. examples...

CUT! Having the characters go out to get ice cream is cute, but you don't need to show them each ordering their ice cream unless the flavour they choose is an important plot point. Skip to the last one receiving their ice cream and turning to the others who already have theirs and are having that deep discussion. OR skip that scene entirely and have a quiet panel of them sitting in the park at sunset, already holding their ice cream, before delving into the deep emotional conversation they will be having.

CONDENSE! You can combine two scenes if you need to. If you have one scene where two characters are having a casual conversation and another where they are sneaking into a building? Stick them together. They can sneak AND talk and now you've only used up 5 pages instead of 10.

Comics take a LONG TIME to make!! - you have to make peace with that _(:Ⅰ」∠)_ Comics, especially full colour ones, are an extremely labour intensive and time consuming way of telling a story. If one page takes 1 day (8 hrs of work) and you have 24 pages, that is 24 days of working on one comic.

Thumbnails! - Draw the pages small and rough first! It's easier to plan things and mess around with the layouts when you don't have an emotional attachment to how the art inside looks. Once you have a layout you like, you can then draw it again in full page size and work on it from there.

Page and panel layouts are my favourite part of the whole process, I could talk forever about it, but I do not have the energy for it right now. I'll save panel/page layout for another time.

It doesn't have to be perfect!!! - IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE PERFECT!!!! (shouted with excitement btw). Panels can be boring! A page can be extremely simple! The art can be messy! The dialog can be simple! The plot can go nowhere! In fact it is really really fun to make a messy imperfect comic on purpose. Destroy the perfectionist in you, because they will always and forever hold you back from actually creating things. "what if it's bad?" what if it's fun? what if you learn cool things?

Anyway, those are my tips/advice, idk if I actually answered what you were asking... sorry about all the time commitment ones, that is something I really wish I had figured out a few years ago lol.

Comics are fun to make and a lot of learning how to make them is just jumping in, encountering a problem, and then learning how to solve it.

[benisasoftboi]

I am so happy with the conclusion of BBC Ghosts.

There were so many things I loved about the final series that I can't even keep it all straight in my brain, I'll have to rewatch it all (and the Christmas special, of course! Must remember it's the not the true end yet!)

But something I can immediately say I loved was what they didn't do. See, that line in the trailer that turned out to be from episode 5 - about there being a pattern to when they move on - worried me. One of the best things about the show, to me, is how there truly is not any reason at all to why the ghosts are there, or when they go. It's something the creators have said over and over, and that the show has always backed up; we saw so many times that, unlike in most ghost media, addressing unfinished business or achieving emotional resolution changes absolutely nothing. Pat hit some sort of emotional resolution three times. And Julian realised the importance of family, and Robin saved someone’s life, and Thomas discovered the truth of his death, and so on and so on. Finding closure isn't the end, and equally, the end isn't predicated by a climatic conclusion. It just happens. And the same is true for why people become ghosts. It just happens. And you exist, and fill your days, and then you’re gone. And no one knows why.

It's kind of the most agnostic television show I've ever seen.

I love that. Every other afterlife show I've ever seen has some kind of reward and punishment system. Or at least says that there's a reason for things, some kind of higher power at play, not necessarily a god but something like it. Even the American adaptation felt the need to bring Hell into it, which is why I need to specify that I'm only talking about the British version here. And I feel like a lot of fans wanted there to be reasons too, or felt like there simply had to be, that it wasn't even a question. I get why - it's not just because it's the standard for ghost narratives. It's really uncomfortable to think about the randomness of life and death. But Mary didn't go because of anything that happened before that day, and Cap was never going to go because he came out, and one day, when they've all gone, there won't have been a reason for it.

Because the real point of BBC Ghosts is that there is no point. You’ve just got to make it through the days, surrounded by people that irritate you, trapped in a confusing world where you’re mostly powerless. And it sucks, and you're angry, and sad, and bored as hell. And you also find happiness in the mundane chaos, and you get really good at chess, and watch the ants in the garden, and write bad poetry, and read terrible romance novels, and gamble money you don't have, and go camping, and play games, and learn French, and watch reality TV, and have sex with a decapitated Tudor nobleman’s body, and dance to old music, and look at the stars, and find that you actually really love all those annoying people after all, and that’s the point.

[reasonsforhope]

"At HarperCollins, a lot of attention and thought is given to deciding exactly what combinations of margin measurements, font, and layout feel most appropriate for the genre, and writing style.

But in a case of do-your-part environmentalism, designers at the publishing house have now standardized a series of subtle and imperceptible alterations to normal font style, layouts, and ink that have so far removed the need for 245 million book pages, totaling 5,618 trees.

Telling the story in Fast Company, representatives from HarperCollins, one of the four largest publishing houses in the world, explained that the idea first arose in Zondervan Bibles, HarperCollins’ Christian publishing division. Being that the Bible is 2,500 pages or sometimes more, saving ink and pages was not just an environmental consideration, but one of production costs.

A new typeface called NIV Comfort Print allowed Zondervan to shave 350 pages off of every Bible, which by 2017 had amounted to 100 million pages, and which, as Fast Company points out, would be four times higher than the Empire State Building if stacked.

The production and design teams then wondered how much they could save if they applied the same concepts to other genres like romance and fiction. Aside from the invention of the eBook, publishing hasn’t changed much in the last 100 years, and the challenge was a totally novel one for the teams—to alter all their preconceived ideas and try and find a font and typeface that resulted in fewer pages without being harder to read.

They eventually standardized 14 different combinations their tests determined were the most environmentally friendly, and which delivered an unchanged reading experience.

But the challenge didn’t stop there. Printed books, one might not know, are printed in large sheets which are then folded into sections of sixteen pages, meaning that Leah Carlson-Stanisic, associate director of design at HarperCollins, has to calculate the savings of space, words, and ultimately pages with the help of her team to fall in multiples of sixteen.

Nevertheless, they have been successful with it so far, and in the recent print run of one popular book, 1 million pages (or a number near 1 million that coincides with the 16 times tables) were saved.

“We want to make sure our big titles, by prominent authors, are using these eco-fonts,” Carlson-Stanisic said. “It adds up a little bit at a time, saving more and more trees.”"

-via Good News Network, April 4, 2024

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Note: Great! Waiting to see this on the rest of their books and at the other big publishers!

Actually, though, it's worth noting that this may not come quickly to the other large publishers, because Harper Collins almost certainly owns that font - meaning that other publishers would have to pay HarperCollins in order to use it, on an ongoing basis.

More on publishing shit and more realistic solutions here below the cut!

What I'm hoping for and think is more likely is that this will inspire the development of open source eco-friendly fonts, which would be free for anyone to use. That would make it far more likely other publishers would adopt eco-friendly fonts.

I'm also hoping it would inspire other publishers to create similar eco-friendly fonts of their own.

Ideally, there would be a whole new landscape of (hopefully mostly open source) eco-friendly fonts. And/or to see calculations of the eco-friendliness of popular existing fonts, compared to each other.

If we could have a publicly accessible list of calculations for different fonts, including fonts designed to maximize eco-friendliness, I really do think that it would affect which fonts publishers choose to use. Here's why:

Most people in publishing are on the left (notoriously, actually) and really do care about the environment

People in publishing are plenty aware of these issues re: paper and trees, I promise

Shorter books means smaller production costs - and possibly smaller shipping costs as well, over time! So it would save them money too.

Eco-friendly fonts could also be combined with other measures for greater effect, such as bamboo paper (already in use for a lot of projects where page color/quality is more flexible) and thinner paper (aka paper with a lower weight) that uses less trees.

Don't expect books to all move to just one or two different fonts, though. Publishers and typesetters and font designers will innovate to create more options instead, though it will take longer. This is because different books really do use different fonts for various different reasons - one new font to rule them all isn't really a solution here.

"Every book is in the same font" may sound like a "whatever" deal to a lot of people, but as someone who works in publishing - trust me, it would actually make your reading experience worse, even if you could never quite put your finger on why.

[blackkatdraws2]

[Original Characters] One of the Tower Residents (who is usually very stoic) is acting strange. Did the Missiontakers trigger something? (-or is this an unscripted scene?)

[More Info under Read More.]

These two are fan-OCs for a webnovel titled [Being an Extra Actor in an Escape Game]

Quick premise for the novel: There was an apocalypse that trapped the whole world in a game-like tower. Missiontakers need to go into a Tower Resident's Nightmares and solve them in order to progress higher up the tower [and maybe escape.] What the Missiontakers didn't know was that the Tower Residents are actually also real people just like them, but they're more limited in what they're allowed to do because the tower forces them to become Actors and pretend like they're NPCs.

The older man is called Kim Seung-Jun.

He's a Tower Resident that's trapped on the higher levels of the tower.

He's never acted out any major roles for a Nightmare and is always in the background.

Even among the other Tower Residents, he's a hard man to talk to, only voicing a curt reply that doesn't leave any openings to continue the conversation.

The other man is called Nick Fuentes

He's a semi-well known Missiontaker that wants to climb all the way up the tower to find the escape.

He's usually the helper of the group and he's good at being flexible with adapting and making quick decisions in tough situations.

Gets attached to people quickly if they're nice to him.

Basic OCs premise: Nick Fuentes sees the usually stoic Kim Seung-Jun acting unlike his character. He starts to get more curious about the older man, and their slow development but eventual close relationship made him unravel a different point of view about truth of the Tower and everyone who was trapped in it.

-------------✦

KOREAN PEOPLE, please tell me in the reblogs and comments if I got the old man's name right!! I'll change it into something more appropriate for his character and age if it sounds silly. I'm a huge fan of Asian webnovels, the things I always consume are Chinese/Korean webnovels that I find in illegally English translated websites HAHAHA. It affected the way I named my characters because Chinese/Korean names are the only thing I'm constantly being exposed to. [But I have no idea if these names are actually correct or not. Sorry!]

Oh MAN, I have not re-visited this novel in YEARS. Literally one of my biggest worldbuilding inspirations [not to mention it has all my favorite tropes in it] and I will continue loving it forever.

I found the novel by pure chance. At the time, there was only one website that translated it into English. I thought the premise was interesting and decided to give it a try, thinking it was just another one of those garbage junk food novels that I'd drop half-way, but no, it was actually really good.

I'm not gonna spoil anything about the novel itself lololol I'm only gonna be working on my OCs.

To be honest, I'm probably gonna make an original world and story for them soon. I like this idea too much, I'll make it mine someday. For now though, I will have a minor hyperfixation.

Go check the novel out, by the way!! It's great.

[thealexandriaarchives]

If you're one of the people who haven't read the Dune novels or haven't read them since the Villeneuve adaptation brainrot set in, just a couple friendly reminders I haven't seen yet!

The scar on Gurney Halleck's face is from an Inkvine Whip, the same type used by (and possibly the same one as) Glossu Rabban when he was a slave on Giedi Prime.

Despite this killer backstory we don't get Gurney vs. Rabban in the book! Rabban dies offscreen in the battle and both we and Gurney are denied catharsis. Frank loves that.

But almost Not! Because you see, Muad'Dib was in full 'IDGAF about War Crimes' mode at the end of the book, and he'd promised his boy a present of equal or lesser value with the same name. Wrote him a little coupon. 'One Harkonnen to Kill in a Brutal and Humiliating Fashion, exchange for one Nuclear Warhead'

Which leads us to the final scene, where it turns out the only Harkonnen left alive is Feyd-Rautha and Gurney is really eager to remind Paul of what their deal was.

But as we know, Paul is the Duke, the Boy-Messiah, The Emperor to be, and he can absolutely take backsies on promised Good-Boy Points atrocities.

I'm not going to get into all the ways Feyd-Rautha is differently portrayed in the book and movies, but in what is either a 'cowardly move' or the Harkonnen thought process of' 'oh hell no this guy has a serious grudge against my family, I just got free of my uncle for 20 seconds, now I'm about to spend my whole Barony getting tortured-raped to death that ain't how I wanna go out', Feyd-Rautha invokes the ancient vendetta between the Atredies & Harkonnen clans that the Harkonnens put forward a claim to call off (in bad faith but on the record) while Leto on the Record sent back a reply saying 'suck my balls you snakes it's been 10,000 years, it's on sight', which means Paul has to fight him instead in 1:1 combat.

Of course in the Villeneuve adaptation there are many many minor and larger changes that alter Feyd's character for the better, but removing a lot of his more explicit sexual abuse and manipulative pleasing behaviors to survive means we lose a lot of his internal dialogue and his best actions. He is no longer the one to have the slave not be drugged at the fight, he doesn't get to try to kill his uncle with a harem boy that looks just like Paul Atredies and have it backfire miserably. But he does get to stand up and announce himself as the Emperor's champion when he doesn't need to, simply because he wants to and he has things to gain.

It may, with the rewrites, be the only time this version of Feyd-Rautha gets to make a meaningful choice about his destiny.

Plus, Gurney got to kill Rabban, so everyone got something!

[slayingfiction]

How I push through writing when I don't feel like writing.

Here are some of the techniques that I use to help me write more often or more consistantly when my laziness/depression/anxiety starts to take over.

I watch TV. I don't do it with the purpose of zoning out though. I watch something popular and well-liked such as the LOR or Harry Potter to get new ideas on how I can develop my story and apply their in-depth world-building ideas to help develop mine. Without plagarizing of course!!!!

Zoning out and daydreaming. As I have mentionned before, daydreaming is a huge part of my story outlining and world-building process. I'll stand in the shower, or take a walk and think about how my charcaters would act/react/behave in situations, mundane or not. Doing this gives me a better sense of my characters, and sometimes gives me ideas for scenes I use later on.

Work on writing related projects. These work well at keeping me distracted while still being productive on my writing goals. Example, I have one story I am working now, I made a new language (alphabet and numbers included) to include as a cool and fun component for the book. So, at times when I don't wan't to write, I continue creating the dictionary (very fun, 8/10 would recommend). Also, for the same book, my characters don't work off the Georigian calendar and 24 hour clock, so I've been working at creating a new calendar (harder than it seems, 2.5/10 dont recommend). These are side projects that help my story, without having to write.

Reading. You saw this one coming, I know. Reading is great, especially when you're editing, your writing style will unconsciously change to be more similar the author you were just reading. Also, most importantly, I'll be reading and think, "this story is really good, but you know what story I like even better? Mine." then change to writing.

This one is my biggest life saver!! I learnt about a year ago that sometimes I'll get bored of writing a story, and have difficulty keeping on track. That's why I finished my first book in 2016 and just started editing the first draft last week. The solution for me was to work on multiple projects at once, because it was much harder to be bored of multiple stories. I stick to 2, but will sometimes add a third. This is easy for me, because I have a list of over a dozen series I want to write. Don't abandon one project for another, use them as a distraction/ motivation for each other, so you're always furthering at least one project. I've never heard someone say, "oh no, i accidentally worked on this other writing project for three months instead of the other writing project I was doing. Dammit." No, we're just happy we have written something. Be sure to have well outlined story lines before starting, don't just start writing randomly or you'll reach a point where you don't know where to go from there.

Author/ writer projects. Maybe this is building a following, or community to share your projects and engage with. Tumblr, Insta, Reddit, whatever it is. My hope this year is to start up my website to offer publishing services (editing, graphic design, short writing courses) and build a following as a writer. (See what I did there? Never a bad time to self-promote ;) ) Having your own projects like this will help you in the future when you're going to try to publish and sell your books!

Talk with friends and a writing community. Never underestimate the passion that will burn inside you when talking about your story, or when others are talking about theirs. Surrounding yourself with a positive writing community can be the best thing for you as a writer.

Write or read (your story) every day. I'm not going to be one of those people that say you need to write 1000 words a day, that's a lot. But maybe try for 100? That could maybe only take 5 minutes, and at the end of the year that's still over 36 thousand words of a novel. Or just read your story, and I've always found it helped me get in the creative mood.

Make a playlist of songs that remind you of your characters, your story, or just puts you in the mood to write. Then play it ONLY when you're having trouble writing. Playing it while writing will not help, you'll get annoyed with the songs.

Just really can't do it today? That's okay, take a break. You deserve it. There's always tomorrow.

Does anyone else have ways they push themselves to keep writing? Let us know in the comments!

Happy Writing!