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little-hermit-crab56 · 6 months

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I've been writing for a while so I thought I'd share some writing tips I've learned along the way.

1. Never sacrifice the flow for a quirky line.

That bit of dialogue or flowery paragraph you really like but it kinda disrupts the flow? Scrap it. I know it hurts, but you need to. If you really want to keep it, find somewhere else to put it where it actually fits in.

2. Dialogue is a dance.

Dialogue should go at the pace of an actual conversation, back and forth with little breaks and pauses. Add as little dialogue tags as possible while still making it clear who is speaking. You can also describe what is happening during a pause in the conversation rather than saying they paused, unless the pause is important.

3. Show don't tell is a guideline, not a rule.

Show don't tell is a very useful guideline, but if you're ALWAYS showing it can get exhausting to read. Skip the boring bits and just tell us what happened, then we can get to the good stuff.

4. If it's boring to write, it's probably boring to read.

If you can cut out a whole scene with little consequence to the story, you probably should. As I said before, you don't always have to show us, you can always tell us.

5. Everything needs to have a purpose.

I know there are probably lots of interesting or cute scenes where your characters are just fucking around, but if it doesn't develop character, relations, conflict, or plot, why should we care? Definitely still write them if they make you happy, but if you're gonna add it to your final draft, make sure it matters.

6. You don't need to explain everything all at once.

I know it feels tempting to put all the lore, and all the character's intentions, and reasonings into the first few chapters, but please refrain, you can reserve that for your character and worldbuilding sheets. Instead, take the time to let us get to know the characters, and the world, in the same way we'd get to know a real person. Make your exposition as seamless and natural as possible. It will take practice to know when to reveal information and when to let us wonder, but you'll get there.

7. Write in a way that comes naturally.

I know you probably have an author you wanna write just like, but that is unlikely to happen. Embrace your natural writing style and perfect it, rather than trying to be something you're not. Writing is an art, you need to find your own style and polish it as best you can.

8. Try to make us feel connected by cutting out certain words like "felt".

"Chad felt like a glass of water." Can be replaced with, "Chad was thirsty, so he reached for a glass of water." Both sentences tell us Chad wants a glass of water, but one makes us feel more connected to Chad than the other. Though both sentences have their time and place, you want to make your audience feel as close to their protagonist as possible. Make them feel like they're there, rather than just an onlooker.

9. We don't need to know every physical detail of your character.

I know you probably spent ages creating the perfect characters and you want to give us the perfect image of what they look like, but it can get monotonous and boring, why do we care that your character has brown eyes unless the colour has some sort of significance? Try to list off only the most notable features of your character and put focus only on the relevant details. Sometimes you can even not describe them at all and throw in little bits of information about their appearance for the audience to put together. We read to imagine, not to have a perfect image painted for us when we could be getting to the plot.

10. You're allowed to be vague.

Allow your audience to assume things, with some things you can just be lazy and let your audience's imagination do the work for you. Of course, don't do this with important things, but you can save so much time you might've spent researching an irrelevant topic when you can just be vague about it. You don't have to know everything you're writing about, so long as you know the bits that matter.

11. Writing is a skill that takes practice.

Don't be so hard on yourself if your writing is a bit cringe, we've all been there. The important part is that you research how to get better and keep writing those super cringe chapters. One day you'll reread something from a while ago and realize you're actually not as bad as you thought.

12. Leave your work to rest.

I know you wanna start editing right away, but once you've finished, leave it for at least a month. The longer you leave it the better, but that depends on your attention span. A month to six months is good if you're really impatient but want a good result. If you keep writing in that time your skills will continue to improve, then you'll be editing that draft with fresh eyes and fresh skills.

And if you're a fanfic author, I usually leave my chapters for a week before editing and posting.

Hope this helps anyone struggling, I thought this might be especially relevant now with nanowrimo.

I recently realized how much knowledge I've been accumulating over the years, I definitely have more but this is all I can think of for now.

I'm no writing guru, but if anyone has anything they're struggling with, I can do my best to help you out, so dont hesitate to ask questions.

#writing tips #nanowrimo #story writing #writers on tumblr #writeblr #writerscommunity #writing #writer

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yesimwriting · 6 months

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okay but after the whole lucy gray thing we know coryo was done with “love” and everything BUT what if during the following year of thg he ends up falling in love with another tribute also from district 12 and he’s just going through it bad (again) however he somehow ends up actually getting the girl in the end, maybe even buying her way into the capitol

A/n I've been thinking about a very specific part of this since i first read it but i told myself no more fic writing until i finished at least one of my essays for finals seasons 😭

also ik in the book (and it's implied in the movie) that after the events of the book he lives with the plinths, but let's pretend he lives on his own with access to the plinth fortune for privacy

ik that makes it sound like it's smutty, but it's not lol

----

Proximity aggravates distance. The closer you are to something, the more damage any remaining space causes.

The few feet dividing the two of you have no right to jab at something inside of him the way it does. It's bad enough that instead of going to bed after a long night of fulfilling his apprenticeship duties under Volumnia's watchful eye, he stopped by your apartment. Only one floor away from his.

For months, the only thing holding the two of you together had been memories of those few nights before the Games.

Coriolanus's attempt to remain indifferent towards you had quickly failed, and his backup plan of learning to loathe you had proven to be just as useless. So he settled on letting you unabashedly take his hand whenever fear overwhelmed you and committing the way your kind eyes watched him to memory.

You're looking around the room--his room--openly, eyes darting from the mahogany surface of his desk to the details elegantly carved into his bed frame.

His fingertips itch with the uncertain desire to reach for you. You've only been in the Capitol for about a day and a half. Less than 48 hours. But the move, the beginning of a program for certain, qualifying victors and their families, had been planned for months.

You shouldn't feel like a phantom that'll vanish if he lets go for too long. "What are you thinking about?"

The question grounds you the same way it did last time he asked. You do your best to hide it, but you're still adjusting, still surprised that he managed to find a way to bring you together again. Just like he promised. Your doubt isn't personal, a fact he has to remind himself of.

"I'm just..." You tilt your head slightly, gaze retreating from the royal blue wallpaper and silver trim of his bedroom walls, "Analyzing."

The comment is followed by an easygoing smile that pinches at something in his chest. His new apartment, the penthouse of one of the largest buildings in the city, another gift from the ever flowing well that is the Plinth fortune, still reeks of former poverty. The few things that hint at the personal are hidden behind layers of desperate wealth so thick the items might as well be standard.

A lifetime spent in 12 means that there's no way you can read between the lines. He can't decide if your perspective will make this room look worse or better. It's a nice bedroom, definitely grander than any bedroom you've stood in before...but it's understated. Maybe even disappointing to someone like you.

"Analyzing?"

You turn fully, "A bedroom says a lot about a person."

"You might get more out of analyzing my study," an oddly school boy worthy partial truth slips out before he can stop himself, "I think I've been spending more time there than here recently."

You shake your head once, eyes landing on the crimson red vase filed with crisp white roses his grandma'am had gifted him on his last visit. Her pride and joy now more than ever. "I'm seeing all I need."

A hint of a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. It's the most genuine expression that's slipped past him in weeks. When he first worked out a way to bring you here, some doubting part of him wondered if the draw he felt towards you would still exist in person.

Less than two weeks after your victorious departure from the Capitol, he had searched through your files and found your address. He had written the letter in a moment of weakness and only sent it after deciding that writing a letter to never be sent is the only thing more pathetic than writing to you in the first place. He had spent the week following that wallowing in self loathing until an age-stained envelope arrived at his door.

"And what are you seeing?" He keeps his tone light. This is ridiculous. He dragged himself and his family out of a gutter clogged by the casualties of war. Coriolanus is stronger than fleeting emotion now. Your opinions on his room can't possibly affect him.

If he were to simplify what brought you here, to the Capitol, to him, he could blame it on his bedroom. The urge to see you, to figure out some way the two of you closer together before your undeserving district could swallow you whole in an attempt to make you like them, would flare up whenever he received one of your letters.

Those urges, however, had never burned him. Not until you wrote about wanting to see him out of the most curious nostalgia you'd ever felt. You wanted to see him in a way that'd let you know what his room looked like, in a way that'd let you guess at his favorite color.

He takes a few steps forward, making the conscious decision to not reach for you. You've never rejected his advances, not even when he instinctually intertwined your fingers after picking you and your family up from the train station. You had scolded him after, telling him that you'd hear no end of it from your mother. It took a lot of focus for Coriolanus to not smile at that. You spoke of it like it would've never occurred to you to just pull your hand away.

Your eyes shift from end of the room to the other. Coriolanus moves carefully, passing you before sitting at the edge of his crisply made bed.

"Before you make your decision..." You turn instinctually, expression so polite and expecting he almost doesn't know how to bear it. His hand briefly pats the space beside him in a silent invitation. "So you can see it from all perspectives."

Your head tilts slightly, and for a moment, Coriolanus can practically feel your rejection. Then you move, sock clad feet treading over smooth white-gray marble. You sit next to him so assuredly, anyone else would have taken the way you neatly fold your hands in your lap as politeness instead of a display of nerves.

Your family's presence makes you less pliable. It's a factor he's willing to work around considering that you would've never left them to come to the Capitol. And even if he had managed to talk you into it, your nostalgia and homesickness would've made you more of a ghost to him than before.

At least the position your family's in is uncertain enough to allow for some leeway in the social norms that you cling to. However, every once in awhile it hits you that at the end of the day, he's still a boy that you're close to, which means that it's your duty to create the distance necessary to keep everything proper. Leaving your bedroom in the middle of the night because said boy knocked at your door and then entering his room in his empty penthouse is something you would've done under normal circumstances.

But your connection isn't that black and white. If it was something so simple, he would have been able to sever it the night before your Games.

"It makes all the difference," you agree warmly, and only somewhat sarcastically. You give yourself another second to take in the space, "I like it."

He can tell that you mean it. "I haven't fully settled in yet."

You shrug, paying him little mind, "There's something about it that just feels like you."

Coriolanus shifts his focus to the ground. You can't possibly mean it in the way that he sees the room, as a reminder that he still doesn't fully fit into who he's become.

"I've been meaning to pick up a few things," he says, "Tomorrow, after my classes, I was thinking about browsing some paintings." Another half truth. He had been meaning to. Mrs. Plinth had instructed him to visit her art dealer whenever he had enough free time to pick out a few pieces to demonstrate his taste. He'd been putting it off as a dismissable task, but it feels like a safe way to give you your first taste of life in the Capitol. "If you'd like to help me pick some out."

You smile, eyebrows pinching together in a way that's just barely noticeable. You're as interested as you are puzzled. "I'd like that." Relaxing enough to let your hand rest between the two of you, you beam, "I don't know if I'd be much help, but I'd like that."

He'd be willing to get anything that caught your eye. Paintings and vases already with such an exclusive art dealer hold more or less the same level of standing, anyway.

Coriolanus moves his hand slowly, careful not to startle you before his fingers can settle against your own. You instinctually turn over your palm, intertwining your fingers. "I trust you."

You stare at him with wide, understanding eyes. Sometimes when you look at him, really look at him, Coriolanus is struck with the feeling that you can see right through him. It's an irrational feeling, that every good action and cruel deed is reflected in his eyes. Moments like this make it hard to be near you. They also, however, make the thought of adding distance between the two of you unbearable.

"I have an early class."

You dip your chin forward in an attempt to accept what you're considering a dismissal. "Right, you must be tired." The words sit between you for a long moment.

Your free hand presses into the silk of your still new pajamas. You shift like you're going to stand. His hold on your hand tightens before you can move away. You still.

He's being ridiculous. There's nothing about this situation that warrants his inability to look at you. "Stay here." His thumb runs across your knuckles. "With me."

The words are soft enough to be a request, but there's not enough space between them for questioning. He cautiously lifts his head enough to take in your reaction.

"What?" It's a display of shock more than an actual question. Coriolanus squeezes your hand even tighter. You don't try to get him to let go, but you do shift away just enough to create the reminder of distance. "You know I can't."

His other hand reaches forward, settling against your wrist. "Why not?" He doesn't mean for his voice to come off as raspy, as desperate as it does.

You swallow, attempting to straighten your spine in an attempt to offset the instinctual urge to hide your face. This isn't a topic you're even comfortable implying. "My mother would kill me if she so much as found out that I came up here so late, let alone..." You trail off, head dropping to your lap. "Stayed here."

He envelops your hand between both of his. "She knows we're friendly."

You look up just long enough to imply a pointed not that friendly. "It's--" You blink, eyes darting from to your joint hands and then finally to the ground. "You know it's..."

Coriolanus leans forward. The shift is small, just enough for his knee to brush against yours. "It's what?" He keeps his voice low, a barely there whisper that comes off as so innocent it nearly circles back to anything but.

You glance up, so wide eyed and flighty he's reminded of a rabbit. The level of precaution you're exuding can't just be about your mother's opinions, can it? He studies your expression openly, taking in the set of your eyebrows and the way you steadily press your lips together to avoid speaking without thinking. At least some part of you believes in your mother's concerns.

The realization strike shim so quickly he has to focus on keeping his expression neutral. Your bond is so much more than just coming together on a random night where exhaustion's already clouding his focus.

It will happen between the two of you. Eventually. But not yet. You've barely entered the Capitol and every aspect of your life has become vastly different than what you're accustomed to. If he were to attempt to cement any relationship between the two of you like that now, you'd be too overwhelmed or you might think that that's the only reason he brought you here.

He learned early on that it's best to introduce adjustments to you slowly, giving you enough time to hold onto ideas before enacting them. Anything of that nature would work that way too.

"I haven't been able to see much of you." He focuses on your hand, still resting safely between both of his. The words came out too quickly, a flash of some genuine sort of emotion that claw at him on the way out. With you, sometimes a glimpse of feeling works wonders.

Your thumb draws gentle patterns against the side of his hand. "You're busy." He relaxes his hand, turning over his palm. You place his hand on your knee, fingers tracing the natural creases etched into his skin. "You're important."

The way that last word comes out makes an uncertain warmth crawl up his neck. "I--I've wanted to see you more." Another thing he means so much it turns his stomach to admit it.

Your nail drags down a line that cuts across the length of his hand. "Me too."

He bends his fingers slowly, moving in until he's trapped your pointer finger against his palm. "Then stay." You twist your finger enough to express some lighthearted irritation, but not enough to count as a real attempt at escaping. "If your mother says anything, I'll explain it to her." You glare at him without any true aggression. "She likes me, doesn't she?"

Coriolanus already knows the answer. She credits your survival to him. You had mentioned that in a letter once, telling him that she insisted you pass along her gratitude after discovering that the two of you had started to correspond regularly.

He also saw the way she reacted to realizing that she had made it to the Capitol. Your mother's family had once been part of the wealthier side of 12. You're part of a recently fallen line of mine owners, a fact that your mother has only pretended to let go of. He saw a hunger behind her eyes that reminded him of a warped version of his own.

Coriolanus gave her back the pride the war had stolen from her family name tenfold. He owes her this much.

"She'd trade me for you in a heartbeat." He hears the grin in your voice more than he sees it. Your family means the world to you, which means he's subjected himself to seeking your mother's validation and winning over your two younger sisters.

It's not the way he'd choose to spend his limited free time, especially with you standing right there, but he's endured worse for less of a pay off. "Then she'd be a fool."

You fight to hold his gaze. "I doubt that."

Your eyes are pools of honest, unfiltered affection. The care that you're watching him with makes it hard to swallow. The instinct to press, to dig and claw and tear anything that could be hiding an ulterior motive into shreds makes it hard to take a full breath. You've always worn your heart on your sleeve. You're not a flighty songbird that uses its charm to distract its prey from its fang-like talons.

"Stay." Again. So breathless he almost doesn't recognize the word as his own.

The deliberation is transparent behind your eyes. You're considering it, but you're still not convinced. The hesitation stings in a way he doesn't understand. "I don't want to give her a reason to not like you."

So softly spoken he's shocked by the way the words manage to feel like a nail being hammered into his chest.

"She's let you stay with other people before." The response is too sharp, too sudden. He should refocus and think through what he's about to say. Coriolanus knows that it's easier to get you to agree to something through the use of honey sweetened words and displays of patience. "You wrote about him."

The confusion that briefly etches its way into your expression threatens to quell the uncomfortable swell of jealousy tightening his chest. "Warren?" The name makes tints the air between you with something acidic. "That was--different."

Your explanation adds an edge to the pressure in his chest. "Why?"

"We weren't--" You cut yourself off, the instinct to placate him and your desire to not start a conversation you can't finish battling each other oddly. "We were never alone." You squeeze his hand as best as you can. "He's a family friend and I only stayed over when my mom had to work late and I was too young to be alone for so long, so I haven't stayed over in years. And--and he shared a room with three of his siblings and his parents checked on us constantly."

He frowns, unconvinced. The lack of approval has you clinging to him, adjusting your hold on his hand as you gently trail your knuckles against the inside of his wrist. "I do miss you." You stare at your hands. "I know it's weird because we're--y'know--closer than before, but I-I do miss you."

The expanding wave of tension in his chest begins to deflate. You're good at that, at redirecting and soothing without even realizing it. A talent that had contributed to his original desire to loathe you. "I understand that." He runs his thumb over your knuckles. "Things aren't going to get less busy. That's why I want to use all the time we have."

You nod slowly, a hint of understanding making its appearance in the set of your brow. "I know."

"What you wrote," he begins, too aware of how much he means the question that follows, "Did you mean it."

"Of course I did." Not an ounce of hesitation, of uncertainty.

He turns your hand over before shifting his fingers up the inside of your wrist. "You wrote about wanting to see me."

"I did..." The pad of his thumb gently makes its way up your forearm. Your even breathing falters. "I do."

Coriolanus lets himself look up just enough to take in your expression. "Then stay." He swallows, too aware of the sudden dryness of his mouth. "Please."

You glance up at him through your lashes. There's a softness there that jabs at him. "Okay."

He lifts the back of your hand, carefully brushing his lips against your skin. "You mentioned wanting to see a library."

You wrote about it once. A brief mention in one of your letters of the small room in your school's office that served as a sort of communal study space with a few books stacked on a small shelf. Your longing had been clear.

Nodding curiously, you agree, "Yeah?"

"I could leave for my classes a little earlier tomorrow, you could come with me." The proposal comes out slowly, his own suggestion taking him by surprise. "My driver could bring you back, that'll give you time to meet the tutor that's being sent over for your sisters, and then when I get back we'll look at the paintings."

You immediately grin, "Really?"

He finds himself smiling back, pulling your arm closer. "Whatever you want."

You beam. "I'd really like that."

"Good," he affirms with a nod of his head that's a touch too forward. He regrets it almost immediately. "If you like it, I might be able to get your own tutor to meet you at a library."

Part of the still uncertain victor program relies on setting up the victor and their family with a new life. Education plays a role in that. Placing any one of you in an actual Capitol run institution is far out of the question. For everyone's sake. Even if the thought of sharing a classroom with someone from 12 didn't horrify the Capitol parents, you and your siblings wouldn't be able to just jump in. It's not that he views you as unintelligent, but District 12's education system isn't exactly on par with the Capitol's.

"That sounds nice," you sit up a little straighter, excited by the prospect, "A part of me kind of misses school."

Another aspect of your personality that he had learned about after your Games. You like school for the sake of it. "I'll check on the arrangements tomorrow."

He clears his throat before you can do more than just nod, "It's getting late."

Coriolanus carefully sets your hand down on the comforter. You awkwardly shift, now more aware of what you agreed to than ever. "Right," you push yourself to stand, "You need your sleep."

He pulls back his sheets before you can think about it even further. You crawl into the provided space without looking at anything in particular. He's quick to join you beneath the safety of plush bedding before leaning over and turning off the bedside lamp.

Darkness floods the space. There's something about the absence of light that makes things feel heavier. The potential intimacy of the situation sneaks up on him with no warning.

This isn't a loss of control. It can't be. It was his idea, he had pushed and convinced you to stay here. He's aware of everything that's led up to this moment, but that's not enough to stop him from wondering if this is something than he should have known better than to embrace. He had accepted the familiar, fickle knotting of his stomach once before.

Steady warmth presses itself against his arm. He blinks, head turning a second too quickly. Your hand has found his. Coriolanus relaxes, allowing himself to fully relax against his pillow. You pick up on his shift, reflecting it by laying down as well.

For someone that had been so hesitant, you seem to know what to do better than he does. You pull his arm towards you, gently trailing your fingers against the exposed skin. Heat crawls up his neck.

"Goodnight," you mumble, voice already drowsy.

Coriolanus lets out a long breath. He grasps your hand, bringing it back to his lips before settling back into the position the two of you were in before. "Goodnight."

#the hunger games #coriolanus snow x reader #coriolanus snow #the hunger games x reader #the ballad of songbirds and snakes x reader #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #coriolanus x reader

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alchely · 25 days

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My Top Gallavich fics

So, under the advice of the lovely @iangallagherisadeadman I've decided to compile a favorites Gallavich fic list along with a brief rec of each, this won't be a strict top 10 cause I'm not gonna torture myself into excluding some of these stories on some made-up self imposed arbitrary rules.

A bunch of disclaimers: most of these fics are long fics, going from 30k words up, I'm not purposefully excluding shorter fics, I have read plenty of them, but they do have a harder time sticking in my head months after reading.

Most of these fics will be explicit, just read the tags on the fic itself if you want to find out more.

Some of these fics don't have links because the authors chose to lock them and as such make them unlinkable, in order to read them you will need to go through the author's page while you're logged in your AO3 account.

This ended up ballooning out of control and is A LOT longer than ten fics, I apologize in advance :p.

YOU'LL NEVER SEE US AGAIN – spoonfulstar - 231k words

Mickey and Ian have been students at Marceline boarding school their whole lives, as their time at the institute draws toward the end they will start to discover many things, about themselves, about each other and about the world they live in.

THIS FIC! I CRIED! The number of fanfiction that are able to make me cry can be counted on a singular hand, the emotional stakes get higher and higher as the story goes on, leading to a beautiful and bittersweet climax.

This story will make you think and feel deeply about topics you'd never think a shameless fic would delve into.

I am obsessed with Mickey in this fic, he and Ian grow up in an environment that could not be more removed from South Side Chicago and yet his personality is still so recognizably and distinctly Mickey.

The story goes very dark at times, and the fic itself could be considered lengthy, but I assure you the author has made sure to not make you feel it. Those 200k words flowed so well the story did not feel long at all.

HELP ME (TEAR DOWN MY REASON) – wehangout - 34k words

Mickey is a detective and Ian becomes a suspect in an investigation except Mickey already knows him because he's his favorite dancer.

This fic falls under the umbrella of fics where “Mickey is so in love with Ian he does something unbelievably crazy”.

Oooh boy, this fic, it's written in second person (yes you've read that right), tbh out of all fics I've read from this author I think this one was the easiest to adjust mentally to the change in perspective.

I loved Mickey’s “love” in this, just… This raw connection to Ian, the perfect cocktail of feelings, I could read that all day long.

IN ANOTHER WORLD – Roryonic - 249k words

Mickey does not get sent to prison at the end of S5, what happens after and how his presence influences future events (mostly Ian, but also every other Gallagher as well as his own family).

As far as I'm concerned this fic is the closest to a perfect S6 and beyond fix-it. The dialogue writing in this story is so close to canon Shameless that I could picture entire scenes in my head with the actors playing the characters, with their body and personality quirks.

Sometimes I find myself describing this fic like it's the actual show's deleted scenes, “Look, Mickey has his own storyline! And Mandy is here! And the existence of Yevgeni does not become a plot hole!”

There are some Mickey lines in this fic that to me are as canon as if they'd been in the show. Absolutely iconic writing.

I love this author so here's a rec of some of their other longfics, however I highly suggest a lot of their other much shorter stuff as well:

BATTLESHIPS AND LOVE BOATS: Ian and Mickey start their “no strings attached” kind of sex relationship a little later than canon but their attraction and love is just as strong. This is a sort of High School AU that turns into a Prison AU that turns into something else and every shift is just as lovely as the next.

YOU SMELL LIKE LOVE: Ian and Mickey are childhood friends, to the point that the rest of the Gallaghers might as well consider Mickey a seventh brother, mmmh, I sure wonder how things will start to change. Look, I never thought I'd love a childhood friends AU for Gallavich yet here I am, if it's good it's good.

ME AND THE DEVIL: Mickey unconsciously calls for a vengeance demon and Ian Gallagher shows up at his door, because Mickey is a stubborn dumbass they fall in love instead. This story has a lot of twists and turns and the premise is only the very beginning of the story. I LOVED it!

THE INCREASINGLY POOR DECISIONS OF IAN GALLAGHER – Shamelessquestions - 309k words

Ian is a dancer in a club, he accidentally gets involved in the affair of a dangerous mafia don, but the true danger is the attraction he and the mafioso’s right hand Mickey feel for each other as soon as they meet.

What. A. Classic. Truly, an unforgettable story, and I don't mean this in hyperbole, I read this story around… 2016/2017 during my second round in the Shameless fandom, then I read countless other fics in a lot of other fandom and yet this story was the only one that my mind retained from back then, to the point that I could still remember some of the finer details as well as the final plot twists when I came back to reread it.

The plot is constructed beautifully and the original characters (part of the Shamelessquestions fanfiction universe, as they come back time and time again in every one of their AU to fulfill their role in the story) are just as vibrant.

What a story, truly.

Favorite original character in this AU: Sal, his downfall is so satisfying and yet so pitiful to read.

TEENAGERS SCARE THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF ME – Mellow_Yellow - 221k words

Ian finds something scary and calls Mickey for help, even though they had only reconnected that very day after two years of not seeing each other. Together, they get sucked into a situation they weren't at all prepared for. Can they even admit that they're in over their head?

The very beginning of this fic is SO cinematic it grabbed my interest from the very first scene and didn't let go until the end, DO NOT search for spoilers.

The only warning I'll give is that it does deal with a bit of gore and what I'm personally gonna define as slight psychological horror. That's it. Enjoy!

BROKE STRAIGHT BOYS – dancermk - 66k words

Mickey becomes a porn actor for a site where he has to pretend he's straight and not enjoying the copious amount of gay sex he's having on camera, enter Ian, another actor under the same agency and their off the chart physical chemistry.

This story has, needless to say, some really, really good smut. I especially loved their first time together, but every sex scene in this story is seared in my mind.

ETHERIZED AGAINST THE SKY – Snarfle - 213k words

So, I debated whether I should add this fic or not, but I think if there is one fic that will stay in my mind long after this Shameless binge of the past couple of months it's this one, and it should absolutely become one of those fic that everyone in the fandom should read.

After Mickey gets shot by Kash his life takes a completely different direction and he ends up in a group home where, through many difficult times, he turns his life around.

So many iconic moments in this fic, some funny as fuck, some sad, some so absurd that I'm surprised they weren't lifted straight from Shameless, one so gruesome in the very first chapter that I was surprised to have such a visceral feeling from just words on a screen. Yeah, this story will stay with me for a long time.

OLD RULES FOR NEW SIDE PIECES – Shamelessquestions - 217k words

Ian is a Fed and he spots Mickey looking suspicious in an art museum, the mutual attraction is overwhelming, Mickey is not what he seems and Ian is already with someone else, but that's not gonna stop him from pursuing what he and Mickey have.

Putting it as bluntly as I can, this fic made me face the realization that I love cheating fics (if the cheating happens to someone else to bring together the endgame couple). I have already reread this fic twice and I could probably go for another one and not get tired of it, it's that good, and out of all this author's fics it's probably my favorite.

Favorite original characters in this AU: It's a three way tie between Dre, Ivan and Carrie, they're all very captivating in this story.

Other fic from this author I'd recommend cause I really love their style:

LOST IN TRANSLATION: Ian meets a very attractive man while he's in Ukraine who doesn't speak English, a mere language barrier won't stop him from flirting for hours. (adorable)

YOU MAKE ME FEEL HUMAN – Dragona - 66k words

Ian is an assassin, he meets Mickey and thus begins a very sick love story.

To say I'm obsessed with this fic is an understatement, I suggest to everyone to just go read the original author’s own description of the fic, it sets the tone of the story magnificently.

This is an Ian Gallagher that almost resembles Jerome (also played by Cameron in Gotham) but like… a slightly more subdued and saner S1/S2 version of him. I love the layers that get peeled right in front of my eyes, the madness that creeps in a bit more every chapter. I LOVE this story.

DRIED INK - 87k words

This fic combines my two favorite Gallavich-specific tropes, one being ‘Mickey comes back from prison after s6, Ian is with someone else’ and ‘Ian cheats on that someone else for Mickey’

I love the Gallaghers in this and how unsurprised they are at Ian going back to Mickey right away. It's a little jewel of a fic.

Mickey tries SO hard to stop himself and Ian in this but their love is too magnetic, they're irresistible to each other.

THE QUESTION OF NORMAL – blue_newman - 92k words

Ian is a prison counselor, Mickey is in prison, they fall in love and it's beautiful and Ian is incredibly devoted to Mickey in this fic and I fell in love with them both in this.

KINDA RAW – catgrassplantdad - 6k

Quite simply this is my favorite short pwp fic.

Illustrating those “five times” in one night that Mickey references in 11x01.

This fic is so hot, I love it <3

QUATERVOIS – DodgerBear - 51k words

Soldier Mickey gets stationed in the middle of nowhere and meets a farmer called Ian who makes him question everything.

Falling under the same umbrella of “Mickey does something crazy for Ian” fics and this is why it stuck in my mind even if it's been a while since I've read it.

I LOVE this story, their dialogues and everything that happens in it. The setting is lovely and you will fall in love with the description of Ian’s farm.

Other fic by the same author that I also loved:

BURDEN OF PROOF: Cop Mickey gets caught in a legal battle between the two oldest Gallagher brothers, something doesn't feel right though…

THE WORDS HE DOESN'T SAY: Mickey is released before Ian in s10 and has to meet a court-mandated therapist. The story is from the therapist POV and goes AU from the beginning of s10 in that Mickey gets involved back into Yev and Svetlana’s life, the dialogue is, quite obviously, the main attraction of the story and it's really well done. (Also, written in first person).

THE MENAGERIE – CrossMyDNA - 147k words

Ian decides to re-explore his bdsm preferences at The Menagerie where he meets sub extraordinaire Mickey on his very first visit.

Shameless is undoubtedly the fandom that opened my eyes to what bdsm could be back in… approx 2016? When that other popular bdsm fic was still around *ahem*.

So it definitely feels like a sign that coming back into the fandom this fic now exists and is SO GOOD.

Obviously it's very explicit, the smut in this fic is one of the best I've ever read.

The chemistry between Ian and Mickey sizzles off the screen and can absolutely be felt even in moments not of the nsfw variety, absolutely recommended!

MICKEY MILKOVICH’S GUIDE TO FLIRTING – whatwouldmickeydo - 40k words

An s2 “missing moments” between Gallavich, completely canon compliant, all under the pretense that Mickey is following a step by step guide to flirting.

I wish this fic was describing canon moments, not kidding a single bit, I wish I could somehow magically manifest these scenes into existence they're that good and fit that well into canon.

M8TE – gallawitch - 53k words

Omegaverse fic where Ian and Mickey both start using an app and end up matching with each other, even though a connection is made almost instinctively, coming to terms with it with a sound mind will take a bit longer…

Hey,had to have at least one of these on here lol

I love omegaverse and this was everything I wanted from it, couldn't have asked for anything better really <3.

SHACKLED – MyRelapse - 19k words

Ian has a change of heart and he decides that Mickey IS the one he wants, even if he's still in prison, so he keeps in contact and goes through every hoop imaginable to have him back as soon as possible.

Reading this made me so happy like I could burst, love it.

WAITING ON MY OWN TOO LONG – Ride4812 - 266k words

This rec more than any other on this list is what I'm gonna consider self indulgent because it covers the trope I always craved to read in such a satisfying way: Canon AU where Mickey comes back from prison after 8 years, Ian has found someone else but the moment the two meet again they fall back into each other right away.

The series is made up of 4 smaller fics:

One more night

Something more this time

No more lonely nights

Ain't this life so sweet

(I will point out here and nowhere else that the last installment of this series has some segment that probably needed to be re-read a couple more times, but by that point I was too invested, and the quality fluctuates a lot only in certain parts)

The writing style is very direct and to the point, which I love, the smut is very present and written beautifully and most importantly never boring.

Ian is a MESS in this fic and had me Stressed™, mostly cause for some reason I can't handle too much casual depiction of drug abuse and addiction (I know, ironic considering the fandom).

Conflicts and resolutions are never clean cut, they don't necessarily resolve quickly or definitely or the way you probably imagine they should and I find this level of realism very satisfying.

Taking a bit of space here at the end to also rec a couple other Ride4812 fics that I also loved:

COUP DE FOUDRE - A model/photographer AU where Ian and Mickey fall in love the instant they meet and do some crazy things because of that.

HOPE HE MIGHT - A lawyer AU where Ian and Mickey are on opposing sides for the same client, an interesting murder mystery steeped in a religious cult.

Generally I feel like this author is really good at depicting just how unapproachable Mickey can be to anyone that isn't called Ian Gallagher and I eat it up every time.

WHAT THE NIGHT DOES TO THE DAY – andchaos - 9k words

A Gallavich childhood friends AU with a quite original arrangement for the story and the various segments of their lives. Very satisfying read.

RANSOM – BeckyHarvey29 - 112k words

Terry sends his sons to kidnap a Gallagher child to force Frank into paying back the money he owes, unfortunately for him Mickey and his brothers kidnap Ian, and a whole other kind of story unfolds.

Mickey and Ian falling in love in this fic is such a good read. I don't wanna spoil anything of how that or the kidnapping plot goes, since the two are so intertwined. Just know that it will be worth it.

UNDER LOCK AND KEY – Suzy_Queue - 106k words

Ian is assigned the night shift at his new job where he provides spare keys to his fellow college students stuck outside their dorm rooms. To make matters worse his shift coworker is the oh so infamous Mickey Milkovich.

I am magnetized by the way this author writes their pining for each other, their attraction and obsession, how it blooms and unfolds. This fic in particular had me develop a very bad case of tunnel vision, couldn't really turn away until I finished reading it all.

I still haven't read everything this author has to offer, but so far I also loved:

INHUMAN: A mysterious force starts attacking people close to Mickey and it all seems to lead to a mysterious redhead Mickey is oh so coincidentally obsessed with. Very cool paranormal story.

THESE FOOLISH GAMES: Mickey takes over as the boss of the local branch of a trampoline park, where Ian is one of the employees, they annoy each other to no end but what they don't know is that they're secretly texting each other.

IS THERE SOMEWHERE – andchaos - 48k words

Mickey is born with no words on his skin, convinced he's going to live a life of misery cause no one will ever say the words he's destined to hear, he's not a very happy guy. Here comes mute boy Ian who crashes into his life and won't let go.

A classic Soulmate AU, I love that like in a lot of other Gallavich fics their physical connection and compatibility usually comes before their emotional one, it is one aspect that I feel distinguishes their relationship to many other fandom’s ships.

LAST NIGHT AT THE VERONA GRAND HOTEL – the_rat_wins - 27k words

Mickey starts working at an ancient hotel who's supposedly haunted. Mickey doesn't believe in ghost stories, he is much more interested in this one guest he meets at night during his shift.

What a cinematic experience this fic is! Absolutely recommended, the length of it makes it so you can read it in the same time it would take to watch the same story in movie format.

Other fics by the same authors that have impressed me:

FADE THIS ONE TO BLACK: Ian dies of overdose in a pile of snow outside the club, when Mickey finds him there he vows to do anything to get him back.

I don't know why but this fic in particular gives off the vibes of being a pilot for a ya urban fantasy TV series, except we gotta imagine everything that comes after the first episode lol

NO LIE: Ian and Mickey are Soulmates and as such they can't lie to each other. This series is short and sweet and full of feelings, perfect

PARAGRAPHS – pink_ink - 100k words

Ian becomes a reading tutor for ex-convicts, Mickey is among them and Ian starts paying him more and more attention.

This is a story where they meet under very different circumstances and where they've lived slightly different lives compared to canon and yet they're still able to find each other in the end.

Also, sign me up for every fic where Ian has to work just as hard to help Mickey and care for him as the opposite, where Ian's brand of stubbornness is the only way to get through to Mickey.

I'm also adding a couple of ongoing fics, just two to not overwhelm too much.

NONE THE WISER – Loftec - ~218k words

Ian starts visiting Mickey’s diner, it takes a while and yet no time at all to warm up to each other.

I'm captivated by the author's writing style. I love Ian's and Mickey’s relationship. I love how they sort of take their time and yet pine helplessly for each other.

I'm obsessed with the fact that the whole point of the fic doesn't appear until two thirds of the way in cause the diner scenes were just too good to pass up on lol (and I 100% agree with them).

INTRO TO QUANTUM DATING – spoonfulstar - ~563k words

Canon Mickey and Ian meet in University. A college slice of life but drenched in the casual (and not so casual) darkness of canon shameless.

The dark humor in this is fenomenal and left me gasping laughing so many times.

Unexpectedly Ian in this fic is pursuing a linguistics oriented degree, which was what I studied when I tried university, the topics are explained in such an accurate way I have to assume the author studied them themselves and that this story is somewhat a reimagining of their own college experience because if not this would be an absurd amount of accurate research to make.

Reading this fic feels like living through the American college experience from the comfort of my home lol.

As I said before, this author's way of writing does not weight you down even with its length, the story flows perfectly from one scene to the next and before you realize it you've reached the end and you have to accept that 500k words weren't even enough.

Let's end this list with some quick recommendations

WHILE WE'RE MAKING OTHER (PEOPLE'S) PLANS - kyasticlikestea

Mickey is volunteered to organize someone's else's wedding after he managed to salvage his own so well, he'll do it, but his own Southside way.

THIS IS THE ROAD TO RUIN - bricoleur10

Ian and Mickey never go to rob Ned, the story unfolds differently from there. A fix-it with a lot of Gallavich longing , very good smut and some really good dialogue.

HEY, HONEY MINE (I WAS THERE ALL THE TIME) - serveteas

Mickey talks about his crush with Iggy and accidentally pronoun-slips. Short, to the point, funny af and I just really love it. Takes place after their fight at Kash’n Grab in s2.

AGAINST GLASS - AllThatMatters

Ian gets traded from one club to another as a dancer (and more) and ends up in the Milkovich family's club. This is a Mafia!Mickey story with some pretty tight sub-plots, I love his brothers in this.

ONE OF A KIND - fckyeahgallavich

Mickey breaks his finger and it has to be set in the hospital, chaos - of the homophobic kind - ensues. Protective!Ian, I wanna hug Mickey in this.

IAN THE FRIENDLY GHOST - Ravenheart

Ian is haunting an apartment and Mickey starts living in it, Ian is maybe starting to have a crush on him. This isn't angsty!

BLOOD IN, BLEED OUT - brewrosemilk, Whatsastory

Historical AU. Perfectly innocent bystander Ian Gallagher is thrown into the affairs of the Ukrainian Mafia back in 1954, his relationship with Mickey will span decades and he won't remain innocent for long, the mafia can corrupt anyone.

TEENAGE RUNAWAY - sadwhales

Ian comes to live and finish high school with his half siblings on the South Side, he's immediately captivated by a boy sitting under the bleachers, maybe his North Side naivety will catch his attention too.

GARDEN SONG - melwrtiesthings

A glimpse into their lives in their West Side apartment, a lot of initial angst due to a manic episode and then a lot of recovery and healing and learning more about themselves.

#gallavich #shameless #Gallavich fic rec #fic rec #ao3 #fic rec taken wayyy too seriously #jesus what is wrong with me #f*ck it I'll just tag this now and deal with the links later #if anyone wants to contribute to the list through tags or comments you are WELCOME ❤️#my post

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phoenixyfriend · 2 months

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The Shift in America's Support of Israel as of 3/25/24

Okay, so there have been three specific incidents recently that I'd like to cover for you guys.

Chuck Schumer's speech calling for a new election in Israel, which I have spoken about here and here. (3/14/24)

Congress voting to ban UNRWA funding until 2025, which I've seen a lot of people talking about, but often without an actual understanding of what the situation actually is. (It's bad, but it's not the same type of bad as people think.) (3/24/24)

The US abstaining from a UN Security Council vote, which is effectively voting against Israel when they have thus far been the only ones to use veto power in this manner. (3/25/24)

I'm not going to go into detail about Schumer, since I've already covered it. tldr: it's a very specifically worded speech that does not explicitly threaten Israel, but if you do even the slightest bit of reading between the lines, that is absolutely what is happening.

Also, before I move forward: the US may not be donating to UNRWA for the rest of the fiscal year, but you can. They have direct donation links.

UNRWA funding has been on hold for a while, but this is... complicated. Not morally, because UNRWA does need funding and to defund it is truly unconscionable, but many of the "Biden signed it into law" posts are approaching it with this implied message that UNRWA would have funding if not for Biden signing it.

Except that isn't really how the US government works. Especially this government.

Funding for 2024 was supposed to be passed months ago. We are on the verge of another government shutdown. UNRWA funding is not on the table until the House swings blue. I hate to be the one to say this, but it's... like, it's not something I can change alone. I know you're tired of hearing it, but voting in November is the key to fixing a whole lot of problems.

One of the core duties of Congress is passing budgets. For those budgets to pass, they need to be approved by the House (Republican Majority), the Senate (Democrat Majority), and the President. The reason it has taken five months to pass a yearly budget (the deadline iirc was September or October) is because anything approved by one chamber is shot down by the other.

UNRWA's de-funding is tied to Ukraine funding (and a few other things). Biden refusing to sign would not have brought back UNRWA funding. The funding is already on hold. We do not have the votes to bring it back. We just straight up do not have enough seats in the House to make that happen. Biden refusing to sign would have resulted in both UNRWA and Ukraine not having funding, indefinitely. Signing it resulted in one of the two getting funding.

This is not a situation where funding was approved and now cut. This is not a situation where money was already flowing to UNRWA. This is a situation where money wasn't going anywhere, because Congress is a split shitshow.

Think of it like this: Funding is water coming from a spigot. Congress can turn it on or off, and it's currently off. Biden can smack away the hand coming to twist the valve, but he can't touch the valve himself. That's what the presidential veto is. Unfortunately, the spigot is already off, and Biden can't twist it back on when Congress isn't already reaching to do so.

Is this bad? Yes! UNRWA's funding should never have been cut! We should still be very, very upset about this! But I need you to understand that the way the US government works is not a dictatorship. Biden cannot just overrule Congress, especially when we're on the verge of another shutdown.

I do not think it is fair or even really acceptable that UNRWA's funding was viewed as an appropriate point of compromise. I'm just, unfortunately, also aware that this particular legislation is a tug-of-war that was never going to end with funding going to Palestine, not with the current Republican control of the House.

"But Biden sent money to Israel a bunch of times--" Yeah, and he's paying for it in the polls. He's aware that people are pissed at him. That choice is already biting him in the ass.

Biden is not perfect and I am never going to claim he is, but please recognize that the UNRWA funding pull is not a current action. It is a past action that is now being sustained because the House is red. You want to bring back UNRWA funding? Get rid of Marjorie Taylor Green and her entire cohort.

The other reason I'm less than eager to view that UNRWA thing as Biden being pro-Israel is because the US has finally abstained on a UN vote instead of vetoing.

When the US has been the only voice on Israel's side in the Security Council this whole time, abstention is functionally voting against them. We already knew that 13-14 of the other 14 members were going to vote pro-ceasefire. They have been this entire time. The US abstaining is functionally agreeing.

Why did the US not just vote for the ceasefire, then? No idea. Might be a treaty thing. I don't really need to know, because the result is that the UN Security Council has finally passed a measure against Israel, and those things are legally binding, and we know it's a big step because Israel's government is not happy.

When paired with the Schumer speech from a week and a half ago, it indicates a major shift in US foreign policy.

From the Al Jazeera article:

The US had repeatedly blocked Security Council resolutions that put pressure on Israel but has increasingly shown frustration with its ally as civilian casualties mount and the UN warns of impending famine in Gaza. Speaking after the vote, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield blamed Hamas for the delay in passing a ceasefire resolution. “We did not agree with everything with the resolution,” which she said was the reason why the US abstained. “Certain key edits were ignored, including our request to add a condemnation of Hamas,” Thomas-Greenfield said. [...] The White House said the final resolution did not have language the US considers essential and its abstention does not represent a shift in policy. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the US failure to veto the resolution is a “clear retreat” from its previous position and would hurt war efforts against Hamas as well as efforts to release Israeli captives held in Gaza.

This action has also resulted in Israel pulling plans for "a high-level delegation" to visit the US for discussions on the invasion of Rafah (which Biden has purportedly been warning against for a while).

“We’re very disappointed that they won’t be coming to Washington, DC, to allow us to have a fulsome conversation with them about viable alternatives to them going in on the ground in Rafah,” [John] Kirby told reporters. [...] Last week, Netanyahu promised to defy US appeals and expand Israel’s military campaign to Rafah even without its ally’s support.

There are other complications and details here, such as that the resolution does not call for a permanent ceasefire, and that US tensions with Russia and China are still somehow playing a role in the negotiations over the ceasefire text, but ultimately...

The US abstaining is a good thing. Schumer's speech is a good thing. They are not enough, but they are good things. They are steps forward.

The pull of funding from UNRWA is not a good thing. It is, in fact, a very, very bad thing. It just also looks a lot like it was unavoidable.

So call your reps, and vote come November. It's a long slog and we all know it, but we can't make change without dedication.

To support my blogging so I can move out of my parents’ house, I do have a ko-fi. Alternately, you can donate to one of the charities I list in this post.

#united states #israel #gaza #palestine #call your reps #voting #un security council #united nations #joe biden #congress #chuck schumer #unrwa #current events #phoenix politics #politics

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headspace-hotel · 1 year

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so, in regards to your recent posts on kane-tucky and usa food industry, do you / how do you keep active hope and not slip in into apathy and "looking out for my own" get out of dodge mentality? im having a hard time articulating this, but what makes you not curl up into a shaking mess in anger resentment and a deep desire for change that likely, if ever, wont happen in our lifetime.... any advice is appreciated

The short answer is "getting out and doing stuff in the real world, educating, volunteering, whatever is within your ability"

I will add that "looking out for your own" is not...bad. Like I don't know precisely what you mean by this phrase, but it's actually very important to come to terms with the fact that your impact is strongest where your feet touch the ground, and you have a responsibility and relationship to the people immediately around you, the place immediately around you.

This has not been a popular opinion of mine in the past, but...you can't and shouldn't care about literally everything on the planet. There is of course huge global disparity with access to resources and aid networks, and the largest communities we belong to are: all of Earth and the whole human species.

However: your level of agency is so low with issues that are happening on the other side of the world from you, compared with issues that are happening in your home town. And we're seeing people just get completely burned out from compassion fatigue without ever doing shit because the global responsibility is pushed on us and the local responsibility is not.

I hated my hometown for a decade. In high school I wanted so badly to leave. It's one of those desolate-feeling towns that's developed enough for a shopping center and big chain retailers but not enough to have a sense of community or a single bookstore. I've never been able to place myself precisely along the urban-rural spectrum because I feel isolated from even isolation: there's nowhere to go that doesn't feel razed by human development, where you can't hear the noise of traffic on roads, but it's all cattle pastures, sprawling storage facilities, auto parts stores, big, empty churches. One wrong turn will put you in a dark valley where there are rotting, derelict trailers on cinder blocks hidden back in the woods, and this place has that same feeling of "nowhere to go."

And I felt paralyzed by everything bad happening around the world and the fact that I was just one person, and I had gotten the horrible impression that the only thing I could do about anything was vote and donate money to links I saw online. The worst lie the internet taught me was that in saving the world, nothing matters except Power, Money, and an unclear third category that involves throwing bricks at cops.

But I touched grass. And the weeds taught me something. Do you see the parking lots, the harsh pavement and gravel and brick? I saw. I was surrounded by this landscape of brutal, totalitarian surfaces, impermeable concrete locking the soil away. But in the cracks in the surfaces, dandelions, purslane, and spurge were thriving.

I observed that the spurge stretched out like a shaggy rug and padded the concrete surfaces. The old leaves of the dandelions, as they withered, caught bits of dirt as it flowed into drainage ditches after rains. Soil was forming, and the sprawling structure of the early weeds seemed specially adapted for the task. In older cracks, more plants moved in; I found a wild ruellia blooming in a paved road, an evening primrose. And in some places, seedling trees.

Have you seen what happens when a sidewalk is left unmaintained for years? It disappears. The roots slowly buckle and break it into pieces, and it vanishes beneath lush leaves and moss. A tree growing in a crack in concrete will slowly pry the slab apart.

This is how my IRL rewilding project got started—just pulling plants from the pavement cracks, raising them in pots. I was surprised and awed at the resilience of the plants. I found little trees in concrete with at least two years' growth on them, that had survived being mowed down multiple times.

The weeds changed my viewpoint on the world forever. Up until that point, certain facts about power and politics and money had seemed like law, but I'd suddenly seen that there was a deeper magic.

The dandelions' survival made it possible for others to survive, which in turn made even more life flourish. They could not demolish and remove the concrete and pavement, but they could overcome it by refusing to be destroyed, because the power to take care of each other is in their nature.

People have made fun of me for telling others to go plant a tree. I think culturally we have this ingrained dismissal of things like that due to the twee, cutesy associations of "tree hugging" environmentalists, except in this instance it's because planting a tree is pointless in light of something something systemic issues, not because climate change isn't real, or...whatever reason people have for finding environmentalists cringe. (That is kinda sus now that I think about it.)

And I'm not saying planting a tree will fix climate change. I'm saying that something in my brain had broken and planting a tree unbroke it.

Go outside. Touch grass. Do the work in the immediate community you belong to, in the place you are in, where you have the best and most impact. We have the power to take care of each other, and that power grows stronger the more we are cared for.

The internet is a good place to share information, but that's fucking it. The real stuff, the stuff you can touch with your hands, the stuff that will heal despair, is out there in the real, touchable world. You need to see and feel what you are doing. Don't just give help—accept it. The power to take care of each other is in our nature, and by nature we can give more when we thrive as a result of others' care.

I hope this helps.

#plants #gardening #dandelions #rewilding #plantarchy

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heyidkyay · 6 months

Text

And I'm petrified of being alone, now |

Part One

Matty Healy x reader

Summary: She’s just trying to get by, really. What with being a single parent to her four year old son whilst simultaneously trying to kick start a successful career as a radio presenter. She’s got everything she’s ever wanted though, friends close by, a mum who’s merely a phone call away, and of course her baby boy. What else is there to wish for? But then, it’s not long before her relatively normal life gets upended and turned on its head, and she’s suddenly forced to deal with situations she’s never even thought to imagine.

What happens when one mention of a certain controversial singer on her show sends a flood of unexpected challenges her way?

Warnings: This is gonna deal with a lot of controversial shit surrounding Matty and his past I'm ngl, so if you're not into that then I'd suggest not reading this! But if you are, then hi!! I hope you enjoy?

Authors Note: I'm back...:)) Back with a series too, or it will be if this first part goes down well! Lmao so pls don't hate it! Butttt in all honestly, I do have to quickly thank @procrastinatinglikeapro for all the kind words she gave me on the snippets I annoyed her with recently and for forcing me to actually believe in this fic because I very much was on the fence about posting again. So thank youuuu, it means a whole lot<3 Also, the skeleton of this was taken from a very old fic of mine which I started during the height of covid that I've just been thinking about trying to better for a long while now, so... enjoy?

And I guess let me know if this is something anyone would want to read more of? Yeeeeah, I really don't know what else to write here now, it's been a while, so! Hi, help, bye:)

Masterlist

“Yeah, yeah! I’m really into their sound at the minute! Honestly fell in love with their recent performance at the VMA’s- didn’t overdo it and kept true to themselves. Definitely did a great job there, so well done with that one if you’re listening in, lads!”

I was grinning from ear to ear as I spoke into the microphone before me, which was to be expected whenever I was at work. Strange, yeah I know, but only to any typical person with the usual nine to five, because I truly did love my job. It was tough work, strenuous at times, contrary to what most might believe, but it was pretty much everything I’d ever dreamt of.

See, I’d grown up on the outskirts of this tiny village in the Isles, where everybody knew everything about everybody. Secrets were never well kept- you could just ask our local priest about that one, who had often used to regale most of the confessions he’d heard in the only pub around for miles whenever he was pissed beyond being able to sit on his barstool. And it was also incredibly tight-knit, as in, all the kids who went to school together, then grew up and married one another, settling down and taking over the jobs that their parents or grandparents soon retired from. Hardly anyone moved away, if ever.

In reality though, it was actually just a place I’d always felt like a stranger in. Where I’d struggled to fit in and make friends, to form bonds outside of the one I shared with my mum.

I’d had a tough go of it back in school actually. ‘Mouse’ was what they’d seemingly dubbed me back then, a nickname which had travelled the masses all too quickly seeing as there had only been about sixteen kids in both my year and the one above.

It had mostly been due to me just having been an extremely timid child, hiding behind my mum’s flowing skirts whenever we went into town and much preferring that of my own company. But that fact hadn’t gotten any easier for me once I’d been forced out of school for a few years after an accident that had flipped my entire life on its head. Resulting in me being further isolated from the rest of the world and my fuck-face of a father running for the hills.

Still. Shit happened, I supposed, and I’d been forced to grow up.

Too quickly, in truth.

So whilst everyone else had been out living, I’d been holed up in our little dove cottage miles away from them all, with only books and music to keep me company. Music which had been a true constant in my life and just about the only thing that had gotten me by.

As well as my mum, who’d forever be my rock. And back when we’d both been growing up, she had always had the tele on full blast throughout the day, cycling through the freeview channels that played the recent top 50 and old school classics.

It was one of my favourite things to look back on now, if she was ever in the mood, or when the power would finally flicker and go out completely, she’d spin this old phonograph her own father had gifted her in the days before she’d left home. The two of us would dance around the living room whilst she’d clean on Saturday mornings and then hum to it as we settled in for a long storm, her working on her trusty crossword whilst I would read or draw. It would croon out old French records she had bought long before she’d moved to the UK, and before she’d ever even met my dad.

And I would just lose myself in it all.

It wasn’t just the basic premise of music that I had enjoyed though, it was everything else that also came along with it. The opinions, the reviews, the personal stories and thoughts, the way it made a person feel.

So, for years I would just sit down at the kitchen table and write for hours on end about the sound, the rhythms I’d felt and heard, the lyrics that had had me bellowing out or playing on a never-ending loop in my head. And then, as a teen, Twitter had come along and had been just another way for me to express it all.

That was what had led to all this actually. The radio.

At first, I’d never paid much mind to all of the people who had started to discover the small page I’d created, the users that had enjoyed reading my inner thoughts. But then I had and it had been an insane concept to comprehend, but was also what had, ultimately, pushed me into continuing with it.

From there, opinions on genres of music and their style throughout different decades turned into thoughts on up and coming artists, then actors and other A-list celebrities. So, I’d ended up spending an awful lot of time online, simply just tweeting about it all, on subjects followers had wanted to hear about and answering questions on whether I loved a certain album or new EP.

The account had grown rapidly after and by the time I’d had the balls to tell my mum I’d wanted to leave home and make a start for myself, in London of all places, it had gained well over fifteen thousand followers.

I went to uni down there and met people. People who didn’t shy away from me or shine a light on my odd quirks. I met my best mate there, too. And Finn was unlike any other. The platonic love of my life, or so I’d dubbed. He was eccentric, witty, and didn’t care about what anyone else thought of him. Forced me to feel that way too, slowly but surely. And it had only taken a few weeks before he'd grown rather suspicious of my constant need to always have my phone near.

He had, pretty early on, decided that I must’ve had some secret boyfriend back at home that I’d yet to tell him about and had annoyed me about it at every twist and turn, basically backed me into a metaphorical corner. So to say I’d relented fairly quickly wouldn’t be a lie, and I’d told him all about the account soon enough.

Finn had actually been the one to suggest that I take it somewhere bigger, make it into something people could tune into and not just read about. I had actually taken that consideration on board way back then, but had only acted on it when shit had hit the fan a year or so later. But we'll get to that.

So with it all, I’d made an actual radio show out of my thoughtless Twitter account, allowing people to listen in and actually get to know the person behind the name.

That was essentially how ‘Mouse On A Mic' had come to life.

Yup, I’d kept the fucking nickname! I couldn’t not in truth, it was familiar, reminded me of the person I once was, and who I am now. But the only difference was, I’d given it a new story. I’d claimed it.

The show's audience grew fairly quickly during that first year, I was new on the scene and seemingly refreshing. I had a no-bullshit kind of attitude that my listeners admired. I called celebs out on their crap and went to new extremes to conjure up inventive ways to get followers involved.

Ultimately doing things that other radio presenters were afraid to do at the time. Which was fair enough, in hindsight, they had actual endorsers and brands that were backing them up and funding their streams. Me, on the other hand, had no-one to answer to for my mistakes or any backlash the show received. It was just me, sat alone in my bedroom, speaking into a mic.

Only now, it was me sitting in a quaint little studio in East, not too far from my flat and walking distance from any and every coffee chain London had to offer.

Anyway, back to the current show! I adjusted my headset over my ear as I wheeled closer to the table, aware of the many monitors and cables I was constantly trying to avoid and glanced upwards, locking eyes with my co-producer, Adi.

The girl shot me a hurried gesture, a circular wave of her hand that had me chuckling to myself even as I waved her off, knowing I’d already gotten off track one too many times this recording.

"Alright! It seems as though we've got to move on with the next segment of the show now! Unfortunately, Ads here has informed me that I can't just sit around all day and talk about Inhaler forever. A right shame that, don’t you think?”

I huffed theatrically, whilst Adi merely shook her head at me in return, dark ringlets brushing the length of her shoulders as she mouthed the word 'prick' through the thick sheet of plexiglass that separated us.

Ignoring that loving endearment in favour of continuing on with the commentary, I hoped I hadn’t steered too far off track, there was still a lot scheduled for today's show that I had yet to go over.

“So moving on!” I sighed into the mic and rubbed my palms together, “It seems like quite a few of you lot, on Twitter especially, have made it loudly known that you want to hear my thoughts on Manchester’s very own Matthew Healy. God, is there yet another scandal under his belt I don’t yet know about, where’s he finding the time?”

I shook my head briefly and rolled forward in my seat. The wheels squeaked beneath my weight and I made a silent prayer that the mics hadn’t picked up the sound.

What a fucking topic, I thought quietly to myself and sent Adi a semi-amused smile before I peered down at the recent headline she had handed over to me earlier that morning.

It was the same old thing. Expected really at this point.

“Healy’s at it again! Whatever will we do?” I gasped, dramatising the whole thing as I stared down at the images of the haughty singer that were plastered across the printout I held in front of me.

There were four of them, a quick succession that had all seemingly come from a clip at a recent concert. Bit blurry but the title gave away to what was happening.

A laugh bubbled up out of me as soon as I read the headline. “Oh god, it appears Matty Healy is- just wait for it!- back at it again, only this time it seems he’s gone and traded off a drumstick for…” I paused to drum quite the anticipating beat against the tabletop, and as stoic as I could, I then added, “A joint!” And a smug grin made its way up onto my lips when I heard Adi’s faint cackle echo from just outside the booth.

“Honestly, I swear that everything this man does makes the rags! Reckon I saw an article about how he took his tea one time. And like, do me a favour, yeah? A man of the people though, in’t he? He’s got to be! I mean, just look at this headline. Fucking who the hell writes this shit?”

Tossers, I supposed. But even so.

“It’s madness.” I muttered, clucking my tongue, “But anyway, I’m guessing that most people claim him to be the epitome of a realtime rockstar, and sure, he might just be. 'Sex, drugs, rock & roll', all that shit. But how much longer is it going to last until everything goes tits up, hey?

“I mean, Healy can pretty much do whatever he wants at this point, he’s got half the world either falling at his feet or complaining about him- has done since he was what, a kid? Following his parents among the shadows of their fame before he stepped out and made an actual name for himself. It is insane to see how much he’s changed though!”

And it was. He and his band had risen to fame so evidently, their music was everywhere, they sold out shows constantly, and had the privilege to fly across the globe doing whatever they pleased. But they’d also practically grown up in the limelight, Matty especially. So it was hard not to notice the resounding changes.

“But, if I am being truthful. And when am I not? I thought that most of the shit that went around about him at first was a load of crap- publicity of sorts, if you get where I'm going with that. Or just him being an idiot, a lad who’s had to grow up with all these cameras on him all the time and had to basically learn what he can and can’t say in front of them. Slipping up from time to time, like most do. But, now? I’m honestly not too sure… It’s just a bit sad. In’t it? There was so much potential there.”

I shrugged, a hearty sigh falling with my shoulders.

“I actually used to quite like his stuff a couple years ago, he’s got a way with words, with just music overall really. Reckon if he’d gotten his shit together he could’ve been ranked higher up on the list of rockstars. Could’ve changed or paved a way for newer musicians. But not so much anymore. His songs lack the passion they once had, they’re not what they used to be. He works hard, I’ll give him that. But, I can’t help but wonder if it’s just his band pulling his dead weight along with them now.”

I took a slow breath, then gazed down at the small amount of sticky notes I had pinned to the monitor beside me: the next segment. I’d have to wrap this one up quickly.

“Maybe that’s a bit harsh.” I said, “But honestly, I just hope he takes an actual break sooner rather than later. The band looks spent and he just seems like he could do with some time away from all the cameras and prying eyes. Just so he can sort himself out good and proper, you know? Then again, that’s just my opinion among a sea of many.”

Truthfully? I really did think that Matty had talent, and he seemed like a sound enough guy- or at least he had done, a couple of years back, before all the controversy and whatever else. Now though, the guy just seemed so caught up in it all, in the fame, the tabloids, the drama. Unaware of just how far he’d fallen.

Me, I’d seen it one too many times before, with many of the greats even, and as painful as it was to watch, what more could I do, or say? I'm a nobody in comparison.

I blew out a short breath.

“Fuck, that got all serious didn’t it?” I tried to laugh off and only felt a little more at ease when I glanced up and caught Adi’s sincere smile, “Anyway, onto our next segment, reading a couple of your lots tweets! Let's see what everyone's saying about our amazing Adi today, hey? What was it last week, Ads- those yellow trousers you were wearing?”

“Oi, will you two stop mucking about, please? We’ve got to get going!” I scolded without any real heat, shaking my head as I held back chuckles, always amused by the infamous pair.

I’d not long left the studio, having walked with Adi to the nearby train station before heading over to Finn’s, and was currently packing away the belongings that had been messily upended from the Spiderman backpack I was often seen carrying about.

My gaze wandered over to the other side of the room once I’d teethed together the bag’s plastic zipper, over to where my son, Teddy, was currently in the midst of being whirled around by his godfather, tawny coloured curls flying in every-which direction as his cheeky grin grew even more prominent.

I felt the corners of my mouth tug upwards as I watched my best mate laugh at whatever the toddler had just said, tickling the boy’s sides too. If I was feeling incredibly sappy, I’d tell Finn then just how thankful I was to have him around, because he truly was incredible.

From the moment I’d found out that I was pregnant, Finn had been there for me. He loved my son almost as though Teddy was his own, he adored the kid like no other and had placed him on a pedestal above everyone else since the day he was born.

Finn was always free to take teddy whenever I had the show to fret about too, or if I was ever in dire need of another helping hand. He was fiercely protective of the two of us and I knew in the very depths of my heart that there would never be a hair harmed on my son’s head as long as he was around.

I was pulled from my thoughts just as the toddler in question came bounding over, giggling uncontrollably as Finn chased after him, his arms stretched out wide and crouched down to mimic the small boy's height. I couldn't help but notice the matching grins they both wore.

“Help!” Teddy squealed as he flung himself into my awaiting arms, allowing me to wrap him up and settle him safely on my hip, using my frame as a shield to block him from Finn’s view.

"You can't hide from me Teds, I’ll always find you!" Finn taunted playfully, laughing merrily as he wiggled his fingers at Teddy, who was only just peeking out at him from over my shoulder.

Teddy squirmed in my grasp, giggling and screaming senselessly as he tried to dodge Finn’s oncoming hands that had since managed to softly graze his sides. I could only roll his eyes in fond exasperation, the pair never failing to brighten my day, and I couldn't help but feel ever so grateful for whatever being had brought Finn into both mine and Teddy’s lives.

You see, Finn was the closest thing I’d ever had to a brother, let alone a best friend. He’d been the family I’d never known I’d needed, a home away from home. And I knew that I could always count on him for just about anything and he had proved that the day I’d turned up on his doorstep in the pissing rain one Tuesday night, utterly terrified after having just found out that I was pregnant.

“Alright, you lot!” I began, batting away one of Finn’s oncoming hands as he made to grab at Teddy's tiny ankle. “We've got to get home in time for your bath and tea, and I think Finn here has to pick up Liv from work.”

I was directing my voice towards the toddler in my arms but also sent a knowing look Finn’s way, one which caused the man’s eyes to widen in immediate realisation. ‘Liv’ was actually Olivia, Finn’s newest fling, only she had managed to last quite a while longer than the rest, a new record for him really.

“Shit, yeah.” Finn muttered before he hurried over to his desk in the far corner. I could only chuckle quietly, Teddy joining in too when he noticed, and watch on as he hastily started to grab at an array of items, shoving them into his jean pockets. Phone. Wallet. Keys.

When he was finished, Finn spun back around towards us and shot an accusing brow our way, not too pleased about having been the source of our amassment. Teddy and I couldn't help ourselves then and laughed a little harder at his impervious expression.

With that done and over with, I pressed my nose against the side of Teddy's head and smiled contently into his curls whilst Finn merely rolled his eyes at us, chuckling before he made a start for the door. I followed just behind, Teddy's backpack slung low over my shoulder and a happy little boy nestled in my arms.

***

People lover @/user1 Imagine being a mediocre radio host and thinking you know the ins and outs of the music industry.. #CancelMouse 102 @/user2 Don't mind me, reckon I just found my new favourite radio show:) Ugh! @/user3 Mouse sounded proper excited today but switched up so quick when that 75 bloke came up:// Soloveme @/user4 Hate to see people supporting toxic behaviour, sit down. Milk @/user5 Don’t hate me, I'll forever be a matty girlie!! But @Mouseonamic I kinda agree?? Paris @/user6 Do you think he’s seen it yet? > Too_shy @/user7 Probably, it’s trending rn >> Drummepls @/user8 Hope he’s okay and doesn’t take it as a personal attack..

He should’ve known really.

He should’ve fucking known.

Even in his drunken state he should have known not to look at what they were fucking saying about him. Slumped on the floor of his hotel room, propped up against the bathroom door, too exhausted to think about moving, let alone try.

He’d only heard a snippet, caught the last of it in the cab ride back from the club the band had found themselves in. But he had heard it, and he’d listened.

"He's got the whole world falling at his feet." He fucking wished. "Changed." Too right. "A load of crap- publicity of sorts, if you get where I'm going with that- but now I'm not too sure." Laughable, man. "It's just a bit sad." The story of his fucking life. "Potential." When’s he never not disappointing someone? "Lacks passion." Passion lies in living, mate, and he hasn't felt alive in a very long time.

"Not what it used to be." Who he used to be.

He lit another cigarette from a crumpled pack he’d pulled from his back pocket. Watched on as a curl of smoke unfurled in the air. He only wished he’d brought something upstairs with him, or grabbed one of the little bottles from the minibar before deciding he’d needed a piss. But if he closed his eyes hard enough he could imagine it all going dark, the world fading around him.

Though, even then he still couldn’t quite muffle the loud, pitying laugh that escaped him as he continued to scroll through the mass of tweets that never faltered. They were like a freight train, unable to stop.

Matty wiped his nose on his sleeve.

Never had he ever felt so fucking lost. Desperate for everything to just pause for a second. To stop and leave him alone for a bit. The world to let him wallow in the dark, dank pit he's hollowed out for himself.

But what a fucking life, hey.

Carelessly, he thumbed across the dimming screen, his intoxicated mind too focused on the task at hand to remember why exactly it was he was even sitting there on the cold bathroom floor. Something to do with Hann, he supposed, or George. Perhaps another heated encounter? Probably.

The sound of his phone's keyboard echoed off the surrounding walls and Matty breathed out a self-depreciating chuckle when he clicked send on the tweet he’d curated, not caring enough for the consequences. Hardly even thinking, in truth. He was far too gone to care anymore, already knew firsthand what the consequences would be tomorrow. But at that moment, he just wanted honesty. To tell the truth, for once. To let them all know that he knew he was a shit excuse for a person.

What more could the world possibly say anyway?

Everyone around him was the same. He was simply just a puppet on a string. They’d make him sing and dance until the day he finally wrapped those wired strings tightly around his neck, and then all they'd be able to do is sit back and watch the show. And he'd enjoy every unabating second of it.

Matty @/trumanblack 10s ago Radio shows are sick man, gotta love them! And I sort of am sad haha. And I do lie, we all lie, I spose. But just listen to the radio, kids!

He laughed silently after, amused with himself, and tossed the phone off somewhere off to the side so he wouldn’t have to look at it again.

Bullshit. It was all just fucking bullshit.

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fernsnailz · 1 month

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hello! i was wondering how long you've been animating for? and what got you into storyboarding & comic making? do you have any tips for comic making (paneling) & animating?

i've been animating since i was a teenager but i didn't start animating consistently until college, so a little over 5 years! but i've been making comics since i was little, so animating and storyboarding just kinda came naturally from that.

my general advice for comics is that it's all about flow and timing! flow is about determining the right pacing for your scene as well as making it readable. usually the panels flow from one into the other - like in the example below (by tracy yardley who is REALLY good at this stuff), the motion of the characters leads into the next panel, and the speech bubbles also line up with where the action of the panel naturally leads.

obligatory archie sonic mention complete

timing is just as important and can be conveyed in a number of different ways in comics. usually with my work, the size of the panel indicates how long i imagine the moment is. so a small panel is a short moment, and a large panel requires a bit more time.

long moments can also be split into multiple shorter moments if you break it up into numerous panels.

paneling itself can be pretty tricky - i tend to break a lot of my pages up into thirds first (at whatever proportion you need), then arrange whatever panels i need within those thirds.

these aren't really rules that are set in stone, just a few things that i've found have helped me. you don't need to fill a whole page with tons of Stuff for a comic - it's all about figuring out how you want your story to flow through the page's space. same with storyboarding, that flow and timing is important in an even more literal sense because storyboards flows through actual time, not just space on a page.

idk if any of this makes much sense so. i also highly highly recommend the Comics Devices Library for other elements and principles you can use lol it's very good 👍

i don't have as many tips for animating since 1) i consider myself to be a comic/storyboard artist first and an animator second, and 2) animating is. very complex lol. if you're new to animating then i suggest starting SMALL and trying out some beginner animation exercises and the 12 Principles of Animation.

if you're already an animator and just looking for general advice then uhh. idk arcs are important. arcs are SO fucking important do not forget that most motions move in some sort of arc. also remember to label your keyframes and looping animations. and put secondary actions and limbs on different layers if you don't want to go crazy. also animate your character's eyes and pupils moving if a shot feels too still. yeah that's all i got good night tristate area

#i hope any of this makes any sort of sense lmao #fernasks #long post

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intimidating-fettuccine · 6 months

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Ong I've had this on the backburner waiting for your reqs to open. Jeff and Liu finding out that their younger sibling, who has been looking for them and ran into trouble along the way, is the newest resident creep?

Both of them are SHOOK. I think both brothers probably would have assumed/hoped that you were able to live a normal human life after everything that happened. To say that the two of them aren't shocked would be an understatement, but you just seem so happy to have found them that they're both immediately pulling you into a big hug the second they see you. It's like a rush of calm flows over them both knowing that you're safe, and it really does make them so happy. Although, when they hear about any trouble or issues you were having on your search for them, they're also going to coddle the fuck out of you and make sure you're okay and that nothing extremely bad happened to you. Also, if they need to kick someone's ass for hurting you, they absolutely will.

The three of you have a lot of catching up to do, especially considering Liu is now a half-zombie, which he doesn't know how to explain to you at all, and the fact that they work for one of the most powerful beings in the Underworld. Speaking of, the moment they find out you're actually working for Slender now, they FREAK. They do NOT want their younger sibling doing what they do for work, they do not want you in that kind of danger. I mean Liu probably doesn't even want Jeff working for Slender and in that kind of danger but Jeff could absolutely destroy Liu in a fight if he wanted to, so he keeps his opinions to himself. But not you! They immediately go to Slender, trying to talk him out of letting you work there in fear of your safety, but Slender reassures them that you'll just be doing work around the house as cleaning staff and handling shopping for everyone, so technically you won't be in much danger. When you walk up behind them, explaining to them that you were about to tell them that before they stormed off, they both sort of deflate and pout about it because they were just worried about you.

Having all three of you under one roof becomes interesting though. Jane I think would be happy to have you around (considering her grudge only applies to Jeff, and she probably doted on you a lot when you were younger), and you fit right in with creeps like Toby and BEN. It makes Jeff and Liu happy to know that you're fitting in safe and sound in the mansion, although they also make it known that if anyone picks a fight with you or is rude to you in any way Jeff and Liu WILL kick their asses for it, and everyone has seen Jeff when he's angry by that point, so needless to say you're treated quite well. They do worry a lot about your experiences trying to find them, and all of the trauma you also had to endure growing up in their household, so they tend to fret over you a lot to make sure that you're okay and you're not hiding anything from them. I think they're both very protective older brothers, so I think you'd be safe and sound with them. Although, you will have to put up with a GIANT lecture from Liu about how dangerous it was and what an awful idea it was for you to come looking for them alone (a lecture that he probably gives you multiple times), and Jeff is going to be teasing and pestering you a whole bunch to make up for all of the time that he lost, so be prepared to handle both of those things. All in all, though, they're extremely happy to have their family back together and safe.

#creepypasta #creepypasta headcanons #creepypasta headcanon #creepypasta x reader #homicidal liu #homicidal liu x reader #homicidal liu headcanon #homicidal liu headcanons #jeff the killer #jeff the killer headcanon #jeff the killer headcanons #jeff the killer x reader

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sokkastyles · 1 month

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I read that post you reblogged about Katara using bloodbending to heal Zuko during the final Agni Kai, and honestly I would have loved it if that happened too. I've mentioned before in a previous ask that I wish bloodbending had been explored more in the narrative, especially Katara's complicated feelings about bloodbending. This is going to sound a bit morbid, but I'm kind of wondering if, after the encounter with Hama, do you think Katara would be kind of hyperaware of the water flowing throughout her own body or anyone else's? Would she feel tempted to try bloodbending again? Even though the first time she had to do so was to prevent Aang and Sokka from hurting each other, so she bloodbent Hama, and she found the whole thing disturbing, there's a part of me that wonders if Katara would still have a bit of morbid curiosity about bloodbending anyways. I know this sounds like I want Katara's character to be a bit darker, but what I really want is for Katara to be allowed to have these thoughts or this type of curiosity without her being made to feel like she's a bad person for it. Idk if any of this made that much sense, but I'm curious to know, what are your thoughts?

Katara unconsciously being hyper aware of the water around her and in other people's bodies after Hama is something that has made itself into my fics. Because bending is depicted in atla as part of who the person is, and I think keeping a bender from bending is like keeping someone from being allowed to move their arms and legs.

And once Katara knows this ability exists, not just bloodbending but everything Hama taught her that goes with it, like how to find the water in everything, she will find it impossible to not have this completely alter her bending and how she sees the world.

And, like with firebending, it's not the bending itself that is bad, it's what you do with it.

I love zutara fics that include bloodbending, not just the dark ones, but something I've explored a little in my fics is how it makes her more aware of Zuko's body and heightens her physical connection with him.

Bloodbending can work as a metaphor for consent, because it's not that it's inherently evil to have that kind of knowledge of another person's body, but it's about consent and trust. I see no reason why bloodbending can't be used to heal the same way that medical knowledge can be used both to heal or to kill and torture. (I'm thinking of that particular analogy because I'm reading Gene Wolfe's Shadow of the Torturer currently).

Like, I get that the show writers were trying to add complexity by showing the dark side of waterbending with Hama, but the thing is that while waterbending was always portrayed as good before, it was also portrayed in a very limited way. Katara is the last waterbender of her tribe, who had to learn on her own. "Some waterbending is bad, actually," isn't really a lesson she needed to learn, especially not from the only teacher she's ever had who can actually tell her about her own heritage. The unintended message is that Katara exploring a culture heritage that has been denied to her through war is bad, and it actually ends up limiting things instead of making them more complex. It's also another weird way the show dichotomizes combat waterbending and healing. Despite Katara gaining Pakku's respect, she is still getting the message from things like the Hama episode that using her bending for combat and not healing is wrong. The obvious solution is to make waterbending healing a form of bloodbending, and now that Netflix has made healing an actual learned bending form instead of something Katara is naturally good at, I have hope that this connection might actually be made. And this is a win win, because making healing a form of bloodbending actually achieves the complexity the original show was going for.

#katara #bloodbending #zutara

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soracities · 8 months

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HOW do you read so much ?? i'm genuinely curious teach me ur ways </3

anon i promise the most recent book i read took me 6 months to finish and the one before that was another 6 months despite being less than half the length--i have a lot of disparate readings that i post from but they don't all occur over the same period of time in the least.

and in all honestly reading, for me, is not about how "much" i read anymore but on whether or not i'm enjoying what i am reading and if i'm being true to my own pace, impulses, and interests as i do so: measuring books in terms of a checklist or reading for the sake of appearing "well-read" or because you think you have to speedrun your way through 6 hardbacks a month to qualify as a true Reader™ (which is an utterly ridiculous title because It Does Not Exist) will only put a great deal of pressure on yourself and in the process actually rid you of the joy of reading in the first place (i say this because i've been there, many many moons ago).

if you want to establish reading as a habit for yourself, the best thing i can advise you is to first of all: go at your pace--don't throw yourself into books you feel obliged to read but find ones that give you the most joy to begin with. how easy it will be to establish a reading routine will depend on a number of things--what you are used to reading and how you are used to reading things (and this in turn can also be affected by things like social media and how much time you spend there) and also what your own schedule and time constraints look like. i think the easiest way to start is to just set yourself a limit of 5 minutes: for 5 minutes straight you read, and then when those 5 minutes are up, you go for another 5. once those 5 minutes are up you go for another 5 again. it's a very manageable low-pressure way to begin and in the vast majority of cases you don't even realise when your 5 minutes are up once you get into the flow of this.

you can also pick a workable number and incorporate that into your day-to-day life: if you take a number like 20, for example, you can then decide to either read for 20 minutes or read 20 pages before bed. alternatively, have a no social media day and in the open space that gives you allow yourself an hour or 30 minutes (or whatever works for you) with whatever book of your choice (you can also use an app like Forest to stop you getting distracted by your phone). at the end of the day i think the main thing in building a reading habit is that you center your own pleasure and also, once you find a routine that works for you, to stick with it--i think social media is disastrous for attention spans on the whole unless you're very careful and intentional about what you do with it and how you use it, and it can be very difficult sometimes to adjust to the quietening that reading forces on you in comparison to scrolling through tiktok or ig.

in any case though, i hope some of this has helped you anon, even if only a little x

#ask #anonymous #book talks

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romanoffs-widow · 8 months

Text

Sorry for everything

Sum: Nat takes out her anger on you after a stressful couple of weeks.

Warnings ⚠️ : Shouting, arguing, and split up?

A/N: Thank you very much to @bobisek96 for requesting this fic, I hope it's okay 😭 and tysm to everyone for all the love on my (not actually first) first fic! I appreciate you all sm ❤️

(I promise there is eventual fluff 😅)

Happy reading! 😊

NATASHA POV:

Everyone thinks being an Avenger is so easy. All you gotta do is a couple of fights and interviews, and that's it, right? Wrong. These last couple of weeks have had me exhausted and honestly drained.

Steve and Tony keep arguing about useless crap, Lena accidentally stained the couch with red wine and didn't even tell me, so I sat in it and stained my favourite sweatpants and I've had to do 6 different interviews because Tony had a cold and couldn't do them, and on top of all that, Morgan has clung to me like a magnet since her dad has been sick. I love kids, and I really do, but not when I'm exhausted and keep having nightmares, leaving me sleepless almost every other night.

"Hey Natty," she says with that smile I love so much. I don't know what it is, but even y/n/n can't cheer me up today. Too tired to respond, I just give her a nod. Hopefully, she can see I don't want to talk right now.

I went to change into comfier clothes. I feel a pair of hands wrap around my waist. I shrug her off, getting annoyed. "Are you okay, baby?" I roll my eyes as I put my top over my head. "I'm fine." Maybe now she'll get it? "You know if you don't want to talk to me, just say." She says it with a tone that tips me ove rather edge.

"You know what? Maybe I don't want to talk to you. Maybe all I want to do is lay down in our bed and try my very best to relax! I have had such a hard couple weeks, and all you do is bug me because you're a pathetic childish wench that wants my attention all the time! If you knew what I go through every single day as an Avenger, maybe you'd at least try to understand how hard my job is! So please just shut your whiny mouth up and get out. I don't want to see your face EVER AGAIN!"

Y/N POV:

My vision is beyond blurry as I feel the endless stream of tears rolling down my cheeks. My hands are shaking, and anxiety is sitting heavy on top of my chest. "Alright. O-okay." I get up, and without saying anymore, I grab my backpack and start shoving a bunch of clothing into it. I go into the bathroom and grab my toothbrush, as well as the other necessities that belonged to me.

With my bag and arms full with items, I give the redhead one last look. Her face is still red from all the shouting she did as she stared at the floor, in the same spot she'd been in for a couple of minutes. I give her a small nod, sniffling as I close the door. I am fully aware the whole compound heard all of that, and honestly, they should. I don't deserve to be treated like that.

I'm going to miss this place. The past 9 years of my life have been spent living here, getting to know all of the amazing people within. I had so many memories here, one of the first being when Morgan was born. She had a head full of hair and a smile that looked just like her fathers'.

As I walked out of the tower, I went to the first person I could think of. Wanda Maximoff, my best friend of 5 years. She does live in the compound, but she also owns an apartment on the other side of the city for emergencies. She gave me a spare key when she got it. Thankfully, I'd never used it before, so I'd never seen the interior of the four walls.

Memories, good and bad swirls around in my head, as I twist the bronze key into the lock. It took me an hour to get here, with the bus and all. I get settled in, as I know I'll be staying here for a while. I started getting myself a snack when I heard the door swing open. I look at it to see the red magic I'd come to know very well.

"Y/n/n honey? Are you in here?" As soon as I hear her voice, I run over to her, the flow of tears starting up again. "Oh my god, are you okay? She didn't hurt you, did she?" I shake my head, unable to speak. "Oh, my poor baby. I'm so sorry I didn't find you sooner. Everyone is out looking for you. I'd better call Pietro and tell him to tell everyone you're safe."

I just hug her tighter. "E-e-even...?" She looks at me with guilt in her eyes. "We all heard what she said to you, and F.R.I.D.A.Y said that you'd left, so we all went looking for you. None of us have heard from her since." By now, I've soaked her hoodie with my never-ending tears.

"Shhhh, it's okay, you're okay." Wanda whispers as she rubs my back to calm me down.

1 MONTH LATER...

I hear a knock at the door. Wanda only left, and she had her own key, so it definitely wasn't her, and i haven't ordered any packages. Deciding i dont care, I go to open it. I see nothing but a white teddy bear holding an envelope sitting on the welcome mat. There is no sign of anyone being here, as the halls are silent. I pick up the toy and bring it inside, closing the door. I go and put it on the counter, taking the red letter from its paws. It had my first initial on the front.

Our place, 2 pm?

- N xx

I roll my eyes. Even if I was very upset with her, she always knew how to make me smile. I check the clock, seeing it's already 1pm, so I decide to start getting ready.

I step into the shop and immediately see Natasha. As I get closer, I can see that she has bags under her eyes, and I see that her knuckles are all red and sore. She's probably been training to get her mind off us. "Hey," She goes to hug me, and I let her. "Hi." She ordered both our favourite drinks.

"How have you been?" I scoff. "What kind of a question is that? My girlfriend of 9 years kicked me out because she was having a rough couple of weeks and hasn't even bothered talking to me for a whole month, and you think I'm okay?" She looks down with guilt filled eyes. "...no. Sorry."

I sip from my cup. "Are you gonna give me some pathetic excuse as for why you made me leave like that, or what?" She nods her head, and takes a Depp breath.

"What I said was really messed up. I shouldn't have called you any of those rude names or said any of that to you. I was having a hard couple of weeks, and I just wanted some quiet. Which I got. But by all means, that's no excuse to take my anger out on you. I don't know if you even want to talk to me anymore after what I did, and I know I don't deserve your forgiveness or anything remotely close but I really am sorry y/n/n. These past 9 years have meant so much to me, and I don't want them to go down the drain because of my stupid actions."

She pauses for a while. Waiting for me to give her some sort of response. "Thank you. I'm sorry for bothering you so much, but it would be very helpful if you communicated how you feel to me, so I know when you need space. I haven't forgiven you. That's going to take a long time, but if you're willing to work on this, so am I. Okay?" She puts her hand on top of mine. "Okay."

6 MONTHS LATER...

Everything had been going actually quite well with y/n, and I. I've been working on my communication, and she's been helping me to recognise when I feel like I need space. She's moved back into the compound, and as of recently, she's started staying in our room again.

"Hey baby." I forgot how much I love her voice. "Hi malysh. Cuddles?" She nods her head and wraps herself around me on the couch. We quickly get sucked into our newfound favourite show, Greys Anatomy. "Meredith really is gorgeous, but not as gorgeous as you!" I say as I give her a kiss on the cheek. "I'm nothing compared to McDreamy." I laugh, knowing she loves Derek too much.

"Sorry...for everything." She turns to look at me with her eyebrows furrowed, abandoning our show. "I know. It's okay." She adjusts herself so she can kiss my lips. "I love you." She snuggled back onto me, sucking back into the show.

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angelofthepage · 3 months

Text

Thoughts on the "Updated" Bendy Employee Handbook

Before we go any further, let's make it very clear what kind of post this is: we're not here to hate on the book, and none of anything I'm about to say is said with ill intent. I am here for analysis, constructive criticism, and discussion. This post is a little more critical than what I would usually share, so viewer discretion is advised.

Today we're talking about the newly updated Bendy Employee Handbook, which just recently released as of this month at the time of this post. And I have a lot of questions about this entry, and really, game guides as a whole in our modern gaming world. This book appeared to advertise itself as a rerelease of the original handbook with additional content for Bendy and the Dark Revival, but upon comparing the two, I've noticed there's actually a number of changes they've made, some good, some bad, and some that I'm not sure what to make of. So come and join me under the cut, and if you have some thoughts of your own, feel free to comment or reblog and add to the discussion. Without further ado, here we go!

Part 1: The Baffling Amount of Cut Content

Our story begins where most stories do, the table of contents. So right off the bat, when comparing this book to the original, you'll notice something off.

No, your eyes do not deceive you, an entire section of the original book was cut, on top of making other sections shorter. And the weirdest part? Some of these things were exclusive to that original book, they didn't appear anywhere else in the Bendy franchise. So already we're off to a weird start. Some of these missing pages aren't so bad though. In some cases, they're just format changes to make the book flow a little better/take up less room. Sometimes they succeed in that, sometimes they end up feeling more cramped, it's pretty subjective whether or not this improved the book. But it certainly does cut down on pages. Case in point, the beginning of each chapter of BATIM.

Don't worry, Joey's letter hasn't been cut, but it has been moved to earlier in the book, so it's no longer in Chapter 1. This was a very odd change. Other things that are missing are character monologues, but it's inconsistent. Alice Angel's speech about the screaming well of voices and Joey's monologue right before the final boss were kept, but Sammy's "sheep sheep sheep" speech and Bertrum's audiolog right before his boss fight were inexplicably cut.

Here are a few cuts I found pretty significant.

These pages are all missing from the update. In the case of this newspaper article, what does that mean in regards to whether or not this is "canon" or "retconned"? Joey Drew, did you or did you not have plans to expand into a Bendy themed toothpaste? The people need to know! X''D But seriously, while some of this is inconsequential, some of it matters. The mascot costume in particular, that's the only sketch we get (that I'm assuming came from Bertrum or Joey regarding that part of the parks, no one is specifically credited for making it). It doesn't show up anywhere else in the series (to my knowledge). It's strange that it's just, gone now. The Bendyland spread is such an unfortunate loss, that's some of the closest we've ever gotten to seeing the map of the park. Yes you can see it in BATIM, but being able to get up close and personal with it without having to control Henry was really nice. It makes me wonder if they're trying to erase the past details so they can do more with Bendyland in the future, something that's different from the original vision. I don't think that's it, but it could be, though they'd also have to go back on The Illusion of Living too, given it’s discussed there with some really fun details.

Speaking of which, that's the weirdest piece of cut content: the missing section that ends the old book (that was reiterated in The Illusion of Living). It's Joey Drew's tips for making a cartoon. It's formatted differently and has no images in TIOL, but the basic information is still the same. What's not the same though, is the loss of the tutorial pages for drawing the toons. These are another thing that don’t show up anywhere else in the series, making them a much more permanent loss. And even though this section is cut, it’s still referenced on the back cover of the new book, which is a bit odd.

These were really cute and showed so much personality for not just the toons, but for Joey as he described them. Cutting this was genuinely disappointing for me. Same with the paperwork in Joey's apartment. Those were some of the highest quality images we had of what was on his desk and bulletin board, and I liked being able to see them clearer. The biggest loss of the cut content isn’t just the pages themselves, but the personality they gave to this book, and the Bendy world as a whole.

This was the very first Bendy book to be released, and therefore our first look into this world in this format. And while I don’t think it’s the greatest thing in the world in terms of being a game guide, I didn’t pick up the original for a game guide. I picked it up because I wanted to see if it provided more context for the world. And when it does that, it does a good job. The memos from characters we know, Joey’s financial records, the images from the desks of people like Joey and Bertrum, they give us insight into how things were going at the studio. Some of my favorite details from the original are Joey’s memo about how Susie was replaced by Allison, and the receipt for Joe’s Fine Dining. The fact that that memo was distributed to everyone but Susie enhanced what we already knew from BATIM, and it paints him as a much crueler character than we knew him to be. Not to mention the repeated use of “I have to say, I’m an instant fan”. Having Joey say those words makes the concept of him creating the cycle so much more interesting. Like did he script out every little action these characters take? Or is this something Susie picked up and recycled from him after potentially finding this memo in real life? Oh there are so many delicious possibilities. And the lunch date, oh my gosh. One, it started my quest to build the Joey Drew menu using all the things he eats in the books, because damn does he have good taste. And two, it was so cool to have a look into an interaction Susie told us about in that one tape. Like that was REALLY GOOD. Give me more like that! When you have other parts of the series back up things we’ve heard only one character say, it gives more credence to the idea that they actually happened that way, or gives us a clue that we need to check for character biases when they tell us their side of the story. And in a series where MOST characters are unreliable narrators, that is REALLY IMPORTANT for establishing timelines and figuring out what’s real versus what’s fabricated. That was my biggest hope for the update, for more flavortext and world building that expands on things we already know.

But um…the dark revival part of the book doesn’t do that.

Part 2: The Dark Revival’s Minimal Offerings

After an abrupt jump from Bendyland to BATDR, we get into the new stuff. The Bendy and the Dark Revival section of this book is alarmingly short and has very little substance. There is no new expansion of the worldbuilding or insight into these characters. I mean, the book describes Heidi as being a female lost one? So if you wanted a confirmation on her gender, there you go I guess? I guess that detail was never like, stated explicitly, but this is me stretching to find something new that it gives us. Actually, wait, it does give us one new thing, but I’m gonna be honest, it kind of rubbed me the wrong way.

The book refers to Allison having a “pet wolf” when we get her introduction in Chapter 1. It then later describes that Tom “likes being pet” when we get his introduction in Chapter 5. Which by the way, is the only image of Tom in this entire book, since his original render from the old version was cut. Now, I’ll be honest, I used to like that second detail, I thought it was cute that he doesn’t just tolerate Audrey, he actually LIKES being pet. Those are two different things, having some insights into Tom’s feelings and characterization would have been a breath of fresh air. But no, when I reread the book and saw that first detail, that made that really weird and uncomfortable actually. It would be one thing if in-universe, Tom called himself a pet, or Allison called him that with consent. Heck, if there was another character in-universe who wanted to purposely insult Allison and Tom by saying that, that would be fine too, then it’d be reiterating the narrative. But on its own? I take issue with taking Tom of all characters and calling him her pet. The Safehouse Boris never got treated that badly, hell, Buddy in the books never got dehumanized this badly when he became a Boris. But Tom, Tom gets to be the one that’s dehumanized? There is something that really rubs me the wrong way about that. Especially if he turns out to be Thomas Connor or has some connection to him. I can’t assume if he is or isn’t anymore given all the stuff BATDR pulled with Allison and Henry. But on the chance he IS Thomas Connor, do you have any idea how bad that looks, to have a character that, because of details written in Dreams Come to Life, many fans speculate to be a person of color, referring to him as Allison’s “pet”? And even if he ends up not being a person of color (I say as I groan about the inevitable discourse for the DCTL graphic novel that’s coming out), it’s still kind of awful to say that about anyone. Tom is a character that has repeatedly gotten the short end of the stick in this series. He’s relevant to BATDR for all of a couple of minutes, and he’s incredibly underutilized and lacking details or depth for most of the series. Thomas Connor, he gets a bit of depth as of The Lost Ones, that novel does great things for him. But Tom Wolf? Short end of the stick. And I’m sad to see that continue here.

The one positive thing I have to say about this section is that it’s really nice to have so many of the audiolog character transcripts here. Most of the notes and logs from BATDR are here with all their words typed out. The ones that in-game had a chiller styled font are transcribed a bit strangely, as now they’re written like the messages written on the walls in-game. But it’s not the worst. If anything, all of this gives me a great resource as a theorist. Having a record of all of these and what chapters they appear in makes my goal of constructing a timeline and cross checking information much easier.

Though from a graphic design standpoint, these pages frustrate me a little bit. They’re so cramped, and there’s several spots where the text isn’t centered properly within its text block. I get the sense on some parts, it’s because it’s placed so close to the spine of the book, so they don’t want any information getting cut off, but it still looks funky. And there are several spots where that explanation doesn’t really apply. There’s also some weird placement of fun facts. While I love that this book lets us in on some secrets, they’re not always placed in an area that makes sense? Like, there’s a note about how to get the Inkjets Concert, but the steps for how to get it are placed way after a point in the narrative where you’d be able to get it, and I’m kind of scratching my head as to why it was done that way. Is it to encourage a second playthrough? Or is it to not spoil the story? Why not split the information up? Or have a dedicated secrets page like they do with the achievements and theMeatly’s cutouts?

Though speaking of not spoiling things, this book is really odd about what it chooses to focus on. So, Henry’s model is in this book, right next to a passage about a “mysterious man” you can meet in the Cyclebreakers area. They showed his model but didn’t name him as Henry? I don’t quite get that choice. Also, despite the cyclebreakers being very important to this story, they aren’t really mentioned before this very brief section. However, Porter? The character shown for all of a few seconds? He’s got at least three images throughout this book. The balance feels off with what this book chooses to put emphasis on.

Also, this one really annoyed me: Allison. So for everyone who’s actually played BATIM, you would know that Allison Angel is never referred to as Allison within BATIM. We only know she’s called that because people dove into the game’s files and revealed her and Tom’s names upon the release of Chapter 4. And the book follows suit with this, it does not call her Allison in the original handbook whatsoever. HOWEVER, the BATDR section messes this up. When it introduces her, even though in-game she introduces herself as Alice, the book introduces her as Allison. But when we get to Chapter 5, the part where she’s actually named Allison by Audrey, it suddenly switches to calling her Nice Alice? It’s a weird choice and I don’t understand why this happened.

It leaves me wondering just how much the new author of this section and their editors know about the Bendy series before going into this project. What context were they given to write this thing? It makes the book feel unpolished to have so many mistakes in its formatting and information. I don’t know what the quality control team for this release looked like, but a part of me wonders how many editors this went through before making it to the final release. I don’t work in publishing to know what that looks like, but I’d genuinely love to learn more on this subject, it’s fascinating.

There’s also a very strong dissonance in the imagery. While I’m glad to see the renders from BATDR’s advertising so clearly and up close, the difference in their coloring looks strange when put next to the rest of Bendy’s usual color palette. It leaves me wondering what assets the book team was given for use in this release. There’s a lot I could say here about the importance of press kits and brand guidelines, especially in this day and age when so many fans are making just as high quality of content as the official releases of media. And that leads me to the most disappointing part of this book.

Part 3: Stolen Content

If you’re active in the Bendy fandom and know its many creative members, then you may already know what I’m about to dive into. MLSpence3D is an artist that enjoys 3D modeling, rigging, animating, and rendering. He can often be found engaging in all sorts of corners in the indie mascot horror community, such as playing a notable role in the production of SuperHorrorBro’s upcoming title, Glitched Out, as well as providing the renders used on the Bendy Wiki of the in-game characters. Spence has had his work mistaken for official renders before, and unfortunately, it’s not just fans making that mistake. The render of the Piper used in the BATIM portion of the original handbook is Spence’s, and it unfortunately hasn’t been removed in this update, nor has he been credited or asked for permission to have it used here. I’ll admit, his stuff looks so official that I’ve mistaken it as such too, and it speaks to a much needed conversation on assets, metadata, and protection for artists of all mediums.

Our fandom is not the only place where this happens. Back when FNAF: Help Wanted was in production, the cover art mistakenly used fan renders as a part of its photomanipulation. Developer Scott Cawthon was quick to apologize and make things right, removing the renders and replacing them with officially made FNAF models. Heck, we had something similar happen right here with Bendy back when the voice cast of BATDR started working with Streamily. The initial post that advertised their Streamily debut used renders from Spence and a few other artists that had to be tracked down, and they didn’t have the rights to use them, nor were they credited. It makes a lot of sense that this happens, when you don’t have sufficient resources and aren’t an active member of the fandom, if you’re a graphic designer trying to make a piece to advertise something, you’re going to need assets to make that. And if you’re not given sufficient assets by the people you’re designing for, you turn to other sources to get the job done. They may not know what on Google is official vs fan content. The fans are so skilled and passionate about what they do, and with the number of series that have fans steadily joining the official teams, it’s incredible what can result from being passionate. But it also makes for a much needed reminder to add metadata to your files so that they can be traced back as belonging to you. Watermark your stuff, clearly mark your work as fan content in the tags, captions, and descriptions, in an effort to protect yourself. Don’t use images you find online unless you have a very clear idea of where they came from, so you can direct people back to the source when they ask about it (or better yet, link the source in your description from the start). Give people another reason to pause and double check their work in the chain of command (they should be pausing to double check anyway, but let's be real, we don't live in a perfect world). In a world where credit and sources are more important than ever, remembering to give credit where it’s due from the start will save you all kinds of headaches in the future. Video game developers, especially those of you in the indie scene: please develop press kits to give to people your teams collaborate with. By giving them assets they can reliably use to advertise for you, you will save everyone a lot of hassle in the long run. And if this is still happening even with a press kit, it merits having some conversations to evaluate why and solve the problem. If there is no other takeaway anyone gets from this post, this is the big one I want to see some positive change on in the future.

Part 4: The Functionality as a Game Guide

This book works for your first time through BATDR, but not for any kind of sequential playthroughs. The way it directs you through the game uses the audiologs and notes as waypoints. Once you pick them up, they are removed from the environment, and so if you’re picking up the game after a long time away from it, you’re not gonna remember where those were, so it’s likely not going to be useful for navigating. It reminds me a lot of the way my parents talked about one of our old hometowns. We lived in Vermont for a little while, and there were two things about our area that we laughed about. One, never leave your car unlocked unless you want it filled with zucchini. Two, if you ask for directions, you’re not gonna have a clue unless you’re a local, because they word everything in a similar fashion to “you’re gonna drive past where the old barn used to be”. At least give me a landmark that still exists, or a map! The BATIM chapters aren’t much better, they sort of give you a layout map, but it’s not helpful. Especially in Chapter 3, the place where you arguably need a map the most, there is no kind of instruction for how to get through Alice’s fetch quests if you get lost.

In my mind, a game guide is something you turn to when you need help getting through a game. Now, mind you, I am not the target audience for a game guide. I don’t own game guides. There are a few in my household that my siblings own, for stuff like Super Mario Sunshine, and I guess technically my Pokedex for Pokemon Black and White 2 DOES double as a game guide. But like, we now live in the age of the internet. If you want to know how to get through something, there are a million articles and Let’s Plays that detail how to complete the base story, find secrets, and even suggest strategies for tackling difficult challenges. Some of these are designed to be informative, and some are more reactionary and built for entertainment, there’s lots of flavors to choose from!

And it makes me wonder, what does that mean for the medium of game guides as a whole? I think they still have their place. For one thing, different people benefit from different learning styles. Being able to read a guide may work better for someone than a video depending on their brain wiring. And for people who don’t have reliable or frankly any internet, or rely on a library for that, it’s nice to have a book so that you don’t have to wait to keep playing. I’ve never seen anyone get a game guide from a library, but I absolutely think it’s something a library could have. It’s also just really convenient to have all of that information available in one book, as opposed to having to search through multiple forums and sources and risk getting spoiled. And when they’re done well, sometimes they can have secrets not even the existing player base knew. Like I knew that there was this secret about a ghost train that appears if you set your system’s clock to 4:14, but I didn’t know if AM or PM mattered. Thanks to this book, now I know that it doesn’t matter, both work, which is really handy to know! But uh…most of the secrets that were revealed in this book were things I knew within the first month that BATDR came out. None of them were new to me as someone who’s plugged into the world of Bendy. There have been multiple videos detailing how to get these secrets, and how to play this game, by many different indie horror enthusiasts. It almost makes it feel like this book came out a bit too late, and it’s only released about a year or so after this game came out.

Which really begs the question, who was the target audience for this book? Was it for new fans who were struggling with these games? Was it for longtime fans who wanted a memento of the occasion and a record of all the stuff in these games? Was it for lore hunters hungry for new secrets and world building? Having read both versions of the employee handbook, I still can’t definitively say who the target audience is. That kind of frustrates me, that’s the first thing they taught us about back when I went to school for graphic design. It’s important to keep your audience in mind when designing something, that way it caters to their needs, appeals to them, and gets your message across effectively.

Part 5: Final Thoughts

I still can’t say for sure what I was supposed to get out of this.The parts of it that I found charming and appealing were not continued or built upon in this update. There is no new world building or lore. It doesn’t do an effective job as a game guide given its reliance on non-permanent elements of gameplay. It doesn’t give us tools to cross reference what we know from previous entries, nor does it expand upon details that lacked clarity within BATDR or BATIM. It removed some of its more charming content, and it still has stolen artwork from its previous iteration. By the time I got done reading this book, I was left feeling disappointed and kind of exhausted. No joke, I grabbed a friend, and we went through it all to compare it page by page to see what changed. It was something you could make a drinking game out of, not that I would recommend that.

I would struggle to recommend this book to any Bendy fan, unless you’re a completionist like me who wants to own every book as a physical copy. The original employee handbook was a far better read, and if you can find a copy secondhand or at your local library, you’re in for a small but tasty treat (quite literally if you decide to make the bacon soup recipe, which fun fact, originated in this book and was developed by the wife of Bookpast, one of the writers on this series!). The Dark Revival section feels tacked on and not as well thought out as the original book was. There is a very odd disconnect between the two. I’m genuinely confused as to why it was put in a rerelease of this book rather than making an entirely new book for Dark Revival. Dark Revival is a much longer and detailed game than Bendy and the Ink Machine. I would expect a book that describes how to play it and its world building to take up a lot more pages and go in depth on different details than this one did. So why was it done this way? Does this have to do with some sort of contract with Scholastic that we don’t know about? Was there a time constraint, or a page count that had to be met that they couldn’t meet with just BATDR? Did the people working on Bendy have too much on their plates to dedicate the time to a new book? What happened here? I wasn’t expecting to leave this book with more questions than answers, but here we are.

Overall, I don’t think it was worth what I paid for it, but it’s going to live on my shelf with the rest of my books. This will be handy for when I need to reference the audiologs and don’t want to look up a YouTube video to remember what was said. It’ll also be nice if I’m traveling. See, whenever I visit my grandparents, their wifi is pretty limited, so if I want to draw anything while I’m up there, I have to print out references or download images on my phone before I go so I can do that. Having some of the new renders in this book will be useful if I decide I want to draw Bendy stuff or theorize while on the road.

Now it's your turn. Tell me your thoughts on the Updated Edition of the Bendy Employee Handbook! Is this something you want to read? If you have read it, did you enjoy it? Were you left wanting more? If we ever get another book like this, what sort of things would you like to see? Let's talk about it. And remember, if you did enjoy it, that's not a bad thing, absolutely no judgement there. Just because it wasn't for me doesn't mean it's not going to be enjoyable for someone else. Every work of fiction has its audience. <3 Here's wishing you a wonderful rest of the day, and happy reading!

#bendy employee handbook spoilers #bendy employee handbook #bendy spoilers #batdr #bendy and the dark revival #batim #bendy and the ink machine #bendy books #bendy book spoilers

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bisexual-horror-fan · 6 months

Note

Bex would you be down to write a dom ethan and sub reader type dynamic smut? This isn’t a request just wondering if it’s something you’re into 😻

Anon of course this is something I am into. First time writing more dominant Ethan! I hope you like it Anon, I haven't posted a fic in over a fucking month! Everything has been so hetic and nuts, I've been working on this behind the scenes and I am hoping this gets me back into the swing of things! Let's go!

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Now Or Never.

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Rating. Explicit. Length. 2.5K. Ethan Landry X FEM! AFAB! Reader. Warnings: DUB CON! Stalking. Creepy And Delusional Behaviour From Ethan. Obsessive Ethan. Man Handling. Degradation. Vaginal Fingering. Vaginal Sex. Raw Sex. Implied Cream Pie. Hold The Moan. Don’t Get Caught.

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Ethan has never been the kind of guy to really go after what he wants. He is much more passive, go with the flow, he doesn’t want to upset the apple cart nor ruin the image that people have of him. He knows it isn’t the best practice, he wants to get out of that, he wants to start doing things for him, maybe he should have made the call to start standing up for himself before agreeing to help his family avenge his brothers' death via a complex murder plot. However, Ethan was committed now, and he wasn’t going to back out, more importantly he saw no way how to, and so he stays.

Assuming an identity in a new place and pretending to be someone he isn’t to infiltrate a group of people, pretend to be their friend just to be close enough to kill them was stressful. It felt like it was consuming his whole life, losing who he actually was in some regard, he needed a distraction, something to help give him purpose, ease his worries and the harsher edges of it all, or he’d go nuts.

You were his outlet.

Stalking just went along with what he did in service of the grand plan, you were not part of it, not involved, but you caught his eye in one of his classes. The first time, he was just going the same direction as you, he swears to God, he wasn’t being a creep, at first. That did not last long. He started to watch you, learn your schedule, get into your routine, and whenever he wasn’t having to continue his charade he was consumed getting lost in you.

He knows where you live, he knows your class times, the coffee shop you frequent, your order at said shop, he knows what soap you use, the part-time job you hold and that one of your biggest pet peeves is when the tag in an item of clothing itches against your skin.

He’s been watching you for an amount of time that he is sure if you knew would make you very fucking uncomfortable. You seemingly hadn’t caught on to what he was up to, which was good, it meant he could keep it up without worry, watching you living your life while you were totally oblivious. To be fair, how observant you are or are not, is not what he liked best about you, honestly what he liked is that you were the opposite to him in a lot of ways. No real responsibilities other than the ones you wanted to have, just living the way you want to, he felt some modicum of jealousy over that, he imagines what life could be like if he could get out of his current situation and have a more normal existence with you, it’s a good escape, but it’s just that, a fantasy, an unattainable one.

It is getting harder and harder to ignore the situation he is stuck in, the same way it is becoming impossible to ignore the clawing feeling of dread in his chest. He wanted to stop feeling so helpless, wanted a sense of control, to feel like he was living for himself, even in a tiny sense.

Time is running out, and he needs to correct this, or he might fuck up everything without some serious stress relief.

Ethan learned about the Halloween party you were going to attend, and he thought maybe that would be good, to go and cut loose a little while near you. That plan changed, morphed, got away from him once he was actually there and near you in the costume you chose.

He tried to keep distance, to just watch but between observing you having fun, the mounting pressure and the frankly bordering on painful erection in his jeans that would not stop throbbing finally a piece inside of him broke.

You had to know what you did to him. You had to know the effect you had on him, it was like you were aware you were being watched, doing this on purpose, it’s maddening. He could crush the red solo cup in his hand as he observes you dance with a friend, the way your hand rests on his arm, your head tips forward to press against his shoulder as you laugh, the sway of your hips, it should be him, why not him? He stews in his thoughts and the anger, the unfairness and the budding arousal threatening to boil over inside himself.

He’d brought his Ghostface costume along, had it in his bag for something he needed to do later, it was like he acted on autopilot. He sneaks off, he got into the costume, and then he waits for the right moment.

You are on your way to the bathroom, but not the main one people use, no these were your friends, and you knew about the lesser used one, he knew about it because of course, creep that Ethan was, he followed you there. When you are close enough he strikes, his hand over your mouth, his other arm loops around your middle, and he drags you the rest of the way to the bathroom. The door is already ajar, it’s no trouble to get you inside, a backwards swing of his foot to the wood makes the door close. The light is dim, there is a nightlight plugged into the wall outlet near the counter top by the mirror, so someone stumbling from the basement guest bedroom can find their way to the bathroom he assumes.

You are struggling against him, squirming, muffled sounds trying to get out from behind his hand, but he is struck by just this. He is touching you for the first time, holding you, he draws you closer, makes it so you are flush against him. He’s thought about this countless times, you are warm and softer than anticipated, he can fucking smell you and it is intoxicating. He is so caught up in this, taking in every detail and small movement, he presses his hips forward, grinds himself on you through the layers of jeans and black fabric as he smells your hair and then what you do next? Ethan never would have thought in a million years you’d respond like this, by your eyes closing and you grinding back, pressing your ass closer to him with a sound behind his hand that might sound like a moan if he let you express it fully.

You aren’t fighting him, not any longer, no you are rocking with him, trying to stimulate yourself in any way possible against him-

Oh.

You are better than he thought, he knew you were a slut, he’d seen you in your place, knew your porn search history and the collection of toys you owned, but to be down to fuck a masked stranger you hadn’t exchanged a single word with? You were a world-class whore, he was going to take advantage of this opportunity to the fullest.

He knows he doesn’t need to hold you so closely, his arm releases your mid-section, his hand slides down your body and between your legs and up the short skirt of the costume you wore, fingers press to your underwear. You are already wet enough he can feel it through the thin material and his gloves. Your hips buck, wanting to get closer, feel more of him, it feeds his ego and emboldens him, you want him, and he isn’t going to deny you.

He gets his glove off, he needs to feel you, skin on skin. His hand slides into your panties, his fingers dip as low as they can and feel the source of your extreme wetness, he presses, tease the hole carefully before his digits slide up through your folds, and he knows he finds what he needs when you gasp, head thrown back against his shoulder.

His hand works, fingers circle over your clit, and you inhale sharply through your nose, brows furrow, and he watches you in the mirror. The way the pleasure plays out on your face as he teases you, he enjoys how your body responds, the small tremors of your limbs, the twisting and squirming of your form, the way your clit throbs under his touch as he presses harder.

He needs to feel you inside. Fingers move, you whine, he dives inside, and he curls them, it causes the biggest reaction out of you yet. Your body pitching forward, hands on the counter and your walls clenching around his fingers. You are so soaked, soft, hot and so thoroughly alive. He can barely move them inside of you, but he does, he slips them in and out, presses to that same spot that got such a big reaction out of you, and he moans quietly, he swears he can feel you getting wetter.

In and out, flex and push, you writhe, and he wants to hear you, he pulls his hand away, but before he does, he has one finger over your lips, that classic symbol of “shhh” and you nod, eyes half lidded and lust filled. You let out quiet moans, his palm grinds against your clit as his fingers fuck in and out, he can’t take much more. The simple movement, the motion, how hard he is rocking against your ass, he wants to be buried in you, wants to fuck you.

So he does.

His hand moves, fingers pulled out, and your eyes had slipped closed again, at the loss of him they open, confused and when you see him pulling the robe up you get the hint. You make your own move, shaky hands lift off the counter and your fingers hook under your skirt, you tug down your underwear and you step one foot out, leaving them hooked around your other ankle. He has the robe up and his pants open finally, the relief of pressure on his straining erection has him letting out a small sigh. His hands are on you, he adjusts you, one knee on the counter and pushing you forward, your hands braced on the sink, and you adjust too, your hips tilt and soon with a hand on your back and the other on the base of his cock he is lining up.

It’s rushed and faster than he wants, but he just wants so much, it’s been so fucking long he can't stop it, can't help himself. He feels you, the heat coming off of you, the wetness on his tip, he lingers for only a moment before his hips move involuntarily, and then he is helpless. The first half inch pops in with no resistance, and you are perfect, you feel incredible it makes him let go of himself, hands lock on your hips, and he pushes further, slides deeper, and he watches you in the mirror. The way your mouth falls open, the exhalation, the way you tense in some regards and relax in others, but mostly he can’t focus on much else other than how your cunt feels around him as he settles in, finally to the base.

He soaks you in for a second, you are more impatient than he, you whine again, needier than before, and you move first, pull your hips forward before sliding them back, and it makes any semblance of control break. He takes over, the grip on your hips tightens, and he pulls out almost totally before driving back in, you have to bite your lip to hold the moan back enough to not be overheard. The party is on the main floor, you are in the basement, but you are sure that he could make you alert everyone up there.

This was insanely hot for you, a masked stranger pulling you away and touching you, groping you, fucking you without you seeing his face or uttering a single word? Unbearably hot, his fingers were good, but even two minutes in his dick puts his hands to shame. He is greedy. He touches more, he didn’t touch you enough before, his other glove comes off, and he touches your legs, your thigh, a firm squeeze of your ass, he feels up your sides and your chest. You lean closer into his touch, moving still with him, loving the pace he took as he fucked you, rough and quick, he pulls the top of your costume down, exposes your tits, palms them, and you moan louder than you probably should.

This is good, but it could be better still, your hand is between your legs, you stroke your clit as he fucks you, the stretch of him is delicious, you find yourself gasping, arching your back a bit more so he hits that spot inside just a bit harder, a touch better. You are so close to the mirror you are in danger of fogging it up, but you want to look at him, you’d been staring at his masked face this whole time, wondering who is under it.

You move back, press yourself closer to him and away from the mirror, and you get this urge. This urge that you don’t question or think about. Your back is to his chest, he is still preoccupied with fucking you and rolling your nipples between his fingers, perfectly distracted, huffing and letting out small sounds of pleasures, groans, you reach back behind him and the move is fast. You push the hood back, fingers grip, and you pull and twist, the mask comes off. He’s shocked.

He was so consumed with the feeling of getting to have you, with the mounting pleasure, he even had his eyes closed like an idiot, you got the drop on him. He stopped, held deep, and your eyes met in the mirror.

He’s hot. Hotter than you thought possible, dark sweat soaked curls and hard eyes, pretty pink lips are wet and parted, he’s strong and has had no issue throwing you around and holding you down. The low orange light playing off your body and his face is going to be burned in your mind forever.

You don’t want him to stop, you want to keep going. You maintain eye contact, you move again, pull him out slightly before bucking back, he inhales hard, and you do it again, and again, slip more out and take him harder on every movement, and he comes back to himself.

You like this, like him, you liked him as a stranger doing this, but you were still into this now made it even better. He takes over again, he fucks you harder while still meeting your eyes in the mirror. He wasn’t going to stop now until you came around him, and he filled you up.

God, he needed this.

#BHF asks #BHF writing #Ethan Landry x reader #Scream 6 x reader #Ghostface x reader #HEY BITCHES I'M BACKKKKK #ENJOY IT #EAT UP

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windvexer · 1 month

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This is kind of a large question so I apologize but I guess I'm curious on how you're able to get such specific or like. unique (i mean this in a good way) answers from tarot? Like your "what magic should i learn next" stuff or how to pick up what a spirit can do through tarot. like idk how to translate these cards into what the spirit is trying to say

Hi!

There's no easy answer to this question, partially because I've now been reading tarot for almost exactly 16 years. This isn't at all to say that it's just the passage of time, but that in that amount of time I've done tons and tons of different things to expand my understanding of, and usage, of tarot.

Tarot didn't come to me very easily, and part of that journey was doing a lot of experimentation in an effort to figure it all out. My reading practice is still very much typified by a huge amount of experimentation and custom reading methods.

It hasn't been a linear process at all. I go through periods of months (or more!) where tarot just doesn't click for me, at all. So just because I picked up my first tarot deck 16 years ago doesn't mean that I've kept a consistent practice (I'm just now getting back into it after just such a fallow period ^-^)

My feelings on experimentation is that it gives me new ways to think about not only the cards, but also spreads, methodologies, and readings as a whole.

In addition, my experiments with other forms of divination (most especially casting lots, energy readings, and playing card readings) have heavily influenced my tarot readings.

Here is a post I wrote that I think expresses my feelings on experimenting within tarot.

Here are some examples of tarot experiments I've performed, and/or methodologies I've explored. It's these sorts of things that have been building blocks in my abilities in tarot. But no single one of them was a "key."

Elemental dignities: The elements of the cards dictates how they interact with each other. Air + fire can mean a supercharged firestorm, but water + fire can mean a controlled fire under a stewpot, or blocked progress of the fire. This experiment helps with understanding how cards can link together, and how energy can flow within a spread.

Elemental landscapes: Spreads are laid down in lines or grids and each card represents one aspect of the landscape. You must brainstorm and choose your own meanings. E.g., 8/wands is an exploding volcano. Queen/Cups is a lake inhabited by mermaids. Read the flow of weather patterns and energies through the spread as an answer to the question. This experiment helps with intuitive reading and working with a spread as a whole, instead of focusing on individual cards.

Elemental portents: Assign an element to your question. Draw a card. If the element on the card agrees with the element of your question, the portent is good; if it disagrees, the portent is bad. This experiment helps with learning how to phrase questions and how the question themselves can influence the balance of the deck.

Astral landscapes: This was an elaborate system I built around the Wooden Tarot. I worked with each card to assign it a mystical association that could occur in an astral landscape. The major arcana were spirits who could travel across the landscape. Each spread was like a playing board of a generated landscape and the spirits that interacted inside of it. This experiment was fun for considering the metaphysical ramifications of the energies of the cards themselves.

Numerical virtues: The number value of the card indicates its power and magnitude in the spread. 2 and 3 value cards are always of smaller power and significance. 10 and court cards are always of higher value. Aces may be high or low. This experiment gave me a new way of thinking about importance of each card, and how to blend magnitudes of significance.

Infinite directional wheel: I wrote a post on this actually, but basically you can keep placing cards forever in the cross-quarter positions. It's a meditation on the concept of elements and directions within witchcraft. Also, an extremely useful spread. This was a vital experiment for me in understanding spreadwork, flow of information, and linking cards.

Card doubling and tripling: Place two (or 3) cards together and determine the meaning as if it's one single card; there is no border, and the images combine with each other. The pictures and meanings of each combine into a single card.

Card doubling and tripling, but in spreads: For each position in the spread, place two cards (or three cards!) in place of one. Read the dyads or triads as if they are a single card. It isn't beginning/middle/end; it's a single triple-complex card! These doubling experiments helped me with the concept of card linking and blending meanings into unique interpretations.

Custom meaning sets: Basically, swap out all the default meanings with your own. Extremely useful IMO in learning how sets of meanings work together, and how to balance sets of meanings. I wrote a post on it here. These experiments have perhaps been the most vital for me in developing new interpretations. I believe that the magical skills readings you referenced were the result of custom meaning sets.

No meaning sets: Instead of using any card meanings, all spreads are resolved using a combination of elemental portents and numerical virtues. I.e., the element and number of a card in relation to other cards in the spread determines the reading. Here, the experimentation is allowing the cards to have strict, defined roles within a spread that can't be overwritten by personal intuition.

As a final note, I highly, highly recommend recording every reading you do and every card you draw. For the first couple years of my practice I recorded all readings, and it was a huge boost to my learning.

#answered

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