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#i made the blog just to post and track my progress

friendlybowlofsoup · 8 months

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Another Update

Hello Friends,

I have a rather long (but optimistic!) update to share with you all today. As many of you are probably tired of reading these kind of posts, I have a TL;DR here, but I did want to share what has been on my mind in that past half-year that I haven't been here.

It has been rough, and busy as always, but I think I'm finally facing myself and my project for the first time in a very long time.

TL;DR (it's actually long, I have a lot to say (*_ _)人)

I soul-searched and decided to stop compromising on my own feelings with regards to this project. I gave in to everything I wanted to do.

Plot changes, which means some character changes, which means some of the demo is outdated.

GotRM will be switching over to Twine.

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OH MAN DID I SUFFER THE LAST FEW MONTHS

After my previous update, I hunkered down and really analyzed how I wanted to proceed with GotRM as a project. Because even prior to that post, I had already been going through long periods of hiatuses (which you are all aware of), and while I didn't lie about school taking up my time, I was also harboring a growing dissatisfaction with my own writing that really killed my progress for a long time.

So after everything had settled, I sat down and forced myself to peel apart my work. I know I said I would answer asks, but I uninstalled all of my social media and put aside this blog to focus. I made a note of all the things I liked and didn't like, and I made a list of things I wanted to change or improve on. The biggest point was that I also looked at my efficiency during actual writing sessions: how much of my time was spent writing vs. fighting with code? How could I change that?

And after a lot of deliberation, I figured there were a few things I had to change from the ground up, summed up in four points:

My working style was super incompatible with grad school. I can't spend 20-30 minutes scrolling up and down CSIDE checking code or looking for narratives while also jumping between chapters to make sure events line up. As this story grows, the more difficult it becomes to keep track of all the branches, so I needed an alternative working method, which I am adhering to now, and it prioritizes efficiency.

I hated the way I was tracking and coding stats in-game. I have griped so much about coding stats, and I have adhered to such a rigid style that I really felt trapped whenever I was confronted with balancing them out. So I'm throwing that to the wind and redoing how I utilize and convey them. Player-side, this decision doesn't change much since I never fully utilized stats in the demo anyway, and the stats page with indicators will still exist, but I'm getting rid of stat bars and how I treat stat checks.

The story I want to write now is different from the one I started out with. I've known for a while that GotRM was becoming far more than the tiny, wishful novella that I wrote as a teenager. I held onto that old story for a long time, but there's just so much I want to change that I realized I'd been clinging to a story I no longer enjoyed writing. So I spent the majority of the last few months rewriting GotRM from scratch. I redid some worldbuilding, I changed a lot of plot points, and I fixed a lot of characters' backstories accordingly. This meant scrapping stuff from even the demo, but that turned out to not be the biggest issue because:

I wanted to branch away from ChoiceScript. Honestly, I never really cared about getting officially published, but the camaraderie in the forums and on Tumblr were why I committed to CS and CoG. However, ultimately, I really want the functionality that other tools can offer GotRM, and so after a long internal debate, I will be switching over to Twine. Fortunately, since I was rewriting everything anyways, this has been relatively painless, and passage mapping has made everything so much neater. I am trying my best to make it up to chapter 2 before I release the new demo, so please look forwards to that!

And so yes, I am still here, chugging along.

I love this game and this story: it's been my creative escape for as long as I could remember, and you can imagine how frustrated I was when I realized I was starting to dread working on it.

I am forever learning more about myself and my writing style, and this is simply more of that journey. Thank you everyone for sticking around, for joining the discord, and for checking up on me--that I have all of you has truly been a dream.

Hopefully more updates to come soon! I understand that there may be questions about these new changes, so please ask away! I will (try) to release some asks that I've been working on in the drafts too, but I will wait until at least tomorrow to release them so that this post doesn't get drowned out immediately.

And as always, with a lot of love,

FriendlyBowlofSoup (Mei)

#writing update

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sulsulkiwi · 23 days

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Hello! I'm Kiwi!

I'm 31 and actually not technically new to simblr, although this is the first time I've made a separate sim blog. I wanted a place to post my gameplay so I could keep track of progress and reblog people's posts in one place.

Just as a heads up, I'll be following from my main blog but reblogging things to this blog.

I also run @publicvanillabuilds ! Nice to meet you all!

#ts4 #ts4 simblr #new simblr #new sims blog #new sideblog

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tootditoot · 12 days

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Warmest of Greetings!

Welcome to this blog that I made into my little art dump! This blog was first meant to be an archive of sorts so I can track the progress of my art from a year ago when I just started learning how to draw (and to reblog others' art too since there's so many cool artists on here). In any case, I just wanna say thank you for checking it out, it really means a lot to me!

(Below the cut is a showcase of the contents this blog has)

I am mainly a traditional artist, but I dabble into digital art from time to time when I feel more devious than usual (mainly just for coloring tho).

My art are mostly all just sketches, sketches such as cats!

The fandoms/communities you may see me vibe in or post about are: - Reverse 1999 - Fear and Hunger - Disco Elysium - Minecraft - Genshin Impact - Arknights - SCP - OSU! (OSU is the only reason why I bought a tablet pen in the first place btw, never thought I'd be using it for digital art way back then lmao)

We've also got ocs! From left to right: -Madame Lefleu -Terasia -Salome Barko And the most recent OC I concocted being Rosemienta

(and an rb blog! @fallecer-et-quetzal)

(I'd provide a reference sheet if it wasn't for the fact that I am EXTREMELY inconsistent when drawing my ocs lmao)

I also have sillier ocs such as the scolly (and their mom), the sacabampasbis, and the trumlip

That's about it :))

Thanks once more! Feel free to send the most random of asks to me!

Be appropriate tho

#subject to be updated #blog intro #my art #I made a proper introductory post ayo??#this was long overdue

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ros3ybabe · 8 months

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Language Learning Goals 🎀

because I’m just starting out trying to re learn and familiarize myself with the Japanese language again, it was hard for me to think of current goals I might want to achieve, and what time frame I’d want to achieve them in. I think I will begin posting a monthly goals list because as I learn more of the language, my goals are definitely going to change. Right now I have my long term goals for Japanese and then some short term daily/monthly goals!

🌸 Long Term Japanese Goals -

conversational fluency - I want to be able to have comprehensible conversations with native Japanese speakers, and be able to understand what they say and also be able to speak the language myself

understand Japanese media - I want to be able to listen to music and watch Japanese YouTubers and Anime without subtitles

understand spoken/written Japanese - again, I want to be able to know what other people are saying in this beautiful language and also be able to read it to some extent.

My main goals long term are to travel to different parts of Japan in the coming future so being able to speak, understand, and read japanese are my biggest concerns but I’d also like to have that knowledge of writing the characters and knowing proper stroke order too, just for fun and education!

🌸 Daily Japanese Learning Goals -

Use one type of media as a passive learning tool (music, tv shows, YouTube, anime)

Study Flashcards 2-3 times (currently using my hiragana Flashcards I made on Anki)

Minimum of 2 Duolingo lessons

Practice writing the characters in an app (again, currently re learning hiragana)

1 other app lesson used as a supplemental learning tool (renshuu, Bunpo, LingoDeer, drops, etc)

My daily goals are a bit broad as this is typically what I want to do on a day to day basis for about a month of two, and then I will incorporate using textbooks, workbooks, notebooks, and really dive into the self studying and learning more structurally.

🌸 Monthly Japanese Goals (September) -

Memorize hiragana characters

Begin learning basic vocabulary (~30 vocabulary words by end of month)

Begin studying katakana characters (make Flashcards, use apps, etc)

Practicing speaking and pronunciation skills (shadow speak: use YouTube and some tv shows)

Practice realistic listening skills (YouTube videos, tv shows, anime)

Purchase Genki I and Genki II workbook and textbook + Answer Key and chart bundle

Kept a minimum of a 7 - 10 day streak on Duolingo

Joined Japanese club at my university

These are my current goals for the month of September! As the weeks continue, i will assess my progress and build new monthly goals depending on my current progress levels. I’m really excited to be doing this and sharing this journey with everyone. The biggest thing about why I made this blog the way I did was to keep myself accountable for my goals and that is exactly what I plan on doing; reaching my goals!

I so deeply appreciate the encouragement and support you all show me on a consistent basis! It means so much to have this community to keep me accountable and just help keep me on track with my goals but also remind me to be kind to myself! You guys are absolutely amazing <3

Im gonna post a combined daily update for today and yesterday later tonight!

Til next time, lovelies 🩷🤍

***also, wanted to mention, none of the pictures I use are my own!!! I get them from Pinterest but I use them in my posts to keep me motivated to make my space and aesthetic in real life as similar as possible!

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memoriesndew · 1 month

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March Dump 🩰💭

It's the end of chapter 3 of 12 and we're moving into chapter 4, Last month wasn’t the best, and I could have definitely done better, — but I feel really fulfilled that I was able to do much better than last month I just pray to continue to grow. I still achieved a few things last month.

☆ last month’s small wins

● I hit an average of 6,880 steps. { This is a big deal for me}

● I completed the March quest on Duolingo

● I worked out for a good part of the month

● I drank enough water like actually much more water

● I feel motivated to do better

● did my skincare (mainly day this time but I also did it at night often)

● I made more sales - super grateful

● updated my notion consistently - I love tracking my progress it helps a whole lot

● I uploaded 4 notion templates - some free - some premium

● uploaded more blog posts

● I studied often

✿ and I went for Easter camp out it was amazing

☆ last month's self-care

● I finished watching The Office and I started Parks and recreation

● I got back on my miraculous and kpop grind - kinda

● listened to music - more gospel - feeling good

● spent time with friends - love my pookies

● read some fanfics

● read my Bible more often

☆ what I’m looking forward to this month

● my new goals for the next 3 months

● studying more

● being productive

● achieving my goals

● getting on my language study and kpop grind

● bringing more notion templates to life

I hope your month was awesome and I pray the next month will be so much better for you

bye for now my dew drops...

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thelastofharrington · 1 year

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the hard with the soft

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

A/N: hello! this is my first joel fic that i've ever written! i'm really excited about it and made this whole blog just to post it lol. there is plenty of smut in this so mdni! let me know what you think :)

summary: Falling in love with Joel Miller was something that happened to you little by little, and then all at once. To say the chemistry was immediate would be a complete lie. At first, you couldn’t even tell if he wanted you around, let alone wanted you in his bed. No, when he rescued you that day from one of Bill’s well-laid traps, you were certain he would never see you as anything other than a nuisance. A pest he had to take care of.

Oh how wrong you were.

tags: praise, porn with context, slow burn, mutual pining, joel is soft on the inside, reader is down bad fr, non-canonical, rip bill and frank, takes place a year/two years after the show starts, love in the midst of an apocalypse is beautiful y'all

word count: 7k

i hope you enjoy!!!

Part 1: The Stumble, 1 Year Ago

You were hungry. Starving, even. You had been left behind from your group of outcasts three days ago (or had it been four? You were too exhausted to keep track of the time) when you twisted your ankle and couldn’t keep up the pace. You weren’t overly friendly with your most recent pack of ragtag survivors, mostly seeing them and each other as a mere means of survival rather than company. You hadn’t known friendliness or love from your packs since your parents got bit five years ago. Your parents couldn’t have known that three years after they brought you into the world it would fall apart, nor did they know they would both die protecting you from that same world they blindly brought you into. It’s been hard, but you’ve made it through and it actually was your birthday this week, the big 24. What a way to celebrate – being abandoned by the only thing keeping you safe and becoming walking bait for any clickers nearby. But still, you had fairly good spirits all things considered. Until you fell into an eight foot hole.

It was in this hole that you realized a couple of things:

You’ve stumbled upon a domesticated piece of land. Someone somewhere near had the time, safety, and resources to dig an eight foot hole.

If your ankle wasn’t sprained before, it was definitely sprained now considering how you landed on it.

You might have just fallen into your grave.

It was a series of progressively worse realizations, to say the least.

Time had already felt like a concept out of your grasp for the last 20 years, but now there was truly no way of knowing if you had been down there 20 minutes or two hours when a shadow was cast on you. A man-shaped shadow. A man-shaped shadow with a gun.

The gun was pointed right at you, the sun casting a halo around this giant man’s head. He towered over you as he held his stance firm and still. No one said anything as you both stood, unwavering.

“I come in peace?” You finally choke out, unsure of what you could possibly say to save your own life right now.

He doesn’t move, just croaks “How’d you find this place?” You notice the fragments of a Southern accent, nearly lost to the wear and tear of an apocalypse.

You clear your throat and try to muster up the courage to speak with conviction. “My group abandoned me when I twisted my ankle early this week. I’ve just been aimlessly wandering.” You pause, unsure of if the next sentence will be your last, “This ankle of mine really hurts by the way. Your hole here isn’t really helping, considering I landed on it.”

You see him move his head out from behind the gun and look down at you slightly, then he moves back to position. “Are you armed?”

“No, I’m barely legged.”

He does not laugh.

“That’s something we call a joke, you know, since I can barely walk and all.”

His weight shifts again and he finally puts down the gun. “I’m going to help you out, but after that you better see yourself out of here. I don’t want any more of this and I don’t want any of your friends wandering this way either.”

“I don’t have any friends. I don’t have any family. I’m just me.”

He scoffs, “Sure, kid.”

“I’m also not a kid. I’m 24 years old and I’m hungry and my ankle hurts and why do you even have this hole anyway?!” You notice yourself turning hysterical but you don’t even care. You’re unarmed and you’re hungry and you’re all alone for the first time in a very, very long time. This man holds all of the power to help you and you’re not going to give up until he does.

He doesn’t respond immediately, but when he does it’s in the form of him reaching down into his utility belt and pulling out a rope, and throwing you the other end. “You get one meal.”

You didn’t even know a meal was on the table, so you hobbled your way behind him as fast as you could. You ended up at a white, well-kept house behind an industrial strength gate. “How the hell did you find this place?”

He doesn’t answer right away, making you worried that you said the wrong thing somehow. Finally, when you’ve reached the front door, he huffs “It belonged to a friend.”

================================================

Part 2: The Fall, 6 Months Ago

That one meal turned into two days which turned into a week which turned a month which turned into six. You owe most of your thanks to Joel’s 14-year-old companion (contraband?), Ellie. She was instrumental in convincing Joel to allow for you to stay. If it weren’t for her, the first dinner would have easily been your last. But she was so taken with you and excited to have another girl let alone someone under 30 hanging out with them. Not that she didn’t adore Joel, or him her in his own little ways. But you were just such a breath of fresh air to her that Joel couldn’t help but allow for you to stay.

Your role in their little group wasn’t quite clear. Joel did all of the hunting and patrolling necessary to keep this little slice of paradise exactly that, paradise. Ellie’s only job was to stay safe, and you decided to pick up the slack wherever you could. Dishes, clothing repairs, cooking dinner. Ellie didn’t need a nanny by any means, but you basically became a live-in housewife. With none of the perks, despite your daydreaming.

The last six months had been tumultuous for you to say the least. The presence of Joel constantly by your side made a lot of things very difficult. Like focusing, or keeping the weakness out of your knees, or the heat out of your dreams. He was hot, there was no denying it. If he hadn’t been waving a gun in your face the moment you met, it probably wouldn’t have taken you until the end of your first dinner to realize this. But not only was he hot, he was stoic. He was still and firm, a guiding light in this uncertain world you and Ellie both came of age in. He had a cold exterior, but judging by the way he treated Ellie, and eventually you, you knew there was some warmth bubbling beneath the surface. You knew he carried immeasurable hurt on his back, Ellie had told you about his daughter, Tess, Bill and Frank, and that was only the things Ellie knew. Who knew what was in the even further past of this sturdy man. The big, beautiful, brooding man who took care of you and Ellie despite his best instincts.

You had only very recently gotten over your sprained ankle, taking a full 12 weeks to heal from the severe sprain. This was another saving grace for you in the beginning. Joel liked to pretend that he was heartless, but he still didn’t have the heart to send you on your merry way with only ¼ of your appendages working to their full capacity. He tried to kick you out after your first dinner despite Ellie’s whining, only to be able to only stomach three of your hobbling paces out the door.

“Oh for God’s sake get back in here why don’t ‘ya,” You remember him sighing.

He took such good care of your ankle, at night when you’re all alone you can still feel the way his calloused fingertips massing you so gently. The hard with the soft; the essence of Joel Miller.

“Does this hurt?” He asked four weeks in, as you sat for your nightly ankle exam. Starting your very first night, after dinner he would take your foot into his lap and exam it and massage it carefully for upwards of 15 minutes. You weren’t a doctor, but you knew enough to know that a nightly exam was excessive and unnecessary. But even at the very beginning you knew this was his way of showing you that he cared, that he wanted you safe. It was around this time that you realized that Joel had a soft spot for stragglers, for the outcasts who just needed somebody. Between you and Ellie, that much was clear, and it just made you fall faster for him than you thought possible.

This realization and the true weight of it didn’t come to a head until one day where you decided to go out and try and collect some berries from the woods on the other side of the gate for a pie you wanted to make Joel for his birthday. You had seen him do it a million times, you thought you could get away with it. Until you heard that sound.

Everything was fine, you had collected your blueberries and you were on your way, and then you heard it. You hear it before you see it, but soon enough you see it all the same. You had your gun with you, but your reaction time was nowhere near as fast as Joel’s was. The clicker starts stalking your way when you lose yourself to your impulses and just start running. You know better than to scream, but you get close. You run and you run and you’re looking back to make sure you’re not going to get caught when you smack into something six foot and massive. Joel’s chest. After you make eye contact you look up and make eye contact with him. He’s silently fuming, fists white knuckling around his gun.

You go to speak when he stops you, “Don’t.” He whispers right before he shoots the clicker dead with no hesitation or struggle. The walk back to the house is silent, and not because he’s afraid of being found by the clickers.

The slam of the front door is the first sound you’ve heard in minutes. He whips around and you swear you can see smoke coming out of his ears. “What the hell was that?!”

“I-” You start.

“You know what? I don’t want to know. I can’t hear from you right now.”

You say nothing.

“That was so completely careless! Do you not understand how we do things around here? You stay, I go. It’s as simple as that.” He’s pacing at this point, waving his hands wildly as he works through his anger with you. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

You pause, “I thought you didn’t want to hear from me.”

He stops pacing and looks at you, “Ha ha ha very funny. You’re a real smartass, you know that? If I hadn’t been there God knows what would have happened. You could have gotten killed!”

You look down at your feet, trying to hold back tears before you look back up. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to do something nice for you.”

He sighs, physically decompressing. “Well you went about it all the wrong way. I don’t need anything nice from you, you do enough around the house and with Ellie anyway,” He pauses, “I don’t know what I would have done with myself if you had gotten hurt.” He says this last part in a whisper under his breath, barely able to look at you.

“But it’s your birthday!” You choke out a sob. You’re so mad at yourself for putting yourself in danger and upsetting the man who saved your life six months ago.

“What? No it’s not.” He says, confused.

Then, a lightbulb goes off for both of you as your jaws drop and you yell in unison, “ELLIE!”

Turns out, Ellie just wanted some pie.

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Part 3: The Catch, Present Day

A lot can change in six months. But also, a lot can stay the same. You’ve grown very accustomed to the life you live here, in this big beautiful house, with your small makeshift family. Ellie is 17 now and makes Joel take her on test drives in Bill’s old truck around town. Joel has definitely gotten used to having you around, and even converted Frank’s old studio into a bedroom for you a couple of months ago. A real upgrade from living on the couch for the first eight months.

Life is pretty standard, all things considered. You’ve heard more stories about the men who ran the house before you and you think they’d be happy to have people like you living a life like this in the home they built together. It’s a beautiful thing, to have some normalcy in a world fallen apart.

You spend a lot of time with Ellie, who has developed a crush on one of the QZ traders. She’s tall and lean and tougher than all hell, you can see what Ellie sees in her even if you’re personally afraid of her. This realization on Ellie’s part has prompted a lot of impromptu sleepovers in your art studio turned bedroom, almost all of which are ended by Joel standing in the doorway going on about keeping quiet out of respect for your elders. You have to remind him every time that you too are an elder.

It’s also the summer time which means there’s lots to do outside. You never really learned how to tend to a garden so Joel’s been teaching you how to take care of the one Frank started all those years ago. You two keep it up with the seeds you get from trading with those select few still at the QZ, and it’s been a really special time between the two of you. It also doesn’t hurt that he prefers to work in the garden shirtless.

“Hello? Hello? Are you even listening to a word I’m saying?”

You snap out of the trance you were in from watching him hoe or row or whatever it is he’s doing with that gardening tool that makes his arms and back look like that. “What? Sorry, I zoned out.”

“You’re never going to learn if you keep daydreamin’ like that.” He gruffs before starting his spiel on strawberries all over again.

You really can’t get a read on him. Sometimes he treats you as an equal, someone who has a shared interest in their work and in the safety of Ellie, but other times he treats you like you’re a toddler that can’t help but knock their head on the corner of a coffee table. He claims it’s because he doesn’t want you hurt, which you admit gives you butterflies, but if anything between you is ever going to transpire (like you desperately need it to), he can’t see you as just some kid. You’re turning 25 next week, dammit. You deserve some respect. But you’re just not sure how to get it, how to make him see you as a true equal. Someone he can rely on, put his faith into, and even care about on a deeper level.

The opportunity of a lifetime presents itself one day in the form of something actually rather unfortunate. Joel finally gets hurt.

It’s a pretty normal day until then. You and Ellie practice driving, you journal, listen to some old records. It’s too hot to spend too much time outside, but you definitely make sure to check on the strawberries considering the lecture you got from Joel last week. It’s midafternoon when he comes straggling in, clutching his left arm in his hand and seething through the pain.

You immediately jump up from the couch, “Oh my God, what happened?”

He sinks down on the chair next to the piano, not looking at you. “Nothing, just go get the first aid kit.”

That answer is nowhere near good enough, but you go and get it anyway. Ellie is out in the backyard and doesn’t hear the commotion. When you return with the first aid kit you press on, “You have to tell me what happened so I can know how to treat you.”

He shifts uncomfortably in his seat as you kneel in front of him, opening the kit. “It’s nothing, just gonna need a couple stitches.”

You pry his right hand off his arm and see a deep gash on the bottom of his forearm. It’s not too long, but it sure is deep. “Jesus Joel, what the hell happened?”

He shifts and sighs once more, whispering something under his breath that you can barely hear.

“What was that?” You ask earnestly.

He whispers again, slightly louder this time, but he’s talking too fast to make out what he said.

“Joel, come on. What happened?” You’re tending to his wound now anyway, but you really do need to know.

He sighs, bringing his free hand up to pinch between his eyes. Avoiding eye contact with you he finally says, “I was walking back from trading when I saw a flower. I wanted to get that flower for you for your birthday. With my shears in one hand, I leaned down to get it, and I lost my balance and I tripped and I fell on top of the shears and they stabbed me.” He pauses, “There, you happy? Now that I’ve humiliated myself…” He trails off.

You’re too stunned to speak. You just keep staring at him, unmoving.

“If you’re not going to fix this up, give me the kit so I can do it myself,” He huffs at you.

You swallow and smile at him, trying to find the words. “Joel Miller, you secret softie. You maimed yourself in the pursuit of trying to do something nice for me, the girl you claim not to want around.”

He locks eyes with you for the first time during this conversation, “I never claimed that.”

Silence hangs in the air for a moment until you clear your throat and turn your attention to the wound at hand (or should you say, at arm?). “Let’s get this stitched up, ok?”

“If Ellie asks, tell her I did something super manly and tough to get these stitches, ok?”

You let out a laugh and nod, “Sir, yes sir.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s been three days since Joel hurt himself trying to do something nice for you and it has not left your mind even for a moment. You’re laying in bed wide awake, tossing and turning wondering what this could mean. I never claimed that he said so earnestly to you. I never claimed that. The four words echo in your brain like a megaphone. It’s been torture being around him as if nothing has changed. As if you haven’t changed on a molecular level after those four words rearranged every fiber of your being. It may be nothing, but it also could be something. It could be the that takes what you’ve been craving for almost a year to leave your daydreams and become a reality. Maybe he meant it in a friendly way, maybe even in reference to your working relationship of raising Ellie and keeping her safe. But if that were the case, why did it feel like all of the air in the room stood still? Why did he look to you like he was a puzzle that only you could solve?

Cordiality be damned, you had to know the answer.

You sneak out of bed and up the stairs, careful not to wake Ellie in her room on the first floor. Joel may be modest, but he still took the primary bedroom upstairs when they moved in. You avoid the creaking steps up the stairs artfully and end up at his door. It is only at this point you realize how crazy this is. You’re standing outside his door in the middle of the night with no plan and, frankly, no pants on. This is a recipe for disaster that you’ve quickly talked yourself out of. You go to turn around when the door swings open, Joel looking alert. His body visibly relaxes when he sees that it’s just you, and then tenses once more as his eyes trail down our body to the long length of your bare legs.

“What are you-” “Sorry I was just-” You say at the same time.

You laugh, trying to break the tension. “Sorry, I was just leaving.”

“What are you doing up here, Y/N?” His body was pressed up against the side of the doorway, blocking it almost entirely with his broad stature. Shoulders resting on the side of the doorway, arms and feet crossed, he looked in no hurry to get you out of there.

“It doesn’t really matter, I answered my own question. I’ll just head back downstairs,” You go to walk away when he grabs your arm lightly, turning you back to face him.

“Must’ve been some curiosity if it’s keeping you up at night.” You’ve never heard him talk like this. Not just the words he was saying but how he was saying them, they were smooth and slow and rich like molasses. It instantly made your mouth dry up and your knees weaker.

“I um, I was just wondering-”

“Yes?” He prompted, his hand still on your arm. Had he ever touched you before this? Surely you would have remembered the heat.

You look him in the eyes and see a glint, even in the darkness. This spark of something gives you the courage to move along. “I was just wondering what you meant by saying you never claimed you didn’t want me around.”

His hand drops from your arm and the heat is replaced by an instant rush of cold in his absence. He looks away from you and doesn’t speak.

Fearing you said the wrong thing you cower and turn to walk away once more. How could you have been so stupid? This isn’t just a matter of personal politics, this is a matter of survival. You have no one besides Joel and Ellie and if you get kicked out for bringing feelings into what is a basic need for shelter, food, and water, you will never forgive yourself.

You’re almost to the stairs when you hear him rumble, “I just meant that I have always wanted you around.” You whip around and see him looking at you, his gaze trailing down your body and then all the way back up again. “I want you here. Always have.”

Not moving towards him you speak, “Then why do you act like I’m some sort of helpless child? Why do I not have any real responsibilities? I could be out there, with you, trading and gathering intel. But instead I get, what, strawberries?”

“You don’t get it.” He looks down and shakes his head.

You walk back over to him, softly, so as not to spook him again. “Then help me understand.”

He looks at you with a softer gaze this time, “I keep you here, away from all of that, because I can’t risk you getting hurt,” He pauses for a moment before continuing, “It would kill me.”

You’re stunned. “Joel,” You start before he lifts a hand and cuts you off.

“And I give you things like strawberries because I want you to have a chance at a good life, a simple life. One I can’t promise you forever but can promise you for right now. One I know you don’t even remember having.”

Your heart is beating immeasurably fast inside your chest. You never considered that these menial tasks were actually normal, and good. Cleaning up after dinner, growing strawberries, talking about crushes with Ellie. In the midst of wanting to prove yourself, you completely forgot to take stock of all that Joel had given you already. All the things people dream about in this day and age.

You reach a hand up to touch his face, “Thank you. Thank you for giving me something good,” You pause, “I wish I could give you something good in return.”

He leans his head into your hand and closes his eyes, letting out a contented sigh. He turns his head to kiss the palm of your hand, “You are my something good,” he says so low you almost miss it.

But you don’t miss it. You hear it loud and clear. You hear him loud and clear for probably the first time since you’ve met him. He is stoic and strong and brooding and brave, but he is also caring and thoughtful and safe. He is the hard with the soft, and he’s been giving you both all this time right under your nose.

You decide to do something risky. You lean in for a kiss. You put your hopes for survival at the back of your mind and for the first time in forever you prioritize living.

It doesn’t take more than two seconds for Joel to pick up on what you’re doing and reciprocate. His arms immediately move from crossed over his chest to around your waist, pulling you deeper into the kiss. He pulls you so deep you cross the threshold of his bedroom, kicking the door shut on your way in.

“Be quiet or you’ll wake Ellie!” You half scold, half giggle as you make your way towards the bed.

“Sorry!” He giggles back. Joel Miller. The Joel Miller giggled into your lips. You could hardly believe your ears.

If his words were like molasses, his kiss was just as sweet. Not too pushy, but with enough force to let you know that he was in charge. He guides you to the mattress with his body and his mouth, making you feel like you’re flying. You’re sprawled out with your legs over the edge of the bed when he finally pulls away and stands before you.

You look up at him with hooded eyes and heavy breaths, “Why’d you stop?”

He runs his hands through his hair, “I just never want to forget this.” And he dives back down to you, not giving you a moment to respond.

When he comes back his kiss is still sweet, but with a heat you’ve never experienced before. Granted, all of your past experiences were minimal, probably in the back of an abandoned, decaying car, and in the midst of an apocalypse, but you knew enough to know that it didn’t normally feel like this.

You part your legs so he can insert his body between them, propping his arms on either side of your head as he kisses you deeply. You wrap your legs around his waist and pull him closer to you, needing as much of him on you as possible.

“Somebody’s eager, huh?” He asks you between kisses.

Your resolve is officially broken, you’re laying it all out on the table. “You just have no idea how long I’ve wanted this.”

He pulls back to look at you, “Oh, I think I have an idea. You tend to have a staring problem, darlin’”

Your face flushes instantly. He lowers his lips to your ears and whispers, “I do too, I’m just a little more subtle with it.” He places kisses on your neck and then trails back up to your ear, “Your body drives me crazy, baby.”

Suddenly his hands are everywhere. One is up by your head so he keeps his balance while the other is trailing up and down your chest, your stomach, your neck. He’s everywhere all at once and it still isn’t enough. Your legs are still wrapped around his waist so you buck up to create even more friction than there already was.

“Easy there, baby, I’ve been waiting an awful long time for this, I want to take it slow with you. Gotta treat you right.” He pins your waist down to the mattress with one hand. “Let me take care of you, baby.” His look is so sincere all you can do is nod. “Good girl.”

With that, he takes his hand pinning you down and runs the tips of his fingertips along the waistline of your underwear, teasing you. You whine.

“Patience baby,” A kiss on the cheek, “It will be worth it, I promise,” A kiss on the other cheek. Then his fingers are tugging them down inch by inch until you’re completely bare to him from the waist down. “So pretty,” He says, almost to himself.

Before you have time to acknowledge what he’s said, the same gentle fingertips that were teasing you a moment ago land on your most sensitive spot, creating a feeling of pleasure unlike anything you’ve ever known. Your body somehow tenses and melts into the mattress at once as he works you slowly but surely.

“How does that feel, baby?” His voice is rough around the edges but soft at its center, he genuinely wants to gauge your reaction, as if your whines and body language weren’t enough.

“Itfeelssogood” You slur out, hands gripping the sheets on either side of you.

He kisses your neck, “Good. Now,” He moves his finger to your center and thrusts it in, moving his thumb back to your clit. “How does that feel?”

He’s working you up so good, you feel like you’re floating. His pace is the perfect mix between rough and conscious, never taking his eyes off you for even a second. You can tell he’s loving this as much as you are, and not just because you can feel his erection through his boxers.

You moan as he works you before answering, “Joel it feels so good.”

“Such a good girl for me, so wet and ready. Is this what you were thinking about when you couldn’t sleep?” He whispers in your ear as he picks up the pace.

You can feel something building deep inside of you, something you haven’t felt in a long time, and never at this magnitude. It’s coming on strong and fast, you can almost reach it. “Yes, this is what I was thinking about. I was thinking about your hands on me.”

“Mmmm that’s what I like to hear baby, what else were you thinking about?” He grabs one of your hands and brings it to his boxers, “Were you thinking about this?”

You moan and nod your head, he’s continuing to pick up his pace and you’re getting closer and closer.

“I want you to cum for me, gorgeous. Please cum for me.”

You throw your head back and moan again, “I want to cum for you.”

“Just focus on how good it feels baby, you’re so close I can feel it. Be a good girl for me.”

And just like magic, you’re there. It hits you like a freight train and your whole body is consumed. You’re tensing and writhing and it definitely isn’t normally like this, but you’re just so overcome with emotions for this man and pleasure and all of the things that drive a girl crazy.

He coaxes you through it with lots of reassurances and hair pets, and then finally you’ve come down. “Thank you,” You say as he brushes some hair out of your face.

“Don’t thank me yet darlin’, I’m not done with you yet.” And with that, he hauls your body up to the head of the bed, making sure your head is all settled on the pillows. He sits back on his knees and takes off his shirt, nodding at you to do the same. You’re left completely bare and he in his boxers alone. You’re mesmerized by his body. Age normally should have broken him down, but for him he seems to have only been built up. You had seen him in the garden but this, this was something entirely different. He was raw here, with you.

“This is what I meant by you needing to be more subtle. You don’t need to undress me with your eyes, baby, you just gotta ask.” He stands up and drops his boxers, revealing himself to you fully for the first time. He’s big. Like, real big. And thick. You don’t let yourself dwell on the mechanics for more than a moment, but you do wonder how it’s going to fit.

He gets back in bed and hovers over you once more, “Are you sure about this? We can stop at any time.”

You nod your head, “I’m sure. Never been more sure about anything, actually.”

He gives you one more kiss, a firm one with the promise of a good time. You run your fingers through his hair and tug slightly. He moans into your mouth. “You sure are an eager one, aren’tcha?”

He grabs his member and lines it up with your center, teasing you slightly. You wince at the sensitivity from your previous orgasm. “You ok?” He asks gently.

“Yeah, just a little sensitive. But I’m ready. Please fuck me, Joel.” The words even surprise yourself as you say them. You’re not the best at being direct about what you want, but right now all you can do is rely on pure instinct.

He chuckles darkly before lining himself up once again, “Your wish is my command, sweetheart.”

And just like that, he’s fucking you. Long, hard strokes that never feel like too much too fast. Just right. You feel the fullness of him immediately and it’s so divine you can’t help but arch into him and moan. Your fingers fly back into his hair as he thrusts into you with such precision, he hits your G-spot every time.

“Is that good for you, baby? Tell me how it feels.” He grunts as he pounds into you expertly.

“I love it, baby. I love it,” You’re breathless as you try to find the words to describe the way he’s making you feel.

He takes one of your legs and rests your ankle on his shoulder, opening you up even more than you thought possible and deepening the angle of his already deep thrusts. You try not to scream, so you grab a pillow and put it over your face.

He rips it off almost immediately, “Oh no, sweetheart. No hiding from me. I want to see your pretty face when I make you cum on my cock.”

You’re so incoherent you can’t even respond to his filthy words. You just moan in response and grab the sheets on either side of you.

He changes his pace a couple of times, switching from slow and long to fast and shallow, but it never feels out of place or off rhythm. He is just somehow so in tune with your body that he knows exactly what you need when you need it.

You’re whining and moaning when he lowers your leg and gets his face up next to yours. His hand moves down to your clit and he starts massaging it while he continues to thrust into you. “You’ve been such a good girl tonight baby,” He says through his own labored breathing. “Coming up here in your little panties practically begging to get fucked. Such a good girl.” You moan so loud he covers your mouth with his other hand, “I love hearing those moans baby but you gotta keep it quiet if you want me to keep going. And I know you want me to keep going.”

You nod and he removes his hand from your mouth and sits back again, watching you from above. “Play with your tits while I make you cum.” You do as you're told, loving the feeling of his eyes fixed on you while you do exactly what he says.

Once again, you feel something building inside of you. The combination of him inside you, his fingers working their magic, and his eyes on you makes it nearly impossible to resist the feelings as they come on strong.

“I’m gonna cum,” You whine.

“Do it baby, cum for me” He picks up his pace and you can tell he’s getting close himself, can tell he’s chasing something.

It only takes a couple more seconds before you finish in an explosion of pleasure. You’re so out of it as you come down you barely register him pulling out and grabbing a tissue from the side table. What a gentleman.

You’re both laying there in silence when the gravity of what just happened finally hits you. You just had sex with the one person that stands between you and certain death. This could ruin everything. You move to get up and go back to your room when you feel an arm on you, pulling you back down.

“Stay,” He pauses, “Please stay with me.”

You smile softly at him and lay back down, but this time he wraps you up in his arms and spoons you. You can feel his breathing on the back of your neck and his calluses on your arms as he holds you. He starts tracing little circles on your skin with his thumb while he hums.

“That was amazing,” You say, finally breaking the silence.

“Yeah, um, sorry if I came on too strong,” He pauses, “Haven’t done that in awhile.”

You turn around to face him and you rest a palm on his cheek, “It was perfect. You were perfect. I um, I just hope this doesn’t change anything?” You nervously finish.

He looks startled. He quits rubbing circles on your skin and moves back. “Yeah, no. No, it doesn't have to change anything.”

Clearly, you’ve struck a chord and you don’t know why or how. But you do know that you need to fix it.

“I just, I know we’re in a precarious situation and I don’t want you to feel like our relationship has changed at all.” You begin.

He sits up fully with his back against the headboard, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Joel?” You join him up against the headboard, covering yourself with the blanket.

He sighs but doesn’t look at you, “If I had thought everything would stay the same I wouldn’t have done what I just did. I wouldn’t have opened the door and I certainly wouldn’t have let you in.”

You’re stunned and you’re scared, having no idea what he’s talking about. “What are you saying?”

Finally, he looks at you. “Dammit Y/N what if I want things to change?” He doesn’t raise his voice at all, but his tone is stern enough to send you aback.

“What?”

Another sigh, “What if I want things to change? What if I want somebody who is going to be there for me at the end of the day in my bed? This world isn’t permanent and I can’t promise you forever but I can promise you for now. For now, I want this. For now, I want you. And I’m gonna keep wanting you until the thing that stands in the way of me and death itself disappears.” He pauses, “So yeah, maybe you don’t want things to change but I do. Sorry if that’s not what you wanted to hear.” He looks away from you again.

“Joel, I-”

“I don’t want your pity. I get it, I’m just some old man with a 17 year old basket case trailing behind me and you’re young and beautiful and just had an itch to scratch. We’ll continue with business as usual in the morning. Good night.” He flips over onto his side away from you.

You huff. This is ridiculous, you think to yourself. You tap him on the shoulder.

“You should probably go back to your room, Y/N.”

You tap him on the shoulder again.

He flips around to look at you, “What more could you possibly want from me?”

You cross your arms over your blanket covered chest, “What makes you think I wanted things to stay the same?”

“Gee, I don’t know, probably the part where you said ‘things don’t have to change’?” He says sarcastically as he sits back up to face you. “Wonder where I got that crazy idea.”

“I was just saying that in case you didn’t want anything to change! I’m totally at your mercy with everything, including my survival here, so sorry for being cautious.”

He doesn’t say anything, but his mouth does fall open in shock a little bit.

“Joel, trust me when I say I’m not taking pity on you when I say I want this too. I can’t promise you forever but I can promise you for now, and for tomorrow, and for the next day and the day after that. I choose you and I choose Ellie and I want this. I want you. I want to be the one that is there for you at the end of the day.” You smile at him and grab his hand, “You’re my good thing too.”

His face softens and he grabs your joined hands with his other one and leans over to kiss you on the cheek. You lean into it and giggle as he begins peppering a bunch of kisses all over your face. The hard with the soft, that’s Joel Miller.

“Let’s go to bed, shall we?” You ask him as he leans over you, caressing your face.

“Yeah, let’s go to bed.” He gives you one last kiss on the cheek and spoons you once more.

That night you dream of strawberries. Just fields and fields of strawberries.

#joel miller #joel miller smut #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #the last of us hbo #tlou #tlou fanfic #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller imagine #joel last of us #joel last of us smut

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magicratfingers · 4 months

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Progress report ! ૮ ºﻌºა ✨ kind of a work-in-progress diary for myself. v indulgent.

intense world of dick terrifying - goin good! got a main character, some supporting characters, figuring out the big rivalry today. Gotta figure out a format. I was thinking of basing it off of the Day at the Airport book bc it's only about 11 spreads but there's a lot going on on each one. Could leave it a comic but I also want it to be printable hmm catnips cantrips chooseyer-by-mail test - learning a lot! the world-building has been reallllllly fun - like the kind of fun where you want to go a little deeper bc you like it not bc you have to. perfect situation. Gotta resolve the mix between the DM roleplay and the actual postcards. Made and branded a whole gmail account and character to handle lost postcards - Pizza Kentucky III of the Isekai Post Office. Haven't been keeping up with the blog. But the blog is supposed to be more of a holding container than a 'thing'. One thing I did not expect to be learning was spreadsheets. Keeping track of names and addresses and choices and paths has given me a new perspective on pacing and structure. Also? Been a great excuse to finally play with UV epoxy and it's so straightforward that I'm mad it took me so long. media thats not just webcomics - dunmeshi is out!!! Laios my beloved. Still afraid to find and read Kotteri's Veil bc it will make me too feelings. Started reading books I loved as a kid (Redwall!!!) and some story craft books (found an NPR list somewhere) WRHP s2 - started to feel like work but changing up the backgrounds freed me up, feels fun again Sorcerer comic - paused while I wait for fashion inspiration to pull the ending together Emotional support paladin - paused till I feel like it. It's got such a specific delivery style that I don't wanna force to get the story out, so i gotta wait for some story aspects to firm up Bonnie & Clawd - more of a character study than a comic - fun to practice cutie pies cuddling. But... how DO birds and wolves smooch. Saw a youtube video about how ravens and wolves are friends and work together. So perfect. Valentines day thing - got some supplies coming tomorrow, gonna try out my idea. If it works maybe sell it? If it doesn't work, oh well, probably will learn something. Wanted to make perforated cards and stickers but got a little overwhelmed thinking about printing. Might just do a digital thing if an idea comes to me. Been wanting to make holographic stickers but when I sit down to think of a motif it feels stressful. Maybe I just test the Poodle Broadcasting System logo? I've always loved the aesthetic of valentines day but never felt like it's been delivered right. I certainly never felt indulged - something is always a little not-cute or too-cutesy. Think it could be really fun to have it be an annual 'surprise box'. I lost my halloween fam in the schmivorce so I could use a holiday to go crazy on. (For years I would drive out and help build a whole haunted house in a garage and it was like a week-long party with great food and movies and laughs. Sad to lose it, sadder still to know it was so easy for them to lose me. ) Dishupon - ok not as many players and responses as I'd hoped. But that wasn't really the point. Point was to invent some sanrio-y characters for fun - which i did. And I will also say that the exercise of coming up with a variety of cozy, fun, silly, spicy ways to think about dishes has made MY dishes mostly effortless. Even made a little foam clay Tiger coach and he's sitting on the window above the sink. Perhaps I will think of a game to get my car inspection done.

Overall January is great. Granted, it's the 4th. Had my ten year work anniversary (idk how old everyone thinks I am but it's Not 20) and got to 1010 followers on twitter on the same day. And the new d20 is out on the 10th so that felt real nice and square. Bit worried that all the good vibes I built up over holiday vacay will get smashed when I'm put on a new work project. But i feel like I'm about to level up a little bit art-style wise. Feelin grateful, feelin warm & cozy

#process #progress report #posts feel more real than journal entries do

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veneritia · 3 months

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when comes the dawn monthly update {1.31.2024}

we are going to pretend I didn't forget to post this yesterday First monthly update for 2024! Hooray I made it!

THE STATISTICS

the draft → 23,251 words words written this month → 12,943 words total words written this year → 12,943 words hours spent writing this month → 20 hours

My goal for this year is to try to write a minimum 30 minutes a day. There were a couple days where I just straight up forgot or really wasn't feeling it, but for the most part I've been doing pretty good at sticking to this goal.

STORY NOTES

Still writing out of order but just barely because all of my out-of-order scenes are still written pretty sequentially, just without all of the connective tissue

Tried to take a writing shortcut so I can wave away the travel scene from Kaelstanopoli to Isidore but ended up writing myself into a because of worldbuilding continuity. The solution? Introduce the antagonist a little earlier than planned

The gods of WCTD have actually made an appearance! Whether they're real or just an adrenaline induced hallucination though is still a debate.

Realized that the best way for me to not get caught up in a writer's block is to stop worrying so much about the quality of my writing. It's a first draft, it's only job right now is to tell what happens. It's the second and third draft that has to deal with making everything sound pretty

BLOG STUFF

Check out my entries for wtw's relationship week here!

I actually started tracking my weekly progress as well! If you don't already know, you can check them out with the tag #collection.cacoethes scribendi

Taglist under the cut (ask to be +/-)

@bloomingwrites @writinglyra @zmwrites @trapped-inadystopianovel @inky-duchess @aalinaaaaaa @seasteading @kaatiba @lazulis-stuff @serpentarii @sourrcandy @charlesjosephwrites @marrowwife

#wtwcommunity #writeblrgarden #writeblr #series.wctd #wctd-monthly #collection.my projects

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traumasurvivors · 8 months

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hi april! I just wanted to pop in and let you know that what you’re doing is something special: running all these resources and just communicating and offering help to other trauma survivors is just incredible really and I just hope you’re having a lovely day wherever you are. I reached out to your blog last year and have made sure to stay up to date on any posts or advice you share and it led me to realize I actually would like to pursue a career in psychology. I just started classes and while I’m excited to be here, I realize I’m having difficulty focusing and paying attention despite wanting to do the work. would you have any tips or other sources that might be helpful for me right now? I plan to remove most social media since it seems to be a big contributing factor in my lack of focus, but what else could work? thank you!

Hi anon!

I really struggled with staying focused in school as a result of my ADHD.

Some things that helped me were:

Finding study buddies. Finding people to do work with and study with was super motivating and helpful! Even if it was an online friend and we did our work at the same time so we felt together.

Making my study space welcoming and nice. I put pretty decor on it and made it feel mine. I put little treats in the top drawer so that I could have them as I studied. I put scented candles in I could light and just overall made it a nice aesthetic. Some people find gentle music helps them focus. (Not me personally, but I’ve heard from some people it really does!)

I’d also buy myself some stickers I loved and as I finished things, I’d get to “place” my sticker either on my notebook, binder or even laptop.

Found a routine. I don’t just mean a daily routine but a study routine. I’d make myself a nice warm cup of tea as I was about to settle in and it was the sort of thing that made homework seem relaxing and nice.

Keep track of my progress. I created an excel spreadsheet where I input all my assignments, readings, etc. and I’d mark the percentage I’d completed. I set it to be colour coded so that I felt motivated to make it get to 100% and go green.

Here’s an example.

This isn’t my own, but one I made for a friend when she saw my idea and really liked it. She also found it motivating. This was the end of semester so things were mostly 0% or 100% at this point. During the semester, she’d do things like mark 1% for completing a title page even because it felt super motivating and made it feel like progress. And then also increasing the progress percentage with each step/page/etc in an assignment. (Like if she wrote 4 pages of a 5 page essay, she might label it as 75% to keep in mind that she had one more page but also a final edit to do.) Seeing it climb really helped as she updated it along the way. She also really loved the “stars” I added every time it hit 100% in progress on something. A basic one might just have the assignment, due date and progress.

I found visually seeing my progress made me want to keep making it.

Set a timer. I recommend this for cleaning stuff but telling myself I’m only going to do work for ten minutes makes it easier to start and sometimes once I’m going, I end up on a roll and don’t want to stop.

Colour code notes. I loved getting to use different coloured pens or highlighters when I took notes. It made me more excited about it.

I’m super drained today, so I don’t have much else to add but I kind of want to write a post on this soon and compile more ideas. If anyone has sources they can add to this ask, please do!

#tw grade mention #grades #school #tw school

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literary-illuminati · 1 year

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Book Review 11 - The Comanche Empire by Pekka Hämäläinen

Okay, second history book of the year! I actually liked this one, so the review’s probably not going to break 2,000 words like my one of The Bright Ages did nope never mind.

Anyway, this has been on my tbr for something like a year now, having ended up there for the incredibly nerdy reason of ‘got cited in a blog post about how bad the historical accuracy of the Dorthraki in game of thrones is’, and more broadly just because I remain shamefully uniformed about North American indigenous history beyond the highlights. So, for example, this book has expanded my knowledge of the 17th-19th century southwest several times over, and my knowledge of the indigenous people’s there from, well, not quite nothing, but not too far from it either.

This is actually the second book of Hamalainen’s I’ve read -I’d previously gotten my hands on his Lakota America, which is the more recent work. I rather wish I’d taken better notes as I read it, honestly, feels like a more complete/detailed compare and contrast would be interesting.

Anyways – so the book’s got both a broader historiographical/polemical thesis and then also the specific guiding narrative for its particular subject matter. The broader thesis is essentially that indigenous peoples in the Americas were full and active agents of history, and for centuries after the Columbian Exchange many of them were quite rich and powerful and had significant freedom of action – history isn’t just something that rolls in from the east, which people were then effected by or reacted to, they weren’t just trapped in antediluvian ways of life politely waiting for Progress to arrive. It’s a point he returns to in his latter work, but it certainly one that still seems like it needs making.

His specific thesis for the book, though, is that between the early 18th and late 19th centuries, the Comanche were able to create a real nomadic empire in what became the American southwest, driving out or incorporating rival nations to essentially dominate all the best land for the intensive dual pastoral/hunting economy they developed on the southern plains, and reducing the colonial states of New Mexico and Texas (and at different times Louisiana and almost all of northern Mexico) to the status of imperial tributaries or raiding hinterlands. It was only with the collapse of the buffalo population and the resulting famine (combined with smallpox) that the US Army and the rivers of settlers from Texas and further east were able to seize the southwest and convert it into an agrarian economy.

The book’s very much published by Yale University Press, and not exactly easy reading. It is, however, really very light on jargon, or at least makes sure to introduce all its terms and be clear in their use and meanings. The lack of Comanche written records means Hamalainen mostly has to rely on colonial sources or the reports of merchants and traders, so he has made an explicit point of trying to cross reference multiple such sources from different colonizers whenever possible, and especially for all his significant claims. Besides only barely glancing at the endnotes, I honestly found it really very readable, if dry.

Politics and colonialism aside, one thing Hamalainen really does an excellent job getting across is how revolutionary the (re-)introduction of horses to the Great Plains was. He frames it in terms of access to energy – having horses allows you to being exploiting the massive amounts of calories in the grasses and inedible plant life of the prairies, increasing the total amount of energy you have to do work several times over. Especially when the southern great plains are basically the ideal environment for horses, and their population started exploding basically the second the Spaniards lost track of a breeding pair.

You don’t realize how much easier a nomadic life gets when you upgrade from dogs to horses or mules for pack animals, and how much incredibly more efficiently you can hunt buffalo when you’re not doing it on foot and don’t have to haul back everything you take by hand. Not even getting into how much it shrinks the world in terms of trade and communication, or the massive advantage in being able to dominate hunting grounds and win wars. All incredibly obvious things I just hadn’t particularly thought about.

All this is especially relevant with the Comanche, because from the late eighteenth through mid nineteenth centuries they basically made themselves the fulcrum of the horse trade on a continental scale, with herds that put basically everyone else to shame and an incredibly lucrative business raiding Texas for horses and mules and trading them along with ones they’d raised or tamed themselves north and east.

Speaking of ‘raiding’ – the ‘empire’ in the book’s title isn’t just there to grab attention. The whole book is organized around the thesis that the Comanche both essentially migrated into and conquered the southern Great Plains with a mixture of warfare, diplomacy, and incorporating other groups, and then – along with making themselves the centre of an incredibly lucrative trading network that reached across most of the continent, with Comanche becoming an increasingly common language for trade even quite far from their actual territories – reduced the sedentary and agrarian communities around them (both indigenous and colonial) to the status of an exploited imperial periphery.

This was especially the case in Texas and New Mexico, the former being used as an intensive raiding hinterland and source of livestock well into the mid nineteenth century (at several points raided until the point of near-collapse), and the latter a collection of entrepots, whose governors provided annual tribute and whose towns traded at favourable rates for Comanche goods with the variably explicit promise that failure to do so would be rectified by raiding to make up the difference of a fair exchange. By the time of the Mexican-American War, the governor of the state was more or less openly defying the central government and maintaining a stance of pro-Comanche neutrality in the conflicts between the two.

This peaked in the early-mid nineteenth century, with essentially all of northern Mexico being reduced to an extraction zone for massive annual raids, and individual states or towns negotiating without any real reference to the larger Mexican state, often providing information and scouts to help attack their neighbours in exchange for immunity.

Which actually leads into one of what seemed to me to be one of the book’s more striking claims – that Mexico’s performance in the Mexican-American war can largely be put down to the fact that northern Mexico was only nominally part of the country even before the Americans invaded. There was little appetite for fighting and dying for Mexico City as the Americans moved in because from locals perspective Mexico City had been failing them quite comprehensively for years. (The decision to invite Anglo settlers into Texas is also put down as an attempt to create a shield against Comanche raiding, and the failures of Mexican attempts to reconquer it down to the lack of logistics and organization that resulted from all the possible staging grounds being de facto hostile territory).

Anyways, war and high politics aside, the book was excellent at describing what was actually involved in a nomadic economy on the southern Great Plains. The yearly schedule of raids and hunts, and the importance of river valleys to winter in (and the resulting conflict with sedentary/agricultural communities living in those valleys full-time) is just fascinating. The massively increased efficiency of an entirely hunting/pastoral lifestyle being matched by how fragile it was, likewise- it was vitally importance to get maize and other plant calories through trade or tribute to avoid protein poisoning from an all-meat diet. (Which, like, not actually a thing I’d known to worry about!) Likewise, the fact that horses and buffalo ate basically the same grasses and flourished in the same habitats imposed some real tensions on raising herds of the one while hunting the other – and the fact that even just passing through en route to California, a wagon train of settlers was immensely destructive, stripping river valleys of feed and firewood that was needed for winter camps, not even mentioning all the hunting they did.

One thing that definitely struck me – and the same thing happened with the Lakota, if I’m recalling Hamalainen’s other book correctly – is how the massive increase in prosperity over the 18th/19th century actually made Comanche society massively more patriarchal. Hunting was traditionally a man’s role, and treating/preparing the hide his daughter or wife’s. But a mounted and firearm-wielding man can kill way more buffalo than a single woman can possibly handle, and buffalo robes were, along with horses and captives (either for ransom or as slaves) one of the main trade goods Comanche rancherias used to buy guns, maize, metal cookwear, or whatever else they might need.

The result was a massive spread and institutionalization of polgyny, with junior wives essentially being labourers in the household manufacturing business. With the wealthiest and most important men often having dozens of wives, this rather unsurprisingly had the effect of creating a large class of peripheral young men with strong collective interests in raiding or feuding with neighbouring communities, either to win enough prestige and wealth to attract a wife, or just to kidnap and forcibly marry someone during the raiding. The fact that even as inequality grew more and more extreme, social mobility remained fairly high – among men, of course, but there don’t seem to have been real aristocratic dynasties – is a big part of the explanation Hamalainen gives for why the pressure and tension was all focused outward, and internal Comanche politics remained fairly peaceful and consensus driven (if increasingly oligarchic.)

The economic importance of slavery and the slave trade to just...everything in the region until the late 19th century was also something I probably should have known but still kind of took me by surprise, honestly. Kidnapping people from outlying ranches or other indigenous nations on the Great Plains and selling them to the colonial elite was an extremely lucrative trade throughout the Spanish colonial period, which mostly just transitioned to ‘ransoming’ them after theoretical legal crackdowns. According to Hamalainen, the Comanche didn’t initially practice slavery internally, but after a smallpox epidemic decimated their population several times over around the turn of the nineteenth century they turned to it in a pretty big way to have enough labor to sustain their economy and trade relationships (a fairly temporary kind of slavery, it should be noted, with most seemingly eventually being integrated as full members of the community. Which did mean the pressure to go raid for more was ever present.)

The book was an incredible trove of examples of things where I had previously sort of thought something that was just the result of individual greed or brutal social pressures was actually just, like, consciously racist/imperialist state policy on the part of New Spain or the United States. Either ineffective and kind of comical (Spanish policy for a good bit was to intentionally sell the Comanche secondrate and fragile guns so they’d break more often and they’d be more continually dependent on Spanish goodwill. They just started buying from the British) or extremely effective and pretty consciously genocidal (buffalo overhunting for greed and capitalism reasons was absolutely cratering the population, but at a certain point it was absolutely the policy of the US Army to just destroy the economic basis of Comanche independence.)

I honestly have no idea whether Hamalainen is trying to prove too much, but the argument he makes for the eventual American invasion and conquest of the plains – that the actually armed conflicts were kind of besides the point, because Comanche power had already been pretty thoroughly decimated by a late breaking smallpox outbreak and buffalo-overhunting induced famine, combined with mostly successful efforts to suppress their trading connections in now-American New Mexico, and that the actual campaigns were less battles and more intentional campaigns to destroy their winter villages and the food and goods stores within – seems to hold together and make sense.

Anyway, yeah, heavy and dry book, not exactly cheery reading, but incredibly interesting and informative read. Would recommend, if ‘350 pages of book followed by 150 of endnotes, index and bibliography’ is the sort of thing that appeals.

#book review #The Comanche Empire #Pekka Hamalainen #history

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nanimoshiranaikoneko · 3 months

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Hello Tumblr

i have been on the platform since 2012 but i have never actually wrote any posts so i finally made a decision to create a new personal account (even tho that account have been created and been empty since 2020 but these last four years were hard for everyone). I graduated from a university in 2021 and got a translator degree but due to various reasons (in the world and in general) it was hard to apply it in job searching. and i've been feeling super lost and depressed all these years. and i decided to give a chance my small coding dream since i had since high school (in my country we need to pass entry exams at school and my computer science teacher prohibited me even trying passing the exam and during that time i was listless and AGAIN a lost teenager who had no idea what to do with their life so i didn't even try fighting and just gave up the idea and chose a path of my other passion: languages /after graduation i picked up japanese so i keep learning new stuff and it helps me a lot to cope ig/) so here i am just turned 26 this month and started learning how to code last month only. i had a slight idea of how html worked plus we had python usage in linguistic at university (for some reason it was super weird lol) i have been practicing for 10 days straight so i thought it's gonna be a good idea to participate in 100 days of coding as almost a complete beginner and track my progress (plus i haven't actually been practicing english that much so it is also a good reason to start that blog) so my progress in the last 10 days looks like that: 1. revised html basics 2. started css journey

i use online video courses on Youtube by freeCodeCamp.org and creating an actual web styling with a tutor does actually help a lot! i enjoy studying but i do understand that i need much more time to practice myself

after i am planning to start JavaScript but we'll see how it will go and i am still not sure which path to choose but ig front-end sympathise me a lot plus i am planning to pass JLPT N3 this year so maybe i will post some updates too but i am not sure yet is it better to participate in summer or winter exam i don't think anyone will be interested in my journey but when i see people posting their progress in any sphere it inspires me a lot

#10/100 days #personal #long post #100 days of code #codeblr #langblr #japanese #html css #beginner #100 days #hello tumblr #koneko codes

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sweetashblog · 25 days

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Draft from 4/3

Okay-

I just listened to the Project Meridian plotline for the first time and HOLY SHT

Spoilers below!!

This had me in a CHOKEHOLD ALL DAY.

Why don’t people talk about this more?? Literally all I knew was that James had a spouse and that Marcus was a weird guy that kissed a robot.

I didn’t know that we, the listener, were the robot! AND that we were a yandere robot!!!

I don’t like yandere plots, usually, because they feel horrific in a way that is way too close to reality (having a stalker is not something I wish on anyone), but the way this was presented CAPTIVATED me.

The gradual progression from unhealthy interest to extreme obsession was phenomenal. Especially because, while I knew he was a creep, I did not see Marcus as inherently Evil at first.

At first, I viewed this as more of a sci-fi horror, where Marcus was the catalyst, and it was ultimately his fault, but still a character I had empathy for. I thought “asset” was going to go down a darker path and that James was in danger.

It wasn’t until “Your Owner Takes Matters Into His Own Hands” that I realized how disgusting Marcus truly was. Then “Your Owner’s Log Entry” cemented that completely.

“Confronting Your Technician” was PAINFUL. I had such a hard time not feeling bad for Marcus, (bc who tf let Erik be such a great actor???) but James really shone through. He was blunt and confrontational and made it clear exactly how gross Marcus truly was without a hint of bias. I gained a new respect for his character that I hadn’t had before. Especially with how kindly he spoke to Asset afterwards.

And I LOVED the reveal of all the trigger words in the code!!! I didn’t catch any of them at first and had been really confused during A Talk With One of Your Devious Owners, but once everything came together I LOST IT.

I’m really grateful I got to listen to this with little to no spoilers. I was able to feel exactly what Erik was trying to invoke every step of the way and enjoy the immersion in the story.

I will never be able to get over Erik’s brilliance in writing and acting. How he is not a full-fledged voice actor, I have no idea. Everything he puts out is so well thought out and captivating, and somehow it stuns me every time.

AND ANTON— I love him with my whole heart and I’m going to personally track down Marcus and kick his teeth in I stg. I can’t wait to see how his plot develops 😭 Let him come home 😭

Anyways, thank you for coming to my TEDTalk. I think I need to make a new side blog for Redacted posts.

#redacted audio #redacted asmr #project meridian #redacted james #redacted marcus #redacted asset #redacted anton #This has lived in my brain rent free

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snailmail-codes · 1 year

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Introduction<3

I wanted to start this blog so I could track my progress of the materials I learn as well as to motivate me to really get into coding. I’m so focused on coding for college that i’ve never taken the time to explore programming on my own. So the purpose of this blog is to help me explore that by sharing my experiences.

About Me:

My name is Heather

Age: 21

Pronouns: she/her

I’m a college student studying computer science

Learning French (and maybe Spanish or German)

INFP

My Hobbies & Interests:

Making playlist on my spotify for every scenario & genre

Reading

Learning to cook/bake new recipes

Games (Roguelikes, sandbox, and indie games)

Plants

Learning the piano and guitar

What I Post:

I’ll be posting about my programming and coding journey throughout my uni/personal experiences then hopefully one day post my time as a software developer. I’ll post some hopefully useful resources, info, and such that can also help others. As well as codeblr/studyblr challenges. Mostly though i’ll be posting to motivate myself and be productive.

(I’ll probably post something off topic once in a while such as just general updates, a langblr post, or a new playlist I made.)

Goals:

These are my current long-term goals that I would like to achieve. I’ll post my more specific goals and their status in other post.

- Programming

HTML, CSS, JavaScript

Python

C++

Java

- Personal

Get accepted to an internship

Continue learning french

Become more involved with college activities

Get a job as a software developer

I also wanted to mention these accounts who inspired me to start this blog and expand my learning. 💚

@xiacodes @anndcodes @web-dev-with-bea

#about me #intro post #studyblr introduction #codeblr #studyblr #progblr #programming #computer science #code

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veliseraptor · 10 months

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Hey Lise, I know this is asking you to harken back to your MCU days but did you ever come across a meta post that was like, "we shouldn't compare Loki and Bucky's trauma; Loki's trauma is much more like Steve's pre-serum trauma and look at how ✨awesome✨ Steve is and how he dealt with that same trauma? Loki has no excuses!" Because I did and it still makes me mad to think about to this day.

If I'm remembering the post you're thinking of properly - and I definitely may not be, I could be thinking of a different post entirely (the staple of "compare the antagonist's trauma to a protagonist's trauma, comment on how the protagonist handled it sooooo much better and how that indicates that the antagonist deserved what he/she/they got, because the way somebody handles trauma is determinative of their goodness or evilness as a person" is a recurring tradition across time and fandoms, I'm sure there are multiple posts), that's not actually what I got from the one in question? perhaps it was just my lens, but (again, if I'm thinking of the same post), I recall it being relatively morally neutral, or at least more about looking at the ways in which "actually while the easy comparison is loki and bucky due to the position they occupy in the narrative, loki and steve have more in common in some ways and that's interesting" and I read it as, personally, a bit of a stoki manifesto.

like, "actually these characters people don't tend to associate/look at together have some very interesting parallels! isn't that neat?" more than anything coming with a moral judgment.

but getting this ask made me go back into the depths of my blog (truly, the depths) to track down the post I'm at least thinking of, and remarkably enough actually managed to find it (given that the post in question is from 2013), and...reading it from the perspective of Fandom Discourse in 2023 I can definitely see what it is you're saying, and I think if I saw it in Fandom Edition 2023 that's probably how I would read it, too, and get annoyed about it. but looking at it from the perspective of where things were at that time, before the great villain/victim discourse of Winter Soldier kicked in, I actually feel a relative minimum of judgment from the post? Like, it does describe the different choices steve and loki make in response to their experiences in positive/negative terms, but it doesn't then progress to (at least in my reading) "and that's why loki is evil and NO EXCUSES" (Fandom 2023 Edition), but stays at just...letting it be about divergent character journeys coming from similar-but-different places? idk.

like, at the very least this one acknowledges that the "bad" character was genuinely hurt and having an understandable emotional reaction. which is not necessarily something one sees these days.

idk. maybe I'm being too generous. but then, I am more inclined to be generous to a post made in 2013 concerning this, when the pattern of discourse in fandom was a little different, than I would be reading a similar post now. perhaps that's unfair.

but I did link this specific post in several "why you should ship stoki" masterposts at the time, so if your read on this post is accurate then I feel very okay about taking it elsewhere.

#conversating #anonymous #this was interesting! in particular to think about how my reaction to fandom things changes #over time and as the discourse evolves #and sometimes i try to remember that maybe this person does not know the implications of their words #and how they connect to longstanding fandom wank #but sometimes. it is hard.#surprise mcu post on my blog? it happens once in a while

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