#really long post with low readability

[sn0wbat]

in which a fledgling vampire's uncle is a total dweeb running a slayer club

[armpirate]

I hate how bad I want you || Choi San

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

pairing: Choi San x fem!reader || Boss x employee

w.c.: 2.5k

Warnings: Suggestive, making out

Summary: You hated your new boss with your guts. The mere thought of being around him made you lose it. Or so you thought until you saw a side of him, and yourself that you didn't know of.

You loved your job. You genuinely did. When you graduated, you thought you’d have an awful position in a small company that’d kick your ass after a few months. But unlike your low expectations, everything turned up quite well for you. Of course working as a secretary, when you studied Business Administration, wasn’t the ideal, but for that moment, it was perfect. It was a job that helped you pay the bills -after you were stubborn enough to leave your parents’ house- and allowed you to save some money, your colleagues were great -you ended up befriending most people in the office-, and your boss was awesome. Mr. Choi would always try to be a resource of help for everyone in the company, especially for you. Although you were his secretary, he always tried to show you how upper positions worked, and what tasks they had. Kind of as if he were preparing you for any promotion that could come your way. 

The job was perfect.

Or at least it was before there were some changes, and your position was the first one to suffer a change. While others were transferred to a different area, or directly to a different office, you stayed in the same place -which you thought was great, because your building was only twenty minutes away from your home, by bus. The only difference? Your boss. You went from assisting Mr. Choi, to be his son’s secretary as he was going to join the company after graduating. 

At first, it didn’t bother you. You’d lie if you said you didn’t like the change. San caught your attention the first day he set foot out of the elevator, walking around like he owned the place while his hands were hidden inside the pocket of his gray thick long coat. Just like the rest of the girls in the office, you were part of the group that were drooling over him -except that you did it in secret, instead of being as open as them about it. Mainly, because you were his secretary, and you wanted to keep your job. 

But as time went by, all that attraction started being replaced by annoyance and disgust. You didn’t want to say out loud that you hated him -because it was such a strong word-, but thinking about having to see his face every time you looked up, because he insisted on you being aware whenever he needed something, made you think of calling in sick every morning. Sometimes you’d even think about quitting. 

Okay, maybe you did hate him. But it was justified.

You lost count of the amount of times he fucked up since he started working there, which have been only three or four months. And that wasn’t even the worst part. The problem was that he’d always blame it on you. If he forgot about a meeting, it was because you didn’t schedule it properly -and not because he didn’t check. If he sent an email to the wrong person, it was because your calligraphy was barely readable on those post-its. 

Every day there was a new problem. And, with it, a new excuse to back it up. The problem with that was that he made you look useless and clumsy, and that could affect you during the evaluations at the end of the year. And, unlike him, you needed the good results to stay in the company and be able to pay all the expenses that came from living -basically. 

You got there earlier -as usual. You’d get there almost half an hour before the office started welcoming your colleagues, so you’d have plenty of time to get everything ready, surrounded by silence and calmness.

Thirty minutes later, some people started coming in, barely muttering a low “Hello” if they happened to walk past your desk, a way of greeting that really contrasted with your friend’s, Yana, who would sing out loud while resting her weight near the corner.

“How did your weekend go?” but she didn’t want to know about the several tasks you did back home, or how you argued with your landlady -who wanted to increase your rent out of nowhere. Yana was asking about something more interesting, more juicy.

“It was okay” you shrugged. 

The date was fine, the guy was friendly… but there was no chemistry. Talking to the technician that repaired the printers was almost the same, which was disappointing. Because you genuinely thought there was something going on when you both flirted non-stop in the office.

“Just okay?” she sighed disappointed, standing next to you while she waited for a better explanation.

“Yeah” you nodded, but you knew it wasn’t over.

“Did you invite him to check your cave?” the way she referred to sex made you cringe, moving uncomfortably on the spot. The lack of an answer made Yana insist “A kiss?” she frowned.

But before you could tell her that wasn’t the place nor the moment to talk about that, your new boss made sure to let her know. After making sure Yana flinched enough to stand up, San walked over his desk. His attitude was so weird. Usually, when sitting there, he’d always throw a sided smile at you, and you guessed it was because he knew you hated it. But today he sat there, with his eyebrows frowned while his eyes were lost on his own desk. 

Not like you cared though. If that was a sign that it’d be a calm day for you, you weren’t going to complain. You saw him placing his glasses properly, reaching out to one of the papers so he could read it. 

Looking at him right now, you couldn’t deny the sex appeal he had. His harsh factions made him a man that was easy to slip your eyes to. Way too easy. The problem came up when he interrupted his silence to open his mouth. 

The sound of a notification in your computer made you go back to reality, moving your eyes away from him to focus on the screen in front of you.

Mr. Choi: Did you get everything ready for my meeting?

You: Yes, the samples are on the small table behind you, and I already emailed you the presentation. 

You didn’t need an answer from him to know whether he got it or not, it was enough with lifting your eyes again to see San turning on his chair to pick up all the bound samples and leave them on his desk. 

“Hey, Y/n” another voice got you to finally move your eyes away from your boss. Marshall was looking at you with a smile “I really enjoyed the other night”.

Did he? You made your biggest effort not to frown and show how you didn’t feel the same way. Instead, you tried to match his energy, smiling and nodding, and even lying saying you two should repeat it any time. 

Another notification from your computer interrupted your chat, making you turn to it momentarily to find out that -not surprisingly- your boss sent you a new message.

Mr. Choi: Get ready. You’re attending the meeting, too.

You avoided looking up to San, because you were sure that if you did, the first reaction from you would be showing him your middle finger. You had scheduled an interesting workshop regarding leadership, that was planned by his father, and you wouldn’t be able to attend because your new boss was dumb enough to not be able to do shit by himself. If he had told you earlier, you’d have registered on the one that took place in the afternoon instead, before the inscriptions closed.

“Ready?” you heard his voice over you, while you saw his gray suit behind your computer. “Also, Marshall, don’t you have something to do?” you looked up to the two men, seeing an expression from San that made you want to punch him. It was that arrogant look you knew too well. 

“Yeah, I’m attending the meeting in five minutes as well” he let him know with a smile. 

That answer was something San didn’t expect, and his reaction was curious to you. Because why was he frowning, and clenching his jaw over his employees doing their job?

Too late to backtrack on his decision of having you there, San just waited for you to follow him to the big meeting room. 

San’s attention during the meeting kept shifting to you, seeing how Marshall and you kept exchanging smiles and looks every once in a while. It shouldn’t bother him the way it did, but there he was, trying his best not to throw that man off the window for earning those accomplice gazes from you. 

“Break time” you heard his voice sentence. Looking up to him, you found him twisting his jaw while tilting his head. 

You didn’t know what bothered him, and it wasn’t like you cared either. Honestly, you were grateful for that break, because your body was craving some coffee before being able to keep up with taking notes constantly. “Not you, Y/n” he said, as soon as he saw your attempt to walk to the door. 

Giving you an empathetic smile, Marshall just left the room, while the rest of the attendees also left the room and closed the door behind them. And you just stood there, waiting for him to tell you what he wanted from you, or what he wanted to change in five minutes and that’d put you in a tough position. 

“I see you laughing a lot with Marshall” he mentioned, without even looking at you. 

You couldn’t describe your face at that moment. Both eyebrows arched, surprised by that comment, but also confused by the nature of it. Sure you were paying attention to what was being said, but you were only there to take notes, which you did. It wasn’t your fault that he read the slides you prepared, instead of coming up with something to make it more dynamic. 

“In case you forgot, we’re in the middle of a meeting” he raised one of his eyebrows over the frame of his black glasses. 

You scoffed, not believing you were receiving a lecture about professionalism from the least appropriate person for it. 

“You have something to say?” he asked, finally getting up from his chair and walking over to you. 

You wished you were able to bite your tongue, to form a tie with it so it wouldn’t spill more than it should. But you were so fed up with him, that having San lecturing you about your work made you reply back without giving it a second thought “Quite funny how you’re the one calling this out, as if you hadn’t done worse”.

San tilted his head, with a sided smile forming on his face before he spoke “Difference is that I’m your boss, and you’re my secretary. I can make as many mistakes as I want, you can’t”. By the way he arched his eyebrows, you knew he wasn’t done.

“So talking with a coworker is a mistake now?” you tried to do your best not to laugh in his face.

“It is if it distracts me” he stepped closer.

“For fuck’s sake, you get distracted by a fly. How is that my problem?” It was after exclaiming that, that you were finally aware of how close you two were. You could perfectly see the way his skin wrinkled on his frown, and could feel his heavy and thick breathing making some of your locks move. 

San analyzed your burning gaze, eyes dropping to your plump lips, before he gave in to his wild instincts. His lips captured yours in a rough way, trying to suck into your lower lip as if that would refrain you from pushing him away. 

A wet sound flew between you two when your hands, pressed against his chest, forced him to step back and break the kiss. You were ready to slap his face and leave the room, but something in the way he looked, how his lips were parted for more, built some type of electricity inside of you that clouded your judgment. Because you weren’t seeing your annoying boss anymore, you were seeing a sexy man that was giving you the most shameless of looks with his foxy eyes through his lenses. 

Your tongue clicked, scolding yourself for your thoughts, but also working as a sign of where you lost your mind. Your hands wrapped around his neck, pulling him to you so you’d be able to link your lips together again. His arms instantly moved around your waist, making sure your bodies were glued together. 

You were impressed. Completely surprised by the fact that a two second kiss did more for you than a two hour date. And, to top it all, all your senses went numb because of your boss, instead of everyone’s crush. But instead of fighting all your awakening needs, you just let yourself go, lost in the kiss that made your head turn in circles and turned your knees weak as jelly. 

Just like the entitled asshole he was, he dug inside your mouth without a previous warning, earning a gasp when his tongue pushed yours. You held onto his blazer when his hands started pulling your pencil skirt up, folding it until it barely covered your ass. His hands grabbed it, and you couldn’t understand it, but feeling his growing bulge against your stomach woke up something that you didn’t know you felt about your boss. 

His fingers moved lower, confidently traveling down your legs until they got to your inner thighs while his thumbs still pressed tight over your ass cheeks. One move from his whole body, and he already got you lifted over the crystal table with your legs wrapped around his thin waist.  

Your body reacted to every kiss and every move of his tongue, to his fingers rubbing all over your thighs to spread them wider so he could fit better -and, especially, to the dangerous situation you both were in. 

“I could fuck you right here and now” his raspy voice felt like the most torturous caress in your ear. “, but I’ve already been unprofessional enough, according to you”. 

Confused by his words, you felt his hands dragging your thong down your legs. And instead of being filled with anything that came from him, you felt the cold air hitting your sensitive spot when he stepped back. “Now go and tell everyone to come back inside”.

You tried to reach for your underwear, but his hand was quicker, moving it away before you were able to even touch it. Any hope of having them again disappeared when he saved them inside one of his pockets. “Are you fucking crazy? Give them back” 

“Take it as a punishment for being way too friendly with Marshall all up in my noses” he said, walking back to his seat to act as if nothing had happened between you two. 

Nothing could describe the anger you were feeling, and how you were ready to break each one of the laptops in his head. But you tried to keep your cool, placing your skirt like it was supposed to -thanking god its length was under the knee, so it was easier for you to hide the fact that you were wearing no underwear. 

You swore one of those days you’d kill him, and there was no way you’d feel bad in the slightest.

[gavinosbornedrors]

Monday Update!

My Monster Hunter Iron Hammer project is finally, finally done!

In all its low-poly, hand-painted drab-background glory! I am actually pretty happy with this. I would've liked this done a long time ago, and even this post to be out like a week ago, but the results are pretty solid.

I learned a lot about texturing details, the scale they should be that's readable from a far (I'm looking at you guild crest) and their distribution and density around the prop itself. Also had a moment where some other stuff regarding just illustration in general clicked that caused me to redo a bunch of detaling on this - but this came out better for it. This looked pretty solid near the end, but my decision to do a final, extra bit of metal shine, plus a bit of color overlay and shading really brought it home.

Against my better judgement I'm going to do another one - the Giant Jawblade - but the lesson this time will be speed.

[dduane]

Ludwig Bemelmans' NY Oyster Bar Shellfish Pan Roast Recipe

I love Ludwig Bemelmans for many reasons that usually have more to do with writing and his challenging career arc than with food (more details here). But this post's about the food, and a specific favorite recipe.

In his collection of "slice-of-culinary-life" writings La Bonne Table,  Bemelmans passes on a bit of info that many New Yorkers, or visitors to the city, would be glad to have: the original recipe for one version of the famous shellfish pan roast served at Grand Central Terminal's venerable Oyster Bar and Restaurant (a venue much appreciated by the cats in the Feline Wizardry series, as well as by the series's author, who ate there as often as she could afford to while living and working in Manhattan).

So here's the image of the page in La Bonne Table where the recipe/method appears, and a transcription of the method. Bemelmans gives the version for the clam pan roast. For an oyster panroast like the one in the header image, I just substitute canned oysters and enough fish stock or consommé to equal the amount of clam broth Bemelmans quotes. All kinds of shellfish work brilliantly in this (and if you're actually in the Oyster Bar some time and feel inclined toward this dish, you might like to order the combination one, which has a little bit of everything). I've broken up the original block of his text for readability's sake: may his kindly shade forgive me.

We went to rake for cockles, which are like our clams, except for their globular structure, and they taste like Little Necks. I gave the hostess a recipe, which I found in Grand Central Station's sea-food bar, where a Greek chef who makes it wrote it down for me and showed me how it's made. It is one of the best things to eat, simple to make-- in fact, nobody can go wrong. It's a meal in itself, and it costs very little.

You need paprika, chili sauce, sherry wine; also celery salt, Worcestershire sauce, butter according to your taste, and clams. I use cherrystones, which are washed and brushed, and then placed in a deep pan with their own liquid. For each portion of eight, add one pat of butter, a tablespoon of chili sauce, 1/2 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, a few drops of lemon juice and 1/2 cup of clam broth. Add a dash of celery salt and paprika.

Stir all this over a low fire for three minutes. Then add four ounces of light cream or heavy cream, according to your taste, and one ounce of sherry wine, and keep stirring. When it comes to the boiling point, pour it over dry toast in individual bowls. Add a pat of butter and a dash of paprika and it is ready to serve.

If you have made too much of it, put the remainder in a container in your refrigerator. It will be as good, warmed up, a week or a month* later. It's called Clam Pan Roast, if you ever want to order it at Grand Central Station's Oyster Bar. I understand the recipe originally came from Maine.

*I love his enthusiasm here, but frankly I wouldn't leave this in the fridge for any month. A few days maybe. (Though it must be said, I couldn't leave it alone that long anyway. It's really good.)

[kakudo45]

do you have any tips on how you color? your coloring style is similar to what i’m trying to achieve but i have no idea how you actually pull it off

Hi!

I'm gonna separate this question into rendering vs. coloring. I'm not sure which you mean so hopefully tackling both covers your question, although I'm not really the best at explaining things.

For rendering, I usually paint using some square/textured brush (kind of like the one pictured below and a low opacity circle brush (the standard in photoshop, and most painting software). Lately I like using brushsets from the digitalbrushes account here on tumblr.

I sketch, and then paint underneath the sketch. after i paint for long enough I either delete the sketch layer or I merge the two. I like to add texture where the midtones are. I think a lot of my "rendering style" is probably owed to that.

I like adding texture around midtones. I also like adding limited random variation of color and value to large areas. Like below, you can see that I added a slightly different shade of red to the lit part of the apple in step 3. If you add variation or slight gradation to the large light shapes or shadow shapes you can create the impression of depth. At the very least it looks more fun.

Also a disclaimer, but for the last two drawings I did I've kind of went off kilter. The process is the same but I used some oil paint brushes I downloaded and I pretty much added as much variation to every shape possible, which I would not recommend unless you're sure of what you're doing. But you can see here that even though I added variation (in color, brush stroke, etc) that the shapes are pretty readable and the light is very clearly separated from the shadow.

In terms of choosing color, I had a long stretch of time where nothing would look right to me. Things were colored really literally, with no regard for lighting or ambient color (background/environment surrounding characters). I would often fix things up using a gradient map and using color burn or multiply on 14%. Honestly, this is still a great way to make things look coherent, I really like these gradient maps on the CSP asset store if you want to look into them.

My colors improved a lot after I developed an eye for color/figured out what colors I like to put next to each other. I did this by saving and making a folder of any piece I saw that I liked specifically for color. By doing this I got a clearer sense of what kind of color schemes I tend to like. I suggest doing this as well so that you can figure out what kinds of color schemes and pairings you tend to enjoy most.

Hopefully this answers your question <: ] Apologies if this doesn't make sense, it's a bit of a long post.

[thotpuppy]

✨ Fic Writing Review 2023 ✨

tagged by the love @dear-massacre uwu

Words and Fics

According to AO3: 295,177 words posted, however, I did a lot of art for events this year, so this number isn't wholly accurate.

I actually wrote and posted 122,354 which is actually WAY more than I thought I did?

1 fandom represented: Teen Wolf (but I'm a multi-shipper, so many ships hehe)

Most Recent Drop: TECHNICALLY mu submissions to @sterekreversechallenges's past participant server event, 1000 Cakes, but the work featured is still anonymous, so I can't count it here.

Most Recent Drop (readable): 'My Whole Life is a Reference to the 1995 Hit Movie Clueless and I Still Don't Know the Plot' by Fall Out Boy (Stackson, T, 2k)

Longest Fic according to my stats page: Yoda Said It Best by @okdeannawrites (Sterek, E, 99k+) (I did the illustrations)

Longest Fic I actually wrote: Under My Skin (Stackson, E, 59k+)

Top Fics by Kudos (I'm including 6 because 1 of my top 5 isn't mine lol)

Grandma, What a Big Dick You Have! (the better to fuck you with my dear) (Sterek, E, 5k+)

Yoda Said It Best (Not my fic) (Sterek, E, 99k+)

Higher Education (you can confess when you're stone-cold sober) (Sciles, E, 6k+)

Under My Skin (Stackson, E, 59k+)

Daisies and Daffodils (You Make Me Smile) (Sterek, T, 3k+)

Thirsty (Stiles/Scott/Derek, M, <2k)

My fandom fic events in 2023

I THRIVE on events. They've been absolutely integral to my ability to write fic this year, and I'm really proud of what I've done. That said - I absolutely participated in WAY too many. There are a number of fics that I was involved with that don't show up in my ao3 stats and that's okay! I'ma just... list them out akdjhgk

7 fics (or 13,394 words) this year were posted for the Stiles Shipping Server's monthly ficlet exchange.

2 fics and 4ish art pieces were done for the @stacksonreversebang

1 fic was written for the Sterek VDay Exchange, but my participation was revoked.

1 art was posted for @stetervalentines2023

3 arts and 1 podfic were posted for the @steter-bang

1 fic was posted for the @teenwolfminibang

1 art was posted for the @teenwolfminibang

1 item was posted for the @sterekreversechallenges 1000 cakes event

2 Major arts and uh at least 4 minors arts were posted for the @wipbigbang

1 fic (and my longest solo fic ever) was written for the @wipbigbang

1 art which is not currently posted but will be revealed by the end of the year is for the @stereksecretsanta

Upcoming Events and Projects for 2024

The first thing that's going to be 'posted' is the Sterek Reverse Challenges 1000 Cakes anonymous work, which will be revealed Jan 6th.

Events:

Stiles Shipping Server monthly ficlet exchange - many more months will be participated in again

@sterekposevents - probably gonna write smth for this next year (stares forlornly at my unfinished summer wip)

If the Stackson Reverse Bang runs again, I will absolutely participate in that, but i will definitely not commit to 4 projects!!!!

Absolutely the next go around for Sterek Reverse Challenges!!! I love reverse bangs (and bang in general)

If I do the Steter bang again I will not sign up for as many projects because I did too much all at once and it was stressful.

I will likely participate in at least 1 vday event and at least 1 santa event. (:

There is one event I will definitely be participating in but the event itself has not been announced yet so I won't talk about it... publicly. If you're into Sterek and Events you can DM me for Spoilers though~ ;*

Projects:

Addabge Dmaddiage - Sterek MedFantasy Omegaverse Arranged Married Dark-ish fic. Currently Writing

Higher Education 2: Electric Boogaloo - I already have over 2k written, I just need to finish it.

Vampire!Stiles Sterek fic, which I will hopefully be doing for one of the events

Stackson MedFantasy Bastard Prince x Freedom Fighter AU

New! Sex for Work - Sterek office sex AU: Next chapter and/or Rewrite and/or Finish (low priority)

Sciles in Ancient Greece - this is possibly more of a long form poem than fic? We'll see how it goes ? low priority

Rules, Tags & Rambling below the cut!

I technically have a massive list of WIPs and Prompts I am constantly working from. I pick the ideas when they feel happy in my brain for "free time" writing - I actually meant to work on the office sex AU for the month of december but got whacked upside the head with Addabge Dmaddiage. UMS was my FIRST "long fic" ever so I am... feeling really, really invigorated.

in 2021 I climbed out of my writing hole where I hadn't written seriously in over a decade. That year, I wrote and shared 22,418 words by myself, and wrote half of a 69,599 (incomplete, part 1) role-play fic with a friend. At the start of 2022, I watched teen wolf for the first time because @sinnabon-cosplay is a menace and can't be stopped. It lit an absolute FIRE beneath me and I lost all control of my life. I started writing and drawing with a wholly renewed fury. I started doing way more events and wrote and posted 40,247 words. At the end of the year, I thought to myself - wow, wouldn't it be cool if i doubled my word count again? 80k? haha, that probably won't happen though. I'll be excited if I write and post 60k.

YALL. I wrote and posted 60k in ONE FIC. I wrote and posted over 120k?????? that's INSANE to me. I haven't had that much drive to create since I was in high school.

Teen Wolf is like... fixing my brain chemistry. I feel so invigorated.

Despite some setbacks with some REALLY unfortunate Sterek fans at the start of my experience here nearly tanking my creative drive, I've managed to stay on track without totally losing my love for the ship because of some rotten eggs. Shoutout to all my homies keeping the space worth hanging around in. I appreciate yall so much <3

Rules: Feel free to show whatever stats you have. Only want to show Ao3 stats? Rock on. Want to include some quantitative info instead of stats? Please do this. Want to change how yours is presented? Absolutely do that. Would rather eat glass than do this? Please don’t eat glass but don’t feel like you have to do this either.

Tags: No pressure ANY time from me, i love you I appreciate you I like sharing with you. Don't wanna play, don't worry about it <3 @clotpolesonly @lucky-bishop @adrianfridge @sinnabon-cosplay @okdeannawrites @foofsterwolf (Sorry i panicked and couldn't remember if u posted FIC on ur main or just original so i tagged ur TW even tho this doesnt have to be TW related) @just-another-busy-fangirl-writes @lavender-lotion

[yellowocaballero]

I'd be interested in those writing shortcuts 👀 (don't feel pressured though)

Yeah sure! This is in reference to this and this posts.

These are all pretty 'fic style' stories, because they scaffold off pre-existing canon. It's like you're walking inside of a pre-built house and you're putting up new wallpaper and designing the rooms. Novel style is like if you're building the entire house. So these are really great for fun and if you have writer's block or have problems starting a story. They're also really good if you're practicing your dialogue, scene composition, characterization, etc - they are not good for developing skills on how to build the house, but if you're trying to work on actually making a readable story they're great methods to practice. They're also a lot easier to make good lol.

While writing these out I realized that they're almost entirely AUs. This is because I like AUs. You don't have to do AUs, you can adapt these however you want if you just like writing canon. Loser. Anyway, these are my low-effort stories:

A series of disconnected scenes that take place over a long period of time. If you have an idea in mind (or you just want to use the OG work's timeline), then you can show scenes or moments over a long period in time. For example, ages ago I wrote an AU story following the life of one character. One scene for 2008, one for 2010, one for 2012 etc.

Rewriting canon. If you have an AU idea or have a way in mind to change canon to something you think fucks harder, then you can use pre-existing episodes or season plotlines and just add your own flavor to what already exists. If you write for BNHA you aren't allowed to do this. That's the rule. How is all BNHA fic 600k AUs where one extremely minor detail is changed. God they're boring.

Alternate viewpoint/missing scene of a story you have. Like you can do this for canon too but that sounds super boring. This is actually something I do in order to help the quality of the main story - if I'm finding myself writing a super complicated character, I write another story about him from his POV to help give me a handle on him. Or write her parts of the story from her perspective. It's a writing exercise to help me figure out the character and it is also easy and fun.

"X Meets Y". Do you really like Legally Blonde? Do you think your favorite character being Elle Woods would be really funny? Stuff like that. Would it be really funny if your blorbo was Sharpay Evans? Yes it would be. Yeah I DID write a story many years ago that was "X meets Teen Beach Movie", why?

I don't know how many other people out there have extremely convoluted entire AU ideas, but if you have the whole AU in your mind then it is incredibly easy to write little stories or snippets from the AU. Like, so easy. A stand-out scene in your mind, the life of one supporting character, an alternate POV, whatever. Literally whenever I want to write something absolutely 0 effort whatsoever I go back to one of my 3 bugfuck stupid AUs and write something for them again.

This is actually something I think everybody should do, because it is basically how I learned story structure: find the trashiest, most formulaic genre you can. Watch or read something from that genre, or just collect genre conventions. Use the pre-packaged and pre-written formula to structure your own story and fill in the blanks.

(Also, these aren't very tropey or reliant on shipping/romance beats, which is nice if you want to get away from that stuff)

Nowadays, I find all of that helpful when I feel like doing something 0 effort. When I was a less experienced writer and I deadass did not know how to build a house, then these were really helpful for learning what wallpaper looks good and what arrangement of furniture creates good fung shui and what couches go best with that coffee table. They're also good passing. Seriously, these are like the most popular stories on my AO3. People eat this shit up. Why. They're so lazy.

IDK, these are what I do because they're the kinds of stories I like to write! What you find easy to write will be different. This is all a very personal list. I can see my personal thumbprint (no romance, AU central) really clearly. I'm kind of curious now: what are y'all's favorite low-effort, easy, fun stories to write?

Also as a heads up if your story doesn't have any sort of conflict in it, then it will actually very difficult to write. Trust me. Conflict makes you voom. Do it. Please. Love of god.

[ju-ji]

This is not the thought I had when I started writing this post but I think, in retrospect, last twilight was never as magical as I once thought, and furthermore I think that the magic was actually jimmy and sea the whole time. I would maintain that the story started off strong and the blossoming romance was extremely well executed, but there were always flaws in the writing and it was always shown that day had a lot of work to do and. well. wasn’t doing it. I don’t think I was picking up on it because sea made day so unbelievably endearing even as a supposed asshole that I either didn’t notice the red flags or ignored them. You have to understand, I was not a jimmy nor sea nor jimmysea fan before I started watching last twilight. I had not already seen vice versa and wai was so long ago that I don’t even remember having an opinion of him. I had never heard of the first show sea was in. I had not been anticipating this show since the pilot trailer and wasn’t even planning to watch it. I didn’t watch it when it came out. I think I waited like two weeks before I started it. I went into it with no feelings about jimmysea, I had seen criticism of jimmy’s previous performances and I didn’t know anything about sea other than him being jimmy’s branded partner so if anything I was… prepared for them to not do all that well. I wasn’t expecting much I guess. This is the first time I put on my clown makeup. Like I said, sea as day was so endearing to me from pretty early on, maybe not ep 1 but by ep 3 I was like that’s my baby!!! I don’t know why or how but he made me fall in love with day so bad, and nothing day did (until… u know….) ever made me love him less. I really can’t describe what about him I found so lovable especially when he was definitely an asshole and wouldn’t stop with the “u have zero tenderness in your body” nonsense lmao. I think sea just has some je ne sais quoi about him or something that’s like captivating. I did watch vice versa at some point while last twilight was airing and I found talay endearing too. Even though he was more mature or like. didn’t have such a spoiled baby quality to him, so I think it’s just something about sea idk. Hell I’m already endeared to his character in the trainee from bts footage and promo pics alone 😭 ok hopefully point made bc this post is already really long and I have a lot more to say lmao.

*I promise I know how to write proper paragraphs I just am trying to type what I wanna say before my brain moves on to a new thought lmao but let me give a line break for readability*

Let me try to talk about jimmy without waxing poetic. I had pretty low expectations for him bc I had seen ppl criticize his work before so how did I end up loving him so bad!!! The answer is he’s just good at what he does!!! Was he always this good? I didn’t have any qualms about his performance as puen and I can’t remember wai. I think he was also a minor character in enchante but I didn’t watch that. Anyway, if he used to suck he doesn’t anymore!! His growth is especially impressive bc acting isn’t even his main profession!!! I don’t want to harp a lot on why last twilight disappointed me bc I want this to be a jimmysea appreciation post first and foremost but the problem with mhok that jimmy obfuscated was he really didn’t have much to him. He had a tragic backstory that was never fully explored but aside from that it was just day on the brain all day every day how can I serve day how can I help day how can I care for day how can I make day smile like girl stand up 😭 jimmy somehow managed to make mhok (to me but I’m biased) the most compelling character in the show with just his eyes!!! His eyes held SO MUCH EMOTION that it made mhok feel like a much more substantial character than he ended up being. Trying to be short and to the point now bc this is getting out of hand but I want jimmy on my screen forever, he is so special to me!!!

Last point: mhok and day did not have en equal or super healthy relationship so why did it hurt sooo bad when they broke up? Again, it was jimmysea magic masking the flaws. The chemistry was undeniable and they seemed so in love! They were always so happy to be together that you almost didn’t notice how one sided their relationship was becoming. Their comfort in each other was so real and believable bc evidently that’s not acting! It’s clear that jimmy and sea enjoy their paired roles and enjoy working together in general. I’m not thinking of anyone in particular but I don’t think all pairs could sell this natural comfort as effortlessly bc they are not…. this naturally comfortable together lmao. Jimmysea’s innate charms are exponentially amplified when they are together. I firmly believe that if jimmy wasn’t mhok and sea wasn’t day then last twilight would not have been this loved (until it got to where not even jimmysea magic could salvage it 😭)

TLDR it was jimmysea magic that masked last twilight’s flaws so well that we were dumbfounded by that ending

[bodgei]

Do I keep trying for accessibility?

I know this isn’t gonna go anyplace, I don’t really have followers here and although I follow people here, since there is no way for me to read my dashboard I don’t think anyone will read this. I started trying to use this site again about a year ago, but there is no way to make it readable for me. I can’t read posts. Something about the site coding means I have to restart a screen reader for each line brake. 

like this

and this

I have been asking for and suggesting reasonable accommodations since March - with not much in the was of response from the staff - depending on how you count it early March, second attempt first week of September, and the last update was 11-9 (basically ‘give us what phone you are using and we will see what we can do about the app. I gave them the info and they haven’t said anything to me since) I posted to humans asking how long I should wait to hear back - nothing, I tried to blaze it (hoping a mod would look at it and reach out, I didn’t expect them to actually let it blaze. Them letting something less than positive out there? LOL) also nothing. 

So here is the thing, accessibility is hard. It takes time and money, and the staff is overburdened with everyone coming here. But here’s the thing, if they had starting addressing it in March this wouldn’t be an issue at this point. They could have been working on it for months before we got here. 

Here are my suggestions as someone who is working on accessibility at her job: 

Accessibility NEEDS to be part of your FAQs and a choice for your service tickets. I searched the FAQ and could only turn up a short thing about alt text - for tickets there is “Customize your blog” and “something else” 

 on the app serif fonts should be an option, with both light and dark           background.

 look into a accessible fonts there are tons of them out there (I know sans have been sold as more accessible and for some they are, but not for everyone. 

There needs to be a way to make your dashboard have a dark serif font on a light background. I can make my blog look like that - so I can post but I can’t read my dashboard (guess what 4th person to touch my service ticket, low contrast doesn't have a serif font, so the wait for that answer was not productive) 

Also, from my reading of the case law around websites, you need to be offering different sized fonts.  

Twitter is going away, so basically I’ll be out there looking for a place that, or without social. I guess I will have a ton of spare time.    

The TOG fandom is here, so I will never really be a part of it. Once twitter is gone I will have some affinity groups on discord - but the over arching fandom? So much of it comes back to this site and without pulling whole posts off into Word to change the font I can’t even know if it is something I want to read (also I use likes to denote the posts I want to try to read and culturally this site is super shitty about that) 

One last thing - every bit of accessibility added helps non disabled people as well. 

For my fandom friends from twitter and discord, how many of you had issues when dark mode was taken away? Think about how you would feel if the staff response was “you never needed that, you just need to try harder” and then they ghost you. And then every time you try harder your fellow fans are talking about how shitty it is for people to do the only thing that, ironically, is allowing you to read that post. 

Do I care enough about this site to fight to make it better? Because I think that is what the staff isn’t understanding - I am trying to help them make this site better.

OK this really is the last thing, have some song lyrics: (from Working In A Coal Mine by  Lee Dorsey)

workin' in a coal mine Goin' down, down, down Workin' in a coal mine Oops, about to slip down Workin' in a coal mine Goin' down, down, down Workin' in a coal mine Oops, about to slip down'Course I make a little money Haulin' coal by the ton But when Saturday rolls around I'm too tired for havin' funToo tired for havin' I'm just workin' in a coal mine Goin' down, down, down Workin' in a coal mine Oops, about to slip down Workin' in a coal mine Goin' down, down, down Workin' in a coal mine Oops, about to slip downLord, I'm so tired   

[princess-of-purple-prose]

Hi there! Please take a look at accessiblepublishing dot ca's guide to image description. There's a few mistakes in your transcribing and since you're sharing templates for other people to copy and paste, these mistakes are just going to multiply. A couple in particular I've noticed are: overly lengthy/confusing descriptors, paragraph breaks, restating plain text (screen readers already read plain text), restating audio, using styles in post, and using personal opinion in descriptors. It's great that you want to help make things more accessible, but please work to standardize your descriptors if you're going to be instructing others.

Hi, anon!! I really appreciate the feedback!! First, I actually have been dragging my feet for ages on fixing our earliest descriptions on the meme templates doc, so I will take this as my push to pare some of them down and make them clearer! I'll do my best to respond to everything here, going under the assumption that you mostly mean the descriptions I post on Tumblr rather than the ones on the doc:

Overly lengthy descriptors: I'm always working on this! I imagine my biggest offense on this is for comic IDs, but I generally intend for those to convey some manner of the style and flow of the art. I would actually appreciate being sent feedback on specific offenders if you want to show me where I've gone wrong!

Paragraph breaks: I write IDs as intended for plain text rather than alt, generally, but alt on Tumblr supports line breaks anyway. (The meme doc was also aimed for plain text, given the "ID: / End ID" formatting.) As I have seen a few sources saying paragraph breaks aid readability and I (a sighted person) definitely can't read long blocks of text, and I don't think I'm going to stop using paragraph breaks. I'm genuinely sorry if this is an inconvenience, but it is always okay to take my IDs and edit them as necessary if they don't measure up! (Also, I swear to god I don't say this to be petty, I'm trying to cover my bases because I haven't seen paragraph breaks being advised against in descriptions before: the accessiblepublishing guide also uses paragraph breaks in its examples for alt text? Do you have reasoning or other sources to explain why paragraph breaks are bad?)

Plain text: I take cues from posts like this one on plain text! Tl;dr, plain text is still important for low vision users who may not use screenreaders, and screenreaders also can struggle with special fonts or gradient text, so it's worth adding transcripts

Restating audio: I'm... not sure what this means? Are you talking about audio transcriptions? I will take advice on those if given, sorry I didn't catch your meaning!

Styles: I try very hard to use fully plain text except bold fonts for IDs, with the very occasional phrase in caps lock or italics, and wasn't aware I was overusing formatting otherwise? The people's accessibility server once advised my friend and me on doing a series of long comic descriptions and generally stated that bold was the most readable kind of special formatting, so that's what I go for. I'll keep an eye on it!

Personal opinions: I'll keep an eye on this as well, thanks for letting me know! (I'd thought I was doing a good job, do you have examples for me to look over?)

Sorry this was so long, I wanted to be thorough! Thanks again anon, I am always open to feedback on my descriptions!! Have a great day!!!

[prettysurethisworks]

A Rant About "AI" Content Generation

(I've seen a lot of posts about "AI tools" that generate text or images automatically. I keep starting to reblog one and add my own thoughts at the bottom, but always end up with something both long and unrelated to the OP. I think this merits a separate conversation.)

In college, I took a class in Linguistics. One of the exercises was building a text generator that could produce syntactically valid output — that is, readable sentences that followed grammatical rules.

Pretty simple, really. You just need two things:

a list of words (nouns, verbs, and so on), grouped by type, and

rules for how those words can be combined into phrases or sentences.

The list and rules, together, are all you need to have a program spit out random stuff, like:

(Bob) throws (the (ball)).

(Sally) goes (to (the (store))).

((Bob) and (Sally)) go (to (the (park)) (near (the (library)))).

It's like Mad Libs, but the whole story is made of blanks. There's no theme or background or context; it's just a string of words in an arrangement that obeys basic grammar.

(The toy that we made for the exercise — this text generator — was never meant to create meaningful output; it was meant to make us think about the structures of language so we could identify and articulate them.)

The current text generators and image generators are doing exactly the same thing, but with extensions:

Huge amounts of existing content (generally from the Internet) has been poured in to create an astonishingly long list of words (and images) to draw from.

Machine learning has been used to automate the creation of increasingly-complex rules. (Essentially, this means that the computer tries some number of keyboard-smashing operations at random and gets feedback about any "good" or "bad" results; the operations that led to "good" results are included as steps in the next round of randomized iterations, with the rules tending to get longer and more complicated with each iteration.)

With the massive scale of the list, and the relatively low cost of adding more complex rules, the systems have incorporated what we might call "word association" elements: "When this word appears, there is a 75% chance of this other word appearing among the following 5 words."

This adds up to an incredibly complex toy. But, fundamentally, it's still just a toy; the output is syntactically valid, and it may even make sense (thanks to the complex word-association element being layered on top of valid syntax) but it's still meaningless.

We're dazzled by the fact that we can read "Sally goes to the store" in the automatically-generated content, instead of "AHUr38jh,kn au82j3rkc 093rkfsd" — or even "store Sally goes the to."

But did Sally actually go to the store? (Is the statement true?) No way to know; even the best algorithms are trained on hearsay, and their sources are obfuscated.

Is the text generator being creative? Hardly; that requires intent, and not even the techbro-est of techbros is assigning intent to these toys. Their creators probably intend for the toys to become monetized, but the content itself is provided "for entertainment purposes only."

The algorithms only know that when Sally is mentioned, and the verb "to go" is used (with Sally as the subject), there is a high probability of "the store" appearing in a prepositional phrase, weighted such that "to" is the most likely preposition.

Any meaning that we find in these automated results is coming from:

sources we can't identify, whose statements have been modified through operations we can't trace, or

our own interpretation of the text being presented.

That first point, obviously, is not going to be worthy of trust. (Besides, these algorithmic synthesizers can't have personal responsibility, or social connection, or a continuous self-identity, or any of the other complex mechanisms by which we can build trust.)

And the second point? Well, that's just... well, tarot.

ChatGPT is tarot for techbros.

[luesmainblog]

Hi there, is there a link to your about page that people can access via the tumblr mobile app?

you can try my direct About link but I don't know if it's readable on mobile, I'm a strictly desktop user and I've been here since before the site became mobile-centric, so I genuinely don't know what's accessible and what isn't :( my phone can't really run the tumblr app half the time, so it's not something i'm able to check for.

honestly it's nothing that isn't pretty much covered by "i'm here i'm queer get used to it" or looking at the political stuff i do reblog. brief summary being i'm nb, aspec, anti-terf, anti-swerf, anti-cop, and anti-harassment. longer summary: I do my best to be an ally to jewish and muslim folk, but i am very under-educated in that area. same applies to mental illnesses. i was around during The Ace Raids(period of tumblr history where the site went extremely anti-ace for, at the time, no discernable reason. now we know it was general anti-queer getting its hooks in early.) and i watched the birth of the mogai community and the bi v pan debate. as a result my attitude towards identity is "you're the expert, just use whatever label suits you best and i'll believe you about it". i respect older/"outdated" identities and do my best to learn about queer history and incorporate that knowledge into my views. i can get kind of anti-christian at times due to the general trauma of living in the united states and watching "religious belief" become the excuse for massive levels of abuse and control, but i do respect people who use that belief to help people and push positive change. i view Missionary Work(i.e. going to another location and doing charity specifically to spread the word of your religion, like the god damn mormons are constantly doing) as inherently colonization and fundamentally do not understand people who consider it to be a good deed. i am against arranged marriage, but respectful to those who are comfortable in theirs. I support poly marriage(i am poly myself), and i think we need to severely change how disability aid is handled so that disabled people can marry who they want without losing their coverage and don't have to literally count pennies to make sure they're not over an insanely low limit. i can get kind of loud about intersex people's existence and rights. I support landback, but i am under-educated in native issues. I consider neurodivergency a positive thing, but i also acknowledge it as a disability. i consider the political lesbians of the 1960s to have been infiltrates and traitors, as their beliefs were foundational to modern TERF rhetoric. I don't have a DNI(if some asshole decides to follow me they're gonna see exactly what i think about them very quickly, and if they stick around anyways, maybe something i post will shake their beliefs a little), but TERFs, SWERFs, nazis and MAGAs get blocked on sight. harassment will also be blocked and reported. I am a strong believer in online anonymity; i don't think it's wise to share your age, sex, race or location unless it's something you WANT people to be aware of. I also don't think it's a good idea to share your face, but i don't harp on people who do make that choice unless they're underaged(and even then it's gonna be a very light 'hey maybe this is a bad idea'). double points on location, stop telling people where you live. that should NEVER have been normalized.

i'm also into a lot of fandoms, and i don't usually tag unless asked. current tags: NSFC(not safe for crystal, basically any mention of death will be under this), Facepaint, Spiders, Cats, Horrible Things, Important, Signal Boost, For My Wife, Frosty, Crinket, and Awesome Music. if you dig too deep into that last one you'll find some OLD tumblr culture. i also try to tag for content warnings like abuse, flashing lights, and sexual assault.

in short, i think other people should be able to exist how they want to as long as it's not inherently harmful to others, and i love to learn more about the world and spread that knowledge. i'm gonna see if i can make this my pinned post, this is honestly a better summary of what you're gonna see on this blog than my about page is. also, not the most important thing, but I do have memory problems, so i usually use Likes as a way to show myself i've already reblogged/seen something. ff to block if this ain't your rodeo, and welcome aboard if you stay!

[naavispider]

Hello if it’s alright could you say what happened in chapter 15, I don’t have ao3 and really want to know what happens in that chapter specifically

( was that one anon who asked about it )

Of course! I didn't think the fic was set to only be readable by AO3 account holders but I'll double check! 💞

I'll keep posting the chapters on tumblr from now on as well 🥰💙

Chapter 15

Spider kicked and spat at every last person that laid hands on him as they dragged him through the ship towards the cell block. Not that he was counting, but he thought he managed to take out at least 4 of them by the time they got to the cell; one he'd punched and (hopefully) broken his nose, another he had managed to knee in the balls, the third one was missing a tooth after being elbowed, and the final victim Spider had been quite impressed with himself for. Five or six people were holding his arms, so he'd gotten creative and kicked his feet up, letting the humans take his full weight, and slammed his foot into somebody's neck. Eventually the humans decided to pin him down completely.

"Is this the best you've got?" he goaded as his face was pressed against the floor.

Then he felt the needle enter the skin in his neck and slowly relinquished his grip on reality.

Day 1

He woke up what felt like hours later, though he had no way of knowing for sure. The first thing he realised was how painful his body felt. Every limb ached; it took him a very long time to even sit up properly. The lights were too bright. He blinked, squinting at the white room that imprisoned him. "Fuck," he let out under his breath. Even his neck hurt. He lifted a hand to feel where he remembered the sting of the needle. It was definitely tender.

Removing his hand, Spider finally took a look at his arms and legs. "Fuckkk," he repeated again, seeing the red raw circles around his hands where the skin had been all but rubbed off. Yellow bruises were already starting to blossom over his entire body. The worst were the grip marks on his arms, although he was particularly impressed by huge green one in a linear shape across his thigh. He had no memory of how he got that one at all. The blue from the Yovo berries had been all but completely rubbed off by his struggles, and presumably the fall in the creak. For the first time, he wondered if he had gone too hard.

Next he examined the damage sustained to his ankle. He was surprised to find a compression bandage secured around the joint, which was swollen underneath. He touched it gingerly and immediately regretted the decision.

He sat back against the wall and ran a hand through his hair. Even that action was painful.

"Fuck!" he said again, this time shouting it across the room. It dawned on him with a sick appreciation of the irony that this was the same room he'd been put in when the RDA first got him. He could tell by the scuff mark on the double sided mirror that he'd created all that time ago when he threw at chair at it.

Well. This was a new low. He didn't bother raging and shouting anymore. It wasn't that he didn't want to - he really, really did. But his energy had leaked out of him like water through a sieve. He could barely lift his arm up. He also knew by now the impenetrability of the RDA holding cells, and couldn't be bothered wasting his time. He took a deep breath, and waited for something outside of his control to happen.

Day 2

Spider was accustomed to boredom. He knew it well - always being the odd one out, the one that had to entertain himself while everyone else got on with their lives. Normally though, he could at least find something to keep him occupied. As a kid in the shack, he often found a way to ruin some poor lab tech's latest experiment or destroy some sort of apparatus. In the forest, the limits were endless. Exploring the flora with Kiri, tracking animals with Lo'ak, or if they were unavailable, climbing trees, eavesdropping on clan discussions, or making jewelry for Kiri.

Not here though. The only things he had for company were four white walls and a table that was nailed into the floor. Not much to work with. Spider sighed as he readjusted himself against the wall, bringing his legs up to his chin and closing his eyes, seeing if he could fall asleep to pass the time.

Hours later, Spider woke to find a tray of food left on the table. He frowned, confused for a moment, but then realised they must have deliberately waited until he was asleep to deliver it. Assholes.

He was completely starved, or maybe he just needed some stimulation, because he retrieved the tray and hesitantly began eating the vegetable soup. It was disgusting, but at least it wasn't out of a packet, and Spider scraped every last drop from the container. It was a welcome reprieve from staring at empty walls. There was a bottle of water also, but nothing else. He sighed deeply, resigning himself to another endless wait.

Day 3

The sound of the water sloshing in the bottle kept Spider grounded.

Nothing. There had been nothing since he was first put in the cell. Thankfully, the lights turned off at night (or what he presumed was night) so he could at least keep some kind of body clock.

Slosh. Clunk.

Slosh. Clunk.

Slosh. Clunk.

He flipped the bottle over and over, and over again.

Day 4

"You fucking assholes!" Spider yelled from the floor.

Throw. Slosh. Catch.

Throw. Slosh. Catch.

Throw. Slosh. Catch.

Day 5

After five days, Spider wasn't sure how much more he could take. It was starting to feel like he'd die in here. He longed for someone - anyone - to come to the door. He'd even happily accept General Ardmore if she came in. He'd cheerily walk himself down to the death machine with a smile on his face.

Where was Quaritch? Had he abandoned Spider?

Spider was embarrassed to even think it - it sounded so childish in his head. Had he crossed the line when he ran? Had he made Quaritch think that there was no hope for them, that Spider wasn't worth bothering with? Why else would he leave him here, alone, with nothing and no one? It figured.

Throw. Slosh. Catch.

Throw. Slosh. Catch.

Throw. Slosh. Catch.

Everyone left him eventually. No one actually valued him as a person. He could never live up to anybody's expectations. He couldn't be a good enough human, and he couldn't be a good enough Sully. Now, he wasn't even a good enough hostage.

Slosh. Clunk.

Slosh. Clunk.

Slosh. Clunk.

He held onto the rhythm.

Slosh. Clunk.

Slosh. Clunk.

Slosh. Clunk.

He paused. Undid the plastic lid. Ran his finger around the edge. Blunt. Flat. Never mind.

Day 6

He slept and slept. Let it come soon, please, he thought, not knowing what he was actually asking for. Death or release - one or the other, it didn't matter. He didn't matter. He just didn't want to be here anymore.

He dreamed he was back in the forest. He dreamed he was flying an ikran with Jake. He dreamed about High Camp. He dreamed about waking up in his own bed in the shack. He dreamed he was being chased by the warrior that Quaritch shot. He dreamed he lost his mask in the forest. He dreamed someone opened the doors. He dreamed a recom came in. Sat down on the table.

Spider's eyes focused. Wait.

Oh. He was awake. He was awake and staring at the familiar sight of his father Quaritch. He blinked.

"How you doing, kid?"

Spider was confused - was this real? He glanced at the doors behind Quaritch. They were closed.

Quaritch was waiting for a response, but Spider wasn't sure he'd be able to find his voice even if he tried.

Quaritch's eyes roved over Spider's hunched up form on the floor and his expression shifted. He wasn't angry; Spider was reasonably sure of that.

"What-" Wow. He cleared his throat and tried again. "What are you doing here?"

Quaritch sighed deeply, as if what he was about to say made him uncomfortable. "You were in no state to be reasoned with kid. You're feisty. Took out 6 guys with your hands tied. Think we could keep you trailing round the forest with us on vacation?"

Spider stared in Quaritch's face. He wasn't intimidated. He was half hoping to provoke Quaritch into throwing him to General Ardmore instead. That would be better than this.

"Why. Are you here?" Spider growled out, the anger of being kept in this state for days finally rising to the surface and spilling out viciously.

Quaritch's ears flicked back. "I think you’ve had plenty long enough to sweat. Kid… if you're cool… if you promise not to pull another stunt like that again…” his ears flattened on the word ‘stunt’, “you can come back. I… want you to come back.

...?

What? "You're... joking, right?"

"Spider-"

"Stop.” Spider hid his face in his hands, trying to make sense of what was happening. “Just... stop."

Quaritch was back, after leaving him to rot in complete confinement for days, just expecting to... what, pick up where they left off?

The sound of heavy footfalls and a decrease in light behind Spider's eyes alerted him that Quaritch had come closer. He looked up, and sure enough the man had crouched down in front of him, extending his arm to reach around Spider's shoulders.

"Don't touch me!" Spider huffed, shoving the huge arm away from him.

Quaritch retracted the offer, and watched with something akin to pity as a sob escaped Spider.

"Spider. I know this wasn't... fun for you. I don't expect you to understand. But I do expect you to want to leave now."

Spider drew in a deep breath, then turned again to look Quaritch directly in the eyes.

He'd go, he'd leave with Quaritch and make his life hell, but he needed Quaritch to understand. He paused. His voice was rough with neglect. "I hate you, and I always will."

A mask filtered over Quaritch's face as Spider watched his reaction.

"I am not your son."

"Received loud and clear, kid."

They looked at each other for a moment more, each trying assess where this left them. Then, Quaritch broke the silence.

"Get up, we're going to the med bay and then you can sort yourself out before we fly at 15:00."

Spider rose shakily. So this was actually happening. His torture had come to an end. He winced as he put weight on his ankle, and Quaritch reached an arm out to steady him, though Spider of course rejected this immediately.

Quaritch beckoned him over to the door and let him leave first, directing him to turn left in the corridor. Eywa, six days in a cell and it was like he'd forgotten how to be a person. He hobbled as best he could through the compound, which had the unfortunate effect of reminding him of the last time he'd been made to walk in front of Quaritch -with a loaded AR pointed at his back. Thankfully they only passed a handful of humans on their way to the med bay (who all averted their eyes and scattered as soon as they saw him coming).

Finally they arrived at a pair of sliding glass doors, and Quaritch fobbed them in. Beds lay against the far wall and they seemed to all be empty. A kind looking woman with dark hair, who looked to be in her forties, came over and smiled at Spider.

"Come and sit down, you must be Spider," she said gently as she showed him to a bed.

Spider was almost alarmed. She was so nice. No one here had ever been nice to him.

He didn't reply; just kept his guard up as he sat tensely on the edge of the bed. This didn't seem to deter the woman as she smiled and nodded at Quaritch, signalling she felt comfortable enough for him to leave. Quaritch did so, though he watched through the glass doors for a moment to make entirely sure Spider wasn't going to flip out and start attacking this poor lady.

"My name's Janine," the woman said once they were alone. "You've been through a lot, I can tell. I'd like to have a look at that ankle first if that's okay?"

And now she was asking permission. The novelty.

Spider nodded and brought his right foot up so it was resting flat on the bed. Janine started to undo the bandage and as she did so, she moved Spider's foot with so much care to not cause him pain, that something inside his chest broke instead. Horrifyingly, hot tears sprung up behind his eyeballs and he desperately looked up, hoping she wouldn't notice. What the hell was wrong with him?

Janine nodded at the ankle and retrieved an ice pack from somewhere nearby, which she told Spider to keep pressed on his foot.

"So how did you manage this then?" she asked. Her voice was bright, but not over-cheery, and there was layer of concern underneath.

"My maniacal kidnapper father murdered the only person willing to help me and then almost put a round through my leg," Spider replied dryly.

Janine was looking at him as if she could actually see him. It was starting to freak Spider out.

"How's your day going?" he said to break the tension.

She smiled, deep and genuine, before answering. "As you can see it's pretty quiet here. Which makes it boring, really."

Spider huffed in agreement. He knew that feeling alright.

"Your ankle is sprained pretty nastily. I'd like to inject a fluid into the area that will help speed up the healing process, is that okay with you?"

Spider nodded, looking down. There it was again. He'd been so used to his consent being torn away from him in every single situation, that he had completely forgotten what it felt like to be asked if something was okay.

"Alright then, sharp scratch," she warned, as she wiped the area on his skin with a disinfectant wipe. She expertly injected the liquid beneath his skin, all of her actions slow and sure. He winced slightly but it wasn't painful. "Okay, that should start to feel much better in a few minutes, and you should be able to start weight bearing again properly in an hour or so. Do you have any other injuries, apart from the bruising?"

She didn't even stare, as Spider expected she would - he was literally covered in bruises.

He shook his head.

"In that case, how would you feel about accepting a drip? They told me they fed you but they're not experts in healthcare so I highly doubt you've had comprehensive nutrition. You're also very warm and I think dehydrated." When she spoke of 'them' her voice lowered minutely.

Spider wasn't sure. What was the point? He opened his mouth to say so, but she beat him to it.

"It would make me feel much better."

Spider looked at her. "Sure," he eventually managed.

"Thank you," she said, and Spider felt the weight with which she sent the words. She gently touched Spider's arm, and when he didn't pull away, she held on warmly. "There's a bathroom over there if you want to get cleaned up before we insert it, a shower too, if you like." She nodded to the back of the row of beds.

God, he must stink. He nodded, because he also wanted to feel clean for him. She held her arm out for him to hold if he needed to, but he was too stubborn, and made his own way to the room she had pointed to. She handed him a towel and he entered, locking the door behind him.

It was a spacious wetroom, consisting of toilet, sink and disabled shower. There was a shelving unit with toiletries, and Spider stole a small bottle of what he hoped was body wash.

He undid his loincloth, turned the faucet on the shower, waited for it to get hot, and stepped under the water, sinking down the wall to sit under the stream. Here, like this, he could pretend that hot tears weren't falling down his cheeks.

[concerningwolves]

This August marks 5 years that I've been part of the writeblr community and I want to spread the love! I'm going around prompting writers to share some old writing, side by side with newer works, so that we can all celebrate how far we've come.

Respond to this ask or tag me (@westywrites) in a post showing some old writing, and I'll reblog it to shower you with praise for the progress you've made.

And if you'd like, help me encourage others to do the same! 

Oooh this is very cool idea 👀 (also, same hat! August marks my five year writeblr/Tumblr anniversary too!).

I forever regret that I used to routinely purge my laptop of projects that'd been abandoned or on hiatus for too long. It was only in 2014 that I started keeping things, and even then I must've been really picky about what I kept, because there's only one piece of writing from 2014-2016 in there despite my being more prolific in that time period than any other :(

The old writing:

However, I do still have (almost) all of my old notebooks, so! Here's the opening of a story called Vultures Class, the first book I ever finished. I wrote it somewhere between the ages of 7–9 (while in first school, and also while obsessed with X-Men animated series and X-Men: Evolution). Corrected spelling and added paragraphs for readability's sake, but everything else is as written.

Chapter one: the Dream One night a young boy screamed and yelled in his sleep. Then suddenly he awoke. A voice in the flesh was saying "wake up". He immediately snapped awake startled and breathing so fast that it was like being in very thin mountain air. "Don't worry" Emma was saying for she was the young girl who owned the voice. "Ensiy what's up?" asked new team member Clara. "I ... I have no idea well er well yes I had this very scary dream" stumbled Ensiy (Ensiy is the young boy who starts this story) "Well well well we can't have a leader who's going to yell in his sleep" teased Clone. He had been going round teasing all the team members ever since he started two weeks ago which was very annoying because it was making everyone grumble about him to Professor White.

Bonus: this was an illustrated book

The new writing:

And for my newer writing, here's a snippet from a free-to-read low fantasy short story of mine, The Seal Daughter. I posted it at the start of 2022, but it took me about two years to write and polish so it isn't technically the newest thing I've written – I'm just very proud of it.

Briana’s new red boots flashed in the sun as she ran down the steep cliff path. She was four years old today, practically a grownup. Her whole world was the sea, the sky, the salty air, and all of it was open to her like a flower to the sun. Da was somewhere behind her, calling out for her to slow down, but Briana paid him no heed. ‎ The previous night’s storm had died away, leaving behind clear skies and ravaged earth. The path beneath her feet was still slick where the rain had washed across loose dirt, revealing small rocks that jutted from the ground like teeth. Her foot struck one of these rocks. Briana’s world blurred. Faster and faster she fell, until she couldn’t tell where her skin ended and the unforgiving stones began. She didn’t even have a chance to scream. Something soft broke the fall as abruptly as it began. For a long time, Briana could only lie there. Stunned. White spots danced in front of her eyes. She couldn’t make sense of what had happened, what was still happening: The fall was over, but something was very, very wrong. A thick stench filled Briana’s nose. Bitter, foul, almost coppery. She lifted a hand in front of her face. Something red dripped from her fingers onto her cheek. She stared at it, trying to make sense of the new, fizzing sensation churning in her gut. Its fizziness reminded her of excitement – but excitement had never made her feel sick before. Then her father was there, lifting her out of the gore. He hadn’t called her Briana then; he’d used her not-name, whispering it over and over as he rubbed her back. Looking over his shoulder through teary eyes, Briana saw dark shapes down on the thin strip of beach between the base of the cliffs and the waves. They were seals, but Briana had never seen seals lie so still and calm. The surf that swirled around them was pink. Da was walking fast, the beach swiftly growing smaller, but he wasn’t fast enough. Briana’s gaze locked on a patch of light amongst the dark, silent forms. A face. It was small and seafoam-pale, a single blue eye staring out from locks of matted hair. Briana felt that eye watching her for a long time after Da turned a bend in the path and the beach vanished from view.

Thank you for this ask, it was a lot of fun! (even though rereading Vulture Class always fills me with an indescribable yet excruciating emotion 😂)

[aurelion-cerulean]

Time Skip Placement (Split Post 2)

Or in which I give Option 1 and Option 2

Note: This is a split up of my OG post, no new content added, just split for readability. [Full Post | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5]

Option 1: Time Skip Happens During Ep 1

Honestly when it comes to this option one of the biggest questions that comes with it is, what was so important that had to be addressed in the first bit of this episode that 4x9 did not address. And then we have to ask ourselves why. We’ve already had everyone get back together, roughly. We have already seen the big bad. So then WHAT must be addressed here before we get the time skip?

Either we get a weird military prologue here where we get to see what they are doing and then SKIP. Or we get some wrap ups of some specific things and then SKIP. This would mainly be, what happened to Max? And, El and Mike’s relationship. However if they were going to address both of these in the first half of episode 1, why leave 4x9 the way that it was left? There really is no point. 

Skipping half way though the episode makes no sense, because there are too many why’s. Why didn’t you just address that in 4x9 if you were going to establish it and then essentially skip over it?

Option 2: Time Skip Before Ep 1

Note: This won't happen. The Creators wanted to film 4 & 5 back to back. There is too much that they have to address before the skip, and while they could do it all as flashbacks. That's not the best story telling method. However, for the sake of this, I am addressing it and the why's it can't happen.

This opens us up to a lot of questions. If Mike and El are still together, we missed their talk which is low-key important. If they are broken up, we missed their talk which is low-key important. Maybe it happened on mutual terms? Who knows, but that talk itself, after being built up through a multitude of scenes (and to be interrupted) can’t be skipped over.

The next big issue is, what was Vecna just doing in this time that El was trying to power up? Healing? Of course some hand waving could be like they’ve been fighting this whole time but they haven’t been able to fight him specifically. So it’s just been carnage for a long time, right? So how in the world are the parents reacting? Did we already have them join? Or are we assuming that they still know absolutely nothing and they're living in this potential quarantine zone not asking what their children have been doing for two years? 

Lastly, Max. IDK if they’ll just hand wave away the fact that she’d be in a coma for two years. But most coma patients who recently came to consciousness can’t get up, start running, and chasing monsters. Maybe they’ll keep her in a coma for the whole season, or the ending part will mirror S2 a bit with them having to protect her. Maybe Max is helping fight Vecna in Vecna’s head. Regardless, she has to be addressed, and I’m just saying but every time we THINK someone is dead they show up again pretty quick. 

Of course the Max element could parallel the saving Will from S1, and thus she really isn’t back until the end, but… something tells me this is not what is going to be happening. It’s a gut feeling. I feel like Max will be more like Hppper and come back quickly.

[darkpurpledawn]

All the Comics I Read in July 

(mostly Batman and Batman-adjacent stuff)

but Claudine, why would anyone care about this? I have no idea, but I love compiling information and reading other people’s posts about all the stuff they read in a month, so here we go below the cut

DC Trades:

Rebirth Batman Vol 7: The Wedding

I’m a huge Tom King fan (don’t hate me y’all) and this one felt like a distillation of everything I love about him, and the conversation between Selina and the Joker about their shared pasts and the way they interpret love for Batman is one of the true highlights of the series so far. I…see why this made a lot of fans upset, but I’m definitely a “I ship BatCat as a divorced couple” reader sooooo.

Rebirth Catwoman Vol 1: Copycats

Picks up after the end of Batman #50 but really doesn’t deal with the themes of it much since Selina’s been transported to a Los Angeles expy and involved with a family of villainous politicians. I really enjoyed the artwork, which does a lot with the limited and dark color palette, and found the story middling to above-average.

Rebirth Batman Vol 8: Cold Days

The trial of Victor Freeze is my favorite arc in Rebirth Batman so far. Bruce Wayne as Bruce Wayne in the pivotal parts of the story! A nuanced look at Batman’s guilt and a genuine attempt to rectify past misdeeds instead of simply brooding about them! Character growth! Genuine mystery about what’s going on that’s resolved in a satisfying way! Jury duty!

…so after all that, the KGBeast story at the back of the volume, though pretty well-told, was disappointing just because it had such a difficult act to follow.

Rebirth Detective Comics: Fall of the Batmen

I haven’t enjoyed the Tynion run of Detective Comics, which is my fault for picking up something all about the Batfamily when I am generally not all that interested in them beyond Alfred, Kate, and Dick.

Rebirth Harley Quinn Vol 6: Angry Bird

Sigh. I really want to like the Rebirth Harley Quinn series, and I appreciate the idea of having a comic that’s mostly focused on comedic misadventures, but I really didn’t enjoy the execution of Conner and Palmiotti’s run. I think there were some improvements in this volume, like the inclusion of more Gotham characters and making Harley’s dialogue more readable, but it all devolved into a pretty big mess.

Dark Knights Metal

The Dark Knights Metal event is so, so stupid in a way I find kind of glorious (I genuinely really loved Dark Knights Rising), but man, this ended so suddenly after such a long series of introductory comics, and I feel like it really underplayed a lot of the themes established in Dark Days the Forge/Casting and Dark Knights Rising. Also–what happened to the evil baby Batman-Who-Laughs Robins on leashes???? I hope they’re OK :(

Elseworlds Batman: Vampire

This is officially the edgiest comic I have read thus far. I appreciate that they went all out for the gothic aesthetic and ornate narration that Gotham and Batman lend themselves to, and glad to finally see the source material for the panels of Batman growing literal bat wings and Joker enjoying getting his neck bitten. But yeah, gosh that last third was depressing.

Elseworlds(?) Batman Europa

I read this on a very long-distance train after an hour of sleep and I think that enhanced the fever-dream vibes immensely. Truly does read like a fanfic that got professionally produced.

Batman the Audio Adventures: Special #1

Slight and not quite as entertaining as the audio play version, but still very fun. Ideal for anyone looking for low-stakes, retro, or comedic Batman comics.

Harley Quinn Animated Series: The Eat, Bang, Kill Tour

OK this one seems to be widely reviled on tumblr and I can definitely see where some of that is coming from (Barbara Gordon saying she ships Harlivy did make me close DC Infinite in a moment of agonized embarrassment), but I think a lot of the hate is overblown, and I love Max Sarin’s art so, so, so much that I would have loved the heck out of this even if the writing was substantially worse.  

Gotham Central #4: Corrigan

In June I read the rest of the Gotham Central series, and the conclusion caught me completely off guard since I thought there was a fifth collected volume. I’m not sure whether it actually was an abrupt ending or I just thought it seemed like that because I was not expecting it to wrap up in that volume. Either way, it did make me excited to read about Renee-as-the-Question.

Batman Hush

Honestly a bit underwhelmed by this; I may have had way too much spoiled in advance because the most interesting part about this arc was the mystery itself for me. Jim Lee was also insanely, ridiculously bad about twisting all of the female characters into absurd shapes during action sequences, to an extent that was genuinely immersion-breaking.

Catwoman: When in Rome

Truly wonderful art by Tim Sale; I would strongly recommend this if you liked The Long Halloween and have any interest in the rest of the story about Selina’s involvement with the Falcone family. However, this lost some points for me by basically having Selina get naked in front of ogling men in most of its issues in ways that felt really tangential to the plot.

DC Single Issues:

Infinite Frontier Batman #125

Finally just jumping into the ongoing continuity at a convenient break in the arcs. I don’t have a ton of thoughts about the story so far, but I love the art (especially the color palette) and I tend to like story arcs that start as mysteries to be solved rather than “a darkness is rising” or “someone is building a superweapon”.

Infinite Frontier Catwoman #39-42 (Dangerous Liaisons arc)

Gosh, I love the way Selina’s narration is written in this series, and I’m really hyped for the rest of Tini Howard’s run. I also thought this was an unusually successful example of making the feminist themes of a story plot-relevant in a way that’s much more interesting than the standard “strong female character goes off to start her own thing” or “protagonist rescues abused woman”.

Infinite Frontier Poison Ivy #2

I adore the art and the voice of Ivy, as well as the conceit of her writing to Harley, and the second issue was just as strong on those fronts as the first. This did feel a bit more stagnant than the opening, and didn’t move the plot forward very much, but I’m still very much enjoying this series and very excited to pick up the third volume.

Image Comics

Saga Volume 1-6

A trillion years after everyone else caught up I am finally reading Saga! By and large it’s completely lived up to the hype, I love the worldbuilding and the creature design and how vivid and flawed the characters are. I was really impressed by the crispness of the art and especially by how Brian K. Vaughan threads the needle of modern dialogue that doesn’t detract from the science fantasy setting.

Ice Cream Man Vol 1: Rainbow Sprinkles

Everyone saying this is Twilight Zone as a pastel comic with varying quality is completely correct. I wasn’t blown away by it, but liked it a lot, and so far the first volume at least was a good level of eerie for me as someone who likes horror-the-literary-genre but can’t handle any extreme gore.