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roosterforme · 6 months

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Covering the Classics Part 4 | Bob Floyd x OC

Summary: Anna was afraid to face her new friends after the night out at the bar. Admitting she was attracted to Bob was easier to do than explain why she couldn't have him. When she finally sends him some book recommendations, she finds his taste in books familiar in an all too intimate way.

Warnings: Fluff, angst, adult language, eventually 18+

Length: 4700 words

Pairing: Robert "Bob" Floyd x Female OC (this story is part of the Beer Boy/Sugar and Jake/Jessica universe)

Covering the Classics masterlist. Check my masterlist for more! Thank you to @mak-32 for the beautiful banner!

Anna spent the rest of her weekend working on lesson plans and looking at Bob's number saved in her phone. She had compiled a mental list of titles she thought he would like, and she'd even pulled a few dog-eared books from her own collection and stacked them up on her narrow counter. She would absolutely love to have Bob borrow them from her, but she'd completely messed everything up.

Why, when confronted with a decent man, did she shut everything down and destroy all hope? Because of Kevin. That's why. She knew this crush on Bob was a bad idea. Nothing good could come of it, but she still caught herself looking at his contact information on Sunday evening with longing in her heart.

She made herself a sad sandwich for dinner and packed herself a second sad sandwich for lunch the next day and then she settled in with her computer. The idea of taking her sad sandwich to the quad and eating with her friends was making her anxious. What if they didn't even want her around now that she'd made a complete fool of herself in front of their friend? What if they looked up at her as she approached them sitting on the bench with their perfect, beautiful lunches and scowled with their perfect, beautiful faces?

"Oh no," she groaned, covering her eyes with her hand. She really liked them, but they probably hated her now. And she really liked Bob, but he probably went home with that better looking woman who was at the Navy bar and hadn't thought about Anna one time since.

She forced her attention to her computer screen which was prompting her for a password. She entered Kev1n1s@t00L and watched as the website she'd had open on her browser came to life. She sighed as she scrolled through her saved favorites on PoetsAmongUs. It was kind of pitiful that she knew what she was going to end up reading before she could actually admit it to herself.

Your whispers call out in the darkest shadows, My heart answers like a flame, Igniting this shared space with every breath I take, Giving you a love that will never find the end. It binds me to you, pulsing through my veins, Emotions like I've never known before. I've doubted that I could reach this place, But I feel endlessly sure here now.

Anna whined from her bed in her sad little apartment as she looked at the pen name of her favorite poet before clicking on it. He either never finished filling out his profile or he was being purposely vague. Male, 30s, United States.

"Sky Writing. The only man I would trust with my heart ever again." She read the poem once more. That was her favorite passage, but she knew everything he posted by heart and got excited every time something new from him popped up every few months.

It was late enough that she could probably just go to sleep without acknowledging that she hadn't texted Bob and probably never would. She couldn't set foot back in that bar ever again. Maybe that other place that Jessica loved so much would be somewhere she could check out next time she had nothing better to do. Chippy's or something? She started to doze off.

When her alarm started blaring, it was almost like she had slept too well. She'd dreamed about a faceless man with beautiful hands reading poetry to her while he ran his fingers slowly up and down her bare thigh. She couldn't shake the delicious feeling even as her alarm got louder. When she managed to turn it off, she lay there wishing she had time to go on the poetry website and masturbate before work.

"Stop it," she whispered as she got up and started getting herself ready for the day.

At least she got to teach English 522 this afternoon. Feminist Literature was becoming one of her favorite classes, as evidenced by her well worn copy of Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu which was in her bag. When she stood in her kitchen and ate a peanut butter granola bar and drank some coffee, she looked at the books she had pulled out as options for Bob, but she shook her head and left for the day without dwelling on how disappointing her life truly was.

Relying solely on public transportation meant leaving a lot earlier than you wanted to, but Anna still barely made it to her office in time to grab her notebook and teach her first lecture of the week. Half of the students still looked like they were asleep while the other half were looking at her like she was a literary messiah. It was almost comical, and when lunchtime rolled around, she was in a pretty great mood. Until she realized she was still on the fence about going to the quad.

"Just do a vibe check," she muttered as she grabbed her lunch from her office. "If they look pissed off, you can come right back here and never talk to anyone else again for the rest of your life." She could subside on sandwiches and online poetry and only speak when she was giving lectures. That sounded simultaneously amazing and also terrifying.

The college campus was bustling today. There were some guys skateboarding through the quad, and she recognized a few other faculty members from the English department who waved to her. But that didn't stop her palms from sweating and her heart from thudding in a sickening rhythm that Edgar Alan Poe would think was beautiful. When she spotted the two women on the bench in front of the weird tree, Anna was shocked to see them waving to her with smiles on their faces.

"Anna!" called Jessica. "You'll never believe it! The vending machine just gave me my bottle of Pepsi and a bonus bottle of ginger ale! Like it knew I was about to see you!"

"Chaos Theory at its finest," said the other woman before she bit into her carrot stick and hummus.

"It's really more of the Butterfly Effect," Jessica replied. Anna had no idea what they were talking about, but they scooted away from each other on the bench to make room, so she decided to stay.

Anna swallowed hard as she sat and opened her pack of peanuts. "How was the rest of your weekend?" she asked the two of them, and soon her nerves calmed down.

"Excellent. Bradley and I took a tour of the library yesterday."

"Pretty good. I helped Jake make waffles for breakfast. Lots and lots and lots of waffles. What did you do with the rest of your weekend? After the Hard Deck?"

Anna accepted the bottle of ginger ale that Jessica handed to her as she said, "Um, well I did my lesson plans for the next few weeks. And I started writing my midterm exams. Nothing exciting."

She was met with a bit of awkward silence, and she could feel the two women sharing a look behind her head. "Did you happen to text Bob?" Advanced Calculus asked cautiously, and Anna knew this was the part where it was all over. The dramatic climax, except she was actually the villain in this story.

"No, actually. I think that ship has sailed," she replied softly.

"Why?" Jessica asked, not unkindly. "When we figured out that you and he already met at the bookstore in North Park, we were ecstatic. He's the mystery guy you were losing your mind over, Anna! The handsome one with glasses who smells so good!"

"He really does smell good," Advanced Calculus muttered as she dipped another carrot into the hummus which was probably unfairly homemade. "Are you no longer attracted to him? Was it his nerdy tee shirt? Or were all the guys so obnoxious you couldn't wait to leave?"

Anna held onto the cold bottle of ginger ale a little tighter as she said, "It's not that at all. I mean, who in their right mind wouldn't be attracted to Bob? And I thought his shirt was kind of charming. And the rest of the guys were welcoming in a slightly intense way."

Now Jessica was turned to face her, eyes wide behind her glasses. "Bob thinks you ran away from him twice now because he's unappealing and boring."

Anna jolted and the pack of peanuts went flying to the ground, nuts rolling in every direction. "He does?" she asked, palms beginning to sweat again.

"Yeah. Big time. But he's quite attracted to you. Apparently the red hair is a thing."

"Oh my god," Anna moaned in embarrassment. Bob liked her red hair? "Oh no. No. No. He's just.... he's so.... and he's also.... I can't even." She took a deep breath as she kicked at the lost peanuts. "Bob is so handsome. It's hard to look into his eyes for too long, because you start to feel like you're going to break out into song. And I don't think I've ever been around a man who smells quite that nice. And he's funny and just a touch nerdy, but that's a good thing."

There was another beat of silence before Advanced Calculus said, "I'm not really understanding what the problem is."

Anna shook her head and unwrapped her sandwich to keep her hands busy. "Listen, none of my weirdness is because of him. It's all because of me. I can't have a crush on him. I can't be interested in him. I can't be interested in any men whatsoever."

Jessica nudged her shoulder and said, "Maybe you could just text him? Maybe making another new friend wouldn't be so bad?"

--------------------------

"Well if you can't find a girlfriend, I hope you're at least getting your rocks off with an attractive lady."

Bob was cradling his forehead in his hand and trying to escape from Suzanne's house without having this conversation. Whenever he stopped to pick up dinner instead of cooking something at home, he always brought something for her, too. It was the neighborly thing to do, especially when your neighbor was decades older than you, but right now he just wanted to vanish.

"I wouldn't tell you even if I was," he replied, earning a laugh as she opened up the container of soup at her kitchen table.

"Sit down and stay for a while," she told him, pointing to the empty chair. "I'll pay you back for dinner with my charm and witticism since you won't accept any money."

His phone started to vibrate in his uniform pocket, and he dug it out thinking it was probably Jessica having finished mocking up her barbarian character for their campaign, but it was a text from an unknown number. He was about to pocket his phone again, but then he saw the words book recommendations and paused. He quickly unlocked the phone and started reading the texts that were coming through.

I have some book recommendations for you if you still want them. I'm sorry I didn't send them over the weekend.

This is Anna, by the way.

I should have started with that information.

Wow. This is already embarrassing.

Bob laughed and started to type back immediately, and then Suzanne's voice cut across his thoughts. "Are you sure you don't have a special lady? You're smiling an awful lot at your phone."

He looked at her and shook his head. "I'm sure. I like this girl, but she doesn't return my feelings that way. She's just sending me some recommendations." He started to back away as he added, "Enjoy your soup. I'll see you later, Suzanne."

"Good night, Robert."

Bob ended up standing just inside his front door as he saved Anna's number and typed back a message to her. He thought keeping it simple would be his best move. Anything more than that and he'd embarrass himself once again by getting ahead of himself with his feelings.

I would love some more recommendations from you. You're the expert.

He only had to wait about a minute for her response, which was just a list of book after book after book that he'd never even heard of. The first were the ones she'd given to him verbally on Friday night, but the rest were just as foreign to him.

Anna Webber: Persuasion by Austen. Northanger Abbey by Austen, Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence, The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell, and The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas (because you like poetry so much)

Bob quickly ate his own container of soup while he read the list over and over again. Then without changing out of his uniform, he grabbed the keys to his beat up truck and headed to the bookstore in North Park to see if he could find any of these titles before they closed.

The store was virtually empty, and when he climbed the stairs up to the slightly dusty loft he could practically picture Anna's pretty hands and painted nails gliding along all of the spines. He could imagine her pretty, wide eyes looking up at him before she figured out he was boring. He could hear her laugh as he made his way to the spot where they had been standing together.

That horrible Vonnegut book was still there which made him chuckle. "Figures nobody else would want to read it," he muttered as he reached for it. Then he backtracked a little bit to start collecting everything from Anna's list. He referenced his text messages several times, hunting all over the Classics section until he had almost everything in order. Then he spread them out along the shelf and took a photo. He texted it to her before he could second guess himself after he added a short caption.

Did I miss anything?

He was walking back down to the poetry section when his phone vibrated.

Anna Webber: You're at the bookstore right now? The one in North Park?

Bob froze in the middle of the stairs. He embarrassed himself without even knowing it. He must seem desperate right now. Running out to the store as soon as she sent him the list. "Shit," he groaned softly. When he got another message, he was almost afraid to look at it.

Anna Webber: I LOVE that store. I wish I were there right now, too.

Bob thought that sounded perfect, actually. Maybe if she were here now, she wouldn't run away this time. He'd been playing those kinds of scenarios over and over in his head, ones where she liked him back the way he liked her. Ones where they left the bookstore holding hands.

He continued downstairs to look for the book of poems she suggested for him, which he found quickly, along with Votive by Keiran Goddard. Would Anna like a copy of his favorite book of poetry? Did he even want to ask her? At this point, he had nothing to lose. She wasn't going to suddenly want him, but that shouldn't stop him from sharing a recommendation of his own. Especially when she might really enjoy something he found so spectacular.

Bob held the book up and snapped a quick selfie, sending it away into the universe before dwelling on it too much.

--------------------

Anna was preparing a piece of toast with jelly for herself or dinner, desperately wishing she were back at the bookstore. Bob was there, probably smelling so nice and luring everyone else who was shopping closer to him. Perhaps he was wearing another Dungeons & Dragons shirt like he'd worn to the Navy bar. Perhaps his biceps were straining against it.

She didn't have to use her vivid imagination for very long, because suddenly Bob was staring at her through her phone screen with his crooked little smile and his beautiful eyes. And his uniform.

"Oh my god." The toast slipped from her fingers and landed jelly side down on her plate as she took in every single detail. Navy uniforms were khaki? Why had she assumed they were all navy blue? Why didn't she know more about the Navy? She was going to take the time to learn everything she could about the United States Navy.

When she realized her mouth was dry, she reached for her glass of water and downed it. She was in a daze. A Bob Floyd induced daze. Even all the little pins on his shirt were distracting. She wanted to count all of them. She wanted to touch them. She wondered what they would feel like if she pressed her lips to them.

"Stop," she gasped. But she couldn't. Now her eyes drifted up to his face again, and she thought she'd only really ever seen the exact color of his eyes in a Kandinsky painting at the Guggenheim. She couldn't look away. "No. No. No!" she moaned. And then she finally read the actual message he'd typed out after gawking at his photo for five whole minutes.

Bob Floyd: Have you ever read Votive by Keiran Goddard? It's my favorite collection of poetry.

Anna laughed a little hysterically. She hadn't even noticed he was holding up a book at all. His graceful fingers were wrapped around the damn thing, but she'd been too distracted by him to actually look at the book. But now the fact that she'd never read Goddard before had her flushed and flustered, because Bob had sent a book recommendation to her. Nobody ever did that, and all she could think about was how she absolutely needed to get her hands on a copy and devour the whole entire thing if it was something he liked.

Very calmly and rationally, she typed back to him.

I have not read it yet, but I'll add it to my list of things to check out of the library.

When she set her phone down and realized her toast had become a casualty to this text conversation, she moaned and flipped it back over. Her heart was still beating a little erratically from looking at Bob's photo for too long, and she didn't think she could even eat. There was no way she could waste any food in her current financial state though, so she took a bite anyway as he texted her back.

Bob Floyd: I'll just pick it up for you while I'm here. I hope you'll like it, but if you hate it, that's okay too. It's a bit of an acquired taste.

Oh no. She couldn't let him buy it, because she didn't have any extra spending money at the moment to be able to pay him back. But admitting that to him would be excruciatingly embarrassing, and she didn't even think she could do it. Perhaps she could scrape together twenty dollars if she skipped a few meals, but then she wouldn't be able to join the girls in the quad at lunchtime. They'd notice her lack of food right away.

"Why are you such a disaster?" she asked herself as she scarfed down the rest of her toast and typed back to him.

Thank you. I can pay you back for it later.

She would figure it out. She always did. Even when she didn't want to, she managed to find a way to solve her problems. Even when it hurt.

Bob Floyd: It's my treat. I can give it to Bradley or Jake at work tomorrow. I'm sure either of the ladies wouldn't mind getting it to you when they see you. Or if you feel like it, we could meet for coffee one day and I could give it to you in person. Just let me know.

"Oh, Anna," she whispered, already typing out a response before she could think better of it.

--------------------------

Bob was surprised Anna took him up on his offer to meet for coffee, but he found himself looking forward to it in spite of the fact that he was still pining a bit. He'd get over it in time. He'd find someone new to crush on, or maybe he'd meet another girl that he was interested in, and maybe she would be interested back. But none of that stopped him from being excited at the prospect of being around her again. And none of that prepared him for the way he felt when Anna pushed through the door of the coffee shop on Wednesday evening and looked around tentatively. Her red hair was in another loose braid, and her freckles were so endearing.

As soon as her eyes landed on him, she looked less apprehensive but also more resigned. When she approached the table where he was sitting with three books, he stood. "Hey. Anna. How are you?"

"Hi, Bob." Even her voice was soft and sweet as her eyes swept along his face and body. She blushed a pretty shade of pink as she said, "Thanks for the book. Will you let me buy you something to drink?"

He didn't respond beyond nodding and leading the way toward the counter. He listened to her order a small coffee before he ordered a large hot tea, and when she reached for her wallet, he was already handing over a twenty. When she looked up at him with wide, brown eyes, he just smiled. "You don't have to buy me a drink."

She watched the money leave his hand as she said, "Well, you don't have to buy me one either."

"Too late."

She was quiet as they returned to the small table with their hot beverages, but as soon as she sat, she said, "You'll have to let me pay next time."

Bob slid two of the books across the table as he asked, "Next time?" But she didn't respond as she let her fingers brush along Votive before she picked it up to reveal the one underneath it.

Anna's laughter filled the small space as her eyes darted back up to meet his. "You bought Cat's Cradle? I didn't think that was the kind of thing you were looking for?"

He glanced down into his tea. "Uh, it's not. I got it for you."

"Bob," she said quietly, her fingers tracing the spine now. He liked her nail polish and wanted to touch her hands. "You did not have to get me two books."

"Yes I did," he said with a smile. "Vonnegut sounds horrible. I felt bad for it because nobody else was ever going to buy it. I couldn't just leave it to rot on the shelf when I know the only person who would be willing to give it a nice home."

When she laughed again, she seemed resigned to the fact that the books were both hers. "Thanks. Money is a little tight for me right now. You know how it is when you first move," she told him while she fidgeted a bit. "But next time, I'll buy your drink. Or your book. Or something."

"You keep saying 'next time'."

Anna poked at her coffee cup and said, "I thought maybe.... we could be friends."

"Friends." His voice felt and sounded stale. The word made him feel sadder than it should have. "Of course."

She looked even more relieved now as she took a sip of her coffee, but Bob was busy trying not to memorize the pretty pattern of her freckles across her nose and the way her lips were pursed. He wouldn't look at a friend that way.

"Which book is that?" she asked, nodding toward the last one in front of him.

He flipped it over so she could see the cover, and he said, "Oh, it's The Age of Innocence. I'm almost done reading it, and I was just hoping to get your opinions on a few things."

Anna's eyes went wider. "You're almost done reading it? Already?"

"Yeah." His voice sounded like a groan, and he knew he should be embarrassed since she recommended it two days ago, but he said, "Once I start a new book, I can't put it down if it's good."

"So you like it?" she asked, leaning a little closer to him as a smile played along her lips.

"It's fantastic," he replied, and her foot brushed his softly beneath the table.

Anna licked her lips and shifted in her seat as she made a soft sound that just made Bob want to get closer to her. She clasped her hands on the table in front of her and cleared her throat before she blurted out. "You're really handsome." His lips parted wordlessly, unsure how to respond, but he didn't have to as she immediately said, "And you're not boring. Not at all. I could have stayed in that dusty bookstore all afternoon, tucked away in the loft, talking to you about book after book."

"Oh," he replied, his brow furrowed in confusion. "Really?"

"Yes. Really," she said, and it sounded like she meant it. "I didn't disappear because of you. I disappeared because of me. And I'm really sorry about that."

Then he realized what was going on. His friends got to her already. He'd told Jessica on Saturday night that he was sure Anna ditched him because he's probably not as handsome or interesting as she's used to. And now he was going to have to text her and tell her to lay off. This whole thing was embarrassing enough without having to hear Anna pity him like this.

"Don't worry about it," he told her softly with his best attempt at a smile. "We can be friends."

When he got home, she texted him to thank him again for the books and the coffee. But he was still thinking about her freckles and how far down her neck they might go. Maybe they made a pretty pattern across her shoulders, too. Maybe they would disappear into her bra, a perfect treasure for another man to find. But not Bob. Bob and Anna were just friends.

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When Anna finally got home after taking two buses, it was so late, she knew she should go right to bed. But she was wishing for another cheap bottle of wine to try to take her mind off of Bob. He was perfect, and she couldn't let herself have him. They could be friends, but nothing more. She could send him texts, but they couldn't flirt.

She already missed his soft voice and the way he gave her his entire focus when they were together. He bought her two books! Nobody else ever bought her books! And he read the ones she recommended to him! Maybe Kevin was to blame for most things that had gone wrong in her life, but literally no man she'd ever known was as kind and thoughtful as Bob.

She collapsed back onto her bed in her sad apartment were she could look at her kitchen and her bathroom at the same time, and she opened the book of poetry. Bob's favorite poetry. Within minutes of reading the first few pages, she felt warmer and maybe a little flustered. The passages were romantic and insightful in such a familiar way. Something was tickling at her brain, trying to trigger a memory. She kept reading, making it fifteen pages in before she gasped and realized what it was.

"Sky Writing," she murmured, reaching for her computer in favor of the book. She was reminded of her favorite novice poet from her favorite website. The poetry in the book sounded a bit like the poems written by Sky Writing, and now Anna was even more of a mess knowing that this was the kind of intimate literature Bob preferred to read.

She wanted him. She wanted to know what his big, sturdy hands would feel like on her body. What his lips tasted like. She wanted to erase that pinch of doubt she saw on his face when she tried to reassure him that even though they were going to be just friends, she definitely found him attractive.

The next time she went shopping, she was going to need to stock up on some more bottles of cheap wine.

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Just friends. Okay, Anna. Sure, babe. Let's see how long that lasts. Bob's wingwomen are powerful. Thank you @lauratang for the book/reading list! And thanks to @mak-32 and @beyondthesefourwalls

PART 5

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#bob floyd x oc #robert bob floyd x oc #robert bob floyd #bob floyd #bob floyd imagine #robert floyd imagine #bob floyd fic #bob floyd fanfiction #robert floyd x oc #robert floyd fanfiction #robert floyd fic #robert floyd #top gun imagine #top gun maverick imagine #top gun fanfiction #top gun maverick fanfiction #roosterforme #covering the classics

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lu-sn · 5 months

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Arm has a top-secret file that he keeps on a separate partition of his hard drive, locked behind three different password walls. It’s a list of all of the main family’s bodyguards, ranked by how likely they are to be the mole.

(It’s top-secret because he’s not supposed to be looking into this. Chan explicitly ordered him not to.)

There’s a handful of people Arm doesn’t even bother putting on the list. Pol, for one. Pete. Erika. Chan.

By contrast, every single one of Kinn’s personal bodyguards, past and present, is a prime suspect. Kinn’s had a notorious streak of bad luck lately. Four murder attempts in four months cannot be a coincidence.

Ken is just aloof enough that nobody seems to know what he’s up to on his off-days. This rockets him straight to the top of Arm’s list, tied with Big, who has fallen so far out of favor with Kinn that Arm can’t help but wonder if Kinn is doing it on purpose.

And then there’s the name directly under those two.

“Be honest,” he says to Pete one day. They’re sequestered in his armory, but he keeps his voice low: there’s no harm in being careful with matters like this. “Do you think there’s any chance Porsche is the mole?”

Pete is silent for a good, long moment.

“You live with him,” Arm says. “You’ve been on more missions with him than me. If anyone here knows him best, it’s you.”

“There are reasons to suspect him,” Pete says slowly. “A lot of his missions have gone wrong. He didn’t stop that girl from attacking Kinn in the bathroom. The casino stakeout was a mess. The diamond auction was worse.”

“But…?”

Pete sighs. “I don’t know. He’s young. He’s made a lot of mistakes, but he’s improving.”

Arm stares forlornly at his list, cursor blinking innocently next to Porsche’s name. “Pete, I can’t clear his name just because he’s young.”

“No,” Pete concedes. He leans back in his chair, arms crossed behind his head. “But he’s kind, too. He’s principled. He won’t betray people he cares about.”

“And that’s enough? You trust him?”

“I do.”

The knot in Arm’s chest jerks tighter. “But… he’s so likable.”

“Ohhh, right, he’s nice. Never mind. Death by firing squad.”

Arm smiles, sheepish.

“Okay,” Pete says. “So you think he’s tricking us?”

“Shit, Pete, I don’t know,” Arm splutters. “Isn't it possible?”

“I don't think so. Porsche isn't like that.”

Arm considers this, then plops his face into his hand.

“Did you want me to say something else?” Pete says, faintly amused.

“Yes,” Arm groans.

“Why?”

“Because…” Arm trails off.

Because the security of the main family rests on his shoulders. Arm cannot afford to be anything other than objective; he needs to leave Porsche on his list.

But the problem is that Porsche barreled into their lives and immediately made Khun Noo happier than Arm had ever seen before. The problem is that Pol hasn’t been this comfortable around someone since Arm himself. The problem is that Arm vaguely remembers being carried home from Hum Bar by an equally drunk Porsche, who took off his shoes for him and tucked him into bed and grinned brightly over his shoulder before staggering out the door.

The problem is that Arm is biased.

Pete, on the other hand, is the most level-headed person Arm knows. Leaving Porsche’s name on his list wouldn’t feel so terrible if Pete agreed with it.

“I wanted you to give me a reason to keep him on here,” Arm mumbles. “I feel bad. He’s our friend.”

“You’re doing your job,” Pete says sincerely. “There’s no shame in that. But…” He reaches over to pat Arm on the shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong with trusting your gut. If you think he’s innocent, leave him off.”

Arm mulls over this. Then he pokes Pete in the side. “I think I trust your gut more than mine.”

Pete lets out a laugh, incredulous, and pokes Arm back.

Later, Arm highlights Porsche’s entry with his cursor and drags it to the bottom of the file. Then he pauses. His hand hovers over the delete button.

He thinks about Pete saying, I trust him. He thinks about what Pete didn’t quite say: you should trust yourself, too.

He hits delete.

#kpanniversary2024 episode 9 + prompt 9: trust

#this one's for all the armpete girlies out there #(looking straight at dreamy)#brought to you by me thinking about how arm and pete show unconditional trust for porsche #and how curious that is given the state of the main family at that time #kinnporsche #kpanniversary2024 #arm kinnporsche #pete saengtham #mine: ficlet

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yawntutsyip · 2 years

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— Modern Boyfriend Ao’nung —

authors note: idk what this is tbh but 🤷‍♀️ enjoy

His password on his phone is your birthday, yes this man is whipped for you.

He purposely leaves his hoodies at your house so you’ll wear them, seeing you in his clothes makes him kick his feet

He’s the type to do that one thing when reversing. Ya know the thing- they look behind them and put an arm over the back of the passenger seat. (He purposely does it to get you flustered)

He gives you flowers just because, he would see flowers at the store and immediately his mind goes to, ‘I bet they would like these’.

If you tell him about a new hobby you wanted to get into , ex:painting. The next day he sets up a date at a painting class just for you baby ;)

You guys have matching bracelets with each others name engraved on the inside that only you guys know about.

He never lets you pay for things no matter how much you tell him no (you have to go behind his back and secretly pay)

Ao’nung let’s you cheat off his homework <3 (but he lowkey lectures you for not asking for his help before it was due)

If he finds out you got some sort of detention, well looks like he got it too also hmm what a coincidence

You go to all his basketball games and make sure to be the loudest cheerleader on the bleachers, gotta let them know he’s taken 🙄

He likes to cuddle shhhh. Any time you are even within reach he is already pulling you to his side, face nuzzled in your neck with arms wrapped around you.

You guys have rap battles dissing each other, sometimes he goes to far but he apologizes saying he doesn’t mean it 💀 he’s just really competitive.

You make him learn TikTok/Kpop (if you like kpop) dances and he throws away his ego and learns it just for you. “FANCYYYY YOUUUU~” “POP OUT YOUR HIPS MORE AO’NUNG” “BABE IM TRYING!”

Tsireya walked in on him dancing and forever makes fun of him.

You always catch him staring at you, you swear you see hearts in his eyes. You guys literally that one TikTok sound. “Stop looking at me with those eyes Ao’nung” “what eyes?” He replies while staring at you like you are his whole world (spoiler: you are)

You and him have self care nights where he goes over to your house, or you go over to his, and you guys to face masks and watch movies in bed eating popcorn and talk shit about people. “Nah because did you see Lo’ak- them fucking bright ass orange highlighter looking crocs” “nah that shit made me blind-“

THIS MAN KNOWS HOW TO COOK!!! He makes you and him lunch for school(school food is nasty, he won’t let his baby eat that stuff), and is always asking you “did you eat?”

He isn’t afraid to show people how much he loves you, on your birthday you were at school and this man walks in your classroom mid lesson with 6 balloons, a huge bouquet of flowers, 3 presents, a hand written birthday card. “HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY!!!”

tag list: @fanboyluvr @eywas-heir @gender3nvyy @kenzi-woycehoski @ilovejakesullysdick @definitelynot-here @buckyb4rnes @iikatsukii @vanill4cupid

#atwow x reader #aonung x reader #ao’nung x reader #avatar x reader #☆ — modern au ˖˚⊹

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fanfic-lover-girl · 7 months

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Taking Gryffindors and Their Stans to Court

So I thought it would be fun to compile a list of crimes committed by various Gryffindor characters, especially the ones I have seen stans blatantly glorify or condone. This is also fueled by the narrative ignoring how horrific these actions are as well. For each, I will provide the definition of the crime as listed in British law (hyperlink provided in the crime category), cite the guilty parties and cite some of the flimsy defences provided by stans. The characters include, but are not limited to:

Hermione Granger

Weasley twins

Marauders (especially James Potter and Sirius Black)

Rubeus Hagrid

Professor McGonagall

This post will be a work in progress so I will add as I go along. Please feel free to add as well. Also, I am not a legal expert so do not expect these categories to be 100% accurate despite my doing my best. Here I go!

Crime: Sexual Harassment

The Equality Act 2010 says someone sexually harasses another person if they:

Engage in unwanted conduct of a sexual nature and

The conduct has the purpose or effect of either violating the other person’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them.

Guilty parties: James Potter and other marauders as accomplices (Snape's Worst Memory, Book 5)

But too late; Snape had directed his wand straight at James; there was a flash of light and a gash appeared on the side of James’s face, spattering his robes with blood. James whirled about: a second flash of light later, Snape was hanging upside-down in the air, his robes falling over his head to reveal skinny, pallid legs and a pair of greying underpants. Many people in the small crowd cheered; Sirius, James and Wormtail roared with laughter.

There was another flash of light, and Snape was once again hanging upside-down in the air. ‘Who wants to see me take off Snivelly’s pants?’

Said by Marauder/James stans:

Snape was a future DE so he deserved it; ie. future criminals/bullies deserve to be bullied before they commit said crime. Someone had to bully Snape.

What James did was not sexual harassment

Snape is a guy so he can't be sexually harassed

I hate Snape so I love seeing him hurt and in pain (perfectly valid reason, we can hate who we want. still listing it though)

Boys will be boys. The marauders are just teenage boys joking around.

In that period, what James did was not illegal

Snape called Lily a mudblood so he deserved it

Snape attacked James so he deserved it

Crime: Kidnapping

The legal definition of kidnapping is to take someone unwillingly and then keep them illegally imprisoned without their valid consent. The latter is normally done with motive, such as financial gain in the form of a ransom.

Guilty parties: Hermione Granger (The Beginning, Book 4)

‘Oh, not electronic bugs,’ said Hermione. ‘No, you see … Rita Skeeter’ – Hermione’s voice trembled with quiet triumph – ‘is an unregistered Animagus. She can turn –’ Hermione pulled a small sealed glass jar out of her bag. ‘– into a beetle.’

Said by Hermione stans:

Rita deserved it for being a sleazy journalist and saying mean things about her and her friends

Rita deserved it by committing a crime first as an illegal animagus. So she has no leverage against Hermione.

Crime: Child Cruelty (Or Child Endangerment/Abuse)

The offence in section 1 of the 1933 Act is committed where a person over the age of 16, who has responsibility for a child under that age, wilfully assaults, illtreats, neglects, abandons, or exposes that child in a manner likely to cause ‘unnecessary suffering or injury to health including any mental derangement’.

Guilty parties: Prof Minerva McGonagall (Snape’s Grudge, Book 3)

Professor McGonagall was so furious with him she had banned him from all future Hogsmeade visits, given him a detention and forbidden anyone to give him the password into the Tower. Poor Neville was forced to wait outside the common room every night for somebody to let him in . . .

Context: An alleged mass murderer (Sirius Black) was on the loose 🫠

Said by McGonagall stans:

She's just strict

Crime: Assault

An assault is any act (and not mere omission to act) by which a person intentionally or recklessly causes another to suffer or apprehend immediate unlawful violence.

Guilty parties:

Rubeus Hagrid (The Keeper of the Keys, Book 1)

He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Dudley — there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a sharp squeal and next second, Dudley was dancing on the spot with his hands clasped over his fat bottom, howling in pain. When he turned his back on them, Harry saw a curly pig’s tail poking through a hole in his trousers. ... ‘Oh, well — I was at Hogwarts meself but I — er — got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half an’ everything.’

Fred & George Weasley (Back to the Burrow, Book 4 & Snape's Worst Memory, Grawp;Book 5) - two for the price of one lol

Dudley was no longer standing behind his parents. He was kneeling beside the coffee table, and he was gagging and spluttering on a foot-long, purple, slimy thing that was protruding from his mouth. One bewildered second later, Harry realised that the foot-long thing was Dudley’s tongue — and that a brightly coloured toffee-wrapper lay on the floor before him.

‘Yeah, Montague tried to do us during break,’ said George. ‘What do you mean, “tried”?’ said Ron quickly. ‘He never managed to get all the words out,’ said Fred, ‘due to the fact that we forced him head-first into that Vanishing Cabinet on the first floor.’ ‘Not until Montague reappears, and that could take weeks, I dunno where we sent him,’ said Fred coolly. ‘Anyway … we’ve decided we don’t care about getting into trouble any more.’

To cap matters, Montague had still not recovered from his sojourn in the toilet; he remained confused and disorientated and his parents were to be observed one Tuesday morning striding up the front drive, looking extremely angry.

Hermione Granger (Felix Felicis, Book 6)

‘Oppugno!’ came a shriek from the doorway. Harry spun round to see Hermione pointing her wand at Ron, her expression wild: the little flock of birds was speeding like a hail of fat golden bullets towards Ron, who yelped and covered his face with his hands, but the birds attacked, pecking and clawing at every bit of flesh they could reach.

Said by Hagrid stans:

Like with Minerva, I don't see Hagrid stans or regular fans bringing this up. But crimes against the Dursleys are usually justified by the fandom due to their being abusive to Harry.

Said by Weasley twins stans:

The Dursleys were abusive to Harry so Dudley deserved it.

Dudley brought it on himself by eating it. The twins did not force him to eat it.

It was just a joke - harmless fun (for both crimes)

They did not know what the cabinet would do

They did not intend to almost kill Montague

Montague deserved it because HE WAS TAKING HOUSE POINTS (***INSERT RAGE!!!!***)

The twins are just mischievous. They are so funny!

Said by Hermione/Romione stans:

It was just a mistake

Hermione has anger issues. She's just a teenage girl.

Hermione was distraught. She didn't mean it.

Ron deserved it for hurting queen Hermione.

Ron doesn't care so why do you?

Romione is the best HP ship ever. All ships have rough patches.

No matter what Hermione does, I will always ship her with Ron. The other options are not good for her.

I will pause here because I can feel my blood pressure rising. I don't really have beef with anyone, I just don't like seeing these takes on my dash or these responses on my anti blog posts. I have no control over people's opinions and I doubt more than a handful of people care about mine.

Will continue next time on Taking Gryffindors and Their Stans to Court!

PS. All attempts to deflect by pointing the finger at other characters like Draco Malfoy, DEs, Severus Snape etc will be ignored. This is about JKR's darlings who apparently can do no wrong and the stans who shamelessly justify violence.

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alwaysaslutforfic · 2 years

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Tsukki Headcanons ❤️ - NSFW

Just some musings on my favourite Sendai Frogs middle blocker ☺️

Warnings: nothing super explicit. Mentions of sending nudes, hair pulling, and oral sex

Minors keep away from the cut and DNI!

Beta readers? Pft

Listens to any and everything but with a purpose 👌🏾. Ask him for a recommendation in any genre and he’ll give you a top 5 tier list. Has playlists arranged by mood, genre, vibe and occasion (he even has one for you that he will literally never tell you about but plays often. He just tells you it’s his favourite mix). Dude is highkey a music snob. Like he’ll listen to a song in any genre but it better be a fucking ✨S tier song✨ or he will Judge. Will never concede the aux cord.

Meanest tutor ever. Will have you crying at the kitchen table asking the same question till you get it right. “If Johnny has 5 apples! 😤” typa tutor. But his notes are amazing and he’ll always lend them without question.

We already know how I feel about clingy Tsukki. But let me reiterate: this man is obsessed with being in your personal space. Like ”I’m gonna go take a shower.” ”….. without me? 😒”

But he also respects your space when you need it. Just don’t be gone too long or he’ll get lonely. He’s highkey touch starved.

An impeccable driver. And unreasonably hot while doing it. I’m talking hand on thigh, arm on headrest when reversing, will do your seatbelt HOT. And you’re his favourite passenger princess. Tsukki refuses to let anyone adjust your seat. If they’re feeling cramped they’re more than welcome to sit in the back, or even better, walk.

A great cook. He lets you be the taste tester when you cook together. If you can’t cook this is the one time he has an amount of patience teaching you. He is, however, a horrendous baker. Tried to make you valentines day chocolates and you had to throw out the tea towels cos they somehow ended up singed. You laughed till you cried he’d have been hurt about it if you weren’t so beautiful

Likewise, his actions speak louder than his words when it comes to affection. Obviously he compliments you and tells you he loves you, but only on special occasions like birthdays, christmases and blowing your back out ten ways till sunday. But mostly he’ll show you how much he cares by treating you like royalty. Carries your bags while calling you weak, says ‘no’ every single time you ask for a favour but does it anyways, takes you for walks to your favourite ice cream shop and pays for both of you while you bitch about a character in your dumb show that he hates (read: binges with you and gets invested in)

A slip it in while you watch a movie kinda dude. At this point the Netflix subscription is for show. There is literally no point in trying to watch something with him because your legs will be over his shoulders way before the halfway mark.

Much like his actions speaking louder than words, he’s willing to try anything once if you suggest it. This has led to a very interesting bedroom life. There were obviously things that you both decided weren’t for you, but Tsukki would do anything to please you even if he’d never confess it. Once you asked for a personalised dildo so you could have his dick whenever you wanted as a joke. It was there by next week.

Loves fucking you in public. You guys are banned from THREE different lingerie stores. You’re 65% sure he only takes you out so much so he can find somewhere to fuck you, since it’s how most of your dates end. The Karasuno gang clocked you two on a club night when Noya and Tanaka took a badly timed trip to the bathroom. They are constantly embarrassed when you two go missing for half an hour and return dishevelled.

Send. Him. Nudes 😩 Especially when he’s busy. He sends them back and holy shit are they art personified. He heard “don’t send dick pics, send cumshot vids with the sound on” and boy did he run with it in the best of ways. Has a password protected folder for all the filth you send each other.

Speaking of nudes, his dick is so pretty. He doesn’t even manscape. It’s just long and slightly curved with just the right amount of hair. Also so much pre-cum. He was actually a little embarassed by it until he saw how much you loved licking him clean.

Pull his hair and listen to him moan. If you pull it hard enough when he’s close he will just cum. He definitely wasn’t embarrassed the first time it happened. Now it’s sort of a game to see if you can use it to get him off when he’s going down on you.

He’s reconciled with the fact that he has a volleyball brain. Seeing you at his games, and feeling your eyes on him as he jumps blocks is like foreplay to him. It’s always a race to see how quickly he can get you naked and under him after a match.

I will undoubtly have more thoughts on this, because I spend an unreasonable amount of time thinking about Tsukishima Kei

#haikyuu smut #hq smut #tw.smut #hq x reader #haikyu x reader #tsukki x y/n #tsukki smut #haikyuu fluff #tsukki thirst #hq fluff #hq #haikyuu #hq tsukishima #hq tsukki

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thesherrinfordfacility · 1 year

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Enoch in particular is interesting bc of Saraqael. It's the ONLY text that lists Saraqael as an Archangel. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel are identified as the Supreme Princes of Heaven, and Saraquel is one of the "seven holy Archangels", which also includes those four. Sandalphon isn't listed, but I DO think a fun little fact there is that he and Metatron are the only angels whose names end in -on, likely a reference to how they're the only angels who originated as humans. I don't think he and Metatron are 'twins' in the literal sense though? Enoch (pre-Noah) and Elijah (post-Noah) weren't contemporaries. They just happen to be the only humans who become angels.

hi!!!✨ god im so sorry ive taken so long to get to this, anon!!! - tbh, im finding saraqael a bit of an enigma, both from the GO narrative perspective and indeed trying to work out who they were in terms of biblical/apocryphal significance... i hope you don't mind, but im gonna talk about saraqael in general in my response; as seems to be the way, i typically get carried away in answering what seems to be a fairly straightforward ask!!!

edit: further speculation on BOL and saraqael's potential role in it

saraqael theory(?)/analysis:

i think are a couple of crucial bits to saraqael in s2, and not just the ones where they recognise crowley etc. i talked a little bit about what i think their rank is in GO, which i don't think is the same rank as the other archangels, but perhaps a lower archangel like sandalphon. in terms of what saraqael actually does... it feels like they are essentially in charge of earth operations, or something to that effect.

muriel is, by all accounts so far, a (very?) low ranking angel. and yet, when muriel finds the matchbox, it's saraqael that accompanies them to the archangels to report it. now, that doesn't necessarily mean anything - muriel could have gone to a supervisor and then it got escalated, but what saraqael says here:

makes me think that, actually, saraqael knows muriel at least to a greater degree than the separation of an archangel (or whatever tier), and a 'lowly' 37th-class scrivener would have. in fact, this is the only scene other than presenting the matchbox, i believe, where we see saraqael and muriel interact? there is some kind of history there, and potentially even a degree of fondness.

now, let's take into consideration the theory that muriel themself may have been higher-ranking, and got Got by the metatron. they originally were going to demote gabriel to 38th Class; was saraqael similarly the one who wiped muriel's memory, as they attempted to wipe gabriel's? what was the purpose of saraqael being at the trial, other than to fulfil that purpose? and they took muriel directly into their chain of command as a means of keeping an eye on them, protecting them?

this kind of supports my thought that saraqael is somewhat an operations manager (but also...not just that at all*), doing essentially the archangel grunt-work, including keeping an eye on unauthorised miracles:

then we take a look at their interaction with crowley; because i do think there's a lot more to unpack in this bit than that they may have worked on a nebula together, and that crowley doesn't remember them.

summarising a couple of observations:

the seemingly innocent but assertive point made that the trial was in fact real, and didn't take a long time to happen start to finish

the fact that saraqael even notices the interaction between crowley and muriel: he's dressed as an angel (and demonstrated as being a 'bee' when michael/uriel don't fully catch it was him), muriel seems - despite the aesthetic of heaven generally - to be tucked away in the equivalent of a cupboard cubicle, and he accessed a file without, presumably, any alarms - the file recognised his former rank/that he 'knew' the password... so what exactly prompts saraqael to come over in the first place?

saraqael looks happy to see crowley, possibly even a little relieved, but once again like they're... fond?

they use his chosen name (specifically not 'crawley'), and use it with ease despite knowing him pre-fall and therefore, theoretically, not having any cause to use 'crowley' up until this moment

saraqael seems disappointed that crowley doesn't remember them.

where am i going with this bit? well, put simply. i think saraqael had some hand in the mechanics of the fall. i think they were meant to wipe the fallens' memories, but jigged about with the settings. perhaps, now, they regret their part in it, and is working to undo it somewhat, from the inside. i think, where they can, they protect those that get fully wiped (ie. muriel, and gabriel had the wipe gone to plan). and i think, maybe just their favourites, they keep an eye on those that actually fell. and i think that they are trying to break out this information without outright saying it ("well, don't let me interrupt you! show him the trial..."), because they know first-hand the consequences. and they know the consequences, because they are literally metatron's operational right-hand* angel:

this would explain why they seem to remember metatron in the bookshop: exposure to him? seems to fully understand how dangerous he is? not only does saraqael look genuinely apprehensive on behalf of michael, but watch their eyeline movement:

(ok but a moment of appreciation for how adorably derek jacobi says 'piffle' i mean💕)

it almost looks like it goes from michael, and then flips to up beyond michael? as they clasp their hands together? and then after the cut, they're actually breathing so heavily, out of... stress? worry? this is such a tiny thing that may well just coincidental actor-choice on liz's part, but it certainly works in the scene context... that saraqael seems quietly and calmly terrified.

another point, back on the subject of saraqael's role in heaven; i feel like the source of both the earth observation files michael gets in s1, and the fact that metatron says he's "looked back over a number of [aziraphale and crowley's] exploits" may have come from saraqael themself. that's a bit tentative, but it would certainly fit that it would come, at least, from their department. say - metatron has been spying on our boys through the sigil in the bookshop (or something to that effect), has gone to saraqael essentially for intel, and then put the offer to aziraphale to return to heaven in order to split them apart, after seeing the extent to which they're entwined with each other.

we haven't seen a direct, lone aziraphale-saraqael interaction, but their line about, "we'll be keeping a very close eye on you, aziraphale.", doesn't actually feel as ominous as i once felt. in fact, it's muriel that saraqael sends down which - let's face it, by all accounts they are not the angel to send down to earth when camouflage is key - feels actually like saraqael was banking on covering up the miracle for aziraphale and crowley, or at least buying them time.

last little bit: the comment on aziraphale's frisbee halo trick makes me think once again of saraqael's potential role as, essentially, head of operations (declaring war is rather messy, they're right), but also brings me back to the point i made here about the halo toss... somehow, i feel like it signifies something a bit more than just a casual hand grenade.

and now for the bible-y bits

well, i mean, there isn't really a lot to go on, lbr. as anon said (hi, anon, if you made it this far✨), they're described as one of the seven archangels in the first book of enoch (20:6), and if ive read correctly, the second book describes that they brought enoch himself to heaven... so maybe the GO narrative will follow this somewhat? if saraqael feels somewhat responsible for metatron being in the position he is, and having done the hypothetical things he's done? and that's why they might be trying to undo it, or undermine it?

i think the first book also describes saraqael (who i believe is synonymous with sariel and suriel, as well as other different but similar angel names in biblical/apocryphal texts) as being essentially the observer of justice and injustice on earth, "who sin in the spirit", which would also track against them having potential control over earth observations, and them potentially guarding over those that have fallen/have been punished by heaven.

i think some islam and talmud texts also indicate that saraqael may be azrael and metatron respectively, but i doubt that is an arc that the GO narrative will follow, nor indeed other bits and pieces from enoch that ive read through... but certainly there's enough that looks like it could have hypothetically inspired the saraqael story that im interpreting at the moment!

and as for metratr-on, and sandalph-on, iirc that is the meaning of the -on suffix, to reflect being born of man...? i looked at this a little while ago and found zephon as another example... parsing out abaddon kinda drove me a bit insane though, so that's where i left it! i agree that i doubt that metatron and sandalphon are twins, but definitely seems to speak to their origins, perhaps!!!✨

#another theory/analysis noone asked for #im so excited for more saraqael #i need them to be aziraphale's friend pls #good omens #ask #the fall/the great war spec #AWCW spec #metatron spec #memory wipe theory #book of life theory #saraqael spec #s2 meta #s3 narrative spec

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gallifreyriver · 2 years

Text

New game: Drop Google Chrome's market share 2023.

Why? Monopolies are bad and that's what's gonna happen if things don't even out a bit.

Why is it bad if Google has a monopoly? Because google already tracks the shit out of you, that's why. They collect and market your data. Yes, even in incognito mode. Just because your search history isn't being saved, doesn't mean google hasn't logged away where you've been or what you've searched for their own purposes. Imagine what more they'll do if the competition snuffs out?

"But I'll use an ad-blocker. I'm good." Not on Chrome you won't, because they're killing off ad-blockers in 2023, literally as soon as January- that's less than two months away. Gee... I wonder why they'd be doing that...

I recommend Firefox.

I switched a couple months ago and it's seriously so good.

It takes literal minutes to switch, you can import your bookmarks, passwords, browsing history, and even your open tabs from chrome to firefox.

Oh- and they don't collect and market your data.

And the extensions are amazing:

uBlock Origin blocks ads, trackers, coin miners, popups, etc. Hate those annoying ads before YouTube videos? I haven't had one since installing- and it literally never occurred to me for some reason that ad blockers would work on YouTube too. (It also got rid of the ads on tumblr, which I also didn't expect to happen)

There's Auto Tab Discard for people like me who always have a ton of tabs open. It puts your inactive tabs to sleep (but doesn't close them! important!) to help save memory and battery

Facebook Container keeps Facebook from tracking you around the web. (Includes Insta and Facebook messenger)

There's Image Search Options, for when you want to properly credit an artist, or need to find the source of an image. You just right-click on the image and it gives you a list of 10+ top reverse image search engines to click on, and when you click one it automatically plugs the image into the search!

Youtube Audio saves you bandwidth and battery when you just want audio from YouTube (aka: to use Youtube as a music streaming service or listening to narration videos/podcasts)

Then of course there's XKit Rewritten, which I'm sure you'll already recognize as the thing that enhances the tumblr experience.

And there's so many others!

And I get it if you don't like change, and don't wanna deal if the browser appearance is either different than you're used to, or worse- ugly. I get it, I do. But the good news is if the only thing holding you back is that you've gotten used to how Chrome looks, Firefox Dark theme is literally so similar I didn't even notice the difference when I switched. (And I imagine the same is true of the light theme) There's also literally a whole library of themes if you want a more customized look!

And some of you might be thinking "But I have a google account! GMail, Drive- Everything! Won't I have to stop using all that if I switch?" NOPE. Being logged into Google isn't the same as being logged into Chrome. You can log right into Google on Firefox same as you would on any other browser and your experience with your mail, drive, etc. will be just the same as if you were in Chrome, just without the collecting and marketing of your data. (That reminds me, There's also extensions to prevent google from tracking you as well, like "Don't track me Google" and "Google Container")

But seriously, Firefox is so great. Not only does it not track you and market your data, it's genuinely just a better experience than Chrome.

If you've been putting off switching, consider this your sign to do it.

#firefox #chrome #google chrome #mozilla firefox #browsers #adblock #internet safety #internet #internet privacy #switch to firefox

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the-void-writes · 2 months

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For All Eternity - Comet and Dante

This isn’t really important, I’m just trying to make a habit of writing again. This snippet is about Dante, Will, and their dog-god Comet.

Summary: Dante is freaked out by the level of sentience in Will’s new dog.

“Baby, do you know if I left the guest list—”

Dante froze in his tracks. Yes, the list of club guests was on the kitchen counter, but his eyes were quickly drawn to the unusual presence at the dining table. Comet, Will’s new dog, the Celestial in the body of a Saint Bernard, was sitting at the table— in the seat, like a proper human. His huge paws rested on the table as he read through Paradise Daily, particularly the comic section. Dante swore on his life that the dog was wearing reading glasses.

Comet lifted his head to Dante, barked softly, and returned to his paper. There was a moment of silence between them, as thick as mud. And then…

“Will, the goddamn dog is reading!”

“Yeah,” Will shouted from down the hall, “he does that.”

“Is that— He’s got a mug of fucking coffee!”

“He says it helps him think.”

Dante stood at the end of the hall, clutching the wall as though he would slip away without it. “Does the dog actually speak, or are you fucking with me?”

“No, he doesn’t speak verbally.” Dante could hear the smile in his husband’s voice. “He wrote it down for me.”

Comet took a considerate sip of coffee and stepped down from his seat. Dante watched as the large dog entered the kitchen, stood on his hind legs, and pulled the top drawer open with his teeth. After sniffing around, Comet descended with a pen resting delicately in his mouth. He pushed the drawer closed with his head and returned to his seat. They stared each other down now, and Dante refused to believe he was imagining the smirk on Comet’s face.

“He’s taunting me,” Dante said. “He’s doing it on purpose, I’m sure of it.”

Will finally appeared from around the corner, bundled in a warm robe. He kissed Dante’s cheek as he passed.

“Maybe it’s because you freak out every time he does something.”

“I’m just not used to a six-foot-long dog doing taxes on our table.”

“What would he do taxes for? He doesn’t pay bills— Which is perfectly fine, by the way!” Will yelled towards Comet. “He’s a god, he doesn’t have to worry about it.”

Comet took another polite sip of coffee, and to Dante’s amazement and horror, unfolded the newspaper to read the back side.

“I’m hiding all of our passwords from him,” Dante said.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, love.”

“He can’t— hack the computers, can he?”

Will shrugged his shoulders, trying not to smile. “I don’t know, I didn’t teach him. If he can already read, though, I wouldn’t be surprised…”

Dante shook his head. “You’re killing me, you know that, right?”

“Sorry, love. I’ll pay for it after your party.”

“Oh, you promise?”

Will rolled his eyes and laughed. “Sure.”

Dante gave him one last kiss, wishing that he didn’t have to pull away. He went to grab the guest list, only for the book to be placed in his hand. A large wet nose pressed into his wrist, waiting for praise. Will smiled and pet Comet’s head.

“See? He likes you.”

Dante kept a careful eye on the dog as he scratched the top of his head. Comet barked with delight, licking the edge of Dante’s sleeve, which he swiftly wiped off on his pants.

“Just don’t do my paperwork while I’m out, please. Unless it’s city planning, you can eat those.”

#writeblr #wip: for all eternity #sorry Jaq I swear I’m not trying to copy you lol #I was working on a dog snippet this morning and wanted to finish it

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samueldays · 1 year

Text

Ritual magic in fantasy: a small rant

It's fine when writers use the standard trappings of a genre without detailing the underpinnings of the worldbuilding - we can take it for granted, we don't need it explained again every time, not everything needs a new plot twist. Tropes are tools; wizards are part of the grammar of fantasy and don't need their definition explained at the start of every book.

It's fine when writers skip the underpinnings entirely, and treat the wizards as convenient plot devices for the hero to go do something or be somewhere. Some munchkins will say "but then why couldn't the wizard solve the entire plot?" and I say to them "if what you want to read is a list of wizardly constraints, put down the novel and go play D&D". ;^)

But it bugs me when writers seemingly forget that the underpinnings ever existed and act confused as to how the trappings work with no underpinnings. This strikes me as both lazy and ignorant. It's the mark of a writer who is cribbing standard fantasy tropes and hasn't taken the time or effort to understand why those tropes were like that in the first place, and also is poorly read, not having seen the original explanation (nor any of its variations), only the superficial tropes among other people cribbing those same tropes in a game of telephone and losing the underpinnings along the way.

Today I want to talk about ritual magic and the mages doing it. Rituals are for someone; freestanding rituals make no sense!

I've written before on how one of the features that helps fictional magic be "magical" as opposed to Spicy Engineering (e.g. Fireball is Spicy Grenade) is if it involves a thinking entity other than the mage: intercessory magic is less prone to being operationalized into just another craft. Sometimes this is a powerful patron, sometimes it's a specialized sidekick.

To use a less fancy word, magic is often social - it involves a deal, explicit or implicit, between the mage and some goblin, ghost, or other gribbly. (The faeries in Dresden Files take their payment in pizza.)

If you pick up some old medieval grimoire like the Key of Solomon, it is deeply social. Its ritual magic is in some ways like a court order: things have to be done properly, forms filled out, visit during the correct opening hours, appeal to the right judge (God) for a sign-off, then speak with the authority of the judge and the legal system backing you for some specific purpose. Rituals are powerful but inflexible, for comprehensible internal reasons.

Fast forward 500 years to Jack Vance's Dying Earth series (you probably know this as the origin of "Vancian" magic in D&D) and you see more social magic. In the distant future, wizards are living in the ruins of dozens of civilizations that rose and fell, leaving behind relics and creatures. One facet of their magic involves calling on "sandestins", powerful genie-like creatures hinted to have been bound or created by a previous civilization, and the sandestins have to be commanded and persuaded and contracted and threatened with the Great Name, in a word, they have to be wrangled. Libraries of Wizard Lore are not just lists of spells, they're also bestiaries of sandestins, advice on how to wrangle them, collections of rumors by travelers to find other sandestins, etc.

When Gandalf is at the Gates of Moria, pondering the riddle "Speak, friend, and enter", this is also a kind of social ritual. Password-access systems are not found spontaneously generated in nature. The gate itself is not intelligent, but it's the result of an intelligent mind engaged in deliberate design to control access. Gandalf has to jump through hoops to make the gate open, and figure out that the clue to the password is hiding in plain sight.

Social rituals make sense. Rituals for formal polite interaction with another creature (or its proxy) are one of the many reasons the classic fantasy genre looks the way it does.

But skip ahead a couple generation of writers cribbing, pastiching, and repeating tropes they don't understand...

These days I'm seeing an increasing number of works where rituals are treated as a sort of brute fact about the universe, with nobody on the other end. For example, there's a song that heals people when sung word-perfect. It does nothing until it's finished, it does nothing if you get a single word wrong. Why?

A social ritual of this form can be explained with "the genie is picky". There's a genie or some other intelligent creature, acting as a middleman to hear the magical song and cause healing. A brute-fact ritual has to treat the universe as having countless special cases and carve-outs in the laws of physics where certain actions cause unusual effects. Somewhere in the nature of reality is a reaction to a song - in a specific language, of a specific era - which results in "healing", a simple concept for an intelligent mind, but an otherwise complicated concept both fantastically specific and carefully customized to do the right thing for humans.

Brute-fact rituals make for a frankly nonsensical setting. Some writers notice the nonsensical setting, but since they're ignorant of the social origins of the ritual, they think this is a problem with rituals and complain that ritual magic makes no sense.

Worse, how are rituals discovered/created in the first place?

Social rituals: by talking to the genie or fairy or other critter that the ritual is to communicate with.

Brute fact rituals: well, uh,

Harry Potter and the Natural 20 plays with this trope in book 3 chapter 9, doing a little lampshade-hanging:

Chant a little Old Aramaic, burn a little sandalwood, sprinkle a powder made from the canine teeth of a child murdered by his brother over a bowl containing stone from a fallen star under the light of a crescent moon and, in three days, it will rain vinegar. And nobody knows why. That terrified Lucius. Who out there was watching, waiting, to see that someone performed the ritual and had the power to follow up with the effects? More troublingly, why would they do it? What possible gain could this shadowy entity get from powdered teeth and space rocks? Or maybe there was no entity, and it was a fundamental property of the universe that vinegar would rain in the middle of the lunar month because somebody said the right words in a dead language? Lucius wasn't sure which was worse. All of this brought up the uncomfortable question of who it was who first figured that out. It can't have been coincidence, or even experimentation. (...) Rituals, it appeared, wanted to be discovered—and, more troubling, wanted to be shared.

Lucius Malfoy is a bit preoccupied with Voldemort, so he's excused for not being sure which is worse. But from my OOC perspective, "fundamental property of the universe" would be worse writing. Shadowy entities with mysterious motives are a staple of fantasy fiction, and practically required in some sense to be the sharer-of-rituals making rituals be discovered by human wizards.

#all #worldbuilding #writing #rant #essaying

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obscurushydrae · 5 months

Text

Rules of Play

Please at least give it a read! Liking this post also means it’s more likely I will follow back, as I know you have RAU’d.

Updated 08/19/2024

ABOUT:

Kar/Karmun/Karthonic either-or. If you'd rather separate mun/muse you can use my middle name, Asher to refer to me.

They/Them is cool.

From New York, so the timezone is EST.

Birthday’s January 1990, so 30+

Spoonie with AuDHD

Artist, and educator, so I can get busy. I commute, so I'm on the train for a few hours a day as well and can be sporadic activity wise.

Personal blog @karthonic.

On mobile most of the time.

I left the Tumblr RPC 4 years ago so forgive me as I catch up with the new etiquette, etc.

Personal blog @karthonic.

Sci-Fi Muse: @stellevatum

ARK AU: @sidisaspecto & @hln-4

GENERAL:

Above all else: Be Excellent to each other and party on, dudes!

First and foremost: my activity is sporadic. I refuse to let myself be like I was when I left the RPC in 2019. I may queue a lot of shit. I may go into a black hole for a few weeks or months. I may forget threads or lose them. It doesn't mean I don't care-- I am here to have fun and not get stressed over things.

If you ever want to reach out-- all my blogs and personal are listed above, and my discord is on request to mutuals, even though I'm just as much a cryptid on there as well.

Lurking for a bit before reaching out is fine, but I would like genuinely interested folks. Optional but I have an Interest Tracker for organization purposes.

Communication is key. My muse might be intimidating, but I'm not-- just very busy and on mobile more often than not. Don’t know something, or want me to elaborate: ask! I forgot a reply or not feeling a thing anymore, lemme know. I'm good. I like get to know the people I write with, it makes me plot things better.

This incarnation Kar is for Contemporary Supernatural/Fantasy/Mythology like verses. You can find the Og/Sci-Fi flavored Kar at @stellevatum.

While she's BPRD based, don’t sweat it if you don’t know the other stuff. If your fandom/verse has a way in, I can finagle her into all sorts of place (she's literally an cosmic horror at heart).

That ‘selective’ part comes into play. I have every right to not follow someone, decline a roleplay, just as you do. Just be polite and respectful.

Crossover/AU/Multiverse/Self Insert friendly. Not your thing, then feel free to not follow.

There will be casual mentions of recreational drug use, more often than not mentions of alcohol than drugs, but will be tagged upon request. Other possible triggers are her fatalistic humor.

This is not a content resource blog. If you’re here for the pretty pictures, aesthetics, or memes, this is not the blog for you.

Godmoding is discouraged but I’m not going to stop it. I will likely try to out ridiculous you Bugs Bunny style. Even though she can’t die, you’re free to try and kill her, but let me know first (either way she’s gonna be pissed FYI).

Most art is mine but will be credited. If I reblog any art reposted without the original creator’s permission, let me know. I’ll remove it.

FOLLOWING/UNFOLLOWING:

Please don’t follow/interact if you’re under 18. If I follow anyone underage, it’s because I wasn’t able to access any about/ooc information, please don’t take it personally if I unfollow!

If I don’t follow you and you follow me, please just hit me up before doing something. Just because I don’t follow means I’m not interested, I just don’t think our characters mesh with the information given. If we chat about it, who knows!

If I follow you or like a post but not follow, it's likely because I want to check out your rules but can't find a mobile friendly/need time to look through things, especially if it's a carrd. If you follow back, I'll message/send passwords as I don't want to overstep.

I don’t usually greet/interact with personal blogs, so side blogs off personals give me a heads up. Otherwise, I might miss you.

I may unfollow or softblock-- but that doesn't mean I am not against second chances. It usually mean either we haven't really done anything and I'm keeping my dash tidy or you never followed back so I'm taking the hint and stepping off, or you were inactive for 6+ month and I assume you abandoned the blog.

If you'd prefer I don't accidentally re-follow, you are free to hardblock. It's a bummer, but we need to what makes each of us comfortable to write. I will only hardblock if it is in your rules or if it was something serious that warrants it.

IN CHARACTER:

Compatible Fandoms (ie I am Familiar with): BPRD/Hellboy, Hades, Devil May Cry, Wolfenstein, Gravity Falls, WTNV, Obey Me!, Sandman, Good Omens, Hellsing, Persona, Durarara!!, Castlevania, Blood of Zeus, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Basically anything with demons/angels/gods and the like. I will interact with Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss muses, even though personally I don't vibe with Viv.

Kar is an ancient cosmic horror who was supposed to destroy all reality. Raised by mortals, so she thought she was. But she's also got other forms, which folks may see.

As for appearance, unless you’re really looking you might notice the fangs. And for the most part, assume she’s wearing her signature sunglasses covering her eyes since those rarely are taken off in public.

While not usually brought up, but Kar has attempted to end her life and self-harmed. Nowadays it’s usually just masked with fatalistic humor, recreational drug use, and lots of drinking.

There will be mentions of Nazis particularly of the occult sort, so if that makes you uncomfortable please feel free to step away.

ASKS:

Askbox will only be open for IC interactions, save for when the meme specifies Mun. IMs are for OOC communication. Anon feature is for sideblogs, multimuses to interact ICly with me. Any Anon messages good or bad directed to the Mun (outside of memes) will be ignored. The Anon feature is privilege, I will revoke it for my well-being if need be.

No Magic Anons, please!

There’s no need to wait to send me a meme if you’ve followed me for 5 minutes or 5 months, send the thing.

Reblog Karma is going to be enforced on this blog. That is, if you reblog an ask meme off me, please send me one. Otherwise, reblog the meme from @karref

THREADS:

Jump on any open post, there’s no need to ask permission, they’re there for that reason!

I will be keeping my posts simple! I don't have the time/energy to make formatted posts, and I like to keep things as accessible as possible. I do try to keep track of the heavily plotted stuff, but the casual things might drop off. Feel free to remind me if it's been a bit!

Communicate! If you’re having trouble writing a reply, talk to me! If you don’t like or not feeling a thread, say so and drop the thread. That also doesn’t mean things are done for good. Come to me if you want to skip/do something else.

If you’d rather we move things to discord, just ask! I’ll set up a server just for us!

SHIPPING:

Shipping is welcomed and willing to discuss the possibility, but I leave the rest to chemistry and just how we as writers write. Kar is into male muses, and will be polite about turning other people down, unless one doesn’t take the hint.

I will only write ships with muns older than 21, but 25+ is preferred.

That being said, I will no longer tolerate stringing me along, or vague replies. Please be clear and direct. If you are interested; say so. If you are not or no longer wanting to go in that direction, tell me. Any vague or non-committal replies will be treated as disinterest and dropped.

This blog is multiship, meaning each relationship is treated as its own separate place in the multiverse unless discussed and agreed upon.

Kar can be polifidelitous. She’s okay with having multiple partners and those partners having partners if your character is cool with it. But she can be selectively monogamous in your little bubble too.

NSFW may be on here, or I might do it over discord. I'm playing it by vibes. As I don't really have any established romantic stuff since rebooting, I can't say with any certainty. Will update when I do know.

TAGGING/ HARD LIMITS:

Blood, Gore, Body Horror, Drugs, etc, will be tagged with (name); for instance drugs; . Special Tags on request.

Posts will be tagged upon request, just let me know!

If you read and understand this, I would appreciate if you'd leave a like the post, that way I know you have without forcing a password.

But if you'd like to message me, here's a DM icebreaker: What's your favorite extinct animal? (If you're lucky I may have cool fact about it.)

HOPE TO WRITE WITH YOU SOON! :D

#nav;

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melioramuses · 3 months

Text

✧ BYF:: Rules // Muse List ✧

Info & Rules

This blog is a hub blog, not a multi-muse blog. This means that each muse has their own inbox, their own drafts, etc.

PLEASE send asks to the individual blog of the muse you wanna interact with, NOT the hub blog! E.g., if you wanna send something to All Might, send it to the ask box on @promisedpeace.

I don't have triggers, really, but I do tag triggers following the "{{ tw: trigger" format. E.g., "{{ tw: spiders".

I'm a very laidback/low pressure roleplayer. I don't do fancy formatting aside from some bolding and/or italics and making the font a bit smaller, and I'm not hella active. (I don't mind people who use heavy formatting, though.) I'm not going to hunt you down for a reply after two days or two months, and I don't care if you've been MIA for a year then come back and post a response. Shit happens and I'm fine with it!

I generally write a couple paragraphs, semi-literate to literate, and omniscient third-person. However, I'm fine with matching length for longer posts. I don't really care if people match my length, so long as you're not giving me, like, two sentences to my four paragraphs. lol

On memes: I reblog memes to the hub blog, and all memes are open to ANY muse unless the tags state otherwise.

On NSFW: I'm open to PG-13 or occasionally even R-rated threads in established ships with writing partners I'm comfortable with. They'll always be put under a read more and tagged appropriately, and are only an option on muses who are 18+. (Also I do not feel comfortable aging up characters for the purpose of smut.)

On shipping: I ship chemistry only. I do not write romantic ships for muses who are underage.

OC's: I fuckin' love them. My MC from my novel trilogy project is an OC I've had for well over a decade and I have a blog for her, too. If you wanna write your OC with my muse, let's go! I'm happy to ship with OC's, too.

My muse is MY muse. If you don't like my interpretation, please just unfollow and go find one that better suits how you view the character.

Muse List + My Other Blogs:

My art/personal blog - @rivenharlow

Toshinori Yagi/All Might (MHA) - @promisedpeace

Eijiro Kirishima/Red Riot (MHA) - @resoluteriot

Tenya Iida/Ingenium (MHA) - @ingeniuminherited

Mirio Togata/Lemillion (MHA) - @saveamillion

Tamaki Amajiki/Suneater (MHA) - @consumingchimera

Nejire Hado/Nejire Chan (MHA) - @wackywavelength

Sasuke Uchiha (Naruto) - @avengerascended

Rock Lee (Naruto) - @bloomtwice

Snotlout Jorgensen (HTTYD) - @strongestrider

Viggo Grimborn (HTTYD) - @grimgambit

Frieza (DBZ) - @gildedemperor

Trunks (DBZ) - @henotichope

Kouga (Inuyasha) - @youkaishowl

Nate River/Near (Death Note) - @thetruesuccessor

Loz (FFVII:AC) - @breakneckboor

Kijonaia "Naia" Remiel (OC) - @thebastardlady

About Me

Hey! I'm Riven. I'm turning 30 in two days as of this writing (June 21st, 2024). I'm an artist and writer with a small business. I'm married with two kiddos and way too many pets (2 large dogs, 6 cats, a rabbit, and a bearded dragon). I'm also genderfluid (they/them pronouns exclusively, though) and pagan. I've been roleplaying since my friggin' Neopets days when I was, like, 8 years old, but I've been on Tumblr for about a decade now. You can find my socials here

Thanks for reading! No password needed but do feel free to message me or toss me an ask if you wanna start a thread!

This post was made on June 21st of 2024 and will be updated as I think of anything to add.

#{|| byf #{|| rules #{|| ooc

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novankenn · 1 year

Text

Reluctant Hero?

= Six = (Chapter List)

Weiss was fuming, and grew even more enraged as this Jaune Arc looked at her and Pyrrha smiled and then proceeded to drink a beer before them. Totally aghast, Weiss snorted and stormed off, leaving Pyrrha alone with Jaune.

Jaune: (Watching Weiss leave) Should have I offered one to her? How about you?

Pyrrha: No, thank you.

Jaune: Suit yourself. Bottoms up.

As Jaune chugged down the remains of the beer, Pyrrha bit her lip and narrowed her eyes. She was studying the tall, lithe and semi-cute blond. His name had sounded familiar, but she was having trouble placing it, so she was studying his appearance. He looked familiar as well.

As she stood there, she watched him slid a harness with a back mounted sheath over his Greyish-Black hoodie. He then put on a set of belts, one with ammo loops hoops, all which were filled with pretty standard looking shotgun shells, about a dozen in total. The other just held a large pouch, that appeared to be empty.

She nodded as she watched him pulls a sawed-off shotgun from his bag, spin it about his finger, and then seamlessly drop it into the sheath on his back. The final item made her raise an eyebrow. It was a rather beaten up looking chainsaw. Seeing that made something click in her mind.

Pyrrha: Well, good luck at initiation, Jaune. Hopefully you succeed.

Jaune: Same to you.

Pyrrha turned and walked off, purposely putting a sway in her hips as she smiled, while pulling out her scroll. Swiping past icons, she found the password protected file-folder, and opened it. Pyrrha Nikos was a role-model to young people everywhere. A sweetheart, a champion, and the spokesperson for Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes.

But what most didn't know, is she had a fascination with unsolved and mysterious crimes. Especially ones involving murder. When she wasn't being tutored or training, she would spend hours reading up on fantastical cases. One of her favourites was about a lone survivor of a massacre. A massacre that happened in the mountains surrounding Ansel.

She giggled when she found the file she was looking for. There in the organized portfolio, that detailed all the known facts of the crime, was on the left side a picture. It was a little old, but the resemblance was spot on.

Pyrrha: Well, Bonnie Jauney... I can't wait to find out what secrets you have been holding on to.

Pyrrha paused in her stride, as another thought brought a glow to her face.

Pyrrha: He didn't know who I was. How is that...? No. NO. This is a good thing, Pyrrha. A very good thing. Maybe we can finally be around someone who will treat me normally.

Her scroll chimed, and looking at the time, she gasped. She was going to be late if she didn't hurry. Putting her scroll away, she started to jog, stopping only for a moment to gather her own weapons.

#rwby #ash vs evil dead #horror themed #jaune arc #pyrrha nikos

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script-a-world · 1 year

Note

Is tumblr an ok-ish place to just like, info dump about my world and it’s lore, or is there a better place I could do it?

Tex: You can put anything on tumblr so long as you don’t violate the Terms of Service - I’ve seen moodboards, essays, sketches, stories, bullet point lists, gif sets, audio clip compilations, and pretty much anything that the various posting formats can support.

It’s not necessarily something like a catch-all or one-size-fits-all, but I think it helps to think of various websites as boxes with different utilities, much in the same theme as scrapbooking parts. For example, tumblr supports images well, Archive of Our Own (AO3) supports text well, and have the shared similarity of ability to tag posts or works for organizational purposes.

The internet is one, very useful, format to worldbuild, because it has the ability to utilize tools such as hyperlinking and digital archiving. In a previous post, there is a detail about how to organize a digital file structure for one’s worldbuilding to keep track of things, available here. One practice I have noticed among some worldbuilders is the blend of digital and physical spaces; or rather, online and offline.

Offline digital worldbuilding is such things as word documents, saved images, and programs that perform the function of notebooks that don’t require internet access and/or an internet browser. This is frequently supplemented by personal archiving habits, such as a dedicated peripheral drive like a USB, and regularly copying over digital files onto that device whenever significant changes are made or else on a schedule. This is useful for happenstance events like computer failure, websites going defunct, or related issues.

Offline physical worldbuilding is such things as notebooks, drawings or paintings, boxes of ephemera, scrapbooks, and physical copies of the canon media (if the worldbuilding has its roots in fandom). This can include CDs, DVDs, photos, and craft items such as textiles or sculptures. For people that have had difficulties in maintaining digital records in particular, physical copies are often a good method of maintaining linearity of thought - i.e. printing out a Google Doc and putting that into a folder.

Because there’s so many different medias and platforms you can use for worldbuilding, it’s more a matter of which suits you best and for which purpose. Tumblr is a useful component of a worldbuilding methodology portfolio because of its capability to create dedicated posts that can be mixed media, tagged, and archived if one wishes it. As of this time of posting, users cannot currently download an individual post, but it’s impossible to predict a website’s roadmap as it adapts to the changing needs of digital spaces.

One thing I would note is that tumblr need not be engagement driven, in the same way other online spaces tend to be (e.g. twitter). You can make a blog, add restrictions in the form of locking viewing to only logged-in users or adding a password to view the blog, and with the recent update (as of this posting), users can also toggle preferences on how public a post is and also ability for others to reblog a post.

If you’re looking for engagement, this is fuelled by reblogs, which generally depends on the blogs that you follow and interact with, usually by reblogging their posts and also by talking to them. That is, however, a subject of micro-cultures and subcultures therein, which becomes a little bit off-subject to your question and not really within our domain.

#anonymous #worldbuilding advice

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abronzeagegod · 1 year

Text

ETS WIP Chapter 12: Here's The Problem, It's a Big One

[first]|[more]

"How do you know I'm the real one?" Aeth asked Lyta as they looked down at the dead body of the nightmare.

Lyta looked at Aeth. "Really?"

"There are weirder things out there. I can be anyone! Anything!"

"There's only one of you and you're it."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because the Aeth I know and love doesn't have a body that looks like a shed skin and eat and consume people. And you came first."

"But-"

Lyta cut off their existential crisis with pure, simple, concrete statement. "You are you. That's how it works. This thing is not you because it couldn't be by virtue of being itself."

"What?"

"Exactly," Lyta said firmly.

"But-"

"Nope."

Aeth clearly wasn't allowed to have a moment of self-doubt with Lyta around. Not about their nightmares becoming them.

"Why is my apartment so cold and covered in snow?"

Lyta finally faltered. "That's a longer story."

Several minutes later when Aeth had recovered enough and get into a shower, with Lyta outside cleaning up she explained.

"My magic font was all rage and vengeance and with this Swwarm app doing something weird to everyone is was super mad, I was super mad, and I was basically overflowing with magic. When I finally snapped out of whatever was happening I raced over here," Lyta explained as she tried, and failed, to mop the snow up.

"Why did you choose rage and vengeance?" Aeth asked loudly from within the shower.

"I didn't really, I built a font and kind of had to figure it out."

"Why is your rage cold?"

"Look, we can get into this all day later, and I'm happy to talk about this with you, but there's a whole thing with this App that seems terrible and I'm covered in magic power, and your nightmare got out. This all feels bad."

"I was looking into it before... everything," Aeth said as they finally turned the shower off.

"What did you find out?" Lyta asked from her position outside the bathroom door. She had given up trying to clean up the snow. She hadn't fully managed to desummon her sword and it wasn't helping so she just kind of gave up and leaned against the wall outside Aeth's bathroom.

Aeth exited the bathroom with a towel around their head and a fluffy bathrobe on. Whatever they said was lost on Lyta.

Even though it wasn't an especially sexy look, or anything even remotely revealing, Lyta was still a bit stunned. Aeth was here, they were back, they were looking cleaned and better, and that made Lyta so inexplicably happy.

"What? Do I have something on my face still?"

"No. You look fine. I'm just happy to see you."

Aeth moved quickly into their room because suddenly they felt very hot despite the freezing temperatures in the apartment. "As I was saying. I went looking into the app and it's all very suspicious."

"Suspicious how?"

"It basically has no listed creator, team, company, or anything that would indicate it was actually an app that was made."

"As opposed to what?"

"A virus."

"To like harvest data or something?"

There was silence before Aeth came out in their favorite worn overalls and black tank top. "This is my new crazy idea, so hear me out."

"Always."

"I think this app is a ritual, something to make people tense and on edge."

Lyta stopped to consider it, and to consider Aeth. "For what purpose?"

"Chaos? Maybe? Or to feed off our anger or something."

Lyta frowned, "I don't know this feels like we're missing something."

"I have notes I was making, some of them are still open on my phone."

"You remember what they were?"

Aeth shook their head. "I don't everything has been a bit fuzzy the last couple of days."

Lyta frowned. "Just be careful. I still have a terrible feeling about this whole thing."

Aeth went to find their phone, itself a small task, since 3812 didn't use the thing and Aeth couldn't remember where they left it since the whole vent started. When they did eventually find it underneath the the dining room table.

They reached for their phone, put in their password, and things immediately went wrong.

A purple-pink tentacle reached out of the phone screen and swiped at Aeth.

They quickly dropped the phone as the tentacle drew blood. The moment the phone hit the floor another three tentacles drew themselves out of the phone screen and started to flail around madly to prevent anyone from getting close.

Lyta, without thinking, summoned and threw a frozen spear at the phone. The fractal blade cut the device in half and embedded itself in the floor.

"What the hell?" Lyta asked.

Aeth rubbed the back of their hand. The cut wasn't that bad. Their heart was pounding though, and wasn't showing any signs of slowing down.

"What do we do now?" Lyta asked. "Is there somewhere we can go? Someone we can talk to? This is getting so far out of hand that I don't even know what to do."

"I have one idea. It might not be the best idea though."

"Am I going to hate this?"

"No. But it might be awkward."

Several minutes later, and inside of Lyta's car, that mercifully hadn't been ticketed or towed, Aeth gave their friend directions.

The drive was the opposite of pleasant. It was deeply terrible actually. More so than usual it felt like no one was able to drive. The road rage was heightened and Lyta was holding on to the wheel with both hands and a grip that could crush glass.

They were cut off constantly, with people driving recklessly and distracted.

Lyta's grip on her anger was tenuous at best, if it wasn't for Aeth being next to her she might have lost it and succumbed back to the anger spiral.

The drive took entirely too much time, but they finally made it.

Their destination was a small, cozy looking house. It felt like a home.

A small child runs out of the house to greet them as Lyta parked the car in front.

"Hey!" she screams in the bright voice of a happy child that can only communicate the sheer level of happiness via screaming. "Sir Lance Corporal wanted to see you! He's gonna be so excited to see you!"

"What the fuck is happening?" Lyta whispered to Aeth.

"It's a very long story, but this is a place where we might be able to get something to help us out."

i have a kofi if you'd like to leave a tip to encourage me to write more

#eldritch tech support #everyone has magic!#and everyone has problems some of which are more dire than others

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