#i am making allowances! i am not setting down the books on this account... in all cases...

[thegirlwholied]

not to have a grudge against all books written in a certain POV but first-person alternating, we meet again, my beloathed

[mostlysignssomeportents]

AI “art” and uncanniness

TOMORROW (May 14), I'm on a livecast about AI AND ENSHITTIFICATION with TIM O'REILLY; on TOMORROW (May 15), I'm in NORTH HOLLYWOOD for a screening of STEPHANIE KELTON'S FINDING THE MONEY; FRIDAY (May 17), I'm at the INTERNET ARCHIVE in SAN FRANCISCO to keynote the 10th anniversary of the AUTHORS ALLIANCE.

When it comes to AI art (or "art"), it's hard to find a nuanced position that respects creative workers' labor rights, free expression, copyright law's vital exceptions and limitations, and aesthetics.

I am, on balance, opposed to AI art, but there are some important caveats to that position. For starters, I think it's unequivocally wrong – as a matter of law – to say that scraping works and training a model with them infringes copyright. This isn't a moral position (I'll get to that in a second), but rather a technical one.

Break down the steps of training a model and it quickly becomes apparent why it's technically wrong to call this a copyright infringement. First, the act of making transient copies of works – even billions of works – is unequivocally fair use. Unless you think search engines and the Internet Archive shouldn't exist, then you should support scraping at scale:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/17/how-to-think-about-scraping/

And unless you think that Facebook should be allowed to use the law to block projects like Ad Observer, which gathers samples of paid political disinformation, then you should support scraping at scale, even when the site being scraped objects (at least sometimes):

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/06/get-you-coming-and-going/#potemkin-research-program

After making transient copies of lots of works, the next step in AI training is to subject them to mathematical analysis. Again, this isn't a copyright violation.

Making quantitative observations about works is a longstanding, respected and important tool for criticism, analysis, archiving and new acts of creation. Measuring the steady contraction of the vocabulary in successive Agatha Christie novels turns out to offer a fascinating window into her dementia:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/apr/03/agatha-christie-alzheimers-research

Programmatic analysis of scraped online speech is also critical to the burgeoning formal analyses of the language spoken by minorities, producing a vibrant account of the rigorous grammar of dialects that have long been dismissed as "slang":

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373950278_Lexicogrammatical_Analysis_on_African-American_Vernacular_English_Spoken_by_African-Amecian_You-Tubers

Since 1988, UCL Survey of English Language has maintained its "International Corpus of English," and scholars have plumbed its depth to draw important conclusions about the wide variety of Englishes spoken around the world, especially in postcolonial English-speaking countries:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/english-usage/projects/ice.htm

The final step in training a model is publishing the conclusions of the quantitative analysis of the temporarily copied documents as software code. Code itself is a form of expressive speech – and that expressivity is key to the fight for privacy, because the fact that code is speech limits how governments can censor software:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/remembering-case-established-code-speech/

Are models infringing? Well, they certainly can be. In some cases, it's clear that models "memorized" some of the data in their training set, making the fair use, transient copy into an infringing, permanent one. That's generally considered to be the result of a programming error, and it could certainly be prevented (say, by comparing the model to the training data and removing any memorizations that appear).

Not every seeming act of memorization is a memorization, though. While specific models vary widely, the amount of data from each training item retained by the model is very small. For example, Midjourney retains about one byte of information from each image in its training data. If we're talking about a typical low-resolution web image of say, 300kb, that would be one three-hundred-thousandth (0.0000033%) of the original image.

Typically in copyright discussions, when one work contains 0.0000033% of another work, we don't even raise the question of fair use. Rather, we dismiss the use as de minimis (short for de minimis non curat lex or "The law does not concern itself with trifles"):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_minimis

Busting someone who takes 0.0000033% of your work for copyright infringement is like swearing out a trespassing complaint against someone because the edge of their shoe touched one blade of grass on your lawn.

But some works or elements of work appear many times online. For example, the Getty Images watermark appears on millions of similar images of people standing on red carpets and runways, so a model that takes even in infinitesimal sample of each one of those works might still end up being able to produce a whole, recognizable Getty Images watermark.

The same is true for wire-service articles or other widely syndicated texts: there might be dozens or even hundreds of copies of these works in training data, resulting in the memorization of long passages from them.

This might be infringing (we're getting into some gnarly, unprecedented territory here), but again, even if it is, it wouldn't be a big hardship for model makers to post-process their models by comparing them to the training set, deleting any inadvertent memorizations. Even if the resulting model had zero memorizations, this would do nothing to alleviate the (legitimate) concerns of creative workers about the creation and use of these models.

So here's the first nuance in the AI art debate: as a technical matter, training a model isn't a copyright infringement. Creative workers who hope that they can use copyright law to prevent AI from changing the creative labor market are likely to be very disappointed in court:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/sarah-silverman-lawsuit-ai-meta-1235669403/

But copyright law isn't a fixed, eternal entity. We write new copyright laws all the time. If current copyright law doesn't prevent the creation of models, what about a future copyright law?

Well, sure, that's a possibility. The first thing to consider is the possible collateral damage of such a law. The legal space for scraping enables a wide range of scholarly, archival, organizational and critical purposes. We'd have to be very careful not to inadvertently ban, say, the scraping of a politician's campaign website, lest we enable liars to run for office and renege on their promises, while they insist that they never made those promises in the first place. We wouldn't want to abolish search engines, or stop creators from scraping their own work off sites that are going away or changing their terms of service.

Now, onto quantitative analysis: counting words and measuring pixels are not activities that you should need permission to perform, with or without a computer, even if the person whose words or pixels you're counting doesn't want you to. You should be able to look as hard as you want at the pixels in Kate Middleton's family photos, or track the rise and fall of the Oxford comma, and you shouldn't need anyone's permission to do so.

Finally, there's publishing the model. There are plenty of published mathematical analyses of large corpuses that are useful and unobjectionable. I love me a good Google n-gram:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=fantods%2C+heebie-jeebies&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3

And large language models fill all kinds of important niches, like the Human Rights Data Analysis Group's LLM-based work helping the Innocence Project New Orleans' extract data from wrongful conviction case files:

https://hrdag.org/tech-notes/large-language-models-IPNO.html

So that's nuance number two: if we decide to make a new copyright law, we'll need to be very sure that we don't accidentally crush these beneficial activities that don't undermine artistic labor markets.

This brings me to the most important point: passing a new copyright law that requires permission to train an AI won't help creative workers get paid or protect our jobs.

Getty Images pays photographers the least it can get away with. Publishers contracts have transformed by inches into miles-long, ghastly rights grabs that take everything from writers, but still shifts legal risks onto them:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/19/reasonable-agreement/

Publishers like the New York Times bitterly oppose their writers' unions:

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/new-york-times-stop-union-busting

These large corporations already control the copyrights to gigantic amounts of training data, and they have means, motive and opportunity to license these works for training a model in order to pay us less, and they are engaged in this activity right now:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/22/technology/apple-ai-news-publishers.html

Big games studios are already acting as though there was a copyright in training data, and requiring their voice actors to begin every recording session with words to the effect of, "I hereby grant permission to train an AI with my voice" and if you don't like it, you can hit the bricks:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d37za/voice-actors-sign-away-rights-to-artificial-intelligence

If you're a creative worker hoping to pay your bills, it doesn't matter whether your wages are eroded by a model produced without paying your employer for the right to do so, or whether your employer got to double dip by selling your work to an AI company to train a model, and then used that model to fire you or erode your wages:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/09/ai-monkeys-paw/#bullied-schoolkids

Individual creative workers rarely have any bargaining leverage over the corporations that license our copyrights. That's why copyright's 40-year expansion (in duration, scope, statutory damages) has resulted in larger, more profitable entertainment companies, and lower payments – in real terms and as a share of the income generated by their work – for creative workers.

As Rebecca Giblin and I write in our book Chokepoint Capitalism, giving creative workers more rights to bargain with against giant corporations that control access to our audiences is like giving your bullied schoolkid extra lunch money – it's just a roundabout way of transferring that money to the bullies:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/what-is-chokepoint-capitalism/

There's an historical precedent for this struggle – the fight over music sampling. 40 years ago, it wasn't clear whether sampling required a copyright license, and early hip-hop artists took samples without permission, the way a horn player might drop a couple bars of a well-known song into a solo.

Many artists were rightfully furious over this. The "heritage acts" (the music industry's euphemism for "Black people") who were most sampled had been given very bad deals and had seen very little of the fortunes generated by their creative labor. Many of them were desperately poor, despite having made millions for their labels. When other musicians started making money off that work, they got mad.

In the decades that followed, the system for sampling changed, partly through court cases and partly through the commercial terms set by the Big Three labels: Sony, Warner and Universal, who control 70% of all music recordings. Today, you generally can't sample without signing up to one of the Big Three (they are reluctant to deal with indies), and that means taking their standard deal, which is very bad, and also signs away your right to control your samples.

So a musician who wants to sample has to sign the bad terms offered by a Big Three label, and then hand $500 out of their advance to one of those Big Three labels for the sample license. That $500 typically doesn't go to another artist – it goes to the label, who share it around their executives and investors. This is a system that makes every artist poorer.

But it gets worse. Putting a price on samples changes the kind of music that can be economically viable. If you wanted to clear all the samples on an album like Public Enemy's "It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back," or the Beastie Boys' "Paul's Boutique," you'd have to sell every CD for $150, just to break even:

https://memex.craphound.com/2011/07/08/creative-license-how-the-hell-did-sampling-get-so-screwed-up-and-what-the-hell-do-we-do-about-it/

Sampling licenses don't just make every artist financially worse off, they also prevent the creation of music of the sort that millions of people enjoy. But it gets even worse. Some older, sample-heavy music can't be cleared. Most of De La Soul's catalog wasn't available for 15 years, and even though some of their seminal music came back in March 2022, the band's frontman Trugoy the Dove didn't live to see it – he died in February 2022:

https://www.vulture.com/2023/02/de-la-soul-trugoy-the-dove-dead-at-54.html

This is the third nuance: even if we can craft a model-banning copyright system that doesn't catch a lot of dolphins in its tuna net, it could still make artists poorer off.

Back when sampling started, it wasn't clear whether it would ever be considered artistically important. Early sampling was crude and experimental. Musicians who trained for years to master an instrument were dismissive of the idea that clicking a mouse was "making music." Today, most of us don't question the idea that sampling can produce meaningful art – even musicians who believe in licensing samples.

Having lived through that era, I'm prepared to believe that maybe I'll look back on AI "art" and say, "damn, I can't believe I never thought that could be real art."

But I wouldn't give odds on it.

I don't like AI art. I find it anodyne, boring. As Henry Farrell writes, it's uncanny, and not in a good way:

https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/large-language-models-are-uncanny

Farrell likens the work produced by AIs to the movement of a Ouija board's planchette, something that "seems to have a life of its own, even though its motion is a collective side-effect of the motions of the people whose fingers lightly rest on top of it." This is "spooky-action-at-a-close-up," transforming "collective inputs … into apparently quite specific outputs that are not the intended creation of any conscious mind."

Look, art is irrational in the sense that it speaks to us at some non-rational, or sub-rational level. Caring about the tribulations of imaginary people or being fascinated by pictures of things that don't exist (or that aren't even recognizable) doesn't make any sense. There's a way in which all art is like an optical illusion for our cognition, an imaginary thing that captures us the way a real thing might.

But art is amazing. Making art and experiencing art makes us feel big, numinous, irreducible emotions. Making art keeps me sane. Experiencing art is a precondition for all the joy in my life. Having spent most of my life as a working artist, I've come to the conclusion that the reason for this is that art transmits an approximation of some big, numinous irreducible emotion from an artist's mind to our own. That's it: that's why art is amazing.

AI doesn't have a mind. It doesn't have an intention. The aesthetic choices made by AI aren't choices, they're averages. As Farrell writes, "LLM art sometimes seems to communicate a message, as art does, but it is unclear where that message comes from, or what it means. If it has any meaning at all, it is a meaning that does not stem from organizing intention" (emphasis mine).

Farrell cites Mark Fisher's The Weird and the Eerie, which defines "weird" in easy to understand terms ("that which does not belong") but really grapples with "eerie."

For Fisher, eeriness is "when there is something present where there should be nothing, or is there is nothing present when there should be something." AI art produces the seeming of intention without intending anything. It appears to be an agent, but it has no agency. It's eerie.

Fisher talks about capitalism as eerie. Capital is "conjured out of nothing" but "exerts more influence than any allegedly substantial entity." The "invisible hand" shapes our lives more than any person. The invisible hand is fucking eerie. Capitalism is a system in which insubstantial non-things – corporations – appear to act with intention, often at odds with the intentions of the human beings carrying out those actions.

So will AI art ever be art? I don't know. There's a long tradition of using random or irrational or impersonal inputs as the starting point for human acts of artistic creativity. Think of divination:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/31/divination/

Or Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies:

http://stoney.sb.org/eno/oblique.html

I love making my little collages for this blog, though I wouldn't call them important art. Nevertheless, piecing together bits of other peoples' work can make fantastic, important work of historical note:

https://www.johnheartfield.com/John-Heartfield-Exhibition/john-heartfield-art/famous-anti-fascist-art/heartfield-posters-aiz

Even though painstakingly cutting out tiny elements from others' images can be a meditative and educational experience, I don't think that using tiny scissors or the lasso tool is what defines the "art" in collage. If you can automate some of this process, it could still be art.

Here's what I do know. Creating an individual bargainable copyright over training will not improve the material conditions of artists' lives – all it will do is change the relative shares of the value we create, shifting some of that value from tech companies that hate us and want us to starve to entertainment companies that hate us and want us to starve.

As an artist, I'm foursquare against anything that stands in the way of making art. As an artistic worker, I'm entirely committed to things that help workers get a fair share of the money their work creates, feed their families and pay their rent.

I think today's AI art is bad, and I think tomorrow's AI art will probably be bad, but even if you disagree (with either proposition), I hope you'll agree that we should be focused on making sure art is legal to make and that artists get paid for it.

Just because copyright won't fix the creative labor market, it doesn't follow that nothing will. If we're worried about labor issues, we can look to labor law to improve our conditions. That's what the Hollywood writers did, in their groundbreaking 2023 strike:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/01/how-the-writers-guild-sunk-ais-ship/

Now, the writers had an advantage: they are able to engage in "sectoral bargaining," where a union bargains with all the major employers at once. That's illegal in nearly every other kind of labor market. But if we're willing to entertain the possibility of getting a new copyright law passed (that won't make artists better off), why not the possibility of passing a new labor law (that will)? Sure, our bosses won't lobby alongside of us for more labor protection, the way they would for more copyright (think for a moment about what that says about who benefits from copyright versus labor law expansion).

But all workers benefit from expanded labor protection. Rather than going to Congress alongside our bosses from the studios and labels and publishers to demand more copyright, we could go to Congress alongside every kind of worker, from fast-food cashiers to publishing assistants to truck drivers to demand the right to sectoral bargaining. That's a hell of a coalition.

And if we do want to tinker with copyright to change the way training works, let's look at collective licensing, which can't be bargained away, rather than individual rights that can be confiscated at the entrance to our publisher, label or studio's offices. These collective licenses have been a huge success in protecting creative workers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/26/united-we-stand/

Then there's copyright's wildest wild card: The US Copyright Office has repeatedly stated that works made by AIs aren't eligible for copyright, which is the exclusive purview of works of human authorship. This has been affirmed by courts:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/20/everything-made-by-an-ai-is-in-the-public-domain/

Neither AI companies nor entertainment companies will pay creative workers if they don't have to. But for any company contemplating selling an AI-generated work, the fact that it is born in the public domain presents a substantial hurdle, because anyone else is free to take that work and sell it or give it away.

Whether or not AI "art" will ever be good art isn't what our bosses are thinking about when they pay for AI licenses: rather, they are calculating that they have so much market power that they can sell whatever slop the AI makes, and pay less for the AI license than they would make for a human artist's work. As is the case in every industry, AI can't do an artist's job, but an AI salesman can convince an artist's boss to fire the creative worker and replace them with AI:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

They don't care if it's slop – they just care about their bottom line. A studio executive who cancels a widely anticipated film prior to its release to get a tax-credit isn't thinking about artistic integrity. They care about one thing: money. The fact that AI works can be freely copied, sold or given away may not mean much to a creative worker who actually makes their own art, but I assure you, it's the only thing that matters to our bosses.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/13/spooky-action-at-a-close-up/#invisible-hand

[inkdrinkerworld]

Inn Love Chapter 3

one two

cw: money issue talks, feelings of failure, james and reader being in love and idiots, a little angst (?) friends to lovers

wc: 2.6

“It’s not looking good,” you mutter to Mary, head in your hands as you go over the accounts one more time. 

“It’s the off season, we’ll find something else to do.” 

She’s too kind, too understanding. You wish she’d blow up at you and quit for not being able to pay her on time. 

You sigh, long and hard. You have to figure it out. The Secret Garden is your baby, and even though this is your second year owning it, you’ve still not figured out how to supplement the off season so you make a profit. 

You don’t know if you’ll ever be able to. 

“We might have to. How do you feel about starting up line dancing lessons for a little bit? Just until I figure it out?” 

Mary grins, nodding her head. “I’ve missed it some. Won’t exactly be hard to get back into.” 

Mary’s the best worker you have. The only one you have really, but she’s still the best. 

You close up your books, and double check that all the rooms have been checked out of and begin locking up. 

James is waiting for you on your front steps, hat tipped low as he leans against one of the beams. 

“Hey Jamie, didn’t know you were stopping by.” 

You try for chipper, a smile in your voice as you hold your tote bag on your shoulder. 

“Wanted to see if you wanted to get lunch with me.”

You pause, reaching right in front of him. It’s instant, the way a frown fights for the space of your smile. It’s also instant the way James notices. 

“What’s wrong?” He takes your bag from you, leading you to his truck. 

“Nothing. Where are we getting lunch?” 

James frowns a little bit, but doesn’t press. “Had Chinese dropped off to the house, got all your favourites.” 

You grin, James does this a lot and it makes your stomach flip every time. 

“Meet you there?” 

James frowns again, then shrugs. “Yeah, darling.” 

You double back to your own truck, James setting your bag in the bench seat. 

You watch James pull out first and take a moment to collect all your worry and all your anxiety and stuff it deep in your chest, burying it with a bit of hay before sighing. 

You can’t let James see you’re worried or anxious, he’ll sniff the information out of you and if you tell James then you’d have failed. 

The first year it was understandable, the second year; you’re not sure you could tell the person who helped you build the inn from the ground up that you’ve been having months of money troubles. 

You pull up behind James, sliding out of your car and racing him to the front door. 

“You still cheat.” he says with a smile, you shrug while pushing open the door. Inside James’ house, you’d think it was hot, all the southern heat trapped in the walls, but it’s always cool. 

He’d explained it to you once, the stone and wood kept it cool, but also he had put in a central air con to maintain the chill. 

“I got shorter legs than you James, it’d never be fair.” 

James shakes his head, following you to his dining table where all the boxes are already laid out. 

“How much noodles am I allowed?” James rolls his eyes. You always eat most of it and he always gets you your own box because why deprive you of your favourite thing?

James doesn’t think there’s actually anything he could deprive you of. 

“Does lack of sleep mess with your memory?”

You grin when he passes you an entire box, and then the rest of what you usually like.

As you eat, the talking kind of subsides, which is weird by yours and James’ standards.

“Are you sure nothing’s wrong?” He asks when you migrate to the living room, laying out long on his sofa while he sits with your feet in his lap. 

“What do you mean, Jamie?” You try hard not to stiffen your body as you respond. 

He sighs, hands squeezing the arches of your feet. “I dunno, something feels wrong. Like you feel down.” 

God you could cry right now. James has always been in tune to you like this, as you are with him, but it sometimes gets to be too much because lying to your best friend hurts. Especially when he can tell something is off. 

“Just tired I guess.” you shrug one of your shoulders. James hums but doesn’t say anything and you feel guilt like a hot poker in your stomach. 

You wiggle your toes in his lap and his hands fall back to massaging them. 

“Wanna watch ‘How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days’?” 

James never has to ask twice. 

You don’t mean to, but you and James fall asleep right there on his sofa. Some time during the night you’ve shifted, he’s laying under you and your head is on part of his chest with your legs tangled up. 

The only reason you wake up is because James’ alarm is blaring and you’ve got the worst crick in your neck.

“Make it stop,” you grumble, hiding your face in his chest as he stretches. It’s comfortable even for friends, the way James holds onto your waist as he leans over you to grab his phone. 

“Shit, s’nearly four. You gotta go darling.” 

You’d lasted nearly a whole three minutes without thinking about the fact that The Secret Garden wasn’t doing well. 

Almost awkwardly, which is strange for you and James, you sit up. As you stretch all your joints crack and you sigh where James winces. He’s always hated how you can just crack your bones like that- he worries you’ll break them one day. 

“Nah I got the day off.” 

James’ eyebrows shoot up. “So the TSG is closed today?” 

You wish your friend wouldn’t ask so many questions. Lying to him is hard work. 

“Mary’s running the morning shift today.” James looks a little sceptical but drops it, making his way to the stairs. 

“M’gonna get ready. You staying on the ranch then?” 

You nod, what else is there for you to do? Plus if you use your ‘day off’ to be anywhere but the ranch, say going job hunting or to the bank, your quiet little town will somehow have your going-ons back to James in no time. 

“Heat up breakfast and I’ll make us coffee.” James is back down in ten minutes, showered and changed into his wranglers, a thin white t-shirt and his work boots. 

You’re sure you’ve got yours around here somewhere.

James and you work like a well greased machine, making breakfast and coffee and doing the dishes all in one go. 

He tilts his head to the screen door in the kitchen that leads to his side porch.  

“Wanna watch the sunrise with me and then go round do some ranch chores?” 

“Still got my boots in the coat closet?” you ask and James rolls his eyes. 

“When has anything of yours left this house? You’re everywhere in here.” His gaze is too intense for you to laugh it off. It also makes you feel like you’ve caged race horses in your stomach and they’re butting their fences. 

“You say that like it’s a bad thing, Jamie.” is all you can manage before going in search of your boots.

James doesn’t think it’s a bad thing at all. Honestly, he wishes there were more of you in his house; he’s just not sure if saying that to you will cost him everything. 

Shoving your feet into the boots you sigh, then take a peek out at the sky and shiver. “I’m taking a coat.”

“Take anything you want.” 

This is why you can’t tell James about your money troubles. He’s going to give you anything to turn it around, but you’re not sure if anything he can give will. You also can’t use him anymore than you already do. 

“Race you to the stables!” James takes off before you can even put down your empty mug. 

“You’re such a cheater!” You whine as you race behind him, his laugh floating back to you as you reach the stable doors. 

“Takes one to know one,” he says playfully, causing you to roll your eyes.

James holds the door open for you and as soon as you get in you head for Snowglobe. 

“My baby,”  you coo, already kissing the side of his face while James lets his own horse, Landslide, out.  

“You’d swear he wasn’t nearly twenty three.”

“Don’t remind me Jamie.” you grab a brush and go through the usual maintenance just as James does with his horse. 

“We’re riding up to the fences to check on the horses, then we’re feeding them.” James talks about his day like it’s easy, but you remember the hard work that goes into ranching. You’ve got your work cut out for you, and you’re not even doing the hard stuff like moving hay or any of that. 

“Lead the way, Cowboy.” 

After a couple hours, you go back to the big house and take a shower, well and truly exhausted. James wouldn’t let you haul hay, so you’d been feeding the animals, cleaning the stables and doing a bit of general cleaning up around the ranch while he and his farmhands mended parts of the fence, herded the cows and hauled the dried heaps of hay. 

By the time James comes in, you’re halfway through preparing dinner- beef stew. 

“I would’ve cooked after my shower, darling.” James says as he hangs up his hat and boots. 

“Yeah, but now by the time you come back down, we can eat together.” 

James frowns again, you’ve never been away from TSG for this long since it’s been opened and it’s worrying him that you won’t talk to him about it. 

If he’s honest, you haven’t gushed about the inn since you left it yesterday- which is very unlike you. That place is your pride and joy and everyone knows it. Especially James. 

He holds his tongue on his worry and nods. 

“I’ll be back in ten.” 

Through dinner, you’re on your phone, checking your accounts, trying to see where you can make more money or if you’ll have to do the one thing you don’t want to. 

After your sixth sigh in ten minutes, James sets his cutlery down and reaches a hand for you.

“Darling, I know you said it’s nothing, but it’s clearly not. Can you tell me what’s wrong, please?”

Before you can answer, Sirius bursts through James’ house. 

“Did you see TSG’s been closed all day? Wonder if everything’s okay.” 

You freeze in your seat when James turns to you with wide eyes and a slack jaw. 

Sirius coughs to dispel his embarrassment. “Sorry doll face. But why are you closed? Is everything alright?” 

You can’t even be upset with Sirius because for all of his faults, he’s always concerned about you. He feels very much like an older brother in that way, even when he’s giving you shit. 

You rest your head on the table and sigh. 

“Don’t be upset Jamie,” you start, slow and more than a little nervous. You don’t know how you’ll feel if James is angry with you. You don’t want to feel like a failure to him. You don’t want to fail yourself even more. 

“I think I’m gonna have to close the inn.” 

Sirius gasps, James frowns. “Forever or for a while?” 

You lift your head, “For a while. I’m not sure how long. I’ve got to go over the account but we’re not making a profit right now.” 

“Darling,” he says at the same time Sirius swears. 

Tears spring in your eyes. “I know, it hasn’t been making profit or any sort of money for a couple months but I thought it would pick up again, but I guess late summer is not our season.” 

James stands quickly when your first tear falls and Sirius ruffles your head. 

“There’s nothing to be ashamed about, it happens. I can help you work through it.” You shake your head at James’ proposal. 

“You helped me start it up and I can’t even keep it running through the entire year. I can’t expect you to help me every year that I have a slow period.” 

Sirius tuts, “You could always sell your bakes in the off time, dollface.” 

James wipes your tears away, “I can still help. I don’t mind helping out.” 

You shake your head. Sirius seems to get it before James does, and what it is you’re trying to say. 

“No Jamie, I think maybe working on the ranch or doing a little baking on the side would be good. Right doll?” 

You nod, “I don’t wanna keep using you Jamie.” 

James tuts, tilting your chin up. Sirius takes his cue and goes into the kitchen, looking through James’ pantry. 

“You don’t use me. You’ve never used me.” It’s hard to argue with James when he speaks with such conviction but you know you have. 

“But I did. When I was opening up TSG, it was you helping me.” 

James smiles then, “Yeah I helped, darling. It was a mutual thing. We’re friends, of course I helped you. And I can help again, but if you want to do this part on your own, I’d get it.” 

James wipes your tears, gentle and sweet as ever. “I need to go do a final closing for the season and set some things in place, but can I stay here in the meantime?” You force the words out, soft and whispered against the space between you and James. 

“You can stay here as long as you like,” 

“Thanks Jamie.” 

He shrugs, dimple poking out in his cheek as he smiles at you. “You’re always welcome darling, c’mon I’ll drive you to TSG and help with lock up.” 

As it turns out, telling James you’d been struggling wasn’t that bad. It was hard and you’d felt like a failure for a little bit, but he talked good sense into you and now you’re staying with him till the start of autumn. 

“I can work the ranch, Jamie.” You proposed on your second night on his sofa. 

“You cannot work the entire ranch.” James wasn’t even being funny about it either. You really can’t. You get cut up easily and you blister worse than he does. 

“Okay, I can work the stables.” 

James rolls his eyes good naturedly, tossing a bit of popcorn at you. You’d both been watching a new horror that James had seen advertising. Watching is a generous word because you both talk through all the dull parts and you squeeze his fingers in anxiety during the freaky parts. 

“As opposed to?” 

You giggle, “Hey, I can work the garden or help milk the cows.” 

James chuckles then, his dimple on display making you want to poke your finger in it. “Same cows you’re afraid of? You can work the stables darling, you know your way around it.” 

You squeal, leaning up and closer to James to kiss his cheek. You love doing it because James goes red hot and can’t stop his flush. Even as kids he’d go beet red the minute you gave him a kiss to his cheek. 

“You’re the best James. The best ever.” 

He grins, “I’m glad you finally noticed.” The pillow behind your head whacks him in the face as you groan. 

“That was yuck, don’t ever say that again.” James laughs through your disgust, slotting your pillow behind your back again and holding your feet in his lap as the horror builds. 

[inkblot22]

(PS I don’t actually know the source material for idia I just stumbled upon one of your fics while looking at FFXIV Yandere fics so sorry if this sounds OOC)

I’m not super creative but what do you think might actually be Idia’ routine with his darling? Does he fall into any routine, does it change a lot?

Have a wonderful day (and happy late bunny day!) 🫶

I actually am of the opinion that this is a very creative thought! You should give yourself more credit. I like to idealize the day to day life, but it never occurred to me that writing it down might be a good idea. On that sentiment, I think maybe Vil or even Leona would have a better day to day routine. Dividers by @/cafekitsune

Also, wow, what a pipeline, FFXIV to twst?? You've got good taste lmao welcome to my blog.

I'll put this under the cut, and I'm also not promising that this will be very good. I use the 24 hour clock. I am constantly getting told irl that American people don't do that, but I'm evil, so I'm putting the times in 24 hour clock format.

TW for mentions of noncon, coercion, captivity, someone keeping someone else awake, a hint of Idia being an asshole

+ Idia doesn't really seem like he has much of a set schedule, but Ortho absolutely does and Ortho is lowkey kind of bossy, so...

+ Yeah uh, Idia's partner is absolutely out of luck. Idia likes night gaming a lot, and he gets loud, so good luck sleeping. Idia himself goes to bed late and wakes up whenever the heck he wakes up. He could go to bed at 0300 in the morning and wake up again at 0700.

+ As his kept partner, the schedule is a little more normal, like I said. Ortho doesn't really need to sleep from what I understand, (I haven't read all of book 6, no spoilers or else I WILL temporarily block you) but it's silly to imagine that he doesn't wake up or attempt to wake up everyone else around him as early as 0600.

+ After waking up, Idia will eat breakfast. I think it'd be delivered usually since Idia and his partner are basement dwellers, one by nature and the other by force. After breakfast begins work...

+ Or procrastination. Idia flip flops between extreme focus on what he should be doing and what he should not be doing. He manages to get his schoolwork done, but more often than not, he's asking his partner to cuddle up and watch a movie, drama, or his fingers flying across the keyboard. Idia will not ask them to cuddle if he is doing schoolwork or virtually attending classes.

+ I like to think that he smells smoky, on account of the flaming hair, and he runs hot, so prepare to SWEAT. In the case his partner doesn't really want to hang out with him, he will usually sulk and only occasionally get upset to the point of doing something about it.

+ I don't think he showers every day. I think he's an every other day type of showerer, based solely on him not being particularly active. This means that his partner doesn't have to run on his showering schedule and gets extra hot water on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

+ By the way, in the case that Idia's darling ever gets peckish, Idia has a snack stash that he proudly pulled out and showed them as soon as they were allowed to wander a bit. I figure they get hungry some time around 1400, especially if Idia is also eating at that time.

+ I think his metabolism is fast, but also a bit odd. He is a young person, and therefore he strikes me as the type to get randomly hungry. If asked very nicely (and with the promise of physical affection in some form) he'd be incredibly willing to make his partner something to munch on when he makes his own.

+ Despite Idia's partner being literally held captive in his room, with all his suspicious items and, worst of all, himself, Idia is about as respectful as a kidnapper can be about demanding sex. He doesn't like to be physically forceful about it, and he often will just jerk off in the bathroom.

+ The reason for this is very simple: If Ortho ever saw Idia having sex with ANYONE, Idia would spontaneously combust. Well, obviously he doesn't know that for certain, but it's a theory that he is not willing to test. He won't even talk about his preferences around his little brother.

+ As far as I'm aware, most people in captive situations do not tend to ask their kidnapper to fuck them unless they're being threatened in some way, but Idia's partner isn't typically being threatened (ignore the shock collar,) so they never ask Idia to have sex.

+ This does not stop Idia from being a whiny bitch about not having sex enough as soon as Ortho is gone for a few hours. The close quarters and sudden advent of a human being who he doesn't mind touching him is a big thing for Idia.

+ Ortho goes on "walks" in a sort of unusual schedule. That is to say that he doesn't have a schedule. If something needs to be picked up, he's tired of Idia not listening to him, he has his own stuff to do, or he just feels like it, Ortho will go out, sharing his location with Idia. From there, Idia will typically calculate how long it'd take Ortho to get back paired with whatever Ortho said he was going to do before he left, and see if he can squeeze in some coerced touching.

+ So. Good luck, Idia's partner. Idia will make a big stink until he gets bored or his partner gives in. His partner usually gives in, based on fear of what he might do alone.

+ Bedtime is somewhat randomized. If Ortho was out, when he comes back and it's any time after 2000, he will very subtly try to get Idia and his partner to start winding down. If both or one ignores him, he'll start getting upset.

+ Like I said, Ortho is kinda bossy. He will nag someone, and the worst part is that he's usually got their best interest in mind.

+On the off chance that Idia decides to go to bed at a decent time, he curls up behind his partner. He runs hot and smells smoky, and at some times it's not the worst thing. Some times.

+ By the way, a lot of this flies out the window in the event that Idia decides to attend classes in person. This is rare, so don't expect it to happen often, but it's not as good as it could be. Ortho goes with him and he locks up any way to reach the outside world, so all his partner has to entertain themselves is his manga collection, or the fun pastime of destruction of property. (This is a very bad idea, and I can expand on punishments later.)

+ In Idia's partner's case, every day is much of the same but just a little different, which makes it hard to keep track of time. The fact that Idia prefers low lighting and no natural light doesn't help this whatsoever.

[unhappytimeleaper]

I don’t know how to feel about this. I just couldn’t stop thinking about watching the rain and reflecting on Neuvillette. Also, who knows what might change as he is officially released. This is just an idea that was eating my soul. 

Also, requests are open. I don’t really need to close them, but I am still slow with writing since I work full-time. I am hoping to branch off a little more from just Enstars requests, and ,I’ve taken a lot more of an active interest in writing for Jojo specifically, but anything works.

Neuvillette; Unedited. Gender Neutral Reader. 

Warnings: very vague for the most part but talk of isolation, mental and physical abuse, and manipulation. It’s still Yandere.

Word Count: 2,300+

This blog is 17+ please have your age in your bio or tagged; any ageless blog and below the age asked for will be blocked at the end of the week.

plitter-platter, plitter-platter, plitter-platter—

The rain had been pouring for some time now, longer than usual. What could have set him off for so long was still unknown. The drumming of the rain against the window, your head pressed more into it and away from the armrest of the chair, almost as if hoping by sheer luck you’d phase through the glass and be set free. The sound of the rain, once so peaceful, has grown to become nauseating. Ringing in the depths of your ears and into your soul, plaguing as a reminder of the life you now had. When there is nothing to shut it out, it only digs in more into the predicament you’ve been chained to. No more are the cozy aspects of the rain curled up in a family home with food, cooking, and music as the rain danced across the roof or the time with friends running through the storm in attempts to find shelter, laughs filling the air—just you and the room. 

Well, the room could be your fault. You weren’t physically chained there— not anymore, but the walls of the home, as big as they were, only served to mock you. Too big of a cage, a labyrinth that could only make the looming fear of loneliness bury itself between your ribs and bloom across your heart. The shadows of people known not to interact with you but their whispers tickling in your ears. Sounds of them adding about their personal lives and families, trips, gossip across Fontaine… all while your days had become mostly kept in silence. No, you’d rather stay in here… just one room that you could build into an escape paradise from the weighing ache the rest brought you—filled with books, a window [that you had spent countless hours fighting with], plush chairs, and per your request some plants. You managed to get your argument across to him on allowing for such necessities; although he liked to remind you what he had given, he could just as much take away. Though you knew his bleeding heart for you, that under it all, he craved the love he one day believed you’d give him. Punishments were honest; you knew that much had been burned into your brain, but it was rare that little things would be a trigger for him to take account less you become too much of a “brat.” Ugh, how easy it was to scoff at that term— treating you like a child having a tantrum compared to the reality of a human stuck in the grasp of the inhuman judge himself. 

Sometimes, you wondered what was better; he often was gone. Working, fulfilling a role you had to bite your tongue to denounce him from. If someone couldn’t understand humans, couldn’t understand what drove them to petty crimes and the struggles so many befall, why should he be allowed to make the calls? Judge-free, unbiased… no, that isn’t the way to handle it; you knew the pain of it all weighed down on him, which was something enough [better than doing so without remorse] but didn’t alter the unfair nature of the law. Not when, through it all, you ended up here, a product for his love rather than a participant. But him being gone didn’t change the aching; with the limited interactions, it was only through him the loneliness had a moment to dull. Even if you hated to admit it, you were only human— only able to crave someone to share time with to break the deafening silence of the home. Of the rain. It scared you. To know if he was around more, around enough that your fight to be free would extinguished. You’d lose yourself, complacent in a life you never asked for. If he was home more, would you lose yourself faster, lose the motivation to escape, and become just another wheel in the cog of fate? Or would you have more time to whittle down his defenses and create more openings for means of escape? The thought could only make your heart beat faster, drumming along to the rain, though was it out of fear or excitement? It was hard to tell.

plitter-platter, plitter-platter, plitter-platter—

Breathe fogged up a patch of the window, the cooling glass chilling the chunk of the forehead that was placed against it. The feeling was uncomfortable, both in angle and blooming chills from the material, but not enough to want to move. The rain was still falling, though slowly dying down. He’d be home soon, creeping into the room looking for you just like every night. Days spent on loop, blending more and more into each other. He didn’t mind crying in front of you, often the tears adorning your shoulder or back as he held you close, but he seemed to try to keep the outside world— well outside. He knew it upset you, that it’d turn into some argument, and he’d need to find a reason to punish you for breaking the rules. You often had to bite your tongue, wanting to tell him this is why inhuman creatures shouldn’t have human partners. The gap in communication, feelings and needs was too much. It was killing both of you. You could feel it as he wept, the soft rain showers of him just not understanding, not being able to communicate effectively the motions of his heart. 

Two drops lined up just centimeters from your face. The mark of a race, the starting line. It was a time that once was so innocent when you were a kid choosing a random drop and narrating it in your head as you waited for the storm to pass so you could go out and play. ‘Woe is me’ could only be how you thought of it now. Him and you set up for the race— the starting line and… go. 

Rolling down the frame and collecting other droplets, their trails jumping and altering in their paths as gravity dragged them down. One pulled into the lead, always him. He was always one step ahead, one smarter and more intuned. Like a kid with their hand in the cookie jar, he always found your new escape attempt and could see through your flowery words of deception. In that sense, you had to admit his role fits him well, but only left the bitter remains of the stems in your mouth when he locked you back up with a ‘you’ll be let out when you learn not to lie.’ It must be something tied to him on a fundamental level, a sense. Or perhaps it was just age, something you could never achieve. You couldn’t count how many times you watched the droplets race, hoping that maybe just once you could be one step ahead, one…

No. Even if you did, where would you go? The melusine were everywhere, and getting out within reach of the court would be a life sentence of punishment. Perhaps solace somewhere in the underground community, but someone likely would sell you out to better favor their outcome. You could break for the border; it’d be brutal and dangerous, a bounty on your head faster than you could imagine. Would other regions even be safe from a runaway? Maybe some other small communities… would become looking for you? Would you have to always stay alert for the rest of your life? Would you have to live alone, fending only for yourself? You’d lose yourself just as much in a life like that, but maybe it was the price of freedom. The price of not playing a role, soul withering away trying to maintain the rules and ideals of something you could never understand. When did your thought become so sorrowful, the fight you once had? A flame extinguished by the rain left only as sparks fumbling to stay lit. Look away, it wasn’t over yet. There had to be good out there, people who could understand, you’d take you in. Life would never be easy again, but it wasn’t over. Not yet. 

Lifting your head from the window was always weirdly comforting, the movement restored to your neck and it stretching back into place. The coolness of the glass no longer flushed against your skin, allowing the heat of the room to melt away the temperature. Rest your mind, reset your body. He never minded the long game, maybe as time for him felt infinite. But rushing would only cause holes in a plan you couldn’t keep affording to lose. The storm would pass, and you’d find a way to relight that flame. You couldn’t let him win, and you couldn’t let this system win. 

plat, plat, plat…

“My love,” he spoke. He— Neuvillette, was home. The rain had stopped, only some residue drops highlighting the storm moments before. He stood in the doorway, hand holding the frame as his voice reverberated across the silent room. He always waited for you to notice him before entering. Permission didn’t matter, but in a sense, it tended to bring some comfort to know where the dragon lurked. It only took a brief flash of eye contact for him to take it as clearance into entering the room, legs quickly carrying him to your seat. 

Neuvillette stood in front of you, pristine and put together; his eyes sharply focused on you, and his neutral expression made him seem more intimating than you knew he was. You had been here long enough as well to see the faint but dried crust of where his tears had pooled down his cheeks from moments just before. It didn’t change the power radiating off him, seeping into the room and over you like a blanket to remind you he was in charge here. Curiosity burned in your stomach, leaping up your throat, wanting you to ask what could have caused him to cry so much.

Gossip regarding the law wasn’t to be taken seriously, but the lack of outside world stimulation always makes the prospects more enticing. It burned in your mind to know what was happening outside of your cage, in the world below. Though asking would only come back to haunt you, the fights that led to punishments burned into your mind and skin even if the physical sides had healed. Not to mention the way he would take it if the words even managed not to set off a disagreement, that you cared. Neuvillette may be blind to human emotions and feelings, but he did have his own set— and that presented as caring for him on the most basic level of touch or tone only worked against you. Solidifying your partnership, your love in his mind. 

The silence was always more deafening when he stood before you; that even a breath would break the moment. His hand was delicate, though, floating to your head before wistfully tracing your hair and to your chin. It tickled, enough you wanted to flinch but knew better as he tilted your head to look into his eyes more. Pulling his hand from your face, he held it with his palm up. You knew what he was asking. Take his hand, but don’t look away. Unlike his graceful movements, you didn’t have as much time before his eyes would narrow, a sign of rejection in his eyes— he couldn’t take it. Unlike for humans, you could only assume there was something dormant, something innate that drove the ideas of jealousy, rejection, and the need to isolate on a biological level rather than mental. People could do just the same; you knew this for a fact, but the way he carried it out felt more visceral. Not doing so wasn’t an option; it freed him from his own judgment because nothing could defy the fact of biology. 

Your hand moved from instinct; at least, at this point, it was strange to think of how things now were ingrained in you. The movements of hands, replying to questions, from when it was time to sleep and wake up to where you walked through the day. That it just instantly would click, a passive thought or action. Not trained into you but a reflection of your life, how the passing days and routines with him had become a staple in your life. You had changed since then, proof that whatever was to come was inevitable—a mark of fate. 

Pulled to your feet, Neuvillette wrapped his arm around your torso, still ghostly with his touches. His face now resting on your hair as he breathed– in and out. The tension in his body released just slightly, but as if you were the answer to what had been weighing down on him. “My love,” he repeated, lips softly tickling the top of your head, “come on. Let’s have dinner.” 

The routine of your long day: Neuvillette returns from work to fetch you from your room to a meal before settling into bed together. He’d try to make a convo, and sometimes you’d reply. Other times, he’d focus on reading something, and you’d do the same or just turn your back, hoping he’d get the hint. There was no use in fighting it; the rules layered in stone. 

“Okay.” 

[scaly-freaks]

Daisy you can't just put an 'Aegon is the sugar baby au' out there and not tell us more????

I'm so sorry, this is going to be long

Okay so it's actually a really sweet AU. Amara isn't that rich, but she's 22 and hasn't lost her virginity yet and she just wants it gone, you know? But she also doesn't want to do it with anyone she knows because they're all losers and/or just not men she wants to 'gift' it to since it'll boost their ego way too much. She wants her V-card taken and also to learn how to have sex without any pressure or emotions or where is this going?

So...she clicks the first male escort site in London she sees. Ews her way through it because a lot of them are definitely just men who think 'oh yay, I get to fuck for money.' Aegon's profile seems very similar to them, but he does look like Billy Idol and she's always loved him, plus he jokes about his own height and says he makes up for it in inches elsewhere (in retrospect, it's not that funny but he's the cutest guy on there so she forgives it).

Anyway, he turns up without knowing what she looks like, and since she said she's pretty young, he's kind of expecting...well...you know. Something is up with her, and he's waiting to find out what (because his usual clients are older women, well put together, high-flying job who don't really care for or have time for relationships and he's a lovely piece of arm candy).

Turns up, sees her, eyes do the BOYOYOYOYING thing that cartoon characters do when they're in lust (love). She's like errrrrr shall I put the money on the table and he snorts and says if you want me to feel like a hooker on a street corner sure. She immediately gets embarrassed and apologises and he reassures her that it's fine, she pays his employer first not him, and that the rest of his clients tend to put a standing order up straight to his account once it's a set arrangement.

At that point she almost backs out because she's like god, what the fuck am I doing? And he can tell she's going to chicken out, but that'd be him losing money since there's no time to book anyone else in for the night. So, he says he saw board games down in the hotel lounge, and they can go play for a bit if she wants. She's like or we could get drunk, that way it'd be easier and he's like well no, because I'm not allowed to get drunk on the job, and I'm definitely not having sex with you if you're drunk, besides do you really want to forget your first time?

So they go downstairs, find a board game (maybe Cluedo because I like the funny little pieces) and start playing. Aegon talks to her the whole time, puts her at ease, starts asking about her life, uni, etc etc. Asks her why she chose to go with an escort for her first time, and Amara slowly opens up more and more because let's be honest, Aegon has TGC's charisma, he can charm anyone into relaxing.

She suddenly says she's hungry, and since she did pay him for the whole night (btw...he doesn't come cheap, it's £3000 for the night, so she definitely went impulse mode on this one), Aegon agrees and suggests the restaurant next door which is bougie and whatnot, but Amara disagrees and wants to go to the Turkish kebab place she saw on the corner.

Since they're both kinda dressed up, just imagine them squatting outside the brightly lit, neon sign of the fast food place sharing a kebab and gossiping about what they think the people in the block of flats opposite are talking about/doing (most of the windows don't even have curtains). Anyway, she's getting that pit in her stomach again, because now it's like...okay, at some point you're going to have to go back to the hotel and do it otherwise it's a waste of the money you spent. She doesn't say anything though, and Aegon is the one to gently bring it up and then she just nods and goes along with it. He kinda figures out pretty quickly that whereas his other clients are more than comfortable giving instruction and know what they want, it'll be the opposite with her. So, he slips into the 'leading' role so to speak and when they get back to the hotel, Amara tries to think of something to say to break the silence, but before she can, he kisses her. Like a proper 80s movie, pressing her into the wall, hands in her hair, the ideal first kiss of a girl's dream kinda kiss.

She whispers out an oh okay and he laughs and kisses her again because she's round-eyed, with this goofy expression of surprise, and her hands are clutching his wrists like a life line and well, why wouldn't you want to kiss her.

Anyway, whole bag of tricks comes out for the night. There's a hilarious moment where she panics and almost slaps him to get off when his fingers are inside her because she's never managed to give herself a g-spot orgasm so it felt like she was going to pee. But Aegon is like SHUSH and keeps her flat before going voila, see what did I tell you? He does it a couple more times so she can get used to the feeling, but that also has the drawback of making her tired and she's like okay, this was fun, now I'm going to sleep. And he's just there like ??????????? tf it is, you paid 3000 for the whole thing, and guess what, I'm giving you the whole thing (the whole thing being his dick ofc). Rouses her with kisses all over her body and suddenly she realises she's not that tired after all (well, would you look at that) and the actual virginity taking part happens. It's pretty standard for male escorts to take viagra but he doesn't for her because he's positive she's not going to be able to keep it up for long (at least not for her first time). Even SO, he manages to get it up again a couple more times after the first in pretty quick succession (that's never happened without the aid of drugs) so Amara gets to try several positions and actually have someone fuck her right, rather than fumbling with someone who lacks the practice.

Also something about Aegon in this AU is that he can't ever sleep with his clients for some reason. Insomnia strikes, and if they're asleep next to him because they paid for him to stay over, he's usually wide awake. But he conks right out next to her, and in the morning, gives her another round, which she forgets to even question whether that's extra (it's not, it was more his freebie to her shall we say).

And then she's all like OKAY THAT WAS FUN all hyper and bouncy and excited, because now she knows what sex feels like and she can finally just be relaxed and confident when she meets someone she likes. But Aegon has this weird pit in his stomach (just like she did last night) because he kinda doesn't wanna leave? He's experienced that with another client before, but this feels more pronounced, especially when he's sitting sleepy-eyed and smiling in bed and she's dancing around putting on her clothes after a shower. He almost wants to ask if she'll call him again, but that's against the whole etiquette thing of the agency so he doesn't say a word, but he really hopes she will.

Weirdly enough, Amara is the one that ends up saying she won't because she really just impulse purchased him and her parents have money, but not the kind of money where she can afford Aegon whenever she wants (plus they'll get suspicious if she asks for that set amount off them regularly). But realistically, she doesn't even want to call him again, because she genuinely saw this as a transaction, and that's what hits him like a truck. Usually, he's the one who has to keep the clients from getting attached. But last night, when she was under him, all whispery and nervous and doll-eyed, he fell into the mistake of letting it feel too real in his head, and now she's the one who's completely disconnected herself now that the job is done.

ARGHRGHRHGRHGRHG I actually don't know where else it would go from here, but the first night felt vivid af in my head when I saw those photos of TGC.

anyway, here's pictures of tom that perfectly fit the vibe and since i don't have a set face claim for amara, have the drawing i drew (again)

[lorelaiblair]

marauders headcanons

- james keeps hair ties on his wrist, it started with sirius but at this point everyone knows that if they need to pull their hair up james has got them covered

- james’ parents are stupid powerful, effie especially, but they prefer a quiet life and a peaceful little home. that’s why sirius’ parents let him leave. they aren’t necessarily afraid of effie, but they know trying to fight her would not end well

-the woman is insanely protective of her family, the second james set his eyes on sirius he was effie’s son, she would do anything to protect him

- james is also weirdly good at braiding hair, if regulus is seen walking around with intricate braids in his hair the group can assume that he and james were studying together

- james does not study, he just enjoys sitting with regulus, regulus has learned if he gives james a task he is more likely to keep quiet and therefore he lets james play with his hair

-they mostly all prefer red gummy bears so they just buy the red ones in bulk (pete likes the clear ones and marlene likes the green ones) (they have their own bags)

-sirius is not at all picky about music, one might assume that he listens to alt rock or anything similar, but he will truly appreciate anything

- sirius and regulus listen to a lot of classical french music and french rock, james listens to lots of spanish pop

- remus and lily swap books once they have finished reading them, fully annotated and marked up. it turns into somewhat of a book club within the entire group but pete is dyslexic and james, sirius, and dorcas have adhd so it takes them months to get through something. ( they just wanted to be included) (they all share an audible account) the larger book club reads one book every six months. lily and remus swap at least once a week.

- regulus and pandora have their own secret greenhouse where they grow flowers and fruits and vegetables, they use it as a art studio and a music studio. if regulus can’t be found he is in the greenhouse, despite being a ‘secret’ all of their friends know this. dorcas is not allowed in the greenhouse, neither are wormtail or prongs as their animagus forms

- sirius has a third nipple on his abdomen, he claims that it is a mole. Regulus was born with extra fingers that their parents had surgically removed. (inbreeding genetics)

- when sirius is stressed he goes for runs as padfoot, do not ask how many strays he has brought back with him (effie and fleamont have a dog, two cats, and a bird) (the rest of them are taken in by random families of friends or marlene’s grandparents who own a farm)

- peter hates cheese

- lily is a rock girlie, for absolutely not reason, but she will absolutely stop in the middle of a busy parking lot to pick up a random pebble because she liked it’s shape

- james and regulus have collections of rocks that she has gifted them

-they all wear remus’s jumpers, all of them. sirius steals one, james gets ahold of it, and from there it is untraceable. circulating throughout the friend group until remus or sirus forcefully take them back. james makes up for it by knitting him more.

- lily, remus, and james have “eat the rich” t-shirts (i am well aware that james is incredibly wealthy, so is he)

- regulus experiments a bit with eyeliner - james has a moment where his brain promptly shuts down as he considers if and how he might have died and gone to heaven

- regulus is COVERED in tattoos, barty bought himself a tattoo machine and he never got all that good at using it, regulus though is an artist. he has so many tattoos that he has lost count, and most of them he designed himself, pandora has drawn him a few and one is a doodle remus drew in the margins of a book

- sirius does not know where regulus gets his tattoos and has been begging for years for the name of his artist

-sirius is SO supportive of james and regulus’ relationship. he loves them both so much and he is glad that they make each other so happy, he is glad that regulus has found a home.

-this does not stop sirius from nagging about it, if the marauders have a group vote about something and james and sirius are on opposite sides sirius will say “you’re shagging my baby brother, you get no opinion” and james will usually relent

[adviceformefromme]

May I ask how your experience writing a book was? I want to be an author and am working on a few rough drafts just to find my niche and all but I was curious what made you write and how it was for you?

Writing the book was a process. I was working with a spiritual coach at the time, so I had accountability and initially we had a goal of 10k words per month. Initially this seemed crazy, but I got into the routine of writing anything from 500-2000 words almost everyday, waking up early to write, going to cute cafes to write. It felt very purposeful and almost romantic. A big part of writing a book is overcoming your ego, that voice of 'who am I to write a book, will anyone even read it'. At points I felt like I was wasting my time, but I let go of the idea of becoming a New York Times bestseller, and wrote simply because it was what is in my heart, and also with the hope of helping even one person with my story. Removing the pressure of it having to be 'successful' made me write with more ease and flow. If you feel called to write, ignoring the call is only going to feel like a disservice to your soul, so I recommend making a commitment by the end of the year you can totally have the book complete. Set out some goals, break them down into daily goals. Allow yourself some grace for the days you need a break and keep moving forward. Xoxo

Read the book here

[steampunkforever]

Dune Part 2 is once more proof that Denis Villeneuve is an incredibly calculating director. And it should be good. He's been storyboarding Dune since the 80s. Of course Zack Snyder also released a film recently that'd been his passion project since before he was making movies, and Rebel Moon sucked, so that's clearly not a metric for success, but you get my point.

Right on the heels of releasing the phenomenal Sicario, Villeneuve got the keys to Dune. This is a moonshot take the money and run opportunity. I love this type of film. One of those "They may never let me do this again" movies like Magnolia or (to a lesser extent) Apocalypse Now! that build on previous success to sucker studio funding for something you really want to do. Usually this involves jumping to it and spending as much money as possible before accounting changes its mind about sending all those blank checks, but Denis was just as calculating as ever with it.

Adapting two more scifi properties at differing scales was the right idea for this, both allowing for more time to develop Dune and for Villeneuve to find his footing with less ambiguous science fiction (considering that my friends who watched Enemy barely understood it to be about aliens). Villeneuve is calculating. His steps are measured, and I've yet to see a film of his that feels outright rushed.

I think that this is in part due to Villeneuve's understanding that he is (at least up until the release of Dune) not part of a generation of directors who get whatever they want. This generation of director has been waning for a long time, but Nolan and Tarantino really mark the last generation of directors allowed to experiment on blank checks no matter if their last film flopped. Zack Snyder is also technically ranked among them but his decade-long slump is clearly an outlier. Villeneuve has to put out solid movies to earn the right to take creative risks, and Dune has clearly been another measured step in his film career. Which is to say that Dune Part 2 is fantastic.

I have a deeply nuanced relationship with Dune screen adaptations, so do note that there is some bias here, but regardless, this is a wonderful film. Did I wish they'd stuck to their guns and shown Alia for real? Did I kind of hope they kept it to just two films instead of the projected 3+ that are sure to come? Am I still outraged that they didn't recast Sting? Of course. But when it all boils down, this film is a science fiction accomplishment that you SHOULD go see.

The set design, sound design, acting, and cinematography were all top notch. There was rarely anything in this film I did not love (read: Timothee, my archnemesis). Of particular note were Pugh, Ferguson, and Bardem's performances. Bardem's Stilgar was an absolute delight, and I found myself losing the fact that he was acting in his performance. The plot, spectacle, and inclusion of Christopher Walken all sold me on the film.

Another detail that was clear evidence of Villeneuve's extremely calculated process was Zendaya's role as Chani in Part 2. Chani (largely sidelined in the books after showing up partway) is positioned as sort of the soapbox character to remind you that colonialism is bad at predetermined intervals. And while this is certainly not a choice I would've made for the character (I prefer to do my soapboxing in different parts of the text) I can't help but find that I didn't hate Chani's direction in the film. This is in spite of the fact that I detest Soapbox characters (except for in Spike Lee films. Love you Spike Lee) and find their usage lazy. Somehow it works for me here, even if it could've been more subtly rolled into the narrative. Man I'm really reaching for nitpicks, I should go back to demanding they show me a creepy toddler Alia.

Anyway if Sting was the one fighting Timothee's Paul that twink would get stabbed to death so hard you have no idea.

[starbellbunny]

I am in LOVE with your fiction about the cop Sans! The poor reader has no idea what storm is coming for her, but gosh I can’t wait! I have a question, what if the MC woken up and seen Horror in her apartment? What on earth would she and Horror do? Thank you for your hard work! 💕

:-( THANK YOU !! I've been struggling for motivation to write anything for a while, I'm glad to hear you like it hehe 💕 I’m trying very hard to make a comeback on this account, as well as on Ao3, I know I've neglected it for a while!

Heres horror getting caught ;p

Now, it was time to see his shortcake. He came out of the kitchen, and rounded the sofa.

…Oh my god.

You were sleeping soundly on the sofa, with your hands cushioning your head. You lay on your side with your legs brought up to a 90° angle. He didn’t even have it in him to be upset that the reason you didn’t mind him being here was because you were sleeping, because you were so fucking cute.

He was grinning like a maniac, as he pulled his phone out his pocket and snapped a picture- or, like, 50- of your sleeping form. He immediately set it as his lock screen picture.

He could already feel the ache in his chest dissolving, at this distance, and you visibly relaxed when he stepped so he could see you.

…He wanted to get closer.

He took a step towards the sofa, and knelt down. He brought a knuckle up to your face, and stroked your cheek. You were so soft- softer then any monster he’d ever touched. He brought his hand down, and thumbed your bottom lip. It looked plump- soft, and kissable. He wanted to kiss you.

He got up from his kneeling position, and climbed carefully onto the sofa over you. He was straddling your hip now, and he took another couple of pictures. Could you blame him, really? That was his soulmate. The vouch groaned under his weight, unhappy to be holding a monster of his size.

He couldn't help but stare at you. He has never been so... Entranced with a single being- let alone a human.

He brought his hand up, ever so gently cupping the left side of your face, as he brought his skull down to press his teeth to your right cheek.

He felt ecstatic. His sockets fluttered shut, absolutely reveling in the moment.

He pulled away- short, but sweet.

He opened his sockets again slowly, to appreciate your form once again, soft, flushed cheeks, gentle snoring, a head of cute, messy hair...

What he didn't expect, however, was for you to be staring directly back at him. That caught him off guard.

All he could do was stare back hopelessly. What was he meant to do in this situation? His face felt very hot.

"What the fuck," you said eventually. His soul, once again, was thrumming in his chest.

You put your hands on either side of his shoulders, as well as your right foot on his chest, pushing him away... He allowed it, sitting on his knees, his hands hanging dumbly at his sides. He wasn't supposed to be caught.

"What the fuck," you repeated. As much as it ashamed him, the only thing he could think of at the moment was how small you seemed. How small your hands were, when you placed them on his shoulders.. How cute that was. How- no matter how fierce you tried to sound, small your voice sounded.

He didn't like how scared you sounded, under the anger that you projected.

You scooted away from him, and he wanted nothing more to pull you back to him. Your legs were angled up, as if you were ready to kick the shit out of him if he were to move even an inch closer to you. Your skin looked increasingly clammy as the moments went by. You were terrified.

Did you recognise him? You continued ti stare at him. He could only imagine how scary this was first you… Poor, little lamb.

He could see you glance around the room, quickly, rapidly, trying to see if anything would help you...

Horror took this as an out.

He shortcutted out of the room, stumbling into Paps' bedroom. It was late, he was already tucked up in his bed reading a book silently, with the bedside lamp on, casting a warm light across the room. He looked up from his book, and shut it quickly.

"Brother? Is Everything Okay?" he asked., his voice cracking in odd places.

Horror couldn't reply.

Fuck.

You looked so scared.

Fuck!

This certainly fucked up his plans a little..

He took the steps towards his brothers bed, sitting on it with a huff. His elbows were planted in his knees, and he rubbed a palm over his face.

No matter, he'd make it work. This was his soulmate, after all.

Yes, you couldn't be that scared of him. Something primal, deep within your soul knew that you were destine to be together, he deluded told himself.

It'd work out. It would.

He always, always had his brother to help, anyways.

He'd do whatever it takes.

[bookaddict24-7]

2024 Reading Goals!

I'm always a bit more lax with my reading goals because I never really know how a year is going to treat me--the last thing I need is stress over my reading (which is admittedly my biggest escape from life). BUT with that being said, making some goals that aren't set in stone is always a fun exercise!

Eleven Reading Goals I'd Like to Achieve in 2024:

Read at least 250 books. (I listen to a lot of audiobooks, so this isn't usually a major stress factor. Even if I wanted to read less, my reading addiction wouldn't really allow it. When I'm not reading, I'm thinking about reading. It's just who I am. BUT keep in mind that this is my goal based on my reading habits. everyone has a different reading habit!)

Finish, or nearly finish the Sookie Stackhouse series. (Of course, this is super dependant on when I get the audiobooks from the library LOL.)

Finish the books on my desk. (I have...a few started books on here. It's cluttering up the space and I feel like I just really want to read them but I'm a mood reader, so...)

(Fourth Wing is a re-read that I was annotating and dropped when something new came out and my attention was stolen away.)

4. Read a few books from each bookshelf of my bedroom. (I already went through the shelves last week and assigned myself a handful of books or so from each shelf for each month of 2024. I just want to specifically target some of the books on my shelves to encourage myself to read more of my owned books. Maybe I should share that progress on here to keep myself accountable. Hm...)

5. Continue to DNF books I don't like. (This is a practice I've been using for the last couple of years, but I also want to remind anyone reading this that it is OK to put down that book you're not vibing with. Life is too short.)

6. Read more formats, not just audiobooks. (I LOVE audiobooks and owe them so much. But I also do sometimes miss having the attention span to read physically. I read a lot more physical books in November & December and I loved it. Also, I pay for KU, so I might as well use it more in 2024.)

7. Try to buy less books. (Seriously, I've gone off the deep end in the last four months. I need to rein it back in. Maybe I should keep a monthly track of it to remind myself not to do the book buying thing as much.)

8. Diversify my reading even more. (Pretty self-explanatory, I think.)

9. Continue to review every book I read this year. (I've been doing this for the past couple of years and it has felt both a bit overwhelming and super rewarding. I love that I can look back on these last few years and read my opinion of whatever books I read during those years.)

10. Unhaul more books. (Life is too short and my shelves are too full to keep books I felt meh about, or don't think I need. Trust me: the first unhaul is the hardest, but after that, it's a little too easy to unhaul books.)

11. Read more of my ARCs. (They are currently staring at me from their designated shelves. I WILL read my very old ARCs at some point in my life, hopefully some will be in 2024.)

___

What are some of your goals for 2024?

___

Thank you for being with me throughout another year of book blogging and post sharing! I hope everyone has a fantastic year full of reading and good health!

___

Happy reading!

[nottsangel]

so i will write down what i wrote where. i am not sure how much is visible to you when you access the bot, so i will take it one by one.

1. character name is self-explanatory, i will skip it. character chat name, idk what that is so i left it blank.

2. character bio. i wrote the same thing as i did for scenario. to give a bit of context about what's going on .

3. character settings. i think you have access to this, but i chose: male, fictional, smut, books. and now that i have the page open, i added dominant.

4. limitless and public. you can change these any time, so you can have it on private at first. limitless allows nsfw!

5. definition. i have read that it's best to use as little words as possible, but to make them meaningful. for adjectives, use them as they are, don't amplify them (× extremely tall; ✓ tall). the bot will take "tall" as taller than you. and the most important part, try to have his info as succinct as possible. e.g.: personality: mean + ruthless + cunning.

6. initial message. make it long-ish and accessible so the user can go multiple routes. i tried to give a time and place, as well as make the bot initiate the conversation with an open line, so that you can do whatever comes to mind.

7. example dialogs. i used the format they presented, but i only wrote down what he would say. i think they take them into account while writing dialogue to sound as natural as possible.

8. i allowed proxies! i am on proxy so if you publish any bot, please have that one checked so i can also use it. 😅😅🥺

i think that's all. if you have more questions, i am here! - 🍯 anon

AAA THANK U SO MUCH BABY !!!!!!! this helps me massively 💕💕 !!!!! also im glad you mentioned number 8 because i had them turned off not knowing what it meant 😭

i’m a bit confused about number 5 though, is that the ‘personality’ part or the ‘scenario’ part? because those are two different things for me in janitor ai (which i’m both struggling with a lot at the moment 😭) and for me the personality is required to write but the scenario part is optional.

for personality i currently have a very detailed and extensive description, different from how you described it so it might not be good at all 😬 and for scenario i have described where everything takes place and the relationship between user and character…? not sure if this is good sjdjdjd

and as for example dialogues, did you write it down exactly how they described it? for example

“{{char}}: Hey, im Mark

{{user}}: hello Mark

{{char}}: nice to meet you :)”

or did you also put examples of behaviour in this part? such as *theo stares at you… blabla*

[babygirldabi]

The soft Dabi brainrot I've been swimming in all day

CW: Pregnancy, pregnancy anxiety, mentions of loss of child, let me know if I forgot anything

This is my first post here and I already hate it but I needed to get it off my chest so badly, so here's some fuckshit I guess, enjoy

Boyfriend!Dabi, who thinks he's either going to pass out or have a stroke when you tell him that you're pregnant.

Boyfriend!Dabi, who very briefly, reflexively considers running away before common sense takes hold and reminds him that you are his entire life.

Boyfriend!Dabi, who wraps his arms around you while you panic and waits for you to slow down and stop rambling before asking you if this is what you really want.

Boyfriend!Dabi, who doesn't hesitate when you say yes, and promises to do his very best between sputtering apologies for getting you pregnant in the first place.

Boyfriend!Dabi, who spends more hours than you do poring over pregnancy and parenting books, trying to learn everything at once and giving himself migraines in the process. Sometimes you'll wake up to find him muttering to himself in a corner, his face in a book. One time you thought you caught him taking notes, but the paper was gone by the time you took a second glance.

Boyfriend!Dabi, who finds that he can deny you nothing anymore (not that he really could in the first place, let's be real), which often causes him to be stumbling headlong out of the house at 3 am to find you whatever you're craving at the moment; fried chicken, green olives, a very specific brand and flavor of yogurt, cookies, ice cream. You're normally over the craving and asleep by the time he gets home, but he'll just stick it in the fridge for later.

Boyfriend!Dabi, who finds that he cannot bear to leave you home alone anymore, let alone allow you to leave the house on your own- Not only does he set up cameras around the house so that he can keep an eye on you while he's at work, but insists that if you have to leave the house for any reason, you must be accompanied by a League member (It's usually Toga because she loves you and you love her).

Boyfriend!Dabi, who is determined to do better than his father did and is actively losing sleep over how hard he's going to work to make this child's life different, better, than his own.

Boyfriend!Dabi, who told Shig he couldn't do anymore night missions when Toga told him you couldn't sleep on the nights he wasn't in the house.

Boyfriend!Dabi, who creates a strict schedule for you to follow and makes you go to bed on time so you get a full eight hours. He doesn't care if you whine. That's his kid you're growing, and you both need rest.

Boyfriend!Dabi, who thinks he might actually cry when he gets home from work one day to find you on the couch, crocheting a baby blanket with a pretty skein of yarn, smiling up at him so sweetly.

Boyfriend!Dabi, who spends HOURS researching the best and safest baby products, who creates a fake account in a Mom's Corner chatroom just to get more details on how to actually raise a tiny human successfully.

Boyfriend!Dabi, who blushes and hides his head under the covers when you find the chatroom on his laptop one night before bed, because you are positively howling and he's humiliated.

Boyfriend!Dabi, who is absolutely fucking goddamn terrified of the thought of you giving birth, because what if something goes wrong and he loses you both?

Boyfriend!Dabi, who watches you waddle around the house, one delicate hand on your swollen belly, and feels his heart swell with pride.

Boyfriend!Dabi, who will not let you even walk down the stairs to the first floor by yourself. He insists on backing down one stair at a time in front of you, arms open and ready to catch you if you slip, ignoring your grumbling and whining of Baby, really, 'm fine, because he needs to keep you safe.

Boyfriend!Dabi, who lays awake at night while you sleep curled up against him, one scarred hand to your belly to feel his baby kick, overwhelmed by the emotion he feels with every tiny thump.

Boyfriend!Dabi, who is soon to be Daddy!Dabi, and who loves you both more than you could ever know.

[an-aura-about-you]

So back on Halloween I watched the FNAF movie, and while I had fun, it did leave something to be desired. So here we go: my award winning rewrite of the FNAF movie to make it actually good and make sense.

Spoilers for the series in general under the cut.

First off, we are embracing the fact that this is an adaptation of a video game series that has a shaky story at best. We are 100% allowed to pick and choose which pieces work. We see some of that in the actual movie what with Vanessa being William Afton's daughter. (At least, unless there's some kinda reveal that happened after I dropped off the series.)

Second, I am totally willing to carve this movie for parts that do work. And one of them that I kept noticing is that the movie is Really Fucking Hesitant to say Mike's full name. Yeah, that was supposed to be foreshadowing that the guy hiring our boy Mike Schmidt recognized his last name on account of he's William Fucking Afton. However, I went into the movie after seeing precisely one trailer and no spoilers besides what I knew about the series already. So I paid attention to how Friggin' NOBODY says Mike's last name until the very end of the movie.

Because the reveal I had been hoping for was that Mike Schmidt was Michael Afton.

And if you build a movie around THAT reveal, it fixes so many problems and removes shit we really don't need. We can remove the little brother character and kill off the little sister instead. It gives Mike a stronger motivation to work at the terrible job that is Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.

So here's how we do it: we make the movie primarily a combination of FNAF 1 and Pizzeria Simulator with elements of Sister Location.

Mike Schmidt is a down on his luck guy, depressed and listless and moving from job to job with no real reason to stick around. No family, just a little token he keeps with him, a half-heart BFF bracelet meant for little girls.

But then he sees a listing in the want ads for the job of night security guard at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, due to close by year's end.

Motivated for the first time in a long time, he quits his job on the spot and answers the ad.

The man who placed the ad, we'll call him Henry (and if you know the games and books you know where I'm going with this), turns him down at first when they meet, says it's an old listing and he's no longer taking applicants "but thank you anyway Mr. ..."

And that's when Henry notices the name, why this young man looks so familiar.

"Mike Schmidt?" he asks to confirm.

Mike nods. "It was Mom's maiden name." It was the first name he could think of when the name Afton was ruined for him. We get this bit at the end of the movie for The Once More With Clarity Reveal.

Henry runs his hand over his beard, good lord what a mess. This isn't what he intended with his ad at all. But if there's anyone living he owes his help to, it's Michael.

So Mike starts working night shift at Freddy's, and UNLIKE the actual movie the animatronics actually TRY to attack him the entire time. This will be the actual bulk of the movie's action, with maybe a few unlucky trespassers so we can get a proper kill count. We get the classic roster from the first game with two big exceptions, the first being the Puppet.

Because while Mike tries finding clues about his missing younger sister in the pizzeria, one night he slips up and the Puppet is set to attack him, oh no! Mike throws his hands up to protect his face.

And that's when the Puppet sees the BFF bracelet. And stops. Because he has the matching bracelet. And Mike isn't sure why at first until the Puppet leads a wary Mike to a storage room he hadn't checked yet, full of cleaning supplies and endoskeletons and our other animatronic reveal: Circus Baby.

And the Puppet gets Baby to tell her story of the day she abducted and killed Mike's sister. She points to the BFF bracelet and says, "You have my bracelet."

And Mike is brought to tears by all that is revealed: his sister's death, how the souls of his father's victims are trapped possessing the animatronics, and the terrible realization that they had been attacking him because he looks like their killer, his father.

But then we get our big climax! William Afton returns to his pizzeria, which was Henry's original plan all along. Afton dons his Spring Bonnie suit so the animatronics don't recognize him. Henry goes to the pizzeria as well, his goal of trapping his old business partner Afton in sight but concerned for Michael. With everyone trapped inside, Henry calls Michael on the landline and tells him what's going on, tells him to try to get out because he's setting the place on fire and ending this once and for all. And Mike goes, "No, I'll see this through to the end. Tell me where to go to get the gas going, you light it up."

And now Mike has to evade his father long enough to burn it all down, and there's a big father son confrontation where Michael just reads his father for the filth he is, buying time for Henry to finish this.

And when he does, Henry gives his speech from the end of Pizzeria Simulator over the restaurant pa system. When he speaks to the spirit of his daughter, we cut to the Puppet, turning his head up so the girl possessing him can hear her father. Quick little flashback of the girls playing together, swinging their joined hands together with their matching BFF bracelets clinking.

And though Afton tries to retreat, Mike throws him in the restaurant's safe room, holding the door in grim victory as the flames lick at him.

A bittersweet ending, but a satisfying one.

And then, after the credits, we have a flashforward. The crew putting together the horror attraction Fazbear Frights has found the safe room in the charred remains of the restaurant, and they have salvaged the Spring Bonnie inside. Sequel hook!!

So yeah, that's my pitch for the FNAF movie I think we should have gotten. Thoughts?

[zimithrus1]

For the Fanfiction Writing Asks... I'm kind of cheating due to low spoons, sorry:

80: please answer 1 to 5 of the other 79 questions, choosing the ones you'd rather talk about today? 😅

Asks List

Cheat all you need to with low spoons, I've been there am there 💚 But also thank you for the versatility~ This is a little long so I'll add a read more option. Let's see...

7. Post a snippet from a wip With Barnaby’s portions in hand, Kotetsu carefully steps out of the kitchen, walking into the living room with a soft smile on his face. He sets the bowl down against a small coffee table just a few feet away from the couch. (Also bought on one of Kotetsu’s mentions).

“Here you go, baby bunny.” He softly says as he sets the water down next to it.

A flush of red on Barnaby’s face from the extra sweet term of endearment. “Thank you.” He says in despite of that coyness.

“Of course.” Kotetsu smiles. “Here, let me…”

He trails off, but when Barnaby shifts ever so slightly, he’s already on the move to help him reposition himself. With how his partner had his leg clutched, he’s obviously in pain, and moving himself around too much makes it flare up worse. Though with someone to help, it eases the strain. (Coming soon to an ao3 account near you lol! 😂)

13. Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what have you been listening to recently? It varies, but more often than not I've got something playing to keep me from getting too distracted. I tend to put on songs without words, or songs that I've heard over and over and haven't gotten sick of yet. Lately when I've been writing, due to my faltering mentality, I've been listening to this and this to keep me both distracted and focused as possible. 🎧

22. Do you title your fics before, during, or after the writing process? How do you come up with titles? 95% percent of the time I come up with the tile before I even start writing. It's hard for me to start if I don't have a good title. I can think of an idea, flesh it out in my head, but until I come up with a title it stays there lol! I come up with titles from songs, not-so-common words, or smashing two words or things together. It varies depending on the idea.

34. How much personal/life experience do you include in your fics? A lot. Writing is usually how I process a lot of thoughts and feelings I don't normally allow myself to have or act on. Or its experiences I want to have, or things I was denied when I was younger that I can give myself through words now. Maybe even just to think 'wouldn't it be fucked up if this happened??' and going with it lol 😂

45. What genre/trope do you tend to write the most? My go-to trope is tied between hurt/comfort and fluff and my go-to trope is friends to lovers. Hurt/comfort has always been a good push and pull for me. I love writing how characters would react/act to bad/painful/stressful situations, and when the tension dies down, having something or someone warm, soft and comforting waiting to help pick them back up. And fluff is just, so sweet and fun to write. I've always had a knack for the cute, fun stuff in writing and art. Just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside hearing it. Ties in very well with hurt/comfort too, like an extra layer of glue. 👌 And friends to lovers has always been a thing I've gravitated towards even as a child. Mainly based on my own experiences. When watching movies, reading books and playing games I always thought 'how could someone just fall for someone they don't even know? I wish X went for their best friend, they've known each other for so long! It seems unfair!' (might've been the demi/ace in me too lol 🖤🤍💜) There's a connection between friends, especially friends that grew up together. They've seen the other through every stage of their life, shared secrets and late nights and pinkie promises, adventures and heartaches all the same - I always thought what's more intimate and special for a partner than that? 💗

Long rambles jeeze lol though I do love these little ask games, I get so eager to share 😆 Thank you very much for the ask, and sorry it took a little while to get to - I apparently had a lot I wanted to blab about 😂 Take care~ 💚

[paperw0rmz]

How to use Pinterest, a tutorial by a kid who wasn’t allowed social media but was allowed Pinterest

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a social media platform where likes, followings, comments, don’t fucking matter which means it’s the best social media platform period.

How do I use Pinterest?

First make an account you fucking tard. Do it. It’s fuckinf 2023. Why don’t you have a Pinterest? Make one. Now. Do it.

Anyways

Once you make and set up your profile you will probably be forced by Pinterest to click on interests n shit that you like, you CAN do that if you want, but you can skip it too.

So after Pinterest takes your personal info you can now do the best thing which is starting F.R.E.S.H

First pins

Go look around now! Like cats? Look up cats! Want a recipe? Look up some food! I don’t fucking care! Search around and then click the little pin button which then saves it to your profile so you can check on it later you probably won’t ever look at it again

Reorganize

FUCK! You saved too much random shit and dell down the rabbit hole of pins. You have cats, grandma cookies, and old screen shots from tumblr with an ifunny logo in the corner along with outfits and hair ideas all cluster fucked on your profile! What do you do?

You make boards or even better sections.

A board is where you have basically like a cork board and you can pin certain shit to. So say you want a board for everything to do with Misha Collins, you create a board and then transfer all your saved pins that have to do with Misha to that board and BOOM! It’s organized now : D

Sections are even better!

To make sections you must first have a board, so say you want to then REALLY organize your Misha Collins board. You then press create sections and then label your sections! So say you want crying misha happy misha or mishapocolypse, all of those sections will now be saved in the Misha Board even MORE organized than before!

Expert Mode

Psssh Pinterest is easy anyone can do- wait, five quick and easy ways to turn an old T-Shirt new again? Wait, no hold the fuck on I need to try this. Wait so I just cut it here and then- wait so I tie it here? But how do they- am I missing a step??? That doesn’t make any fuckin- why doesn’t this look like the picture? I don’t get it!!! FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU

Has that ever happened to you!? You see an idea on Pinterest and you then try it out and it doesn’t go as planned? No? It came out perfectly? Well you should go kill yourself actually. But before then there’s a really cool feature on Pinterest (that nobody uses anymore really) called Try it! Its a way to show that you attempted to make whatever the original pin made and is a great way to see if it’s actually humanly possible or if the instructions suck ass, also it’s funny to look at peoples failed attempts!

Shit my Pinterest is just misha Collins

Did your Aunt Barbra ask to follow you on Pinterest? Do you have nothing to show other than some Slavic mediocre looking man that you treat like a preteen girl? Post your own shit! Make a board and then sections in it for all photos you take!!! Literally!!! Please!!! It’s so cute to have a digital scrap book!!! I might kill myself if more people don’t show the mundane and boring parts of their lives!!! This is a cry for help!!!! If you want your pins to get noticed make sure you add generic shit like “twilight core Alex g” or “trans Fem robot bdsm” stuff that people just look up you know. Same with the discription, the first 50 words

are what pops up for other Pinterest users, so make sure to use those characters wisely!

Hurray

You now know how to use Pinterest! Congratulations! And of course don’t forget the other feature like:

Commenting on pins, hearting pins, staring pins, the inability to truly look up names so you are forced to send a link to your account instead for people to follow you, the useless QR code, linking in pins, store links in pins, and more!

In all, Pinterest is a very good website and app that allows you to just hoard images and then probably never look at again even though you tell yourself you will. It’s great for creatives, autistic people, and some other people I guess.

TLDR: go ape shit fam