#Bolded ones are more recently relevant
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𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐀𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐂
rules: bold what applies to your muse. italicize what sometimes applies. ( repost, don’t reblog! )
𝐁𝐋𝐔𝐄 cloudless sky / ocean waves / winter dusk / deserted rest stops / dust filled book jackets / sea salt in your lungs / open space lofts / mountainside meditation / empty ski lodges / calm before storms / electric charged air / lighthouses / road trips with no destination / desert skies / summer breeze through a cottage window / cool air against water soaked skin / seaside towns during off season / wind-chimes / big bed with lots of blankets / coming home after a long time away / a wolf howling in the distance / fingers dancing along spine / a hug from an old friend / afternoon tea / wild flowers off abandoned highways
𝐑𝐄𝐃 wine soaked lips / internalized rage / blood on knuckles / four poster beds / barefoot on marble floor / velvet drapes / lipstick marks / murder mysteries / old barns with hay lofts / mouth full of weapons / possessive love / dark chocolate / apple orchard visits / handwritten letters / fresh strawberry fields / cherry flavored chapstick / soft candlelight / vintage pumps / tingles over your body / strong but gentle hand around your throat / scarf tied over your eyes / fog on a rainy night / intimate bar settings / complete destruction / kiss swollen lips / scratches against flesh / sitting by a fireplace / blood orange sunsets
𝐘𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖 community gardens / sunflower seeds / open fields / blowing dandelion fluffs / bubbles in spring / warm champagne / drafty cottages opened after winter / soft buzzing near your ear / loose braids / flaxen sundresses / handmade straw hats / warm butter on fresh toast / daisy chains / drum circles / sun on your face / maypoles / outdoor festivals / street food / car shows / pop art drawings / fruity flavors / mist on produce / running through sprinklers / cucumber water / wrap around porches / worn pages of a book / honey in tea / yard sales / freckled skin / tarnished gold lockets / angel food cake / windmills / flashlight beams
𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐍 marshy swamps / cajun recipes / haunted graveyards / old road signs / the house people tell stories about / lights flickering / jazz music / twig snapping / campfires / ghost stories / urban exploration / vines creeping up brick / wooden flutes / quiet forests / labored breaths / hiking trails / rain on leaves / bonfires / fresh smoothies / water logged grottos / painful whispers from jealous lovers / successful business ventures / leaky cellars / park theater productions / mint scented lotions / ambitious promises / pine needle covered floors / oil lanterns / aloe on warmed skin / crushing floral foam / forgotten towns
𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊 crinkle of leather jacket / midnight walks / bulbs burning out / black lacquered nails / the sound of bats screeching / distant marching band music / noises when you’re home alone / blood soaked knife / dark lipstick on pale skin / scent of sulfur / soot on boots / slasher movies / glint of cat eyes in the dark / oil slicks on dark asphalt / basement bedrooms / investigating a noise / grainy camera footage / black and white photos / dust filled attics / empty theaters / whistling in the middle of the night / scratches at your window / wrought iron gates / lace neck ruffles / long floor sweeping skirts / broken music boxes / needle scratching on vinyl / lost memories / disembodied voices / forgotten faces
𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐓𝐄 crisp scents / laundry on a line / fleece blankets / brightly lit hospital rooms / empty train stations / genuine laughter / feathers against skin / new life / cotton dresses / log cabins in winter / swan gliding through water / harp music floating through the air / plane rides for fun / mountain tops / ice sculptures / first snowflake of winter / linen freshly pressed / the scent of a running dryer / vanilla and cinnamon milk / a smile from a stranger / letters in the mail / a longing finally satiated / kiss of moonlight on skin / fresh canvas / snow glittering like diamonds / paint strokes / pretty lie told from a kind mouth / sparklers / coffee foam art
Tagged by: Nobody, stole while exploring!
Tagging: @acidbite, @arkhmlcst, @babydxhl, @bdybag, @byanyan, @elisethetraveller, @grasshopperqueen, @novaless, @paleobird, @sanguine-salvation, @smilingmxsk, @the-rorschach-mask (and your other muses!), @twcfaces and anybody else who'd like to do this???
#🌈 || dashboard games#🌈 || memes#Didn't feel up to doing much today oof#Not feeling quite so iffy about writing though so that's good!#Just something simple and fun before bed since I haven't seen this one going around#Thought you all might like to try if sinday isn't your thing!#Bolded ones are more recently relevant#Italized are hinting to her past like travelling through the wilderness to Gotham asdfghh#Fingers crossed this coming week is a bit more lively#Also ew I can't believe it's my birthday next week#Not this week coming but the week after >:(
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Based on a fic I'm working on where Kim and Harry have to go undercover at a gay club
Read the fic on ao3
(lines in bold are Harry’s skills talking. I haven't specified but you can guess)
A chill wind whips their faces as they step onto the precinct roof. They huddle together, facing each other, Harry’s broad body blocking the wind which would snuff out the lighter flame. Kim lit his cigarette and then lit Harry’s. Harry recently switched from Menthols to Kim’s brand of chestnut-flavored cigarettes. Kim hasn’t asked about it even though he noticed.
As the smoke fills his lungs Kim’s whole body visibly relaxes. A softness falls across his expression, his gaze grows distant. You don’t know if it’s the ritual of smoking at the end of the day or the nicotine. The smoldering end of the cigarette is reflected in Kim’s glasses, as are you. They lean against the railing and watch the sunset over the horizon in silence. Harry waits for Kim to start.
The jingling of Kim unzipping his jacket makes Harry stand a bit straighter and bite the filter for his cigarette.
“Shall we start?” Kim says taking out his notebook and flipping it open.
You nod, trying not to linger on Kim’s now exposed collarbone.
“How do you think the investigation is going?”
“Bad.”
“Kmn, we seem to have hit a dead end. Even though we’ve made contact with the suspect the name he has been using in the club scene seems to be an alias. And his tattoo doesn’t seem to be related to any known gang or criminal organization. We are still waiting for the lab to get back to us about the particular strain of hallucinogen that was in the victim’s system.”
“It’s worrying…”
“What is?”
“Well, the drug the victim overdosed on- it’s not something we’ve come across before. There is a chance that there will be more overdoses like this.”
“We can look into who the suspect’s supplier might be.”
“He might not have a supplier here.”
Kim glances at Harry. “Why do you say that?”
“The suspect is Seraise. They said he was bragging about being an aerostatic pilot on leave. Maybe he brought the drugs from the Safre empire, would that be possible to find out?”
“I can look into it.”
For a moment it is silent except for the sound of Kim’s pen on paper. A motor carriage speeds across the street below. Sodium street lights are switched on as the sky grows darker and stars begin to appear one by one.
“How long do you think we have until he returns to Safre?”
Kim taps the page with the back of his pen. “It’s hard to tell. He has been here awhile, might be any day now.”
“He probably won’t come to that club anymore,” Harry adds.
Kim’s eyes crinkle. He is smiling though only you would notice.
“No,” Kim says, “not after you scared him off.”
“I didn’t scare- I am perfectly capable of flirting.”
“Sure, you are,” Kim replies around his cigarette, his flat words dripping with sarcasm.
“I am! I was just not his type is all. He must be into twinkles-”
“Twinks,” Kim corrects. “Like our victim.”
“Hm.” Harry exhales a plume of white smoke that dissolves into the night.
“So Kim, what’s your type? Twinks, bears, otters, cubs, tigers, rabbits?”
Kim’s face remains unreadable but his shoulders tense, the pages of his notebook crinkle under his grip.
He answers after a brief but notable pause. “I don’t have a type. And you made up the last few at the end.”
“Everyone has a type! Are you saying you have no preferences when it comes to who you find attractive?”
“I’m more interested in personalities.”
“You’re such a fucking liar. Come on Kim.”
“Enough detective. We are still in the middle of our briefing and this is irrelevant to-”
“This is relevant to the case,” Harry insists.
“Fine,” Kim says begrudgingly. “If I had to describe it, it’s say my taste in men is … questionable.”
“Questionable? What does that mean?”
“It means I’m attracted to men who are bad for me or impossibly out of reach. Now if you are satisfied can we get back to the case?”
Harry smiles. If you are smart about it, you could get more information from Kim. “Well your answer was kind of a cop-out but I’ll let it go for now.”
Kim furrows his brow at Harry, a look that says ‘Don’t you dare.’
You feel your knees buckle under the force of Kim’s glare. You grab the railing with one hand.
“Aren’t you going to ask me about my type?”
“I don’t have to. I already know.”
“What? How do you already know?”
Kim turns back to his notebook and pretends to read. “Because it is obvious. You like them young, waifish, and pretty. Someone mysterious and fragile, someone who you can save.”
Someone to be your redemption.
“That- that's not true- not everyone that-” Harry stutters. Kim’s blatant description of Dora throws you off kilter. Talking about her is taboo. Even though Kim knows about her and what she did to you he had never brought it up. He knows you still have nightmares of her.
“Well, just in Martinaise there was Klaasje, Lilienne, the smoker on the balcony, and-”
“Wait- the smoker on the balcony?”
Kim raises an eyebrow. “You were smitten. You went on and on about him, ‘he is such a good listener, I felt heard when I talked to him. He smelled so good, how can someone smell so good?” Kim covers his mouth to hide his condescending grin.
A formless darkness claws inside you. It feels terrible to be judged, to be teased, but you can’t quite put into words what you are feeling, or why
“You sound jealous,” Harry snaps back.
Kim sighs. “I’m not jealous. I’m a detective and I notice patterns of behaviour.”
“Well you're plain wrong in this case. You’re not like that-”
“I’m not like what?”
“Like…” Harry’s breath stutters in his chest. Kim isn’t like Dora or Klaasje or Lilienne or the smoker on the balcony. He isn’t like them and still…
You look at Kim’s cigarette and feel a pang of jealousy. You wish to be that cigarette cradled between his lips. You want to burn into ash, you want to be the bitterness on Kim’s tongue. You want to be the smoke filling his lungs, the nicotine flooding his bloodstream. You want to be Kim’s addiction, you want to be part of him, deep and inextricable.
“I…” A tidal wave of desire crashes through you but you can’t say the words.
Kim snaps his notebook close. “I guess we’ve reached the end of the briefing. Our conversation is no longer productive.” He tosses his half-smoked cigarette to the ground and crushes the lit ember beneath the heel of his boot.
His face is unreadable as usual but Kim is upset.
Damn it. You’ve fucked up Harry.
Harry follows Kim down the stairs from the roof.
“I’m sorry Kim, I didn’t mean to make you angry.”
“I’m not angry Officer. It’s late and we won’t any more progress today, you should go home early.”
He is lying, if he isn’t mad he wouldn’t call you ‘officer’
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farleigh start and racism; oh boy.
(some people are going to find this post really annoying. some people are like felix catton.)
read this.
just some thoughts from the perspective of a person of color who is slightly too obsessed with this character. this movie leaves the viewer a lot of wiggle room to interpret how dynamics such as race and privilege come into play. there are certain parallels between this movie and the real world, and how unnoticeable white privilege tends to be for white people.
lemme lay some groundwork. from what i understand, the most prevalent form of racism and white privilege within upper- and middle-class circles is implicit bias. this is racist conceptualization that subconsciously interacts with one's perception of society and people. implicit bias is often externalized through microaggressions, differences in treatment and language towards a marginalized person, misplaced guilt or pity, and persistent denial of any existing privilege or marginalization. most of these biases are also founded on stereotypes. some racial stereotypes are heightening (e.g. asians are all smart) and some are lowering (e.g. black people are all lazy). all stereotypes are harmful. i'm going to discuss some of the stereotypes that could theoretically interact within the saltburn canon, as well as some things i've noticed within viewers. can of worms, to be honest. boutta get INTO IT.
to use one of my externalization examples, let's discuss (or, more accurately, let me discuss) the denial of existing privilege or marginalization. this is a subconscious way to uphold a sense of morality, effectively avoiding "white guilt," so to speak. as is clearly presented to us, the cattons are very attached to their methods of upholding their own self-righteousness. saviorism is a common theme within both elspeth and felix. in oliver's conversation with elspeth about poor dear pamela, you can see that oliver recognizes elspeth's need to justify her actions in an attempt to preserve her sense of decency. one can only assume that this applies to how they view farleigh's relationship with them. there's more to talk about there, but i'd like to start with the only overt mention of race in this movie.
in felix's confrontation with farleigh, farleigh makes the bold and brave decision to mention his blackness. i call this brave because it's genuinely a terrifying thing to do, and the end of this conversation is proof. "oh, that is... that is low, farleigh. seriously, that's where you want to take this? make it a race thing? i never know our footman's names; the turnover for a footman is notoriously high!" we have felix's intentional or unintentional shaming of farleigh. we have felix's appalled denial of any involvement of race or racial bias. we have felix's diversion away from farleigh specifically and onto his own inability to know his staff's names. felix made no further attempt to recenter farleigh, aside from telling him that the cattons have "done what they can." (which is SO absurd on its own. they are clearly and obviously able to do more. they are disgustingly rich). farleigh does feel ashamed after felix's response; you can see it on his face, and archie says it directly. here is a relevant and prevalent stereotype for all marginalized people: that the discussion of marginalization is exclusively weaponized to gain something or manipulate a situation. this is how felix chooses to see farleigh's implication of existing white privilege. this conversation results in nothing, does nothing, as felix chooses not to confront what he's probably thinking as he repeats the words "begging bowl" to venetia.
now. saviorism, guilt, and pity. felix specifically tells oliver that sir james made an effort to support farleigh out of guilt. i'd like to order some things in a way that i perceive them. frederica start runs from england, which is explained in a condescending way by felix. frederica start marries a so-referred-to "lunatic" who dug through fred and jame's money, although it's farleigh who only mentions fred's financial irresponsibility. out of guilt, james offers to pay for farleigh's education. the specificity of education is compelling to me. perhaps james is simply a patriotic man who strongly believes that english education is better. or this is a mobilized racial stereotype! who can truly know. i digress. james' offer to pay for farleigh's foreign education puts the cattons in an odd position; if farleigh is to attend english schools, he will need to stay with the cattons. if farleigh is staying with the cattons, he will need to be treated as equal to felix and venetia. this is all one long chain of obligations. none of these acts from one family member to another should be considered "charitable," because family should intrinsically create a trustworthy and supportive dynamic.
i believe that the cattons do consider their fostering of farleigh as obligatory. moral obligation, as they recognize that families are intended to have a sympathetic and loving relationship. they cannot, however, escape the truth that they're just guilty. the "begging bowl" and "biting the hand" are more symbolic of a starving dog and its charitable adopter than a cousin/nephew who's staying with his absurdly rich family. see, the cattons are fully and entirely capable of affording another child, of supporting frederica financially, etc. the only way i can rationalize their reluctance to do so is by assuming that they don't feel like farleigh deserves it. is this a crazy assumption? i genuinely don't see why else. of course, i don't think this mentality is explicit or conscious. it's more-so the reality that when farleigh walks in a room, he's not the same as anybody else. aside from background characters at oxbridge, the only on-screen black people are liam, joshua, and james' godson's wife (who gets degraded on-screen). this is the reality of being different in an environment such as the english aristocracy. the cattons choose to see themselves as the hand that feeds the less fortunate, more entertaining, and least inconvenient. the cattons' inclusion of farleigh is not only reliant on how well farleigh performs, but also on their own pity and guilt.
all of this is somehow, painfully mirrored by some takes i've seen on farleigh. maybe this entire post is presumptuous, but you know what isn't presumptuous? saying that certain people hold farleigh to an incredibly odd standard. while the cattons never canonically said anything along the lines of "farleigh doesn't deserve our love and support," mfs on the internet have. the number of times people have referred to this character as greedy, lazy, petty, and malignant is so odd to me. i'm insane, i know. i just don't understand how people can hold farleigh to the backdrop of an english aristocratic family and so passionately say that he, of all characters, is the most detestable. or that he, of all characters, has no reason to behave in the way he does.
is farleigh greedy? greed is defined as a desire for more. farleigh has no desire to climb ranks, no desire to replace or surpass felix, no desire to hold any power over any family member. he is maintaining, upholding a standard that has been set for him throughout his life. is it kind or selfless of him to meddle in other people's affairs with the cattons? no. does he have a reason to be upset that non-relatives of the cattons are a threat to his inclusion in the first place? yes. is farleigh lazy? i don't even need to explain this one. no. if you don't consider oliver lazy, then i really don't want to hear anything. is farleigh petty? pettiness is defined as "an undue concern for trivial matters, especially in a small-minded or spiteful way." farleigh's meticulous attention to trivial matters isn't undue in any sense. a person of color and their meticulous attention to trivial matters is almost never undue. elspeth is a good example of petty. is farleigh malignant? there are a lot of definitions of malignant and i've seen people apply all of them, in some way, to farleigh. that's just wrong. archie madekwe once said, "i was interested in humanizing what, on paper, seemed like a mean character, a villain, or a bully. i don't think he's any of that. he's very self-serving, but i think he's really a heartbreaking character." case closed, this was for my own piece of mind. had to write this section because good lord.
in conclusion to this post that has gone tragically off the rails, i think the in-canon and viewer perspective of farleigh is, perhaps, a little racially motivated. sue me. they are all very centered on this idea that farleigh doesn't deserve inherent respect, support, and love. to remove farleigh's rational position within the cattons family would be akin to removing his right to familial love. genuinely, that's how i see it. the transaction nature of farleigh's actions is responsive. he sees felix as a social shield at oxbridge, he sees elspeth and james as the beholders of his perceived security, and he sees saltburn as a way to escape from his lack of privilege and his lack of stability in america. boom. bam. pow.
#farleigh start#saltburn#saltburn 2023#i love making it a race thing#took multiethnic lit and racial sociology this quarter#critical race theory is my weapon of choice at any given moment#“erm actually”#the “i love making it a race thing” is a jest#white people b making it a race thing without even knowing it#like hello ur the one who fucking started it#womp womp on GOD on griddy#i tried to explain to someone that i related to farleigh because i'm also half white and my white family is painful to exist around#and this mf said “erm u actually relate to him cuz ur a horrible person and so is he”#hello what#i'm not doing what farleigh is doing like obv i don't live in a fucking castle#but the girls that get it get it#i'm incapable of shutting up#ever#actually#yabbering on at 1am#talking to the voices in my head#the voices r saying “farleigh start u will always be famous”
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coming from one of those "born in mid 2000s and is now suddenly an adult, making everyone feel old," people, do you have any resources to learn how to bullshit your way through getting a job with zero experience. cause i cant even put like "babysitting" or anything since covid prevented literally any teenage-typical jobs and i kinda dont know what to put on a resume beyond the university im currently attending and the high school i graduated from. and they still dont teach you this in school even though we've complained for years 😭
Okay my chilluns, listen up. This is how to bullshit your way into a basic 1-page resume even if you think you have absolutely dum-dum-diddlysquat to put on it. I completely feel you, as it's hard as hell to get a job even in the ordinary course of things, and especially when everything seems to want 10 years of experience and a bachelor's degree (and still pays like shit). But you gotta be persistent anyway. So here follows the step-by-step guide of How To Resume:
Open a new Word (or other word-processing software of your choice) document.
Pick a nice, professional-looking font (for the love of God, no Comic Sans). Times New Roman is fine; you don't have to overthink it. My own CV is currently in Perpetua, because it's a nice serif that looks crisp and a little different, but it is still clean and readable. Garamond or Cambria or other starter typefaces are fine too. Make sure it is the right size, usually around 12pt.
Put your full name at the top, centered, in BOLD CAPITALS. Increase the typeface size a few more points on this, to make it stand out and to make it take up space.
Underneath this, in regular-sized text, put your contact information: mailing address if you're comfortable sharing it, or if not, at least your phone number and email address. Use a school email if you have it, and not some weird/in-jokey personal email.
Start a new paragraph. In a slightly smaller font (italic if you want to make it look classy) write a few words about yourself. This should be something like I am a [Major] student at [University] looking for a part-time, entry-level position in [sales, retail, office, etc]. A [year] graduate of [High School] in [City, State], I am [prompt, reliable, detail-oriented, mature, friendly, etc] and a hard worker who is eager to gain experience and positively contribute to your business.
Start a new paragraph. Change the alignment from Center to Left. Create a new heading in bold underline labeled Education.
Under this, fill in your education (college first, followed by high school). Include the institution name, city, and state, the year you graduated or expect to graduate, any honors or awards, any extracurriculars, any grade-point averages if they're good (i.e. 3.0 and above), and your expected major in college.
Start a new paragraph. Create another heading: Experience.
This is where you put absolutely anything you can think of (in chronological order, most recent first and counting backward). Did you volunteer for something ever in your life? Put it down! (Title of work, dates, location, brief description of work). Did you do yard work for someone for a weekend? Put it down! Were you (or are you) part of a student club or organization in high school or university? Have you organized or taken part in any local initiatives in your community or neighborhood? Put it down! Basically, absolutely any kind of work, paid or unpaid, that might be relevant, regardless of how long it was or when it took place.
Under that, put the new heading/paragraph Skills and Interests.
Have you worked with Microsoft Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Adobe, Photoshop? Put it down! People love that shit! Do you use social media and/or know how to work it better than the average grandma? Put 'er down! You get the idea. Think of anything in your daily life that can be put in Job Language and then see if you can do that. You are in university; do you have any projects, papers, or other things that you're proud of? Have you successfully managed a (gasp) group project? Do you make any kind of art? Are you a registered voter who has taken part in civic/political organizations, drives, or events? (If not, REGISTER TO VOTE! This is your angry grandmother speaking). All of that can go down. Even if it's not job experience per se, it's life experience and shows that you are someone who is engaged with the world and working to gain more.
Last paragraph and heading: References. Ask a few trusted adults who know you well and aren't related to you, such as a favorite high school teacher or a university faculty member/degree advisor, if they'd be willing to serve as referees. Put down their full names, titles/place of work, email addresses, and phone numbers.
Voila! You have a full page resume, probably even a little more if you're lucky. Proofread, make sure the spacing is even and the alignment is right, it doesn't look weird, the text is a consistent size, it's all the same color, there are no glaring typos or grammatical errors, etc. etc. Save it as a PDF.
Boom. Done. You are now a Job Hunting Maestro.
If you get an interview, you don't need to pretend that you have tons of experience or that you're something you're not, but you can present what you ARE in a positive light anyway. Don't apologize for yourself or play yourself down pre-emptively; be confident about yourself and what you can offer. You're a college kid looking for your first part-time job, COVID prevented you from a lot of normal teenage work experience, you're willing to work hard and learn new things. Here's your resume. What would be a good time to talk again.
Good luck! I believe in you.
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can you share some of your writing/planning process for thirteen? i adore the non-linear format - how do you decide what scenes to put where?
ahh thank you!! idk how much of a defined process I have, but there's definitely a lot of planning that goes into it and i can show you some of that.
i keep all the chapters in one doc organized by month, and then i plan everything out in bullet points in a timeline at the beginning. here i just have october and november as examples bc after december things started to get more detailed/messy
all of the scenes (especially at the beginning) set the stage for things i’ve planned to happen later, or establish something that feels relevant to adrien’s character by the time we meet him in canon. the task of condensing an entire month into about 2-3 scenes has been a bit difficult; i’ve found out that i’m a very present-moment kind of writer so it’s harder for me to describe the passage of, like, weeks of time. so i’ve been pinpointing specific threads of adrien’s story that i want to be sure to tell and choosing scenes from each month that build on that.
i’ve had the idea for this fic in the back of my mind since about 2021 so i’ve had several scenes cemented in my mind, ways i’ve decided things played out, etc. some of the writing process has been building the narrative around those things or figuring out how we get there. that’s what i love about prequels in general, honestly - it’s inevitable where we’re going to end up, but how do we get there?
adrien’s situation, at the moment we meet him in origins, is SO endlessly fascinating to me. he is in the process of doing something reckless and rebellious and bold - running away - against the will of his father, a man he spends the rest of the series struggling with his compulsion to submit to. we find out, via the rest of the show, exactly how difficult it is for adrien to stand up to his father. and yet, in his very first appearance, adrien is running away from him.
how did he get here? what, exactly, pushed him to this point? was this the final escalation of a steady build of rebellious behaviors, or an impulsive breakthrough after one awful day too many? what has this small boy been through in the last year, and why does public school seem to be his only fathomable escape?
and WHY, if his circumstances are so dire as to compell him to rebel so boldly in the first place, does he still throw it away to help the old man in the road? what makes him so kind, when he has everything to lose? what happened? how did he get here?
i’m interested, obviously, in the character of émilie. i think that the hole she leaves in the narrative is a compelling silhouette and i’ve been having a blast trying to pencil in its details. it’s obvious that adrien loved her deeply and had a stronger connection to her than with gabriel. but also, adrien was still shut off from the world while she was alive. he was still, presumably, an exploited child star while she was alive. she was an actress and a mother and died by broken magic and never told her son the truth about any of it. figuring out who i think she was and then how to show that through young adrien’s eyes has been a huge part of planning this story for me.
as far as the twenty three year old adrien sections, those have been less involved as far as planning goes. i only recently mapped out which areas of the house i want him to visit during the different months. i wanted his sections to line up at least thematically, if not physically, where thirteen year old adrien is at in his story. for example, in december twenty three year old adrien cleans out the dining room where thirteen year old adrien was having terrible christmas dinner. and in january they’re both in the garden, etc.
it’s a bit harder to map out twenty three adrien just because it has to also make sense geographically - i can’t have him running back and forth up and down the stairs, let’s be real he doesn’t have the energy for that. i’ve also opened up the agreste mansion page on the miraculous wiki so many times while trying to map this out 💔💔 did you know that apparently there’s a third floor we never see in the show. yeah i have to figure out what to do with that now
ANYWAY long story short: the planning process for thirteen is kind of a mess, but the whole story is built around some central plot points that i knew i wanted to hit from the beginning. the details change a lot (as you can see from the outline above - it’s not quite right) but i keep the end in mind. just have to figure out how we get there.
thank you for asking!! mwah<3
#thirteen#anna rambles#asks#sorry for writing SO MUCH#in my defense i’m sleepy#and i just started rambling#adrien agreste…..kissing your forehead my love. tucking you into bed. agreeing with you about tamaharu#i don’t even know if this answered the question this is just truly my process#the process is that i think about adrien agreste and then write it down#ml
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Loki at Paley Fest 2024
It was incredible! I'm so happy I got the opportunity to attend, and it uplifted my spirits so much. I really hope Paley makes the panel available for everyone to watch at some point because the questions and discussion were pithy, thoughtful, and engaging. Just a stellar panel. If it doesn't become publicly available, I'll try to circle back to post more detail of what was discussed.
Hiddleston was absolutely firing on all cylinders being his eloquent self going on long explorations of themes and the human condition. I think the most memorable was when he was exploring the relationship of Loki's line "Satisfaction is not in my nature" from a previous film to the events of the Loki series and whether that was relevant or not relevant to where the character arrived at in the series.
First of all, kudos to the host of the panel (also writer of a MCU timeline book) that came with receipts and Loki and Hiddleston quotes from over a decade ago that he used to ask really interesting questions that explored Loki's journey and highlighted the beautiful ways Hiddleston has thought about playing the role over years. He just did an excellent, excellent job, and is the one that brough up the "satisfaction is not in my nature" quote to prompt discussion.
And let's be honest, I think a lot of panelists, whose job is to sound engaging and fill up panel time, when asked to explore the relationship of that "not satisfied" quote to the most recent content they filmed, would just turn on their "I'm in English class" brain and run with the prompt and improvise some ideas of how the theme of not being satisfied is shown in the series. But rather than just running with and affirming the prompt, Hiddleston actually thought about it sincerely and turned it around answering in the negative, that he wasn't sure if that still applied in the series. So instead of just running with the prompt, he cared enough about the art to give it the most truthful answer he could. I saw that aspect of how he approaches discussion when I met him in person at a comic con a number of years ago as well, that interest in exploring something sincerely rather than doing the easier thing of just running with whatever is expedient, and I love that about him.
And then Wilson displayed great comedic sense and flow of the discussion by capping off Hiddleston's eloquent discussion by doing a sharp right turn into the absurd, pivoting into how "would my dog have any meaning in his life if he was satisfied and had everything he wanted and wasn't constantly eager for his next meal". That got a huge laugh from everyone.
Some other anecdotes from the event:
For the arc of the series, it was described as season 1 being about Loki learning to love himself and season 2 was about learning to accept connections and let the love of others in.
Hiddleston's wardrobe was lovely -- all black and dark grey, with bright red tread on the bottom of his shoes for which sitting at a panel with your legs crossed is the perfectly opportunity to show off that pop of color.
I was also digging Aaron Moorhead's style with a grey top half and orange pants and shoes with blue socks. Love this trend of men making bold color choices in their wardrobe.
Hiddleston was, unsurprisingly, very engaged with the whole discussion and it was fun to watch his reactions when other people spoke. The host asked the writers/directors if they'd created S2 with it in mind of it being Loki's last appearance or whether we might see more of Loki in the future. Wilson playfully said "he comes the tap dancing" and Hiddleston very deliberately turned towards the writers/directors with his chin on his fist like "I'm so curious to hear the answer, do tell".
Sylvie ended up in a McDonalds in S2 because when Di Martino got asked at the end of season 1 where she saw Sylvie going next, she told them "she's hungry, I bet she'd go for a burger". So Di Martino takes full responsibility for that particular decision, lol.
Because comedy films aren't my thing and Wilson hasn't crossed my personal radar much besides Zoolander, which is a delightful film, I found it very interesting and wasn't necessarily expecting just the thunderous amount of applause and huge reception that Wilson got from the audience. He's very popular.
During the panel, every so often a little piece of paper, like 2x2 inches, the kind you'd use to create the effect of dumping a bunch of confetti, would fall from the rafters above the stage and slowly float down until it landed on the stage itself in front of the panel. The first time was peculiar, but it continued to happen five distinct times throughout the panel and became a bit of a running joke.
Before the Q&A, they screened the finale episode, and they did not have their tech sorted out. The film didn't play at a consistent 24 fps and there were parts that lagged and slowed down the motion on screen. A minor thing really, but for an organization whose sole purpose and mission is media (Paley), in a venue (the Dolby Theater) that hosts the Oscars and should be technologically state of the art, you'd think they'd make sure they could play video at proper speed. I just thought it was a funny issue for a media organization to have.
Tagging @delyth88 since I know you were interested in hearing about it.
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Chants for Palestine
These are the chants I can remember doing at the pro-Palestine protests and vigils I've been to recently. People from the local mosques usually lead them with a loudspeaker.
They're pretty easy to pick up when you're there if you can hear okay but I thought being able to memorise them in advance might be helpful for some people, especially if you have difficulty hearing or processing audio. Having confidence in what you're saying really helps the protest sound effective.
Please add on any you know too!
Call and Response Chants
If you hear the first part, the part in bold is what you should shout back. Obviously if the people around you know a different version, follow what they're staying instead, but these are the ones I've been taught.
ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR - OCCUPATION NO MORE! / FIVE, SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT - ISRAEL IS A TERROR STATE!
IN OUR THOUSANDS, IN OUR MILLIONS - WE ARE ALL PALESTINIANS!
FROM THE RIVER, TO THE SEA - PALESTINE WILL BE FREE! / FROM THE SEA, TO THE RIVER - PALESTINE WILL LIVE FOREVER!
RISHI SUNAK YOU CAN'T HIDE - WE CHARGE YOU WITH GENOCIDE! (this one I heard also with Kier Starmer's name, I assume other relevant politicians also get put in there)
GAZA GAZA DON'T YOU CRY - WE WILL NEVER LET YOU DIE! / GAZA GAZA DON'T YOU FROWN - WE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!
FREE! FREE! - PALESTINE!
Repeating Chants
(These ones don't have a call and response aspect but I find it helpful to only shout on every other shout the leader does, so you can hear when they change it up.)
CEASE FIRE NOW!
STOP BOMBING GAZA!
STOP BOMBING CHILDREN!
These are just the ones I've heard at my local events, please add on any others you know or variants!
#palestine#free palestine#pro palestine#gaza#protests#current events#idk maybe this is like too basic and silly to be useful but i thought if it helps people feel liek they know what they're doing#they might be more likely to go along and stuff
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one: redanian ale | geralt x reader
part 1 of the "threads of fate" series: masterlist.
pairing: geralt x reader
chapter warnings: blood, animal death, mild gore
word count: 3.9k
series summary: geralt begrudgingly accepts a monster contract issued to him by a strange girl, thinking it to be an opportunity for some quick coin. nothing goes as planned.
notes: i haven't posted a reader insert since middle school, but since ive been getting into the witcher again recently i thought this would be a fun project :) ill try my best to keep everything canon, but please keep in mind that the reader will be given the default name of 'maja'! if you dislike it, i do encourage the usage of a browser extension like 'word replacer II'. the name isn't too relevant to the story, i just find it a lot easier to write this way (as opposed to 'y/n', (name), etc.) anyway, please remember to give feedback and enjoy! x
Geralt stepped down the element-worn cobblestone road with a quiet huff, Roach trailing alongside the man’s figure with a seemingly matched sense of fervor.
The homes of the outskirts lined up in tight rows, alternating between maintained and otherwise decrepit wooden skeletons of a once lively hearth. Every stained-glass window emanated a warm light from within, casting onto the solemn sidewalk that led into the main square. Similar structures surrounded the tiled area, adorned with wooden plaques representing various businesses: a butcher, blacksmith, herbalist; something typical of towns on the continent.
It was a chilly afternoon, and the amber treeline of the backdrop was a colorful testament to the arrival of autumn’s harvest. The edge of the cracked pavement carried a lively array of wildflowers, growing sparsely out of the famously fertile earth of the region. It was strange, seeing such an abundant land give birth to such impoverished people. They swarmed the town in a hurry, cloaked in rags and somber faces, occasionally turning to gaze up at the flaxen-haired man with abhorrence, hatred, and curiosity.
Their sunken features flooded the street in the silent mayhem of impotence, weathered muscles bravely carrying the weight of their harvest into the beating heart of the city.
Coarse linen bags lined the trunks of carts for the lucky few being able to afford such transportation, others tried their strength at stacking the burden on their dominant shoulder. A permanent slouch was often a good way to identify the economically wounded. He furrowed his brow at the thought.
The cool air nipped gently at Geralt’s nose, fingers numb as they tightened around the leather horse reigns. His pace quickened, strides bold and purposeful as he spotted the centerpiece of town above the bobbing crowd ahead.
The cobblestone smoothed below his feet, transitioning into a sleek brick that led into the hexagonal center of town. People swarmed out of the tight street and quickly dispersed along various stalls lining the courtyard, allowing Geralt’s lungs to expand with fresh breath once more.
His eyes scanned along the walls, noting the uniform architecture of homes surrounding the plaza. Up ahead, sticking out like a not-so-sore thumb, stood the main attraction of the town. Its broad structure spanned significantly further than any surrounding shop, walls towering high into the third floor.
The off-white plaster was embellished with masterfully painted embroidery: a composition of roosters, red flowers, and various greenery; a traditional kind of adornment in these parts.
Unlike the other businesses, this particular building adorned a shiny, metallic plaque by the heavy-set doorway. It was written in a foreign language, carved into the slate in mechanically-even letters. Geralt approached this unfamiliar sign, fastening Roach to the wooden fencing to the side and leaving her with a soft pat on the muzzle. She neighed in response, a sound debatably considered sentient and acknowledging.
“Won’t be long, girl,” He reassured with a half-smile, adjusting his harness before stepping through the doorway.
The tavern air was drastically different from the outside world, hitting his complexion with a soothing warmth as the soft scent of baked goods and freshly poured ale filled his nostrils. The sensation scored a subtle smile from the witcher, hand swiftly unclasping the twinned holster of his weaponry.
He hummed lowly, scanning the crowd of people in sight: drinking, singing, dancing; warm bodies moving in rhythm to the upbeat ballad of a female bard taking center stage with her polished flute. A song about a lost love, druids, bloodshed. Geralt had recognized it from one of Jaskier’s performances, noting how polarizing the tune sounded with a change of instrument.
He continued walking alongside the wall, finally deciding to take a booth seat near the tinted windows of the northern wall. He propped his equipment against the table, positioning himself closest to the wall. The stained glass poured a soft light onto the scratched surface of his table, outlining every crevice and mug stain with a brilliant azure.
“Welcome to ‘the Manticore’, may I take your order?” Came a quiet voice, somehow bleeding into the chaos of the bustling tavern despite coming from his immediate right. Geralt turned his gaze towards it, eyes met with a pair of rheumy eyes.
A doe.
So was the witcher’s immediate thought at the sight of the skittish-looking servicewoman taking his order.
Her skin looked pallid, almost greyish in the soft light of the candlelight, cheeks pudgy yet somehow betraying her otherwise ghastly appearance. The subtle spread of freckles on her cheeks was the only memory of livelihood in the sunlight, spreading to her temples and ending in a single mole above the girl’s untamed brows. They were thick, straight, and resembling a man’s with how unkempt they appeared.
She held her fists firmly against the dip of her hips and her spine declined forward, giving the woman a folded, relaxed posture; a strange mix of confidence merging with a subtle sense of doubt reflected her apparent social abstinence.
“Redanian ale,” He spoke back, arm extending to rest on the plush couch, gaze wandering.
He first took note of the woman’s boots, how worn the leather seemed with the dried mud still clinging to the nooks and crannies of the laces. Her worn, moss-green blouse shamelessly revealed a perched bosom, held up artificially by the corset hugging her waist snuggly, perhaps uncomfortably.
Finally, he caught the attention of the silver amulet that lay comfortably against the flushed skin of her chest, embellished with a large, iridescent crystal sat in the middle. An opal, maybe a moonstone. It felt out of the ordinary, gleaming with a bright light that seemed to come from within the stone itself.
“You should be wary with that kind of necklace in your ownership,” Geralt warned under his breath, chin dipping to subtly signal towards the girl’s jewelry.
Her eyebrows furrowed at the comment, though her gaze instinctively followed his own. She brought a hand up to toy with the pendant, letting the metal move between her fingertips as if it were her first time seeing it.
“Oh, this old thing?” She questioned, a hint of apprehension lacing her voice as she held up the amulet, “It’s a fake, just a trinket I keep around,”
Despite her reassurance, the witcher’s comment seemed to have fuelled the baseline suspicion a barmaid would hold towards most customers. Simultaneously, she seemed genuinely inquisitive about the man’s opinion, her brow perched high on her forehead.
Her pinky traced along the side of the silver base, running down an array of intricate engravings carved into the metal by hand.
“Looks expensive. Different kinds of folk hang around these parts, you’d know best,” Geralt continued, tone flat yet assertive.
He never once meant to threaten the girl but rather tried offering a kind piece of advice based on his own experiences with such riches. Her prideful display of such an eye-catching jewel could land her in more trouble than she could have expected. His curiosity threw her demeanor off, eyes trailing to her feet. A moment passed without contact, then another.
“That’ll be it, girl,” he hummed, attempting to brush her presence off with a final word to the conversation. She shook her head left to right, almost like exiting a trance, and nodded at him hurriedly. Her nose tinged rouge. She turned heel, boots squeaking as she made her way through the boisterous crowd and back towards the bar.
The man allowed his gaze to linger on the girl until she disappeared into the sea of other bodies, huffing at the comfortable feeling of solitude once again. He let himself sink into the seat below. His eyes turned to study the crevices of the oak table he resided at, keen eyes suddenly focusing on something in the distance.
A raven-haired man sat hunched down at an adjacent booth, head clad in a pristine cloak that clasped off at his chest. The witcher stared back in an unspoken manner of competition, his watchful gaze scanning each visual intricacy the man had to offer. The pigment in his robes was intense and rich, an exotic indigo staining the thick linen, lined with silver thread that connected at the neck with a metallic amulet. It might have been adorned with small studs and jewels, from his position Geralt could not tell for certain.
His pale hands perched atop a leather-bound book surrounded by scattered cards, at least two decks. The fingers were scrawny, bony, wrapped in intricate rings that reflected the same blue light of the stained glass. His eyes bored into Geralt with a certain might, pools of sapphires flickering with candlelight.
They both lingered that way endlessly, both trying to intimidate the other into looking down, a gentle admit of defeat. The man smiled.
“And… there we go,” Came that one quiet voice again, accompanied by the dull tap of a glass mug placed firmly on the table. “Can I get you anything else?” it continued as Geralt made a last-ditch effort to squint at the cloaked man in the back of the room. He seemed satiated by this exchange, quickly returning to shuffling a fresh deck of cards sitting just beside his ale.
“…Hello?” The doe-eyed girl waved her hand to Geralt with a confused look on her sunken face, thick eyebrows furrowing with a twitch of her upper lip.
He turned his gaze towards her, quickly noticing the sudden emptiness around her chest— the amulet was gone. She must have taken his words to heart, or perhaps, more unfortunately, found them to be a kind of veiled threat towards her well-being. The skin of her chest was reddened, maybe hot to the touch.
“You’re a witcher, aren’t you?” She said matter-of-factly. Geralt raised an eyebrow at the sudden inquiry, otherwise maintaining his demeanor. It wasn’t so unusual.
“That’s right,” he replied tactfully, fingers tracing the handle of his mug before gripping it tightly and taking a hefty swig. The alcohol hit his throat with a delicious burn, trailing down the throat and leaving a tinge of plums and spice in its wake.
With a look as infamous as his, Geralt was undeniably used to being spotted out, even in the smallest of hamlets such as Posada. He didn’t mind the musings of others, as most of his encounters happened to be quite harmless and an inconvenience more than anything. He decided to enjoy his drink in peace and allow the girl to ask any questions she might be curious about. If he got lucky, the conversation could score him a new contract; Gods knew that was the kind of excuse he needed to occupy himself for the upcoming days.
“My, my…” The woman whispered, eyes widening a fraction as her fingers began skimming the edge of her apron in contemplation. There was an air of anticipation surrounding her, as if eager to ask about his dangerous lifestyle but abstaining for the fear of rejection. Same old.
“That makes you a frequent traveler, doesn’t it?” She piped up squeakily, clearing her throat after.
“Somewhat,” Geralt replied dryly, aiding his parched tongue with another swig of the drink. Exactly what he ordered, surprisingly. The girl didn’t bother cheating her way out of extra coin.
“And why do you find yourself in Posada, witcher?” the girl questioned, bright-eyed. Her hips twisted towards him, legs shuffling back and gently resting against the frame of the booth opposite to him. Geralt huffed, placing his ale firmly on the oak below. His face remained in its neutrality.
“Not staying long,” he mumbled with a backhand to his upper lip, cleaning the wetness from it with a smooth swipe. He spotted the barmaid’s coy gaze looking down as she swiftly positioned herself on the seat. When she looked up again, their eyes met.
There was a scar on her temple, kissing the hairline of the frizzed locks growing there. It looked well-healed with time, the weathered strip of skin standing out with the raised edges of its pale, pearlescent grove.
“Just for a rest I assume, then?” she smiled softly, the scar curving with the movement of her muscles. Geralt nodded. Her gaze seemed to falter at that but sharpened a mere second later.
“Just a drink, not much else to get done around here,” he spoke lowly, taking a knowing glance around the tavern; townsfolk swarming the bar in rugged clothing, some barefoot, all baring sunken faces. “Seems like it’s not monsters your town needs helping with,” he scoffed.
The barmaid’s eyes followed Geralt’s gaze, but she seemed to refrain from commenting. Her bony fingers clamped into loose fists before dropping to her lap. She moistened her lower lip with a slow flick of the tongue, shoulders rising and falling with each breath. She stayed silent for a moment, contemplative, then suddenly perked up with a furrowed brow.
“We’ve got monsters, witcher,” the girl mumbled. Geralt’s brow twitched at the comment, but he gave her a nod in recognition. She nodded back. “Something’s been killing off the townsfolk in the night when they go foraging,”
“Foraging? Why at night?” he questioned.
“For Mooncaps. They fluoresce in the dark and so are easier to spot that way; we use them for skin salves, tea, that kind of thing,” the girl explained, “They grow in the woods.”
“Mooncaps…” the man acknowledged, “And the foragers, how certain are you that they haven’t just lost their way back?” Geralt pressed on, fingers tensing around the handle of his mug.
“Rescue teams have been sent out before, but they never come back,” the girl said, “Sylvanus was the only one to make it home in one piece. After the fifth expedition, there were no more volunteers left. We didn’t want to risk any more casualties, you know? I grew up there, too. But I don’t dare go back now, not after I’ve heard the rumors,” she continued.
“Sylvanus?” Geralt interrupted, feeling the name out on his tongue. It sounded foreign to the land, but unfamiliar to him personally. The barmaid nodded.
“He’s this witch-hunter from Temeria. Well, that’s what he says, anyway,” she breathed out, eyes squinting, “He’s not from around here, you’d from the things he wears. Nice things, well-fit and expensive. Arrived one night and asked for the largest room we had, room seven. That must’ve been a whole month ago by now,”
Geralt’s eyebrows furrowed, gaze focusing on the table he had been examining beforehand. Nothing. The cloaked figure was gone, leaving behind a vacant table and that deck of cards.
“We’ve got spare rooms, plenty of them. I could arrange one for you if you’d like, maybe a hot bath to go with it,” the barmaid piqued in with the same smile, soft and genuine as her gaze seemed to bore into the witcher’s own eyes. She pursed her lips, anticipating an answer, perhaps one in favor of her declaration.
Geralt used a gloved finger to tap the wooden surface of the table, the rest of his body remaining perfectly still. “I’ll camp out,” he declared, hand raising his mug as the last drops of ale trickled down his throat. He still felt parched.
“As you wish,” the girl nodded, a glint in her eye as she reciprocated with a polite smile. Her arms stretched across the padding of her seat, relaxing her muscles before she swiftly stood up. Her hand grabbed onto the upper rim of the empty mug, removing it from the table with a huff.
“It’s on the house. Thank you for helping out,” she added quietly, smiling.
“Hold your appreciation, girl. I haven’t done anything to earn it just yet,” Geralt replied, earning a soft chuckle from the woman. It was airy and warm. Her half-lidded gaze met his own.
“You’ve offered your kindness, it’s all I could ask for these days,” she replied quaintly, taking a few steps back while her fingers tampered with the iron handle of the mug. She looked down briefly, then back up. Her smile had disappeared. "I'm Maja."
“Geralt,” he responded half-mindedly, out of habit. He assessed the name she had given him carefully, letting it echo in his mind for a second. Maja, just like the personification of mother-earth. He had read about her in a foreign tome previously, or perhaps heard it in a hymn or song.
“Farewell, then, Geralt,” she giggled once more, sounding somewhat bubbly at the reveal. Her smile stretched wider this time, revealing a pair of dimples adorning each flushed cheek with a shallow grove. She nibbled at her bottom lip, breathing in deeply before turning away, yet she held her gaze with his, somewhat determined to keep the witcher’s attention. She whipped around, her overskirt twirling gracefully around her hips before she leaped away. Geralt caught one last glance of her locks before she disappeared into the crowd again.
He breathed out, eyes closed tightly. His meeting with Ciri would have to wait another day while he took care of the monster plaguing this off-road town. He imagined it to be a Noonwraith, maybe a Werewolf in the worst case. It would be dirty work, but quick, and perhaps the town could spare a decent amount of coin for putting an end to their unfortunate endeavors.
The man stood up with a grunt, eyes scanning the crowds of clientele once again. His mind tried focusing on a certain head of raven-black hair amongst the sea of bodies, but his efforts were fruitless. The witch-hunter was gone, or at the very least in hiding… perhaps somewhere nearby. Geralt recalled the barmaid’s testimony, how she confessed they had rented the man a room just a few nights back.
The witcher’s eyes shifted to the broad staircase at the edge of the room, oddly empty and lit dimly by candlelight adorning the wall. He walked over in a few smooth strides, eyes narrowed and focused. He set his boot on the first stair, hearing it creak pathetically under his boot. He climbed another, another, continuing til the very top.
The gleeful tune of the lute sounded muffled and dull at this level, reverberating through the walls and getting eerily distorted in the process. Geralt lurked down the hallway, passing wooden doors adorned with handmade numbers and watching for light seeping through the gap where the planks met the floor.
He stopped suddenly, faced with number ‘7’. His gloved hand reached to grip the doorknob slowly, but with a firm squeeze, he twisted. To his surprise, it was open.
He stepped in, nose catching the vivid aroma of rosemary and myrrh. It carried in the air heavily, a thin stripe of smoke weaving through the air and connecting at the tip of an incense stick sat on a desk to his left. It was messy, clattered with books and one-off documents stained with slim rings of plum and violet.
“There you are,” came a gravely, monotonous sound. Geralt turned to face it, his eyes met with sapphire ones. They were bulbous, almost too large for the socket, threatening to pop out at any moment. The intensity made the witcher stay put. “Geralt of Rivia!” the man exclaimed theatrically, arms extending wide as he made his way from the bedside mirror. Geralt realized he hadn’t noticed the man when he entered.
“And you are?” the witcher asked firmly.
“You know my name,” the man replied, a smile adorning his lips. There was a thick scar running across them, connecting to his right brow.
“Sylvanus, is it?” Geralt replied, deciding to back into the doorway with his backside. Hearing the hinges squeal as they shut, Sylvanus seemed to relax. His mulberry cloak fluttered as he moved closer, head low. The whites of his eyes were glazed, shimmering like tiles of water. “There’s a monster roaming the woods, I’ve been told you know of it,”
“Certainly, yes,” He replied diplomatically, moving soundlessly to take a seat by the cluttered desk. The incense was shriveled now, copper tray piled with ash. “You’d like to know of this beastie? It was relentless. Ghastly and pale and crimson, drenched in innocent blood. Female in appearance and winged, like succubi,” Sylvanus explained, hands flailing wildly as he recalled the creature’s looks. His tone was low. “It is quite a miracle I made it out with all my limbs still intact,” Sylvanus sighed amongst dramatics.
“It seems we’re dealing with a harpy,” Geralt replied with a nod, hands now placed firmly on his hips as he watched the man before him go dark in the face. His eyebrows furrowed, eyes still bulging as he approached in a swift stride. He pointed a long finger at the witcher’s chest, gaze holding his fervently.
“That is no ordinary harpy, witcher,” the man hissed, offended at the mere suggestion of it. “I’ve seen nothing like it. This is no ordinary occurrence, I’ve come to realize…” Sylvanus carried on, retracting his arm that slivered under his cloak like a snake returning to its lair.
“This town, you’ll learn to know, is cursed. Plagued,” he finished slyly, almost hostile in his manner.
Geralt sighed at the man’s warnings, eyeing his lowly figure as it trailed back to the padded armchair by the desk. His snake-like arm slid out once more, thin and splotchy. It grabbed a match, striking it quickly against the table’s surface to illicit a pale flame that he used to light a fresh incense stick with. The room became smokey within seconds, a thin veil of grey dancing in the light breeze of the window open ajar. When he was done, Sylvanus tossed the match to a pile of similarly decrepit ones.
“If you want to know how I survived, well,” he trailed, “the beastie is weak to light. It fears daytime, sunlight, fire… anything that burns,”
“How did you find out?” Geralt questioned,
“Trial and error,” Sylvanus shrugged with a grin, eyes squinting. He slumped into the chair, tossing and turning until he seemed comfortable. “It only comes out on moonless nights, that’s when it goes out to feed,” he added. Geralt nodded, stopping for a beat to let the man continue on his tirade, but there was nothing else he wanted to say. His focus had now shifted to an opened book on the desk, his fingers skimming through the pages feverishly.
Geralt cleared his throat, eyeing the man once more before turning around to leave. “Thanks for the info,”
“Don’t make yourself allies in Posada, Geralt,” a voice called out behind him, deep and dark. “It might just turn on you,”
Geralt halted. He nodded, head tilting but not enough to catch the man’s figure again. The witcher shuffled away silently, shutting the door behind him with a ‘click’ of the hinges. A soft shuffling came from within, cloth rubbing against cloth and stacks of papers being ripped frantically, in a strange hurry. The flaxen-haired man let the commotion unfold without interruption.
He spotted an ornate window peeking outside, his eyes squinting at the bright lights of the colors flickering around the main square. It was getting late, and he would have to make camp soon. His feet stomped down the flight of stairs, faded music coming back in full effect.
He took note of the blonde-headed bard singing her heart out, and the slowly declining yet continuously vast crowd of townsfolk swarming the vivid scene. His gaze trailed to the bar instinctively, hovering over about a dozen heads that he knew instantly didn’t include the one he sought out.
A soft breath escaped his chapped lips, hands swiftly reaching for the cover of his cape’s hood. As the warmth of the tavern slowly faded from his body, Geralt felt his fingers ache in the cold of the night.
#geralt x reader#geralt x you#x reader#reader insert#fanfiction#ao3#geralt of rivia#geralt z rivii#the witcher#my writing#cowboygenesis#smut#eventual smut#slow burn#magic#oneshots#writers on tumblr#ao3 writer
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Walthrough: Reposting your old FFNet fics to Ao3
In light of recent rumors that FanFiction.Net might be receiving little/no ongoing support, and could suddenly disappear one day with very little warning, I wanted to offer a resource that might help preserve another fic or two. Just in case.
I'm already keeping a private collection of favorite fics from FFN that I can't bear to lose, but this tutorial isn't for saving other folks' fic. Instead, this tutorial is for people who might want to republish their own fic to Ao3 in a streamlined, relatively painless way.
Using these steps, I was able to upload an entire 16-chapter fic, with all the correct original formatting and without doing any fussy HTML editing, in about an hour. (And that was while making up the steps as I went along!)
What you'll need:
A link to your old FFNet account URL OR the those of the fics you want to save (no login necessary)
Access to a working Ao3 account
A web browser, permission to download zipped HTML files, and an unzipper (most computers have these by default)
How to save your fic for posterity:
Copy the link to the first chapter of the fic on FFN that you want to save. (Right-clicking the title of the fic on your profile and choosing "Copy Link" will do this.)
Go to https://fichub.net/ and paste in the URL. Press Export, then click "Download as zipped HTML."
This saves your entire fic at once, no matter how many chapters, with formatting intact. Everyone thank the team who made this tool, because it's amazing.
Navigate to your downloads (or click on the pop-up that'll probably appear) and open the zipped HTML file. It will probably open in your default browser on its own, but you might need to tell it to open by right-clicking the unzipped file and choosing the desired browser.
The resulting file should have all the chapters of the fic laid out one after another, with clear breaks between each chapter and the original HTML formatting (including section breaks).
Post a "New Work" in Ao3. (Can't import with FFNet, sadly, which is why this tutorial exists.) Add the title, relevant tags, and summary. (I used my FFNet summary with a note that the fic is crossposted.) Backdate the fic if desired by choosing a publishing date from around the time the fic was written.
Here's the magic part: Switch to Rich Text Mode in the "Work Text" field, then copy-paste the text from your first chapter into the Rich Text Mode window.
(Note: You may see the stray space appear around italicized/bolded text, and an extra line break tends to appear between section breaks. Otherwise, though, the formatting is generally very well preserved.)
Optional detail: Hit "Preview," then "Save Draft," then "Add Chapter" to avoid posting any of your chapters till you have them all set up and ready to go.
Side note 1: Don't put an endnote on the end of your Chapter 1. Or if you do, go add a chapter 2 first, and then go back to add a chapter 1 endnote. Otherwise it'll end up at the end of your fic instead. It's a fixable outcome, but an annoying one.
Side note 2: If you use a pseud to post, you'll need to be careful to select the correct pseud for each chapter you upload, or you'll end up being listed as the author twice, once under each pseud you selected. If you notice this happening, it's because you've missed switching one in one or more chapters. This is fixable by checking the author listed under each chapter heading using the "Entire Work" button and keyword searching the username you're trying to get rid of.
While I didn't find a way to post all chapters at once, you can do it pretty quickly in the right order, without skipping, by doing the following steps in a loop:
Press "Entire work" at the top of the page.
Use your browser's "Find in page" function for the text "post chapter".
Hitting the "Post Chapter" button that appears.
Just continue the loop until there's no more "Post Chapter" buttons.
Once your chapters are all uploaded, you're done! Congratulations.
A final note
I know that this latest rumor might be blowing certain hints of FFNet's siterunners' inactivity out of proportion. I know that Ao3 isn't everyone's favorite (though I don't agree with most of those people). And I know, most of all, that some folks would rather some of their older fics not see the light of day anymore, for whatever reason.
But look. I'm a trans guy who used to be a teenage girl who (enthusiastically) wrote Twilight/Doctor Who crossover fanfic. I get it, and yet I'm still managing to stun the part of me that cringes long enough to preserve my stuff, because I think that fic should survive whenever possible.
There are options to help make the cringe factor more manageable. Use a pseud for your older stuff (like me), or to minimize any connection to your current account, you can use the Anonymous collection or the Orphan Work function as soon as you're done posting. Do whatever you need to feel comfortable.
But remember that every creative work is a victory just for existing. Please, if you can, find it in your heart (and your schedule) to preserve your work. Past!you worked hard on it, after all. And besides, you never know who might stumble across it someday exactly when they need it.
(PS: Please let me know about any other FFN preservation efforts, by the way! Hopefully this is all blown out of proportion, but you really can never be too careful.)
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@ahollowgrave kindly asked these questions in the tag of the post I made for yesterday's mayncient prompt, and I thought I would answer! (publicly for a change c':) It gets rambly tho because I am a rambler, so I have used a cut c':
The answer to the first question is, and always will be, no. One of the things that's absolutely necessarily required for Ren to figure out where one of her memory salads has come from is something tactile. This could be something that belonged to the owner of the memory which they had on them at the time of an event traumatic enough to leave the latent aetheric signature of their memory upon it. (This was the method which allowed her to recall the memory of her father's murder, which no one believes her about, of course! via his deck of sixty.)
Or it could be another item they've been in very recent contact with that has some relevance to a traumatic memory of theirs. This is how she came to know Callineaux broke his arm by jumping off a balcony because he wanted to be a Dragoon when he was a child. (They were cataloging Ishgardian reliquaries at work, and he was reminiscing about it while they were writing up the attributes of a broken lance.)
Here's what Ren "remembered" after Cal handed over the lance.
It was two cups of coffee later when they got back to the broken polearm and its fragmented glaive.
“I’ll write this one up just as a potential reliquary, yes?” she asked Cal, glancing up at him for just a moment as she took the haft.
In the space of a breath, she remembered everything he had remembered.
The grassy field, that bold yet naïve conviction. Looking over his shoulder to be sure none of the staff had seen. The way the dark silhouette had curved and cut the sunrise like a hunting hawk. The people swanning around in their summer finery. The lush gardens, all manicured. The coy smile of Seraphine, the wistful wish to impress her. The tempered argument of his young friend. The slap of his boots upon the iron railing of the balcony terrace. The swift and unavoidable rushing of the ground and the pretty picket fence, his eyes streaming water. And of course, the jolt of agony, the way it felt on impact, which she didn’t really feel, but remembered feeling all the same; like some phantom pain. All of this, and probably more, in an instant. She just knew it.
So, Ren's ability to uncover the truth about any of her past lives is limited to the off chance she encounters some rare and very old relic that belonged to one of them. As her writer, I don't intend for that to ever happen as a lot of the fun of writing her (and all the other OCs past incarnations) for me is that she doesn't understand any of it, so it all just makes her kind of weird!
However, Ren's memory salads or bad echo™ as I sometimes call it, isn't limited to items she's in contact with. The invasive memories are triggered by ambient latent aether from any source. Places, other people's presence, and also things she reads in books that she might have once experienced. These don't present themselves in the form of any visions like the WoL's echo. A big part of this is because I have aphantasia and so don't see visions in my head, and I wanted to have a go at trying to like, write what I "see" when I see things in my mind for fun. The in-character reason is because of the damage to her eye as a child. Like a person with aphantasia, Ren can only see in dreams. But she doesn't really have weird dreams! (That's Oli's domain c': )
So, her memory salads are just new words, phantom feelings and sensations in her head. They basically just become shit she knows now. This is why I make the running joke about her knowing a lot of recipes for Allagan Meatloaf and Gelmorran marinated mushrooms (against her will no less, because she can't cook them.) She has translated a lot of tomestones and old texts, and these can often trigger a memory from a person they once belonged to. Ren just has no way of ever encountering this person and figuring out "oh this is your memory!" by deductive reasoning.
In answer to the second question. Ren first "remembered" all her summons when her Mother made her look at the moon through her whacky aetherial star gazing device. But she was six, so she didn't really know what was going on.
Full disclosure, she still doesn't know what's going on.
However, she has recalled two of Galatea's concepts at different times since then, and these replace her fire and air egi.
Cordenym she recalled again learning about the basic principles of summoning using arcanima — namely that a summon can look like whatever the summoner imagines it to look as, whereby carbuncles and fairies are simply the most commonly manifested form. So, she thinks her memory from Galatea is her own imagination!
This is unlike Lunearch. She also recalled Lunearch as Dalamud was falling. This is because Galatea's past life during the time of Allag summoned Lunearch regularly. (Summoning the weird lightning lion with antlers was kinda her thing as a High Summoner.) She recently had to use Lunearch during some shenanigans with Callineaux and his gambling enemies in a RP my husband and I were doing. So, here's how she tries to explain Lunearch to people. (Credit to him for all Cal's portion of this conversation.)
She paused at his next question, setting aside the needle very slowly while she considered her reply.
“Lunearch.” She said, referring to the summon by name. “Well, I…” It was such a bother to explain her summons to people, it’s why she so very rarely used them. “It’s sort of like… it’s someone else’s summon. Not mine. It uh… It was someone's who lived a long time ago… and I adapted my spell from theirs.”
“Someone else's summon, then?" he mused, a hint of admiration in his voice as he adjusted the silk bottoms. They fit weirdly well considering how much shorter Zan was than him. "Impressive, to say the least. Whose summon is it then?"
“Well,” she said after swallowing her mouthful of sandwich, reaching for her glass of water again with her other free hand. “As I said, they’re not alive anymore.” She took a sip, washing down the last of the curried egg, “Unfortunately I don’t know their name, so I can’t give it to you. I only know about Lunearch's… But uh… they were Allagan.” She offered a shrug, biting into the remainder of the sandwich and polishing it off.
"Allagan…" he mused, nodding thoughtfully. "This sounds a little bit over my head.” He was unsure how she would have managed to even learn all this without knowing someone's name, but came to the conclusion it would be from a book. “Must have been an old book. You’ll have to show me some time.”
Of course, he’d think she’d learned it from a book. Where else would she learn it?
She gave a pensive hum, fishing out a few of the blueberries from the near-empty cup, chewing slowly again before she answered. Pondering what her reply should be.
“I can’t show it to you, I’m afraid.” Clearly amused he even wanted to see something he’d self-admittedly said was over his head. Her eyes settled on his for a long moment, lips twisting into a smirk of sorts before she eventually phrased her cryptic reply. “It’s kind of like, a secret knowledge, you see."
She is yet to recall her third summon yet, (it's name is Ignixotl, and if I am brave, I might post some excerpts of some scenes with them for some of the later prompts in mayncient! I hope to be able to do some RP around Dawntrail which will put her on the path to re/discovering her third summon x3)
I hope this lengthy explanation makes sense c': Thank you very much for asking a bit about Gal's concepts/Ren's summons!
⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡
#lorebending#galatea#ren#cal#thank you for all of those lovely tags!!#<3#blorbettes through time#asks and answers#sort of#from the tags lol
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⭐
Send ⭐ for a sample of a new muse I am thinking of writing // accepting
Her thick braid of soft green hair tickled her lower back as she turned her head, sharp eyes surveying the boisterous guildhall she stood in. As her gaze found her daughter across the room once again, still happy, still safe, reassurance and relief curved red painted lips into a gentle smile. Bisca settled her hands on her hips, returning her attention back to the request board.
Following the war, people needed more help than ever, and not so coincidently, her bank account similarly needed help, so there was hardly time to rest. She skimmed the myriad of flyers pinned to the wall, attentive eyes searching for a job or two that would suit her skills or that of her dear Alzack. Tracking monsters or people, they were her preferred requests and ones she was well suited for, yet she would take on anything that she could manage safely. While in the past, she’d itched for challenging requests, adventures and fun, she now valued her family, and the promise of returning to them, more than any thrill.
Plum coloured eyes settled on a particular request. Help! Stop the bandit! The bold print was eye-catching to be sure, but it was the word bandit that held her focus. Before joining Fairy Tail, she’d been a bandit herself, a reckless thief and raider, and an arrogant one at that. Although ashamed of that time in her life, the memory did bring about a slight smile, as she recalled the turning point that brought her to where she was now. Perhaps this job would cast her as the turning point in this bandit’s life, where Erza had been it for her.
She didn’t hold out any hope or expectation for such an outcome, it would be enough just to stop the troublesome outlaw. People had been through enough without having some crook taking what little they had, she wouldn’t stand for it, especially due to her own experiences in recent years, the tough times and struggle to survive.
Decision made, she freed the relevant form from the board.
It was time to get work.
#sample muse tag#scarletbellator#thank you for sending one in!!#im interested to explore her as an individual as well as a mother and wife#i think she deserves some development#its also just cool to think about those characters that had to go through those 7 rough years#they deserve more credit tbh
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Pgs. 309 - 384
so there’s this guy.
he has an intro.
and
he’s pretty cool.
he’s so cool he has a shitty galaxy reflection in his shades.
his name is David and his room looks like this.
Dave’s room is the most kind of guy room ever, I can just feel his entire personality here, and I can also feel the “this dude has no parental guidance outside of an equally unorganized brother” energy.
Dave is just a hyperspecific Guy, a real type of Guy, he’s even described as liking obscure bands and shit, Hussie was airing something out when making him.
Anyway, these are your copies of the beta you received in the mail recently. You've labeled them with your name in BOLD RED PRINT to distinguish them from your BRO's copies, who labeled his in kind. Neither of you really gives a shit about this game or has any intention of playing it, but you'll be damned if you'll let that get in the way of your campaign of one-upmanship.
the Lalondes and Striders have a lot of parallels going on between each other with their dynamics and situations. 1 thing that sets them apart is that the perception of an insane mindgame rivalry seems to be more truthful on Dave’s end compared to Rose. Rose thinks that even a fucking fancy pillow is some kind of symbol of scorn and spite in the waterfall of irony and insincerity. while there’s not much seen out of Dave and Bro’s relationship on a normal day, the stupid ass stealth moves that Bro pulls out in order to get Dave’s goat really implies that there is a genuine absurd rivalry going.
also they’re just brothers. when there’s brothers in fiction, they either hate each other or like each other but still fuck with each other just for the sake of Being Brothers.
Dave: Bleat like a goat and piss on your turntable.
You would never consider allowing any fluid even remotely resembling urine to touch your beloved TURNTABLES. That would risk breaking them, and a world without the gift of your godly science just doesn't sound like a place you want any part of. While you're at it, you might as well wipe out human civilization with a meteor or something ridiculous like that which will probably never happen.
That sort of thing only happens in stupid idiot movies for stupid idiots.
You will however contemplate bleating like a goat for IRONICALLY HUMOROUS purposes at a later date.
Dave is so lame.
FUCKING APPLE JUICE BABY. YEAH LOVE THAT SHIT. TOP 3 FRUIT JUICES ON THE TIERLIST WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
he’s gonna say it, he’s gonna say the thing.
yeah this is the OS design I’m attached to the most, I grew up with Windows 7 which basically did everything Vista did but a bit more glassy, so this is up my fucking ally. look at those GRADIENTS, look at all that GLOSS, it’s so fucking good.
HE SAID IT.
I love Hussie’s fake UI I love it.
I also love Dave Strider’s blog, he said the n-word on it
not joking you can check for yourself.
FUCKING SWEET BRO AND HELLA JEFF YEAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
SBAHJ is so damn interesting because it’s the Homestuck thing that has the furthest reach out of the entire comic but at the same time people don’t even know it’s Homestuck.
true story: my 1st ever exposure to Homestuck without even knowing it was when I was like 12 years old and watched a fucking VanossGaming GMod video in which they played that masterpiece SBAHJ map.
youtube
seeing a giant shittily compressed texture that just said AIDS which spun around in a circle and fucking instantly killed anything it touched was literally formative for my sense of humor.
the backstory is also absolutely beautiful, imagine dropping your armature Gamer Webcomic™ on the Penny Arcade forums only for Future Homestuck Artist Andrew Hussie to come in and completely shit on your comic by turning it into the worst form of art you have ever seen which would then turn into its own popular comic.
I really like the utility of SBAHJ as an in-universe source of memes and in-jokes for all the kids to reference rather than forcing relevance by shoving in memes that were popular at the time. it really helps make Homestuck feel... not exactly timeless per say, but more relatable in way that supersedes generations.
I say this because I fucking know for a fact real ass memes come in later on in the comic and they get really fuckin annoying.
I would kill someone for a Midnight Crew adventure, you would not believe how far I would go for this to be real.
TT: In some cultures the persistent refusal of a lady's invitation to play a game with her would be a sign wanton disrespect.
TT: Either that, or flagrant homosexuality.
STOP JOKING ABOUT DAVE LIKING MEN YOU DO NOT KNOW OF THE FUTURE CONSEQUENCES IT HAS.
it is here where Dave and Rose immediately become the best fucking character dynamic ever.
TT: Sometimes I wonder how you are ever allowed to pay for meals in restaurants.
TT: It must be hard to keep a low profile when you're always overhearing awed voices whisper, "It's that guy who has a blog."
TG: seriously
TG: dudes be worshipping me left and right
TG: i cant hardly walk down the street without stepping over torsos of the prostrate
TT: Navigating the urban landscape I'm sure is difficult enough without an obstacle course of deferential flesh and skyward asses.
TT: Perhaps adapting the art of parkour to your unique environment would help?
TG: yeah!
TG: i mean damn
TG: like theres this scruffy little shit at my feet
TG: an orphan or something i dont know
TG: face flush on the pavement
TG: im like dude you listening for a stampede of buffalo or something?
TG: he braves a look at me then gives my shoe a little kiss and scurries the fuck off
TT: Heavy is the crown.
TG: yeah
TG: not kicking oliver twist in the fucking face every day is my gift to the world i guess
also the little "yeah!" he does in excitement of parkour before he corrects himself back to serious coolguy mode is fucking perfect.
aw what the fuck put that shit away.
Dave’s Phat Beat Machine may be a silly joke about shitty fucking DJ machines that have weird pre-made beats and sound effects but some of this shit slaps when you play them at the same time ngl. 11 and 12 together is really fuckin good.
also Captain Planet is in this flash.
maybe Dave is cool, no one else could catch and open that apple juice with such finesse.
this is a really great series of expressions, he is so mad. he can’t stop thinking about PISS.
HE’S SO MAD.
oh god.
oh god they’re here.
You glance at one of the many RADICAL PUPPETS in your BRO'S collection and nod in approval.
Is there anything not awesome about your BRO? No, you think not.
this is not cool this is very not cool.
why is the little man in the SHOWER, bro does not BATHE, he is made of WOOD.
he is simply having a terrible, terrible day.
why did he do this.
HOLY SHIT IT’S DAVE’S IRONIC SELF PORTRAIT.
this is why Dave’s sylladex shit is the best sylladex shit, sheer frustrating mathematics leading to renaming items into weird synonyms and yelling out shit to fucking send out swords.
LOOK AT HIM.
he changed his tune so fast, he went from imposing and about throw down to just...
:o
now how will he play the funny Sburb??? what will he do to get out of this situation- WIZARD.
GIANT, STONE, WIZARD.
girl is not having it.
it is here we get the entire downlow of this maddening mother-daughter relationship through the totally not biased eyes of Rose. I mean look at this shit:
Your mother clearly has no real affinity for these damnable things. She only collects them to spite you.
If anything, she finds them even more repellent than you do. She's just a committed woman.
A while ago you gave this as an ironic gift to your MOM for mother's day. You even customized it with a drink holder to support one of her ubiquitous ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES.
She "liked" the gift so much, she had it bronzed and put on this pedestal. She even left it plugged in so it can still be turned on now and then. But never to do any cleaning. It never leaves this display.
The PRETTY PRINCESS DOLL has been sitting there for months, ever since your mother got this abomination for your birthday as a totally PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE gesture.
You decided to make it much less abominable by knitting Her Majesty a new head and new arms. Now it brings a mischievous smile to your face whenever you walk by. Your mother hasn't removed the doll yet, and probably never will. She would never be the one to blink first.
This was a drawing you did of your cat JASPERS when you were younger, along with a poem about him. Your mother bought this ostentatious $15,000 frame for it, and had it welded to the door.
Using the colorful MAGNET LETTERS, you recently left a succinct message, which may or may not have been directed toward anyone in particular. But you couldn't find the letter W, so you just stuck two V's together.
Your mother then purchased a fresh pack of W's and left them there for your convenience.
Appreciative of the thoughtful gesture, you left her a sincere THANK YOU NOTE, which you had legally notarized, and then marked with a drop of blood.
But part of it was touching the floor, so your mother was kind enough to lift the lower portion of the document with a VELVET PILLOW.
this entire cavalcade of fucking overly professional stupidity really just symbolizes the daily Lalonde struggle. again, way more of an actual thing compared to the baking menace in Washington, Rose does not feel loved enough, she projects contempt onto every action of her mother, even if they’re completely genuine, who’s also literally an alcoholic. but at the same time, this is ridiculous. I can bet that the mere thought of any of this coming off as mean-spirited to Rose is just flying over Mom’s head because she’s too busy cleaning shit or getting drunk. she’s so sincerely nice but also too damn ignorant, while at the same time going completely overboard in every sense just because she can. “oh look at this!! my daughter’s very own drawing!!! it’s so nice!!! let me put it in an expensive frame and then weld it straight onto the fridge!!! :)))))” and then Rose sees this and just goes “SHREW!!! DAMNED SHREW!!!” meanwhile Mom’s just taking this as “oh she’s spelling words on the fridge!!! :))))) but she has no Ws..... :((((( I’ll buy some for her!!! that will satisfy her needs!!! :)))))” and I guess Rose takes a break from the absolute scorn she’s building up in her system to make the most polite ass note all like “Dearest Mother Lalonde, I thank thee for this humble present.” and notarizing it with BLOOD. of course this has to end with Mom walking in, seeing this note and going “how thoughtful!!!” and then sliding a god damn pillow just for the presentation.
it is my firm belief that the Lalondes are just kind of off the fucking wall inherently, literally all of them just do wacky shit like this without question.
fandom mischaracterizations are so frequent that they’re not even a surprise, but this concept of Rose being this completely serious and levelheaded girl who’s always moody and brooding and never puts up with stupid shit is something I cannot understand how anyone picked up from her. she has a sense of humor, a really damn good one, a lot of the comedy can be attributed to her dialogue. she’s not dead serious, she literally knits Lovecraft monsters in purple for goofs and does something like the above while no one is around. and in no possible way is she running on full logic and reasoning because she plays weird mind games with her mom and later on just goes insane and destroys shit for the hell of it. there really is more to Rose than just “goth = serious smart.”
a lot of this extends to Kanaya as well because I guess people just write the 2 of them as the same person, as we all know, couples can’t be together unless they completely overlap on the Venn diagram of their personalities, hobbies, and interests, but that’s for later.
AND THEN SHE PAYS FOR THE FUCKIN MAGNET. WHO DOES THIS.
MOTHER JUMPSCARE.
And of all things to be doing during a power outage. She's up to her IRONIC HOUSEWIFE routine again. That mop bucket doesn't even have any water in it! What an absolute madwoman.
I like how Rose calls this some kind of weird irony chore that no sane individual would do without a hint of joking, she really expects too much out of Mom. a real core part of this relationship is how Rose assumes that her mother is operating on the same high level thinking as her, when in reality she’s just doing actual housewife stuff genuinely. the bucket being empty is even part of Rose overthinking all of this, Mom’s using a Swiffer, she doesn’t need water, she just brought the bucket because it completes the housewife look.
I don’t know if that latter part was intentional or if Hussie just didn’t know how Swiffers worked.
NYOOM.
SICK TRICKS.
ah fuck.
the Strider household is such a very specific home aesthetic of “complete fucking disaster, the likes of which you have never seen, owned by 2 dudebros who like Eminem.” this visual style is so poignant that the best way Dave fixes a window is with straight black tape, how classy.
big fan of how everyone talking to Jade starts to smile, she just has that energy. I mean look at Dave, you see that single raised pixel? that’s him smiling! he’s got joy! and he’s so much more genuine when he’s talking to her too, she’s literally the one person in the friend group where he can drop the whole image of “I am so fucking Cool and Real and Awesome and Swag.” they play off of each other really damn well, no wonder DaveJade is a really big ship.
TG: say hi to your grand dad for me too ok
GG: ._.
GG: yes i guess an encounter with him is almost certain
GG: it is usually........
GG: intense!!!
TG: well yeah isnt it always with family
this is the non-embarrassing parallel to John talking about Dad with Rose. Dave’s probably thinking to himself, “ah yes, she too knows of the struggle of high octane anime fights in the middle of the house.” meanwhile Jade’s talking about yelling at a corpse.
also JADE KNOWS THE FUTURE??? HUHHHH???? HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE???????????
#homestuck liveblog#hs liveblog#hs reread#liveblog#reread#live read#liveread#homestuck#hs1#hs#home22tuck#Act 2#flash#rose lalonde#dave strider#jade harley#Beta Kids#mom lalonde#guardians
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What is the nature of the latest plot by the CARDINALS?
Aha, that’s confidential! (´∀｀) At least, the finer details are not to be shared all that easily. Uriel may be one for monologues, but not the kind where he overshares the exact steps he’ll take next, haha!
The overall nature is to rally the Gifted around a symbol of their potential. This requires some spectacle, some action, and a much louder voice across the world. The Gifted are a scattered people by nature. Pushed down into shadows or kept under some greater power’s thumb, Uriel seeks to draw out his people and their hopes, to alter their perception of themselves and their rights in this world. Well, that’s always been his goal, but now the time has come for a true call to action.
At this time, I’ll just list out the early and known relevant elements that are more of a lead-up to their plans (which have mostly been mentioned before):
1. The CARDINALS have been scavenging the charred remains of Dollmaker’s fallen empire (while evading the grasp of the HAWKS who have a mirrored interest in discovering the full extent of the deceased man’s criminal regime). The Gifted once commanded by Dollmaker have gone missing without a trace. Their absence has stirred some strange reactions among the human populous.
2. Something big went down in Siberia. An event, encounter, or—more specifically—a Gifted has scarred and warped a sect of that vast land. OWLS have been a bit tight lipped over all the details as their investigation continues to unfold.
3. Their plot has been given the name “Project Michael”. The necessity of a name for it implies this scheme is more long-term in its execution and potential fallout compared to their usual tactics.
4. Mockingbird’s first mission with the HAWKS occurs in Moscow. (The first page opens on this mission, so it’s not a real spoiler.) The outcome of their encounter with Retriever is far beyond the norm in a fashion that has raised alarm for the HAWKS and CARDINALS alike, though maybe excitement as well for some of the latter. Few are more shaken up about it than Retriever himself.
5. Fyodor is a new face amongst the Inner Circle, though he has not been declared or paraded as a one of their members yet. Due to his Russian origins, the HAWKS suspect him of potential former ties to Dollmaker. These severed ties could link him to the recent CARDINALS activity around the man’s former dealings.
6. The CARDINALS are becoming more vocal and visible. This newfound boldness could be read as either a sudden desperation or revived confidence; a new wave of zealotry or a stumble into recklessness. Either way, it’s clear something behind the scenes has caused a shift in their behavior.
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Hello. My name is Maria—nothing more, nothing less. I am a Faller hailing from a place known as Yharnam, though I am currently in the Johto region. It is a less harsh place than what I am used to; I would not recommend requesting further information regarding Yharnam unless you are mentally prepared.
Out of a lack of anything better to do after falling here, I embarked upon the Gym Challenge. At the time of writing this, I bear seven of the eight Johtonian badges, and intend to attain the eighth as soon as I have recovered enough to travel.
As of less than a week ago, I have been Chosen as a champion of sorts by Ho-oh, a Pokémon with power tantamount to the gods of my former world. While I still have rather complicated feelings regarding the matter, the gods of this world are considerably kinder than those I am used to, and doing this allowed me to put an end to Team Rocket's machinations once and for all.
My team is as follows:
Rakuyo (Meganium, X)
Hunter (Furret, F)
Molotov (Arcanine, M)
Adeline (Gengar, F)
Evelyn (Seadra, F)
Eileen (Honchkrow, F)
Adeline, my Gengar, rather likes to steal my device and make posts for herself—she is considerably better with this world's technology than I, so I have no qualms with this—and her commentary can be found in purple.
Though this has thus far only occurred once twice thrice, Ho-oh has utilized this platform and blog to communicate directly with me and others before, and they have done so in bold orange text. They have recently adopted another name in addition to their first: Solaire.
A very angry child named Silver, who inexplicably decided to form a rather one-sided rivalry with a grown woman, is unlikely to be on the blog again given how much the anonymous masses of Rotomblr set back my progress in having a reasonable conversation with him. However, while he was posting here, he used blue.
I am more than happy to discuss a great many things. Do keep in mind that I hail from a far deadlier place than this one, should you care to ask about my past prior to Johto.
...I still would rather like to know why and how I am here at all.
(OOC info under cut.)
Sup, it's still @ofstormsandfire getting perhaps a little too invested in my silly little blog where I throw a Bloodborne boss into the world of pokemon. I really wanted to make a faller blog of some kind, and promised myself that I could if I survived Nanowrimo, and... then I did. And went well, alright, Lady Maria's going to have a great time in Johto!
(That was sarcasm. Though honestly even a terrible time in Johto is an improvement over what she's used to.)
Do keep in mind that Maria is in fact a Bloodborne boss and as such will be unfazed by things that would disturb the vast majority of characters. I'll happily tag things as necessary, just ask if I've missed something you would like tagged.
Here's some navigational tags for y'all. If/when I actually reach the conclusion of this blog's story maybe I'll make more.
#firebird arc: I smashed together the Radio Tower plot and the Ho-oh plot, made the Kimono Girls more relevant, and also ramped up the stakes a little. Called that because Ho-oh is a firebird and also I'm 90% sure there's a kind of rocket called the Firebird. I like puns. I also put way too much effort into this and I regret nothing.
#the vampire allegations: A couple of people made jokes about Maria being a vampire. Admittedly, she is from Cainhurst which is the closest Bloodborne gets to proper vampires, and I thought it would be really funny to have her be allergic to garlic for legitimately mundane reasons.
#rainbow wings: That time Ho-oh showed up on the blog specifically to tell Maria to take a break. Same tag is used whenever Ho-oh turns up. (It's been like three times now.)
#what's with this sassy lost child?: The Silver takeover. For some reason the last couple posts just aren't showing up in the tag despite being tagged with exactly the same thing, but he got Pelipper Mailed bad memories of his dad and promptly dipped.
#hints to the future: Bits of prose foreshadowing things to come, because I got really into that one ask game with the gears.
#ooc: making this my new pinned post woo!#pokeblogging#pokeblogging intro#pokemon irl#rotomblr#pokeblog rp
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my original work is not your inspiration
so, for the almost three years i’ve been on writeblr, i’ve had a few instances of suspiciously similar stories and premises from new followers and even a former mutual. i’ve seen someone exactly copy the very specific formatting i use on all of my posts for my original writing, down to the italics and bold (a format which i have been using for well over a year). the most recent incarnation of this is definitely the worst of it and i gotta say i’m sick of the bullshit.
i will be censoring the url of this person, but due to the nature of the screenshots provided, it might be easy to find their blog. DO NOT harass this person. DO NOT go out of your way to find their blog. i’m not making this post to attack them, i just want to teach two lessons: 1) how to recognize plagiarism or lifted ideas and 2) why that’s a shitty thing to do.
additionally, i don’t know what pronouns this person identifies with, so i will be referring to them with they/them pronouns, and i apologize if i’ve misgendered them in any way.
RECEIPTS
their most recent post is a wip/character introduction for a completely “new” project, but thanks to their tumblr’s default theme, you can clearly see my ahfs character post in their recent likes on the sidebar.
aside from the obvious copy-paste of my original post’s formatting, the blue highlights are where it gets into the specifics of the various terms they’ve lifted from me. my wip a hymn for serpents, which i will abbreviate to ahfs, has a heavy focus on witches, femininity, heretics, apostates, and the ancient orders that govern everything.
a lot of what’s presented could be seen as entirely coincidental, but once it all starts piling up, it turns into something that makes me extremely uncomfortable.
it was posted to their blog yesterday. it is currently thursday, august 4th, as of writing this.
the following two screenshots are from my posts. also note that i have not made a post for ahfs since december of 2021, and this person’s blog was created in july of 2022.
screenshot from their archive. reminder that this is a main blog, not a sideblog, they like and follow from this one. i soft-blocked them in the process of drafting this post, so i’m unsure of when exactly they originally followed my writeblr.
their activity in my notifs:
when i asked a few friends/mutuals about this, they said that they had also seen this person in their notifs liking my posts, as some of them i’ve privated or deleted, and were therefore unavailable on my blog. this person was actively seeking out my content.
it gets a little more complicated here, so please bear with me. the screenshots below are from their two previous wip introductions, with the dates of posting included. they’re from july 29th and june 30th respectively, but as seen above, their activity on my blog and their new wip six monsters so divine is very recent.
also notice that the formatting is almost completely divorced from what they use in their most recent post, because it’s copying mine. i’ve scrolled through their blog as well, and none of their previous posts were formatted that way either. it’s also the first and only post about six monsters so divine on their entire blog.
the names i’ve underlined also appear in their latest post, and were clearly repurposed for six monsters so divine a few days after they began searching through all of my posts.
ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE
now, if you’ve been taking note of the magenta highlights, these are relevant to my other wip and the novel i am currently in the process of writing, mordlust. both salem and aleksander are names of main characters, and i even recently made a post about their names’ meanings.
the story is somewhat of a sleeping beauty retelling as well, with a magical plague called the dornenheit (dornen meaning thorn), which makes me dubious of this person’s choice of surname “briarthorne”.
i do think it might be a bit of a stretch to say that they’ve also been lifting some elements from mordlust, but given the situation, i wouldn’t be surprised.
CONCLUSION
i’m fucking pissed, but i’m also just done. as of now i am considering no longer posting any of my original writing/excerpts and taking down all of what i currently have up on my blog, which is years worth of content.
i love writing. i love the craft. i love making worlds, characters, relationships, magic systems, prophecies, everything. i spend literal months worldbuilding and outlining to make something that i can be proud of, and to see someone just pick and choose what they like and repackage it as entirely their own is extremely upsetting and unmotivating.
at the end of the day, creative writing is a deeply personal craft that takes a lifetime to master. why not write your own story instead of gleaning what you can from a complete stranger’s work? why try to form something from someone else’s out-of-context fragments and pinterest boards? it takes all the soul out of it.
it’s ok to be inspired by others, it’s ok to have your own spin on a concept, but i’m literally just some random 19y/o posting for fun on tumblr, not an established nyt best-selling author with a massive platform and fanbase. i want to be a published author someday, and i want to publish the kind of novels that made me want to start writing.
this is not how you do it.
#writeblr#writers on tumblr#writerly#spilled ink#plagiarism#might add transcripts for all of this at some point but i kinda just want this to be over
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Toddler and tiara: Meghan Markle STILL throwing tantrums about royal family By Maureen Callahan August 29, 2022
Lest anyone remain in doubt, Meghan Markle’s latest interview makes one thing clear: This woman has nothing to say. She has nothing to offer, no original thoughts or guiding philosophy, no earthly reason to be taking so much money from, and so much space in, the mainstream media she so clearly reviles.
You know, just as she reviles the British royal family, even as she clings to her title and accepts money from her father-in-law, the future king, who reportedly subsidized her and Harry’s $14.5 million mansion, purchased for their privacy.
Still, yet again, the Greta Garbo of Northern California sits for another major profile, this time for New York magazine. [not NY Magazine, A New York Magazine: The Cut.]
Forget the People’s Princess — now we’re saddled with the Petulant Princess, one whose preferred crown is perpetual victimhood. For the past three years she’s had a global platform, yet all she does with it is complain that she’s been censored, silenced, shut out. Meghan Markle has been a public downer longer than she was a working duchess. It’s long past time for a new talking point.
I must concede her lone accomplishment here: Just when you think Meghan Markle can’t get any more delusional, she outdoes herself. Her self-regard runs in direct opposition to her waning relevance. She clearly has no real friends left — or even decent publicists — because anyone with an iota of common sense would say, “You know, Meghan, it’s probably best not to compare yourself to Nelson Mandela.”
Reader, in this profile, Meghan Markle compares herself to Nelson Mandela. Settle in.
“I had just had Archie,” she says. “It was such a cruel chapter. I was scared to go out.” But go out she did — alas, there’s no keeping Meghan Markle down — to a performance of “The Lion King.” After, a South African cast member, she says, “looked at me, and he’s just like light. He said, ‘I just need you to know: When you married into this family, we rejoiced in the streets the same we did when Mandela was freed from prison.’ ”
Oh, this piece is full of howlers. Enjoy it. Savor the details. Don’t read it with your mouth full.
Anyone who’s read Tom Bower’s recent book knows that Meghan is an inveterate liar. But here we have the duchess in her natural habitat — a soulless mansion, Meghan “backlit by the late-morning light in a scene that looks like a Nancy Meyers cinematic interior, Town & Country, Goop, and Architectural Digest had an orgy” — and this only frees her up to reveal her most authentically inauthentic self in all her resentful glory.
We begin with the “invisible” help [sounds more like black magic seance] lighting a scented candle from the members-only Soho House — the founder, Meghan says, a friend. Annual dues run a little over $4,000. But remember: even though she wants to be known as a humanitarian, a feminist and a renegade, what’s equally important are all the famous people she knows and the exclusive, rich-people-only places she has access to.
Meghan opens the interview with the most millennial of revelations: “Do you want to know a secret?” she asks. “I’m getting back . . . on Instagram.”
Stop the presses, indeed!
Or . . . not? Meghan doubles back on that bold announcement almost immediately: She’s not sure, she says. She might not. Lots to consider.
What those factors are, she cannot say.
Oh — and this moment: “At one point in our conversation,” writes Allison P. Davis, “instead of answering a question, she will suggest how I might transcribe the noises she’s making: ‘She’s making these guttural sounds, and I can’t quite articulate what it is she’s feeling in that moment because she has no word for it; she’s just moaning.’ ”
This might be the single most insane thing I’ve ever read in a celebrity profile. Truly, it’s Charlie Kaufman-esque: Meghan evincing such pain she’s non-verbal, yet verbalizing why she’s ostensibly non-verbal to her profiler, who Meghan says should tell us that Meghan doesn’t know what she’s feeling because Meghan told her, in Meghan’s own words, that there are no words for it.
It’s celebrity profile by way of Kafka, and it says something that the hundreds of reader comments on New York mag’s site — a self-selecting group of self-identified feminist social justice warriors — mostly proclaim her phony, delusional and vapid, if not an outright liar.
What will make Meghan happy? Hell if she knows. The only solace she finds from this existential torment, it seems, is sitting for fancy photo shoots and talking to friendly journalists.
“When the media has shaped the story around you,” Meghan whines, “it’s really nice to be able to tell your own story.”
Here’s something this self-styled brilliant mind seems to have missed: A little thing called social media has long allowed for unmediated, unfiltered communication between celebrities and the rest of us, the great unwashed who still, despite Meghan cawing and crying on Oprah, or among starving African children (“nobody asks if I’m OK”), or her new podcast (more on that later), still don’t get how hard it is to be Meghan Markle, unappreciated duchess in exile, transcendent representation of rare greatness.
Why won’t we all just adore her?
Gwyneth Paltrow, consider yourself dethroned. We have a new Queen of All Things Insufferable.
“One of the first things my husband saw when we walked around the house was those two palm trees,” she says, touring her grounds with our ink-stained wretch. “See how they’re connected at the bottom? He goes, ‘My love, it’s us.’ And now every day when Archie goes by [the trees], he says, ‘Hi Momma. Hi, Papa.’ ”
Archie is three.
A note about that podcast: A lot of people listened to it, I know. I also firmly believe those ratings are the audio equivalent of rubbernecking. If the first episode — ostensibly an interview with Serena Williams — is reflective of the rest, this is really a podcast about Meghan Markle.
She leads with her oft-reported origin story [🤣] of Feminist Meghan, standing up to corporate America as an 11-year-old (a story Tom Bower surgically took apart as false), then asks us to marvel at her longtime friendship with Williams and endure another tall tale in which the royals and their staff do not care that baby Archie almost burned to death in South Africa.
The conversation is everything one would expect, Meghan going on about her “lived experience” — is there any other kind? — her “dear, dear friend Serena,” and the “labels, boxes and archetypes” that women still suffer. “Women” being proxy for Meghan, “archetypes” such as: Spoiled brat. Ungrateful. Delusional. Hypocrite.
Now, I will also admit that I didn’t think Markle could surpass the moment when, as a working royal, she spontaneously wrote inspirational messages — “you are strong,” “you are loved” — for sex workers. On bananas.
But here, we see a totally spontaneous and sugary everyday school pick-up — “She scoops [Archie] [child actor] up in a big hug so full of genuine emotion that both close their eyes” — turn into a teachable moment about the homeless.
“At a stoplight, [Meghan] reaches into the trunk and produces a brand-new black backpack and hands it to her security detail to give to an unhoused man on the corner.” [Because she's so concerned about her "security" she couldn't keep the bag inside her vehicle or ask her security to keep the bags inside their vehicle. Nope MM had to (roll down her window) jump up out of the vehicle to be seen. Poor homeless person was probably a paid plant.]
Yes, young American royal-non-royal Archie: If you want to give some food to a starving homeless person — peanut-butter crackers and granola bars, no whole meals or cash or the like — have the help do it. No need to get near poverty and filth yourself.
And then back we go to the Montecito manse, where Meghan has another ready anecdote about the grand piano Tyler Perry gave her as a housewarming gift, instructing her to “write the soundtrack for your life,” she says. So relatable. [Of course she must learn to play piano better than Kate😉.]
Meghan winds down by returning to her other favorite subject, forgiveness. Even though she won’t forgive her father, whose main crime has been talking to the media, she wants the royal family to know that someday, maybe, she might forgive them. She, of course, has nothing to be forgiven for. Why would one even ask?
“I think forgiveness is really important,” Meghan says, adding that she has “a lot to say until I don’t. Sometimes, as they say, the silent part is still part of the song.”
Meghan Markle, two very weary nations beg you: Please. Be that silent part.
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