#i forgot to post this for a couple chars

[softgrungeprophet]

me writing stuff in my timeline like, are dr warren and norman a little too evil? is this too black and white? too cartoony?

me looking over my other villains/antagonists (ock, mac, etc.) who are generally complex in their morals while still being assholes or bad people: i think I'm good actually,

[joelletwo]

that little robot manga...?

i forgot how to do a casual rec writeup so im gonna do a stilted one, because i'd like it if you read this comic and enjoyed it like i did.

format: charming Form-y and expressive art style. 140 chapters which are all very short and more following a flow of time than a plot. easy to lose yourself and read 50 of 'em in a sitting. i've heard.

story: oh this one's easy. android girl Alpha runs a countryside cafe in place of her owner while she awaits their return. um, well it doesn't seem like they will, but she's a longliving android, so she can keep waiting. um, but life continues and is never the same twice, so is she really waiting as she goes out and experiences the world and the things it can discover and share with her? well but she's running a cafe. that's always true

and that world is a post-cataclysmic japan of unshown cause, except "post" isn't really the right phrasing... the consequences reach far and long and the world continues to change around the remaining people as the years go by, continuing to change them in turn, and vice versa. the past is in living memory, witnessed and passed on in stories and missed, but adapted from, by humans, by robots, by machines, by wildlife, by the landscape itself.

and the story very skillfully presents the liquid boundaries between all those categories, and between past history and memories and living-gaining-losing present and the future coming to settle over you gently. the way that any of those can coexist, or come together to forge a connection, or just share a space for a moment and see each other before continuing on.

this is all very metaphorical but also literal. the existence of robots came, scientifically, from a culmination of human experiences of things like Sounds, and Feelings Of Striving Desperation. they're an achievement but not a means, an existence in themselves, a new Being that gets to experience the world in all its possible senses

a world the story isn't really interested in Solving or Explaining... just... showing, and having you along. life continues, life finds a way, life shrugs and says, "ah, what can you do."

it gets a little Existentially Dreadful............. or it flirts right on the boundary of it, but none of its chars are really big enough to worry about such things, even the ones who will be there long after everything's done. they're concerned more with meeting someone new, and making a little conversation for a minute.

you may notice me running on long... i feel like i couldnt say everything this manga's so concisely, understatedly doing in words if i tried for a year. i didnt even get to, the robots have to lesbian-make out to share memories but its really so charming that they do and get flustered about it and feel weird in their friendships afterwards, well what can i say about that. its all so matter of fact, this manga, it's not important, look, now there's a chapter about the sensory feel of sitting just-shielded-from a torrential summer downpour as it comes and passes.

to close out, here's a palette of words i wrote down as i went.

life continuing. life happening. persistence. independence. sensory. passerby-intimate. ponderous. contemplative. invites you to experience. communal. disappearing.

and then here's some more words and pictures so i can make a couple comparisons.

-

-

well........................................... this one feels mean of me to make bc i have admitted im unfair about the Attack Helicopter short story. i dont enjoy the experience of reading it i feel Confronted by it, in a really skillful but unpleasant way. but it was unshakeable while reading this to draw the comparison. the Embodying the overlapping identities, the somewhat enforced and fraughtly militarized way you go thru life as a human born in a State, the sensuality of doing so. <- its. i havent found a better way to say it. such a glancingly sensual manga. it's very into what it feels like to be in a Body.

and well ive always been glad something out there is doing what AH story is doing. so now im glad there's Two.

long sequence v

[...]

well so i said i picked this manga up because of the green-haired robot with a job and a cameras-that-look-like-eyes focus i wanted to compare to tama, aye...? i still have the Eye Posts deep in my drafts.....................

but i do love cameras as, theoretically, a way to get around The Hole!!!!! (take an objective snapshot of an experience to be able to share it with someone outside your perspective in place and time and brain and eyes) except it's not actually...? the gap still cannot be crossed and a photo only serves to highlight and intensify that...? no man ever steps in the same river twice for its not the same river and he's not the same man...?

um. thats all............................ end post........

[wabatle]

HEY BESTIE YOU KNOW I WAS COMING

sososo obvi bllk and you obvi alrdy know i am a girl and would like to be matched up w i boy (honestly what girl from bllk would youmatch me up with anyway💀.. egos assistant??)

for personality

i am a weirdo uhh my friends call me an anime nerd but i dont think in that much of one??

i am VERY sarcastic, savage, and snarky

traits are (plz dont take this as like bragging or anthying just being honest) humorous, uhh VERY soft hearted, kind of a pushover but i used to be a rlly big push over, in ambiverted but at first you would prolly think im introverted, oh im also kinda teasing and in very emotional i will cry if watching a sad movie and i get frustrated easily whicheventually makes me cry(crybaby ik)

oh another thing abt me is that im not rlly good at like expressing my emotions like thro words and sometimes in my face like sometimes i see like scenery for egi probably think it’s really pretty and like stunning and beautiful but like if you ask me what i think id prolly just say “oh its nice” like do yknow what i mean?? Same with my face like i always have a straight face unless in rlly happy that day and the only time ill like actually express my emotions is if youre talking to me or make me laugh

dam that was a lot

un ok for hobbies voice acting, gaming, watching anime, listening to music, writing, editing

kinda semi hobbies thati like but dont rlly do that much are baking and dancing

Things that make me feel negative? Hmmm not entirely sure what you mean by that but… i tii hi ink just negative stuff in general like i HATE movies or shows with sad endings they make me so sad and theres jo feeling of satisfaction at the end :((

Things that make me positive? Well it makes me rlly happy when i make other laugh or when ppl approach me or pop in my inbox like what im bot the one starting a convo fir once?? CRaZY

Someone i dint wanna be matched up with… hmm uhh well any of the side chars like the bald monk💀💀💀 i forgot if you even write for them but also others liek naruhaya and giganaru OH i dint wanna be match up with barou either

Idrc if you post this answering my ask or tagging but sometimes i like to read over my ask when someone answers it so actually could youanswer with my ask

OKAY THANKS POOKIE ❤️❤️❤️ DRINK WATERR

𓆩⚝𓆪 — @stellas-starry-stories13's Blue Lock Matchup~!

𓆩⚝𓆪 — A/N: It might be because you're biased and I'm biased but now I genuinely think you and this person are soulmates. ❤️ Ngl we're actually really similar lmaooaoaoao anyways enough of my yapping!!

𓆩⚝𓆪 — I think your Blue Lock soulmate is...

𓆩⚝𓆪 — Chigiri Hyoma!

I read the part where you said you were sarcastic, savage, snarky, and sassy and immediately said, "Chigiri."

You two are such a duo ngl. Like genuinely you guys are perfect for each other. Such a sassy couple like omg.....

The teasing is real. You probably tease each other so much like help.

Chigiri also isn't that great with expressing his feelings, so you both can help each other on that front. If, like in the example you gave me, you say a view is nice and he can tell you're not saying what you're thinking, he'll ask you, "what are you really thinking about?"

He'll def laugh at you if you're crying about a movie 💀. I'm sorry but he would.

He's pretty good at noticing when you're getting stressed or frustrated, so he'll remind you to take a break and watch something with him.

You definitely pick anime to watch together and watch at least one episode every time you see each other.

Similar to when people come into your inbox, Chigiri texts you every day, whether to ask you something or talk to you about stupid things.

It doesn't take him long to laugh at your jokes. Someone else said the same joke as you and he's just (ㆆ_ㆆ), but you say it and he's giggling.

I think he would like to take you to an arcade for dates. I mean, he's pretty much down for doing whatever you like as long as he can enjoy it too.

I hope you liked it! Thanks for the req Stella my pookie bear!!! 😍😍😍

[skaruresonic]

Feel like you're taking 06's unfinished mocappedness over actual characterizing, though fans do the exact same in overly making him seem noble just cuz of taking the last scene OOC, and ignoring everything else

-He curtly tells Rouge he simply was rescuing her, which, kinda rude/blunt

-Mephiles he immediately calls BS

-Sonic he pushes back at the "don't be late" comment

-While he could've joined the others in simply going back to the present after Iblis, he remained out of his own volition of finding out WTF Mephiles is

-Silver he kicks and calls him misguided, rather than be proactive

Shadow isn't really misled or acting out of confusion/vengeance unlike earlier games in 06. It's a culmination of past char dev, along with different circumstance. So he doesn't have much to rib off of

Even then, in game there are a lot of quotes showing his ego. My fav is "Hah! There's no strength in numbers!" When he encounters hordes of enemies in later stages/Hard mode. The scrapped audio of him and Sonic having an Extra mode highlights more his attitude, though not to exaggerated levels like what the fandom does

And then Rivals 1/2, games literally written by Iizuka, was released a couple days later, and he very much is combatitive there to other chars interferring. He's not "softened" or "edged up", he's a very tempermental char depending on context/char interaction. Shadow's ego is very much "tell and show", so if nothing needs to be shown, he won't say as he's generally a reserved person

Later games are similar in that he doesn't have much to go off of in char chemistry for being "bratty", contrary to what fandom says. I'd argue the only bad use of him is Free Riders, cuz he legitimately has no reason or drive to participate in that contest

TLDR: I find fandom stupid, but I find your dismissal of 06 Shadow to fall in the same trap, for different reasons

My bad, I forgot '06 implied Shadow has an IQ of 200. xP

While I get what you're saying, my objections are more that fans call '06!Shadow peak Shadow without considering the fact that '06!Shadow looks like he's dissociating in half his scenes... Even more than the game where he's actively suffering PTSD flashbacks.

In addition, '06's canon status begs questions of just how much weight we ought to be giving it, when other games have largely tackled the same subject matter. We knew that Shadow will fight the world if necessary, since you have the choice to fight the entire world in ShTH.

I honestly don't know what '06 could say about his character that hasn't already been said. Because it seems to me the game offers more insight into Rouge and Omega's views on Shadow than Shadow's views on them, you know what I mean?

Rouge confirms her loyalty towards him and Shadow just stands there. It's not like in Battle where he begrudgingly calls her ally, or SA2 where Rouge's goading compels him to justify himself with "I came back for the Chaos Emeralds."

To say nothing of how the "I'd choose you over the world" sentiment loses a little of its luster when you realize it's not limited to just Rouge in her attempt to make Shadow feel better; Amy and Elise say it to or regarding Sonic as well. So it's not even particularly unique to Rouge and Shadow's relationship in this game anyhow. Compare these scenes. There's no real back-and-forth.

You also read the post where I said I feel the only thing Maekawa seems to think to do with Shadow is stuff him in a capsule, right? I don't really give its inclusion in '06 quarter for being an old game because A.) if folks are calling this portrayal peak, then I'm going to hold it to a fairly high standard, and B.) it's a recycling of the same plot we've seen over and over again, and suffers the same pitfalls of reducing Shadow to a plot device. We already had an evil "mastermind" try to manipulate him in the previous game.

'06 saying "Shadow won't fall for the chessmaster's tricks" is kind of a redundant point to make twice. Mephiles attempts to mess with his head a la Black Doom, but even that conflict falls flat if Shadow doesn't at least buy into it a little.

I've read analyses of '06 Shadow before. Half the scenes people analyze consist of him staring blankly into space. And I get the point they're trying to make, but it's hard for me to overlook the fact that, compared to other iterations, '06!Shadow has no real discernible personality. It's not like in SA2 where he's simply quiet; he's inscrutable in a way that makes him seem dead inside.

He has the exact same look on his face as when he kicks Silver in the head as when Mephiles drops the bombshell on him that the world will turn against him as when he's staring at Rouge's boobs. And I'm not sure if calling this Shadow peak over all over iterations is any better than the accusations that Pontaff-era!Shadow is an edgelord. Because it's like okay I guess, you can overlook Shadow appearing to have no affectation at all, but don't like it when he displays personality in other games?

And then Rivals 1/2, games literally written by Iizuka, was released a couple days later, and he very much is combatitive there to other chars interferring. He's not "softened" or "edged up", he's a very tempermental char depending on context/char interaction. Shadow's ego is very much "tell and show", so if nothing needs to be shown, he won't say as he's generally a reserved person

I wasn't contesting that, lol. xP When I say Shadow's an asshole, bear in mind I'm not saying that's the only thing he can be, of course. I know he is also reserved and isn't always "fight me" depending on the context. But at the same time, I feel like folks don't like to acknowledge that he does have rough edges and a sometimes unlikable temperament.

[garmmy]

Which Digimon partners for Genealogy of the Holy War casts would be?

oh! tbh i don't have a very solid idea of partners i want for them (my hcs keep changing anyway), but i actually had a couple of olddd doodles i think i posted on twt but forgot to post the draft here:

i personally see ares with liamon...idk, i feel like liamon has kind of that prideful, fierce young lion vibe that ares has?

actually i’m not sure which lion digimon i’d give eldigan?? i was deliberating between leomon x, bancholeomon, or even saberleomon lol.

and a lil doodle of sigurd with dukemon, because of how dukemon is based on sigurd/siegfried.

i feel like i did draw a picture of seliph with spadamon before, but idk where it went!

and i think i drew leif with leafmon once as a cute joke, but the idea of wommon>stingmon kinda like leif’s promotion from prince>master knight actually feels kinda good (i was thinking about leif with patamon too because idk, i thought a light-affiliated digimon would fit him).

other than that i haven’t really thought too much on fe4 chars’ digimon partners (or i have thought, but didn’t really decide on any partner pairings i felt like..’fit��)?

but that’s my thoughts so far! if anyone has digimon partners ideas for fe4 chars feel free to reply or reblog w tags, i’d love to hear :>

[leafdlc]

can't believe I forgot to post my favorite t4t oc couple that I drew yesterday. have a look at char(she/her) and azzy(they/them) <333

[catboii]

(( hi to anyone who forgot they were following this DEADass blog!!

I've obviously not been on here, or on any RP blog at all, in forever. I'm gonna put this weird update(? more like a note to myself) under a cut, in case it gets kinda long... I might add updates to it later because there's alot I want to say. but I doubt anyone who would've been interested back when I was active, is still around (not to be negative! I don't expect them to be, I hope everyone I hung out with is living their best life!!) but I don't really know where else to collect my mess of thoughts on this character (I only sort of use twitter atm? and char limit lol), so for now, I'll post it here, and if I ever wanna link back to it, it's all neat and together...

if you've forgotten what this blog used to be since I changed URL and icons etc the last couple times it was active, it was Catboii, then before that SolicitorC. I have no idea if this character is actually dead, or if it is still out there somewhere, living it's best life (hopefully) maybe one day I'll tie up the loose ends, and finally set it free.... who knows

the reason I'm here, thinking about this character so fondly again, is I've actually been tentatively thinking about. writing things. again. I've been reading Homestuck fanfics again recently (i know right? in 2023?? what the shit) I doubt anyone who followed me on this blog knew me back on my other RP blogs, where I occasionally mentioned my fanfics (from 10 years ago aparently, mostly 2013 wow)..... most of which I'm embaressed about today so some I've orphaned, but the experience and practice was good in the long run

but the point is I've been thinking about writing something in my spare time (which I don't have much of, and I have multiple mental things that mean I have to re-read and correct and rearrange things I write like a million times. so far I've taken nearly 2 hours <now nearly 4 including eating and moving from upstairs to downstairs back upstairs...> to write and re-read this post, and I'm nowhere near done yet.... I'm gonna try to not be so anal about how this lays out because I've moved some paragraphs around and it sometimes doesn't make sense, but it literally doesn't matter! this is mostly just so I can look back on it in the future and be like, "oh yeah, I did that...")

I was thinking about trying to write some original fiction about one particular set of fantasy characters I have, and I like to remember the inspiration for their origins, so here we are.....

people who actually know me know I'm a HUGE slut for recycling characters. I have OCs who've been in literal hundreds of AUs, with either the same characters as always, or some different ones. and alot of my OCs, surprise surprise, started off as Tumblr RP muses.

I actually have a new version of this character, completely off tumblr or any other platform as of yet. although now he's completely diverged and I've created an entirely new timeline, new history, some actual lore of where he's come from and WHAT HE IS (finally) and how some of my other characters fit into the "universe". and I'll be honest, I did take some inspiration from some chatacters we met along the way. they have different names, I've changed their personalities somewhat, some are just loosely based off of the "concept" of a character we met, or the kind of relationship or interactions they had with my/other characters around,,, and they may not fit together with each other in this universe the way they did on Tumblr because they're not them, but the inspiration that I got from the interactions our characters had, had a big impact on the way this character has evetually turned out. I have BPD and "favourite people" reaches to more than just actual real life people for me, it reaches to characters, and I did have some "favourite muses" that really stuck with me, even if my muse wasn't a fan or they didn't really interact. there were also characters that my muse was really into, that I personally wasn't a fan of, but still mean alot to me and our progression

I obviously don't wanna just straight up plagierise someone else's character, and that wouldn't make sense anyway.... I can't copy someone else's character, and even if I COULD, they were probably fandom muses, which wouldn't work here in our new world. I can make up new characters, self indulge for the purposes of progressing my other character's stories... but that feels empty and pointless. these characters STILL hold a special place in my heart? and so some kind of weird tribute, without actually telling the person who made them, just makes sense to me I guess.... I wasn't gonna out mysef like this tbh, because to some people it might sound bad, I have alot of other characters who I've basically done the same thing with, took some loose inspiration from some OCs/fandom muses someone else made, and put some bits and pieces of them together in a completely different character of my own. I have a couple who are still mildly reminiscent of the originals, or are a very close paralell (with my own quirks), which I actually did get permission from the original creators to use and change... sometimes I think about actual TV or book characters who these smaller characters remind me of, and other RP blog characters or OCs, put bits of these characters together, then pick them apart, thinking about how they grew up, their family, friends, how that would've formed them as a person... frankensteining them together into some kind of guilt-free brain baby. this is essentially how you make characters, right? they're even initially inspired by real people, or real people's traits or personalities... then you squish them up and mould them into something else? it's not like I'm profiting off someone else's hard work and creativity... idk I don't really know how I feel about it.

for me, making characters is more than just "welp I need someone to be this guy's friend for a few chapters", they're a big part of the story, each one of my characters need to have some kind of background. even if that background is that we don't know anything about them for whatever reason.

anyway... back to the point I was getting to.

Tii, or Kiity, started off as... sort of a weird social experiment (at least that's what I'm calling it as a joke) on how out of character I can make a "normal" homestuck AU character, and not feel even the slightest bit bad about it. until I did.

the full timeline from when I was actually active is here but if you're not into long rambling explanations, here's, something..... (spoiler this turned into way longer than the timeline page, but this one has actual me in it, and my thoughts, rather than a sorta,,, emotionless list) if you DON'T wanna read the full timeline, but would like to read about my NEW character, I'll put this between these squigglies, and you can just skip it

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homestuck stuff (so if you don't get HS then I'm sorry!): he started as just a normal post-game Sollux but he was god tier, didn't remember anything from the game or where his friends were, but couldn't die! fun! while he'd had the blog he got one of those pesky magin anons which turned him into a literal catboy, which he was actually really into bc people gave him alot of attention, so we made it permanent, there was some stuff with an Alternian uprising, human troll experimentation, he had his own lab, did experiments with parasites, especially brain worm type deals, I think this Sollux (I've had a few) didn't have Psionics? bc I'm a sucker for broken bois, it's been such a long time that I don't remember much myself. there was a phase with quadrant prostitution, hence the blog title "Solicitor". the first URL is where the nickname Lit came from. totally accidental but "it's Lit" was a great tag line. there was alot of memory loss in here, a universe's Signless manipulating Lit's memories to his own advantage... I have a terrible memory myself, and forgetting important things is a big fear of mine, so I thought I'd vent it out as a plot point, again, fun! it was also a handy plot ploint to let Lit forget muses who went inactive, rather than waiting around for them to return (since he was clingy but I'm realistic and have no problem if someone has a real life)

no more homestuck: there's a climax point where Lit was manipulated by a demonic creature called Kreed, which mostly happened off-blog. partially because I was too cringe thinking "lol demons" to actually go very far with it publicly. but in the end it worked out in my favour, because the story was getting REALLY DEPRESSING, and it was sorta going stale... this is where I dropped fandom and made Tii an OC, I was sort of feeling weird about the whole fandom thing since the character didn't feel like the actual canon character at all, with the memory loss and the manipulation. it was totally in character and it was story/character progression, but it didn't feel right calling it Sollux anymore, and honestly it was a little restricting.... it wasn't out of place though, because other people were making their fandom characters OCs around this time, rather than just starting up a whole new blog for the OC, having to get followers/interaction from scratch... you know, the grind.

there was a while at this point where Tii thought it was happy? but honestly no, it wasn't, and it was dragging me down a bit, which is why I kept dipping out, and I made a couple of ther blogs around this point. in general the blog experience was good, most of the interactions were great, but I'd put too much,,,,, brain? into emotions and the afterthoughts. I got too in my head, and in Tii's head, about the past. there were toxic muses that Tii dwelled on, and even if I tried to erase the memories, they would still pop up on it's dash and it would start a spiral, there would be posts on the vent blog regarding these people and Tii would be like "WHO DIS??" which was partially funny, but in the end exhausting.... it turned out, what I was *hoping* would be a superpower (forgetting traumatic events) turned out to be Tii's downfall.... I decided to go no-contact with my own character at some point. mostly I was just genuinely too busy, but I started to pop back on every now and again on mobile to see how things were going, say hi to a couple people, but eventually it would all start spiralling again, and it just wasn't enjoyable. I tried making another blog for an OC, which I don't think I even finished setting up before I decided I just didn't have the time or energy to start up.... but that's not Tii stuff, so nevermind that

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today, Furui is a Nekomata (with some shapeshifting abilities), in a world where maybe 2% of the population is some kind of fantasy creature, living in hiding. most can blend in with general society, so humans think it's WAY less than that, although they know they're around...

I have a few "main characters", including Keisuke, who was a boy who grew up at the family temple/shrine (I'm not too familiar with Japanese culture, and I'm not about to pretend I am, so I forget which it is) where Furui lived back when he was an actual, literal cat. he frequented the site, even though his family told him not to go alone as the ghost of a black cat haunted it. it was actually just a Yokai. so much better... the Yokai grew quite fond of Keisuke, and hung around him, let him put a handmade collar on him so he could hear the tinkling bell when he was around. although Keisuke moved abroad to study when he was older, and when he returned after several years, the cat was gone. at some point, Furui, not understanding human language, so thinking Keisuke had just forgetten about him (even though he did try multiple times to say he was leaving,,, )and other humans pestering him and trying to chase him out, had gotten fed up, and turned into a malevolent spirit, burning down the temple/shrine, and killing several humans who'd tried to harm him

on a lighter note, fast farward a couple years, there's some goofy intro where Keisuke meets Furui in a human form, but he's an absolutely terrible human impersonator. they somehow end up being buddies and Keisuke teaches him how to person etc etc story things.

there are other main characters like Lyric the sweet but secretly manipulative Siren, or "Lyra" to humans. then there's Denali the reluctant Werewolf who I've actually toyed with being the protagonist. they have a complicated relationship where Lyric doesn't want Denali to be so self destructive (drinking and sleeping around), and doesnt actually know that he's a literal werewolf. because he won't tell her. he's worried she'll absolutely freak out about him getting hurt or hurting people... what he doesn't realise is she's just using him and has got him wrapped around her little finger, because she thinks he's just another stupid human. he, of course knows she's NOT a human, but think he's special, and she would NEVER use her powers on him.

Furui and Keisuke move abroad to [wherever I decide this takes place] where Lyric, Denali, and a bunch of other characters live. Furui quickly befriends Lyric because he can smell non-humans, being a cat and all, meets Denali and finds out he hasn't told Lyric his secret, so (as he's not a human, so doesn't have human values of trust and camaraderie, and is... not a nice person in general) threatens to out him if he doesn't play along with his games.. those games, being he's been the dark creature slowly picking off the werewolf packs roaming the streets killing people. one of those packs, being Denali's own. Furui takes great pleasure in making the guy choose between his relationship with Lyric, who he thinks he feels more than just platonically for, or his pack. this of course has alot of ways it could go, and I haven't fully decided.... but it's fun to theorise.

originally, Furui had a huge crush on Denali (which was gonna end in some kinda violent throwndown between him and Lyric), because in my mind he started out as this huge confident wolf boy, and who doesn't wanna fuck a werewolf, but as time's been going, he's been showing his vulnerabilities, and Furui will absolutely not be into anyone who is scared of anything, especially if it's not tangible... he's a ilteral spirit, he can't die or be killed. he toys with death on the daily, and I have a couple of quick little drabble scenes written up already (to get it out of my system) of him being absolutely annihilated, only to grotesquely and noisily pull his dislocated/broken limbs back into their sockets, and raise up from the ground gushing blood and bits of his insides all over the pavement.... you can't be second guessing your words in case you hurt someone's feelings around someone like that, if you want them to respect your physical prowess. on one hand, I like big confident scary Denali, but I also like confidence being a front, and secretly vulnerable doggo boi. it's a hard life.

anyway I'm just ranting now, and it's been.... like literally over 5 hours. I started writing this at half 4ish? and it's 10pm now. I feel better though, like I got something out of my system, and I got some of my story thoughts down, instead of just letting them swim around in my head then be forgotten.

if anyone did read all this for whatever reason, then I hope you have a great day, and thankyou for sharing this with me ...

[missionel]

happy birthday to my favorite 5 year old

[aknosde]

Amicus Certus in re Incerta Cernitur

The first installment of my Reyna Swap AU, Alea Iacta Est // Percy Jackson & Reyna Avilla Ramírez Arellano // Hurt - Comfort // roughly two or three days post-Tartarus // tw vomiting & tw implied/referenced past child sexual assault // light swearing // 3.4k

(hey, @specific-dreamer, i started writing it :))

ao3

—————

Reyna exits her bed smoothly, flicking on the lamp as she goes. At night, when her cabin feels too dark and too small, the light is one of her only wards against her stiff spine and the shake of her shoulders. She ghosts her hands through her closet, searching for something thick and substantial, like the light and the reassuring click of the lock as she opens her door.

The floor of the quarter deck is cold under her bare feet, but the polished wood is soothing in its smoothness. She tugs on her sweatshirt against the cool temperature that accompanies flying far above the warm Mediterranean. Someone must have screwed with the thermostat last night–tonight–otherwise it would be compensating for the chill in the air.

It doesn’t affect the rest of the ship. The wood doesn’t contract or expand under the temperature, the boat doesn’t creak. It’s immune to the cold air and warm water in that way. She can’t quite decide if the silence that accompanies it is comforting or not as she descends to the main deck.

All of the lights are on down here, the rooms devoid of people. She knows that the lights of the lower deck will be off, because Leo sleeps down in the engine room, but the main deck is no man's land at this time of night. Someone has swept the floors, and with the lights on and undisturbed by organic shadow, this level seems more like a model of a ship than somewhere where people live. When the feeling turns from interesting to uncanny she finishes her route to the galley.

Though the galley is less of a galley, straight and narrow, than an actual kitchen you would find in a home. It’s large, even though Leo claims it’s unnecessary given his plate technology, and rather comfortable. A counter winds around the room, a large refrigerator with people’s personal food labeled, an oven and stove, and lastly, the sink: her destination.

She’s almost to the kitchen island before she sees Percy, sitting on the counter, looking for all the world as if he is a fixture of the kitchen itself. She doesn’t freeze when she sees him–she’s better than that–but she does let herself take stock of him, one leg hanging off the counter and his other knee propped under his chin, holding his head up.

His eyes look irritated, bags underneath that more closely resemble bruises, and a few pieces of hair are falling into his eyes, but he doesn’t do more than glance her way as she crosses to the sink next to him, so she leaves him be. Percy’s always been… observant. She could tell by the way he looked at her as she dropped from the Argo’s rope ladder. But since Tartarus he’s gotten quieter. Before, it used to just be a thing about him, not speaking unless he had something to say. Now it’s more obvious, like something or someone is keeping him.

She fills her glass of water and leans against the island, staring at the fridge.

She and Jason had had their own kitchen, as praetors. It was in the Principa, tucked out of the way, cold blue-greys and aggressively modern appliances. It reminded her of her childhood kitchen in that way. Cleanly impersonal–it more closely resembled an office break room. She and Jason barely used it, but still, they tucked their s’more supplies into a corner cupboard, and occasionally they would find each other there, making tea during late nights and early mornings.

The Argo kitchen is nicer, filled with warm colors and the smell of cinnamon. Percy cooks in here, she knows, though she has never seen him at it. When she had woken up that first morning after the disaster in New Rome there had been conchas on the counter. Leo, for all his initial grumbling, took to cooking in here while Percy and Annabeth were gone. His own little way of grieving, she thinks, taking a sip of water.

Percy lurches as if the ship has, uncharacteristically uncoordinated in his urgency. She straightens immediately as he twists off the counter and onto his feet. His forearms come down hard on the ledge of the counter, bracketing himself, and then he retches into the sink.

Strings of hair hang in his face as he does, she can now see that they are separated by sweat, and before she knows what she’s doing she’s across the aisle and holding his hair back and gives him the privacy of looking away, tucking away loose strands of hair. It’s deceptively soft, even with charred and patchy places here and there, and curlier than Leo’s. Memories of Hylla rage strong as she twists it around her finger, leaving no chance of it falling in the way again, the grey streak resembling a swirl.

Reyna can practically feel Hylla’s hands in her hair, her body sprawled against the wall of their cabin, head in a bucket. Hylla’s body, pressed against one side of her back, not overbearing, just a reminder that she was there now. On good nights they would end up in their bed before Reyna fell asleep, talking until Reyna’s brain could come back home. Hylla would twist Reyna’s hair into braids more beautiful and pure than Reyna could ever imagine being, and Reyna would complain about the smell of the bucket until Hylla got up to throw the contents overboard.

“Better your lunch than yourself,” Hylla sometimes joked upon her return, in that way people do when they are living through horrible things, doing horrible things, having horrible things thrust upon them. The memory burns now that Reyna isn’t there. She can’t find the humor in the joke now, only the threat of the first mate holding Reyna by the hair and threatening to make her walk the plank if she didn’t stop crying.

She couldn’t stop, but he didn’t seem to understand that, he just held her wrists until Hylla was there, in his cabin, talking with her voice smooth in a way it had never been before the Queen Anne’s Revenge. She talked until Reyna was allowed to leave, until the door shut with her still inside.

That was the night Blackbeard and his crew decided Reyna wasn’t worth it, a night she would forever be thankful for. Reyna couldn’t recover as fast as Hylla, she couldn’t put up with as much, she was wrecked after each encounter, and that night she would be thankful for it, and the day after, and the next, until she and Hylla were running the ship and she never had to think about it again.

Percy pants against the sink, signaling that he is done, and she takes a step back, suddenly uncomfortable and anxious for something to do.

She decides on giving him her glass of water–gods know he needs it more than she does–and watches him down the whole thing greedily. An air of clarity seems to blow through him, clearing his eyes and fixing his posture. Maybe that is the magic of a child of Poseidon. Water: an instant cure to all ailments.

“Thank you,” he says with a gasp as he finishes drinking. He wipes some vomit off a corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, frowning before he rinses it off in the sink. Reyna nods serenely in response, no judgement.

It’s a wrestle with herself, to decide if she wants to ask what has him puking his guts out. The fine line she always walks is taunting her, telling her not to alienate people, telling her that knowledge is power. The voice sounds suspiciously like Michelle, which only makes her prickle further. It’s a moot point, regardless. She can remember sitting with Thalia, legs swinging over the edge of a bridge, “I loved him to pieces, Reyna, but that asshole wouldn’t tell me he was hurt unless I pinned him down and threatened to zap his eyebrows off.” She’s going to ask.

“Are you okay?” They are hollow words, because none of them are, and she knows his answer.

“I’m fine,” And then a second later he is over the sink again, all of the water coming right back up.

She takes a place behind him, Hylla’s place, holding his hair back and drawing on his back with her other hand. She can feel his muscles clench each time more of his stomach empties, takes in his breathy swears, traces the letters on the back of his New Rome hoodie. She thinks it might have been hers at one point. It swallows him.  

He pulls back, eventually, putting space between them. She lets him have it, but sticks to her spot, crossing her arms.

“Want to try that again?”

He breathes raggedly, head hung. “I can’t–” he lifts a hand to gesture to himself vaguely, but rests it swiftly, looking like he regrets the action. “I haven’t been able to keep food down. Since we got back. It’s too rich. Too much. I was stupid, forgetting how that worked,” he explains, reading the pull of her brow. “Forgot how it felt, too,” he adds, quietly.

She flicks the sink on, letting his remnants wash down the drain, and looks at him thoughtfully. He’s too tired to notice, or maybe to care. His knuckles white out on the edge of the counter, pulsing no doubt in tandem with his stomach. One of his legs begins to quake and she nudges it with her knee. He shifts.

“Is there a reason you’re camped out in here and not the bathroom?”

His breathing, slow and steady, a trained pattern, is interrupted by a faint chuckle. “Thought I wouldn’t run into no one. It’s not working out, clearly.”

He sits back on the counter gently, already clutching his stomach again. “I’ll get over it soon. Just a couple more days. I just–need to make sure I don’t tear my stomach lining.” His words come spaced out and slow, working between his breaths.

“Annabeth?” she asks, unable to mask concern, or maybe uninterested in doing so.

“Got over it,” he answers swiftly. It almost sounds like he is going to say more, but he doesn’t, and she lets it drop in favor of watching him. When he gulps she’s already by his side.

This time bile is the only thing that comes up. He hacks, searching for more, but all that's left is acid. She’s supporting almost his entire weight with one arm. A twitch of worry makes her muscles tense, alien to any type of worry she experienced while he and Annabeth were in the pits of hell. This is immediate, intimate, not abstract. Like seeing Jason’s face dripping gold.

Percy’s whole body shudders, head so deep in the sink she thinks he might be able to touch the sick and the porcelain with his nose if he were to go any further, but the spell seems to have stopped. His arms shake against the counter, and before he can follow through with getting his own vomit plastered across his face she uses her hold on his hair to gently tilt his head towards her.

His eyes are almost completely unfocused, squinting against the kitchen lighting behind her. His water lines have released their tears, finally surmounting the amount of control he had been maintaining. He looks utterly wrecked, and not in the deranged and semi-wild way he had been fresh out of the Doors of Death.

She switches her arm from propping him up to wrapping it around him, keeping him from falling back against the sink and grunting between his weight and his condition. His limbs are loose with relief, now. Almost limp. She orients him until he’s pressed against her hip, utterly malleable under her hands. An odd sense of warmth seems to travel up her arms and into her heart as he slots against her. From what she’s seen, from what she knows, Percy is not one to be controlled. He rebels against it, particularly resistant to anyone who is not a peer, or better yet, a friend. Yet here he is, letting her move his body for him.

It’s something she could never imagine herself doing; willingly handing herself over like this. But with the warmth is a new desire, a spark of hope that one day she will grow with people until she can let them take care of her like this.

“Let’s get you to the med bay,” she says.

“No.” It comes quiet and breathy, and then again with urgency, “No. Annabeth likes to take inventory there when she can’t sleep. Not the med bay.”

Avoiding the med bay on account of Annabeth is a stupid decision, but she reminds herself that Percy cares more about other people than he does himself. He doesn’t want Annabeth to be worried, Reyna thinks, to keep his problems to himself, and though that is not always the best plan, it’s not the worst. Reyna recognizes the necessity of keeping your shit to yourself. Percy might be one of the only people she knows that understands that and deserves it, so she just sighs.

“Okay.” She hooks her other arm under his, making sure he’s steady, and lowers him to the floor. “We’ll just set up camp here.”

He presses the back of his head against the cabinets, hands groping the cool stone floor, and then lets himself tip fully onto it. No complaints. Apparently he likes the change in location. She grabs a dish towel, folding it up and sliding it under his head, and a bowl, if he needs to give up his internal organs while she’s gone and can’t quite make it to the sink. With a shove of his shoulder he turns on his side, loosely grabbing his stomach and making her feel safe in the fact that he can’t choke on his own vomit.

She feels funny when she stands again, brushing her hands against her pant legs. She’s never taken care of someone like this before, never had to. She and Jason were there for each other during their fair share of unfortunate situations, but she never had to watch him like this; curled up on the ground, shaking, weak. She wonders if he was ever caught like this, in the bathroom across the hall. If he had ever wanted to ask her for help.

Annabeth isn’t in the med bay when Reyna goes to scrounge up some anti-nausea medication, and she isn’t coming down the stairs when Reyna makes her way back to the kitchen. Percy’s in the same spot, though. She supposes that counts for something as she sits next to his head, reading the directions on the back of the box.

It’s generic, a syrupy red that reminds her of fake blood in old horror movies. Percy coughs as it goes down, making a face and muttering something about cherry flavoring and scented markers.

When she’s sure he’s not going to up chuck the medicine, which would be a type of irony she is not ready for, she goes searching for something he can eat. The stores on the Argo II are significantly better than that of the Queen Anne’s Revenge, and greatly aided by the presence of a fridge, but she ends up with a packet of pedialyte powder she remembers seeing Percy use during their first week on the Argo. It’s orange, which she can respect as it’s the best artificial flavor.

Percy groans while she’s stirring it, and before she knows it she’s sitting by his side, letting him press his face into her leg. Her body seems to know what to do, even if she doesn’t, and she’s grateful for it.

“Would you rather rehydrate or take more medication?”

He groans again, nose brushing her thigh, and says, “Both.”

“Disregard the instructions?”

He hums against her leg, whispering her resolve into the ground, because she doesn’t argue. It doesn’t hurt that she couldn’t decide either, or that she has always been good at knowing when to break the rules.

“Whatever repercussions there are to this, it’s your fault,” she says instead, already measuring another dose.

He downs it like a shot and with a grimace, even though he is still laying on the floor. It manages to wring a snort out of her, as does the way he remarks that the straw she put in the pedialyte looks like a worm: “Which I’ll allow only because you chose blue; the best color.”

He fumbles in and out of consciousness, mind half addled, and she thinks she’s found a cheat code to becoming his friend. With his sharp eyes half closed and his height stolen by his horizontal position on the floor, too tired to keep his body wired and slurping through a straw because the energy to sit up seems like a far flung concept, he’s easy to see and even easier to like.

“You made the good shit,” he half slurs as he takes another sip.

“Yeah?”

“Grew up on this stuff,” he says by way of explanation. “It was free at my first school, low income and what not. Wanted to make sure we had enough calories to suffer through the school day. Picked it up at food banks, too.”

She hums, pretending he hasn’t just revealed something that she doubts he’s told anyone else. “Kept it around for the taste?”

“Malnourished after Lupa, just a bit,” he says arching his neck in discomfort before taking another sip. “I made sure to pick some up while we were still in the states. ‘Beth knows I like it though. I think she already bought some.”

“Yeah.” Reyna can vaguely remember something along those lines, sitting with Annabeth and going over supply lists for the ship. She’d been rambling and scatterbrained, which Reyna now knew was her default state.

He switches subjects after that, nothing sticking for long. It’s an interesting contrast to the Percy that she’s met. She wonders if he was like ths as a kid, or maybe it was longer than that. Maybe it was until they were swapped, maybe it was until Tartarus and she just never got the chance to see.

“You’re talkative when half your guts are down the drain,” she tells him, after listening to him ramble about the Knicks for a couple minutes.

“Blame my state.”

“I am, dumbass.”

“So rude,” he says in Spanish, sounding like her neighbors in Puerto Rico, getting together under the shade during the heat of the day, complaining about their daughters. “What’re you doing here anyway,” he asks, “Why aren’t you nice and cozy in your bed.”

“Obviously sitting on the floor with you is superior.”

He coughs out a laugh, there. Weak, but she can feel his amusement from the crinkle of his eyes before he sobers. “Really, why?”

“Nightmare.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Want to talk about Tartarus?” she snaps, because no, she does not want to talk about her historical issues with boats, or how she’s thinking of Jason, out there escorting a forty foot statue in an attempt to stop yet another war.

“Sorry,” Percy whispers, pulling his head back a bit.

“No, I’m sorry.” She’s supposed to be better than this. She’s supposed to be a leader, which does not include letting her frustrations out on others, no matter the time of day–or night. “That was unprofessional of me.”

He snorts. “We’re lying on the kitchen floor and I’m wearing Black panther pajama pants. Trust me, you don’t have to be professional here… And I’m sorry–for asking.”

“It’s alright,” she ends up saying, mostly thinking that he’s right. She’s about to tell him so when she notices that his eyes have slipped closed. “Let's get you to bed.”

“I’m not gonna sleep,” he grumbles.

“Well if I get you some more magic potion can you lie to me?”

He smiles at that, one side of his mouth going up farther than the other, like in almost every photo she saw of him during her months at Camp Half-Blood. “If you, Reyna Ramírez Allreano, get me more orange pedialyte, I will absolutely fall asleep as soon as I’m in my bed.”

“Glad we’re on the same page.”

[crackinwise]

So, generous Manlyronpa [X] put full Danganronpa S character events on youtube if you can read them. This is a post where I point and add nothing. Screenshot spoilers for the Bro interactions I saw under the cut.

Sayaka, hun, blink if you need to escape.

Kyoudai kanji all over this event. They put two of the loudest mf ever in a library.

I think there’s one more but it’s Chihiro, Mondo, Soda, Leon and Taka all talking in a circle, and Mondo & Taka are never on the same screen. And there’s no romantic nighttime campfire talk. Heartbreaking.

Other notable Mondo interactions:

like 2 more with Soda, oddly without a beatdown like I imagined

a couple with Fuyuhiko to overflow the swear jar

one with both Miu and Hiroko (god help him)

an event with Mukuro and one with Junko at the same location (idk if they pulled a switcheroo on him)

Other notable Taka interactions:

Hassling my daughter Akane

Kaito--WAIT! Mondo didn’t have an interaction with Kaito that a saw? Wtf, where’s the lil bro interaction this game??

Hiro, havin a stressful time

a couple with Hajime (they do not transform together thus this event is wasted)

like 4 with the middle-schooler elementary school boys (Taka, let the children play)

3 or 4 with Twogami, one of which is possibly in Taka’s resort room. Why? Nice big bed.

Anyway, Taka & Mondo deserved more than one private event the same way they get alone time with other chars more than once, but I’m biased.

Edit: forgot them killer kids were gd elementary school age, not middle school

[gaemkyuu]

So...Boyfriend? Boyfriend.

Warnings: death of a loved one and grief. There is one mention to drinking a bottle of wine but all characters in the story are above the age of 21. A/N: this is based off a post @ah2113​ made a little while ago! I liked the idea and decided to write a cute fluffy piece on it! Hope you like it! “Reader and Charlie are best friends and they met on JATP. Charlie and the reader are in love with each other but don’t know. The readers grandma passes away and she calls Charlie, who is in a completely different state/country, in tears about the situation. Charlie feels horrible and completely drops everything he’s doing and immediately flies out to the reader and surprises them. He is with them throughout the whole viewing and funeral and meets her entire family. Everybody mistakens him for the readers boyfriend because of how much he is doing to help and tells the reader that he is clearly in love with them.”  Disclaimer: This is a FICITONAL writing piece! In no way do I claim characters in this piece act this way in real life. 

Masterlist *now taking requests ;)

So...Boyfriend? Boyfriend.

Bzzz. Bzzz.

Charlie was in the middle of an interview when his phone started vibrating. Normally he kept it on airplane mode, but today he forgot. He quickly reached for his phone and saw her name pop up on the screen, losing focus for a brief moment on the interview. 

“Pardon me? Could you repeat the question?” Charlie was trying so hard to focus on the interview at hand but knowing he was on the last question, made it all the more difficult to focus when he knew she was calling.

“Charlie, the fans want to know. Are you single?” he chuckled but since he was distracted, he didn’t give a really good answer.

“Kinda” he regretted it as soon as it left his mouth and the fact that he started blushing made the situation worse! Thankfully the interviewer didn’t press any further into the matter and made a casual joke about it. They quickly wrapped the interview knowing that Charlie had another one scheduled right afterwards, but he had a few minutes to make up a phone call.

Amelie had worked on set for season one of Julie as a hair and make up artist and shocked many at how talented she was for her age. She got along well with the cast and would often hang out with them on their days off, but for some reason she gravitated the most to Charlie. Everyone often teased them about the chemistry they had and how they would make a great couple but both of them would laugh at the comments and deny any feelings towards one another. They were simply nothing more but really good friends.

Or so they thought.

Amelie was head over heels for the brunette and Charlie for her. She loved his smile and enthusiasm for life. She admired his work ethic and passion for what he did. She would squash every thought about being with Charlie because he was too good for her. She liked the weirdest things and entertained people with the most random facts. She could spend hours in an art and fashion museum, when most people could only spend so much time. Amelie saw herself as weird and knew that Charlie saw her as nothing more than a friend.

The opposite was true. Charlie loved her quirkiness and nerdiness around the strangest things. He loved that she was always so modest and humble, even though she had all the right to brag at how amazing she was at her talents. He loved how she was always up for trying something new and that she had an eye for fashion, design and art, but he knew she didn’t see him as anything more than a friend. That still didn’t stop Charlie from always being there for her.

“Charlie?” her voice came out in a broken and quiet whisper. He could tell that she was crying and he instantly felt his stomach drop. A few sniffles came from the other line before the voice spoke again. “She’s gone Charlie... Grandmaman is gone...” he could hear her voice start to shake again.

“Say the word Amelie and I am there” Charlie glanced at his watch,8:55pm. He had five more minutes until the next interview with the pop culture podcast from Sydney. This meant that it was 5:00am in London, where Amelie was working on Netflix’s newest series. “Ams?”

“It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m sorry I didn’t mean to disturb you, I just didn’t know who else to talk to...” she sniffled quietly not sure what else to say.

“What time are you leaving to get to set?” 8:57pm, he was running out of time. He saw the notification that the next interviewer had signed on to their zoom meeting.

“I gotta be on set at 7:00am so the van will be here to pick me up at 6:30am. It’s my last day on set, so there’s that” she sniffled again, feeling herself calm down with Charlie on the other line. She desperately needed him, but she couldn’t ask him that. He was doing press for season 2 of Julie and the Phantoms and he needed to be available, not off consoling his friend who was madly in love with him. 

“Amelie, listen, I have to jump onto the next interview, but try to get a little more sleep and drink some water. I’ll call you as soon as I’m done. When are you flying back?” Charlie felt awful having to hang up on her when he knew she needed him.

“I’ll be on the next flight out to Vancouver. Hopefully there’s a flight this evening back to Canada. My mom’s really upset and my siblings are rushing to get home for her” Amelie took a deep breath and listened to the frustrated sigh on the other end. He was probably annoyed that she called him. “Thank you for picking up Char”

“Anything for you Ams... I’m really sorry but I have to go now... If you’re busy when I call, can you let me know when you’re at the airport?” Amelie agreed and hung up the phone, flopping on the bed and a silent stream of tears falling from her eyes again. Meanwhile, Charlie sat in his LA bedroom, head in hands frustrated that he couldn’t be there for her.

***

Amelie watched out the window as the plane landed in Vancouver. She felt an anxiousness to get off the plane and be with her mom, but she knew she had to go through security and baggage. She didn’t notice that her leg was restlessly bouncing until the nice old lady beside her placed a hand on her lap. 

“Excited are we?” she smiled at her kindly and Amelie blushed, a little embarrassed. “I was once in love too. I get the feeling”

“Actually, I’m just anxious to be with my mom... My grandmother passed away yesterday and I wanna be there for her” the old lady’s smile changed to an empathetic one and she patted her knee.

“I’m sorry for your loss my dear... I lost my sister a year ago today. It is not an easy thing to grieve and I can tell that your soul feels heavy. You might want to think about sharing that load with someone” she smiled. A flight attendant interrupted their conversation letting them know that she had priority to leave the plane. The old woman then looked at Amelie and winked. “They’re letting us off the plane now honey. Thank you miss, but my daughter can grab my bags from the upper compartment, can’t she” baffled at the kindness of the old woman, Amelie dumbly nodded and stood to help her. As they made their way through the gate, an attendant was waiting for the old woman. “You can leave my bags with this gentle man” she smiled.

“Thank you, you didn’t have to do that” the old woman took her hand. “Your mother is fortunate to have you as a daughter. Now go and be with her” Amelie smiled and gave the old woman a hug, and teared up a bit remembering her own grandmother. Wiping away a tear, Amelie said thank you again and headed off to get her bags. To no surprise, getting her suitcase was a gong show because they had to share a lane with another flight. By the time she got there, tons of people waited right by the carousel for their bags, making Amelie stand in the back and tippy toe to see a glimpse of her bag. She was fortunate that a man had helped her as she squeezed her way to the front, waiting for her bag. With a deep breath, she exited the doors and dialed her mother.

“Hello? Maman? What car are you in? Oh wait! I see it!” Amelie quickly rushed outside of the door at YVR to get to her mother’s vehicle. She was able to find a flight that evening and she left right away. The flight was long, but she was able to make it home to her mother’s side in 24 hours. She trotted over to her mother’s vehicle that pulled into the loading zone, flashing their hazards on, her mother getting out of the passenger side. Amelie stopped for a moment, confused that her mother wasn’t driving the car. Her mother quickly embraced her in her arms and both of them shared a tearful hug. “Who’s driving maman?”

Charlie stepped out of the driver’s seat and took Amelie’s suitcase from her, as she stood there with her mouth open. “Surprise?” she immediately felt a sudden wave of emotion wash over her and she jumped into Charlie’s waiting arms crying as he held her tight. She felt sadness and happiness while grieving over her Grandmother and feeling elated at the sudden presence of the boy.

“How?” she sniffled and pulled away, wiping her tears.

“Charlie knew how sad you were over Grandmaman, so he texted me late last night and flew in early this morning” her mother explained. Amelie’s mother knew of her crush on the boy and always encouraged her to pursue the relationship further, but she always insisted to her mother that they would be nothing more than friends. Her mother would roll her eyes at her daughter every time she said that, knowing that the chemistry and the feelings were there, but the two were just too stubborn to admit it.

“That’s what friends are for right?” 

Right. Friends.

***

After being picked up at the airport, they went straight to her mother’s house and helped her mom plan out things for the funeral. Naturally, Charlie became the chauffer, driving Amelie and her mom around the city to make various appointments with funeral directors and lawyers. Amelie’s grandmother gave birth to five children and never remarried after her husband passed away. Amelie had very little recollection of her grandfather as he passed away when she was quite young. Each of her mother’s siblings had at least three kids and each child had at least three kids, making their family huge. That didn’t include her mother’s cousins and their families, all of which would be flying in to attend the funeral in two days time.

Running around was an emotionally exhausting task, not to mention the exhaustion that came with grief. The two women were grateful that Charlie was around for them that day as Amelie’s siblings slowly started to get into town. He ordered pizza for everyone, knowing that all of her siblings would be in Vancouver in time for the funeral. Her grandmother was clear that she wanted the viewing and funeral to be combined into one day, not wanting to prolong her burial process, something that they honored. But with that request, it meant a lot had to be done.

Amelie had four siblings, all of which were older than her, making her the baby of the family. Her brother Benoit had moved to New Brunswick to live with the love of his life Maxime, and he was the second to arrive. He had work to take care of and unfortunately Maxime couldn’t get the time off. Benoit got along very well with Charlie, connecting over Dieppe and how it differed from Fredericton where Benoit lived with his partner. Her twin sisters Rachelle and Rene got into Vancouver right before dinner and actually carried the pizza inside while Charlie paid. Both sisters lived in Toronto, one training on the Olympic figure skating team and the other working in Parliament. Throughout the night, they joked about how cute Charlie was and how they were both single and didn’t mind dating someone younger. This annoyed Amelie but she wouldn’t admit that to anyone. Her third oldest brother, Theo, was the last to arrive, getting in way past dinner but before midnight. He lived in New York pursuing photography and had to finish a shoot before he could come home. Hearing this, Charlie asked him multiple questions about photography when they sat around their mother’s fireplace that night. It was nice to be able to gather as a family before the craziness of their relatives. French Canadian families were big, loud and full of personality, but Amelie knew Charlie understood this dynamic very well.

The next two days passed by in a blur with Charlie helping out wherever he could and sometimes locking himself in her mother’s office to do an interview or meeting here and there. Amelie was so grateful for him because every time she felt overwhelmed or that she was going to cry, he somehow made it to her side, comforting her and helping her be strong. Rachelle and Rene kept telling her to claim Charlie before they did, but Amelie would always insist that they were friends. But when her brothers got involved, Amelie couldn’t help but think that maybe her siblings were right. Maybe she should ask Charlie out, but how could she do that when her entire family was still dealing with the loss of her grandmother?

Just last night, Charlie sat up late into the evening comforting Amelie as she put the slideshow together on her Macbook. She could hardly look at the pictures or listen to the music without tearing up and having mini cry sessions on his shoulder, something he took in stride. It also didn’t help that she had consumed an entire bottle of wine...

In all honesty, Charlie couldn’t be more happy to be by her side at this moment. He knew how hard it was to lose a loved one, especially since he lost his grandmother before filming season one of Julie and the Phantoms. Being here for her was important to him and he wanted to show her that she could always come to him. When she passed out on his shoulder that night, he thought about how badly he wanted to be with her as he tucked her in bed. He loved how she snuggled into his shoulder as he finished up the slide show and he loved that she reached out for him and called his name in her sleep as he walked away. He kissed your forehead goodnight and hated the fact that he couldn’t just call you his.

A soft knock at the door interrupted Amelie’s day dream of her grandmother. She wiped the tears that have unexpectedly fallen from her eyes and took a deep breath. “Come in” her voice was shakier than she wanted it to be, but relief washed over her when Charlie walked in wearing a black dress shirt and tie. He smiled empathetically to her and approached her with open arms, something she gladly accepted. She inhaled his scent, burying her face in his chest, while he rested his head on top of hers. 

“You ready?” Charlie held her tight as he asked this question. This would be the first and last time Amelie would be seeing her deceased grandmother.

“I should be asking you that question” she softly giggled. Charlie would be meeting all of her relatives today, including her annoying cousin Madeleine. 

“You forget that I too have a big family. It’ll be fine. Plus, I’m here for you and not them” Amelie pulled away from the hug to stare him in the eyes, silently figuring whether now was a time to discuss her feelings or not. In the end, she decided against it and smiled softly at him, which he returned.

“Thank you for being here Char... It really means a lot” he chuckled and pulled her close for a second hug, something she would never tire hearing.

“Anything for you Ams. Anything.”

***

The funeral and mass went according to plan and soon enough they found themselves in the church basement with a slide show of her grandmother playing in the background, while guests visited the pastries and beverages being served. Amelie was occupied with the many questions her aunts and uncles had about her career and how she was doing, but she couldn’t help but worry about Charlie. Throughout her conversations with her relatives, she watched Charlie help out her mother with the pastries and beverages, stopping once in a while to entertain the younger cousins at the children’s table. She smiled at him gratefully for helping out so much, but grew a little nervous when her nosy aunts and uncles pulled him aside and started interviewing him. It seemed like he was handling himself fine, but Amelie felt even more confident when he made eye contact with her and winked. 

“Well if it isn’t the Hollywood superstar.” Amelie could feel herself cringe at the sound of the voice. It was Madeline, Amelie’s cousin. They were the same age and same stature, but they couldn’t be more opposite. Madeline pursued modeling at a young age and still continued to do it, but for some reason, she always felt that everything was a competition. Amelie wanted to simply be cousins, but Madeline would take every opportunity to upstage her or show off to their aunts and uncles. Amelie didn’t really care, but the more she didn’t the more vicious Madeleine became. At one point in their lives, Madeleine had moved to Vancouver for more opportunities and ended up living with her family. This caused a lot of drama between the two of them, including Madeleine dating several of her exes and bringing them to family events.

“Hey Mads. Long time no see” Amelie forced herself to be nice and polite, even though she felt her cousin didn’t deserve it. Her black dress was a little too tight and a little too revealing for a funeral, but she wasn’t about to bring that up. “How have you been?”

“Oh you know, living it up in Paris, traveling all over Europe for different modeling jobs. It’s exhausting, but I’m sure you know of it” anyone could hear the sarcasm and apprehension in her voice. Her aunts awkwardly moved away, making up some excuse about visiting other family members so that they could catch up. “How does it feel to be working on a children’s show?”

“I mean, I love what I do, so I can’t complain” Amelie bit her tongue before she could say anything rude. She never understood why her cousin always felt the need to announce how much better she was over her.

“So... optimistic. What’s it feel like to settle?” she felt the blood rush to her face, starting to lose control of her emotions. This was not the place or time to have this conversation, yet Madeline persisted. She took a deep breath trying to level herself and forced a smile on her face. As she opened her mouth to reply, she felt a warm hand hug her lower back and the slight smell of cologne fill the air.

“Everything alright babe?” she blushed at the name and gesture from Charlie, who kissed the top of her head. Madeline flushed and her eyes were as wide as saucers. “Oh hi, I don’t believe we’ve met, I’m Charlie” he reached out his hand towards Madeline, keeping the other wrapped around Amelie. 

“Madeline. It’s nice to meet you Charlie. You’re an actor from the show that she worked on, right? What are you doing here?” Amelie could hear the faintest trace of annoyance in her voice, and shook his hand. Charlie and Amelie looked at each other, a cocky smile on Charlie’s face and slight confusion on Amelie’s. 

“I’m her boyfriend and I came to support her. I’m sure you’ve been dealing with the grief as well and I couldn’t let her go through this alone” part of what Charlie said was true, but Amelie couldn’t help but blush at the mention of boyfriend. No one had actually asked Charlie if they were dating, but a lot of relatives were beating around the bush. Apparently Charlie had said that rather loudly and some of the relatives started gossiping in a hushed voice. 

“Wow Amelie. I didn’t know you had such good taste in men based on your past partners” Charlie laughed at the comment, something Madeline didn’t suspect.

“I wouldn’t say I’m good taste, but Ams if definitely a catch” he gloated and kissed her cheek, causing Amelie to blush furiously. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I actually came over because your mom needs some help” if there was one thing Amelie could count on, it would be Charlie’s ability to read a situation and get her out of it. “Shall we, my love?” she nodded and walked away from Madeline flushed and confused, but also really excited. He moved his hand from her back to her hand, softly dragging her away from the conversation.

“Boyfriend?” Amelie whispered to him, inferring the comments he made to Madeline. 

“I know she ruffles your feathers, so why not ruffle hers?” Benoit interrupted Charlie, asking him if he could help put some of the tables from upstairs away. “You’re mom’s in the kitchenette, you can probably hide there for a bit. I got you a plate of pastries that I stashed in the back” she thanked him and watched him walk away with her brother. Before she could take another step, Rachelle and Rene linked arms with her on either side and rushed her into the kitchenette.

“So you’re dating now?!” Rene questioned and before Amelie could answer, Rachelle interrupted her. “When were you going to tell us this?!”

“About time” her mother scoffed, stirring another jug of fruit punch. “Okay you two, leave your sister alone to breathe for a second. Take these pitchers out to the table and find Theo. Make sure Tante Genevive hasn’t stolen him for a private photoshoot for Facebook” Amelie was grateful that her mother shooed the twins off and passed her the plate that Charlie put aside. 

“Thanks Maman” her mother smiled smugly at her, moving about the kitchenette. “Please don’t say I told you so” her mother made the motion to zip her lips as she giddily made her way around the kitchen.

***

That evening, Amelie’s family stumbled through the front door of her mother’s house, everyone retiring to their rooms for a short moment of relaxation while their mother ordered take out for a late dinner. They had stayed behind to clean up with a few other relatives and put away the church tables and chairs. Charlie didn’t complain a single time and rushed to do whatever he could to help everyone out. Charlie followed Amelie up the stairs to her old bedroom and shut the door behind him as she plopped onto the bed. Part of Amelie did this was because she was tired, but the other part of her did it hopefully to avoid the conversation they were about to have. Charlie quietly sat beside her on the bed and played with her hair, something she absolutely loved.

“So, about today...” this conversation was happening whether she wanted it to or not.

“It was really nice of you to stand up for me but you didn’t have to. I have no problem telling my family it was a small misunderstanding. It should stop them from blabbering to the media” She sat up and Charlie looked incredulously at Amelie confused at what she was saying.

“Ams, I don’t think you get it” again, she interrupted him before he could continue.

“No I do, I get it. You’re an amazing friend Char and you didn’t have to risk the rumours for-” she didn’t complete the thought because Charlie’s lips were suddenly on hers and she completely melted into them. It was like this tension that she never acknowledged left her shoulders, making her feel like she was floating.

“Do you understand now?” he searched her eyes for some sort of confirmation. “I really like you Amelie and I’ve liked you for a long time, but I’ve always thought you wanted to be friends”

“I wanted to be friends?! I thought you friend zoned me first!” he gave her a look for interrupting him. “Sorry”

“Regardless of what happened, being with you here and helping you and your family throughout all of this made me want to be a part of your life so much more. I want to be more than your friend. I know this is a bad time to say this, but I don’t think I can keep pretending that I don’t want to be with you” he held her hand in his and drew nearer to her again. “I really want to be with you if you’ll have me”

She closed the gap between the two of them and kissed him this time, something which Charlie gladly accepted. The two shared a simple but passionate kiss, as if they were confessing two years of secret feelings to each other. A bang at the door startled them.

“Put your pants on! Maman wants you guys to go pick up the take out!” Benoit yelled from behind the door. The two flushed at the comment and heard the snickers and giggles from the other siblings.

“So...boyfriend?”

“Boyfriend.”

[zenryverse]

Whaddup, it’s your girl here with more Hartin Family HCs thought up by me at like 3 am (I also decided to type it up at 3 am so i apologize for mistakes and if feels incoherent/rambly). This post is definitely for Jesse (@angrypunchguy) and Jesse only cause he inspired me but literally. I can’t believe I’ve never given any member of the Hartin family a cat until now cause it’s SO them but anyway 

- it’s one of those really fluffy long-haired cats, all black 

- as a side note, I always wanted to give Char the exact same cat in this universe so she and Izzy definitely bond over the fact that their cats are twinsies

- It’s the pet Izzy gets after Steve is gone 

- Izzy kinda wants to name them Felix just to screw with her brother cause Felix the Cat; even though it’s technically Izzy’s cat, Felix wants to name her Salem because he has a whole collection of comic books that feature Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Izzy’s still mad about the Salem Witch Trials so she won’t allow it 

- They both finally settle on the name Eclipse 

- Eclipse definitely bonds with Henry first because he was the only one that didn’t really want her at first (not that he’s against cats specifically; actually he would’ve preferred a cat over any of the other animals they acquired over the years, but he didn’t really want any other pets because he’s the one that ends up having to take care of them)

- (Felix is better about sharing the responsibility than Izzy, but during those times when he’s nowhere to be found and it’s time to walk Daisy (felix’s golden retriever), Zack always conveniently has something else he totally forgot to do that needs to be done right away so the responsibility falls to Henry)(and Henry wouldn’t even ask Zack to help with anything involving Steve considering Zack can barely be in the same room) 

- (although, when their kids are old enough where they can be left alone for a few minutes, Zack will take Daisy for a walk but only if it becomes a couple’s activity and Henry goes with him)  

- (actually, Zack didn’t want another pet either but that’s entirely because he didn’t think he could handle another arachnid in the house, or anything that could be classified as a bug aldsjkf But, Izzy knows he can’t handle tears so she definitely used that to her advantage and once he learned she wanted a cat he was totally on board anyway and he helped convince Hen) (but this HC list is getting away from me alkdsjf)

- anyway, she bonds with Hen at first and she definitely talks to him. As long as he looks at her when he speaks, she’ll respond no matter what he says. She’ll talk to the others too, but only sometimes; Henry, all the time. 

- There’s definitely been more than one occasion when Zack’s walked in on them and just been like “are you having conversations with the cat again?” “........no.” 

- “sometimes I think you talk to that cat more then you talk to me” Henry, deadpan but entirely joking: “she’s a better conversationalist than you”

- and even though Henry didn’t really want her at first, she still gets toys at Christmas every year, they end up with one of those big cat trees in their living room, and he gets her one of those beds you can stick in the window 

- This is definitely Jesse’s idea, but Felix and Izzy get her a pink, sparkly collar with a little bell on it 

- Ofc she’s afraid of Daisy at first, but she warms up to her after a short while and it gets to the point where she uses Daisy as a bed on occasion 

- After a little begging from Izzy, Zack agrees to make Eclipse a bed that’s an exact replica of Izzy’s

- It becomes a part of Eclipse’s routine to curl up in it when Izzy retires for the night (but she’ll divide her time between her bed and sleeping with Izzy on Izzy’s bed)

- Izzy and Fe get her one those harnesses to try to train her to take walks 

- it does not end well

 - it becomes a family group project (taking place over several months because they can only afford so many supplies at a time alkdjf) to build her a little sanctuary/playpen type thing in the backyard; Izzy and Felix tell Henry what they want it to have, he turns it into something that’s actually conceivable asdaslkdf and gives it to Zack, where Zack does most of the actual building 

- It does turn into an opportunity for him to teach Izzy and Fe a thing or two though

- and Zack has to keep Henry from giving her the whole backyard instead of just half 

- also, this is sort of Jesse’s idea too, but she always lays on Izzy’s and Felix’s desks when they’re doing homework or Fe is playing a game. She’s messed up more than one of his games by laying directly on the controller or keyboard 

[mittensmorgul]

Hi, I have a question, and I hope it would be interesting for you too... Could we talk about angel's wings and feathers?..

I always thought that angel's wings were a part of their true form, a kind of energy which we can only see as a shadows or electric sparks or ash or something like this.

And I didn't think that it could be a real wings with feathers as bird's. Until, while rewatch, I've noticed that angel's feather were mentioned in SPN at least twice (maybe you've noticed more?):

1) In 8.12 when Henry Winchester time travels he uses an angel feather in spell. And then Dean tells that Henry stole an angel feather from the trunk of the Impala. So feathers are reall??? Why did the Winchestets keep the feather in the trunk of the Impala and where they get it? (ok, maybe they found it in the bunker)

2) In 12.13 Sam uses a white feather in spell returning Gavin back in time (we know this spell needs an angel feather)

So now we can see how the real angel feather looks like???

Does that mean that the angel's wings can be presented in physical world like a real wings with feathers and this is not fanfiction? I like this idea so much.

I think that the creators of the show didn't let us to see it, as many other great things, that is sad...

I would really like to know your thoughts about this.

(Sorry for my bad english, it is not my native language...)

Hi there! First off, your English is fine! (lol it’s my native language, and I just typed it “Inglish” by accident, so you’re already doing better than I am :’D)

ETA: DON’T REBLOGGY THIS YET. I forgotted something that @thayerkerbasy just reminded me of, and I’m editing this post... brb... okay NOW YOU CAN REBLOGGY!)

As far as I know, those are the only times in canon we ever see or hear mention of an angel feather, and both times it’s for the same exact spell. They reference that it’s Henry’s spell when they use it again in 12.13, but make no mention in dialogue of it being an angel feather. Yet Sam had a whole jar of fluffy little pin feathers, so the assumption is that they’d been collecting them for a while (unless those were either found in the Men of Letters’ spell ingredient stockpile when they moved into the bunker, or otherwise given to them by Cas at some point).

It’s weird, because they seem like a very limited commodity, especially after the angels fell and their wings all burned up. Even after Cas got his original grace back, his wings never seemingly recovered. When we did finally see his wing prints in 12.23, they were still... not healthy... So my thinking is that any spell that would require them will become impossible to cast when their current supply runs out. All the other angels-- at the end of the series-- were either dead or locked in Heaven with their broken wings. We never learned any of their fates. Maybe they were all rendered obsolete under the Heaven Remodel?

A little behind the scenes from the early days of SPN as a bonus, since it’s tangentially relevant:

When they were filming the very early episodes of SPN, they had a lot of choices to make about what to show us based on what their budget would allow them to portray. Think of an episode like Wendigo, 1.02. One thing I see people say often was that it was a shame we didn’t see more of the monster, but only saw like... bushes shaking, or a vague form moving through the underbrush, or a blur. They made a stylistic choice right there to keep it within budget.

The options they faced were showing us a “dude in a rubber mask” type monster and showing it more, versus one really terrifying shot of a Proper Monster™ dying in spectacular fashion. Rather than go full-on cheesemonster, they chose to leave most of it up to our imaginations, giving us glimpses or hints of the monster.

They went back and forth on this a bit over the years, attempting to show us more on occasion, but most of those times the audience reaction has been varying degrees of wtf... Think about some of the scenes where they attempted to give us more than a glimpse at the supernatural, or a blood splatter, or whatever. It didn’t always work well. Think: the wire fight from 13.23...

I mean, it took us until 11.14 to ever see an angel “flap away,” when we saw Casifer zap Dean off the exploding submarine.

For the most part, I appreciate the fact that they understood the limitations of their own budget and didn’t give angels cheap little wings just to be able to show them on camera. Over time, only being able to see them as shadows, or as char after the angel died, became part of the lore of the show.

I blame Adam Glass for writing that spell, because he probably thought it sounded cool or whatever, that it was effectively a throwaway line because no other spell they’ve ever used has required an angel feather as an ingredient, and in story it was only linked into this larger Men of Letters Legacy plot that in retrospect feels like Chuck tying up loose ends and putting previously “deactivated” plotlines back into play.

I do find it kind of interesting that both iterations of this spell (the second resurrected by Bucklemming) were both tied to Abaddon. Henry’s spell in 8.12 brought her into the story from the past, she eventually travelled to the much further distant past to bring Gavin into the present (presumably with her own power alone, no angel feather required), and then after she was killed, they used the spell to return Gavin to his own time. So in a a way, the spell was part of a closed narrative loop, never to be referred to again.

Kinda wild that we’d never heard of angel feathers being a thing for spells until we learn that Dean apparently had some just stashed in the trunk, though... :’D

As for how corporeal angel feathers are/were, they exist in the earthly plane enough to leave char marks when they burn, when an angel is killed, so they must always have had the potential to manifest physically. I can’t imagine they ever would’ve had a budget to show us anything more than what we usually saw, though. It did give them a LOT of flexibility over how exactly they presented them to us when they DID show us. And I can’t even imagine the suffering Misha would’ve endured as an actor spending all those years wearing some weird wing harness rig. It would’ve been... impractical. And the CGI the show could’ve afforded-- especially in earlier days-- would’ve been... bad...

But what they were able to show us? Was often awesome. Remember when Raphael showed off his wings in 5.03? LIGHTNING!

And when we finally did see actual corporeal-appearing wings in 8.23... it was Dramatique™

And for More CGI Is Sometimes A Bad Thing Science, please have the attempt at Michael’s “true form” from 14.01:

It’s kinda a super-letdown after AU!Michael’s previous shadow wing displays from 13.01, but more specifically from 13.22:

those... were... badass... 

Even the pre-wire-fight wing shadows on Dean were badass:

But if they’d tried to show us more of them, to make them move through action scenes for example, it would’ve been... bad...

So what we’re left with is the knowledge that there is some sort of corporeal element to wings that we simply can’t see most of the time, but clearly angels have the ability to show or hide them at will, even from other angels. Could it be an act of will on the part of the angel that manifests a bit of their grace in the form of a physical feather? Honestly, that’s the theory I’ve personally adopted toward canon. In fanfic, I’ve read tons of various headcanons about what angel wings are and how they function-- everything from “a manifestation of their true form” to “angels share a lot of traits with birds” to “an extension of their grace,” and everything in between.

I personally, in canon, like to think of it as akin to how they’ve used angel grace for other spells. I mean, when we recall that angels haven’t been on Earth much for the last few thousand years (aside from at least a couple of known incidents where angels interfered with humanity, like Ishim and Company in 12.10, for example, and the presumptive extension that the Men of Letters knew of the existence of angels and likely summoned one up a time or two the same way Lily Sunder had, giving one explanation for how Henry Winchester knew of this spell and had an angel feather to use for it, but also recontextualized when Lily Sunder taught us that humans can use their own souls to power spells in the same way angels used their grace... which sort of makes the notion of needing an angel feather AND his own soul to charge that particular spell in 8.12 a bit redundant unless Lily’s knowledge of angelic magic was more advanced than Henry’s... hrmpf.... so much tangent... back to the point)...

We did eventually learn of other spells that required an angel’s actual grace, not concentrated in the form of a feather. The Angel Fall Spell in 8.23 being the prime example. Metatron took ALL of Cas’s grace for that one, even if he didn’t use all of it for the spell and left a “fragment” (Metatron described it as “not a lot, but enough.”). 

ETA: HECK. I have 9.03 on the tv right now and it’s distractedly made me disgusted enough to have forgotten something that Thayer just reminded me of: Lucifer’s “fossilized feather” in 12.07. It held enough grace to restore and heal him after Rowena’s spell in 12.03 had degraded him. Which really only adds to the theory that “feathers” are simply bits of grace that have been rendered solid somehow, but that can be transformed back into grace as needed.

And then there was the Rift Spell for travelling to alternate universes that required archangel grace, as well as the time travel/ward breaking spell that Sam found in 11.14 that ALSO required archangel grace specifically. Would these spells have worked with an archangel “feather?” Possibly, if material feathers are somehow just crystalized bits of grace, but since we never got a full explanation in canon, and never even really saw corporeal feathery wings that dropped feathers or could be plucked, and never even had mention of corporeal feathers outside of their use in this single spell, it’s really up to our own interpretation. And I kind of like it that way, because that way we get to have fun little discussions like this one. :D

I know this isn’t a definitive answer, but it’s how it all makes sense to me, in the hand-wavey sort of way that all of canon works. :’D

[mostlysignssomeportents]

20 years a blogger

It's been twenty years, to the day, since I published my first blog-post.

I'm a blogger.

Blogging - publicly breaking down the things that seem significant, then synthesizing them in longer pieces - is the defining activity of my days.

https://boingboing.net/2001/01/13/hey-mark-made-me-a.html

Over the years, I've been lauded, threatened, sued (more than once). I've met many people who read my work and have made connections with many more whose work  I wrote about. Combing through my old posts every morning is a journey through my intellectual development.

It's been almost exactly a year I left Boing Boing, after 19 years. It wasn't planned, and it wasn't fun, but it was definitely time. I still own a chunk of the business and wish them well. But after 19 years, it was time for a change.

A few weeks after I quit Boing Boing, I started a solo project. It's called Pluralistic: it's a blog that is published simultaneously on Twitter, Mastodon, Tumblr, a newsletter and the web. It's got no tracking or ads. Here's the very first edition:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/02/19/pluralist-19-feb-2020/

I don't often do "process posts" but this merits it. Here's how I built Pluralistic and here's how it works today, after nearly a year.

I get up at 5AM and make coffee. Then I sit down on the sofa and open a huge tab-group, and scroll through my RSS feeds using Newsblur.

I spend the next 1-2 hours winnowing through all the stuff that seems important. I have a chronic pain problem and I really shouldn't sit on the sofa for more than 10 minutes, so I use a timer and get up every 10 minutes and do one minute of physio.

After a couple hours, I'm left with 3-4 tabs that I want to write articles about that day. When I started writing Pluralistic, I had a text file on my desktop with some blank HTML I'd tinkered with to generate a layout; now I have an XML file (more on that later).

First I go through these tabs and think up metadata tags I want to use for each; I type these into the template using my text-editor (gedit), like this:

   <xtags>

process, blogging, pluralistic, recursion, navel-gazing

   </xtags>

Each post has its own little template. It needs an anchor tag (for this post, that's "hfbd"), a title ("20 years a blogger") and a slug ("Reflections on a lifetime of reflecting"). I fill these in for each post.

Then I come up with a graphic for each post: I've got a giant folder of public domain clip-art, and I'm good at using all the search tools for open-licensed art: the Library of Congress, Wikimedia, Creative Commons, Flickr Commons, and, ofc, Google Image Search.

I am neither an artist nor a shooper, but I've been editing clip art since I created pixel-art versions of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood glyphs using Bannermaker for the Apple //c in 1985 and printed them out on enough fan-fold paper to form a border around my bedroom.

As I create the graphics, I pre-compose Creative Commons attribution strings to go in the post; there's two versions, one for the blog/newsletter and one for Mastodon/Twitter/Tumblr. I compose these manually.

Here's a recent one:

Blog/Newsletter:

(<i>Image: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:QAnon_in_red_shirt_(48555421111).jpg">Marc Nozell</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en">CC BY</a>, modified</i>)

Twitter/Masto/Tumblr:

Image: Marc Nozell (modified)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:QAnon_in_red_shirt_(48555421111).jpg

CC BY

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

This is purely manual work, but I've been composing these CC attribution strings since CC launched in 2003, and they're just muscle-memory now. Reflex.

These attribution strings, as well as anything else I'll need to go from Twitter to the web (for example, the names of people whose Twitter handles I use in posts, or images I drop in, go into the text file). Here's how the post looks at this point in the composition.

<hr>

<a name="hfbd"></a>

<img src="https://craphound.com/images/20yrs.jpg">

<h1>20 years a blogger</h1><xtagline>Reflections on a lifetime of reflecting.</xtagline>

<img src="https://craphound.com/images/frnklogo.jpg">

See that <img> tag in there for frnklogo.jpg? I snuck that in while I was composing this in Twitter. When I locate an image on the web I want to use in a post, I save it to a dir on my desktop that syncs every 60 seconds to the /images/ dir on my webserver.

As I save it, I copy the filename to my clipboard, flip over to gedit, and type in the <img> tag, pasting the filename. I've typed <img src="https://craphound.com/images/ CTRL-V"> tens of thousands of times - muscle memory.

Once the thread is complete, I copy each tweet back into gedit, tabbing back and forth, replacing Twitter handles and hashtags with non-Twitter versions, changing the ALL CAPS EMPHASIS to the extra-character-consuming *asterisk-bracketed emphasis*.

My composition is greatly aided both 20 years' worth of mnemonic slurry of semi-remembered posts and the ability to search memex.craphound.com (the site where I've mirrored all my Boing Boing posts) easily.

A huge, searchable database of decades of thoughts really simplifies the process of synthesis.

Next I port the posts to other media. I copy the headline and paste it into a new Tumblr compose tab, then import the image and tag the post "pluralistic."

Then I paste the text of the post into Tumblr and manually select, cut, and re-paste every URL in the post (because Tumblr's automatic URL-to-clickable-link tool's been broken for 10+ months).

Next I past the whole post into a Mastodon compose field. Working by trial and error, I cut it down to <500 characters, breaking at a para-break and putting the rest on my clipboard. I post, reply, and add the next item in the thread until it's all done.

*Then* I hit publish on my Twitter thread. Composing in Twitter is the most unforgiving medium I've ever worked in. You have to keep each stanza below 280 chars. You can't save a thread as a draft, so as you edit it, you have to pray your browser doesn't crash.

And once you hit publish, you can't edit it. Forever. So you want to publish Twitter threads LAST, because the process of mirroring them to Tumblr and Mastodon reveals typos and mistakes (but there's no way to save the thread while you work!).

Now I create a draft Wordpress post on pluralistic.net, and create a custom slug for the page (today's is "two-decades"). Saving the draft generates the URL for the page, which I add to the XML file.

Once all the day's posts are done, I make sure to credit all my sources in another part of that master XML file, and then I flip to the command line and run a bunch of python scripts that do MAGIC: formatting the master file as a newsletter, a blog post, and a master thread.

Those python scripts saved my ASS. For the first two months of Pluralistic, i did all the reformatting by hand. It was a lot of search-replace (I used a checklist) and I ALWAYS screwed it up and had to debug, sometimes taking hours.

Then, out of the blue, a reader - Loren Kohnfelder - wrote to me to point out bugs in the site's RSS. He offered to help with text automation and we embarked on a month of intensive back-and-forth as he wrote a custom suite for me.

Those programs take my XML file and spit out all the files I need to publish my site, newsletter and master thread (which I pin to my profile). They've saved me more time than I can say. I probably couldn't kept this up without Loren's generous help (thank you, Loren!).

I open up the output from the scripts in gedit. I paste the blog post into the Wordpress draft and copy-paste the metadata tags into WP's "tags" field. I preview the post, tweak as necessary, and publish.

(And now I write this, I realize I forgot to mention that while I'm doing the graphics, I also create a square header image that makes a grid-collage out of the day's post images, using the Gimp's "alignment" tool)

(because I'm composing this in Twitter, it would be a LOT of work to insert that information further up in the post, where it would make sense to have it - see what I mean about an unforgiving medium?)

(While I'm on the subject: putting the "add tweet to thread" and "publish the whole thread" buttons next to each other is a cruel joke that has caused me to repeatedly publish before I was done, and deleting a thread after you publish it is a nightmare)

Now I paste the newsletter file into a new mail message, address it to my Mailman server, and create a custom subject for the day, send it, open the Mailman admin interface in a browser, and approve the message.

Now it's time to create that anthology post you can see pinned to my Mastodon and Twitter accounts. Loren's script uses a template to produce all the tweets for the day, but it's not easy to get that pre-written thread into Twitter and Mastodon.

Part of the problem is that each day's Twitter master thread has a tweet with a link to the day's Mastodon master thread ("Are you trying to wean yourself off Big Tech? Follow these threads on the #fediverse at @pluralistic@mamot.fr. Here's today's edition: LINK").

So the first order of business is to create the Mastodon thread, pin it, copy the link to it, and paste it into the template for the Twitter thread, then create and pin the Twitter thread.

Now it's time to get ready for tomorrow. I open up the master XML template file and overwrite my daily working file with its contents. I edit the file's header with tomorrow's date, trim away any "Upcoming appearances" that have gone by, etc.

Then I compose tomorrow's retrospective links. I open tabs for this day a year ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and (now) 20 years ago:

http://memex.craphound.com/2020/01/14

http://memex.craphound.com/2016/01/14

http://memex.craphound.com/2011/01/14

http://memex.craphound.com/2006/01/14

http://memex.craphound.com/2001/01/14

I go through each day, and open anything I want to republish in its own tab, then open the OP link in the next tab (finding it in the @internetarchive if necessary). Then I copy my original headline and the link to the article into tomorrow's XML file, like so:

#10yrsago Disney World’s awful Tiki Room catches fire <a href="https://thedisneyblog.com/2011/01/12/fire-reported-at-magic-kingdom-tiki-room/">https://thedisneyblog.com/2011/01/12/fire-reported-at-magic-kingdom-tiki-room/</a>

And NOW my day is done.

So, why do I do all this?

First and foremost, I do it for ME. The memex I've created by thinking about and then describing every interesting thing I've encountered is hugely important for how I understand the world. It's the raw material of every novel, article, story and speech I write.

And I do it for the causes I believe in. There's stuff in this world I want to change for the better. Explaining what I think is wrong, and how it can be improved, is the best way I know for nudging it in a direction I want to see it move.

The more people I reach, the more it moves.

When I left Boing Boing, I lost access to a freestanding way of communicating. Though I had popular Twitter and Tumblr accounts, they are at the mercy of giant companies with itchy banhammers and arbitrary moderation policies.

I'd long been a fan of the POSSE - Post Own Site, Share Everywhere - ethic, the idea that your work lives on platforms you control, but that it travels to meet your readers wherever they are.

Pluralistic posts start out as Twitter threads because that's the most constrained medium I work in, but their permalinks (each with multiple hidden messages in their slugs) are anchored to a server I control.

When my threads get popular, I make a point of appending the pluralistic.net permalink to them.

When I started blogging, 20 years ago, blogger.com had few amenities. None of the familiar utilities of today's media came with the package.

Back then, I'd manually create my headlines with <h2> tags. I'd manually create discussion links for each post on Quicktopic. I'd manually paste each post into a Yahoo Groups email. All the guff I do today to publish Pluralistic is, in some way, nothing new.

20 years in, blogging is still a curious mix of both technical, literary and graphic bodgery, with each day's work demanding the kind of technical minutuae we were told would disappear with WYSIWYG desktop publishing.

I grew up in the back-rooms of print shops where my dad and his friends published radical newspapers, laying out editions with a razor-blade and rubber cement on a light table. Today, I spend hours slicing up ASCII with a cursor.

I go through my old posts every day. I know that much - most? - of them are not for the ages. But some of them are good. Some, I think, are great. They define who I am. They're my outboard brain.

[avettabendrot]

The curse of a bit fun?

Oh well. My last post brought me back to the point where I am currently xD I think I might share this here as well.

Since a couple of months I'm seeking for RP partner but it's evertime the same. The first few sentences are going good and then they never reply again. When I'm asking about it they are like. "I'm busy with rl" or "Sorry I forgot, will text back in the next days". OK there is nothing wrong with this answer but... After 4 times and a few weeks of hearing that from the person, I think that it must be me right?

So I went to the point of what I never thought it would happen..... Paying them for texting back xD It's simple and just in game Gil but hey when they get 10k for a few replies, they spend time with me :D

Of course I know that this isn't the right thing but hey I'm depressed and hopeless. If fun costs Gil for me, so shall it be.

But if I manage to catch a RP event, that's free and lasts for a few hours and good ❤️ Guess my char isn't really made for single rp?

However please tell me your personal opinion about it if you want. :3

[drhxnkmccoy]

If I Could Turn Back Time - Peter Maximoff x Reader

a/n: hi guys! i know. i’ve been gone for a REALLY long time. i’m really sorry! sporadic posting seems to be my calling. our holiday season at my store was absolutely insane and between forty hours a week and school i kind of forgot about this. sorry i kinda suck! anyway! this one was a request and it was super fun to write, i was a little bit stuck on the idea but i think it turned out pretty cool. i hope you guys enjoy! please leave me some requests too, i’m trying to get back into the groove of writing whilst we’re all under quarantine :)

Summary: Y/N has no idea what she did, or how she got there. But she knows exactly who she’s with.

She wasn’t quite sure how she got there. Hell, she was completely and totally baffled as to how she got there - nonetheless, how she would get back. As Y/N stood up from the charred grass around her, she stared in awe at the huge mansion in front of her, surrounded by a picturesque blue sky and fluffy white clouds. The image reminded her of a painting, too beautiful to be true. She slowly started walking towards the house, taking note that the beautiful watch Peter had given her was gone. A frown took shape on her face, but she resigned to getting out of here first and finding the watch later. As she knocked on the big, wooden door, she looked up, taking in the beautiful exterior and woodwork that graced the white walls and how the sun shone brightly off the roof. Honestly? She wished the mansion still looked like this.

“Can I help you?”

She looked back down to see a teenaged boy with silver hair holding the door open for her. He wore black jeans and a metallic, silver jacket. His hair would have fallen into his eyes if not for the goggles that sat on the crown of his head. His goofy little smile, though: that was what she recognized. As if she could ever forget the way his lips curled up, showing off his dimples like a model.

“Peter?” She gasped, awestruck at how… young he looked. He couldn’t be more than nineteen, and the whole concept quite frankly freaked her out.

“Uh. Yeah. Do I know you, or something?” He squinted his eyes at her, trying to think of how he could possibly know her, “You’re not a cop, right?”

“No!” She laughed, watching as relief flooded his features, “I… well, I’m not really sure how to explain who I am. Could you, uh, tell me what year it is first?”

Peter quirked his eyebrow, looking around in the background behind her. Maybe she was a spy? Peter’s head spun, as he went back and forth trying to come up with where this mysterious chick could have come from and how she knew him.

“It’s 1982. Seriously, where the hell did you come from?”

1982? She hadn’t realized how far she had gone back. Panic started to run through her veins as she suddenly became painfully aware of how far away from home she was, with no knowledge of how to return. Y/N began to breathe heavily, as Peter’s presence started to fade in light of her sudden anxiety.

“Whoa, hey. Calm down. It’s okay - WHOA!” Peter took a step back as she took in a sharp breath and her hair caught fire as if she was a tree struck by lightning. “How did you…” he took a second to watch the flames dance through her hair, understanding just why she wasn’t screaming out horribly in pain, “Are you a mutant?”

Y/N closed her eyes, trying to focus on the situation at hand. Her anxiety lingered, but the calm she was trying to force upon herself was able to subside it - for the most part. She felt the heat begin to die down and soon enough, the flames began to extinguish. 

“Uhhh… okay. Okay, this is fine. Everything is fine,” Peter mumbled to himself as he watched the flames disappear. What would Charles say in this situation? He knew exactly what Charles would say. Peter could practically hear Charles’ voice in his head, telling him to invite her in. “Do you, uh, want to come in?”

Y/N opened her eyes. The anxiety had faded and she had zoned back in at the sound of Peter’s invitation. Noting the look of mild terror on Peter’s face, she nodded, “Yes.. yes I would. Thank you.”

The mansion looked ginormous, and it only got bigger as she stepped inside. A huge staircase that split and went two ways as you opened the door, classrooms to the right and dormitories to the left. It looked almost the same as when Charles had recruited her, sometime around 2012. She gazed around in awe as Peter shut the door, unsure of what to do next.

“As interesting as this has been, I’m curious. Where the hell did you come from? You’re obviously a mutant… are you here looking for Professor? If you are, you couldn’t have come at a better time, considering he’s THE PROFESSOR again..” Peter babbled, mostly to himself, at a speed faster than she could comprehend.

“The Professor? Professor Xavier is here?” Y/N found a bit of hope in that statement. Hopefully, Charles would know what was going on and how she could be here… Charles always knew what to do, even when he didn’t.

“Yeah! I mean, no. Usually, yes. But I guess there was some type of emergency, like there always is, and well, I mean, if you know the professor you know he’s always the first one out there to solve the problem. So right now? It’s just you and me.”

“Was that your convoluted way of telling me Charles is on a mission?” Y/N sighed - young Peter was a lot more… zealous, she’d say, than adult Peter.

“Yeah! Wait - how do you know about missions? Wait - never mind, you’re a mutant. Duh, Peter”, he shook his head, “Are you one of Charles’ students? You look kind of old to still be a student,” Peter tilted his head.

Y/N shook her head, “Uh… yes. You could say I’m… a student of Charles.” It wasn’t a lie - she had been a student of Charles.

“Oh.. cool. Well, you can hang until he gets back. Oh! We should order a pizza!” Peter’s mind quickly got occupied and he turned to search through a drawer filled with take out menus. 

“Peter! Focus! I need your help.” Y/N was too impatient to sit around and wait for Charles, maybe Peter knew something about how and why she was here - she could only hope that the butterfly effect wouldn’t somehow ruin their relationship in the future.

“Whoa, okay. What?” Peter didn’t look up from the drawer, but Y/N knew her next words would change that.

“I’m from the future. I don’t know how and why I’m here, just that I don’t belong here and I have to get back.”

Peter’s eyes practically bugged out of his head. 

“Whoa! The future! Wait, that’s so crazy because a couple years ago some guy came back from the future - he was all mean and grumpy, maybe you guys are from the same place! Wait, what year did you come from?” Peter struggled to focus on one point at a time, as usual.

“2020. I’m from 2020. I - Wait, grumpy? Are you talking about Logan?” Y/N shook her head, “Nevermind that. I just need to figure out how to get back to where I came from.”

“Hmm. Sucks. I don’t know anything about time travel. But hey, tell me about the future!” Peter zoomed beside her, and in the two seconds it took her to turn and face him, he was already cozy on the couch.

Y/N approached the couch as well, wondering if it was really her place to tell him what the future holds - what if she told him about their relationship and then it never happened? She didn’t want to change the course of history.

“Well…” She sheepishly took a seat beside him, “There’s… a lot of big stuff that happens in the future. For one,” she pointed at the small television seated upon a cart at the door of Charles’ office, “there are televisions four times the size of that. And there are more than three channels. And -”

“That’s cool! Hey, are the X-Men still a thing? Oh, and who’s the president? Oh, hey, do you know me in the future?” Peter cut her off with the force of his questions.

This was it. Would Y/N tell him? Would that endanger their future together?

“I… do. Yes, I know you in the future.” She smiled at the way his eyes lit up when she said that. 

“No way! Are we friends?”

Her voice was caught in her throat. She knew Peter - he was a curious guy, this question was to be expected. And yet, she still had no answer for him.

“We -”

“My, my, Miss Y/N.” She was cut off by Charles’ arrival, the wheels of his chair squeaking slightly as he entered the room. “How nice it is to see you again.”

He looked so… different. Y/N had never seen Charles with hair before - only in pictures. 

“Professor,” she stood and shook his hand, “it’s always a pleasure.”

“I believe this,” he pulled her watch out of his pocket, “belongs to you.”

Y/N looked at him with large, wide eyes. He had found her watch! This meant he had to know what she was doing here. Right?

“Whoa,” Peter glanced over the couch, “My dad has a watch, like, exactly like that.”

Charles grinned at Y/N, trying to hold back a laugh at the look of confusion mixed with terror on her face, “As lovely as it is to see you, darling, unfortunately we’ve got much to do today. Peter should be studying for that quiz tomorrow, hm?”

Peter’s eyes widened and before Y/N could even blink, he was gone.

Charles laughed, heading towards the door,” Perhaps, if you don’t mind visiting on another day,” Charles was already escorting her out the door.

“But, Professor -”

“Don’t worry, dear,” Charles opened the door for her, “I’m sure whatever it is,” he winked, “can wait a little bit.” 

And with that, he shut the door.

Y/N gasped, opening her eyes to see the dingy walls of her office. She stood from her desk chair, looking around the familiar room. The ceiling looked like it was about to cave in, the wood beginning to rot. The paint on the walls was peeling, adding to the old, abandoned look of the room. Everything looked like what she remembered - not what she had seen.

“Babe?”

She whipped around to see Peter standing at the door, “Are you coming? I thought you were supposed to be done with class, like, an hour ago - Whoa! Okay!” Peter stumbled back as she ran into his arms.

“What year is it?” Y/N looked up at him - he was the Peter that she had come to know and love. 

He looked at her with a look of concern, “Are you okay? It’s 2020, crazy. Are you sick?” Peter held a hand up to her forehead, which she quickly slapped away.

“I’m fine,” Y/N straightened out her skirt, “I’m sorry. I guess I just… lost track of time. But I’m done, let’s go.”

Peter grinned and took her arm, leading her away from the office, “Wow, nice watch,” he winked, drawing her attention to the beautiful piece of jewelry he’d given her, “Wonder who could have given it to you. So, how was your day?”

“Crazy. Like you wouldn’t believe…”