#id honestly rather not go if its like that no matter the importance

[rugretti]

.

[thesherrinfordfacility]

okay, so… i know neil has replied to this question already, and he said that the costume changes for crowley are motivated by the simple idea that “he just wanted a change that day”… but like… did he, really?

i truly welcome the costume change, i honestly think it was needed, taking into consideration that there already have been 4 years between the two seasons, crowley is the man with the trends and things have changed so much in such little time. also, i'd love to see crowley with that turtleneck from now on, i like the new glasses as well, but… the turtleneck only appeared for one episode, while still using his 2019-glasses. and then, the next episode, it was the usual combo with new glasses and that's what we got for the rest of the season… something simply does not sit right with me, taking into consideration that the costume department on gomens does a phenomenal job (see: 1941 and recreating the looks perfectly).

that made me think about that mega-theory that has been circulating about the writing of this season and how it might reflect metatron's meddling and i am really questioning now, because this is one aspect that i did find particularly odd, are we sure that those costume changes aren't important like neil has said?

after all, neil does need to lie or hide details that might be revealed later, just like he hid so much about how season 2 will go, and another thing is that he also did say that he didn't include certain lines about hastur in this new season because he didn't want for people to take them as relevant or important… so, just like that meta underlines, there is intentionality in their choices. what was the intention behind these two costume changes, then?

hey boo, funnily enough @theeminentlyimpractical and i were laughing about the Sideburn Theory™ and how we got it sooooo wrong, "turns out lmao it's just shoddy continuity and crowley went shopping/got a haircut"-

-and maybe that's true but... no, i don't think it is. i agree with you, and think there must be something a bit screwy going on. ive got the huge theory that you mentioned bookmarked, and have skimmed through it, but need to really sit down and read it properly. in any case, i do think metatron had a bigger hand in this season that we're giving him credit for in the last half hour of ep6.

now idk if its anything or just something of nothing, but whilst i love the idea that it's aziraphale and crowley together that is the cause of the 25-Lazarii scale miracle that got heaven going into reactor meltdown (and maybe it is - id love it if that were the case), but idk how far i believe it.

and so - time to whip out the tinfoil hat.

for whatever reason, there seemed to be a lot of emphasis this season on that section of the bookshop (and again might be just because, or down to filming logistics etc and tbh now i think about it probably definitely, but i cannot for the life of me shake this from my noggin):

like, that one shot is so pretty but also feels so purposeful? and was then bookended by aziraphale in ep6 calling 101-metatron through the portal...

i just can't shake the feeling that metatron (especially given that he was very pro-armageddon in s1 and lmao aziraphale and crowley went and fucked it up anyway) might have had a closer eye on them than anticipated...

...like, he knew to approach aziraphale with 'gross matter' and encourage him to partake. knew that the archangels had gone down there to the bookshop in the first place. knew how to push aziraphale's buttons as concerns crowley. knew the true nature of their relationship (or at least suspected it), even though it was put like only hell really had any clue.

knew that aziraphale wouldn't in good conscience turn down the opportunity to change heaven if it meant he, crowley, and everyone could actually experience a heaven that befits the name. knew that he ought to dress in darker clothes to lend himself more to being 'in the grey', rather than the exclusively light clothes the archangels favour.

knew to adopt mannerisms and speech patterns that were eerily like aziraphale himself, who has spent thousands of years living amongst humans. knew to directly address crowley as the only clued-in figure in the room, "what about you demon, do you know me?".

knew to take aziraphale across the road to the restaurant where aziraphale and crowley had previous sat, aziraphale adopted the softest expressions we've ever seen. knew to say "take all the time you need" to encourage aziraphale to speak to crowley, but then hurried him out the door as soon as the argument was over and aziraphale's resolve was wavering.

now idk if any of this actually means anything. im sure it probably doesn't. but it is odd. i don't necessarily think (so far - may well change!) that metatron's been directly influencing anything from the very beginning, because i think that cheapens the season's kinda message about having agency and conviction in self... but it does bely a certain amount of peril that in many key moments, aziraphale and crowley were not alone.

now in terms of the costume? that i have no idea on. but iirc in the book, crowley was described as having bought loads of the same sunglasses - he even keeps spares in the bentley glovebox! so why would this, and his hairstyle, change so drastically? idk. i don't even have a musing on it, let alone a theory. i don't think it's a case of "that's not crowley!", i don't think someone is impersonating him or mind controlling him... but something does stink to high heaven✨

[bonesandthebees]

hi sorry just speaking up on account of fun personal knowledge regarding the ask sayinng ypu should get a typewriter and your tags on said post . my personal favorite beginner level typewriters are smith-coronas, theyre user-friendly and relatively easy to maintain in my eyes. id honestly recommend looking for an electric rather than a manual for your first typewriter - its very different from writing on a modern day computer keyboard, and electrics do a relatively good job of easing you in . the keyboards are more similar to your blocky, 90s-tech keyboards you see out in the wild . my first electric was a smith-corona coronet super12 and honestly its one of the best typewriters i own; the quality is stellar, shes comfortable with me, she actually Likes Being Typed on .

manual typewriters are beasts. theyre often angry if you are not the owner theyve always known (speaking of this - a good place to look for typewriters are estate sales . usually you're lookjng at 20-50usd for a functional typewriter at an estate sale, compared to 100+ at an antique shop or online). but yes manual typewriters are angry creatures . they fight you on everything. my first manual was a hermes3000 in a light powder blue and honestly this typewriter does not like me i think. most typewriters you find out in the wild are going to need a little work - new ribbon, a nice deep clean - but will be relatively functional (esp, again, at estate sales. ppl dont usually keep broken shit). manuals are fussy and will probably want a little more out of you . my hermes needs a full realignment and more than a few of the keys stick . not optimal for your first typewriter .

most importantly - and something they dont tell you when you first start using typewriters, cough - manuals take A LOT OF FORCE TO PRESS THE KEYS. more than you are expecting. it is not like your hp or your mac or dell or alienware or whatever - you have to WORK to type on a manual. i was typing with just my index fingers for the first few months i owned my hermes because i physically couldn't 1) get a feel for the keyboard and 2) press down on the keys comfortably with my other fingers. it hurt after a little while .

that being said, owning a manual is an extremely fun little knickknack to show off. double points if its functional and you actually put it to some use . typewriters are one of those things that get better the more you use them ; you kind of have to break them in, and more use means theyre easier to work with. electrics are similar but are often more forgiving . all this to say that a manual is worth it if youre willing to make the commitment. theyre fun to use . make you feel like a 1940s office worker .

as far as actually writing goes, all manuals and early electrics are not going to have any sort of backspace functionality. honestly i think its rlly helped with being deliberate about what words im using. you can get correction tape (obviously) but it feels a little bit different . i think it helps with just getting ideas onto paper concisely .

no matter what kind of typewriter you get (if any at all) the most important thing is going to be the user manual, whether you actually have the original paper copy or a scanned version youve found online. understanding your typewriter is like reading a recipe. its important to know what each button does and how to use it . if you grew up learning typing on a computer you do not know how to use a typewriter ; youll be able to type but probably not much more . instructions are your best friend . your typewriter is an animal .

typewriters need a little more love in the world . i highly recommend looking around at garage sales, estate sales, thrift stores if youre interested in owning or using one, theyre honestly such an efficient and modernly-under-appreciated piece of technology that really revolutionized the world . thanks for allowing me to ramble i hope this isnt too unwanted

oh this is so informational thank you!! I know next to nothing about typewriters except what they look like and that they make the nice clicky noises. I don't know if I'll ever get one, but if I do it's not gonna be for a few years just because money + I'd wanna set that up and have a nice space for it once I'm living in my own place, and atm I'm still in the 'post college graduate living with parents' phase of my life.

that's really good to know about electric vs manual typewriters though!! I'd probably get an electric for my first one because I rely so heavily on my typing speed. typing stuff on my laptop is muscle memory at this point so I'd be very annoyed if my typing was super heavily impaired on a typewriter. I do know the manual ones take a lot more effort to push down. I've encountered them at antique stores before and have tried to type a tiny bit and it's definitely a challenge

this wasn't unwanted at all it was super helpful!! I love the way you talk about typewriters too. I can definitely imagine that manual ones are like beasts you have to figure out how to work with lol. I'm gonna be saving this as a reference note for if I eventually start looking into getting one for myself

[magic-is-something-we-create]

This or that: Writer's edition tag!

Thank you for the tag, @pens-swords-stuff!! i love these kinds of games so much :D

this post is long, so apologies in advance! that said, i'll tag @writeblrfantasy, @ettawritesnstudies, @ren-c-leyn, and @enchanted-lightning-aes, as well as anyone else who wants to play!! as always, absolutely 0 pressure to participate if you dont want <3

(explanations for choices are optional, i am just a wordy bitch and want to Speak At Length about many things)

- historical or futuristic

as much as i write fantasy, i LOVE a speculative tech-based setting way more than i love a historical or pseudo-historical setting - which is uh. why my main fantasy world does in fact have a cyberpunk corner and Heavily Implied To Be Aliens pantheon.

- opening or closing chapter

the closing chapter is ALWAYS one that ive been champing at the bit to write for the whole book, and its always so satisfying to finally get out on the page

- light+fluffy or dark+gritty

case in point: whispers and the copious amounts of various horror, gore, and downright gut-punch scenes in millennium saga

- animal companion or found family

bonus points for the found family if theres an animal companion of course, but as much as i love wrench, she is a) not the most important member of the party and b) also a robot so i dont think she counts as an animal anyway outside of andy's dubious claims to fitting under the "dragon" definition

- horror or romance

i will write 1000 instances of "what the FUCK" for every page i struggle through writing romance as someone who does not experience attraction

- hard or soft magic system

I LOVE MAKING PUZZLES OUT OF WORLDS AND MAGIC AND STORIES. THATS IT THATS THE POST

- standalone or series

surprise! TMS may be a series and my long-running main WIP, but uh. 90% of my concepts are standalones. and tbh i like writing standalones more because i dont have to struggle with multiple books of plot and characters fitting together

- one project at a time or always juggling multiple

while i have a bajillion ideas, i struggle to get any work done if im not 100% invested in the story at hand, so i work on one at a time (while allowing myself to switch if i need to of course; but if i do switch, it's never just a few days. its months, and often seeing something to completion)

- one award winner or one best seller

honestly? id rather be recognized for my hard work in creating the characters/story via an award than via a bajillion people reading it,,, though theoretically if its winning an award at least enough people have read it to a) nominate it and b) vote for it, so? best of both worlds kinda?

- fantasy or scifi

YOU THINK I, GENRE BLENDER GEORG, COULD CHOOSE--

- character or setting description

please god. my beta readers didnt know what color embers hair was until chapter 13 because i couldnt fuckin figure out how to put a description of it in naturally. ill take describing massive trees and open ocean and vast plains of ice and cluttered rooms and stained glass windows any day but dont make me describe the narrator or i swear to fuck

- first or final draft

its the puzzle box gremlin in me like "NYEHEHEHE THE PIECES. THEY ARE THERE. PEOPLE CAN SOLVE THEM. NEYHE" and that simply cannot happen in the first draft

- love triangle in everything or no romantic arcs

we write polyamory, one (1) enemies-to-lovers, or no romance at all in this house (it feels so alienating to write no matter what but if its for the story ill do just about anything)

- constant sandstorm or rainstorm

can i say blizzard? i want to say blizzard. same "dont go outside or you'll die" as sandstorm but less worrying about water and also more excuses for the characters to light a fire and Talk About The Horrors or just commit arson

[codes]

hello matthew!! :D this ask isnt related to the little game u made unfortunately but id like to ask for some advice from someone who probably has to read a lot for school!!

i finished reading a classic of literature recently, jane austens persuasion. having repeated myself many times today, it was a very good thought provoking book. except that i didnt really realise that until i read the introduction of the book where they discuss her techniques and how she handles the themes!! argh.. in fact while i was readin the whole thing i didnt even really know what to feel! i knew about the instances of titular persuasion but i wasnt even really sure what they were saying with nuance...

since im so troubled by my lack of sensitivity and find no help elsewhere on the interwebs, as someone who i find can parse the complex muddled text of enstars with clarity, what should i do to become a more sensitive reader! or rather how do u read matthew?

hi lab! im a lil honored that u hold me in such high regard bc honestly, i dont always feel that my literary analysis skills are up to par! though i think thats an opinion shared by many but i often end up in the same position as you and even my professors say the same thing where they have to reread books before they start to really delve into analysis. its p normal, honestly. a lot of themes in literature are largely opinionated so some people pick up patterns faster than others and sometimes two readings can conflict with one another. it happens! one reading may be more clearly supported by evidence within the text but analyzing literature usually takes a lot of practice more than anything, but sometimes going back to the basics rlly helps and focusing on which critical theory may be applicable. could you maybe analyze the text through a character? perhaps the psychoanalytic theory may help! are gender roles present within the text? maybe looking at it through a feminist critical lens may give you a good ledge to start off. theres also formalism, post-colonialist, Marxist theory, eco-criticism, etc... the world is your oyster and having trouble with analyzing a text is normal! we're not all-knowing and sometimes it helps to look at what other people have to say will help you most of all.

also i asked my friend @cupidneos who is insanely smart for her advice since i bet that she would have something to say (also shes also a jane austen fan) and this is what she said:

i do wanna say that you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself since Persuasion is easily one of her hardest texts to really extend and make sense of so it’s no fault of your own … literature that uses free indirect discourse to hint towards our knowledge of character tends to be harder to understand bc of how limited that info can be! that being said, not being able to place our finger on something until it’s highlighted is completely okay! that’s what the introduction is there for; to help you out. there’s no set list of criteria to being a “more sensitive reader” since the phenomenon of reading itself is so mercurial. with practice i’m so certain that u will get a better sense of where to look for those literary themes. and don’t sell urself short in doing so either! if u find a passage important, pursue it!!! doesn’t matter what everyone else says abt it hehe

[svankmajerbaby]

✨️🎀🎈💞💝🕯🎙🤲💌

!! thank u so much for the ask. i love talking about writing......

✨ What's a fic you've posted you wish you could breathe life into again and have people talking about it? (or simply a fic you wish got more credit)

-hmm theres a point in which i have to tell myself not to worry about likes or comments bc what really matters is me getting the practise and exercising my writing muscles and having fun with it... But. i do wish i could get more ppl into my toy story fic. its got a whole bunch of wonderful comments and kudos and stuff, i just feel so proud of it and writing it came so easy and i poured so much of my love into it, i really really wish anyone who loves these characters would read it too.

🎀 give yourself a compliment about your own writing

-english is not my first language so grammar isnt often The Best, but i take a lot of care with using words and expressions as correctly as possible, and I try to always spell words right (i dont think ive ever confused loose and lose, for example, which ive seen confused a few times). some descriptions of spaces are particularly well done, at least to my own criteria, and the song choices are fun (or at least fun to write and picture in my head).

🎈 describe your style as a writer; is it fixed? does it change?

- honestly, ive no idea. i think i get verbose, and i write long dialogue scenes. i overuse the — to lead into another thought, because thats kind of like how my mind works. i try to be "cinematic" in my writing and always start a scene with a description of a place, its lighting and its sounds, like im used to when writing scripts. and i got the sense that usually the characters often ramble and go on long discussions about stuff that maybe normal people wouldnt just start out discussing so strongly. but honestly id much rather someone else outside my own perspective told me what my writing is like, i would trust them more than my own opinion.

💞 what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language

-the characters!! everything is important, and stuff like grammar often jumps out first for me... but i need to enjoy how the characters are written, and feel like theyre real people with genuine motivations and interactions. i dont mind too much if theyre not super alike to canon, as long as they feel true to the core of their personality and values.

💝 what is a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

-i was surprised to even get comments on my barbie frankenstein one. i loved writing it and it came through so easily and comfortably, but even though i had used that moderately popular meme of reimagining barbie as a gothic protagonist as inspiration i didnt really think it would be anything but something i liked to picture existing. i was so happy to see people enjoyed it too.

🕯️(there are two questions with this candle emoji symbol? i chose the first one, idk why theres two) was there a fic that was really hard on you to write, or took you to a place you didn't think it would take you?

-the tiff fic :'^) ive always liked writing sorta dark stuff, ever since i was little, but this was on another level. sometimes i felt (and still do) feel a bit awkward bc i really do push myself to write stuff i feel a bit embarrassed or shocked by, but i do think that if i want to be a better writer it does me good to make an effort to depict stuff that makes me uncomfortable and seek to write it in a sense of finding a way to both make if effective and relatively tasteful (or at the very least in-character).

🎙️which one of your fics would you like someone to make a pod-fic of?

- i have never heard about pod-fic before, but i guess i can imagine what it is (wonder if its like an audiobook, or if it has sound effects and the like??). i would love to listen to an audiobook of the barbie frankenstein fic mostly bc i would love so so much to hear the dramatic literary dialogue ive written in kelly sheridans barbie voice. also now that i think about it i have no idea what the creature would even sound like... that would be an interesting challenge.

🤲 what do YOU get out of writing?

-practise writing in english, a sense of accomplishment (when i get to finish something!!) and every once in a while some strong validation in the form of ppl liking what i write... all of it is super valuable to me, especially practise and the push and drive to finish stuff to upload, but the validation in particular just really hits that dopamine in my brain i guess

💌 share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

-its from the glen and glenda fic im halfway planning! i got a few dialogues written and some scenes sketched out, but its still a long way to go. im very excited about it tho! ive grown to really love the versions of the twins ive made in my head. hopefully theyre faithful to their screen depictions while also adding a bit more depth and character building ive wanted to take them through.

[jayextee]

Quake (2021)

Yeah, sure, I could do this in order if I wanted. Or, y'know, whatever.

Quake is important. I'm not going to go into depth, but no Quake would've meant no Team Fortress, no Source engine, no Half-Life, no Valve, no Steam. Probably.

As a first-person shooter it's often derided for being The Brown Game™. Not entirely unfair, as varying shades of brown do occupy most of the game's 256-colour palette, but I'd say it really is more than that.

Quake, above all, is an atmosphere unlike no other. This is helped along by the Trent Reznor score and sound effects, but also the necessarily-angular monster models of the time. Rending everything in polygons to such a degree hadn't been done at the time, and either required one of 1996's more monstrous computers or, later, one equipped with a graphics accelerator card. But on top of the polygonal bestiary and such, this meant that levels could now have a verticality to them that DOOM before it could only aspire to and Wolfenstein 3D wasn't even capable of dreaming about.

Breaking this new ground meant that something had to give, and it did; Quake is upon further inspection an incredibly bare-bones experience compared to its peers; entirely lacking any inventory, 'use' key, or crouch from its immediate competition, and having a player arsenal so 'stock' it may as well be a selection of beef-flavoured cubes to be dissolved in water.

I'm of the opinion though, that this was an incredibly smart design decision indeed -- having an extra dimension in level design and player movement to contend with wasn't the only factor that would've been at odds with a more complex core; for Quake is fast. In terms of raw speed, perhaps QuakeGuy doesn't run at quite the velocity DOOMguy does, but this doesn't matter. Everything is ramped up to insane levels. Weapons fire faster, enemies are aggressive and some incredibly agile. This is the first-person shooter stripped-down to its essentials and ramped-up to 11.

Thankfully, it's a good time too. A lot of fun to play at such a blistering pace, especially during a 'Quad rampage' -- powered by the Quad Damage collectable, weapons do four times the amount of damage and slicing through entire swathes of monsters like a hot knife through butter is satisfying to say the least. Honestly, we found one of gaming's finest powerups right here.

Level design services this, too. For the most part. id Software still hadn't threw-off the mazelike tendencies of the Wolfenstein 3D era and some maps are disappointingly corridor-based, which is about as bad for combat as it is for enjoyable navigation. In fact, combat takes a hit in another way too, as the game offers a paltry two boss encounters; both of them in the form of a puzzle to attack indirectly. You'd have thought more-conventional bosses would've been a blast for id Software to design, implement, and then fight given such power at the player's disposal. Alas.

And even then, the weapons themselves aren't the most cunningly-conceived set of hurty tools ever. In a vacuum, they're all great actually. But six of them comprise three pairs (shotgun:super shotgun, nailgun:super nailgun, grenade launcher:rocket launcher) that largely act as upgrades rather than discretely separate tools; with an exception being made for certain use cases rendering grenades situationally better than rockets, even if they do use the same ammo type.

It's not perfect by any means. And even without the legacy Quake had, and has, it's still great nonetheless. 4/5

[zoloft-and-anime]

1950 Ch.1- No Matter What

A/N- Hey yall! here's the first chapter in this series! It may be a little packed with info but it has some important points. No real warnings so far! Also if anyone has name suggestions Id love to hear cuz honestly a name is escaping me rn. Enjoy!

Content: reader is kinda shy, gay panic, Steve is confused, brief Eddie appearance

Thinking back, you can’t remember a time when you and Robin Buckley weren't attached at the hip. Since the moment the two of you met in the second grade, life-altering damage had been done to your lives in the form of a new, unbreakable bond. 

Your life had just been completely uprooted at seven years old, all your personal belongings packed into large cardboard boxes as your mother explained to you that the move to Hawkins was essential to your father’s career. Hopping into the back seat of your mother’s 1970 Range Rover, your father manning the wheel or the moving truck just in front of you, memories of your hometown flooded your mind. 

None of those memories, however, included any friends. No playground buddies from your elementary school, no neighborhood children who would come by to play. You had sat alone at lunch and recess, preferring to stay indoors during the summers. Your introverted and shy nature was apparent to those around you, leading them to leave you in your own, secluded world.

Despite the lack of friends, the move was hard to process. Change wasn't something you took easily, even at that age.

Robin Buckley, on the other hand, was a much more extroverted and talkative young girl, often getting herself in trouble for speaking out of turn in class. She immediately introduced herself to you as soon as she noticed that there was a new, unfamiliar face in her class.

“Hi! Are you new here? My name’s Robin and I’m seven years old, but I turn 8 next month!”

She was loudly speaking to you no more than three feet away from your visibly nervous figure, holding up six digits in a failed attempt to express her age. 

“That's six, didn't you say you were seven?” You reply, taking a step back to ease your anxiety.

Never in your life had you met a person as outgoing as this, or rather as interested in you. 

“Oh is it? Sorry, I'm still learning!” she responded, no offense taken to your statement and a grin on her face, missing a couple of teeth that had no doubt been compensated for in cash from the tooth fairy.  “Come on! It's almost recess. You can play cops n’ robbers with us! Don’t worry ill go easy on ya.” 

And with that, she grabbed your hand and led you to the playground. Your first friend, readily introducing you to some of the other children on the playground.

Most of them would fade out of your life, moving away, finding different friends, and growing out of your friendship. But never Robin. That day she had proclaimed you best friends for life, drawing up a picture in crayon of the two of you, hand in hand, with your names above your heads and the words ‘best friend’ plastered above the image. She handed you the paper with the words “You’re my best friend, no matter what.” right before dismissal.

Since then that picture has never left your room. Eleven years of friendship, and it has maintained its place, carefully folded in the bottom of a wooden box containing keepsakes collected by the two of you over the years. Bracelets, letters, random rocks you found walking together, polaroids of you at various ages. 

Now, in your senior year of high school, the two of you remain inseparable. Hitching a ride to school with Robin’s new friend Steve on the first day of the year. 

“Steve, as much as I'm grateful for the lift, don't you have anything better to do than drive high schoolers to class?”  You inquired as Robin playfully elbowed you from the seat next to you. 

“For your information I do, I'm just doing a favor for a friend… and her..friend. You two didn’t have to both sit in the back seat like I'm some sort of chauffeur though.” Steve shoots back, quickly glancing to the back seat to see the two of you giggling like idiots. “Robin, you two are just friends, right? Like I don't know why you wouldn't tell me if..” Robin immediately cuts him off loudly, “NO! No way not at all. We’re just friends. BEST friends! I don't even like girls like that.” 

Steve shoots Robin a confused glance in the rear view mirror as you look out the window, letting out a soft laugh at the idea of you and her in love. She sends him a look that tells him to keep his mouth shut.

The only secret Robin had ever kept from you in your entire friendship was the fact that she was gay. Steve wasn’t even supposed to know, it had just come out in her drugged-up stupor after his awkward confession. She loved you more than anything, you were her best friend, the only one who would always stick by her side, no matter what, but you just couldn't know. 

Sure, she felt guilty for keeping this entirely crucial aspect of her life a secret from you, but she couldn't help but fear your reaction. Deep down she knew it shouldn’t change anything, but something in her said that she’d regret it. So she kept quiet. 

The rest of the car ride consisted of you and robin being utter fools in the back seat, with you laughing at whatever snarky joke she made at the expense of your classmates or Steve’s child friends, as well as steve muttering quiet rebuttals and pondering the reasons as to why Robin’s “best friend” had no idea she was into girls. 

He shoved that to the back of his mind as he pulled into the school parking lot, shouting a quick “goodbye” to you and Robin as she declared that you two would see him after school.

As you two entered the building, her arm linked with yours, you begin to discuss your schedules, noting that you had the same homeroom and lunch, as well as English.

“Finally I get you in English!” Robin sighs, pulling on your arm slightly. “You know how I hate doing those long annoying essays! I just can't stay focused on them. You’re like an English whiz so we could totally be study buddies, yeah?” Her enthusiastic statement makes you chuckle, as well as your heart swell slightly due to the flattery. “Only if you help me with math. I know we don’t share the class but you’re much better with numbers than I am.” You reply with a nudge to her side. “Oh of course ill help you. When have I not?” she responds “I gotta get to class now, see you in homeroom.” She releases your arm as you turn the corner and stop to briefly stand against the wall.

“This year is gonna be great. I promise. Bye (y/n)! Love ya!” 

“Love you too Ro!” You smile at her. Something in the short statement pulls at your heartstrings even after all this time. 

You were forever grateful to have a friend that cared this much for you. That you could tell her anything without judgment. That the two of you would always be by each other’s side.

In fact, you couldn’t begin to imagine being this close with anyone else.

Maybe that's why your heart was beating so fast in your chest. Because she was so special to you.

Sure, thoughts of a deeper bond had crossed your mind before, but those were just that. Thoughts. You weren’t even into girls like that! And she definitely wasn’t either, always being quick to deny accusations of that nature. Plus, she was totally into this new friend she had made at her summer job. Why else would she follow him to her new job at the video store after things, well, fell through with Scoops Ahoy. 

As you turned the corner your heartbeat finally slowed, your thoughts slowing as well as you located your first period history class and took a seat near the back. You werent certain you’d have many friends in this class; you had always been sort of a loner when the company of your best friend was absent.

Just as the bell rang, a taller boy with long dark hair and a t-shirt with words you couldn’t make out slid into the desk right next to you, large rings on his fingers clicking against the wood as he did so. Turning your head, you met his eyes. He shot you an exasperated expression, followed by a mischievous smile before he turned toward the front to pay attention to the lesson that had just begun.

This was sure to be an interesting year if nothing else.

[beann-e]

“ let’s go“

“ excuse me “

“ I said let’s go . “

Your eyes creased as you leaned back into your desk chair —leg moving to cross over the other as your hands landed together in a hold on your lap. Eyes looking up at the male in front of you.

“ look at you looking everywhere but this messy ass desk I see “

you scoffed “ if it’s so messy why do you keep coming down here just to add on to it ? “

his head shaking a bit at your comment he had to admit he was a bit interested in your words even though he originally came here for a purpose. He had to see how this would play out. So yeah he’d play your little game.

“ huh mister prohero “ your face lit up in sadness to mock the male in front of you “ aw wait I forgot I have to be exact with my words when it comes to you because your emotionally challenged“

you stood up placing your hands on the desk in between you and the blond haired male.

“ the only thing ‘ challenged ‘ here is this crusty ass run down building I had to buy glasses to find “

“ ouu where are they? maybe they could also help you see this“ you smiled before reaching into your suit jacket only to pout “ crap hold up it’s not in there it’s something I picked up specially for you hold on “

“ what the hell are you looking for in there your taking awhile “ he spoke louder after a couple minutes seemed to pass and you were still searching around

“ huh that’s weird — hold on I can’t seem to find it “

“ find what ? “ his face made up in confusion as his eyes followed your body that was looking through your desk only to turn and rummage through the drawers behind you“ fuck is it really that bad —you’ve gotta clean y/n “

“ yeah I know hold on I swear I know where it is I keep a lot of them just in case “

“ is it important or some shit ?— if not I can wait I swear i’ll just come back down here tomorrow“ he sighed still trying to look over you shoulder “ I just came down here to fuck with you before heading ho—“

“ yeah no you’ll want it a lot of people seem to want it these days — it’s hot on the market “

“ well what the hell is i— “

“ AHA “ you screamed your hand stuck in the drawer as he tried to peek over your back to see what it was his body shrinking when he saw your eyes whip around to lock with his. Him going back to the cool, calm collected guy he was minutes ago as he ran his fingers through his hair

“ here look it’s limited edition these days “

“ what is it like an all might collectable or some shi— “

His heart stopped when he seen you fully turn around and smirk your eyebrow slightly raised as his eyes slowly went downcast on your hand showing off the freshly painted middle finger.

It straightened to perfection as it stood tall only causing the male to fume silently and speak under his breath “ what the hell “

“ look baku it’s the fuck you so desperately want me to give “ You pushed it towards him as you walked around your desk to get closer seeing the upset face he held “ aw what you don’t like it “

you sucked your teeth reaching into your back pocket “ here i’ll exchange it for you “ you brought your hand out from your pocket and back into his face as he started to shake slightly. You knew you’d went too far. Your jokes always went further than a person wanted you to.

You were fucking with him

He didn’t like it

He wouldn’t like it this time

.. He liked it

— he liked it

wait he lik—

Your eyes widened as you stared up at him face going stone when you finally seen that his lips were pressed harshly on yours. His moves were rough hands fast and quick already knowing what to do while you struggled with yourself over where to put your own.

No matter how many times the male before you kissed you it always felt differently each time. Your body relaxed into his as he smiled into the kiss only to laugh and bring his forehead to rest against yours “ your so fucking stupid “

“ but I beat you in class ranks in high school “

his smile widened he couldn’t even find it in himself to be upset not when you were having fun with your joke “ yes yes you did “

you smiled softly only to have it wiped away when he opened his mouth again “ but I beat you in jobs you asshole “

“ hey prick I enjoy my job “ he nodded his head as he moved to sit in your work chair “ yeah no no of course “

his hand moved to pull a cup of old coffee from behind your computer as he looked at you “ I would totally be able to tell— babe all id need is an everyday trip to your luxurious work place“ he lifted the coffee cup and held it to his cheek smiling softly to mess with you

he swiveled your computer monitor to the side to show off the millions of coffee cups you had hidden from his and your employees eyes

“ god so many— how would corporate feel about this knowing you’ve got all this shit piled up back here— it’s screaming that you overwork yourself y/n “

“ uh i’m mostly worried about my bosses opinion “

he smiled up at you only to shake his head with a small laugh whispering under his breath “ fucking stupid—you’re your boss “

he laid his cheek onto his palm as he looked up at you anytime he was around you it was like he was completely swallowed whole by your vibes. You were such a down to earth person and that’s what calmed him no matter what argument or how many there were you always found a way to calm him and the situation down.

no matter what you said or did he would always find a way to look at you as though you were holding the whole world in your eyes “ and what does your boss say y/n ? “

you perked up “ ouu good thing I have em on call let’s see “ you reached out to grab your husbands phone hand wrapping around it tightly feeling the many scratches it had on it’s back from the slams of it on the table after one too many documents he’d filled out the night before at work.

He was always so angry and mean—even to objects

Your fingers moved to put in the password as he looked at you head leaning back to rest against the chair as he moved the chair from side to side you having his full attention before he reached out to grab your phone sliding over to answer the call

“ hi is this big bird ? or also known as red from angry birds ? “

“ Ill let you slide with your comments because your voice sounds kinda hot right now and i like your suit — but yes this is your local prick hotline how may I assist you today “

A smile made its way onto your face as you watched his own just grow larger and larger over time “ oh I see so this is the one and only katsuki bakugou hmm “

you tapped your chin “ so tell me what’s someone as unimportant as yourself doing answering your bosses phone “

“ ouuu hard question “ he played with his keys that laid on your work desk “ I came here to ask em out for lunch maybe go out to go karts y’know since there’s a little brat at home who’s been dying to ride one ever since they’ve seen that shitty commercial “

“ mmhmm so please enlighten me what does this have to do with you answering your bosses phone “

“ nothing “

“ oh ? “ your eyes widened “ well I heard several complaints that you were just telling your boss what to do as if their not head of your company or in other words your “ you whispered “ boss “

“ yeah I guess i’ve fucked up huh ? should have actually dressed up instead of coming to get em’ in sweats serves me right— here i’ll pass the phone to my boss since they seem to look more business professional today — I don’t feel worthy enough to answer my bosses phone “

“as you should — nice to know you’ve finally learned your place“ you bit your lip at his quietness expecting him to go off or say something snappy but he only encouraged you to continue with a small smile and a head nod.

Honestly he was enjoying you he loved your jokes even if they sometimes went too far or if they hurt his pride he loved to see you enjoying yourself.

He’d rather you be open and comfortable with him and tell your horribly stupid jokes versus beating yourself up and thinking you have to watch what you say around him

“ fuck it’s gotta be the pantsuit is that why your letting me do all this—you douche your probably paying more attention to my suit than me “

“ correct smart girl —role reversal? “

“ we’re switching back? “ you laughed confirming his statement “ role reversal “

“ fine by me “ you smiled as he held out your phone to you and you held out his to him.

“ yes may I speak to y/n bakugou ? “ he stated as he spoke into his phone

“ mm i’m not sure I know them could you be more exact “

he scoffed “ yes my boss — i’m looking to speak with my boss please “

“ oo a boss —wife —plus a mother that’s a lucky catch you should be greatful — le asshole“

His smile faded as he stared at your eyes that locked with his . In this moment nothing could compare to the happiness he felt except for when he took his child to their first quirk appointment and received the good news of them not only having his quirk but yours too. Happily he wouldn’t have to deal with his kid getting bullied sadly he had a mini icy hot running around.

This was why he married you and this is why he loved you because what felt like hours of conversation had only been 10 minutes. He felt like he’d been transported to another world when he was talking to you. What originally started out as him just coming to take his wife and daughter on a lunch date turned into him on the phone with his boss.

You,

yet again being reminded that he’d always fall under you in status , in authority , at home, in the marriage , at work , and in his heart. Youd always be the one in power

“your fucking funny — a comedian really —always keeping me on my toes so yeah—yeah a real lucky catch— ‘m fucking lucky “

[citadelspires]

So I know character analysis in relation to the evente of True Colors isn't quite in style anymore, but Ive been mentally checked out for a month now and off my game for longer, so now that I'm in the zone again I'm gonna make yall regret it.

By which I mean yeah it's time for me to endulge in overthinking things and talking about how miserable Marcy's life is on a daily basis.

So some of the stuff Ive been thinking about isn't exactly new, we've known Marcy is real into escapism, we know she'd rather stay exploring other worlds than go back and get separated from her friends. But like, Ive been thinking about the specific detail that has me approaching it from a flipside. As much as I know Marcy loves Amphibia I don't think I ever gave enough credit to how much she Hates earth.

The specific detail in question being that she considers the calamity box a perfect birthday present for anne. On a surface level that detail doesnt seem super important, but the more thought I put towards it the more it seems like one of the most important details in the whole thing.

While one could make the argument that Marcy just used it being her birthday present as an excuse to get her hands on it and get it open, I just dont think shes that cunning. Shes smart yeah, but shes not agressive or manipulative with it, I think she genuinely believes, even at that point, that randomly getting sent to another world without her consent would be a good birthday present, the implications of which are unsettling to say the least.

Sure by the time True Colors happens she's got the firsthand experience and view of what Anne has been doing and has seen how good its been for her, so she is able to freely do the "I gave you this" knowing it was good. But at the beginning, everything was completely different.

Marcy wanted to get off of Earth in order to stay together with her friends, but she also knows that they arent aware thats even a factor, and I would even make the argument she isnt comfident enough in herself to think theyd actually go along with it if they knew her reasoning, just so they wouldnt get split up from her. (Honestly I could make a whole nother post about that and how I think part of her reason for not telling them what the box would do was because she was afraid theyd tell her she wasnt worth putting up any resistance for).

So Marcy is standing there, knowing her own reasons why she wants to run to another world, but also knowing that those reasons dont directly apply to Anne. And while she does tend to lose track of peoples wants and desires when she gets caught up in her own head, she knows Anne has parents she loves and cares about that she would miss, and probably all the other stuff we know Anne misses about home. Regardless she calls the box a present for Anne anyway.

Marcy's desire to (literally) escape to a fantasy world makes sense to me. I get it. I cant pretend I wouldnt seriously consider it myself and Im happy here anyway. But even I have enough stuff and relationships here Id loose a lot by going. The fact that Marcy takes no time to think and immediately wants off of earth speaks volumes. For Marcy, the literal only things in the entire world she holds valuable are Anne and Sasha and thats serioisly it.

In the past Ive categorized this as Marcy not having anything really tieing her down to earth and meaning she just doesnt really care for anything or anyone there but I think theres more too it than that.

For Marcy, the thought of leaving Earth is not just a convienent escape from her immediate problem. She knows Anne doesnt have the same things pushing her away from earth and she knows Anne has people she loves there, but she still classifies sending Anne away from earth without her consent as a present. Marcy believes, without even knowing where it will send them, that the box will be so good it will outweigh any negative feelings from the people anne will miss, entirely because literally anywhere is better than home.

Even knowing Anne has people she loves Marcys feelings are so strong that the concept of being on earth as anything more than a tolerable misery Anne has to deal with to be happy with the few things she likes about it just. Doesnt even occur to her. No matter how much Anne holds valuable Marcy cant understand the idea that losing all of that would be worth it and more just to get off of earth, to anywhere else, no matter where, so much so that in her eyes its a wonderful gift to literally anyone, because earth is such an inherently miserable place why would anyone want to stay?

tldr Marcy you poor child what are you not telling us

[shoezuki]

Btw now that we mentioned Niki, I feel so conflicted bc I'm watching my man Foolish build these stuff and I'm so amazed but also "niki pleass burn it down, kinoko Kingdom doesn't deserve to live"

i say niki burns it down still

honestly not even in character wise the Entirety of kinoko kingdom. it feels like a stage. like. it feels like a lifeless stage after hours with all the props and amazing structures n decor but. without the Context or Emotion or Background in it

i know foolish is building it and so its Absolutely Beautiful. because foolish is jus like that mans touches anything and makes it gorgeous. but i dont like that karl is gettin him to build it. 

karl has a like. almost a Fixation? around the Builds and the Setting rather than..... anything else. when really if something is Pretty or not doesnt. actually matter that much. like it HELPS havin somethin lookin cool as fuck. but

karl isnt building it. its not something Genuinely being Formed like an actual ‘kingdom’ or community or anything. i havent seen any lore streams In kinoko kingdom or pertaining to it so i could be dead wrong. but there’d be more Life in there and Meaning and Symbolism if it was Authentically Built. 

yall remember that quackity lore stream? like. el rapids was objectively Ugly. yall saw that sign. but it had importance to it and meaning and just. Lore within it that it didnt Matter. quackity still made the scenes of himself tearin it down into something emotional and meaningful. 

idk basically. id feel bad for foolish to have his work destroyed but thats the only reason id feel bad if niki burnt that shit to the ground. i still want her to go ham tho like please. she could jus be like ‘hey foolish if u join the syndicate n let me burn these guys down we can form a builders’ union’ and mans would be frothin at the mouth

[worldsendgirlfriend]

@vriskakinnieaynrand literally yeah, but if you Do bind or have a flatter chest id say better posture is more 'acceptable' in that context, when im binding i put more effort into standing/sitting up straight bc smaller bulge in shirt just gets read as man tits.

how you walk and sit is another thing, men are less afraid to take up space so they tend to sit with their legs more open (tho ofc dont like. be a dick. ykwim), nobodys looking at your junk and they will not care enough to so it doesnt matter if youre packing or not. tho i wouldnt recommend that in leggings but also men dont really wear those bc of that exactly so. also when sitting think about the pose youre in waist down and if said package could fit comfortably with that (i.e. crossing your legs). feet angled out when both sitting and walking, this is also a men are less afraid to take up space type idea bc walking w your feet angled inwards is more indicative of anxiety/shyness. men also dont really walk with their hands swinging (a little maybe but subdued) and also just not really at their sides if they can help it, they tend to put their hands in any pants or jacket pockets if they have them available.

dont be a dick to people but men do generally talk about themselves a good bit. i already try to relate to people by telling them about my own experiences in an attempt to bridge that gap w understanding so i usually get away w it like that since its not me just, shutting the other person down since i still am asking questions and keeping conversation going w/o dominating it. on that note men dont give as many affirmatives as women do so try to limit the nods and ok's etc but grunts are good for showing youre still listening.

going back to second paragraph, men are more assertive. dont end your sentences like questions unless they are questions, in fact questions should be limited as much as you can! in work emails, rather than saying "can you get x to me?" id say "id appreciate if you could send me x, thanks." more professional phrasing but ya

if you dont use an stp its fine, obviously a crowded restroom is more anxiety provoking than an empty one but if youre chill about it nobody is going to look twice. i just walk in use the stall and leave, if another person is there the whole time and i only gota piss tho i sit a bit longer as if i thought i was gona shit too but it just didnt happen then etc

honestly even if youre terrified internally as long as you give a persona that youre just moseying along like everyone else then nobodys gona think anything diff than what youre telling them. this is the most important thing ive found-- if you look anxious people are going to think about it bc youre picking yourself out of the crowd. as long as you play it cool then you will be fine i promise.

one last thing: dont be afraid to correct people but DONT jump to anxiety about it. in fact, this is slightly misogynistic yes but filtering in the tiniest bit of annoyance while correcting someone helps a lot bc it tells them that youre not thinking "oh no, someone guessed it", youre thinking "come on, seriously?" and they will take your word for it

basically just be assertive is my number one tip, it can be difficult at first and i still flip out internally sometimes but it gets to be second nature after a while.

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

HASO, “Telling Tales.”

This story came as a suggestion from someone on the discord server, so I hope you all enjoy a break from some of the heavier stuff I have been doing lately.

The room was large and filled with noise, mostly the clinking of glasses and the clattering of voices, but on occasion the comm systems echoed with a cool female voice broadcasting announcements across the entirety of the station. 

There were at least forty tables inside the room packed in close together, with a long bar at one end where men and women alike stood standing and chatting to each other as they took their drinks. Below that was the low rumble of music, and up on all four walls, large projection screens broadcasted earth sports in delayed time.

At the far end of the room a large viewing window looked out on a wide view of space and the rest of the station. The station itself was huge, stretching out for what could have been miles and miles of tightly packed corridors and branching rooms. The station itself was a mesh of Tesraki and human technology and had been built right here in orbit….. In orbit of the thing staring at them from out in the darkness.

A supermassive black hole ringed by a disk of bright light and a halo that cut across the middle.

Honestly as McCaster stepped into the room, he found the view very disconcerting, and had the sudden worry that…. Inexplicably they would start slowly drifting towards the black hole until they succumbed to a horrendous and terrifying death. Looking around though, it seemed that no one else seemed to think so, and he ushered himself inside and over to the bar hoping that a drink might calm him down.

He sidled up to the bar leading against the metal countertop and motion for the bartender with a hand.

She slid over to where he was. She was dressed casually, though the bearing of her chin told him that she was one of the soldiers working on the station and not just a civilian. He ordered something to drink, and he came back a moment later with a metal tankard. He took it surprised to find that he missed the bright amber liquid inside cool glass covered in a layer of condensation, but he supposed having breakable drinking vessels wasn’t going to do for a ship like this.

Still, the liquid inside his mug looked a sort of muddy brown rather than a pleasant amber.

He took another sip.

Still tasted fine though.

He turned to look around the bar watching as groups of people chatted to each other , drank and ate.

Not all of them worked here, some of them, like the crew of the Omen, had stopped by for supplies and to give their men and women some time to relax and have a little fun before they had to ship out again. McCaster felt this was really his only chance for a while, to meet people off the ship.

He sidled forward eyes scanning over the room and falling on a woman. She was pretty, young about his age with blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail.

Couldn’t hurt right?

Unfortunately, just as he was sidling up, some other gus seemed to have the same Idea, and he sat down at her table just as two others did pausing to stare at each other across the table.

McCaster looked at the young woman, “This seat isn’t taken, is it?”

She tilted her head at him in near amusement, “I can’t control where you sit.”

“Then I suppose you don’t mind if we join you.” The other man added receiving a glower from McCaster across the table.

“You work here.” The other man asked her 

“Yes.”

“Well me and the boys here are just off from The UNSC Pioneer, finest ship this side of the quadrant.”

McCaster snorted into his glass, not trying to be a dick this time, but he knew THAT was a lie.

The other man glared at him, “What, you disagree.”

“Frankly, yes. Our ship is Objectively the best and that’s not even me bragging.”

“Oh really, and what ship is this.”

McCaster smirked, “The UNSC Omen, but I bet you’ve heard of it.”

There was a chorus of disbelief up from the other men.

“Right, and I bet you are personal friends with Admiral Vir too, right.”

McCaster frowned, “Maybe not personal friends, but I did fly with him once.”

More disbelieving booing.

He crossed his arms, “Don’t believe me huh well what about this.” he reached into his pocket to snag his ID card and then pulled it out, holding it up for the entire table to see, “See Lt McCaster of the UNSC Omen. I fly a Thunderhawk, and sometimes the shuttles.” This time the men could hardly argue, his iD said as much, at least as much about which ship he worked on and what he did.

THere was a light murmuring around the table.

“That’s right, so like ninety precent of my friends are aliens.” He was exaggerating just a little bit, he didn’t really interact with the aliens on the ship all that much accept for the Celzex that fixed the weapons on his jet, and the Drev he liked to play"  pool with.

But the blond was looking at him with interest, so its not like he could squander this opportunity

He nodded glancing sidelong at the girl. 

“Yeah, like I said, its not like the Admiral and I take lunch together or anything, ‘but’ the ship is small enough that I do run into him on a daily basis, cool guy, a bit weird though. I actually flew with him during the burg war on the Gromm home planet.”

A chorus of disbelief.

Behind him someone chimed in, “Bullshit.”

He turned to see that another table behind them had overheard his claims. There was a pretty redhead sitting there, and so he wasn’t likely to let go of his momentum. He raised his ID badge for all to see, “Not lying.” He raised his mug to his lips and took a long satisfied sip, “Disbelieve me all you wan’t but it’s true.”

“Well don’t just sit there all smug, tell us about it then.” Someone urged, and he was more than happy to oblige.

“Well, we had just been informed of the eminent Burg attack on the Gromm capital city below. I had been being debriefed by the Commander, at the time, and went with him to the bridge as we were debriefed. The Nexus was down and Burg ships were descending in swarms. They were unprotected on the planet below, and it was clearly up to our crew to stop the attack.”

His little crowd was drawing even more eyes, and he found himself with a small crowd of skeptics sitting around him listening to his every word.

He found himself speaking faster with excitement and nerves.

“I was on the bridge and watched him survey the scene, when out of nowhere he hands the captain chair over to one of his lieutenants and orders me out with him. They had orbital defences, but he knew that they had no chance in atmosphere since they didn’ have any fighter jets to push back the invasion.” he puffed out his chest, “Admiral Vir handpicked me to accompany him as his copilot and gunner.”

Another chorus of disbelief.

He shook his head, “Disbelieve me all you want, but it’s true. He knew my talents, and he knew I could keep up with him. And I tell you I have never seen a man or woman that could fly like he does.”

He had them now leaning forward in their chairs.

The best part is all of this was true…. Mostly.

“Of course, I was ready, solid as a rock, I have been training for just such situations for the entirety of my career, and I had no hesitations about what I was going to do. The Admiral was relying on me to be his copilot and damn straight I wasn’t going to let him down.” He grinned in a self satisfactory way, “He gave me charge of all the important stuff while he was flying combat…. And he made it sure in no unclear terms that if he couldn’t handle the flying, I was going to take over for him.”

Ok that was sort of a lie, but only a little one.

“I knew as soon as we were coming in that Admiral vir had an idea brewing. We didn’t go for an angled entry but instead piloted our jet straight down. I thought that the re entry was going to rattle my teeth out of my head. But as I said before I had no doubts about the Admiral. I knew we were going in, and I had inklings of what the admiral was about to do. I never questioned him.”

Also kind of a lie, but it's not like it mattered.

“We were plunging from the sky, fire spitting off our wings, going so fast it makes your insides feel like they are on your outsides. Picture the sky fading to blue behind you, fire is benign thrown off your wings like water from a waterfall, the G force is so powerful that it compresses your chest and makes it hard to breathe,” he was standing now gesturing wildly, “We plummet from the sky, and fire our guns exploding a burg ship just before it takes out one of our other fighters. We pull up right before the ground, must have been nine ten maybe even fifteen Gs.” Okay he was exaggerating, “But I stayed conscious through the whole thing.” That was also kind of a lie.

“We broke into combat with the burg drones, and I shot down at least three of them as the Admiral piloted.  He said afterwards that he had never seen someone take the shots I did and make it.” Okay yes he had been passed out for half of this, but again its not like any of them were going to know.

What harm was a little exaggeration.

“I caught one burg as we were coming out of a sharp dive, my hand felt nine times heavier than it should have, but I nailed it in the engine compartment and it exploded into a ball of fire. I was still shooting them down when the Admiral orders me to take control of the ship. Of course I wanted to ask what was going on, but there was no time, I grab the stick and manuver us into a tight barrel roll. A ship explodes behind us. I have control of the jet now complete control and I pull us up into tight pursuit of another. I avoid two missiles and in a moment of genius, I drop all of our flares, which collide with at least four burg ships exploding on impact. What I hadn’t known is that the Admiral’s hand had cramped from all that earlier flying, and if I hadn’t been there he would have died. But at that moment I had no idea and proceeded to clear enemy skies over the capital city. I dived so close to the ground that we might have crashed if I hadn’t pulled us into an inverted upwards pull for the last few seconds”

He continued to speak and as he did the fight grew even more excessive and heroic. He detailed in exquisite and colorful imagery as he single handedly flew them to safety pulling off near impossible maneuvers, crack shots and many more outlandish happenings as he and Admiral Vir valiantly switched back and forth on the controls, equals in every way.

He was just describing their great and climactic fight scene where, he had to take command of the ship once again, when he finally noticed no one was really paying attention to him. He saw their eyes, looking past him.

His voice slowed, as he looked around eyebrows furrowed.

He turned where he stood and cut off mid sentence as his eyes fell on a familiar face in the crowd.

Admiral Vir sat behind him in a chair balancing on two legs, head tilted to the side. His eyepatch covered one of his eyes, but the expression on his face was one of great and abiding amusement.

He leaned forward in his seat, “Don’t let me interrupt you lieutenant. I believe you were just getting the the part where you pull an inverted double helix back loop and I pass out drooling in the front, you just manage to pull us out of that dive, and the two burg ships are so confused by the manuver that they crash into each other and explode  catching the attention of all the other stunned burg in the area and allowing the other pilots a final push in clearing the sky?”

McCaster’s mouth opened and then closed and then opened again .

Admiral Vir continued to smile as McCaster stammered and gurgled like an idiot.

“So…. what actually happened.” Someone asked 

McCaster plopped shamefacedly down in his seat. Admiral Vir paused tilting his head in the other direction as if thinking. A good portion of the room had gone quiet as they shuffled closer to hear the stroy. He stood after a moment and walked over to where McCaster was sitting placing his hands on the back of the chair.

“Well The first part of the story wasn’t wrong. I had been debriefing McCaster and the other recruits on a few aspects of my ship when we got the call in that the Gromm homeworld was being attacked. I DID give up command to the ship of one of my lieutenants, and I DID as McCaster to fly with me as copilot.” he smiled and easy smile that seemed to light up the room around him.

Everyone within a twenty foot radius shifted forward in an effort to be closer to the man and the magnetic nature of his personality and charming smile.

“McCaster was top of his class in flight school, and I wanted an extra pair of eyes, that is true. We did take a vertical dive into the atmosphere instead of an angled entry. Yes there was fire spitting off the wings, and yes we did pull out of a vertical dive after saving one of the other fighter jets. All of that is pretty accurate.”

HE smiled and McCaster wilted.

“He did embellish a few things.” he rested a hand on McCaster’s shoulders, “But what is a good story without a little bit of embellishment? I’ve certainly never told a story that didn’t sound about ten times better than it actually was.” There was a small laugh from the crowd, “Point being that I would certainly fly with McCaster again, he is a brave, talented, and honorable member of my crew even if he is a colorful storyteller.”

McCaster looked up at the Admiral, still leaning on the back of his chair, and watched as the man made subtle eye contact with the blond girl just a few feet away.

McCaster blushed As Admiral Vir pushed his chair forward across the ground to sit next to her.

She was smiling in some measure of amusement, and Admiral Vir winked at him as he backed away. Either that or he just blinked, it was hard to tell with the eyepatch.

He turned back to look at the woman who was looking at him in some measure of amusement.

He rubbed the back of his head.

“He seems to be one hell of a wing man, in and out of a jet.” She commented 

He stammered stupidly glancing over his shoulder to where Admiral Vir had retreated to the bar, ignoring the eyes on him, hungry expressions from both men and women as he ordered a drink and sat down.

Bless the Admiral, number one for being a good wingman for sure, and two…. For not totally calling him out on all his bullshit.

Granted everyone probably guessed, but at least he could keep some of his dignity with plausible deniability.

He was able to work himself back into a state of cool suave composure, enough to learn that the woman’s name was Emily, and that she worked as a data analyst for the big black hole thing. It had a lot to do with math and physics which he totally didn’t understand, but certainly tried to because he knew she liked it.

Across the room, Admiral vir attracted ebbing and flowing waves of people coming to listen to his own stories which were mostly modest and self deprecating depictions of what really happened. Being the first person to fall flat on his face on an alien planet, how he had scared the shit out of the bran the first time he met them, how he ended up in a Rundi prison because he was being a dumbass.

There were a few times where he too tended to embellish the stories, only to preface later by saying, but what actually happened was this.

As soon as the man stepped into the room he seemed to change the whole gravity of it like  a wandering star collecting satellites.

He supposed that’s what happened when you were famous.

Thanks to him though, it turned out he got along really well with Emily, and despite knowing he was a complete moron, she seemed to like him too, and he scored her number and a surreptitious invitation to accompany her on a walk to somewhere quieter.

As he was leaving, he turned back to look at the Admiral, making surprise eye contact with him as he did.

He raised his glass minutely to McCaster before turning around and continuing his story.

He grinned as Emily took his hand,.

“So….. tell me really, how many times did you pass out when flying with him.”

He snorted, “Please, I spent  more than half of it passed out, like I can’t remember shit. I don’t even remember where the sky or ground was relative to each other for most of the time. The man can fly…. Like all that stuff I was telling you, just replace my name with his and you might have yourself a believable story.”

She laughed at his expense and he laughed too 

Thank you Admiral Vir. 

[dyketubbo]

my ask didnt send i am going to murder. anyway BEEP CLASSPECTING... now im thinking abt that and aimsey. from the top of my head/only briefly thinking, beep as rage or void vibes with me? (obvs not the typical rage player you see, more like the nuance we were discussing). and aimsey as a life player?

oooo void beep would be suuper cool :oc rage too, he is very fucking stubborn and does have outbursts rather often (also rage players in canon usually have connections to magic, and then the homestuck rage players all had religious themes so, god stuff). meanwhile void fits beeps heavy "this is all irrelevant and you could never understand any of this", and his own belief that even what he does just doesnt matter. personality under a veil (not necessarily a facade), fundamental inability to understand and truly perceive it all.

id say he doesnt fit rage enough, if only because rage players are fundamentally about survival instinct, and, well. beeps already dead, and he seems to be perfectly fine with the fact that one day he just wont exist at all. hes not scared, though he is easily pissed off, but in the end he just sort of likes messing with shit and being in control. lil dickhead (affectionate)

honestly, since he almost fits rage but not quite, he.. almost acts like a prince of hope (unfortunate eridan kinnie). destroying beliefs and asserting his reality as the Absolute Truth, dragging others like aimsey into his delusions and being in a situation where aimseys putting her faith into him even though hes not a good person because she feels the need to believe in him and connect with him, because she genuinely feels like hes the only friend they have left, and because aimsey wants desperately to believe in what beep is trying to show her, desperately wants to understand. he shuts down things he believes to be false, to the point where he can make them false by simply destroying the problem.

hes a force of outward destruction, destroying what he believes to be flaws in others. theyre heavily defensive, putting everyone beneath them, believing hes the one thats doing it Right, and ultimately, he believes its his right to control things. he doesnt trust anyone, he reacts to any fear he may have with anger, lashes out, and the "TELL. NO ONE" scene almost showcases beep shattering and hurting aimsey before he steps back and give a quick "sorry!". his arc seems to be leading up to him realizing he can care about aimsey, that he can trust her to believe him and in him, and he seems to be dealing with the concept of trusting aimsey with his beliefs

hes definitely not a general hope player, but specifically prince of hope could fit. onto possible void class combos, with, first, the notable fact that we dont know what kind of person beep may have been in the past, other than that he was destructive. we know about some events in his past, and how he feels about them (kinda), but generally, this means hes very versatile and has many class possibilities, depending on how we want to interpret what we do know.

for example, he could be a maid whose now in the apeshit stage, stubborn and repressive. its entirely possible he got so tired of listening to the other spirits that he got to the unhealthy stage, exploded, and now without anything stopping him, hes doing whatever the fuck he wants, because hes decided none of it matters, that its all irrelevant and he doesnt have to care because its his fucking universe and no one can stop him from playing god. he spends his time doing menial things, because to him, its all equally unimportant, so why not waste time? he cuts down unnecessary tasks, weeds out what he finds useless, etc etc. basically, he should still be independent, but he needs to be brought back down to earth (metaphorically), because hes kind of burnt himself out and is now fucking with things because he feels none of it matters anyways

sylph of void sort of works too, mainly his meddling and tendency to shut down anything that could reveal something he doesnt want revealed, as well as shutting down others viewpoints and he covers up shit whenever he wants. his motivations are, really, mostly unknown to us, other than that he seems to think this is fun. otherwise, he also has a tendency to try and fix things he thinks needs fixing (like getting rid of fairies and space creatures), and will often try to fix mistakes he sees in mortals. however, slyphs are ultimately healers, and beep just. is not a healer, and he doesnt necessarily invite creation of void in any way, since void isnt really destruction of anything, and what he does invite is destruction of things. hes also just too active to be a slyph

so, with the previous prince assession, theres also the possibility of him being a prince of light, which would mean he would act more like a void player. hed destroy light with light, destroy the importance of information with information. they strip away the importance of things, uses plain fact to force the perception that nothings really important. he dismisses the importance of things, purposefully acts ignorant to draw away from what he knows, destroys knowledge itself from a power standpoint (wiping aimseys memory), and in extreme cases, can physically destroy anything in his way, or assert over and over that what he said/did isnt real, that nothings true or important other than what hes saying. again, little shit. if i had to make up my mind, i think prince of light fits the most

as for aimsey, i think life does fit him really well, shes definitely got the similar "girl next door" kind of vibes, while still being really interesting in her own right. she definitely starts out as a typical fictional life player, enthusiastic, energetic, genuine, wanting to effect the world. shes a normal girl (and this isnt an insult, rather, her being so normal ties the magical themes of the bear smp together really well, and its a perfect way to use a life player, make them be a catalyst for both the normal life player and eccentric others to shine). however, as she struggles with losing trust in bear and not being treated well, not having anyone that cares about them specifically, the energy starts to falter, but comes back when they feel the need to be rebellious. notably, while aspects arent super literal, she contrasts beep so much in just how alive she is, which fits her being a life player rather well. except, as i said, aspects arent literal, which means aimsey being a life player translates to her showing what life means in a metaphorical sense.

life is about agency. its about what you do, your ability to do so, its about asserting your will. not what drives you, but simply you doing at all. interesting enough, life players can be hard to pin down because life is about desire and agency, while the players class defines their ideology. life players can become obsessed with an idea that they need to do something, that they need to change how systems work, and often can cloak their want to fulfill their individual desires as altruistic want to fulfill others needs and desires (i.e., aimsey wants a friend and someone who pays attention to her and is genuine towards her, she feels like shes found that in beep, and as such starts to cloak her want to be his friend as aimsey wanting to help beep rather than aimsey themself).

as for said class.. this was, hard. because of how heavily influenced life is by the class its paired with, and because aimseys arc right now is trying to deal with feeling like shes too much and unneeded, it means that i have to really consider how that connects with which classes struggles. so, i ended up with sylph. aimsey is a creator, and she tries to heal as well. "allowing creation/healing of life or inviting creation/healing through life". from a literal standpoint, she tries to help bear heal by trying to get him to open up, to live, to make friends and interact with people. this could almost seem like a blood player move, but while a lot of aimseys arc is about bonds and relationships, shes not really a strong connecter or leader, shes just good at inspiring others to be, to her own detriment.

also notably, unhealthy sylphs crave, whether craving more of their own aspect, or craving another aspect when they feel theirs is not enough. aimsey talks a lot about how she grew up doing things by her lonesome, and now that she feels like people are moving on without her, she may be craving blood (that sounds so awful out of context). she wants attachments, wants to be the person that brings everyone together, but.. she isnt, not in a way thats appreciated. and due to her insecurities, she sees this as a flaw within himself, and as something to fix. so, she latches onto beep, and desperately tries to have as much of an effect on their life as they do on hers. like life players in general, sylphs try to solve their problems under the guise of helping someone else with theirs. currently, aimsey seems to be trying to find what she needs to do, because when she tried to do what she thought she needed to do, she (from her perspective) failed, so now shes trying to make up for her perceived failure within herself by trying to help herself through helping beep. i would think into it even more but i think its probably best to just leave it here KEKW

[kiefbowl]

weebs and using "yall" isnt at all comparable. weebs dont speak the language and only took up random phrases. most of the time they cant even read the language nor have any desire to seriously learn it. also it comes often with fetishizing east asians and with that has a racist background.

people who learn english as 2nd/3rd language and picked up "yall" on the english speaking internet, dont fetishize americans or southern americans nor do we make fun of it. sorry we dont speak your language as perfect as you want us to? "english is not your language" because a non-offensive word that makes sense to us as plural makes you cringe? do you act like that with anyone learning english? immigrants (like my parents) who speak incorrectly? because i find that way more cringe.

I didn’t say English is not your language like…you can’t have it.

here are the exact order of events - someone else made a post that literally ONLY said “when europeans use y’all lol” and in the notes there were people acting pissy including the “argument” of “what else are we supposed to do there’s no plural of you in English” among other inane things that don’t matter.

I then made a vague post about how there is the plural form or you, its you, and then further said or we can just bring back thee/thou. it’s both true, funny, and not a big deal.

I got a flurry of anons including someone making a loose association between weebs just using random Japanese words, and I responded “ “there’s no plural of you in English” sorry English is not your language” or whatever. maybe and probably not worded the best, but really just poking fun of just this weird idea of Europeans finding a reason to not be made a little fun of as if there NEEDS to be a plural you in english and therefore they can’t be, idk, called out I guess? Further back and forth went on in the notes about whether whatever anon said was even valid, which is fair I’m up for that debate. white weebs watching anime and saying “nani??” like a joke (which I literally talk about in those notes) seems fairly similar to white Europeans being like “I’m just going to pretend this slang has no cultural context and I can’t be called out on it” because they see some tweets and posts with it. I didnt make an 80 page dissertation about all the nuances about how I meant it, but this had literally nothing to do with Japanese and everything to do with a bunch of people going “wow wow you guys thinks it’s funny when I use y’all?? how dare you? America is imperialist and we have to use English because of you and your movies and y’all needs to be used because there’s no plural you and also it’s just sounds so funny people so it’s just a joke.” Like, a French person got mad about my anons. A French person got mad L M A O

I do sincerely apologize if anyone felt I was minimizing racism, because I don’t think people using y’all is the same thing as being racist, and I don’t think I made that claim, however at this point that’s not important. I do see parallels in this debate but honestly at this junction it’s worth just admitting I’m clearly not adept enough to have this conversation, especially since it wasn’t a debate I was interested in having. I just can’t give this weird discourse the amount of time and attention needed to not misrepresent myself, and plus i don’t want to do that because I don’t want to hurt people. Id rather be misunderstood than hurt people by trying to constantly save face about this.

So I’m really am not going to answer anymore asks about this or anything related to this. Just remember at the heart of all this annoying stupidity were some annoying Europeans who are fragile beyond belief and if they have a problem with me saying that then they can unfollow me because I don’t care.

[red-the-dragon-writes]

Today's post is not on the usual "writer blog fare" side. Instead I am going to introduce you to several fun facts about various animals on our planet and then talk about worldbuilding.

1. Lampreys are a kind of "living fossil"- a not-really-so-scientific term for a creature that has lived unchanged for a very long time, so long that we have fossils of them looking the same way they do now. They don't have proper jaws, just a circular sucking mouth with teeth set into it and a tongue designed to strip flesh off of what it touches. They're finless fish, look quite a bit like eels, and have this really alien, uncanny vibe to them.

[id: a long, slender bluish-silver lamprey sitting among rocks. It has a long snout, an eye, and then six small perforations in its side arranged at an even interval sitting behind the eye. The environment it is sitting in is very yellow and green in comparison. end id]

[id: an image of a lamprey from below. The snout ends in a round, flat mouth which is studded with teeth in four concentric circles. The teeth are smallest near the outer edge and largest in the middle, and look like very sharp round points. In the center of this ring is another, smaller circle, where the pointed, tooth-like tongue can be seen, as well as a hole for the lamprey to actually ingest food with. Its eye is visible, as are some of the perforations on its side. This one is a more mottled gray than the first one was, and less shiny. end id]

Sea lampreys, which are the kind i've sort of not really kinda researched, are a major pest in the Great Lakes, where they regularly attack fish. They can get up to two feet in length. Despite this, they are not particularly dangerous towards humans.

2. Horseshoe crabs are also "living fossils." They've been around and virtually unchanged for millions of years. They're not true crabs, and are more closely related to chelicerata species, like spiders and scorpions (and many more). There are a lot of cool features of horseshoe crabs, but one of their most extremely cool, to me, is their blood.

I'm not going to post any images of what I consider to be animal cruelty, so you'll have to take me at my word here, but this is a bottle of horseshoe crab blood. If you're sensitive to images of animal cruelty, I don't recommend looking for proof, but if you aren't, there are plenty of images of the blood coming out of the creature for you to verify this with.

E[id: a bottle of slightly frothy, opaque blue liquid. It is sitting in a row with several other bottles of the same material. end id]

I am a sucker for blue blood, I just think it's neat, so that's all I'd need as an excuse to slam some horseshoe-crab-inspired nonsense in my exceptionally gory and fucked up wips, and if you've been reading along with WiB you may have noticed that blue blood does come into play at some point! But that's not all that's neat about horseshoe crab blood. Unfortunately for the horseshoe crabs, but fortunately for us, their blood is literally the only source of an important compound used for detecting the presence of dangerous bacteria in certain pharmaceutical drugs. (Fortunately, there are replacements that will hopefully become more popular in coming years.)

Now that we've gone over all that, onto the worldbuilding!

I worldbuild by Rule of Cool. Let's just get that out of the way. Every so often people will ask me how my worlds get so expansive (not WiB, WiB i made up on the fly by cribbing from fanfic and like... BBC Merlin. Assume very little of this holds true for WiB) and the answer is largely that I take every interest I have ever had in anything and smash it all together and throw it at my wip to see what sticks. and then I just... like... reasonably attempt to figure out what the natural conclusions will be.

So: we have lampreys. We have blue-blooded ancient sea creatures with spectacularly important and valueable blood. We are writing this into a story that takes place on land, somehow.

- The first option, and the one I'm going to talk about most because I did it, is just to rule-of-cool it into a character. (Or a place, or an item, or whatever, but largely I do rule-of-cool on living creatures and think harder about the world around them.) If you've been keeping up with WiB, you may have noticed that (spoilers) Zero Point is some kind of fucked up magician with a lamprey mouth in their hand who shapeshifts and bleeds blue. This is where I got those inspirations from (along with, like, some other stuff. I promise there are no lamprey assassins, but- continuing in the trend of stealing from sea creatures- the bobbin worm is a spectacularly beautiful, spectacularly deadly creature if you're within its weight range. which is like, goldfish size, but. And cuttlefish are known to disguise themselves as other animals, and can change sexes if the male:female ratio where they are isn't ideal.)

So you can take the elements you like, and just kind of slam them together haphazardly, which is what I did with Zero Point. The trick to this kind of worldbuilding is just to avoid looking too closely at it. The magical assassin has a fucked up mouth in their hand? Yeah, okay, that seems kind of fucked up and creepy. What do they do at all times? They hide it under a glove. So the protags Just Straight Up Never Ask. And voila; it never gets explained, and it never has to.

Same with the blue blood. It shows up, it functions as a plot device because only Zero Point has blue blood; it is never explained or even delved into with much detail. And if it were, it would fall apart instantly, because the justification is literally just "i thought it was neat. No, no one else is like that. I don't even know why they are. i just felt like it"

- The second option is to consider the effects of the things that you're working with, and then work off of that.

Let's take Zero Point again. Strip them of their context (weird assassin with magical powers) and just like, consider the fact that this is a creature with blood that regularly retails for over $10,000 USD, is intelligent as fuck, shapeshifts, has a mouth in their hand that may or may not be their actual mouth, and can exist on land so long as they have suitable access to water. What does that mean for our setting? Surely they're not the only person like that; so you have a whole species of people who are sort of but not really amphibious, shapeshift, and maybe have magical powers, who knows. They can't shapeshift their fucked up lamprey mouths, maybe. That seems like a reasonable limit. So their blood is highly valuable- what does that mean for their relations with other people, or their culture? What kind of foods do they eat? How do they create a sense of culture as shapeshifters; is there even a way that they represent themselves in art? How do they interact with the world? Do they have a "true form" or not? Every one of these questions will spawn new questions. If you answer all of them you'll lose your mind, but if you answer at least ten you'll spawn a much more background-heavy world that can help to shape your story much more effectively than trying to just craft a narrative will. Sometimes it works very well for a story. Sometimes it gets you lost in the weeds.

- The third option is to reference something else, and build off that. Again, let's use Zero Point as the example.

In the original story that the WiB ensemble is from, Closerverse, which may have some mentions on this blog but honestly I have no idea, there is a city that I've done quite a bit of worldbuilding on. This city is called Hudson, and one of the major important features of it is that it is partially underground. (This is a reference to the DFZ of Rachel Aaron's Heartstrikers series). Hudson is intentionally run to be the worst, most unpleasant city in the world, and one of its features are its wildly intelligent, dangerous forms of aquatic life. The lowest level of this city is partially submerged, and all of these creatures plague the people who live down there.

Closerverse was also set during a period of early industrialization, and Hudson heavily referenced US history, especially 1900s-1920s labor history. Tenements, pollution, zero protections for workers, et cetera. Hudson is a nasty, miserable place, and everyone who lives there can feel the jaws closing in on them.

Anyway, in Closerverse you got these fucked up massive eel-like creatures (lampreys, but with extra features) that due to some rather significant meddling wound up growing legs and then got really massive and started eating people. They have blue blood, glow in the dark, and make fairly decent eating as long as they aren't eating you. And they're intelligent. Given the whole "mutual eating each other" thing, the eels and the people of Hudson have some pretty major animosity going on.

Most of Zero Point's stuff is really just me referencing the Hudson Eels, because I fucking love those. They're some of my favorite worldbuilding elements ever. But given that no one else in WiB has ever seen a Hudson Eel, let alone seen their blood get dry on things, or whatever, everything about Zero Point is wildly out of context. And that almost makes it better, because the whole deal with them is that they're mysterious and weird, and having them be a mysterious and weird reference to something no one but I know about most likely is like, fun and neat.

There are, of course, other modes of worldbuilding as well, but I typically aim to stick to the first two as much as possible. The cooler you make something, the more possible questions it raises; the more questions something raises, the deeper your world gets.

Although, a word of advice: sometimes animals just do things. Sometimes bodies just have features. Who would invent fingernails? But having them is mighty convenient, isn't it? For that matter, who would come up with a deeply logical and reasoned explanation for eyebrows- but not having those would be very strange, to us. You can get away with doing a lot by just having that be how it is, and not having the characters comment on it.

Also, the more "shaped" a thing should be, the more you'll want to take the second approach. For house design, something intentionally built, you'll want to know why it was built, and what purpose is this and that room, and why is it painted such and such colors. But if you're talking about adding a second moon, like... fuck dude, who needs to know why there's a second moon? Maybe if you have sailors you have to know what it'll do to your oceans, but that's the kind of thing you can kind of just say exists and move on. You'll figure it out; it gets pretty intuitive.

Anyway, happy worldbuilding!