#there's a book i'd love to read and i'd rather not have hundreds of hours of writing and rewriting and editing and other work

[terror-billie]

I feel like the AI art discussion really crystallized the philosophical distinctions between results-focused and process-focused approaches to art in a way that really hadn't come to the foreground before. Probably because results-focused people only really had the option to a) pay artists or b) learn art and buckle down enough to create what they want. Neither of those are going to be interrogated, as both are obviously good.

And it's been really interesting to see this discussion brought to the surface for this massive disconnect we've largely ignored.

I had a tattoo client ask if I ever used AI to design tattoos for me. Man I spent the better part of a decade doing shitty bit work as a graphic designer and now that I have the space to do whatever I want, I'm gonna let the computer generate random garbage for me? What next should I have a computer that eats my dinner and fucks my wife?

[fallloverfic]

Thoughts on the live-action adaptation of The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, Episode 4: Escape Velocity Protocol:

Even more critical this week. The writing is just really bad. There is one good part of the episode that I actually liked, but I so strongly disliked 98% of the episode that I'm still 50/50 not going to watch the next one. Please, if you have any interest in this show, read the books, they're so much better.

If you love this show, you should probably look elsewhere, and I wish you the best, I hope you keep enjoying the show. You are not going to convince me it's good. I wish I was with you. I truly do. For the person who replied to my drone post suggesting that the show features a younger Murderbot and the show might show it falling in love with drones/drone usage, which would thus explain the absence of showing/otherwise talking about drones outside the single drone that got destroyed while Bharadwaj was using it, I'm curious: where was that in Episode 4? In All Systems Red ("ASR"), drones are mentioned and used far more in the initial DeltFall trip (Chapter 4) than prior to that (nearly 100% more). There was zero mention of drones anywhere this episode. Of course, this alleged falling in love could still happen in the remaining six episodes. Maybe Murderbot is going to wake up and think, "Dang, I wish I'd had drones." Maybe near the end of the story it'll see a drone on the station and think, "Dang, if only I'd had those..."

That also sounds like such a stupid concept. And is probably being justified by budgeting or something, which is more of a criticism of modern filming constraints and why wasn't this just made in 2D animation where this wouldn't have been as big an issue?

Also, funny story about the "younger Murderbot" concept I was introduced to, and why I'm bringing this up now (on top of I'm still frustrated there has only been one drone and it wasn't even Murderbot's). If someone can reply to me with a specific interview where it's made explicitly clear show!Murderbot is younger than ASR!Murderbot, because I didn't find anything, all I can see is that people are justifying this with the line show!Murderbot uses in Episode 1: "I could now access the combined feed of entertainment channels on the company's satellites. I had watched 7,532 hours of content since then." This would parallel its line in the opening of ASR, when it says, “I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don’t know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed.” Unless there's an actual interview somewhere specifying show!Murderbot's age/that it is younger in the show than in ASR, I'm going to assume people are going off the number change. It's been at least 7,532 hours since it hacked its governor module in the show, rather than at least 35,000 in ASR, which would be a difference of a little over 3 years, assuming it didn't just do something else in the "missing" 3ish years (and didn't, I don't know, rewatch anything/including that as part of the 7k number).

Why that matters is because while looking up a scene I imagine is going to happen in Episode 5 (Gurathin reveals Murderbot's name), based on trailers and what happens in Episode 4, there's this bit in ASR Chapter 5: “Gurathin hesitated. “It’s downloaded seven hundred hours of entertainment programming since we landed. Mostly serials. Mostly something called Sanctuary Moon.”

I don't know for certain that the people who made this show misread/didn't read the books so badly that they took a 700, added a digit, and used that in the opening rather than the more iconic line. Maybe this is even meant for some kind of plot consistency or something, to better justify Gurathin's declaration. But until I see otherwise, I am convinced something like that happened, and the idea that show!Murderbot is younger and thus needs to learn basic parts of its function it should have been using already (other SecUnits use drones!), is extremely dubious at best, and the missing drones are down to budgeting and perhaps attempted narrative time-saving rather than an actual story concern. I could always be proven wrong by the show.

Why this matters more broadly is a general worry I have that narrative decisions are being dictated by budgeting more than good writing. There's the concept of "doing with what you have", but also "the budgeting decisions are literally interfering with the narrative on top of people who are bad writers". It is, of course, pure speculation that budgeting is to blame. Maybe the folks who make the show think this is all great, especially because they cut Volescu and Overse while adding another human, which leads to more screw-ups this episode. I don't know.

On to the actual episode.

I don't really get the point of the flashback other than emphasizing yet again what seems to be a core theme of the show: humans are disgusting. Look how disgusting they are. Eww they're so gross. Masking is so gross because you sneeze and now have the sneeze on your face guard and why is this show doubling down on pushing against masking, why does sneeze person remove their faceguard when the mask is likely, at least in part, to keep them from contaminating the work?

There is at least a little more about how awful capitalism is, as we see indentured workers and people working in shitty work conditions and a general sort of nihilism among at least some workers.

What particularly bothers me is the weird implication that Murderbot is somehow unique in having anxiety and depression, rather than anxiety and depression being explicit side effects of intentional design, as explained in Artificial Condition, Chapter 2: “When constructs were first developed, they were originally supposed to have a pre-sentient level of intelligence, like the dumber variety of bot. But you can’t put something as dumb as a hauler bot in charge of security for anything without spending even more money for expensive company-employed human supervisors. So they made us smarter. The anxiety and depression were side effects.” They don't overtly state that the uniqueness is show canon outside show!Murderbot's snarky line, "You wouldn't wanna fuck up and produce a chronically anxious, depressed Murderbot." But the implication is there.

I'm not fastening onto this entirely because of the meme about giving a functioning being anxiety for no reason. I think it's fun commentary about how actually knowing more about a situation can lead to depression and anxiety. And also: Murderbot emphasizes it is not unique in many ways, and that its struggles are faced by many other constructs, and this leads into the rest of the narrative. It's not exactly a shout of solidarity or something, but there's an importance in not making Murderbot Just That Speshul, which is part of the general critique of capitalism, which this show continues to have relatively little interest in.

To reiterate, I don't have an issue, hypothetically, with their focusing on the fake soap operas. I was, again, before this all aired, worried they'd treat that part badly or just remove it. As I noted last week, my issue has become that it is now overwhelming the other parts of the narrative. In ASR, Murderbot describes waking up after getting knocked unconscious in a way roughly similar to sleep paralysis, and it sounds truly terrifying (sleep paralysis is awful on its own, and what Murderbot experiences sounds worse). It proceeds to handle the situation with the first rogue pretty well, in a way that works for an action story. A second rogue pops up, Mensah takes care of it. It's all very clean and fun. Overse arrives to help, Ratthi pulls Murderbot onto the hopper, Pin-Lee is piloting (in ASR, Arada stayed behind at the hub), and then Murderbot explains about the combat-override module, and shoots itself. This is a relatively brief section, and I get why a show crew would want to expand it into a bigger action sequence. I am still annoyed they didn't do this for the map investigation section, which would have better fit their needs (I mean if you wanted an action sequence with Ratthi where he screws up, he literally falls into an acid mud pool, and Murderbot pulls him out, come on), but whatever, I get why they expanded on it.

The novella shows that PresAux is good at working in an emergency scenario: not perfect, but they are skilled, relatively good at keeping their heads and working together, and they are adaptable. It makes sense why they were allowed on this mission. And it helps explain why Murderbot likes them.

The show continues to demonstrate that everyone on this team is an incompetent child who should never have been allowed on the mission. I've met tourists who are more intelligent than this alleged group of trained scientists. That's not to say that all such expeditions have people who are trained and mentally prepared for such things. History shows that many such expeditions have people woefully unprepared for the trials they face, even when such expeditions have allegedly trained scientists. And there's nothing necessarily wrong with focusing on how characters are imperfect or just not prepared to meet a particular moment. It's the fact that this is now the fourth episode where I have to beg why? And that this is so against a massive chunk of what makes the source material good. And also that even if you insist the show is doing its own thing, it just isn't entertaining to watch. This isn't meant to be an episode of some survivor show. It's meant to be an adaptation of The Murderbot Diaries. And it's currently more like what I understand survivor shows to be than the latter.

Maybe they had to justify paying the actors for the Sanctuary Moon cameos, and that's why Murderbot keeps seeing extremely long glitchy bits for it. Again, budgeting is seemingly overtaking the story rather than good writing.

Perhaps the only part of this whole mess I liked was that it is incredibly relatable when earworm songs are stuck in your head in times of stress.

I'm going to explain a string of events that happen in the show:

We see Ratthi talking woodenly to the comm on the hopper, demanding to know from Pin-Lee, who is not in the area with him, where Mensah is, despite Arada - who should have been with Pin-Lee - being behind him. We switch to Pin-Lee, who is again, for no apparent reason, using those stupid hand comms and saying, "I don't know. She was... She was right behind us."

Presumably, in the extremely thin forest, the group of three people - Mensah, Pin-Lee, and Arada - were walking together back to the hopper. Pin-Lee and Arada were apparently deeply oblivious to whatever Mensah was doing for reasons unknown (more relationship drama I guess), and thus lost her while walking, at some point woke up to realize this, and Arada continued to the hopper while Pin-Lee stayed behind to check. Why is Ratthi not asking Arada? Why is Pin-Lee explaining this now?

Yes, we get it, Ratthi is incompetent and should not be allowed off-world because he panics near-immediately. We understand, show. We get that Mensah is still having panic attacks and, despite a history of being a good leader, which is why she's in the elected position, and why she's respected, cannot lead a team or give orders.

Also, why does Pin-Lee not know where Mensah was and then near-immediately find her? I just... the series of events is so ridiculous. Yes, I know, as stated, there wasn't much territory to look through. But that the folks who made this expect me to take Ratthi, Pin-Lee, and Arada's confusion and alarm seriously coupled with Pin-Lee near-immediately solving the issue is ridiculous. The show itself shows how incredibly stupid this whole thing is.

Pin-Lee being the one to try to convince Mensah that Murderbot is not a human, not a part of the team is just... I don't have words for this. In ASR, when Murderbot is injured after the DeltFall excursion, it assumes Mensah gets Pin-Lee to come over and look it over from a medical/software standpoint (Pin-Lee often works to make software work in ASR). In short, what should be an interesting conversation with two femme folks of color discussing mental health issues becomes a scene with two incompetent people being intentionally shown to be incompetent because this was all made up for the show and a primary theme of the show seems to be "humans are incompetent." To be clear: it's not both of them are dealing, somewhat badly, with stress, that is the issue. It's that it's generally framed in a way that shows they are not handling this well and were not trained to deal with this. In a different context, this might have been great. Sadly, we are here.

And also generally the show wants you to hate Pin-Lee because they're not that into the throuple situation, they were fine with Ratthi dying, etc. And it's just... why? Why take a competent femme character from the books and turn them into someone you're meant to so heavily dislike?

And I still don't get the use of hand-comms. Ghost in the Shell came out in 1995. Other science fiction films and shows have tackled the concept of visual feeds and talking remotely. Bluetooth exists. We see, on the show, Murderbot accessing its feeds. Why is this something the show couldn't do for anyone who wasn't Murderbot or Gurathin?

I can't with the singing. I just can't. It is so phenomenally stupid, I just can't with it. How does it sing if its voicebox is offline anyway? Does it just power that up first? And why? Not like it can fight with its voice. And the problem is this whole sequence ruins what was a not bad fighting sequence following it. I just didn't care by this point.

As someone who loves a good fight scene, it's not all that interesting a fight scene, anyway. I think the most interesting moment was when Murderbot got squished into a locker. Visually, it was neat. That's all I have to say about it because I'm still noping out so hard about the stupid singing.

I'm glad Mensah saves Murderbot like she does in ASR, and because it's just good, narratively: it shows that, despite her issues, she is still competent and a good problem solver, and willing to act in big ways when needed. However, because Murderbot doesn't deal with a first rogue unit after waking up, leaving the second unexpected one to take it by surprise and be killed by Mensah, again, this doubles down on how everyone in this show is incompetent. The fight with the first unit further demonstrates book!Murderbot's competence. Mensah steps in when it can't handle everything. They are a team. They support each other. Murderbot shows that it's good at its job. Show!Murderbot has not really done that since the worm attack in Episode 1. It couldn't even hold off one SecUnit.

Why are Arada, Pin-Lee, and Ratthi debating Mensah's status? It's just a weird thing. They respect her and her authority. This shouldn't be up for debate. But no, gotta bring back the stereotype hippie "consensus" bullshit and how Mensah's actions go against the whatever, look how terrible these useless hippies are.

I'm not saying this to downplay more equal governmental systems. But the story frames it in a way you're not meant to respect. You cannot avoid how the story is framing whatever PresAux is doing as something you are meant to mock and find annoying.

There's so much going on with Ratthi, the untrained person - though everyone is apparently untrained since the others seem to have "training" from video games - picking up the gun. Pointing it at other humans multiple times... It's meant to be an overt way to show, yet again, Ratthi is incompetent and should not be allowed on a mission or with other people and he is in fact dangerous in this role! Because we haven't seen that dozens of times by now.

For folks who have never handled firearms before, one of the first things you're told is to always point it at the ground, even when the safety is on, unless you are firing it intentionally at something that is not on the ground. If you hold a gun, your chances of hitting someone, particularly fatally, particularly by accident (even if it's just the weapon firing itself because guns can in fact fail), rise exponentially. That's why holstered weapons point the guns down. It is a safety practice to never wave it around like Ratthi does. And hypothetically, it's fine that Ratthi doesn't know what to do with it. He has no training. The issue of course is that Overse has been erased from the story, and someone has to fill Overse's shoes in backing Mensah up, and I guess either of the characters with alleged gun training - Arada and Pin-Lee - were not usable for this.

I don't understand the point of that. Is it entertaining someone?

The throuple still being supportive of each other is good in a very small way. I'm glad the show is queer and supportive of queer relationships (to a degree). I'm glad that somewhere down in the center of it is an attempt to make the characters of color not evil, especially when they pick up weapons (which is truly not a common thing in media, especially by U.S. companies). We're not meant to hate Ratthi, we're just meant to view him as an utter incompetent child. This is still buried under how truly awful everything in this scene is and his pointing the gun at his partners when even he knew that was a bad idea.

I am not averse to Mensah helping Murderbot walk. Some of it was even nice. The hallucination of Murderbot being on the soap opera set, however, was... I hope it's entertaining someone. It wasn't funny. It was uncomfortable to watch. I hope the actors had fun with the silly costumes, at least. Genuinely, I hope they had fun filming this. At least from one interview I saw, it sounds like the set was at least, in some ways, a good place to work. It is actually okay for bad art to exist and for artists to have fun making bad art. I am truly not being sarcastic when I say that. It's just that the issue here is that this is bad art.

It should be pointed out that there wasn't anything in ASR stopping Murderbot from touching its neck. It knows the thing is there. It warns PresAux. Slowly, but eventually.

So hypothetically the theory with show!Arada's plan is: Pin-Lee and Arada are panicking about SecUnit being non-responsive, Mensah being non-responsive, and now Ratthi being non-responsive, and thus Arada comes up with the idea that they fly the hopper over rather than just leaving it behind. Somehow this is all done so silently that the rogue unit doesn't hear or detect the ship approaching. Somehow, Arada and Pin-Lee are able to detect what's happening on-site in time to plan to crush the rogue unit from a distance. Sure. Fine.

I am glad they (mostly) kept the part where SecUnit shuts itself down forcibly. I think that bit of the episode is the best portion. It was handled well. This isn't just because "oh it's the one bit that's relatively book accurate"; it's also mainly because it is actually well-shot, well-acted (well, mostly, I think Skarsgard's delivery is a bit wooden at times in ways that don't feel like they work for Murderbot and are more Skarsgard's/the director trying to get Murderbot to "sound" like what people think a robot sounds like, but he's fine enough here), well-scripted, and generally visually enjoyable to watch. I like when everyone runs to its side and hovers over it. That part of the scene, from when Murderbot insists it can't join them on the hopper to the hovering is honestly the main reason I am even considering giving Episode 5 a shot at all.

So is it a good episode? No. We're going to meet the DeltFall survivor next episode somehow (based on the summary for Episode 5), and I'm really not looking forward to that, given the kiss and their apparent obsession with Murderbot's genitalia or lack thereof based on the trailers, and the apparent continued theme focus of humans being gross, incompetent, and generally rude. Maybe Episode 5 will be good. Anything is possible. I do not have hope at this point.

I feel like people are going to look at this and think, "Oh lighten up, it's meant to be funny." The books are hilarious. They make me laugh so much. I cracked a smile I think once during this episode. The books are funny, warm, heart-breaking, painful, fulfilling, excellent science fiction, and a fine critique on capitalism and the surveillance state, and generally enjoyable. That is not what this show is. If you're changing something, what you change should, bare minimum, be enjoyable. That's not happening here.

Please read the books. They're so much better. Kobo sells DRM-free copies, too.

Other thoughts:

Episodes 1-2, Episode 3, Episode 4 (You are here)

[bluespring864]

Hello :)

I've noticed that you've been showing a bit of an interest in Discworld lately.

So naturally, being very much into Discworld right now, I can't just ignore this. :D I don't know how interested you actually are of course, but I'd still like to try and nudge you towards starting it rather sooner than later. Obviously no pressure - I know how it is, sometimes you just don't want to get into something new, let alone a 42-volume book series. :D (Although you don't have to commit to reading all of it right away; most books can stand pretty well on their own.)

It's just that I'm quite certain – no, actually I'm even inclined to say I know – that you would love Discworld. This might come across a bit presumptuous, especially since I don't actually know you. But judging by your interests and generally what I see of you on my dash, I would be very surprised if Discworld wasn't right up your alley.

Because even leaving aside characters and storylines, the writing alone should be a major draw. I regularly marvel at the masterful way in which Terry Pratchett uses language: as a means of characterisation, to convey an idea or even just to describe someone's facial expression - and of course to make us laugh.

And the puns, oh the puns! They're probably what made me fall in love with his writing in the first place. Can't resist a good pun. I could provide examples if you want. :D

I won't get into characters, themes or what have you right now because this ask is long enough as it is. One thing I want to say, though, is that I feel like a lot of the messages conveyed in those books would resonate with you, because you strike me as a very compassionate and caring person.

So, to come to an end: If you need any more information or incentives to get into Discworld or are still on the fence about how or where to start, feel free to ask me anything. And in case you will actually start reading the books, I'd be more than happy to exchange thoughts or just gush about stuff. :D

PS: I hope you had a lovely christmas and wish you all the best for the new year*. :)

*Isn't it somewhat annoying that English doesn't have an adequate translation for "Guten Rutsch"?

This is definitely the nicest thing I've had in my inbox all year, you lovely person <3

I am still to this day confused as to why I never read any Terry when I was a teenager. I assume the local library didn't have a lot of his books or put them so far in the boy's section that I never really noticed them (and why tf were the teenage books gendered, I hope that's not the case anymore... hm, now I'm wondering whether I'm remembering this right, but I really think there were boy's and girl's sections). I picked one of his books at random a few years back and read it on holiday, jetlagged (it was a bit confusing, because of the jetlag and because I think I picked something that belonged somewhere in the Discworld universe without me ever having had a real introduction to it) but I still liked it, and have been meaning to read more Discworld ever since.

Unfortunately, when I read that book I had just started a demanding job that often requires me to speedread through hundreds of pages in a few hours, which has left me with much less capacity to read for pleasure. The books are literally piling up around me. But I will get round to Discworld one day, I'm sure of it, not least because of your glowing recommendation! And as soon as I do, I will most definitely let you know so we can be language and literature nerds about it together ;-)

[litsnobconfessions]

A Year of Animation Day 38: A Scanner Darkly

Date: February 7, 2025

Day: 38

Content Watched: A Scanner Darkly

Year: 2006

Rating: R

Run Time: 1 hour 40 minutes

I picked Nimona for my sister's birthday, and I picked A Scanner Darkly for my brother's. I'm guessing he's seen it (he's seen a lot of stuff), though I don't know if he likes it. But I think of my brother as a cerebral fella, and he's the person who introduced me to science-fiction, if not to Phillip K. Dick specifically.

I watched this movie once before, in high school. And shortly thereafter, I read the book. There were two things that really struck me while reading: (1) This book is super trippy and hard to follow, but I'm guessing Dick did that on purpose and (2) this is a really solid adaptation.

My favorite part of the movie is The Sins of Feck, mostly because I remember reading the book and thinking, "I've already read this. Except I know I haven't." I couldn't remember how it had played out in the movie, but I knew that somehow that scene had occurred word for word. So today I got to go full circle and see how it played out all over again, knowing already that it was word for word taken from the book. My other favorite scene is probably the one with the bicycle, again because I remember it vividly from the book.

Watching it this go around, I'm struck by how beautiful Dick's prose is. Because so many lines are taken word for word, you can hear it here, and he's a masterful writer. And I noticed the foreshadowing with the blue flowers being mentioned several times before the end. Also, the book has this habit of skipping back and forth between scenes, sometimes in the middle of sentences, and the movie does that a bit, but not as much as the book (though the DVD I watched had a scratch that forced me to skip even more than normal.) Nevertheless, the movie is very trippy, which again, I'm sure is on purpose, as I suspect the point is to make you feel like a user. A lot of that is due to the animation.

This movie is rotoscoped and, like Persepolis and Loving Vincent, is one of those films where, once you see it, you realize there is no other medium or art style that is better suited to the story it is telling. From what I understand, rotoscoping by its nature can come off as disjointed and wonky, but the animators definitely leaned into that, as is seen in several scenes in which inanimate objects move in ways they should not. These movements were quick enough, however to make me question whether or not I really saw them, and it wasn't until I honed it on it and looked for it that I was sure.

The scamble suits are definitely my favorite part of the animation, not only because they are interesting to look at, but because I can hardly imagine how difficult they would have been to create. I'm impressed at how synchronized the lips are, even as the image of the speaker shifts frame to frame. Apparently, they had 20 people working on the scramble suits alone.

As for the rest of the movie, it still took hundreds of hours to animate a single minute of the film. The animators considered different line wieghts for different characters, drew in facial highlights that shift as the characters move, and even changed elements of the actor's appearances, such as drawing Keanu Reeve's character as clean shaven in the final scenes (not to mention all the aphids). All of this flies in the face of hypothesis 6. I also really like that the actors apparently got in on the action in their own way. Reeves, knowing that in many scenes, his character would be wearing a scramble suit, focused on bigger body language rather than facial expression to communicate Fred's thoughts. Other actors purposely performed their scenes in a... well, in a more animated way, knowing it would better suit the finished product.

I think I'd like to end in the same vein as the movie (and, I'm sure, the novel as well), in which Dick dedicates the work to friends who died or experienced extensive physical and/or mental harm due to drug addiction. I am struck by this line from Barris toward the beginning of the story: "Substance D needs no genetic predisposition. You're either on it, or you haven't tried it." I would fall into the latter category, but I believe Dick when he says these others suffered a fate far greater than they deserved.

[space-blue]

Oh yeah, you're right, 14 years of my life working with the public across cafes, restaurants, hotels, hostels, cinema, bookstores, theatres and box offices and I haven't encountered enough rude customers lmao.

Humans SHOULD do this job. Maybe you think people will suddenly be normal and chill and have no stupid questions because they aren't facing a human.

The difference is that I think retail workers should be far better compensated.

Digital tills aren't AI. They're just basic ass software. There's no need for an LLM or an art thief AI to be stuffed in there.

The people you would still have in store with a "differen role" are STILL retail workers and they will STILL be dealing with customers, some of them unhappy, and all of them asking questions from the human rather than the smart till. They'll need to refill the shelves and clean the store and write recommendations and make big spenders feel special.

Thinking in terms of scifi and dreaming up a society in which AI is capable of doing my job better than me, while we're all on some golden universal income, is detrimental to everyone.

AI bros are more than happy to sell the idea of AI as replacement to workers, even if they then have to turn around and completely lie about it and actually have their AI be a bunch of Indian workers!!!

Meanwhile, no government I know of is actually interested in giving me universal income that pays for all my rent, bills, and leaves me enough to enjoy myself besides. They're not willing to fully train me for a better, AI safe job.

And do you know what? Retail sucks because of shitty managers and insane store rules more than rude customers.

I spent years selling books and it was an awesome job. I loved my colleagues and I enjoyed making displays, writing reviews, reading lots of books ahead of publications so I could excitedly recommend. Nothing tickled me more than pitching the perfect recommendation for someone looking for their next reading club book or finding what would work for the christmas present of a young niece not reading enough.

And NOTHING beat the joy of that same guy, back in early January, looking for me across the shop so he could come and brightly thank me, because the graphic novel I sold him about a girl doing ice skatting besides school drama captivated his niece and she's now jumped into reading YA novels.

People remembering me months after and coming for ME because they trusted my recommendations. People gifting us boxes of chocolate for the staff to enjoy. People thanking us with tears in their eyes because we organised an event and they just got to shake hands with their absolute favourite author.

You think I'd want to give ANY of this to AI when AI 1/can't do it, and 2/I could just enjoy doing this with better hours and better pay if only the government can be curb stomped into caring for us?

Don't even come at me with the "not all retail--" angle. Lots of people enjoy lots of different things, and ALL retail workers should be better paid and have better rights, and automation (not AI necessarily) should always be a tool that helps instead of a tool that replaces, so long as society isn't ready for a mass replacement of a vital low-level education work force.

[fourmoony]

𝐨𝐡, 𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐲

𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐮𝐬 𝐥𝐮𝐩𝐢𝐧 𝐱 𝐟!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

⭒⭒⭒

𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐛𝐥𝐮𝐫𝐛 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐮𝐬' 𝐛𝐢𝐠 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝.

𝟖𝟏𝟕 - masterlist

⭒⭒⭒

"I want one." I'd said, without even thinking.

Harry had just started to crawl. Lily was hovering over him rather nervously, wand at the ready to fix any bumps or bruises whilst James (who was very frazzled, but also very chuffed for his son) tried to figure out how to work the 'bloody muggle photo-thingy'.

Inside the Potter's living room, filled with laughter and joy, and so so much love for each other (and Baby Harry) it was all too easy to forget about the war. It was easy to forget the identifying questions James had made us answer on arrival, or the incantation we'd had to perform just to be able to see James and Lily's home. It was easy to forget the missions Sirius and Remus were being sent on, stretching out over weeks and days, or the missing muggles, witches and wizards, the rising death toll, the insistent nagging from The Dark Lord to change allegiances and join him.

On a lazy Sunday, where Lily would make soup and crusty rolls for lunch, and a roast for tea, where James and Sirius would spend hours transforming between their anamagi to amuse Baby Harry and Remus would read aloud whilst Peter and I played chess, it was easy to forget everything wrong with the world. It was so easy to just exist.

Remus looked up over the cover of his book and then down at his nephew, who was now sitting atop Padfoot, his father laughing maniacally whilst Lily shooed them out of the kitchen. He smiled an odd sort of smile, like he hadn't expected the words to come out of my mouth at all. Ever. Honestly, neither had I. Having children had been the last thing on my mind, in that time. But seeing the joy that Harry had brought to our friends, the life that Lily and James were building for him - it inspired me.

"Well," Remus mused, sitting his book down on the coffee table - careful to mind the cups of scattered tea everywhere - "I'll distract Lily. You could take Prongs in a duel. Easy."

His smile was wicked, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he came from the single arm chair to the sofa I was stretched across. He lifted my legs, sat them back on his lap, arm stretched along the back of the sofa behind me. I rolled my eyes at him, pouting, "You know fine well that's not what I meant, Lupin."

Remus laughed. A rare laugh, these days. My heart melted. He looked so much like the boy I'd fallen in love with all those years ago - the quiet (not at all quiet), studious, mysterious Remus Lupin. Little had I known he was the true mastermind to all 'Marauder' pranks, while remaining studious and mysterious, but also being the biggest, most sarcastic loud mouth I'd ever met. I had been in way too deep ever since.

"I know, love, I know." He patted my shin gently, lovingly.

He was thinking, behind those big, hazel eyes. I knew Remus inside and out, the moral debate was eating him alive. The self doubt, the inner fear he held of himself, of the wolf.

"I guess I never much thought of us having children. Of you wanting to have them, really, with me..." Remus looked pitiful, lost in thought, I frowned.

"Why wouldn't I want to have children with you? They'd be the prettiest, smartest, funniest babies to ever walk the Earth." I said confidently.

This earned me another laugh. Then, a shrug, "I dunno," Remus scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, "The wolf, I guess. It's not really one hundred percent that the kid wouldn't be."

I knew the possibility. But I also knew the progress that was being made in the ways of Lycanthropy. I knew how hard it had been for Remus, growing up. I knew he was cast aside, an afterthought, that people held prejudice against 'his kind', but I'd only ever loved him more for the strong man it had turned him into.

Not everyone was like this, though.

"I know the risks. I know you'll have put a lot more thought into it than me. A conversation for another time, maybe, but I'd like you to know," My hands reached for his face, guiding him to meet my eyes, "It would never be the wolf that put me off having children with you, Remus."

Remus smiled, a genuine smile and leaned forward to place his lips on mine. I settled back into the sofa, watched as Remus picked up his book, settling over my shins to read it.

"Your massive head..." I blew a whistle, "Now that might put me off."

Sirius cackled from the kitchen. Remus blew a raspberry and Harry copied him.

[sofia-d-asb]

I just wanted to say that I just finished your game, and wow. Do you know this hollow but also fulfilled feeling after finishing a really good book?I am feeling it right now😭😭💖Your amazing writing combined with the fantastic way you write the characters is stunning, I was gasping, yelling at my screen, actually tearing up, smiling and giggling the whole time. I as well love the way you wrote the mc. The way they change and how they react to what happens to them was so real and i really felt along with them. And can i just say, the Will route was pure perfection, I loved every second, it hit all the marks and gave me the feels😔👌👌I haven't played other routes yet, but I'm very excited to do so!!

Lastly, even though the ending, at least in my playthrough, ended rather ambiguously and on an apprehensive note, I felt like it fit very well, considering everything that happened in the book and how the political relations are, as well as what mc went through. It still makes me sad to think of all the things that mc will have to go through in the future, i just want them to be happy and safe and live in peace with Will😔😭(I became so attached to mc and Will in this playthrough, it's insane) But it's that good kind of pain, if it makes sense, that you get from quality writing.

I was so excited about the release and i played through the whole game in one sitting because I was (and still am) hooked and in awe everytime i read a new scene. I'd love to ramble on about every plottwist and scenes that stood out to me but it would be such a spoiler if you posted this, so I'm trying to remain vague(i don't think it's working💀😭😭) It was so worth it to buy this game and you are absolutely amazing for doing this honestly thank you so much for sharing your work, your story is my new obsession and I will think about it for a long time. This is really one of the best interactive fiction works i have ever read, it has everything I love and is just so well done, from worldbuilding to writing to bringing the characters to life. (English isn't my first language so I'm sorry if I used words in the wrong context or it was confusing!) I will definitely leave a review recommending the game!!

I hope you have a great day, you're amazing!!<3

Thank you so much for sharing this with me.

I'm finding it hard to put into words how much your message made me smile. The fact that you've enjoyed my story and my writing; it makes it worth all the hundreds of hours of work I put into the game.

Thank you :)

[writermuses]

Baz hadn't thought much about his running, and his looked up at the clear sky as he thought about it, doing the math. "Well, I just go with my mood. Sometimes I walk, jog, or run, but I definitely go out every day for it. It helps me clear my head and maintain a good stamina for all of the walking that I do when I'm in Europe. I've never run a marathon or anything, but I spend probably close to an hour working out every day." He was more than aware that Zara was attractive, but he was hesitant to ask if she enjoyed working out, not wanting to be offensive.

His eyes moved from hers to the book. "I'll be honest, I haven't, but I'm not against it. World War II has been my niche since I was eighteen and I'm aware a broader understanding of history before that time period all plays a role in the subsequent historical events. "I wouldn't mind you reading it to me or I could pick up a copy and try to catch up to you." His fingers tangled in his hair, a shy smile on his face. "I'm very guilty of being a workaholic. Like I said, my mother put the app on my phone at a family dinner. The love of academia is definitely also the reason I'm a workaholic. It never feels quite like work to me. Even when I was a child I enjoyed going to museums, reading, visiting historic buildings. Have I pretty much ruined this declaring I'm forty going on one hundred and fifteen? I'd much rather know what you like to do."

"Do you run every morning? How much? When did that start?" She questioned. She loved to read people like books, often liking to pick at their brains in an effort to understand who they were. She followed his eyes to her thighs, smirking softly to herself - it felt good to be desired. She scrunched her nose a bit when he corrected her pronunciation, taking the chance to look at his lips a second longer than she needed to so she could repeat after him. "You know, it's not something I would have picked up if I hadn't met you, but I'm finding that I really like it. Have you ever read it?" She wondered, though she knew she had picked up a very random book on the French Revolution, and it was fiction based on history and she didn't know if that was his speed. She whistled under her breath as he spoke about all he did, taking a moment to bite into her dessert, using her thumb to clean up some of the chocolate at the corner of her lips. "You sound like a true academic," she mused - it was a compliment, something she wasn't used to. "Perhaps a foolish question, but what do you do outside of academia... and running... and buying pretty women chocolate croissants," she teased. "Do you ever just... do a beach bonfire? Go to the arcade?" She asked, half joking, half interested in seeing what kind of life if any he had outside his profession.

[istumpysk]

Operation Stumpy Re-Read

AFFC: The Princess in the Tower (Arianne II) [Chapter 40]

Hers was a gentle prison.

Arianne took solace from that. Why would her father go to such great pains to provide for her comfort in captivity if he had marked her for a traitor's death? He cannot mean to kill me, she told herself a hundred times. He does not have it in him to be so cruel. I am his blood and seed, his heir, his only daughter.

You know things are broken when you believe your father is capable of killing you.

+.+.+

If need be, she would throw herself beneath the wheels of his chair, admit her fault, and beg him for his pardon. And she would weep. When he saw tears rolling down her face, he would forgive her.

Snort.

"Tears," she said scornfully to Sansa as the woman was led from the hall. "The woman's weapon, my lady mother used to call them. - Sansa VI, ACOK

+.+.+

Ser Manfrey took her arm and marched her up the steps, up and up until her breath grew short. The Spear Tower stood a hundred and a half feet high, and her cell was nearly at the top. Arianne eyed every door they passed, wondering if one of the Sand Snakes might be locked within.

A princess in a tower!

+.+.+

There were Myrish carpets on the floor, red wine to drink, books to read. In one corner stood an ornate cyvasse table with pieces carved of ivory and onyx, though she had no one to play with even if she had been so inclined. She had a featherbed to sleep in, and a privy with a marble seat, sweetened by a basketful of herbs.

Arianne, I believe Doran Martell wants his heir to study the game.

+.+.+

"Someone told," Hotah had said. The memory still made her angry. Arianne clung to that, feeding the flame within her heart. Anger was better than tears, better than grief, better than guilt. Someone told, someone she had trusted. Arys Oakheart had died because of that, slain by the traitor's whisper as much as by the captain's axe. The blood that had streamed down Myrcella's face, that was the betrayer's work as well. Someone told, someone she had loved. That was the cruelest cut of all.

But who would want to hurt Myrcella?

He said we had the Imp to thank, for sending us Princess Myrcella. She is so pretty, don't you think? I wish that I had curls like hers. She was made to be a queen, just like her mother." Dimples bloomed in Tyene's cheeks. - The Captain of the Guards, AFFC

Could it be the creepy girl?

+.+.+

She paced around her tower, twice and thrice and three times thrice. She sat beside the cyvasse table and idly moved an elephant. 

Moving the Golden Company's elephants, are you?

All eyes on the game pieces in this chapter.

+.+.+

Someone told, she thought. Someone told. Garin, Drey, and Spotted Sylva were friends of her girlhood, as dear to her as her cousin Tyene.

Sure, awkwardly throw Tyene's name in there.

+.+.+

She could not believe they would inform on her . . . but that left only Darkstar, and if he was the betrayer, why had he turned his sword on poor Myrcella? He wanted to kill her instead of crowning her, he said as much at Shandystone. He said that was how I'd get the war I wanted. But it made no sense for Dayne to be the traitor. If Ser Gerold had been the worm in the apple, why would he have turned his sword upon Myrcella?

Good point, we need the (wo)man behind the curtain.

+.+.+

Someone told. Could it have been Ser Arys? Had the white knight's guilt won out over his lust? Had he loved Myrcella more than her and betrayed his new princess to atone for his betrayal of the old? Was he so ashamed of what he'd done that he threw his life away at the Greenblood rather than live to face dishonor?

That's a bingo!

+.+.+

During the daylight hours she would try to read, but the books that they had given her were deadly dull: ponderous old histories and geographies, annotated maps, a dry-as-dust study of the laws of Dorne, The Seven-Pointed Star and Lives of the High Septons, a huge tome about dragons that somehow made them about as interesting as newts. Arianne would have given much and more for a copy of Ten Thousand Ships or The Loves of Queen Nymeria, anything to occupy her thoughts and let her escape her tower for an hour or two, but such amusements were denied her.

Arianne, I believe Doran Martell wants his heir to read the books.

Blah, I'm always troubled when a character I like is choosing not to read history. That's never good.

To be fair, I'd prefer original ship girl over the boring newts as well.

+.+.+

No visitors were permitted her beyond the servants; Bors with his stubbly jaw, tall Timoth dripping dignity, the sisters Morra and Mellei, pretty little Cedra, old Belandra who had been her mother's bedmaid. They brought her meals, changed her bed, and emptied the chamber pot beneath her privy, but none would speak with her. 

[...]

Yet none of them had a word for her, nor would they deign to tell her what was happening in the world outside her sandstone cage. "Has Darkstar been captured?" she asked Bors one day. "Are they still hunting for him?" The man only turned his back on her and walked away. "Have you gone deaf?" Arianne snapped at him. "Come back here and answer me. I command it." Her only reply was the sound of a door closing.

So she wept, pleading through her door for them to tell her what was happening, calling for her father, for Septa Mordane, for the king, for her gallant prince. If the men guarding her heard her pleas, they gave no answer. 

[...]

They were fed—hard cheese and fresh-baked bread and milk to break their fast, roast chicken and greens at midday, and a late supper of beef and barley stew—but the servants who brought the meals would not answer Sansa's questions. - Sansa IV, AGOT

+.+.+

Is this my father's notion of torment? Not hot irons or the rack, but simple silence? That was so very like Doran Martell that Arianne had to laugh. He thinks he is being subtle when he is only being feeble. She resolved to enjoy the quiet, to use the time to heal and fortify herself for what must come.

Let's see how you're doing in a few weeks.

+.+.+

Instead, she made herself think about the Sand Snakes, Tyene especially. Arianne loved all her bastard cousins, from prickly, hot-tempered Obara to little Loreza, the youngest, only six years old. Tyene had always been the one she loved the most, though; the sweet sister that she never had. The princess had never been close to her brothers; Quentyn was off at Yronwood, and Trystane was too young. No, it had always been her and Tyene, with Garin and Drey and Spotted Sylva.

+.+.+

Nym would sometimes join them in their sport, and Sarella was forever pushing in where she didn't belong, but for the most part they had been a company of five.

Like the Citadel?

+.+.+

They splashed in the pools and fountains of the Water Gardens, and rode into battle perched on one another's naked backs. She and Tyene had learned to read together, learned to ride together, learned to dance together. When they were ten Arianne had stolen a flagon of wine, and the two of them had gotten drunk together. They shared meals and beds and jewelry. They would have shared their first man as well, but Drey got too excited and spurted all over Tyene's fingers the moment she drew him from his breeches. Her hands are dangerous. The memory made her smile.

They sure are.

Can you imagine losing your virginity in a three-way? That's confidence.

+.+.+

Prince Oberyn had armed each of his daughters so they need never be defenseless, but Arianne Martell had no weapon but her guile. And so she smiled and charmed, and asked nothing in return of Cedra, neither word nor nod.

Guile! Arianne's got more than two weapons.

+.+.+

"Please," Cedra finally whispered, after Arianne had painted a vivid picture of Garin throwing himself from the window of his cell, to taste freedom one last time before he died. "You have to help him. Please don't let him die."

"I can do little and less so long as I am locked up here," she whispered back. "My father will not see me. You are the only one who can save Garin. Do you love him?"

"Yes," Cedra whispered, blushing. "But how can I help?"

"You can smuggle out a letter for me," said the princess. "Will do you that? Will you take the risk . . . for Garin?"

Cedra's eyes got big. She nodded.

I have a raven, Arianne thought, triumphantly, but who to send her to? 

You precious, I love how much you underestimate your own father.

+.+.+

Half of the Ullers are half-mad, the saying went, and the other half are worse. Ellaria Sand was Lord Harmen's natural daughter. She and her little ones had been locked away with the rest of the Sand Snakes. That would have made Lord Harmen wroth, and the Ullers were dangerous when wroth. Too dangerous, perhaps. The princess did not want to put any more lives in danger.

Laying some foundation on House Uller.

"Lords and ladies, let us all now drink to Tommen, the First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, and Lord of the Seven Kingdoms."

[...]

The white knight did drink, as was only courteous. His companions likewise. So did the Princess Arianne, Lady Jordayne, the Lord of Godsgrace, the Knight of Lemonwood, the Lady of Ghost Hill … even Ellaria Sand, Prince Oberyn's beloved paramour, who had been with him in King's Landing when he died. Hotah paid more note to those who did not drink: Ser Daemon Sand, Lord Tremond Gargalen, the Fowler twins, Dagos Manwoody, the Ullers of the Hellholt, the Wyls of the Boneway. If there is trouble, it could start with one of them. - The Watcher, ADWD

+.+.+

Lord Fowler might be a safer choice. The Old Hawk, he was called. He had never gotten on with Anders Yronwood; there was bad blood between their Houses going back a thousand years, from when the Fowlers had chosen Martell over Yronwood during Nymeria's War. The Fowler twins were famous friends of Lady Nym as well, but how much weight would that carry with the Old Hawk?

More non-drinkers.

+.+.+

"Give the man who brings this to you a hundred silver stags," she began. That should ensure that the message was delivered. She wrote where she was, and pleaded for rescue. "Whoever shall deliver me from this cell, he shall not be forgotten when I wed." That should bring the heroes running.

Look at all these weapons you have.

+.+.+

Cedra hid the message in her bodice. "I'll find someone before the sun goes down, princess."

"Good," she said. "Tell me how it went on the morrow."

The girl did not return upon the morrow, however. Nor on the day that followed. 

Lol, Arianne's got to work on not getting other people in trouble.

+.+.+

The freedom that Prince Oberyn allowed his bastard daughters had never been shared by Prince Doran's lawful heir. Arianne must wed; she had accepted that. Drey had wanted her, she knew; so had his brother Deziel, the Knight of Lemonwood. Daemon Sand had gone so far as to ask for her hand. Daemon was bastard-born, however, and Prince Doran did not mean for her to wed a Dornishman.

You never know, he might be a Targaryen.

Her father did not mean for her to wed a Dornishman. We'll see what happens when Doran and Aegon have left the story.

+.+.+

Arianne had accepted that as well. One year King Robert's brother came to visit and she did her best to seduce him, but she was half a girl and Lord Renly seemed more bemused than inflamed by her overtures. Later, when Hoster Tully asked her to come to Riverrun and meet his heir, she lit candles to the Maid in thanks, but Prince Doran had declined the invitation. The princess might even have considered Willas Tyrell, crippled leg and all, but her father refused to send her to Highgarden to meet him. She tried to go despite him, with Tyene's help . . . but Prince Oberyn caught them at Vaith and brought them back. 

One of them is still available?

+.+.+

Grandison had seemed a pleasant fellow, less querulous than Estermont and more robust than Rosby. She would never marry him, however. Not even if Hotah stands behind me with his axe.

Vows made at axe point are not valid.

+.+.+

Days came and went, one after the other, so many that Arianne lost count of how long she had been imprisoned. She found herself spending more and more time abed, until she reached the point where she did not rise at all except to use her privy. The meals the servants brought grew cold, untouched. Arianne slept and woke and slept again, and still felt too weary to rise. 

Remove all the context and this is a retelling of Sansa's time in Maegor's Holdfast.

The only thing that's missing is Arianne opening the window and thinking about it.

+.+.+

I am frightened, she realized, for the first time in my life, I am frightened of my father. That made her laugh until the wine came out her nose. When it was time to dress, she chose a simple gown of ivory linen, with vines and purple grapes embroidered around the sleeves and bodice. She wore no jewels. I must be chaste and humble and contrite. I must throw myself at his feet and beg forgiveness, or I may never hear another human voice again.

Snort.

She found a cedar chest full of her clothes at the foot of her bed, so she stripped out of the travel-stained garb she had slept in and donned the most revealing garments she could find, wisps of silk that covered everything and hid nothing. Prince Doran might treat her like a child, but she refused to dress like one. She knew such garb would discomfit her father when he came to chastise her for making off with Myrcella. She counted on it. If I must crawl and weep, let him be uncomfortable as well.

+.+.+

Instead he delivered her to the prince's solar, where they found Doran Martell seated behind a cyvasse table, his gouty legs supported by a cushioned footstool. He was toying with an onyx elephant, turning it in his reddened, swollen hands. 

More elephant contemplation.

+.+.+

"A strange and subtle folk, the Volantenes," he muttered, as he put the elephant aside. 

The elephants are on the move!

They claim the Golden Company is making for Volantis. - Cersei IV, AFFC

+.+.+

"I told them to place a cyvasse table in your chambers," her father said when the two of them were alone.

"Who was I supposed to play with?" Why is he talking about a game? Has the gout robbed him of his wits?

"Yourself. Sometimes it is best to study a game before you attempt to play it. How well do you know the game, Arianne?"

"Well enough to play."

"But not to win. My brother loved the fight for its own sake, but I only play such games as I can win. Cyvasse is not for me." 

I love Doran, but if my father constantly spoke to me in code, I'd do drugs and have unprotected sex.

+.+.+

She seated herself across the cyvasse table from her father.

Guys, you're on the same team.

+.+.+

She touched one of the cyvasse pieces, the heavy horse. "Have you caught Ser Gerold?"

He's on a horse in the mountains.

+.+.+

Hotah made no reply, except to grunt. Arianne could feel his anger. Darkstar had escaped him, the most dangerous of all her little group of plotters. He had outraced all his pursuers and vanished into the deep desert, with blood upon his blade.

x

He shook his head. "Would that we had. You were a fool to make him part of this. Darkstar is the most dangerous man in Dorne. You and he have done us all great harm.

Not that I want to see something bad happen to the characters I like, but George better deliver with this Darkstar character. Too much talk. So far the guy couldn't even manage to kill a little girl.

+.+.+

Arianne was almost afraid to ask. "Myrcella. Is she . . . ?"

". . . dead? No, though Darkstar did his best. All eyes were on your white knight so no one seems quite certain just what happened, but it would appear that her horse shied away from his at the last instant, else he would have taken off the top of the girl's skull. As it is, the slash opened her cheek down to the bone and sliced off her right ear. Maester Caleotte was able to save her life, but no poultice nor potion will ever restore her face. She was my ward, Arianne. Betrothed to your own brother and under my protection. You have dishonored all of us."

+.+.+

"I never meant her harm," Arianne insisted. "If Hotah had not interfered . . ."

". . . you would have crowned Myrcella queen, to raise a rebellion against her brother. Instead of an ear, she would have lost her life."

I mean, yeah.

+.+.+

"If? The word is when. Dorne is the least populous of the Seven Kingdoms. It pleased the Young Dragon to make all our armies larger when he wrote that book of his, so as to make his conquest that much more glorious, and it has pleased us to water the seed he planted and let our foes think us more powerful than we are, but a princess ought to know the truth. Valor is a poor substitute for numbers. Dorne cannot hope to win a war against the Iron Throne, not alone. And yet that may well be what you have given us. Are you proud?" The prince did not allow her time to answer. "What am I to do with you, Arianne?"

Honest assessment, but the author will punish him for wanting those dragons.

+.+.+

"Now you have. I want to know who informed on me."

"I would as well, in your place."

"Will you tell me?"

"I can think of no reason why I should."

"You think I cannot discover the truth on my own?"

"You are welcome to try. Until such time you must mistrust them all . . . and a little mistrust is a good thing in a princess." 

Trust no one, I once told Eddard Stark, but he would not listen. - Sansa I, AFFC

+.+.+

"As it happens, I agree. Aside from Darkstar, your fellow plotters were no more than foolish children. Still, this was no harmless game of cyvasse. You and your friends were playing at treason. I might have had their heads off."

"You might have, but you didn't. Dayne, Dalt, Santagar . . . no, you would never dare make enemies of such Houses."

"I dare more than you dream . . . but leave that for the nonce. Ser Andrey has been sent to Norvos to serve your lady mother for three years. Garin will spend his next two years in Tyrosh. From his kin amongst the orphans, I took coin and hostages. Lady Sylva received no punishment from me, but she was of an age to marry. Her father has shipped her to Greenstone to wed Lord Estermont.

Many have theorized that because Sylva Santagar received no punishment, and married above her station, she was the one who told Doran. He's a corpse, how is that a reward?

I'm more inclined to believe Doran is putting his pieces where he wants them. Unfortunately, I couldn't tell you what the plan is.

+.+.+

As for Arys Oakheart, he chose his own fate and met it bravely. A knight of the Kingsguard . . . what did you do to him?"

"I fucked him, Father. You did command me to entertain our noble visitors, as I recall."

+.+.+

It was her turn to flush. Her seduction of Ser Arys had required half a year. Though he claimed to have known other women before taking the white, she would never have known that from the way he acted. His caresses had been clumsy, his kisses nervous, and the first time they were abed together he spent his seed on her thigh as she was guiding him inside her with her hand. 

Arys had known other women before taking the white. She would never have known by how nervous he was.

I try not to make everything about jonsa, but taking the white is rarely used in these books. You tell me what that reminds you of.

+.+.+

"No," Arianne said. "Say that he died defending his little princess. Tell Ser Balon that Darkstar tried to kill her and Ser Arys stepped between them and saved her life." That was how the white knights of the Kingsguard were supposed to die, giving up their own lives for those that they had sworn to protect. "Ser Balon may be suspicious, as you were when the Lannisters killed your sister and her children, but he will have no proof . . ."

". . . until he speaks with Myrcella. Or must that brave child suffer a tragic accident as well? If so, it will mean war. No lie will save Dorne from the queen's wroth if her daughter should perish whilst in my care."

He needs me, Arianne realized. That's why he sent for me.

One lie leads to another and so on. They don't have a choice, but you can see this is not going to end well.

+.+.+

She gave him no chance to reply. "I know it is my duty to provide an heir for Dorne, I have never been forgetful of that. I would have wed, and gladly, but the matches that you brought to me were insults. With every one you spit on me. If you ever felt any love for me at all, why offer me to Walder Frey?"

That's so regressive. Don't marry, and have no children instead.

+.+.+

"The pact was sealed in secret. I meant to tell you when you were old enough . . . when you came of age, I thought, but . . ."

"I am three-and-twenty, for seven years a woman grown."

"I know. If I kept you ignorant too long, it was only to protect you. Arianne, your nature . . . to you, a secret was only a choice tale to whisper to Garin and Tyene in your bed of a night. Garin gossips as only the orphans can, and Tyene keeps nothing from Obara and the Lady Nym. And if they knew . . . Obara is too fond of wine, and Nym is too close to the Fowler twins. And who might the Fowler twins confide in? I could not take the risk."

Me thinks Doran Martell just told us how he found out.

Garin -> Tyene -> you decide.

It's possible Tyene told him directly, but I can't deny . . . Obara caught my attention. I kind of love the idea of crafty Doran harnessing the power of wine.

+.+.+

"It makes no matter. He is dead."

That left her more baffled than ever. "The old ones are so frail. Was it a broken hip, a chill, the gout?"

"It was a pot of molten gold. We princes make our careful plans and the gods smash them all awry." 

You should be thanking the gods for that one.

+.+.+

Her father plucked up a cyvasse piece. "I must know how you learned that Quentyn was abroad. Your brother went with Cletus Yronwood, Maester Kedry, and three of Lord Yronwood's best young knights on a long and perilous voyage, with an uncertain welcome at its end. He has gone to bring us back our heart's desire."

She narrowed her eyes. "What is our heart's desire?"

"Vengeance." His voice was soft, as if he were afraid that someone might be listening. "Justice." Prince Doran pressed the onyx dragon into her palm with his swollen, gouty fingers, and whispered, "Fire and blood."

Can you use another word? You have to use another word, or it will go to shit. I don't make the rules.

Doran giving her a black dragon is used to support fAegon theories by the way. I don't mean to irritate people, I'm only sharing.

Final thoughts:

Sometimes Arianne is written like she's 18 years old.

Another princess in a tower has the next POV (who would have guessed?), and it's the largest chapter in the entire series. I require more than a day.

-> return to menu <-

[evilwickedme]

I have a question!!! I really like your fics so I wanted to ask how you find the time/motivation to write your fics? I’m still in the thought process of planning the plot of my very first one and it feels so daunting. Is there any specific process or method you do when you write? Sometimes I get around to writing and I only get a few hundred words in before I’m exhausted. I’d love your advice :)

Hey thank you for asking this and for enjoying my writing!

I'd love it if there were any easy answer to this question, but the truth is the answer is simple and really fucking hard: to write a lot, you just have to write. Sometimes it's going to be easy, other times it's going to be hard. Sometimes I start writing and I blink and suddenly there's two thousand words on the page, other times I sit and stare at my screen for hours and all I've written is two sentences. And I'm not the first one to say this by any means, but the secret is - it's all writing. All of it is writing, even when you end up not writing anything.

Here's the thing though, is that I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was seven years old. I've kept a journal off an on for almost two decades. I wrote poetry for elementary school assignments and I had a blog for my writing in middle school and I wrote short stories for high school projects and I started writing fic when I was 14 and I published my poetry book last year at the age of 24 and it was all just writing and writing and writing. I went through dry spells when I was depressed that last months or even years and I've had periods where I was writing so much it's a wonder I kept up with it. And then I got a degree in screenwriting, where I HAD to write because such and such amount of pages were due by such and such a date, and the industry doesn't care if you're in a rut and neither did my professors.

Nowadays, writing is basically a habit. I have so many poems in my phone notes, because I'll have a thought on the go and suddenly there's a poem - so many phone poems ended up in my book, fyi, some of them barely edited. I can force myself to write something halfway decent just by sitting myself down in front of a Word doc, because I have the neural pathways set up that way from, oh, 18 years of writing. So a lot of my methods regarding writing involve just being like, okay, today I'm going to write something.

For example, I just published the final chapter of the mental health fic in my DC series, which is for now probably going to be the final work in that series (I have a couple more ideas, but they're shelved right now). That final chapter was sitting in my Google drive with about two sentences written in it for weeks, and it was weighing on me. I haven't been feeling very creative recently - I'm fully aware I'm in burnout - but I hate the feeling of being uncreative, so I said to myself, okay, let's fucking finish this. It took a couple of tries - first try I ended up only writing a paragraph describing what everyone was wearing and that's it - but eventually, just the act of me being in front of my laptop rather than facing a tv or buried in my phone made it so I finished it.

There's a story I heard when I was a kid that I can't find right now that basically informed my entire life philosophy, which was this kid went to a baseball game and met his favorite player who agreed to sign a ball for him, but nobody had a pen. Not him, not his parents, not the player, nobody that passed them by in the stadium, none of them had pens. Devastated, he started carrying a pen around with him everywhere. The final quote goes something like, "and if you carry a pen with you everywhere, eventually you start using it." And then he started writing.

To put it another way. In January, I only read two books. And the thing is, like, I genuinely really like reading. Like it's one of my favorite things in the whole wide world. And I asked myself, why didn't I read in January. And again, I know I'm in burnout, I know that's why I watched all that mediocre TV. But I didn't enjoy it? Like at all? So I looked at all that time I spent watching criminal minds and on TikTok and Tumblr and in February I made a concerted effort to read. When I sat down in my living room I asked myself what I was planning to do with my free time, and I realized often the "plan" was just to scroll through TikTok for six hours. So I listened to a five hour audiobook instead. Or read a 300 page book. Or finished a manga I was in the middle of. Or... And I read nine books in February! Which is not a lot for some people, I know, but what an improvement on January!

My point is, if you want to be doing something and you're not doing it, ask yourself why you're not doing it. I found that the time I was spending not-reading and not-writing wasn't getting used up by cooking or cleaning or going to work or meeting up with friends. It wasn't even being spent on something relaxing that I enjoy, like watching a comfort show. In November when I wrote the vast majority of hang on 'til the chaos is through I simply did not spend as much time on Tumblr or on TikTok cause I was writing instead. After I was finished with that, however, I pivoted so hard in the other direction that I didn't do anything I enjoyed at all in an effort to relax. That's honestly not even that relaxing.

So like, here's the thing. When it comes to my "method" of writing it varies so much that it's actually not worth listing out. With hang on the whole fucking thing was outlined in detail. With Of Three Times Lily Evans Changed Her Mind About James Potter I had the endgame in mind and a couple scenes written in advance, but the whole thing got written over 4.5 years and I was improv-ing basically the entire time. With I'm a mess (but I'm the mess that you wanted) I was texting @random-fandork in the middle of the night like, what if next chapter I did this, and they responded with ooh what if you did this, and it got written so fucking fast because we were constantly exchanging ideas. With the timkon jealousy au I just know I want Kon to be jealous of timber, and that's legit all I know, I'm absolutely pantsing it.

Sometimes I write with music. I have character playlists I usually listen to just like any other playlists, but also get used to write sometimes, but I only made my first character playlist around a year ago and I've obviously been writing fic for way more than that. Sometimes music helps get in the mood or helps distract from outside noises, and sometimes it distracts you from finding the right words. I usually write in bed, but I usually do everything in bed because I have chronic back pain. I usually write at home, but I also write in my phone on the go.

But I think you get it, right? Like there is no method. I certainly don't have one. Terry Pratchett famously wrote 300 words every day. I don't know what Erin Morgenstern is doing while working on book three, but I promise you it's not 300 words a day because it was six years between The Night Circus and The Starless Sea and it's been four more years and we still haven't gotten our spring or summer book. Every person finds they work best in different environments - I've tried to write in coffee shops and libraries, it's just close to impossible for me, but for others it's the only way to get motivated. But the point is the stories don't write themselves. Everyone loses steam, everyone gets in a rut, everyone writes bad things that they don't like and scraps them or edits them so thoroughly that they become unrecognizable. But things only get written because you write them, and they'll only get done if you keep at it.

My assumption is that you enjoy telling stories. Yeah, writing is hard, sticking to something is hard, finding motivation to write when you're tired or depressed is hard. But if you don't write, it's not going to get written. So I just try to remember that I enjoy storytelling. That I would be having more fun working on my teacher!peter/dadpool au than watching criminal minds (seriously, I'm not going to finish this show, 2.5 seasons was more than enough; sorry to keep shitting on it but I spent much of January watching it and honestly I've never considered watching a show a waste of time but this was an absolute waste of time).

I also want to reiterate that it's okay if you sit down to write and all you write is a couple hundred words! It's okay if you only wrote two! The turtle wins the race after all - you just gotta keep at it. Just remembere that if you write ten words enough times, you end up with a whole ass book.

[vethbrenatto]

Hi! I want to get into crit role because I love TLOVM, but I struggle with the long episodes and the acting style. However I think I would enjoy the story. I was wondering if you knew of any transcripts of the episodes so that I could try reading it instead.

Here's a link to all the CR transcripts!

I've never heard of anyone trying to read them rather than watch and I do think a lot of the charm of the show that can hook you comes from cast interaction, but I wish you luck in the endeavor and hope you enjoy reading through! They are insanely long, so skimming will probably cut down a lot of time.

Also, if you're interested in the characters from TLOVM but Critical Role isn't tickling your fancy, I'd recommend their comic book, Vox Machina Origins. It is an ongoing comic series that tells the adventures of Vox Machina before the start of Campaign 1, since the cast had been playing a home game for a couple years before they ever started filming. It's a great way to familiarize yourselves with the characters without having to sit through hundreds of hours of content, plus it won't spoil any future events that will occur in TLOVM (which if you do end up reading/watching CR, I'm sure you're aware that there's gonna be spoilers for TLOVM in future seasons)

[d0lly-luv]

16) has your tc ever given you detention ? If so, what was it like ? -> never but oh man would it be an experience having to stay with this man for one whole hour with no one else in the room (//∇//)

17) has your teacher ever failed you? If so how did you react ? If not how would you react ? -> never did and if he did I'd overthink it way too much but I think I'd feel guilty and I wouldn't really keep grudges against ☆ for that lol

18) what are your teachers hobbies/interests ? Are they similar to yours ? -> YES he loves history, the history of arts and literature just as I do !!

19) have you ever spoken on the phone to your tc ? What did you talk about ? -> no :[ but I can't imagine his voice over the phone omg I'd combust wth ?

20) if you had your tc's class during quarantine, how were the zoom calls like? If not have you spoken to your tc since quarantine? -> I didn't even know him back then so no

21) if you had the chance to go anywhere in the world with your tc, where would you go what would you do? -> literally anywhere. This man has soo much knowledge he could make anything become perfect like yes teach me about the history behind that monument ( ≧∀≦) as for what we'd do... idk simply taking long walks through the city sounds like heaven to me tbh

22) does your tc have any nicknames for you? -> "the exceptional student" ? Lmao he's called me that twice : when we first met and when I came to one of his classes as a "spectator" kinda and yup tell me how much I'm special I wanna hear all about it yup yup

23) have you ever cried in front of your tc: why? how did they react? -> never but this made me think about how he'd react and idk tbh I think he'd be comforting but not in the overly affectionate way... more in the actively trying to find solutions to what's weighting on me way ? lol

24) have you ever walked/drove to/from school with your tc? -> never but omg I'd love to TT you guys get to experience that ? I'm jealous...

25) do you know which teachers your tc is friends with at school? if so, do you like those teachers? -> probably the closest to his colleagues and I've met only two so far other than ☆ so I have no idea how their relations are

26) what does your tc's voice sound like? -> oh.my.god. this one's going to be long... his voice is deep like deep deep but warm and super sweet too ? Not when he's teaching tho, when he's teaching his voice has that experienced tone, having repeated the same things for years and years and... just the most gorgeous voice ever. The perfect mixture between gentle and firm, I could listen to him talk for hours

27) do you like your tc as a teacher? are they a good teacher? -> he's literally the best teacher ever <3 he knows his subject like no other and you can just feel how eager he is to pass that knowledge to his students and I admire that about ☆ so much

28) does your tc prefer books, shows of movies ? -> I think books ? Man has written 2 books, probably has read more than a hundred since now and just knows so much about literature, there's no way

29) is your tc stern or easy going, in class ? -> I wouldn't say ☆ is either stern or easy going, rather right in the middle between being too friendly and being too strict. His students respect and admire him and he respects them back

30) how would you describe you and your tc's relationship? -> still pretty rudimentary? ^^" hopefully something I plan on changing next year (only 35 days left hurray)

31) do you address your tc by their first or last name? -> last name ! First name would be just too familiar imo I don't even call my past tc I've been in contact with for over two years by their first name so yeah...

This was funny to do hehe idk if anyone is gonna read that but oh well ♡

am gonna do @baeby-tc 's july tc challenge cuz I'm bored and can't stop thinking of him ໒꒰՞ ܸ. .ܸ՞꒱ა

₊˙♡﹗˚ ༘

1) describe your tc's physical appearance -> tall, fully grey hair that he pushes back, wears glasses and has warm brown eyes. Has small wrinkles at the corner of his eyes and smile wrinkles too !

2) what's the first thing you've ever said to your tc ? -> I told him how nice it was to meet him and thanked him for coming when he had classes to teach 10 minutes later ૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა

3) is you tc single or taken ? And are you single or taken ? -> ☆ is single for as far as I know and I've been too since I was born

4) is your tc more of the athletic type, the nerd type or the artsy type ? -> def more of the nerd type (but I believe he's a bit of the other two as well)

5) if you and your tc were in HS together, do you think you'd be friends ? -> if we put my shyness aside then yes ! We're both passionate about history and literature and are both perfectionists so I believe we would ૮꒰ ˶> ༝ <˶꒱ა

6) name one song that reminds you of you tc and explain why it reminds you of them -> I'd say "gymnopedie №1" of Satie. He just has that really reassuring and warm but also wise and nostalgic aura around him and it's everything this music makes me feel

7) is you tc fashionable or are they more of the simple type ? What's one outfit you'd love to see them wear ? -> ☆ is more of the simple type : shirts and pants, cired black shoes... but God does he look good in those. The way he rolls his sleeves up ? Pure perfection. Angels would cry. There's no other outfit I'd want to him into, really

8) would you be willing to become a teacher and teach your tc's subject if it meant you two could be together ? -> that was actually the plan before I even met him (〃ﾉωﾉ) history has always been my passion and I've always wanted to teach it, seeing how great of a positive impact my teachers have made on me... so yes !

9) does your tc drink or smoke ? -> not that I know, again. Tho I'm pretty sure he must drink some wine here and there

10) name one item that is always on your tc's desk -> I've been to only one of his classes as I'm not his student yet, but I can totally figure ☆ always having a book on his desk

11) has your tc ever done something that has either thrown you off, angered you, etc ? If so, what did they do ? -> nothing.

12) has your tc have any past jobs that you know of before becoming a teacher ? -> well, he's been a historian before starting to teach so I guess that counts?

13) has you tc any kids or siblings ? If yes how many ? -> 0 kids, idk for siblings

14) are you taking your tc's class next year ? -> *in two years (;´-｀)

15) has your tc ever met your parents ? If you were there, what was the meeting like ? -> that hasn't happened but it's a possibility and it's making me scream internally. I have to be the best student he's ever seen omg

*I'll answer the rest either later or tmrw ૮꒰ ˶• ༝ •˶꒱ა ♡*

₊˙♡﹗˚ ༘

[reviewsthatburn]

THE SAVAGE DAWN is the mediocre ending to an okay but enjoyable trilogy.

This would not make sense if anyone started here and hadn't read the previous books. Worse, it would give a false impression of the complexity of the first two if anyone tried. This dumps a lot of lore, out of nowhere, and only some of it matters. Additionally, it rehashes previous emotional beats in a way that would be very confusing for someone just entering the series. It's a mediocre enough read that I'd only recommend it to someone who loved the first two and wanted the conclusion, it's definitely not great enough to stand on its own without them. As the third book of the trilogy, that's not a bad thing necessarily, but I don't mean it in a good way this time.

Full Review at link.

[saidrolav]

Hello! Could i get a 🐧?? (Umbrella Academy, Stranger Things)

i'm very rude, and throw hissy fits at times, especially when i hate someone. i try to be nice but the anger starts spilling out because of anger issues. i'd like to say that i am very creative in terms of art and literature. i can be sweet when i want to, but usually always sarcastic, can't help it, i don't mean to but it just comes out.

also quite rude in a sweet odd way. it's my way of showing love when it's not behind closed doors. i'm a bisexual, and 5'3! Female by birth, but gender fluid by gender names! She/they pronouns! i love to paint, and read (online or not, usually not) and act!

i'm a pisces! i love the retro clothing and artsy clothing aesthetic, i find it very beautiful. i'm very emotional which is a result of my quick temper or the quick temper is a result of my emotional self.

i like savory foods, i also like wine. i fear public speaking when people can see me, but i'm fine with acting and singing in front of millions (or atleast hundreds) of people.

i have a love for shoes. specifically sneakers and heels! i prefer to buy books rather than gadgets! i sweat and itch easily, and still love to travel! lastly, i love riding horses!

hiii thank you for your 🐧 !! For your Umbrella Academy ship i chose..

Five!

He would definitly make you teleport all around the globe to the places you would like to go and spend a cute little date or week here!! 🥰

He loves watching you expressing your art in many different ways, singing, acting, he just loves to watch you and could do it for hours!

Your couple with both of your personnalities would be really explosive with both of your anger issues but mostly when Five is calm he tries to calm you down as well and it's just really sweet to see -would definitly bring you snacks and blankets and your favourite show or movie- 🧡

He just loves having you in his arms when you're reading -a book or online- he would just nap on your shoulder while you keep reading and trying not to be too clingy so you can still read!

And for your Stranger thing ship i chose..

Robin Buckley!

Would fall in love with you instantly just because she adores the way that you dress, and she ADORES your shoes, she's just obsessed with your fashion sense!!

When she started talking with you she just loved your way of being sarcastic most of the time, that would make her laugh a lot 👀

She would probably try to make you some food and buy some wine for a date but she doesen't know how to cook AND don't know anything about wines so she would fail miserably, but we still love the effort right?

She loves the fact that you're really emotional because she feels like she's not the only one to be that way and you would be so cute just recomforting each other and be each other's comfort person, knowing you can just tell each other everything without judging is a must 🌞

[echodrops]

Hshshsnansna seeing that ask got me in a HUGE HaaH mood. Like, I went through and read a bunch of asks, and I'd probably go reread the fic itself if I had time. So!! Is there anything about HaaH you've always wanted to share but never had the chance to? Headcanons, worldbuilding, backstory, hidden details- anything at all??

Oh friend… There is so much. I have a Word document that’s like 17k of JUST headcanons and world-building for this fic kghsdkjhdkfg I’m not crazy, I swear.

It took me a while to respond because I had to comb through and find stuff that wasn’t spoilery, but tada, have some Home and a Half Hunk and Shiro (and Matt) headcanons and backstory under the cut!

Also, as for hidden details… Same as the Garrison professors in the show were named for staff members, Neuhahn and Ania are named after IRL contributors to the Voltron animated series–Chris Neuhahn was a producer and Ania O’Hare was the casting director.

And here are some Hunk, Shiro, and sorta Matt headcanons/backstory that shapes their characters in HaaH. (Please note, these headcanons ignore absolutely everything from about season 6 of the actual show and on. I stopped watching Voltron after Season 6 because I just couldn’t handle the writing anymore. T_T)

Hunk:- He’s mixed ethnically, and although his parents are from Samoa, his family tree actually spans many different countries, mostly in Polynesia, including Tonga, but even places as far away as Malaysia.- His parents were converted to the LDS church by Mormon missionaries in Samoa. A few years before Hunk was born, his parents moved to Utah to be closer to the church, so Hunk has only ever been to Samoa once, on a vacation to visit family.- His first name is actually “Hyrum,” and until he met Lance at a Garrison-sponsored summer astro-camp when they were nine, everyone just called him by his real name.- Lance actually meant to call him “Incredible Hulk” at camp, butttt to nine-year-old Lance’s utter mortification, it came out “Incredible Hunk” instead. “Hunk” stuck.- He has a little sister who is even more sensitive than he is.

- Although Hunk’s parents originally agreed on the plan to move to America, after the family arrived, they experienced difficulty fitting in with the very selective Utah culture, and Hunk’s mother grew disenchanted with the church. Employment was difficult to find in their small, rural town, and Hunk’s parents both struggled with being isolated from their extended families. Tensions over whether or not to remain in America, as well as over money, led to some miserable fights that contributed to Hunk’s aversion to conflict when he was younger.

- Hunk sometimes had to play the role of family peacekeeper, working hard to make sure that his youngest sister wouldn’t notice the strain.

- Nevertheless, despite their share of troubles, the family is extremely close-knit. Hunk values his family and their opinions more than anything in any world.

- Which is how he ended up agreeing to go to Garrison, even when he really just wanted to help his parents kickstart the restaurant they were planning to open. His mother felt that working in a family restaurant, even if Hunk is a great cook, would squander his incredible academic and engineering talent (which Hunk thought of as just a hobby), so she begged him to go and continue his schooling instead. Hunk couldn’t say no to his mother, even if the thought of being shipped off into space terrified the living daylights out of him.

- Hunk doesn’t curse and is somewhat uncomfortable with people cursing, at least in front of him. Although Lance used to have a pretty colorful repertoire, when he learned that cursing made Hunk uncomfortable, he immediately adopted all of Hunk’s weird Utah replacements instead. “Holy crow” and “let’s kick some trash” are things they actually say seriously.

- Hunk is always down to cuddle and is never embarrassed by asking for or giving cuddles to anyone. He would 200% cuddle Shiro if he thought Shiro would let him. (Shiro would, in fact, let him.) Hunk’s favorite person on the team to cuddle is actually Keith, because Keith (who was taught to comply by Garrison scientists with all unexpected/unsolicited touch) will just sit obediently for hours letting Hunk hug out all his stress. Hunk knows that something is off about Keith’s behavior, but his leading theory—that Keith allows the hugs because he’s touch-starved—is unfortunately false.

- Hunk knows the lyrics to every Disney song EVER.

- And he’s like a dog with a bone when it comes to secrets. Once he discovers that someone’s keeping something under wraps, he goes a bit crazy with curiosity and cannot stop thinking about what they might be hiding. The rules of privacy go totally out the window when he gets like this, but time and again, Hunk’s adage that it’s always better to tell the truth bears itself out.

  Shiro (and Matt?):

- Shiro is the only member of his immediate family whose first language was not Japanese. His grandparents on both sides immigrated to the US from Japan due to work transfers relatively late in life, when their own children, Shiro’s parents, were already young adults. As the first family child to be born in America, Shiro’s parents strongly emphasized the need to learn English well, which unfortunately resulted in Shiro being pushed away from learning Japanese when he was young. Even though he’s a capable conversationalist now, he’s struggled his whole life with regret over not learning the language when he was young and could have picked it up easier.  

- There’s a running joke in his family that he’s actually an ogre in disguise, given that he is much taller than many of his other family members. Tradition demands that the first photo of every holiday gathering is a joke group shot in which Shiro’s posed so his entire head is outside the top frame of the picture.

- Shiro was mercilessly bullied as a child because of his height. The other children frequently suggested that he didn’t belong in their grade because he was too big and that the school must held him back multiple times for being dumb. (Shiro was never held back. In fact, he had excellent grades from kindergarten to the day he graduated from Garrison—and no, not because his parents forced him to study; in fact, throughout his schooling, they often ended up having to force Shiro to go to bed already instead.)

- On top of being teased for his looks, Shiro was naturally shy. He barely spoke, even to his teachers, and would stumble miserably if he was put on the spot in class, contributing further to the rumor that he was stupid.

- Shiro loved learning, but he hated everything that happened in school and didn’t have a single real friend outside of his cousins until he went off to middle school and met Matt Holt in sixth grade.

- Barely two weeks into their first middle school year, and it was already obvious that Matt was the school’s biggest nerd; he’d been bumped up two grades because of his obvious genius and was the textbook definition of an alien conspiracy theorist (It’s not a conspiracy if they’re REAL, guys!) But the strange thing was that no one bullied Matt—he was just so quick on the sarcastic (and biochemical) comebacks that teasing him wasn’t even worth it. Instead, the school’s resident assholes took it out on targets a little less likely to corrode their homework with miniature magnesium bombs—read as, they picked on polite, well-meaning Takashi Shirogane instead.

- Out of pity more than anything else, Matt finally stood up for Shiro one day and ran off the assholes. (It was not, as Mrs. Shirogane insists, with a home-made taser. It was not.) After something like that, well… You sort of feel obligated to befriend a guy, don’tcha?

- Becoming friends with Matt Holt transformed Shiro’s life. Even if Shiro wouldn’t originally speak up for himself, he was ferociously proud and supportive of his first real friend, and learning to be bold for Matt taught Shiro the value and meaning of standing up for not only others, but also himself. Being friends with someone as off-the-cuff and tricky as Matt helped Shiro grow more spontaneous, less self-conscious, and ultimately much more confident—even if, to this day, most of that confidence is still focused on helping others, rather than on being self-assured.

- It was Shiro admiration for Matt’s father, Sam Holt, that led Shiro to take his childhood obsession with military history a step further by actually joining the military. Shiro and Matt enrolled in Garrison together, although Matt was part of the research rather than the combat division.

- Matt was the one who convinced Shiro to get his hair styled in an undercut. It was originally just a dare, but Shiro ended up loving it afterward. The “Undercut Incident,” as it has come to be known in the Shirogane family, was the official straw that broke the camel’s back and resulted in Mrs. Shirogane declaring Matt Holt a “bad influence,” the only impact of which was that Matt had to sneak in through Shiro’s bedroom window instead of coming to the front door when he wanted to hang out.  

- Shiro has received two separate Medals of Honor for making dangerous supply deliveries to war-torn countries across the globe, delivering the vital food and medicine that helped save hundreds of lives. He has also been part of several missions to save stranded astronauts from failing international space stations.

- Shiro is actually a giant memelord, but his crushing sense of responsibility keeps him from indulging in quality shitposting in front of anyone he actually knows. He had a ridiculously active secret Vine account before leaving on the Kerberos mission. His snaps are legendary. Deep down, Shiro dreads the inevitable day someone connects him with his cringey social media accounts.

- Literally the worst at adulting. His mom still filled out his tax forms for him and booked his dentist appointments. He has no idea what the hell he’s doing leading Team Voltron when he can’t even remember which of his clothes are machine-washable and which aren’t.

- When they were in their third year at Garrison, Matt conned Shiro into volunteering as a camp counselor for Garrison’s summer astrocamp program, even though Shiro had minimal understanding of how to take care of children and mostly just BS’d his way through, hoping that none of his campers had anything close to a serious issue.

- He won “best camp counselor” the very first year he volunteered. Mostly because Lance cheated and voted for him 23 times, but still.

[that-taters-my-tots]

Uncut Books Lead To Reading Dates Don't You Know

Nick and Gatsby sat at the small table in Nick's little kitchen reading over separate parts in the same newspaper. While Nick looked over the stock sales, Gatsby read the weather report and the headlining news. Sunlight streamed in through the windows and the smell of coffee and buttered toast filled the room. The only noise was the occasional rustling of newsprint.

The couple did this often, every Sunday to be exact. Gatsby would send a servant to get the first copy of the Sunday paper and then he would immediately go across the lawn to Nick's house where they would read it together. It was one of their little habits that the both of them enjoyed immensely. It made them feel like a real couple, because inside either of their houses, that's what they were.

Nick yawned into his hand and then folded up his piece of the paper and laid it on the table. He grabbed his cup of coffee and took a slow sip, “You know, Jay, something has been bothering me for a while.”

Gatsby looked over the top of his section of the paper, he marked his spot with his thumb and then folded it in his lap. “What's that, old sport?”

Nick paused for a moment, “Well, the first time I ever went to one of your parties, I found myself in your library and I've been wondering why you haven't read any of your books.” He could remember clearly the eventful night that party was and the little, drunken owl-eyed man raving about all the books being uncut. “Why have all those books and not read them?”

A faint, embarrassed flush crept into Gatsby's cheeks and he smoothed back his hair which was a nervous habit of his. He remembered a bespectacled man who showed up to his parties already drunk, and always commented on his library in not-so-subtle ways that lead Jay to believe that he gave the books a thorough looking at. It never bothered him that that little man knew that his books was real, but he had never suspected that anyone else had taken the time to notice, let alone Nick. “Ah well- playing the part I suppose. What's the use of a library without any books? Even if I don't take the time to read any of them, it doesn't mean I don't enjoy the thought of having the time to sit down and read one someday.”

Nick gave a nod over his cup, he knew that Gatsby probably had the enough time on his hands to read a hundred books but he didn't say anything about it. They hadn't been together long and Nick was still working his best to chip through Jay's facade and to get to know the real him underneath all the glitz and glamour. “My cousin,” They had stopped saying Daisy's name once they had officially gotten together. “She has a library too, though every single book is just a phone book with a fake cover painted on. I was actually a bit disappointed when she shoved me.”

Gatsby perked up at that last part, “Well,” He started, giving a small shrug. “My library is open to you at anytime.. I'd even be glad to read with you. There's this small nook hidden behind the list shelf with a fireplace and a sofa big enough for us both... Perfectly hidden away.”

Nick flashed a small smile and felt a heat rise in his cheeks. “I'd enjoy that a lot, Jay. Maybe we could go over later this morning?”

“Later? Why, we can go now.”

And so it was settled. The two men finished their remaining coffee and last bites of toast before they set off across the lawn to Gatsby's house.

Even though it was just across the way and that Jay was his boyfriend, Nick couldn't help but feeling undressed besides him. Nick wore a simple white button up and slacks, while Jay wore a fine golden coloured suit.

When they entered through the back door the first thing that Nick noticed was the scent of oranges, on days when there wasn't a party happening for hours on end, the large manner seemed to always smell like oranges. Nick didn't mind though, will all the time he had spent in the house, the smell of oranges had become wonderfully familiar and even somewhat comforting.

They house felt empty as they walked up a grand staircase to the floor that housed the library, the sound of their shoes tapping and the quiet chatter of their voices seemed to echo loudly around them. When they came before the large doors of the library, Jay held one open for Nick with a gentle smirk on his lips. “After you, old sport.”

Nick rolled his eyes and chuckled as he walked in first, when Gatsby entered and the door shut behind them he took a hold of his hand. “What do you feel like reading?” He asked not looking at Jay, but instead at all the towering shelves packed neatly with books around them.

Jay smiled as he watched Nick admire the room, his thumb slowly grazing the back of his hand. “I don't know, I think I might just pick something at random. Let fate pick for me.” He leaned in and placed a quick kiss to Nick's cheek. “Let me show you to the back then,” He said and started walking through the rows of books, zigging and zagging.

It occurred to Nick that the library was actually some type of twisted, literature labyrinth and that without Jay's guidance he probably would’ve been lost between the stacks. “Fate huh?” He murmured, he never really believed in such a thing. “I think I'll do that too.”

They when they arrived at the little nook, as Jay called it, Nick noticed that it looked like the place was completely unused. A plush, navy sofa with dark clawed feet was pushed up against the wall by an empty stone fire place, and there was a dark wooden table that was clear all except for two ivory handled letter openers.

“Do you even use half of the things you have in this house of yours?” Nick asked with a disbelieving smile.

“I don't even use a forth of my things, Nick, let alone half.” Gatsby shook his head.

“You're sure something, you know that?”

“So you've told me,” Jay grinned, he pulled Nick closer towards him. “But, ah, remember, you're with this ‘something’. ”

“I can't deny that,” Nick laughed and kissed Gatsby.

Jay smiled against the kiss, “I thought you wanted to read?” He asked once they pulled away.

“There's a lot of things I want to do in this world.. old sport, you included.”

Gatsby loved Nick, he really did. When he thought about how much that man made his heart soar and his face hurt from smiling he could never figure out what made him fall for Daisy, a woman who had neither have of Nick's personality nor his charm. “We can get to that later,” He raised Nick's hand in his own and kissed his knuckle. “But for now- we're reading.”

Nick nodded with a smile, then the two of them separated into the stacks to find a book.

Gatsby was the first one back to the little nook, he had walked down three rows of books, then finally at the start of the third he closed his eyes and picked one at random. The one he came back with was a small paperback with a powder blue cover. It bore no title, just a name: Hopkins. He sat down on the sofa and grabbed up one of the letter openers to cut the first page. A single flower filled the first page.

By the time Nick returned with his own book, Gatsby was a quarter of the way through his own. He perked up when Nick sat besides him, “What did you find then?”

Then held up a leather bound book, “It's called Revolutionary Sparks. What about you?” The sofa was small, both men sitting snugly next to each other, their knees and elbows touching.

“If mine has a title, I've yet to find it, bit it's a book of poems by someone named Hopkins. I've never been much for poetry but it's rather good.”

Nick peeked over Jay's shoulder to get a look at the book he was reading, “You never struck me as a poetry type of guy.”

“I never knew I enjoyed it, I always thought I hated it because Robert Frost’s work nearly always bored me to death.”

Nick snorted and picked up a letter opener from the table, “I love you, Jay, even if you are something.”

Gatsby grinned, “And I love you, Nick, even though you tease me horribly.”