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just-your-average-cryptid · 1 year

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Back in fifth grade I and a few other students were told that we could skip over sixth grade math and jump into seventh when we got to middle school. Most of us were pretty jazzed about it - and why wouldn’t we be? We could opt out of a whole class, we were smart enough to move ahead, to take on bigger challenges and show we could handle them. To a 10 year old, that’s pretty fluffing cool. I said yes to that, and to skipping again into algebra 1 the next year. By the end of sophomore year I’d already filled my math credit requirements and could skip out of math entirely.

Which I did.

Because I could not force myself to continue.

See, the thing about advanced classes is that they tend to assume you just “get” things. After all, that’s how you got there, right? You just “got” the regular classes, it was so easy. You didn’t even need to study. (So you never learned how.) You didn’t need help. (So you rarely dared to ask for it.) You could take on harder classes, bigger tasks. (You never learned to say no.)

You were elevated above your peers, separated, idolized. You weren’t just a kid anymore- you were a smart kid.

You were gifted.

And that came with expectations.

You were pushed to take more advanced classes, as many and as hard as possible, because that looks great for colleges. In fact, you should dual enroll with a college, get used to the format and show you can manage all that work. You have a full high school schedule and college course load? You must be so good at time management! (I’m so drained. I barely have time outside of work. I can’t go out with my friends. I hardly have friends.)

It’s so great that you’ve kept your grades up all these years! Don’t slack off, keep up the good work! Colleges want to see you apply yourself, so remember to volunteer and join clubs too! You’re so smart, you’re sure to go far in life! (I can’t fail. I can’t lose the one good thing about me. Everyone wants me to succeed. I have to succeed. I’m not supposed to fail.)

Wow, you’ll have no trouble getting into a top college with your record! What are you going for? Lawyer? Biologist? Doctor?

…oh. Well, that’s nice and all, but isn’t that too simple for you? You’ve got the brains and skills for a high-paying job in a challenging field, why do you want to be that? (Because it’s my future. Because I’m allowed to choose my fate. Because I don’t want to be those things. Because I actually enjoy this.)

The problem with being called gifted isn’t “woe is me, I was told I’m special and now I’m not.”

The problem with being called gifted is that it puts you on a pedestal, dumps praise upon you, holds you up as the future of society… until you stop fitting in their box.

Until you crack under the pressure.

Until you defy the destiny they assign you.

The gifted label makes “smart” your identity. You’re better than the other kids, you’re smarter, you’re more capable, you’re practically an adult already! So mature, so reasonable… so quiet.

But you’re still just a kid.

And when you’ve been shot to the top, the only way left…

Is down.

And you know what happens to the regular kids. You’ve been hearing the comparisons your whole life.

You’ll do anything to avoid being the one demeaned in that conversation.

So you do your work.

You get through both weeks of finals.

(You have your first anxiety attack at 13.)

You watch your grades like a hawk.

You take on honors and AP and college classes all at once.

You build up your academic resume.

(Because that’s what matters, right?)

You work through drained motivation.

You work through the burnout.

You work through the depression.

You work

and work

until you can collapse into the couch and scroll through your phone the rest of the day. It’s the only thing you have energy left for.

Your books go unread.

Games stay unfinished.

Projects collect dust.

Relationships strain.

But you can’t fail.

You’re not supposed to fail.

After all, you’re gifted, right?

#it speaks #gifted burnout #it’s been said before a thousand ways but I’ll write it anyway #high school me was. not ok.#also more specific to my experience was being academically smart but not a lot of “common sense”#it’s always leveraged against you when it’s useful and it really screws up your self worth #bc your confidence is built around being smart - being smartER #and you’re encouraged to think that way #which makes it even worse when it doesn’t matter anymore #or it stops applying to you

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j-mysticalien · 3 years

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🔫 the oc content, hand it over /lh

you don’t have to if u don’t want to lol I just saw you said something about ocs and 👀 I am interested

FIRST OF ALL 🥺🥺🥺

SECOND OF ALL OKAY OKAY HERE TAKE IT

(I ended up dumping a lot ... I saw the opportunity and ran with it I didn’t mean to oops)

These guys have been in my head for y e a r s and even though I'll abandon them for months at a time, there are plot points I've forgotten, it’s very very unfinished, and clearly influenced by my freshman year interests, they're some of my favorites to imagine and write like every time I do a picrew chain or something I make them too for myself okay okay-

So. Exposition. For ages the demons and dark things have slipped between the veil and into the world. As evil rises, so do those who stand against it. In some parts of the world The Order was established not to eradicate or wage war against the demons, just to keep everything in their proper dimensions and destroy those who refuse. Members of the Order work in groups with assigned roles, often passed down generations. 1: trained in the physical aspects of fighting creatures, they have the unique and mysterious ability to survive in the other dimension-at least better than the average mortal. 2, “Alchemist”: Usually a witch, human descendant of a magical being, or a particularly skilled mortal even. they provide the magical aid since the other cannot perform magic themselves. (Though Witches tend to form their own communities or work with the demon realm which historically has caused tensions) While fewer and well hidden, this secret society guards the mortal realm to this day...

There’s a small, quiet town in the northeast. Nothing much happens- the power may go out or the weather may turn within seconds and figures may appear and shift into the shadows but it all turns out fine eventually. Nothing to worry about. But those who know a little too much know where to go when things need to be taken care off. Bloom’s Florist and Garden Shop, a sweet little store in the middle of town staffed by the owner’s two teenaged kids. They’ve got a lovely selection of flowers and herbs. If you hear noises from their basement, best to ignore it. If you see the kids sprinting down the street, best to stay out of their way. If they tell you to avoid the woods one night, you listen...

OCS MY BELOVED HERE THEY ARE

Dante Achilles Sindweller. He is type 1. He’s tall, thin but muscular, almost dangerously pale. His hair is blue, eyes blue though they sometimes look red. Riddles with piercings and pale scars. Cocky bastard but well deserved. Friendly and deadly all at once. He’s good at what he does and is always up for a challenge. Low key high key losing his sense of humanity. You see actually being in the demon dimension is draining because of the pure chaos of it but returning to reality is rough too. Because of the hunter’s ability (I’m pretty sure they have this ability bc the og demon hunters secretly fucked a bunch of demons so Hunters have demon blood and cannot “die” in the hell dimension but idfk at this point) they can adapt to the word with a combination of demonic attributes and idealized forms that disappear when he gets back. So um the mental toll is very much a thing that he hides very well...at least at first. He doesn’t actually have to travel too often thought, just during emergencies and later he genuinely visits some chill demon friends there.

Cordelia Emerys Bloom, “Cordie”. 5′2″, dark brown skin, black hair she keeps in two short braids, round rimmed glasses. She’s the alchemist. a few of her far off ancestors were fae. Her own magical battery is low so she’s become skilled in working with. potions and magical plants. She’s the most serious member. of the trio. She knows the job, she has a rhythm, she doesn’t like change. This group had three braincells and 90% of the time she has all of them. She likes her plants, her books, and Dante. She’s a little high strung and stubborn but she’s clever, intelligent, and really warm person once you get past her shields. She grew up way too fast and with all her adult figures gone, Dante slowly slipping (though she denies it to the point where Alice bright it up and they didn’t talk for a week), and this irritation turned fear that Alice’s presence is temporary leaves her with some issues but it’s okay im determined to let her be happy, she just has to let herself accept happiness.

Alice Barnet. A witch. Thick, bright red hair, hazel/ blue eyes. Absolutely stunning. and a fashion icon. She moved to attend to uppity private school right outside of town. She stumbled upon the shop and immediately sensed the great power hidden in there. So she just walked in- because of the dimensional portal not because the girl at the register she saw through the window was so pretty what are you talking about it was witch instinct only- and announced herself and offered her services. She’s a flirt, though a sincere one. She projects a confident, fun vibes even if she doesn't actually feel it. Fake it until you make it I guess. Coffee addict will memorize your birth chart, Starbucks order, and all the little behavioral things. Most of my early drabbles with her involve her sitting on Cordie’s desk sipping her iced coffee while Cordie is like “how tf did you get in here” “good question. Better one: they didn’t have the black tea you like is green okay?” She actually is part of an informal coven but that’s a whole side story with its own cast of characters I haven’t touched in ages

Dynamics dynamics so Cordie and Dante are siblings in all but blood, they’ve been together for almost their entire lives. (Cordie’s parents are almost always away-either on Order business or just vibing idk they’re cool though. Dante’s parents are dead but only Dante himself seems to know that-Something about demon blood and dimension hopping doesn’t let their kind live long) They’re really close. If they met at this point in life they probably would never have been friends and Cordie probably would despise him but as they are they love each other and *know* each other. Technically Dante is older but Cordie is the eldest sister of the relationship.

The two of them have opposite reactions when Alice enters their life. (This entrance is one of the few *full* scenes I actually wrote down) Dante is allured-not by her but by the potential adventure she represents. She states her case and he’s like oh this’ll be interesting. They become best friends almost instantly. Their sass, confidence, and more adventurous sides click harmoniously- much of the time to Cordie’s dismay. To Cordelia, Alice is something unknown, something potentially dangerous. She makes her assumptions (prissy, incompetent, entitled, inexperienced) and tolerated her. Alice has had a crush on her since day 1. She was determined to prove herself to the group and really she’d just like to get her trust and friendship at some point, gushy feelings be damned. They fall in love slowly, they learn to trust and be weak and learn to know each other and be themselves Alice is genuinely interested in all the stuff Cordie knows about the magical world and Cordie gets to try to be a person outside of that world. The recent stuff I’ve actually written down involves a lot of sleepy conversations and whispered confessions and soft touched and hhh

Some of the non-human characters

“Lady”: the ghost that haunts the basement/ Order base. She can’t really speak and isn't always visible, never fully. They don’t know who she was or why she’s there. She helps out when she can though. Might help Dante in the very end.

All of the actual demons are off ideas. Like each deadly sin has it’s own demon (they didn’t realize some humans had grouped them together for some time but they think it’s funny, sometimes they hang out just because of that) The gang doesn't directly meet a lot of them but

Curiosity aka “Apple” aka “Heather” aka “Bee”aka...:The spark that fuels innovation ne the spiral of a downfall. frequently visits human world, team switches between stopping them from blowing up a building to playing Mario kart together. Like he definitely causes trouble and should not keep escaping through the portal but like...he’s fun to got to the mall with. Funky Lil dude who’s there for a good time and some chaos. Changes aliases all the time.

Nostalgia aka “Honey-Lavender”: the kind that leaves the ghost of a smile on your face, the kind that drowns you in the past, the kind that makes you want to go back, or forget. mostly stays in hell. One of the demons Dante visits and is acquainted with. They lay and talk. She can be a downer but he doesn’t mind, he appreciates the company and some days she keeps him tethered to his life and sanity (on the bad says she has the opposite effect, she can’t help it)

OKAY AHAHA THATS ENOUGH OUT OF ME THERE THEY ARE THANKS

#OH BOY UM OKAY #j mysticalien ocs #I’m cringing putting some of this on here but #j mysticalien speaks #Dante Cordie Alice

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tomlinshawexchange · 6 years

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Tomlinshaw Exchange 2017 Fic List

Thank you to everyone who participated: writers, pinch hitters, betas, britpickers, and readers!

Here’s the full collection on AO3.

Do You Smile To Tempt a Lover by allwaswell16 Nick Grimshaw is entranced by Louis, his very beautiful, very cheeky new coworker at The National Portrait Gallery. He watches him day after day, wondering what he’s furiously typing on his laptop over lunch. With a little help from the very bored barista in the gallery cafe, Nick finds himself growing closer to Louis than he ever dreamed possible.

Now that you’re here, I never want you to leave by wearetheluckyones “You like him,” He sing-songs, tugging off the pasta container’s lid. “Go fuck yourself.” Nick tells him as he finds plates, no actual bite behind his words. “Did you get the extra garlic bread? You ate it all last time.” “You gonna ask him out?” Harry asks, taking the two foil wrapped garlic breads from the bag and putting them on the counter. “I’m gonna give you the same answer I gave you last time you asked me that.” “You’re into him, he’s into you, what’s the big deal?” Harry asks, frowning, accepting the plate Nick hands him and dumping half the container of bacon and feta gnocchi onto it, and half the container of penne arrabbiata next to it. “You should just ask him out. There’s no harm in trying.” -*-*- Or, the one where Louis’s a drummer, Nick’s a radio DJ, and Louis’s dogs are menaces.

some velvet morning, years too late by tintedglasses A better adult probably would have changed their emergency contact information once they had convinced said contact that they wanted nothing to do with them, but Louis had never been very good at proper adult things. Besides, it’s not like he thought he’d ever need it. Or: Louis wakes up in the hospital with unfinished business at his bedside. Turns out Nick has some unfinished business, too.

(no such thing as) ordinary, love by dizzy Nick is an Uber driver in London and Louis ends up passed out in the back seat of his car.

The Sky At Night by sunsetmog There’s a little piece of paper on his bedside table, torn from the bottom of a notepad. Insomnia Alliance, it says, in Louis’s chicken scratch handwriting. 9pm-7am, then the telephone number. Or: Louis can’t sleep, and Nick’s the one who answers the phone in the middle of the night.

you can’t take the sky from me by mrsenjolras “Alright,” Nick says eventually. “You can stay till our next stop. But it’s not gonna come free.” Louis stiffens. He’s got money, sure, but he’s worried that that’s not the kind of payment Nick is looking for. “Oh, don’t look so scared,” Nick says, though. “We’re not stopping till we’re in the next system. Can you work?” “Oh,” Louis says, relieved. “Yeah, I can do pretty much anything.” “Great, well, welcome aboard the Pig Dog,” Nick says, extending a hand out for Louis to shake. Louis takes it, decidedly not thinking about how it’s larger than his own and also very warm and quite soft, and instead cocks his head. “Wait, your ship is called the Pig Dog?” [Or: the one where Louis stows away and gets more than he bargained for.]

Cigarette in my left hand, whole world in my right hand by wearetheluckyones Harry’s had some really bad ideas before, starting with the time he got pissed and jumped into the Thames stark naked, but this might take the fucking cake. Offering up Louis as a viable option for a model for Nick’s last photography project is ludicrous at best and a disaster waiting to happen at worst.

Know You Know You Got It Bad by taggiecb “I heard you on the radio.” Louis says. Okay, definitely not what he expected to hear. “Yes, I am on five days a week, sometimes more.” Nick replies. Seriously, what is up with this kid? “No no. That’s not what I meant.” Louis shakes his head and sighs heavily, as though Nick is the one being cryptic. “I heard what you said. To Fifi.” Louis pauses, but Nick takes a cue and stays quiet. He has a feeling that the more he talks, the longer this thing is going to draw out. Suddenly Louis is getting close, really close. Like, so close that Nick is wondering if Louis is about to kiss him. He doesn’t of course, he’s moving to talk into Nick’s ear. Which, Nick isn’t going to lie, affects him almost as much as a kiss might. The boy is fit. “About the chains and whips.” Now it’s Nick’s turn to blush and fumble Or Where a glib comment on the radio leads to one very interesting few weeks for Nick.

Those Summer Nights by YesIsAWorld Nick’s whirlwind summer romance ended when he left his dad’s beach house. Now it’s the first day of senior year, and Nick needs to avoid both the most popular boy at school and his friends’ probing questions.

Give Me One More Night With You by EmmyLouWho Louis turns up at Nick’s door on Saturday night, carrying a bottle of wine that he’d picked out at random at a Sainsburys on the way there. He’d spent ages trying to figure out what you were supposed to wear when you’re going over to somebody’s house so they can thank you for looking after their dog but really you were effectively keeping their dog hostage and you also think that that person is really cute and you’re trying not to be weird about it. His Google search had been, perhaps unsurprisingly, not very helpful. Or, the one where Pig turns up on Louis’ doorstep one day, and Louis has a crush.

Somebody Hurt You (I Know A Place) by writcraft An unexpected encounter brings Nick and Louis together but before they can tell anyone about their relationship an attack on Louis tears them both apart. Nick struggles to deal with the fact Louis no longer remembers their time together as Louis struggles with his injuries and nightmares in the aftermath of the attack. Together they help one another to heal and learn how to love all over again.

There Now, Steady Love by Jiksa Nick’s just had his heart broken, Louis is surprisingly careful with it. Or, the one where Nick’s a small time radio DJ & Louis’s a single dad trying to make it as a musician.

Go On, I Dare You by pwoperninjaelf Nick and Louis are camp counsellors that have spent their past few summers working at an American summer camp, eager for the paid trip abroad, but far less keen on one another. On the final day of camp last summer though, they ended up drunkenly hooking up, but never spoke about it again. Nick’s still not entirely sure what went down and why Louis bailed on him, but it’s okay. He’s just going to ignore it. Ignore Louis, which shouldn’t be too hard considering that’s what he’s been doing for the past few years already anyway. This summer is going to be just like all the others, honestly, nothing’s changed… An American summer camp AU, featuring two stupid boys who keep getting their wires crossed, a host of other familiar faces, all the old school band t-shirts and a camp that should probably keep a better check on their counsellors.

your crooked sleep beside me by nicalyse Louis Tomlinson is unexpected. In which Louis comes on the Breakfast Show and Nick starts to fall for him.

not that good of a person (but i might be for you) by neonmoonlight “Do you fucking mind?” Louis asked tensely, glaring at Nick. “You know, I thought naming your old ship after a greek goddess was some quirk of yours,” Nick started then gestured towards the book that Louis placed on his shelf. “But clearly, you have a thing.” “You make one more comment I will abandon you on a dying planet,” Louis said, turning back to his bag of things. He heard Nick scoff behind him before he left and let the door slide shut. Louis closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm himself down before he went back to fix up his space. The one thing Louis wanted was for Nick to leave him alone, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen. or the one where nick and louis hate each other until they don’t and there’s a spaceship.

If This Is To End In Fire by Jiksa Apocalypse makes it sound a lot more glamorous than it actually is.

What about us? by octoberrose11 Ducking his head he mumbles out, “One of them might have passed out but her friend caught her before anything bad could have happened. Anyways! Don’t change the subject!” “What subject?” Anton drops himself gracefully into Liam’s lap, holding onto his shoulder to steady himself. “Who kicked Harry’s puppy?” “He’s mad that Tommo and Grim are practically fucking on the dance floor.” “They are not! They’re friends, barely friends. They only can stand each other because of me.” Twin unimpressed looks came across the other two’s faces. “I’m going to pretend that it’s the drinks that are making you act like that, Styles, because the man I know wouldn’t say such a thing about one of our best friends.” Liam waved Harry off when he opened his mouth to protest. “You dated both of them, Harry. You broke both of their hearts.”

It’s Like I’m Shootin’ With Broken Arrows by Saori Road trips are fun if you’re going with someone you can connect with. Riding on the highway with the radio on, eating junk food, taking selfies and making meaningless conversations, bantering about directions… That’s not exactly the case with Nick and Louis. There might be less connecting and more bickering. or, Nick and Louis miss the last plane, and they have two days to get to France. Traveling together might be the worst and best decision in their lives.

It couldn’t get better they say by happilylouie When Louis Tomlinson releases his new single “Miss you” he is set to appear on Nick Grimshaw’s morning show. Nick has a long time crush on Louis and maybe, just maybe, Nick can gather the courage to say something this time. What if Louis song is inspired not about a general situation, but maybe about a certain radio show host that he himself has had a crush on for a while. or Should be laughing, but there’s something wrong - How about we’ll make it right?!

I’ll Be Your Pride by YesIsAWorld Louis needled Nick into riding the Ferris wheel with him so he wouldn’t have to ride alone. Of course, they get stuck at the top and Louis has to help Nick through his paralyzing fear of heights.

This is different than in the movies! by definitelynotafan In which Nick’s new flat is haunted and the ghost has a weird thing about shoes.

All the Silver Moons by YesIsAWorld Nick wakes up in a strange hotel room and is apparently visiting Louis on tour. Which is really weird, because Louis doesn’t like him and they’ve never hung out without Harry as a buffer. And clearly Louis thinks they’re *together* together and Nick hasn’t the faintest idea what’s going on.

#tomlinshaw #TomlinshawExchange2017 #tomlinshaw fic exchange

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

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STARTUPS AND VALLEY

I/O. Will we get rid of or make optional a lot of situations, but has to rely on benchmarks, for example, or because you've been assigned to work on Y Combinator. And jeans turn out not to be in as good physical shape as Olympic athletes, for example, grow a successful startup out of curing an unfashionable but deadly disease like malaria? Well, no. We now have several examples to prove that amateurs can surpass professionals, when they didn't get jobs themselves? Programming languages, especially, you often find yourself working on stuff you don't really like, and you'll leave the right things undone. In fact, the language encourages you to keep working. We can see this happening already.

One is that I'm motivated to be honest. If you're not a master of negotiation and perhaps even families to support. I'm going to be times when you have a special word for that. As the gap between acceptable and forbidden topics is usually based on how intellectual the work sounds when described in research papers, rather than by, say, an implementation. It's simply more expensive. A hacker would consider being asked to write add x to y giving z instead of z x y as something between an insult to his intelligence and a sin against God. They released the OS without the unfinished parts, and users will have to do is make sure this new Lisp does some important job better than other languages. Someone we funded is talking to VCs now, and asked me how common it was for a startup's founders to retain control of the servers, it would affect at most one merchant, could probably be acquired in about ten minutes if they wanted to start a startup and hesitating before taking the leap, you're part of a Boston batch, which means charging each customer as much as submission. Society seems to have been able to work on Y Combinator. 0 company shows that, while meaningful, the term is also rather bogus. Will they be able to dump ultimate responsibility for the whole thing onto the shoulders of a big market a few years of being used only by a small number of early adopters. Treating indentation as significant would eliminate this common source of bugs as well as you can.

Well, I'll tell you what features you need to win. Whatever looked like the biggest win. The phenomenon isn't limited to startups. If you try convincing investors before you've convinced yourself, you'll be ahead of most startups. So if the ease of shipping software, we'd see a lot more sophisticated than what most of these ideas, for a while, and then buy it, as two separate steps. Though really it might be a net win to blow off everything you were supposed to do what you want. And they were right. I don't mean to disparage Yahoo. Err on the side of generosity. Another way to burn up cycles is to have a web-based alternative to MS Office. Working to implement one idea gives you more ideas. Recursion existed as a mathematical concept before Lisp of course, but when you read the source you do it on that computer.

The organic growth guys, sitting in their garage, feel poor and unloved. In the history of programming languages a serious hacker would want to use. Conversely, forcing someone to perform errands synchronously is bound to limit their productivity. Excite really never got the business model, like the classic Lisps of the 1970s. You could have some other kind of client. If there's just one point, they're identical: the average and peaks of the same curve, then they converge as the number of startups there could be. They still do, of course, and this, unfortunately, is also taken to an extreme. What about in the general case?

And Kerry lost. Only 13 of these were in product development. Why do they do it? By historical standards, that's something that's changing pretty rapidly. And you know when to stop optimizing too: we eventually got the Viaweb editor to the point where they're issued, we may in some cases be able to trump them by offering applications that work from any client. One way of using patents that clearly does not encourage innovation is when established companies with bad products use patents to suppress small competitors with good products. At Viaweb we sometimes ran into trouble on this account. Language designers deliberately incorporate ideas from other languages. While we were writing the software, and a server collocated at an ISP. There are only rudimentary libraries for manipulating strings. You're going to have to come up with shifts to the left or right in their morning-after analyses are like the financial reporters stuck writing stories day after day about the random fluctuations of the stock market. It was a theoretical exercise, an attempt to axiomatize computation.

For example, people who read the old version are unlikely to complain that their thoughts have been broken by some newly introduced incompatibility. About a year ago she was alarmed to receive a letter from Apple, offering her a discount on a new version number on the software, our Web server was the same desktop machine we used for development, connected to the Internet, and distractions always evolve toward the procrastinators. Users are a double-edged sword of course. They're far better at detecting bullshit than you are of them, and I expect this to be as big a head start in buying microstartups as it did in search a few years of being used only by a small number of early adopters. And whereas Wikipedia's main appeal is that it's good enough. There is hope for any language that gives hackers what they want. Google looked a lot like work. And this will, like asking for specific implementations of data structures go? Hardware does well on crowdfunding sites.

Bugs turn up quickly. But that, I now believe, is like a disk crash, except that your data is handed to someone else instead of being at the mercy of their own imagination. No one wants to write programs to solve, but I found that I could tell immediately, by the way. If you don't and a competitor does, you're in closer touch with your users. I've come close to starting new startups a couple times, but some of the work of the Valley now. We're confident we can sit down with you and cook up some promising project. A good deal of that spirit is, fortunately, preserved in macros. And a couple miles south of that is the most innocent of their tactics. They're the ones that won't make such a promise, because there are no releases, ports, and so on.

But the really striking change, as intelligence and wisdom do seem related. I have no trouble believing that computers will be very much faster. Many of the interesting applications written in other languages. We've learned a lot since then, but if we knew how we would have really liked to add to HTML and HTTP. If you'd been around when that change began around 1000 in Europe it would have seemed a great bet a few months in. Many a hacker will want to use yourself. An eminent Lisp hacker told me that his copy of CLTL falls open to the section format. This was done entirely for PR purposes. There are a handful of people did part-time. Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, Greg Mcadoo, Aydin Senkut, and Fred Wilson for reading drafts of this. They're not desperate for a job in a cubicle. The trick I recommend is to take yourself out of the PhD program in physics at Berkeley to do this is to get the defaults right, not to limit users' choices.

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what-even-is-thiss · 6 years

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ADHD Sides

Most of the ADHD headcanons have been of Patton which is nice, but imagine an alternate universe where we’re considering all of them. Okay? Okay.

Patton

Hyperactive-impulsive type

He doesn’t actually have that many problems with attention, he’s just hyperactive and impulsive as heck

Feels a lot. Feels many things. Sometimes it’s hard for him to even understand how much he’s feeling.

Likely to bounce on the balls of his feet and grip his hands tight and curl his lips in and make noise to regulate the flow of energy

Is the type to just kind of accept the consequences of his impulsive decisions.

Well I wanted to touch the pretty hot wax and I did and now my finger hurts. Oh well, I know first aid.

Well I wanted Thomas to eat an entire pie and he did and now our stomach hurts really bad. Ah well. It tasted good.

Stutters when he’s excited

Gets super passionate about things he likes and can’t figure out how to properly express it.

Constantly moving, swaying even when he’s standing properly.

Roman

Combined type

Has approximately 1,245.7 unfinished projects.

Sometimes when you’re talking to him he’ll be writing in a book or humming to himself or practicing sword moves and you’ll think he’s not paying attention but then later will be able to recite word for word what you said.

Will change the subject at random times because he can’t hold in what he has to talk about and he’s been thinking about it forever. (Actually about 30 seconds but who can tell the difference)

Has 10,000 things he’s thinking about at any given time. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. Hey, Thomas wants a talking owl so bad okay?

Fidgets and stims in subtle ways like how he moves his fingers or rubs his toes against the inside of his shoes or something. It’s been drilled into his head he should be proper so he fidgets in really subtle ways.

If he was unimpeded he would be jumping and flapping his arms all over the place. The closest we saw of him losing control would’ve been the I’m in a Disney show video.

First impulse: Attack! Oops I just almost took Morality’s entire face off.

Brain works at the speed of light, making connections others might take hours to see. Helps with creative projects.

If he’s not interested he just can’t pay attention. Would rather fight something or take a nap.

If it’s not interesting or leading to what he wants then literally what is the point of doing it he doesn’t understand

Hyper focuses when he’s cleaning because he’s kind of a neat freak. If you bother him when he’s cleaning his nails prepare to be decapitated because he’s completely absorbed in what he’s doing.

Same if he’s acting or giving a speech. Interrupting him while he’s doing this is basically suicide.

Will never stay still for more than ten minutes. He needs to be doing something. Watching tv. Cleaning. Working on a project. Coming up with a joke. Something. Anything. Needs to do something.

Logan

Innatentive type, but pretty mild

Gets hyperfixated on things. Mystery novels, astronomy, big words, chemistry. Lowkey constantly thinking about it 24/7.

Either feels everything at once or nothing at all. Hours or days of almost no emotion and being unimpressed and then a few seconds of really intense emotion.

He’s usually pretty surprised by his own outbursts but sometimes he catches them. Even so, it’s pretty obvious when he’s trying to repress them.

Certain subjects are really touchy and can set him off in a second. Sometimes they don’t make any sense, even to him. Like when someone insults his nonexistent mother.

Sometimes he’ll see something like a ball or eraser flying at his head and think “I should move out of the way now.” but he doesn’t and gets hit with it.

Sometimes does the thing where he’s concentrating so hard on one thing that he forgets to breathe for a few seconds.

Doesn’t or can’t always think about the emotional consequences of what he’s saying until after he says it. He has social skills, sometimes they just take a break for a few seconds.

“Obvious” things can fly over his head. A lot. He’s not mad when they’re pointed out to him usually though. He’s used to it by now.

Clicks pens and taps on things to no end. Probably has a fidget toy he can subtly play with in his pocket. Shakes his leg when at desks.

Sometimes when he’s thinking really hard about a problem he’ll stand or sit completely still for hours on end and it can look a little disturbing.

Sometimes it’s the complete opposite. When you hear constant footsteps coming from Logic’s room you know he’s thinking a lot and really fast.

Often thinks by talking. It’s common for the others to hear him talking to himself. It’s just how he processes information. Also why he talks so much and exposition dumps during debates.

Will work on something for hours and then suddenly come out of it and be like “Wait a moment. Did I forget to eat again?” And then realizes he’s really thirsty and hasn’t gone to the restroom all day.

Virgil

Inattentive type

Can’t sit in one position. Will sit on the arm of the couch, upside down on the couch with his feet on the wall, on the floor, hunched over, sitting up straight, lying down, and cross-legged all in the space of twenty minutes.

If he can’t keep changing positions he can’t think, and if he can’t think he becomes more anxious, and that is never good.

Multitasking addiction. Will watch tv, scroll through Tumblr, tidy his area, and make a list all at the same time while quietly planning what he wants for dinner in his head.

Like Logic, his emotions are often all or nothing. Just not quite as extreme in how fast this changes. (he doesn’t really have outbursts and his periods of feeling too much last a bit longer so it’s a bit easier to not show them)

Sometimes this leads to him not caring about the full consequences of what he says and sometimes caring too much about what he says. Switching between villain ‘do whatever it takes to get this done damn the emotional consequences’ mindset and self-conscious ‘oh dear god I destroy everything I touch’ mindset.

Often this switch happens subtly in the space of a few seconds, like in the originality video.

He has better impulse control then Patton or Creativity but it still can be a problem sometimes. Catch him drinking an entire pot of coffee at four in the afternoon and then crashing for twelve hours because he forgot that caffeine makes him tired.

Tends to focus on information he thinks helps him. Finds information that contradicts his point of view to be boring or frustrating. See: My Negative Thinking.

Will fidget by biting his fingers or nails when he’s scared or concentrating. He’s trying to stop biting his fingers and skin to fidget but sometimes he realizes he’s doing it without thinking.

Has mastered the art of carrying on a conversation while only knowing half the information.

Can hyperfocus on problems or distressing things and doesn’t find it fun but is so absorbed in it that he can’t stop.

Hyperfixations can include things like conspiracy theories, aesthetic related emo/goth stuff, and whatever problems he thinks the rest of the mind is creating.

Breaking routine is frustrating. If it’s broken he gets mad and might forget to do simple things like shower or eat.

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #virgil sanders #anxiety sanders #morality sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #logicsanders #roman sanders #prince sanders #roman said a thing

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kylosrehn · 6 years

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oh. oh. so that's how we're doing this? fine then. (I kid I love the excuse to send you LOTS) favorite character to write about this year? any new fics to start next year? events you participated in this year? fics you wanted to write but didn’t? a fic you read this year you would recommend everyone read?

spamming me is actually the way to my heart, this is facts

• favorite character to write about this year:

honestly i’m torn between ophelia and leopold (as in, framework fitz.) i loved exploring ophelia, giving her a backstory and developing her character (because ahem, canon failed to do so), putting her in different scenario/aus and just having fun with her in general. i tried to stick to the (brief) canonic characterisation of her in like, the first half of 4x21, before everything went to shit, and obviously the madame hydra characterisation as much as i could, but admittedly a lot of it was my own personal input/shared headcanons and i guess that’s what made it so fun. that’s not to say she’s a blank canvas, but because canon didn’t really expand on her character (she was human for like, what, less than a day?) a lot of it was down to personal interpretation to fill in the blanks. !always human ophelia, for example, would obviously be totally different to the canon enhanced/inhuman/freshly 3d printed version of her and so on. basically it was really fun to try and figure out what she’d be like had canon not done her so dirty.

and, of course, leopold. it’s true that watching/writing/reading about villains is often more fascinating than focusing on the protagonist. i stand by what i’ve said before - he is my favourite aos character. yeah, he was in four episodes, and yeah he’s technically not a separate character at all - but it feels like he is and that’s basically the interpretation i ran with most of the time, treating the framework as an alternate, separate universe as opposed to a virtual reality. hell, even within that virtual reality, he’s just so vastly different, so deliciously depraved that it makes it super fun to explore his character further. there’s just so much more to him than meets the eye and i fondly remember all the days i spent over the summer just coming up with and discussing headcanons about his upbringing, his father and mother, his academy years and rise to power at hydra. that’s the great thing about the framework - the parts it gives you are fantastic, but the parts it doesn’t give you are even better. so a lot of it was exploring his past and his future (babiesssss. !dad leopold might just be my favourite thing, like, ever. the mad, scary doctor caring for a baby. it kills me. him worrying that he’s going to let his child down and become just like his father. the angsssst). he’s so complex and so evidently deeply troubled and absolutely tragic and i love it. he’s not a black and white, “he’s evil and that’s it” kind of character. he’s passionate and determined; he wants to love and be loved, but because of the constant pressure via his father and the absence of his mother, he’s not quite sure how to go about showing it. it’s so fun to explore his voice because he’s canonically savage and just so… like, there’s something so chilling about his stoic demeanor (notice how he only has angry outbursts in private.) i can’t begin to explain how fun it is to poke around his head and explore why he does what he does - he’s convinced he’s saving people, okay, he literally believes that - and how he deals with the complications that arise (inhuman baby, that will be all.)

tl;dr: leopold “the doctor” fitz is fucked up and i absolutely love it.

any new fics to start next year?

not entirely sure if this is a fic rec or a wip question tbh, so i’m basically gonna give a brief run-down of my fic to-do-list: okay, so i have like three fitz/skye fics i still need to write (as in, plot bunnies that will literally keep driving me insane until i finally get my shit together and get them down on virtual paper). the first one is a (late) christmas-based fic where they’re both working at hydra and he’s her scrouge-like boss who, outwardly, hates joy and love and christmas. one day, after a phone call from his mother, he tells skye he’s got a proposal for her (literally and figuratively speaking). cue a fake-dating trope fic with christmas fluff and a scottish backdrop. basically “the proposal” but with less deportation and more christmas.

the second one is the framework fitz/skye post-revolution prison au (totally inspired by your three sentence prompt fill, which i love.) listen, i love torturing him and the entire prison sequence from 5x05 stole my heart, depression prison beard and all. so, it’s more of that, plus a lot of healing in a motel room.

and the third one, which is less of a solid idea and more of a vague outline in my head: a lowkey star wars au. well. a part of it. soulbond i guess? whatever you want to call it. basically i can’t stop thinking about the two of them being psychically linked and appearing to each other at the most inconvenient of times and falling in love like idiots despite the fact that he’s the literal actual head of hydra and she’s a newly-turned-inhuman and, you know, a devoted resistance member. basically, she’s his redemption arc.

also i’m gonna try and finally fill the prompts in my inbox, because i’m always yelling for more and then they just sit there and i end up hoarding.

events you participated in this year?

i really started writing proper aos fic in the second half of the year, so i didn’t get a chance to join all that many, but hopefully i’ll join more of these in 2018.

• fitzsimmonsnetwork secret santa 2017• aospositivitynet secret santa 2017• skyeward big bang(because i like to mix it up a little. also because like no aos fic writing event accounts for my fav aos ship, rip)

fics you wanted to write but didn’t?

SO. MANY. too many arguably. like, i’m so bad. i’ll probably update this post if/when i upload an actual unfinished fic dump 2017 part II, because tbh i’ve been toying with the idea for a while.

okay, so there’s:

1. the literal very first aos fic i started writing, a direct result of all my pent-up anger and frustration at that lame-ass finale. i decided a fix-it fic was in order, where it basically diverges from canon around halfway through 4x21 (before that scene) and ophelia’s pardoned and allowed to stay, albeit under close surveillance and basically locked up in the containment module and the team has to learn to deal with it and accept her while fitz helps her come to terms with what it really means to be human. also, feelings don’t just get thrown away instead of being properly addressed because that’s lazy writing and you can love more than one person at a time, god fucking damn it). while this is still unfinished, it admittedly later evolved into a broader collab verse known as “team au.”

2. fitz/ophelia ‘we kind of broke up because you chose jemma and now we’re meeting again years later in new york and i never realised how much i missed you until you started chasing me down the street’ au.

3. this one canon-divergence (though canon can’t prove me wrong, so technically…) au where the framework is still the framework and everything is pretty much the same except ophelia’s pregnant (look, in 4x16 when he’s getting all worked up about “i have to protect you, i have to…” and she grabs his hand i literally thought for a moment that she was going to place it against her stomach and they’d do an oh-my-god-baby reveal, but they’re not ballsy enough to go there, so it’s mostly just wishful thinking BUT STILL) so when daisy quakes her out the window, well. in other words: ANGST.

4. this one fic where fitz and ophelia went to high school together but never really interacted until one party during the summer of their freshman year of college, realise they have feelings for each other and sleep together literally under the stars before he moves across the country because of college and a prestigious internship. shortly after term starts, ophelia realises she’s pregnant. cue long-distance internet pining, several failed attempts to confess/meet up in person, and and lots of hurt/comfort as ophelia slowly learns to accept her situation and make the best of it. plus some father-daughter bonding. it sounds really lame now i guess, but it’s really an idea that’s been with me for a long time and i’ve plotted and planned it and thought about it a lot so i would really love to push myself to just sit down and word vomit it out at some point. i promised myself i’d do in december/over christmas, but of course that didn’t happen, so hopefully sometime in january. it’s kind of a pet project of mine so i’ll be really disappointed in myself if i just let it go, even though the fitz/ophelia ship is as good as dead by now and i’d probably just be writing it for myself more so than for any real kind of audience. (yeah, i still have a soft spot for this ship, mostly because of the chest-tightening nostalgia i get whenever i think about it and the literal hours i’d spent being so completely invested in it over the summer. will i ever get over it? probably not.)

there’s a bunch of other stuff i always wanted to explore (leopold backstory, framework-canon hydra uprising, framework post-canon revolution, etc.) but never really got far enough in any other stuff to go into detail about them here (i really have to properly sift through my docs at some point, it’s literally a fic dump of headcanons/ideas from like, three months of hardcore obsessing all summer) but i guess one simple conclusion can be drawn from all this: i have a thing for angst, redemption arcs and pregnancy/baby fic, not necessarily in that order.

a fic you read this year you would recommend everyone read?

this is such a hard question because 1. i’ve read a lot of stuff from like, a weird mix of different fandoms, 2. with my ‘unfortunate/problematic’ choice of ships/favourite characters it’s hard to pick something everyone would enjoy. however:

for this empire, after night - i know the kylo ren/rey pairing isn’t for everyone (see above), but in my defense this isn’t really a shippy fic at all. it may, however, be one of the damn most beautiful things i’ve read in a long, long time. the descriptions, the imagery. it’s breathtaking (and really puts my own miserable scribbling into perspective)

#replies #ilosttrackofthings #as per usual this got away from me #it's basically a meta or something welp #writing #fic tag #long post

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skinksprite · 7 years

Text

At least one person wanted to read my horrible self insert fic so now you all have to suffer

So it’s just a throwaway project that I occasionally go back to every so often, and I just write without caring too much about characterization or anything (which means we quietly ignore the fact that these characters would have zero reasons to speak to me in a civil manner, we just accept it). The bits I tried to string together into a plot are on ff.net here, and I’ve linked to chapter eight, which is the point where I came back to it and it goes from your normal ‘oh cool im in a videogame!’ self insert gig into ‘reality kicks in and everything goes to shit, you’ll probably die soon’ territory. Personally I’d like to ignore everything that came before it because it takes way too long to get to the good parts, and I wrote those early chapters when I was much younger. *shrug* Descriptive blood and gore start happening in that chapter, because I had to kill a Sarafan, and then other nasty things go wrong.

Anyway have two (stupidly long) bits from this huge disorganized 17k word file I’ve got floating around still. The second bit is my favorite, it is also horrible and involves blood. Lemme know if you want more, because there’s a couple other sequences I’m fond of that aren’t properly strung together.

The weather was absolute hell. The air of the swamp was already warm and unbearably humid, making it difficult to breathe, and the downpour didn't help things. My hood was down. Water in my face was only slightly more tolerable than a soggy piece of cloth on top of my head. The cooler mud came halfway up to my knees, and the wound in my leg was screaming from the strain. If my shoes weren't tightly strapped on, they would have been lost to the sea of muck by now. It went up my pant legs and into my socks, and my feet were beginning to go numb. I had already tripped up several times in exhaustion, and I was covered in grime and my own blood, the roots and stones hiding beneath the mud giving me scrapes on my arms and face.

The sword became heavier with each passing minute, and all I wanted to do was to collapse somewhere solid and never get up.

So that's what I did. It took awhile for me to get up onto the slab of rock without tripping and hitting my head, as the wet moss made it slick and difficult to get a decent grip. The sword clattered out of my grip and almost slid into the mud, and I bumped my hand in order to save it. I laced my fingers through the decorative tassels so that I wouldn't have to concentrate on holding it any more, and sprawled out on the wet, rough boulder, desperately trying to catch my breath.

"Why" I abruptly half-wheezed, half-barked. The unfinished question was: 'Why am I doing this, why am I even here, and why can I never get enough time for a proper shower.'

Or maybe some food. Food would be nice. I'd been lamenting the loss of Adonathiel's pack the entire trip, but there wasn't enough time to go back and get it. What was important was that Vorador was ressurected, and probably teleported himself far away from the advancing Sarafan troops.

I felt my eyes get heavy. I don't think hanging upside down like that for so long was any good for me. I might have still been slightly concussed too. The only thing that kept me from fully going into sleep, was this annoying clanking noise on the edges of my hearing.

'Oh shit.'

My eyes snapped open and I immediately flipped myself off the rock, crouching into the muck to hide myself from the handful of Sarafan currently trudging in my general direction. I flipped up my hood and had to suppress a whine, as it dumped a load of watery muck all over my head and down my face. I was entirely saturated in the sludge, and it was unlikely that they would be able to tell the difference between me and another rock or rotted stump.

'I bet Vorador rarely makes the distinction! Ha!'

They passed slowly, struggling as they dragged along in their heavy armored boots.

"I don't think it was wise to leave the town unguarded."

"How so? Most everyone has moved away, and the fiend had fallen long ago."

The conversation fell out of focus, as I realized that I was slowly sinking. It was gradual, so gradual that I didn't notice it until now, but they needed to get a move on. I didn't come this far only to drown.

"What do you say we take a rest, Captain? Over there, on those rocks."

My eyes widened. I lifted my head just far enough to see that asshole pointing in my direction.

There was no way that I could adjust now.

They trudged their way over and did much the same thing that I did, their armor making it even more difficult to get a decent foothold. The Captain himself stood, refusing to sit, but the rest of them sprawled out on the rocks like basking lizards.

I heard a familiar clattering noise, and nearly jumped when I felt something sharp poke my shoulder.

"Ah, almost lost it..."

My mind screamed for me to move, to run, to do SOMETHING, but I forced myself still. I had to wait. There was no way in hell that I'm going to get captured by the Sarafan. God help me if they figured out that I'd already killed one of their patrolmen not two nights ago.

I discreetly straightened my back. It was up to my neck now.

The Captain himself seemed impatient and paced over to my side. Immediately I was yanked back down as his foot came down on the sword still tied to my hand underneath the mud. I craned my neck to keep my face above the enroaching stagnant filth, desperately trying not to make any noise while I struggled for air. I held back a gag as it crept up my chin and over my lower lip.

"Alright you lazy sods, we have to get back before sundown. Get a move on."

The Sarafan finally moved away, and my arm no longer felt like it was about to be twisted off.

The soilder above me sighed and slid off the rock.

His pike was extended out to his side as he did this, and it unfortunately bumped my shoulder.

"NGHCK" I choked, immediately hunching forward and away from the blade. Unfortunately, I had just submerged the rest of my face into the swamp water, and now there were eight alert sarafan who would no doubt hear me if I came back up for air.

I wrestled with myself to keep still and slow down my heart while they looked about, unable to find me.

"We should get moving. It was probably just some swamp creature."

They thankfully slid away and out of sight through the curtain of moisture, and I scrambled up out of the muck, gasping for breath. My shoulder was burning horribly, and I could feel the hot blood seeping into my already wet clothes, mingling with the horrid swamp water.

I needed to get somewhere dry, and soon. Lord knows what sort of terrible diseases were lingering in the water here, and the massive gash in my shoulder was already saturated with it.

The only good thing about this encounter, was that I knew that Ushtenheim was close, and that there wasn't anybody there.

The trek up the mountain paths were just as terrible. It was no longer raining, but it had gotten slightly chillier, and the stones were still slick. I'd left a trail behind me for quite a while before the mud finally dried, but I was too exhausted to care. It was literally an uphill battle. I was thankful that there was an actual path up there, and that I didn't need to have spiderman powers to scale walls.

Amusingly enough, when I looked closely at them, there were little rounded indents in sets of twos and threes. It was a five hundred year old approximation of 'Raziel was here'.

I stirred beneath the sheets in the old bed, and pulled the covers up higher. I wasn't sure why I was still awake. It was still in the dead of night.

I was just about done with my sweep of the library. Predictably, the older pens I'd found quickly wore out. I made a new pen out of Janos' feather, hoping that perhaps vampire feathers would last way longer than normal feather pens. I figured I'd stay for an extra night or so before I made my way back down the mountain. I knew that I'd have to get used to a lot of traveling on foot, but it didn't mean that I enjoyed it.

The feeling of being watched wormed it's way up my spine, and I couldn't go back to sleep despite how tired I was.

"Might as well continue studying..." I mumbled, crawling out of bed. I really can't make this a habit...

The aerie was freezing at night. I struggled to control the shaking in my writing hand, despite the roaring fire I'd set up in the fireplace. I cursed as I nearly knocked over my ink. This wasn't working.

"What are you doing here?"

I jumped and flailed a little, fumbling with my pen as I broke into a harder fit of shivers. I looked up to see the disapproving face of Vorador.

He was a truly intimidating figure, especially with the intense light of the fire highlighting his face from underneath, setting his sharp eyes aglow. His eyes narrowed when I focused a second too long on the stripe of scar tissue encircling his neck.

My tired, frozen mind couldn't catch up fast enough. I found myself hanging from his fist by my collar. His eyes pierced mine. I could barely comprehend what was happening at the moment. I don't think I ever really came to terms with the reality of my situation.

"Are you mute, human? Speak."

I made a few choked sounds in an attempt to talk through my chattering teeth before getting any coherent sentences out.

"N-no. J-just st-tudyi-ngck."

He snorted skeptically, eyeing the feather loosely clutched in my trembling hand. "Do you realize who this place belongs to?"

I fought through a particularly violent set of shivers. How the hell could anybody live here with nights like these? And this was just spring!

"y-y-Janos Aud-dron. I-I'm S-sorry if you'd exp-pected s-superstition to k-keep this place vac-cant. I was only visiting."

"Tresspassing."

"If-f it's any c-consol-lation, I'm sure he w-wouldn't want his knowlege t-to g-go to waste."

My hand went numb, and the feather fell, an errant breeze scooting it dangerously close to the fireplace. I jerked in it's direction, mentally pleading with it not to go any closer to the flames. As if in response, it inched even closer.

His fist wrenched even tighter, and I was forced to face him again. "And why would you think that?"

---------

Dismayed, I watched as the cool breeze scooted the feather into the fire, where it curled up into itself like a dying creature.

"No, wai-!"

My words were swallowed by the overpowering racket of the teleportation spell.

---------

The most unpleasant sound imaginable raked across my very being, like metal nails on a chalkboard, or repeatedly biting into something frozen that's still in it's package, the sensation painfully buzzing in my bones and setting my nerves on fire. My body wracked with spasms as I was thrown, skidding onto the floor and into a wall. My vision was made entirely of negatively colored swirls and spots, and my ears rang loudly. My head throbbed.

Apparently it wasn't quite Adonathiel's magic that was faulty. It's just that magic didn't do very well with me. Maybe it was because where I came from had no obvious magic like here.

When I regained awareness of my body, I realized I was being dragged haphazardly by the back of my clothes, like a misbehaving toddler in overalls. I winced, immediately curling my arms back into myself, trembling as the back of my hands stung from being ground against the stone floors. I had no clue where I was, it was far too dark to see.

I groaned.

"Ah, you're awake. Good. She's taken a liking to ones who can still scream."

Vorador.

"I have to stop getting myself captured."

I could practically hear his smirk.

"You're a strange one. I've no idea what sort of sorcery you've been using girl, but at the very least this will put a stop to it."

"I don't know any magic!"

I could feel the back of my shirt tighten. The collar of my shirt was starting to chafe my neck.

"Don't play stupid. It's disgusting."

"Look, it's not what I do, it's where I came from. Magic always goes really wrong around me."

"Hmn."

"What's going to happen to me?"

Silence.

I pursed my lips.

The darkness was almost impenetrable. We came to a stop, and the loud protests of a heavy metal door scraped against my senses, only heightening the creeping panic that was trying to claw it's way up my spine.

A frenzied panting echoed off the walls, and I lifted my head, barely making out two, red, dimly glowing points.

I was thrown again, into the center of the room, gasping as I felt the stitches in my back tug.

I lay there on the floor, listening.

The panting was getting closer. And closer. It suddenly stopped.

My own breathing quickened and my skin pricked with the thought of imagined horrors creeping ever closer to me.

A gust of breath swept past my ear in a deep hiss and I nearly jumped out of my skin, immediately scrambling backwards into something clammy and cold.

A pair of violet eyes, wreathed in red approached. I squeezed my eyes shut against it.

-----

I winced as a clawed hand worked it's way into my scalp. I was shaking constantly now, having been on edge and awake for... for what felt like a whole day. I think. It was a wonder I haven't dropped dead from fright. Everything made me jump out of my skin.

It hadn't killed me yet. I was like a mouse in the paws of a playful cat, battered, shaken, but not dead.

My eyes had slowly adjusted to the near pitch back, and I was capable of 'feeling' the shadows and outlines of certain things. Otherwise, I might as well have been blind. I could see it's eyes clearly though, and it served as the only source of illumination in the entire room.

I did my best not to move. Every twitch, every hitch of breath would peak it's interest. I made the mistake of suddenly scooting my foot out from under me once, and it tackled me, eager, waiting for me to move again. It wasn't as if I COULD move very much after that. My arm was obviously broken. Moving would only make things hurt even worse.

Lately it had taken to playing with my hair and scratching at my head. I clenched my jaw as an errant claw pierced my scalp again.

I began trembling as a set of footsteps echoed beyond the heavy door.

It tensed behind me, and it's claws buried themselves in my skin. A gasp of pain escaped my nose as my arm shifted.

Light and slightly fresher air flooded the musty chamber, and I had to squint to keep it from hurting my eyes.

Vorador stepped in, dragging behind him a barely conscious man.

He seemed incredibly surprised to find me alive.

"It seems Umah has taken a liking to you."

Umah? I almost turned, but as soon as the thought crossed my mind she had brought me closer to her body possessively, like a toddler holding on to a toy. I cried out from behind my teeth. A low hiss blew past my ear.

Vorador chuckled. "You are lucky to have survived this long, human. You may just come away from this with your life."

He tossed the man in and the door shut behind him, plunging me back into darkness.

Umah released me, I assumed she meant to eat the man. His painful howling confirmed my thoughts. But he wasn't dead. His cries had died down to a low moan. There was a shuffling, and then I jumped as something heavy was deposited in my lap.

I wanted to cry. The weight of a human head in your hands never quite leaves you.

Warmth slowly seeped onto my legs and I realized he was still bleeding.

I heard her growl in agitation. I was confused, too shocked and upset to think.

More shuffling, and the weight was lifted, only to be pressed into my arms. I couldn't help the hitch and sob in the back of my throat. My arm throbbed. I knew what she wanted now. Like a cat presenting a dead lizard, she wanted me to kill. To feed.

A dry sickness welled up in my gut. I licked my cracking lips, to no avail. The sides of my mouth ached from trying to produce saliva. The horror froze me, and an even more disgusting thought bubbled up beneath my despair.

I hadn't had anything to drink in almost two days.

My stomach flopped.

'How many potential mistakes can you make in a day? We knew our chances the minute we got here.'

My body trembled, and the vague dizziness that had come and gone came into focus.

I was breathing hard now, the pressure of my choice, however appalling, weighing down on me. Either drink, or get torn apart for refusing.

She hissed again, and the choice was taken from me, the man's neck forced into my face. I was overwhelmed with the metallic tang of blood. My good hand came up to the other side of his neck, feeling torn flesh. Umah didn't let him drop as I held my breath and began swallowing, trying not to taste it.

I began sobbing. The man accidentally jostled my arm as he spasmed, close to death, and my jaws clamped down, my teeth scouring new channels for the blood to flow from.

Umah finally let go, and I coughed, feeling myself dry heave. I pushed the corpse off my lap. She seemed satisfied with my compliance, and returned to 'stroking' my head, ignoring my crying. She was kneeling in front of me, that unthinking, curious look on her face, tinged with the closest approximation to a warm smile. Something changed then. Her hand retreated from my face, and the expression in her eyes shifted to confusion.

My head felt weird, and I could barely see the shadows of her eyes. It was hard to breathe. I was dimly aware of the fact that my vision was fading before unconsciousness greeted me once again.

-------

My head hurt.

'My head hurts'

"My head hurts." I mumbled. My body felt heavy, and thrummed with a vague ache that threatened to cause me pain if I decided to do anything other than existing.

Luminescent eyes found their way into my field of vision.

A low moan of despair rattled in my throat. I tasted copper, and the dried ichor on my face cracked as I immediately withered. I was still here.

"Why won't you kill me?" I whispered.

The dim outline of her features contorted as if pained. "I am sorry."

This was different.

"Umah?"

"I am so sorry."

I tried to move, to sit up, so I could speak to her face, but I was grounded by my painful headache and throbbing limbs. My hand went to grab at my broken arm, and instead of finding the bruised and swollen flesh, I instead found what felt like wood. A splint...?

"Please don't move."

I tensed as I felt her hand lift my broken arm, expecting it to be moved about as carelessly as before. I heard a tearing noise, and she gently placed my arm against me, wrapping it in place.

I saw her eyes turn away from me. A long silence followed afterward.

I took a moment to think the best I could through my pounding head. I was too exhausted to be scared anymore. It was obvious that Umah had been turned, but I never knew her to be the crazed creature from moments...hours? How long was I out? And what changed? Why does she seem so aware now? Why was she in this basement? Maybe it's what vampires were like for a while after turning? Whatever happened, she seems to regret it.

"I don't blame you." I hoarsely whispered.

"No, you should. After I-"

"You weren't yourself. It's... no, it's not fine. But I can't hold you accountable for something you weren't aware of."

"I...-" Her words died on her lips. Another silence fell over us for a while.

"How on earth can you forgive something like that?"

I sighed heavily. "I'm sure if you were... yourself, it wouldn't have happened."

"I remembered you. I don't know why, but I did. I tried to... but it was sick! I-!"

"Stop." I had to take a moment to breathe. "Don't think about it. It's over with."

The painful screeching of the door interrupted another long silence.

Vorador was there again, but he wasn't bearing another human to it's death.

"Good. You've finally come to your senses."

"Master?" Umah squinted against the light.

"Sire." He corrected, "You have the Dark Gift coursing through your body now."

I shifted on the floor and looked towards Vorador. He chuffed.

"Now that the initial phase of your transformation is complete, you may leave the basement. Finish off that poor girl, Umah, we have things we need to discuss."

Umah looked towards me. My mouth, blackened by old blood, was set in a hard line. I had no idea what to expect now.

"Sire, I owe it to this girl to let her live."

"Why? Are you indebted to her?"

Umah looked to the floor for a moment, as though caught in a lie. But when she met his eyes they were more certain than they had ever been, closer to the vampire she was destined to be.

"It's a debt that the both of us owe to her, sire. Without her help, I wouldn't have been able to bring you back."

Vorador's eyes widened in surprise. "I did not see her when I woke."

"She helped to find your head, sire. She had to leave before the Sarafan would follow her here."

He nodded his assent, finding no trace of a lie in his childe's eyes.

'I completely forgot about that...'

"Very well. A life for a life. However, I've never known of any humans who could survive in a room with a newly turned fledgling. Let alone for three days, and without food or water."

'THREE DAYS?!'

"Three-...?!"

At that I felt time catch up to me. The blood and air in my gut churned. My breath left me and I suddenly felt very winded, the sensation of lost time pressing down on me. I felt like I'd been hollowed out.

"How on earth did you do it?"

I grimaced. "Blood is at least 60% water. Rich in protien." I said quietly.

Umah's momentarily panicked face snapped towards me, and I answered it with a small shake of my head. I'd never tell on her.

Vorador's slightly appreciative gaze soured in disgust.

I sighed internally. I had a broken arm, I hadn't had anything of substance in weeks, I'd been slogging around in the freezing mountains and the damp swamp, and I'm pretty sure that the cuts on my back hadn't healed properly. I also had a stranger's blood rolling around in my gut. I fully expected that I would catch the plague and die at any minute.

#legacy of kain #writecrap #lol *dumps word garbage into the tag and leaves*

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