Random Hangman Story Idea of the Day-

hopefully an actual writer takes over this story and writes it. Please someone- take it!

Jake giving up his Christmas leave to Bob because he finds out Bob’s sister just welcomed a new baby and he knows how much the WSO wants to be home for the holidays. So Hangman goes to Admiral Simpson and requests to give his leave away anonymously. When Cyclone calls Floyd in to tell him, Bob is so happy to get to see his family, he doesn’t think about who could have given him this gift and just heads out to pack.

The Friday before Christmas, as everyone who has the time off leaves, those stuck in Miramar start making their own plans. Bradley and Phoenix are about to head out for some last minute shopping before they begin their holidays at Mav and Ice's home, when they see a light on in Jake’s apartment. They head up to investigate, shocked when the cocky pilot answers the door, expecting him to be halfway to Texas at this point.

Natasha realizes pretty quickly how Bob was able to make it home and asks Jake about it. The blond explains how he didn't need to go home, his parents wouldn't want him there, and soon he is being invited by the two other aviators to join their festivities. Hangman declines, convinced it was a pity invite and that no one actually wants him there. Bradley and Nat beg him to reconsider but head out when it's clear their teammate isn't going to change his mind.

On Saturday, December 23rd, Jake runs around the mostly deserted Top Gun base with his air pods in. He’s about to start his fourth lap when someone grabs his shoulder- it’s Maverick, looking just as surprised as Jake is to see him there. The two chat amicably for a bit when Pete brings up Christmas. Assuming this is his Captains way of trying to see if Hangman is going to crash their family dinner, Jake explains that while he appreciates the offer he doesn't want to impose, especially after such an emotional few months for Mav and his family (reconnecting with Bradley, Ice's cancer battles). Maverick tells Jake that there is nothing they wouldn't love more than if the blond would join them, even joking about how low key the whole event will be since Ice used to do the seven fishes on Christmas Eve and the big Christmas Ham and both Pete and Bradley are hopeless in the kitchen. Jake still seems unsure, to which Mav asks him to think about it and leaves him be.

All this leads to Jake Hangman Seresin arriving at Pete and Tom's house with a handful of groceries and presents on Christmas Eve morning, insisting on cooking to earn his place at the table. Of course his captain informs him he is meant to be a guest, but everybody stops fighting it as seven courses of delicious seafood find it's way to the dinner table. The group spends the night eating, drinking, watching Christmas movies and just spending fun time together, Jake having the best holiday he can ever remember. And as they all bid each other goodnight and head off to their different guest rooms, Hangman can't help but thank his hosts for having him. Tom and Pete just smile at the young man they are ready to adopt and tell him it's their pleasure, ushering the pilot off to bed so they can place the numerous wrapped presents they purchased for Jake under their tree, excited to see his reaction the next morning.

When that reaction ends up being tears for finally finding the family he always dreamed of Jake will find himself subjected to a lot of hugs on Christmas morning.

And yes, Brisket might be one of the presents waiting for Jake under the tree 🥰

My attempt to draw Sigyn, or a version of her

Thoughts below the cut:

[poor paraphrasing of Norse Mythology incoming]

Been looking up the Norse myth of Loki and he had two wives - an ice giant who was his secret wife and when Odin found out about her he forbade him from being with her, and a second wife, Sigyn who theres not much on but when he murdered a god and was punished by being burned continuously by a giant snake, she stood over him and caught the venom in a bowl so it wouldn’t burn him but occasionally she had to go and empty it, so it would burn him again. In conclusion, she was a very devoted partner

Anyways I don’t know where they’re heading with the rest of Loki this season, but in my head I’ve decided they’re going to go through all the timelines to defeat that timeline’s version of He Who Remains to hopefully prevent another war

So…what if Loki, Mobius, and co bamf into one of these timelines, are taken captive, and when Loki is brought to the throne room of that timeline’s ruler, bam, it turns out to be Sigyn, his wife in this timeline

Only in this timeline, Loki became a very well-loved king of Asgard with Sigyn as his queen and they had two kids who wouldn’t remember Loki, cuz, gasp, this timeline’s Loki was killed by this timeline’s version of He Who Remains, and they were barely toddlers when it happened (let’s say now they’re fully grown adults)

So I have this reveal scene I can’t get out of my head of Loki, as we know him, and the rest of the gang being brought to the throne room to answer to the person in charge (who are you and why have you attacked my men, etc etc). They’re brought in bound and with hoods over their heads so it’s very dramatic when Loki’s is taken off. Everyone gasps cuz Loki is supposed to be dead in this timeline

This theoretical episode is Sigyn getting to know the Loki we know and Loki getting to know that in one version of himself he had a family and was a beloved ruler of Asgard

Wish I had the patience to write this story so I may just do random drawings if I can muster up the motivation

Okay, I don't voice a ton of opinions about Disney movies, but here's one I think about from time to time: Raya and the Last Dragon AND Encanto would have worked better as animated series than movies.

I say this as someone who absolutely loves Encanto mind you. Every time I see a Camilo post I am immediately sending it to my sister, we both appreciate this film. But our inside joke is that it gets an I for Incomplete. The movie spends so much time giving us musical numbers that expose us to each character's struggles, but it feels like Mirabel just kind of shows up and listens to how her family members are feeling? Like she doesn't get much of a chance to actually help most of them through their problems, even though the movie seems like it wants to frame her that way. She barely suggests a solution. Luisa just had a good cry around her, and Isabella yelled at her and then found her solution on her own. I feel like listening and having a soundboard are important when it comes to working through your feelings, but this format and pacing actively strip Mirabel of getting to be fleshed out and have an active role in the story. Things just kind of happen around her. We don't get to see much of what makes her unique as a problem solver. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that this story was being told in a movie format. It has such a big cast where all of them are important, it's hard to give anyone enough time to be fully fleshed out and have the entirety of their character arc within that time span.

Raya suffers from the same problem. The world is so large and expansive, its geography and individual cultures have so much potential, but we only get this tiny glimpse of these characters and places that doesn't tell us all that much about them, outside of a small taste of exposition when they're all missing their families. Which kills me, because both of these movies have some really interesting ideas on display. The scope is just too ambitious to fit cleanly into one singular movie. If they were animated series that had some slower growth to compliment their rich world building, it would have made a significant difference. I would love to see more shenanigans with each of these characters, more ups and downs of serious conflict and a little goofiness. Don't get me wrong, I'm not upset by what we got, it was nice to have some original IPs that were fun and took some risks. But I am a little disappointed, because they had the potential to be a lot better than they were.

It's been feeling like Disney movies are more and more rushed over the past couple years, or at the very least, not thought through as much as they could be. -gestures at the behind the scenes of Frozen 2 where they didn't know what the voice was for most of production- And I can't pinpoint any one thing as the reason why, because there are a lot of factors contributing to it. But it definitely makes me want to be more conscious of that when creating my own stories. I guess that is the great thing about storytelling and art, you're always learning, and as you take in more art, you figure out what you value most about it. That is key in teaching you how to make what you want. Art is a language after all.

I've been going crazy as of late with the general idea of some guy gaining weight, but he's the only one who's even aware of it.

Like, some average sized man randomly packing on pounds in a sudden growth spurt. He's suddenly pudgy where he never was, yet everyone thinks that he's always liked to eat a bit extra, unable to say no to another serving or dessert.

It's not even just people who suddenly mentally adjust to his size. His clothes grow. The picture of him from a couple months back now shows him with the extra bit of pudge that he now has, since he's always had it to begin with.

And he packs on weight over time; every single attempt he makes at dieting or exercising is absolutely meaningless as he continues to unwillingly pack on the pounds. Everyone's indifference to his size slowly switches over to minor teasing and slight encouragement that transforms into flat out fattening him up by the point he weighs 500 pounds of hefty man fat.

And his very house shifts to accommodate his size: furniture reinforced, doorways widened, food always stocked up, anything he could need to get that push to gain weight faster his house has.

Even as he continues to blimp out, becoming an absolute wheezing, hungry mess that has an entourage of men who greedily fatten him up and take care of him, everyone thinks it's the most natural thing ever.

How else would such a hefty blob of a man be so fat if not giving into his own hedonistic pleasure?

I have come to wonder if this means that Ishmael's autobiography was published posthumously.

Stay back, ye feels!

underexplored gw2 lore element: tuning crystal items.

i just love the idea that, much like oiling or sharpening a blade, when youre dealing with magical weaponry, you might have to tune the resonance of the magic now and then to make sure its right

10/10 should play with this in writing more

Here’s WHY I’m nervous—

If you listen to the Bancroft Brothers podcast where they feature Jodi Benson (Ariel’s original voice), she talks about how she was coached and given very specific direction on how to sing “‘Part of Your World” so that they got the most accurate emotion out of every line, so that they prioritized what Ariel was feeling during this song over how pretty she sounded.

Because it’s Jodi Benson, she’s a great singer, she was going to sound pretty no matter what. 

The important thing in this moment of the movie is that the audience feels Ariel’s longing to be part of a world she doesn’t have ownership of, that she has no way to get to, that she desperately wants to understand and live in. And she already believes it is a good and wonderful world. The song and the whole scene work together to make you understand what Ariel is feeling so that when she leaves her father and sisters and tail and everything she’s ever known behind, you understand why. You don’t think she’s a brat as much as you think she’s a dreamer. 

And maybe this version of the Live Action Remake Part of Your World is not how it is actually sung in the final product, it was just recorded this way for this trailer

But if it’s NOT

If this is how it’s sung in the new movie, then I’m nervous. 

Because Ariel sings it like:

“Out of— the sea… (gentle and quiet and fast on “sea,” like she’s bored by that word and getting it out of her mouth as fast as you might say the commonplace, boring old letters of the alphabet)

Wish I…could be! (She’s SAYING at his part, not singing it, because it’s more genuine, and you can hear her impatience and the hushed way she says “be.” Because BEING a there, existing as part of the world she’s dreamed about instead of watching it and imagining it from the outside, is what is important to her. And she says it quietly like a prayer or like something sacred. And maybe most importantly, her body language and her facial expression add to this word with a motion of her fists coming down, like a child who is trying to hold on to something they know they can’t keep. And then it cuts to Flounder’s sad face, because he and the audience are supposed to feel for her, that she CAN’T “be” there.)

Part of that…world—…” (This part is sung quietly too, because it’s like after singing “be” in a way that indicates she knows she can’t have what she wants, she goes back to singing “world”  like it is a dream only in her head, and she’s thinking about it to herself, and that’s where it has to stay. But it’s still special to her, which is why she pauses to let the audience FEEL it before she sings “world.” The word “world” is not sung triumphantly until she’s on the rock in the reprise and Eric has made the dream close and possible, to her.)

BUT IN THIS NEW TRAILER.

Halle Bailey emotes a little like she’s thinking of the world she wants to be part of fondly. Her best facial expression is on “be,” like it should be.

But I don’t like the way she draws out the word “be” with all the riffing, (if that’s the right word for it,) because it doesn’t sound like she doesn’t know how she’ll ever get there! It sounds like she’s enjoying the thought of it, sure, but they sacrificed the longing that came with Jodi Benson humanly speaking those words for the Star power of flashy vocalizations! And it sounds beautiful, sure, but it doesn’t make me feel what Ariel is feeling.

And she rushes through “part of your woooooorld,” and takes out that perfect PAUSE that is supposed to be there! The pause in a pattern makes you long for the pattern to be resolved (like Andy from the Office) and that longing helps you relate to Ariel’s longing!

And I know I should be able to detach from how I’ve heard the song sung before if I’m going to give the new thing a fair shot, but that’s just not how this works. Everyone’s heard Part of Your World. Everyone has an expectation of how the words will be inflected. You can change that up! As long as what you change doesn’t change the heart of the song. 

I know it’s small and oh wow, am I making a big deal out of the tiniest things from the tiniest trailer, but UGH. Not THIS MOVIE. Not this one! The little things are BIG THINGS in a movie. Because the little things weren’t THERE until someone DECIDED they should be, and when they DECIDED the little things, they did it for a GOOD REASON. Don’t MESS with that GOOD REASON!

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how the Jak and Daxter series was able to survive having a sequel that was drastically different from the first game. For most series, I think they wouldn’t be able to survive having a sequel that went against the prior installment, especially if the execution was bad. Yet Jak II didn’t sink the franchise. In fact, I’ve noticed that the 2nd Jak game has received better reception in the years since it was released.

As a kid, even though it took some getting used to since I loved the 1st game, I wasn’t put off by Jak II being this cyberpunk GTA title. But I never understood why.

After revisiting the game (I watched a playthrough on YouTube), I think I have a working theory:

1) Jak and Daxter only had 1 game out at the time.

So, the expectations for how the characters would be portrayed wasn’t that strict. Think of it like this; Nintendo wouldn’t get away with turning Link into an unhinged, smartass killer who openly flirts with Zelda. Neither would Sega with Sonic, that’s why Shadow exists. Link and Sonic are too well-known and established that people have expectations on how they should be portrayed, thus not a ton of room for experimentation/deviation. Naughty Dog had some leeway since Jak and Daxter weren’t really household names.

2) Turning Jak into an unhinged, bloodthirsty killer who openly flirts with Keira and has serious anger issues wasn’t that drastic.

This one’s pretty self-explanatory. You start off as innocent Jak, then he got pumped full of Dark Eco. Also, he was tortured for several years, so it’s not hard to see why his character turned out the way he did.

3) The game still feels like the 1st Jak and Daxter, even with the change in tone.

It controls the same. It looks the same (as in the artwork still feels like it was made by the same team). You’re still doing puzzles. And, aside from Jak, the other Jak 1 characters are pretty much the same. I think it’s Daxter and his obnoxiousness that really makes Jak II feel like it’s not a completely different franchise. Without Daxter, I think players would notice the dissonance from the 1st to the 2nd game a lot more.

4) Continuing from point 3, the new gameplay elements only build on from the 1st game rather than take away.

Sure, you get guns, a hoverboard, vehicles, and Dark Jak. However, everything else is still the same. If you remember the controls from the 1st game, you shouldn’t have any problem jumping into the 2nd game, which I feel helps in easing veteran players in with the new tone and setting.

5) Even with the change in tone and setting, the game doesn’t really deviate too far from how Jak was in Jak 1.

Even though Jak is unhinged, angry, and hellbent on revenge in Jak II, he’s still an overall good dude who goes around helping people. Jak still feels like Jak, albeit traumatized and angrier for valid reasons. It helps that Jak was sort of a blank slate in the first game. Because he was a blank slate, there was more room for Naughty Dog to develop his character in Jak II.

Jak is also a bit of a meathead dudebro in Jak II, which isn’t really how he was portrayed in Jak 1. But Jak being a dudebro isn’t that crazy when you consider his best friend is Daxter. And the open flirting isn’t that crazy since Jak already had a crush on Keira.

6) Jak II commits to its dark and edgy tone without going too dark or too cartoonish. It feels like a genuine attempt to take the first game and just “edge” it up.

What my point says. Jak II feels like a genuine continuation of the first game, but darker and edgier. But the game doesn’t go too edgy to the point that it takes you out of the story. It’s not like Jak is going around dropping f-bombs and chopping people’s heads off. It’s a solid balance, that’s what I’m trying to get at.

The theory that Brennan Lee Mulligan himself will be the final boss of Dimension 20 Neverafter doesn't ring true to me, and I think I've unpacked why. Let me show my work.

1. Lazy

"What if it turns out the big bad is the Dungeon Master themselves?" is an idea most DMs have when planning their first campaign. Brennan Lee Mulligan is a professional, DMing on a show that people pay money to watch. It's too route 1 of an idea for someone in that position.

2. Cheesy

This is the horror season, gang. Plopping down a mini of yourself and telling your friends "now your PCs have to fight ... me!!" is inherently goofy and would go against the tone of the series.

3. Inconsistent

It doesn't fit the lore! For one thing, The Authors are described as fundamentally unknowable: unthinkably vast, Lovecraftian entities operating on a plane of consciousness that makes their minds utterly unfathomable to the players' characters. To then say "and here's the Author you're gonna fight, it's me, your pal who does bird facts on command" would undercut all that (see point 2. Cheesy).

And another thing: yes, Brennan Lee Mulligan is a storyteller. But he's not the same type of storyteller as The Authors. The Authors are all about canonicity. They take their own preferred versions of stories and fix them in Ink, trapping the characters into a destiny they have no control over. That's not how BLM tells stories! He runs roleplaying games! He willingly gives six other people control over where the story goes, and flings dice about to take it even more out of all of their control. To then put himself on the board as the avatar of The Authors, upholders of 'this is how I've decided the story goes, you just shut up and listen', would be a funny gag but wouldn't ring true.

I wont ask abt how you go about outlining/plotting for Owl People as i know that would likely be a way too complicated thing to answer, but how have you gone about sorting through fae mythology to find the parts you wanted to use? Is there any particular inspirations or is it a bit of everything?

haha well it's not as methodical as sorting through anything, I think. A lot of the fairy stuff in the story is things I accumulated growing up as a folklore/mythology nerd and also someone living in scotland/ the uk, where there are weird little fairies and goblins and devils in so much of our landscape and culture - I actually find it quite hard to pinpoint specific fairytales and folklore that contributed to Owl People, because so much of it is just vibes, or bits and pieces I don't know where I picked up because they feel like they've been with me forever!

Plotting owl people is something that I've had several runs at - each time I'd get so far and lose steam as I think I wasn't ready for the story, and over those tries I've refined the parts i am attached to and dropped anything that doesn't feel important or exciting. the current story is, to an extent, improvised, as I've generally only plotted a book ahead in broad strokes, and only a chapter ahead in detail, and then I'd get to the end of what i had plotted and go "oh, wait, this should be a totally different thing to what I thought." Incorporating the fairies and building their lore kinda follows that - there is so much in my head that I doubt I'll get round to puting on the page, as I have to follow what feels important to the story as I'm telling it - for instance, this is a story about borders and boundaries and how people get displaced across them, and who enforces them and the cruelty in that. there's loads of that in british fairy stories, and our landscape is full of doorways to other kingdoms and shifting borders, so I've drawn on things like the many folktales about stone circles and fairy rings and underground goblin kingdoms. these things also lend themselves to an urban setting, as cities are also full of layered histories, visible and invisible boundaries, and marginal or forgotten spaces that are ideal settings for fairy stories! A lot of it is about looking for ways to fit the stories of wild fairies I grew up with into the very manmade spaces I live in now.

wow I didn't mean to write you an essay, i hope that about answers your question?

I published a chapter of one of my stories for the first time in WEEKS. I’m telling myself that kudos and comment and reblog numbers don’t count but that’s not true….

EVERY SINGLE PERSON THAT HAS COMMENTED OR LIKED OR EVEN READ THIS NEW CHAPTER MEANS THE ABSOLUTE WORLD TO ME!

All of you have helped me come back to writing and I am so grateful. Still a long way to go until I like my own stuff again but I feel proud for putting something out there again

Tried to take a nap but brain tormented me with all kinds of thoughts about Amnesia AU Nero joining the Scions and what that would mean in relation to certain EW events. 

Spoiler!

Like at what point during Ultima Thule would Nero sacrifice himself and omg how angry he would be when Severia hits the button on the teleporter just before the fight with Meteion. 

Omni man is obviously trying to prepare his son for something. But for what, that’s the question. He seems like a “throw them into the deep end” kind of father.

Still embarrassed to write it, but been thinking like way too much about hyper. Like some guy gets cursed to where his libido increases.

And it starts off small, needing to rub one out perhaps once or even twice more in a week than usual. And he never even thinks about it! Or the way his clothes begin to feel a tad more snug around his groin, comfortable boxers slowly but surely growing tighter as his dick gets bigger. And as it happens, he finds that his thoughts always begin to stray at least once a day: how the fit man in front of him would look better on his bed, or the heavyset guy he accidently bumps into should take his shirt off. And he always has to go off to relieve his yearning dick that's coming dangerously close to cumming already.

Eventually, the awkwardness of his situation kicks in and despite all his attempts to think of anything but his burning dick that can't even be contained by his boxers anymore—the sheer chafing of fabric getting him hard now—he can't help but want to jack off, he needs to at this point. And sessions go on for multiple rounds, a quick nut unable to be relieved after one.

Even as his dick reaches absurd proportions and he no longer feels comfortable leaving with his pants bulging from his flaccid dick alone—the few and far between times it is—along with his heavy balls that relentlessly churn with cum. He still tries to wear sweatpants, the tightness of any regular jeans and even shorts too much for how sensitive he is now. His days are practically spent on just jacking off now, his third leg too big for anyone to conceivably take. Even his movement starts to become limited, the dozens of pounds making up his groin impossible to ignore and set him cumming even with his slow footsteps.

Eventually he doesn't even think about the strangess of his curse. Or how someone lets themself into his house, the person who did this to him; he's just a mess of moans as he gets nicely taken cared for, a single stroke of another's hand on his shaft enough to send him moaning and whimpering for more as he releases gallons of his seed.

Anyone can see, nothing really matters to me.

I sit on the carpeted stairs that lead from my living-room to the bedroom, posting old poems to Tumblr - likely no one will notice. It’s for the best, they’re mostly hate-fuelled. The neighbour woman from a few doors down calls “Luna, Luna” from the yard outside my door. Her cat has been missing for over a week. I wonder how long I’ve been a house cat now… I don’t go missing anymore. Lucky Luna.

My mind wanders as my post uploads and I’m back at Homerton hospital. Sophie and Grace my nurses frantically wheel my newly acquired wheelchair through the corridor to A&E as my consciousness waxes and wains. My stomach hurts, the rest of me is numb. I feel cold. Their faces are warm but their expressions worried. I feel lachrymose. I know it’s their job… but I don’t really want saving. Not that I have any intention of saving myself - quite the opposite. I close my eyes and pray I won’t wake up. I take a deep breath.

The beckoning for Luna fades from my doorstep. Silence. I look at my phone. Upload complete.

Dumb au thoughts:.

Weather Wizard drinks water out of reusable coffee cups and refuses to buy from Starbucks.

Heat Wave has a favorite pizza place where you can see the fire oven from the dining area. He watches it like a kid watches those fish aquariums in waiting lobbies. Hates pizza from little Caesars.

Pied Piper dislikes going to the eye doctor or the dentist. People touching his face for extended periods of time and close examinations of his face make him twitchy.

Black Adam likes flying at night.

Also! Teth Adam is now a name of power due to it's striking from memory. If a person knows that name and who it belongs to and manages to speak it, Adam can feel it's draw. Like a prayer of sort

Best way to make the Flash go quite is to put food in his face. He doesn't even register it as rude.

The Rogues have a designated hangout bar: Saints and Sinners, and a designated hangout coffee shop: Sally's Coffee House.

Riddler prefers vanilla and mint milkshakes and Penguin makes sure to keep him in supply whenever he comes to the lounge. Riddler does switch it up sometimes