#in which i write

[frozenwolftemplar]

Carmen Sandiego Money Headcanons

I said I'd do a longer post! ;)

(thanks and kudos to @mmaricarmen23 @bisexually-finger-guns @backofthepencil11 for spurring this)

-- Growing up, Carmen really only knew about money in a vague, conceptual sense: money was a thing that VILE needed in order to function and was an indicator of how valuable something was (with 'something' being the 'imports' that were brought to the Island). That's it. Once a year it needed to be...whatever Cookie Booker did, but other than that you didn't need to think about it. Pretty easy low-maintenance stuff.

-- She got a bit of a wake-up call when she left the Island and hadn't yet started lining her pockets with VILE's ill-begotten funds: apart from a roll of bills in the pocket of Cookie's coat and some of his own savings account money that Player quietly wired to her (don't tell his parents), she was flat broke. It was here that Player first grasped just how...few life skills his bestie possessed.

-- Carmen: Player, guess what? I saw this place off the highway that teaches you to ride a motorcycle and-

Player: Red. Please tell me you didn't...

Carmen: ...Why wouldn't I?

Player: How much did this cost?

Carmen: I dunno, a hundred?

Player: RED!!! THAT'S LIKE YOUR MOTEL ROOMS FOR THE WEEK!

Carmen: But! I can ride a motorcycle now. 😎

-- He is now bestie/hacker/money manager

-- Once they joined her, Zach and Ivy had a hard time wrapping their heads around (a) how much money their new friend had (b) how freely she spent it, and (c) how willing their new- boss? friend? something?- is to spend it on them.

Zach: Whoa! You wanna eat here? Isn't it kinda...expensive? (it's literally an Olive Garden)

Carmen: No worries; tab's on me. 😉

Zach: ....Ives, we died and went to Heaven. 😍

Carmen: ...We're in Ohio?

-- It was...hard to get used to. Especially for Ivy; she'd been the one to manage the money when her and Zach were on their own (he would have spent it all at McDonald's, something he has freely admitted) and is well aware of how much things costs and what smart spending looks like. Seeing someone basically burning through a bank account (never mind it seems to be bottomless?) is...well.

Ivy: Boss, you can't buy these! $400 is way too much for sunglasses!

Carmen: ...It is?

Ivy: .....YES!!!

-- And she just...doesn't feel completely comfortable with sponging off someone they just met, even if she is really nice and offering to pay for room service and hotel room movie rentals and anything else they could ever need or want. That's not the world she came from; in her experience, everyone has an angle they're playing, and money is how they keep you beholden to them. Plus this whole vigilante thing? Yeah, it had to be a one-and-done for this...she wants to say 'heiress?' She made that mistake with Eddie, and she's not making it again.

-- Zach is more comfortable with the spending sprees. He's a little uneasy at first (he, too, knows the value of a dollar), but quickly and easily adapts to a life where he doesn't have to feel shy about asking for seconds.

-- Update: Carmen really doesn't have an angle; they really are doing this vigilante thing, she really is footing the bill, and she really expects nothing in return. She also, Ivy quickly realizes, has no idea how money works beyond buying things. Good thing she has practice explaining this stuff to Zach

Ivy: The drugstore sells pairs for less than $12 that work just as well. Just go there to-

Carmen, already wearing the sunglasses: Still getting these

Ivy: At one point, my entire wardrobe cost less than that. Think about that for a minute.

-- This is not going to be easy.

-- Shadowsan feels some guilt for not teaching Carmen about money management better, and for being the reason she spends like it's her last day on earth (which it could be with VILE hunting them but we're doing that today), but he doesn't take much action beyond occasionally remarking on something being too expensive. It's not like he was responsible with money when he was her age. Or ever.

-- No one pursues money management 101 in earnest, though. Ivy and Zach and Shadowsan and Player...they all know how unfair the world can be, and all know what it is to be dealt a bad hand. They all (well, the kids; Shadowsan has Guilt (TM)), to an extent, kind of....feel they deserve this (hey! tons of people far worse than them get to have nice things; why can't they?). They want and like this lifestyle, of jet setting and high living, the fantasy come real. It's fun, and really nice to not have to worry about being unable to afford their next meal or next month's rent. Plus they like the perks; the cars and tools, the bayside warehouse and the super-fast CPU Player wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise. It's hard to want to stop all that.

-- Maybe they can just...ignore that part of Carmen's Life Skills curriculum? Wolfe's secret accounts were seized by VILE, so a good chunk of this ill-begotten money is technically Carmen's by rights. The interest alone is a king's ransom, so she...doesn't really need to learn budgeting, right?

-- Carlotta disagrees.

-- She wants her daughter to be able to manage her own money. Responsibly.

Carlotta: Hija, you spent almost $200 (US dollars for simplicity's sake) on shampoo this month. Do you truly think that's sustainable?

Carmen: ...Yeah? I mean, I recycle the bottle.

Carlotta: Dear Lord. 🤦‍♀️

-- It's hard to see just how ignorant she is about money; it just reminds her how her baby was raised to be a weapon against humanity, one who was never meant to exist outside VILE. But stewing over it won't change matters, and anyway, after missing so much of her life, she actually welcomes to chance to teach her daughter Life Skills. And anyway, Carmen has a good head on her shoulders; how hard could it be?

Carlotta: Now, mira, see these bottles? The same size as the expensive one, but cost far less. You'd have more money for other necessities.

Carmen: Like the expensive shampoo?

Carlotta: ....Like food.

-- This may take longer than she thought...

[ghost-town-story]

FebruarOC Day 13: Melody

Even as the compulsion magic settled over her, sticky and rancid and worming its way beneath her skin, Melody still fought. The beacon still shone brightly out of the corner of her eye, silver blue and full of hope, moving erratically as the person at the other end made his way to her. Melody just had to buy enough time for him to make it there.

“Alright.” Melody’s captor smirked as he crouched down in front of her. “Let’s try this again. Give me your name.”

Melody stared him down, biting the inside of her lip as the compulsion dug into her like hooks. Name magic was dangerous under the best conditions and downright precarious in situations like her current one, but with the secrets she and her name held, Melody knew that in this case it would be deadly.

The beacon moved, wavering frantically as it swung in and out of Melody’s field of vision.

Please hurry.

The smirk slipped from her captor’s face, replaced with a dark look of anger. “I said, give me your name.”

Melody bit down so hard she tasted blood, determined and stubborn and oh so terrified as her body did its best to betray her.

Her captor stood, but before he could say anything, he flinched, a choked noise escaping his throat. A moment later, he collapsed as Finn pulled his dagger out of his chest.

“Are you okay?” Finn asked, falling to his knees in front of Melody and dropping his dagger in favor of flittering his hands over her to check for injuries, the beacon between them vanishing at his touch.

Melody finally let herself relax, but compulsion magic was an ugly thing that took a while to fade even after the death of its caster.

“Melody Cassiopeia Rose Vernize di Valencia.” Unwilling as it was, Melody kept her voice as quiet as she could just in case, though she doubted Finn would be so focused on her if there was any immediate threat. “Ugh.”

She turned her head and spat, trying to get rid of the foul taste in the back of her throat. “I’m… okay. Mostly,” she continued, both for Finn’s sake and because the compulsion made her. “Better now that you’re here. Stupid compulsion magic.”

“Oh.” Finn brushed her hair back to look her in the eye. “Physically, how are you?”

“Sore,” Melody answered. “Bruised. Think I nearly bit a hole through my lip. But that’s the worst of it.”

“Good.” Finn began to cut the ropes tying her arms and legs. “They’d have me to answer to if they hurt you any worse.”

“I thought they were already answering to you?” Melody weakly joked.

“More than they already are,” Finn said with a grim smile. He cut through the last of the ropes, then ran his hands over Melody once again as if to reassure himself that she was truly physically unharmed. “Jared and Will are clearing the rest of this place, but we should still get out of here quickly. We can talk more when we get somewhere safe, okay?” He gave her a searching look, so hesitant and caring and worried.

“Okay,” Melody agreed.

Finn was apparently appeased by that, as he stood and helped Melody to her feet. He paused for just a moment, holding her close and pressing a kiss to the side of her head. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he murmured.

“Because you came and rescued me,” Melody answered. She knew they needed to get going, but she still nestled into him, so grateful for his constant, steadfast presence in her life.

“I—” Finn cleared his throat. “Yeah. We can talk more later.” He kissed her again, then reluctantly untangled himself from her. “Come on.”

[mouldyshoe]

EVERY has exactly the same effect on good omens fans that the g note had on mcr fans a few years ago

[omnifitense]

Another reason I'm glad I'm not an (ugh) 'influencer' is that I'm bad at self-promotion.

Here's a series I wrote. Took me almost exactly two years. Very proud of how it turned out. It's 250k+ words, and arguably the entire point of it is to get the two main characters into a lesbian/queer/it's complicated relationship.

[bookwyrminspiration]

sometimes a theme recurs in your work without your permission. and sometimes it reaches a threshold where you're like. well now i think this is saying something about me against my will. don't know what though

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[artemisdesari-blog]

A writer friend told me something that broke my heart a little bit today; they're going to quit publishing their fanfic.

My instant thought was that they had been trolled or attacked or that something terrible had happened in their life because this person is so passionate about their writing. It wasn't any of that. Engagement with their works has been going down, as it has for many of us. Comments are like gold dust a lot of the time, and just looking through the historical comment counts on old fics on ao3 demonstrates this trend very clearly. It was not simply the comments dropping off which caused them to decide to stop posting, however.

My friend came across a discord server for their fandom (I should point out here that their fandom interest and mine diverged a couple of years ago, we stay in touch but don't currently read each other's posts because I'm not into their fandom and they would rather gouge their eyes out with a wooden spoon than read anything Star Wars) and specifically to share fic in that fandom. They joined, because we all love a good fic rec, only to discover that their latest multichapter fic, which has almost no comments and very few kudos, is being hotly discussed in this server as one of the best stories ever. Not one of these people has bothered to say this to them on the fic. When they asked, none of participants could see the point in telling the author of the fic they apparently loved so much that they love it.

This discovery has absolutely destroyed my friend's love of sharing fic. They share because they love seeing other people's enjoyment, and fic writers do that through comments and kudos/reblogs/likes because we don't get paid. There is no literary critic writing a blog post/article about how amazing the story is for us to copy and keep/frame. There is no money from royalties. All we have are the words of the people reading our works.

Those people on that server could have taken five minutes of the time they spent gushing about how amazing my friend's story was to other people and used it to tell the one person guaranteed to want to hear that praise how much they loved it. They could have taken a moment to express their opinion to the person who spent hours upon hours plotting, writing, editing, and posting those chapters. Instead, they deprived my friend of thing that keeps them sharing their writing, and in the process have killed their love of it. My friend now feels used and unmotivated.

I won't be sharing a link to their fic, they said I could share their experience but not their identity. I know they plan to post one final chapter. I know they intend to express their hurt at being excluded from the praise for the thing they created, and I know they intend to announce that as a consequence they will not be posting for a long while, if at all.

So please, I beg you, don't hide your love of a story from the writer. It's just about the only thing we have.

[frozenwolftemplar]

Good thing we can fix that!

"GASP!"

Carmen whipped around at Zach's gasp, muscles tense. "What?" Her eyes darted around the food court of the mall, searching for any obvious signs of danger.

None presented; only Zach standing at a signboard in front of a McDonald's, eyes full of stars. He jabbed a finger at the sign. "They've got March Madness Happy Meals!"

Carmen creased her brows. What?

She looked over at the sign; a picture of chicken nuggets (the fried kind), apple slices, and a mini jug of milk filled it, a red box painted with a beaming yellow smile behind them. In the center of the spread, like some sort of holy idol, stood what seemed to her, for all intents and purposes, a cheap plastic child's toy.

This...did not make sense (well, most of it; Zach's excitement over random things like this was very much a part of her daily existence).

Carmen blinked, more confused than ever. She knew American marketing practices often made...unverifiable claims about their products, but having sufficient confidence in a fast-food meal to name it after a guarantee of enjoyment was- well, suspicious (didn't this country have some sort of truth in advertising laws?).

(she wasn't even going to try to parse out the meaning of 'March Madness;' one mystery at a time)

"Aw, sweet!" Ivy was pressed up at her brother's side, crowding him as she jostled for a look at the sign. "They're, like, little basketball hoops! How do you think they work?"

"You put the ball in that little catapult," Player joined them, face bent over his phone as he pulled up a promotional website. "And try to launch the ball so it goes through the basket. Pretty cool use of physics."

"Forget physics!" Zach was practically salivating. "It's sick!"

"We are so getting Happy Meals." Ivy nodded decisively. "Can we, Boss?"

Suddenly three pairs of entreating eyes were trained on Carmen. She looked askance at the sign again. The smile on the box seemed to sharpen, daring her to find fault with the veracity of packaging joy. She still wasn't sure about this, but they all had their hopes set on it, so...

"Uh...sure? I guess?"

"YEAH!" Zach and Ivy ran off to get in line the second the words were out of her mouth. Player lingered though, looking at her in that way.

"You have no idea what a Happy Meal is, do you?"

"That obvious?" Carmen chuckled sheepishly, shoving her hands in the pockets of her hoodie.

"What? No....." He flashed a conniving grin that said the exact opposite.

"Liar." Carmen shoved him gently.

Player smirked up at her. "Well, for that..." Then, at a louder volume that rang through the food court. "Hey, guys! Make it four; Red's never had a Happy Meal."

"SERIOUSLY?!?"

"You couldn't have just texted them?" Carmen muttered as about half the people in the food court turned to stare at the apparent oddity that was a young adult who'd never had a Happy Meal.

"Nope."

She rolled her eyes as she shoved his smirking self again. "These things better be worth it."

By the time they left the food court a half hour or so later, filled with fast food of debatable nutrition but undisputable taste and Player and Ivy still bickering about the outcome of what proved to be a very rollicking game of catapult-basketball that had them all in stitches, she had her answer.

Whoever named that thing knew what they were talking about.

Quick sketch of the GOAT player🤯🤯 requested by @sundcg

This made me realize that carmen most likely has never had a happy meal🤔🤔🙁🙁🙁

[depraveddame]

feels like fake news

[neil-perrys-suicidal-tendencies]

REBLOG POSTS❗❗ COMMENT ON FICS❗❗COMPLIMENT FANART ❗❗LEAVE LITTLE NOTES IN THE TAGS❗❗ BOOKMARK FICS YOU LIKE❗❗ TELL AUTHORS WHAT YOU LIKED ABOUT THEIR FICS❗❗COMMENT ON DECADE OLD FICS ❗❗ADD YOUR OWN ANALYSIS IN LONG POSTS❗❗ENGAGE❗❗ INTERACT❗❗ BUILD A COMMUNITY ❗❗

While people don't work for engagement, it certainly doesn't do any harm..

[frozenwolftemplar]

I was reading posts from @rueitae and @fedorah-the-explorah about Player's double life and just had to share:

Player: You're gonna be on your own for sightseeing today, Red. Being forced offline for the afternoon. :(

Carmen: Something up?

Player: Eh, Mom put her foot down about the dentist appointment I've been ducking for the past few months, and-

Carmen: ...

Carmen: MONTHS?!?

Player: I've been telling her I don't need it and-

Carmen: I am remembering this the next time you say I'm neglecting my health.

[ghost-town-story]

Day 11: Kestrel

(This one caused me so much trouble hmph. Anyhoot, a very late combining with the ockissweek prompt "desperate", and warnings for major character death. Have fun~)

He stands on the roof of the barn, a little too drunk and always too brave and constantly craving a vantage point, and he spreads his arms out wide and spins, laughing from sheer relief and joy at being alive another day.

You watch him from the ground, quietly admire the way the dying sun halos him in gold, and from here it looks like, for a moment, he could be flying.

He’s supposed to be on the roof, sharp and calculating and watching your back.

You’re on the ground, supposed to be fighting, but all you can do is watch as he tumbles from his perch. For a moment, he’s sun-drenched and laughing and could be flying.

You blink. He falls.

His foot slips, and you jerk to catch him, to steady him, to make sure he doesn’t get hurt.

He doesn’t fall. You don’t catch him.

There’s cyanide on your tongue as you scream his name and reach out for him, but he’s too far away—you’re too far away.

He falls. You can’t catch him.

He jumps down and lands in front of you, stumbling a little bit but only cause it doesn’t matter if he hits the ground running this time.

You don’t see him hit the ground. You can’t watch.

He’s haloed in gold sunlight and blue sky, and when he kisses you, he tastes like whiskey that drowns out the taste of your own cyanide magic.

He’s stark against the dark asphalt, surrounded by a slowly growing stain of bright red. You press your lips to his, frantic, desperate, and he tastes like iron and gunpowder before it’s drowned out by your own cyanide magic.

But even as you push your magic into his chest, searching for a heartbeat to keep it going, you know it’s no use. He wouldn’t have fallen if he was still alive.

He was dead before you ever had a chance.

[mouldyshoe]

the new tardis looks very nice but i honestly miss when it looked like it was going to fall apart any minute,, just a grubby wonky old thing

[omnifitense]

Of course my brain waits until December to finish this, when it's cold in the northern hemisphere.

[lgbtlunaverse]

To me the most fun part about fix-its is placing dominoes.

Tragedies often consist of escalating series of actions and circumstances which, in isolation, were not clearly leading to the tragic end but form a chain of cause-and-effect directly towards it in hindsight. In equal but opposite fashion, I love starting with small inoccuous changes to canon that in themselves do not obviously fix everything but start a new chain that leads to a better ending.

It's kind of impossible for fix-its to feel fully natural– the reader by definition knows what the original ending was and that this ending will be happier because the writer wants it to be– but it is possible for them to not feel contrived. A big deus-ex-machina, or a character breaking with their pre-established tragic flaws to suddenly make all the "correct" decisions almost always feels unsatisfying to me.

But a few carefully placed small domino pieces slowly knocking over bigger and bigger tiles until the entire story has radically changed? That's a lot more fun.

It recquires the author to both correctly identify the original chain of cause-and-effect and understand the characters well enough to know how they'd react to different circumstances. Because if the story feels like it's fixing the wrong problem or the characters don't act like themselves the magic is lost. But when it works? When it clicks and the reader sees the domino chain laid out in front of them? It's beautiful.

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.