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pinkerthings · 2 months

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the significance of mileven simply not understanding each other (pt 1):

(others have brought this up before but I think it’s a bit overlooked imo)

There are numerous times throughout Stranger Things where Mileven is shown to not be on the same wavelength, and the Duffers like to make it quite apparent to the general audience.

Starting with the obvious scenes:

“BLANK makes you crazy”

El is literally staring at Mike like she has NO idea what he’s trying to say.

Shes STILL confused even after he tells her it’s something old people tell each other:

Like girl…. i KNOW you were watching them soap operas and old timey romances during that year in Hopper’s cabin. You really expect us to believe you have no clue what he’s trying to say?

This scene was written like this on purpose for two reasons: comedic effect and diving deeper into mileven.

Back to not ever being on the same wavelength:

I talked in this post here about Mike being okay with El standing up to bullies in the past when it came to Mike or Will, but Mike suddenly not understanding when it comes down to El defending herself against Angela, showcasing the idea that they are definitely not in agreeance over what happened at Rink-O-Mania.

The Duffers like to purposefully write Mileven out of step with one another.

It seems as though every season has something negative in store for the couple, and not in a fun, slow-burn agonizing romance type of way, but in the frustrating “why can’t they just work it out” kind of way.

Season 1 obviously has El “dying” and leaving Mike for a year, but on a smaller note also has Mike trying to explain to her that if she moved into his house, Nancy would be like her sister, but he would not be like her brother. She does not understand this, and has her classic confused face on.

Season 2 has her being gone and coming back to see Mike with Max, and even though nothing happened between the two of them, El was still cold to Max when they first met, showing even if El is incapable of knowing what the word “love” is, she still somehow knows what jealousy is.

Season 2 also brings us an interesting scene with Erica and Lucas, where the dialogue just seems….really off and random.

Lucas catches Erica playing with his He-Man action figure and gets mad, taking it from her. To which she says, “Hey! They’re in love!”

Lucas responds with:

The scene is extremely random and the dialogue is just weird to me, the only explanation it being a metaphor for something in the show, and the only viable explanation is Mileven.

Season 3 has the entire “boyfriends lie” side plot, resulting in El dumping Mike for lying to him about his grandmother after Hopper’s talk with him. Their relationship the entirety of season 3 is the epitome of immature pettiness caused by jealous and hormonal teenagers who don’t understand what being in a real relationship entails--

We get El and Max spying on the boys:

Eleven is a mystery to Mike, he pretty much says it himself.

Their whole relationship is based on immaturity, and the audience knows that. The audience can see that the two of are clearly immature and don’t have what it takes to be in a real, committed relationship. That’s the point. Their relationship in season three is almost entirely to move the plot around in whatever way the Duffer’s want, and to showcase the idea that their relationship in screen is nearly always shown in either a comedic, pre-teen immature light, or a jealous, misunderstood, and petty light. There is almost no stable relationship between the two of them in season 3. It’s either too clingy or too toxic or full of lies or immature, blah blah blah. The only scenes of them either not making out or fighting is the last scene of them together right before the Byers move, and that’s a whole scene in itself to unpack!

Season 4 is where things get a little chaotic, as if things weren’t chaotic enough.

There are so many miscommunications and misunderstandings with Mileven this season, but the big ones include:

El feeling like Mike thinks of her as a monster-

and Mike looking at her like she just spoke badly about his favorite Star Wars movie-

Directly after that we have Mike saying El is being "ridiculous" because she's upset that he won't tell her he loves her, and him calling her a superhero, the complete opposite of what she wants to hear in that moment, but Mike doesn't understand that, because who wouldn't want to be called a superhero? (his way of thinking)

Later on we get Mike recounting this to Will, saying, "and if I would have said that thing..." etc.

Mike can't even say that he loves El to other people, and we're expected to believe it's still true?

We also get this:

another misunderstanding on Mileven's part. El thinks Mike doesn't love her (at this point, does he?) so she finishes her letter the same way he has: From, El.

Next we have Will and Mike's conversation on top of the car:

"I think it's just scary to open up like that, to say how you really feel, especially to people you care about the most, because...what if they don't like the truth?"

I've said it before and I'll say it again,

why would El NOT like the truth if the truth is that Mike loves her?

Mike nods at Will's words and looks away, seemingly lost in thought. Why would he agree with Will---that it's hard for him to open up to El because she might not like the truth---if the truth is exactly what she wants to hear?

It literally makes no sense.

We also get the Byler van scene, where Mike compares her to a superhero yet again, something she clearly does not like (I don't have a vid but here's the official script, where he says the same thing):

Also El being Superman and him being Lois Lane in the analogy....okay.

Next we have him calling her a superhero YET AGAIN ! during his monologue:

Like girl if I was El I would just give up at this point. This is the last thing she wants to hear. She doesn't want to be a superhero all the time, she just wants to be a person ! a girlfriend ! a friend ! a daughter ! yet Mike is making it seem like the main reason he loves her is because she's a superhero, which she hates.

And lastly we have:

"Did she...talk to you at all?"

"Not much, I mean...a little bit."

Let me get this straight......you finally confess your love to your longtime girlfriend in the midst of her fighting a literal monster & monster from her past while she is being strangled and held captive all while she's also trying to save her friend from death, and she doesn't say anything to you for TWO days after?

Ladies...the Mileven break up is writing itself, really.

And that is a thread on how the Duffers intentionally write Mileven to be on different wavelengths with each other every single season without fail to showcase how incompatible they really are.

They are setting this relationship up to where you want more for both parties; El deserves to be loved the way she wants to be loved, and Mike deserves to be loved the way he needs to be loved (if u know what i mean)

In part 2 I will discuss the importance of byler understanding each other, juxtaposed to mileven hehe bye !

part 2 analyzing Mike & Will here !

#stranger things #byler #mike wheeler #will byers #eleven #stranger things 5 #finn wolfhard #jane hopper #st5 #mike and will

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deerspherestudios · 1 year

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Hi! I played your game and really, really like it, I am a huge fan of slow burn - combined with Yandere too? That's kinda rare nowadays, haha. Thanks for making it and creating Mychael, I love his design. Two questions: How many days are planned to be playable in the full release?

And

Since in just one day Mychael feels very friendly towards us (according to a post you made with where his feelings are based on a meter) does that mean he's very clingy??? Like, in just one day he feels like our friend. What little effort and words will it take for him to go from crush, to love, to whatever yandere thing he might be??? Like, is he okay??? Should I be worried???

This guy? Clingy? Nahhh. Nothing to worry about, anon :-) 🍄❤️

As for the game, long (!!!) answer below cut: might be spoiler-y might be not.

For context, here's the post mentioned above.

I'm still not sure how many days it will be, but it's definitely ranging between 4-5 days. Granted it'll be a while before the game is finished finished but I think progress will pick up as I complete assets that will be reused. I'm writing Days 2, 3 and 4 simultaneously (anyone who writes can probably relate to wanting a specific thing to happen in the story but dread writing up to it, so I skip around in order to keep my motivation and interest up)

As for relationship progression, slow burn usually means a long time passes before anything develops. But this is a VN and I'm a solo part-time dev so the scope still has to be small 😔 That said!

Mychael, as a person, is quite solitary in nature; he likes being alone and you'll find out why. He does however desire company and he's only realized just how pleasant having someone around can be (hence his reaction for the Bad Endings in Day 1 if you wish to leave/run away)

Although I'm not a fan of the 'you do one (1) nice thing any decent person would do and yandere is already head-over-heels for you' trope, I do have to make use of it but, drip-feed style? You grow closer to Mychael as you hang out with him and do little things that he appreciates. (Honestly I just realized I'm describing the typical visual novel experience just without the yandere beginning-- go! figure!!! /lh)

Example: the first thing that boosts you to immediate friend status is your willingness to accept his physical looks, something that's never happened to him before. (I know my artstyle makes him a yassified pretty boy but imagine genuinely meeting a sentient creature in real life with patchy green skin, a dextrous tail and four blinking pitch black eyes, I think I'd freak too haha) Little things like that mean a lot to him and motivates him to prolong your stay.

In a way, the MC is written to be more kinder and open-minded (at least outside of Bad Ends) than the sweet/sour personalities that come in a VN, so (for narrative AND coding purposes) I can't really diversify it much. I hope that's okay ¯\_(; v ; )_/¯ If Mychael met a more grouchy/mean MC on Day 1 he'd probably not be as attached. He'd just save you, feed you and send you home when you ask hahaha. Of course this will change as he gets to know you better, at that stage he'll be willing to overlook your flaws like any upstanding yandere

Phew this was a lot to dump in an ask but I did wanna explain my vision for the game! I enjoy yandere VNs as an escape fantasy, but it's common they start out with the yan already being invested in you or fall for you too fast!!! if that makes sense. I'm interested in yanderes in the aspect of how love (romantic or otherwise) starts from innocent affection and spirals into dark obsession!!! It's also compelling as to why a character is so devoted to someone, in this situation the MC, and I wanna write the kind of person Mychael would fall for. And personally 'love-at-first-sight' as a reason just doesn't do it for me 💔

(Disclaimer!!! I'm not saying my game is any more original or better than the other wonderful yan VNs in the works, but hopefully with Mychael as a character I can deliver that 'slow-burn-and-yearn' storyline I'd like it to be. As my itchio profile says: I make games I thirst for in secret but are sadly lacking around the internet 💔 )

Thank you for the ask!! :-D

#mushroom oasis vn #mychael ask #doodles #cheea chatter #q

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survivalove · 4 months

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debunking lies zutara shippers say about the atla creators & writers

disclaimer: this is in no way an endorsement or defense of bryke or anyone mentioned. literally just debunking false statements i see spread throughout and outside the fandom as it pertains to kataang

1. that bryke made kataang endgame because the nice guy should get the girl

this is something I see often usually linked with this video of a man ⬇️ who they claim to be bryan/mike echoing this sentiment.

this man is in fact john o’bryan, one of the three known zk shippers in the writers’ room (we’ll expand on this in point 5) talking about how he saw aang. not the creators. so of course it shouldn’t surprise anyone that he doesn’t even like kataang in the first place.

2. that bryke made kataang endgame last minute and zutara was the original pairing

bryan and mike (notice how i’m using both of their names separately. this too will be important in the next point) have talked about how kataang was planned since they originally wrote the show.

they have also talked ad nauseam in a video (which I will not share here cuz it made a lot of ppl angry) about why they do not like zutara and its shippers, so this entire point is bogus.

++ the reason why they say zk was the original pairing is because of one of the zk writers (joshua hamilton) wrote this in the atla fun facts that used to run on tv. (we’ll get into him later) those atla fun facts contain a lot of inaccurate/non canon “facts” which you can check and verify on avatar wiki if you know what i’m talking about.

3. that aang is bryke’s self insert (specifically mike)

yeah, here’s where the separation becomes important. bryan (L) and mike (R) are two different men. mike has never said that aang was his self-insert, nor has he directly talked about relating to aang. bryan, however, constantly talks about how much he relates to zuko. even, going as far to say he tries to think like zuko when he writes characters and shows.

the only time mike has come close to saying he relates to aang is when dante said he thinks mike is more like aang while bryan is more like zuko, and they, mostly bryan, agreed. (mike has actually said he relates to korra more than aang but hey) bryan also is the one who drew mike’s beard on adult aang because he considered it a nice reference to his friend. this is the main reason why shippers ran with that self-insert narrative because half the time, they think bryke is actually one person ☠️

++ in fact, aang’s original character design is based off the mixed black-chinese son of sifu kisu

4. that atla was supposed to have a season 4 where katara and zuko got together

this is mostly something that has come out of a fabricated interview by the head writer, aaron ehasz. he was allegedly asked what he would have liked to do if given the chance to write a fourth season of the show and talked about an azula redemption arc among other things. zutaras then made up a whole fake interview including that he wanted to make the two characters endgame.

ehasz then came out to say that most of these “interviews” were faked and that he has never talked about having a preference for any ship. if you go on his twitter, you will see him talking about an azula redemption arc tho.

as for atla having a 4th season at all, it was never intended. the creators, the music composers have all said at various points in time, the show was written and pitched as three seasons, three elements.

5. that most of the other writers shipped zutara and bryke’s authoritarianism shut it down

as I said above, only three writers on the original show have come out to say they preferred zk at some point. atla has had a total of 21 staff writers. 3 out of 21 is not most if you ask me.

as for bryke (yes now i’m using the shorthand cuz i proved my point earlier) being authoritarians, no writer or staff that has worked with them on the show has said this so…? idk where that came from but i’m not here to back them up just mention facts.

6. that all the women who worked on the franchise shipped zutara while only men shipped kataang

atla has very few female staff as it is:

5 writers (elizabeth welch: zk; others: unknown)

1 director (unknown)

5 storyboard/character artists (lauren montgomery: ka; elsa garagarza: ka; angela song mueller: zk; others: unknown)

1 comic writer (faith erin hicks: ka)

2 comic artists (gurihiru: ka)

++ mae whitman (katara’s voice actress) has expressed her like for both ships throughout the years.

so i’m not sure what defines all and only for some ppl but those definitions are not in my dictionary. disclaimer: i’m not declaring anyone here as a shipper in any official sense. this is just based off statements they have made that you can google!

7. that katara is written poorly in post-atla content because of kataang/bryke

I mean the first part isn’t really a lie, more of an opinion which I can agree with to an extent.

why I mention this here is because zks will not only go on a tangent and link the misogyny in the writing to a m/f ship and say the other m/f ship would have been more feminist…

but they also refuse to hold all the men involved accountable. like I said, 3 known atla writers shipped zk and 2 of them (joshua & john) were men (who would’ve thought men could like a ship and it could still be considered feminist 😃). they were also 2 out of only 4 atla writers that came back for legend of korra, outside of the creators. (19 to 4 ☠️ no comment). these shippers very well know this and instead of holding these men accountable for the misogynistic writing, they instead brag about them shipping it and ask them about zk whenever they have the chance.

another example is gene luen yang, a comic writer who again shipped zk (another man GASPPPPP) responsible for the first 5 comic books. everyone knows his comics suck in terms of characterization, particularly katara’s. in fact zutaras have made multiple threads on how poor the writing is. funnily enough, they always fail to mention that gly was the script writer or acknowledge his part in this mischaracterization, while bragging about him shipping zk in other posts. ironic.

meanwhile, bryke have never offered writers’ commentary on any of gly’s comics besides the search - mike (because they were mostly writing legend of korra during his run.)

basically these shippers don’t care about misogyny or holding male writers accountable if they ship zk which is funny because I thought it was… for the female gaze? why are you hyping men shipping it anyway? confusion.

#atla #atla fandom problems #anti zutara #antizutara #pro kataang #kataang #if you want me to remove any tag let me know!

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cabotwife · 5 months

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Can you do a fluffy Johanna mason x reader where reader is bipolar going through a depression episode. If you don’t want to that’s fine I am just doing bad and though tha would be a cute thing because 2 “broken” traumatized people healing together is always a cute trope yk

Two Broken Halves

Johanna Mason x Fem!Reader

thank you for your request! i hope you enjoy 💗

warnings: poorly written fluff, not proofread

word count: 787

a/n: this one was a bit hard to write, mostly because i know that my experience with my depressive episodes are not the same thing that everybody experiences. reader is mostly based off of me and Ian Gallagher a little bit.

a/n pt2: if anybody finds themselves struggling, in anyway, or just need somebody to talk to, i want you to know that i am here and my messages/inbox is always open for you. i love you all<3

-> now i'ma take a nap before i start working on the next request

there’s a quiet buzz in the room as you lay in your bed, curled in on yourself. the faint sound of the door closing can be heard, and you know it’s your girlfriend.

“y/n! i’m back!” Johanna shouts, you can hear her throwing her shoes onto the ground.

you stay silent, staring at the wall beside the bed. “y/n?” Johanna’s in the room now, hovering by the door frame as she looks at you, trying to evaluate the situation.

the brunette huffs as she begins changing out of the clothes she had been wearing all day and into something comfier. she glances at you again before making her way over to where you’re laying on the bed.

she’s never been great at handling other people’s emotions.

Johanna bites her lip as she crouches down by your head, “hey baby, you feeling okay?” she says in a quiet voice, trying to be as gentle as she could.

when she still doesn’t get a reply from you she lets out a sigh, standing up. “i’ll be right back, okay?” even though she knows you won’t say anything she still pauses by the door to gaze back at you. she frowns as she leaves the room, leaving the door open behind her in case something happens.

after about a half an hour the brunette makes her way back into the room carrying a bowl of soup. she sets the bowl down on her nightstand before plopping herself down onto her side of the bed. “y/n/n?” she whispers, pulling your stiff form towards her. she positions the two of you so that you’re laying with your head on her abdomen.

Johanna runs her fingers through your hair as she looks down at you.

you’re staring at the sheets of the bed, your eyes are blank, almost empty. it saddens your girlfriend to see you like this.

“can you eat something for me? i know you haven’t eaten today.” she waits for your response, but none ever comes. “y/n please.” her tone is still soft, she’s trying to be gentle with you but she’s growing frustrated.

Johanna stares down at her girlfriend, a sigh leaving her lips. she pulls herself up, moving you off of her.

she stands by where your head is laying, she hits the bed lightly, “come on, you have to eat.”

“’m not hungry.” she hears you mumble.

she stares down at you, her eyes soft with worry. “just a little bit.” she huffs as she pulls you into a sitting position, sitting herself back down next to you on the bed. your head falls to her shoulder as she grabs the bowl of warm soup.

she stirs the spoon around before pulling it out slowly, moving it towards your mouth. you reluctantly open your mouth, allowing her to spoon-feed you.

Johanna smiles as you eat the soup slowly, “there ya go, beautiful.” she hums, continuing to feed you.

once the bowl is empty she places it back on the nightstand before turning back to you.

a grin overtakes her lips as she feels you snuggle against her shoulder.

you both sit in silence, just letting her hold you.

“i’m sorry.” you whisper after a few moments.

the brunette looks down at you, “you’re sorry?” she questions, “for what?”

“that you have to deal with me.” you stare at your hands as you find yourself playing with the hem of Johanna’s tank-top.

Johanna huffs, “i do not deal with you.” you can practically hear her eye-roll in her words. “hey, hey look at me.” she says, her hand finding its way to your jaw so she can tilt your head up. when your eyes meet she can finally see the tears in yours. “oh, sweet girl..” she whispers.

“i’m sorry.” you mumble again, rubbing at your eye to attempt and make the tears go away.

“i love you, y/n, i do.” she places a kiss to your forehead as she speaks, “you mean the world to me, i don’t- you’re not someone i have to deal with. i choose to take care of you, because i love you and you matter to me.” her fingers are running through your hair as the tears stream down your cheeks, “we take care of each other, y/n, we do. some days are harder than others, i, of all people. understand that.”

“i love you, Jo. thank you.” you whisper. Johanna grins, leaning down to place a soft kiss to your lips.

“wanna come out with me tomorrow? we could have a picnic..” Johanna asks gently, trying to probe you into leaving the bed.

you think for a moment before nodding slowly, “sure..” you hum.

#johanna mason x reader #johanna mason #x reader #imagine #the hunger games

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she-who-fights-and-writes · 7 months

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How to Get Inspired to Write and Regain Creativity

The muses are fickle, especially when it comes to writers. Sometimes inspiration strikes at the worst of times—while working, in the middle of the night, etc.—and other times it refuses to strike at all. How do you get inspired to start a project, especially when you haven’t written in a very long time?

Here are some tips and tricks that may help you get back into the writing groove.

1. Is It Writer’s Block You’re Worried About?

This post is meant to be a resource for people who don’t have any current projects or haven’t written/worked on their current projects in a very long time due to lack of inspiration and motivation.

In contrast, “writer’s block” is usually used in reference to having a load of inspiration and motivation to write but struggling with a mental “block” that prevents you from doing so.

These two overlap a lot, though, so if nothing on this post is working, you can find my post on combatting writer's block here!

For some extra help to get the ball rolling once you've regained inspiration, also check out the "Getting Started" section of my FAQ!

2. Set Aside Time to Be Creative

Oftentimes, creativity and inspiration can be lost due to a busy schedule. Life happens! Work, school, and a variety of other things could be restricting your ability to write or do creative things consistently. All it takes is one busy week, or month, or year, and now you feel like you’ve been thrown off of the carousel of creativity and can’t find your way back on again!

The key to combatting this is blocking out an hour or two (every day or every week) that you can use to spend time writing. Set a timer or alarm and put your phone aside (it is your enemy! It can and WILL distract you!) and sit down with the intent to write. Even if you get nothing done, getting in a creative headspace is still incredibly helpful! Baby steps!!!

By blocking out a specific length of time and putting it in your calendar, you can mentally prep to be creative and also can assure that you have ample time to get the juices flowing without worrying about being interrupted.

3. Check Out Some Writing Prompts

Sometimes, it can be easier to start writing if you’re told what to write. A lot of writers find prompts helpful as warm-up exercises, and use them for projects on the side when they’re taking a rest from their current WIP.

It could be helpful to find a couple of prompts and see what cool things you can come up with! Even if they don’t seem like something you’d want to work on long-term, the very act of writing in and of itself will wake your “writing muscles” back up and get them in the groove of being creative again.

You can check out #writing prompts on my blog, or check out these amazing prompt blogs:

@writing-prompt-s

@creativepromptsforwriting

@promptsforthestrugglingauthor

@daily-prompts

@promptsonpaper

4. Write Fanfiction (If you’re just struggling with original works)

Fanfiction is a great way to get back into being creative because all of the hardest parts about getting started (character creation, setting, lore, etc.) have already been done for you. You don’t have to post your fanfiction or even complete your fic, just write a short scene or story about two characters with pre-established backstories, personalities, and dynamics. It’ll get you back into the basics of describing setting and writing dialogue.

5. Make a Fun Playlist or Pinterest Board

Making fun playlists or Pinterest boards based on a certain genre, character, or piece of media you like can really get the creative juices flowing! After all, having a playlist to listen to that perfectly encapsulates the mood, tone, and pacing of your scene or story can really get you inspired! And with a Pinterest board for visual references to back you up, descriptions can come a whole lot easier!

I don't really use Pinterest except for art references, but if you don’t want to make your own writing playlist, feel free to borrow some of mine! Just a note: I find words in music very distracting when I write, so all of these are instrumental. Sorry if it’s not your cup of tea!

Here’s a link to my master list of instrumental playlists.

6. Read!

I know. It’s hard. And I can’t even talk; I haven’t read a proper book in a year, probably. For me, the hardest part is starting; I drag my feet for months before finally picking up a book, whip through a good chunk of it in one or two sittings, but once I put it down, I never return to it. But reading is an excellent way to get inspired as a writer, and to improve your way of writing!

By learning and getting inspiration from fellow writers, you not only get an idea of the creative possibilities, but also learn how different writers work their process. Fanfiction counts, too!

7. Get a Writing Buddy!

Sometimes, creative things such as writing can be hard because they’re traditionally a “solo sport” so to speak.

But having a writing buddy, someone to just be in the room or on call with you while you both be creative together, can do loads for your inspiration. Sure, there’s a chance that you’ll just distract each other and fool around, but if you really work to hold each other accountable, even getting into the creative headspace is a great way to start.

Also, you have a partner to bounce ideas off of!

Hope this helped, and happy writing!

#long post #writing #writing tips #writing advice #writing help #inspo #writing inspo #writing ref #writing reference #writing inspiration #inspiration #writeblr #booklr

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b4nka1 · 8 months

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ridin' toji fushiguro x fem!reader

warnings : smut, hotel room sex, first times, p > v sex, mentions of scars, oral (fem receiving), fingering, toji is quite young in this one, choking, mean dom, size difference, pussy spanking, not proofread

a/n : idek what have i written in here,, i was so fuckin tired after coming home and i have bruises all over my forearms cuz i was goalkeeping without the damn gloves && i had toji on my mind all day fuckin me dumb so here we go 🧍‍♀️&& tysm @kazushawty for helping me with virgin toji 🫶

a/n pt 2 : fucking wifi got disconnected in the middle of my writing and i forgot to save the draft like always 🥶 but anyway here's a better and cleaner rewritten version

you had known toji for quite some time now, ever since you joined a random facebook group for bikers after you bought your new bmw m1000rr.

of course, there weren't many women in the group, but toji was the nicest. you both went on so many rides together. intercity rides with him were your favorite.

you both would stop at a hotel in the highway, eat nice food and stay for the night to continue your journey tomorrow. everything was just perfect.

it just happened to be another intercity ride that involved you, toji, and two other guys from the group, satoru and suguru.

it was almost 1am, and your bike was getting overheated. all of you mutually agreed with the issue and decided to stay at a hotel for the night while your bikes cooled down.

as always, satoru and suguru booked a room together so did you and toji. unfortunately, the hotel did not have any other rooms that had two beds separate.

it was just one king-sized bed for you and toji. it was pretty awkward but toji didn't see any problem with it.

soon you got your room keys and you went to your respective rooms.

"do you wanna shower first or?" toji asked in his gruff, husky voice which never failed to send the good kind of shivers down your spine.

"you can go ahead." you gave him a subtle smile. he nodded and swung a towel over his beefy shoulder.

wait— did i mention that he is upper body naked in front of you? did you realize that yet? no, not until he reached out for his phone that was behind you on the bed, and his waist nearly clashed with your face.

cringe, right? you thought so too, but then you realized that he is really fucking hot.

you'd never see him in an attire outside his biking outfit. hell, there was no attire right now except for the biker pants that hugged his muscular thighs and calves so perfectly (never skip leg day my lovelies <3).

you had to stop yourself from ogling at him. sure, he was such a sight to see. the patchy tattoos all around his arms and collarbones, the chunky platinum chain dangling around his neck, a few scars scattered around his chest, how'd he get them, the haply trail and veins leading into his pants—

you shook your head violently. you were definitely being carried away by his figure that was positively a work of both aphrodite and hephaestus.

toji seemed to notice your vigorous head shaking from his peripheral.

"what's wrong?" he asked, tossing his phone next to you, leaning down so his eyes were at your level.

a small blush creeped up your cheeks before you shook your head, "j-just shaking the helmet pain off ya know? heh." what the fuck was that, you thought to yourself.

toji chuckled, shaking his head, "ya good at making up stories, doll." he then pulled away and stretched and ohfuckohfuckohfuck the way his abs, his pectorals, and his serratus anteriors flexed was such an eye candy.

you were definitely ogling as his back turned towards you, walking away into the bathroom. you noticed a tiny tattoo on the base of his back. you couldn't make out what it was, but it was something in words.

after a few minutes he came out of the shower, dressed in fresh new pair of clothes.

his hair was dripping water onto the towel thrown over his shoulder, as he slowly made his way towards you.

you were busy playing games on your phone when he sneaked in next to you, ever so casually invading your personal space by leaning his chin against your shoulder.

"mhm, candy crush? boring." he rasped, nuzzling his nose into your neck and sniffing you deeply.

this made you a blushing mess, and you already felt a wet patch in your panties. you never had been so close to a guy before in the bed, and here he is. doing it as if it's common for friends to do so.

"mhm, sweaty but the smell of your perfume still lingers, beautiful." he whispered, pressing a soft kiss on the middle bottom of your neck. his damp hair tickled your chin, but the kiss made you feel things that your hips buckled, just slightly.

"mmh? my doll is so needy?" he whispered, sitting up and hovering above you, a hand placed carefully on your waist.

you raised an eyebrow, breaths coming off in irregular, short pants. "wh-what do you mean...?" you stuttered.

"cut the crap, doll. you're acting as if you weren't leering over me before i went for a shower." he whispered, bringing his other hand to your neck, softly grasping it.

it had you whining lewdly, hips bucking up to feel some sort of friction. alas, there was none.

"so fucking needy, baby. have you ever done this before?" he asked you while unzipping your biker pants, struggling to get them off your body.

when he finally did, he grinned, looking at a slightly dark spot on your peachy pink panties.

you shook your head, "uhm, no...b-but i suppose i need it..." you panted, again, what the fuck was that.

toji chuckled, "me neither." he spoke casually, rubbing two fingers against the damp spot.

"don't get me wrong though, princess. i have had experience in fingering a pussy or two, never just fucked em." he rasped, watching a string of your wetness connect his fingers to your panties as he slightly pulled away his hand.

"fuck..." he rasped again, smacking his fingers against your damp panties, rubbing your clothed pussy eith three kf his fingers.

he felt a tiny bulge, a very small one protrude after sometime.

"your clit is so excited hm??" he teased, still rubbing your clothed cunt. it elicited a moan out of you, hips wildly writhing in order to receive some attention to your bare, pink pussy.

toji chortled, pulling the crotch part of your panties before letting it go as it snapped against your sopping wet cunt, and a whine escaped your lips at the smack.

he bit his lower lip before tugging your panties off, leaving your soiled wet cunt exposed for him.

he locked his lips slowly, pressing his thumb onto your clit and watched as more of your wetness oozed down to the mattress, wetting it.

"mmh, perfect. the most perfect pussy i've seen in all my life." he grinned, rubbing your clit eith his thumb. you mewled helplessly; you'd never been fingered by a guy before. it was always you stuffing your own cunt either your fingers but it was never enough.

his warmth breathe on your pussy snapped you back put of your thoughts. his tongue darted out to swipe over your folds, and your hips bucked wildly into the air.

he groaned, pressing a hand down on your tummy, "stop tryna escape." he grumbled, parting your folds with his index and middle fingers.

a low moan escaped his lips at the sight of your sloppy sunt. it was so fucking pink and swollen. and oh fuck, your clit was just the perfect size for him to suckle on.

his mouth attached itself to your clit, suckling it experimentally and it worked. a loud mewl escaped your lips as your thugs began trembling already.

toji found this so fucking hot and continued the assault on your clit.

a finger began prodding at your entrance. he thrust it in, and fuckfuckfuck you were so fucking tight.

"i thought you lied about being a virgin, doll." he groaned, his finger being squeezed tightly by your virgin cunt.

he inserted another finger in when be felt that your cunt was loose enough to fit in another finger. his fat and long fingers abused your cunt all while he suckled on your clit, making you moan so lewdly.

"i'm worried if you can take my cock in." he rasped, giving your clit a final, wet and loud smooch before sitting up.

he pulled his fingers out and licked them clean, while the other hand undid the knot on his shorts, pulling it down along with his boxers in one slide.

you gasped at his ridiculously large throbbing length. it was definitely, if not 7 inches, slightly larger than that. the girth was too thick. the veins protruded on his cock.

"like what you see, doll?" he teased, landing a very mean spank to your cunt.

you whined and nodded, legs shutting instinctively as he spanked your poor cunt. your clit was even more redder and larger from all the suckling.

he tapped his dickhead thrice against your swollen clit, rubbing his slit over your clit.

he grunted, pushing deep into your without warning, and it made you moan so loud that he had to slap a hand over your mouth from being too loud.

"shush babygirl, we don't wanna— fuck, let anyone know, right?" he rasped, biting his lower lip.

your gummy walls were sucking him in, making the tip kiss your cervix. he panted heavily, beefy arms pressing into the mattress on the either sides of your head.

he huffed, hips writhing involuntarily against yours and it sent your cunt spasming, sucking him in even more.

"fuck— HAH, that's, h-hot..." he rasped, pulling out all the way till just his tip remained in you, before slamming into you again, his tip perfectly kissing your cervix with each hard thrust.

his thrusts got sloppier in less than two minutes as his dick spasmed in you. he buried his face in between your tits, whimpering like a bitch in heat as his cock spurted more and.lpre precum into you.

your pussy was leaking of his precum more than your slick. he pulled away a little to stare at your face. he looked fucked as ever.

quivering lips, whines escaping those lips, cheeks were tear streaked and his eyes were somewhat red as tears escaped them.

oh god, he looked so fucked out.

"baby, th-this fine ass pussy gonna make me c—UM!" he grunted, hips stilling as he dumped his thick, stringy and hot white cum into your abused cunt.

he whimpered and pulled out, watching the way his dick was still spasming after emptying his balls into you.

he scooped up some excess cum that dripped out of you, smearing it across your cunt before smacking it roughly.

"f-fuck, haven't made you cum, have i?" he rasped and you shook your head.

he hummed, rubbing lazy circles onto your clit and spanking it occasionally.

he spread open your cunt again, leaning down and teasing your clit with the tip of his tongue.

he wrapped his lips around your clit, suckling on it like a baby latching onto his mother for the milk.

he groaned, suckling on your clit while a thumb pressed into your dripping cunt, and that's all it took for you to squirt thick, clear cum onto his face.

he squinted, shutting his eyes closed tightly.

"fuck baby, that was hot..." he whispered, continuing to suckle on your clit.

you whined, hips writhing because of overstimulation against his stupid cocky face.

"one last time, princes. . ." he whispered before nibbling on your clit, getting yoy ready for round two.

✩✩✩✩

#✧: 🎀 › jalebi's writing #toji #fushiguro toji #toji fushiguro #toji x reader #toji x you #reader insert #jujutsu kaisen smut #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #smut

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deadlyashesart · 27 days

Text

Alastor's disappearance (Part 1)

Part 1 of a fanfiction I'm writing! There's not enough Rosie angst in this world so I have to do it myself. I've never written fanfiction before, by the way. Don't hurt me if it's bad LOL. I wanted to post this on AO3 but realized I didn't have an AO3 account and they said it might take me till April to get one and I don't wanna wait...

Based on a post I made yesterday.

Part 2

-----

It had been five months since Rosie had last seen her dear friend, Alastor. This wasn’t too out of the ordinary coming from the Radio Demon, but something deep in Rosie’s gut told her something was gravely wrong. Despite this, she had a colony filled with cannibals to feed, and couldn’t waste her time worrying about something as simple as a ‘gut feeling’.

Rosie sat at the front desk of Franklin and Rosie’s Emporium. It was a beautiful day—at least as beautiful as it got in Hell—and the emporium was packed. Rosie was aiding a customer, unaware her business partner was standing right behind her.

Franklin leaned in close. “Rosie, I believe you should step aside with me for a moment,” she whispered.

Rosie paused, turning her head slightly before bringing her attention back to the customer on the other side of the counter. “Mrs. Odette, I’m so sorry, but I must cut our consultation short. I insist you take my card and come back soon!” she said politely, handing the fellow cannibal her business card before waving a hand, gesturing for her to leave.

Rosie followed Franklin away from the crowd, every so often glancing back at the long line that waited for her return. “What is it, my dear? I’m quite busy.”

“It’s about Alastor. He’s gone missing,” Franklin answered abruptly. She spoke quietly as if exchanging top-secret information.

Rosie laughed, waving her hand dismissively. “Oh darling, don’t be so ridiculous!”

“I’m not! Everyone’s talking about it. He hasn’t been seen anywhere, and his radio show hasn’t been updated in weeks! You, of all people, should know how much he loves that show, he wouldn’t miss a day, at least without telling anyone!” Franklin went silent, and a thought crept into her head. “Oh, I wonder if he’s been killed..!”

Rosie’s eyebrows furrowed in worry. After a moment of thought, she spoke, “I’m sure he’s fine, darling.”

“I see… Very well then, I just wanted to let you know. I’m aware you two are very good friends.”

“Yes, and I’m certain he’s quite alright. He’s most likely just taking a break from the radio scene!” Rosie replied, knowing deep down that even she didn’t believe a word she was saying. “Besides, if he was killed, the murderer would’ve made a big show about taking down the mighty Radio Demon, would they not? As far as I know, that hasn’t happened yet!”

Franklin nodded softly. “You’re right, you’re right… If that had happened, we’d have something a lot worse to worry about.”

“Correct. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a job to attend to.” Rosie curtsied as a gesture of farewell before returning to the front desk of the emporium.

-----

Later that night, Rosie tossed and turned in her bed, unable to sleep. She couldn’t stop worrying about Alastor, just the thought of him brought an ache in her chest. After a while of fighting with her internal dialogue back and forth, she groaned in defeat. She sat up and reached for the small radio that was on her bedside table, a gift from Alastor to show his appreciation towards her. Her hands fiddled with the dials as she turned the frequency to Alastor’s radio show; There was nothing but static.

Rosie sighed, unsure why she thought that would work. He didn’t even broadcast this late at night. She was desperate. All she wanted to hear was her dear friend’s voice, so she could know he was alright, know if he was hurt, know if he was alive. She silently cursed Franklin’s name, frustrated with her putting the thought of Alastor’s death in her mind.

Rosie didn’t get any sleep that night. Or the next night, or the next.

-----

A few weeks passed, and she didn't get better. Franklin walked up to Rosie, handing her a cup of fresh coffee. “You look like hell, darling. Have you been getting any sleep?”

Rosie sat down on the couch, exhausted from her terrible sleep schedule. She took a huge sip of coffee, but that didn’t do much. “I’m fine, Franklin… I just… Would you mind taking the morning shift today?” She brought a hand to her head, feeling slightly lightheaded.

“Okay, I can do that! But you’re obviously not fine, dear. The bags under your eyes have gotten worse, this isn’t like you!”

Rosie’s eyes drifted toward the radio that was placed on the coffee table in front of her, and Franklin immediately connected the dots. “Oh, my dear, is this about Alastor’s disappearance?”

Rosie did not respond. Franklin sighed. She sat down next to her and slowly pulled her into a hug, and she could feel Rosie shiver as a lump caught in her throat.

“I don’t know where he could’ve gone… Maybe he is dead, Franklin,” Rosie mumbled, burying her face in her friend’s shoulder. “I don’t want to cry, I don't want to worry. He’d probably laugh if I did, but… Fuck, I miss him.”

-----

#radiorose #platonic radiorose #alastor and rosie #rosie and alastor #hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #hazbin rosie #hurt/comfort #angst

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teddybearsandspaceships · 2 months

Text

For my own memory, in the hopes that Scar will put yesterday´s stream on his VODs channel because it was amazing and featured among other things:

Scar calling Etho “the Maple Prince”

Xisuma trolling Scar by mixing up Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Harry Potter

Mumbo showing Scar the llama death chamber, and Scar praising him for being weird

Scar and Mumbo having a conversation about social media and AI

Scar telling Etho not to worry and that he´s thinking about moving the mail box himself (after all he had two best-selling redstone shops so surely he´s qualified!); Etho: well now I´m worried… But right afterwards Etho says people forget that Scar is actually quite skilled at the game

Etho is just interrupting people today and Scar suggests just collecting people to procrastinate

I approve of Scar encouraging Etho to participate in MCC again

Etho asking how Scar got stamps already, Scar saying he´s been a part of a lot of Life series, Etho: “you and your wily words, you can get anything you want…”

Big Salmon decreed mercury = good

Cleo shows up! “lag busting” is the new “it lagged into my inventory”

Scar definitely not encouraging Cleo to kill all other villagers after setting up her own trading hall. Cleo wants organic free range villagers.

Cleo trying to sell the monstrosolith as a giant billboard

Cleo proved she can do valley girl voice, Scar and Etho are shocked. Then they´re discussing what "no cap" means. (Etho on stream: “big true, no cap.”) They talked about poggers, and Scar going wild with his pants off (after Cleo exploded them), and Etho didn´t know what Stitch is.

Scar starts talking about Disney and it takes him a minute to realize Cleo and Etho have run away

More maple syrup discussion (Etho telling Cleo if she likes the brand she gets it´s fine), and a frantic ride-by and log-out by Grian

Cleo and Scar want to start a cult. Etho wants to be a frat instead, something cooler. Frats have fewer rules, they´re more like “pants off, it´s fine.” Scar says he´d ask too many questions to be in a cult, Etho points out he could be cult leader. Cleo immediately offers to be his second, the person who does all the dirty work.

Shoe talk. Scar shows off his twelve-year-old shoes on stream.

Making fun of Etho´s set-up! Scar is horrified. Etho talks about his Kleenex box where his mike stands. It matches his desk! It has his settings written on it! Also his space bar broke during DO2 but he got used to it. Scar decides they need reinforcements and calls Bdubs over. Ren also shows up.

Etho mentions he didn´t get a Decked Out 2 desk mat (took to long to think about it) and Tango logs in to write in chat that he´s disappointed and logs out again

A wild Iskall approaches in the distance. Etho: trident brother!

Etho invented the minecart shuffle

Cleo: "I always want you to kill people, Scar. ...no not Etho."

And Etho leaves to shuffle snow like the Canadian cryptid he is

(how dare Ren interrupt Bdubs before he can give his current opinion on the kleenex box)

"Etho´s not one to lie" (are you sure about that? ^^)

...I look away for two seconds and did Mumbo just call himself a panda in chat. I was later told: a panda fiat! Which is a car, and Iskall is a Ferrari

Moonlanding with Gem! And some talk about bases and criticism. Gem: "I love making Etho mad," “Let Etho be mad,” What´s he gonna do, all he´s gonna do is go oh snappers ^^ "Scar, you are my Etho"

#hermitcraft #hc s10 #hermitcraft streams #gtwscar #...how did this get so long #well it was a four and a half hours stream

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rosainta · 20 days

Text

Team Fortress 2: 12 Flash Fiction Excerpts

('ms pauling' by makani on DeviantArt: https://www.deviantart.com/makani/art/ms-pauling-208768568)

(Author's Notes (A/N) at the end. For now, enjoy these slices of TF2 writing cake, baked with the batter of my mind!) * * *

1 "The Runner's a Fool."

[Written 10-3-2024]

Scout’s heart was bursting as he ran through the underbrush.

He didn’t look back; he couldn’t. Not after what he saw. If he had known sooner, he might not have spent so much energy trying to woo her...

Maybe he wouldn’t have made such a fool of himself.

2 "Player of The Heart."

[Written 10-3-2024]

“Fine, one more time”, he grumbled.

Pauling gleamed as she turned to the tape player. Changing the song to something more romantic, she hummed along and placed herself into his arms. They began to sway with the music.

Sniper felt his heart racing, but his thoughts raced quicker.

He wondered: would the one he really loved be into this too?

3 "Long Overdue."

[Written 10-3-2024]

Spy knew what he had to do.

He sat down next to the crying boy, gently putting a hand on his back. “Screw off!” the younger yelled, pushing him away.

Seeing him like this broke him; it did every time. But he took a deep breath and said what he should have all those years ago:

“I am sorry, Scout.”

4 "What Happens if You Feed the Machine? (Or In This Case, Water It?)"

[Written 10-3-2024]

“Yer no fun, lad!”

“Come on now, you know how I’ve been goin’ dry...”

“What’s one bottle a’ scrumpy goin’ to do to you?”

“Well, let’s see here. How many eyeballs o’ yours do my teleporters teleport per use?”

“Er, one.”

“Well, expect that to be one less the next time ‘round, pardner.”

He chuckled, and in an instant, he gulped it all down.

5 "Soldier's Solace."

[Written 11-3-2024]

Soldier stared at the grand moon from the roof of the base.

After the day’s fighting and bread teleporting, the other mercenaries were off to bed. But Soldier remained, smiling contentedly from under his helmet without another care in the world.

Somehow, he knew that right then and for as long as he dreamed, everything would be alright.

6 "Буквы говорят о любви."

[Written 12-3-2024]

If Heavy learned one thing in all his years of studying Russian literature, it was that writing wasn’t something you did; it was something you became.

So, picking up the ink pen, he let his hand go and embodied with all he had what meant most to him.

“It is time I tell you, Doktor.”

7 "Like The Warmth of a Fireplace."

[Written 13-3-2024]

Pyro looked at Engineer as a child does a Mall Santa, clapping. “Huddah, huddah!”

“Okay, one more, just for you.”

The technician took a deep breath and began to strum on the old guitar, his low voice singing a song of pink skies. Pyro swayed to the beat in bliss.

And, with every hum, the two grew closer.

8 "A Smile Means A Million Words, That Is Until You Speak."

[Written 14-3-2024]

Scout liked sketching.

While words weren’t his forte, art allowed him to express what he felt but could never say. He licked his lips, furrowed his eyebrows, and furiously scratched at the page with a pencil. Every detail, every form-- they had to be perfect.

When he was done, he proudly smiled at his creation.

And it smiled back.

BONUS!

As he admired his creation, he didn’t notice Sniper approaching him.

“And just what are you scribblin' off today, mate?”

Scout snapped around, flustered. He wasn't expecting company, and especially not from him.

“A-ah, hey, Snipes!", he blurted out. "It's nothing, really. Just another drawing of Spy screwin’ those... stupid French bread swords, whatever ya' call 'em.”

As he stammered an excuse, his face slowly turning red, he didn’t realize that his creation's rough, sketched face-- a picture of the marksman himself!-- was peaking through the corner of the sketchbook in the crook of his arm. Sniper paused for a moment as he stared at the work in awe, its own happily gazing back at him. Then, snapping out of his trance, he wordlessly turned back to smile at the younger man.

“You’ve got some talent, kid," he said, softly. "Please, don’t waste it.”

Then, quick as he came, he ambled away.

Scout was left standing, bewildered, and admittedly a bit confused, and he slowly turned back to look back at his drawing.

He traced the rough face of the man, looking wistfully with a tinge of giddiness in his eyes.

“If only you knew...", he whispered to himself without thinking. "Maybe then I could draw you like one of my French girls.”

Then, upon realizing the stupidity of his own remark (and of its disgusting, Spy-related... Frenchness), he immediately gagged.

“Ew, crap, no!”

Somewhere in the distance, Spy instinctively rolled his eyes.

9 "I Feel Olive!"

[Written 15-3-2024]

Medic pinched his nose, a low groan rumbling from him.

"What is wrong, Doktor? You seem stressed", Heavy asked, concernedly lifting his nose from his book.

Medic turned to him, tired eyes smiling weakly. "Ah, it iz nothing. Just... ze dull, useless legal documents. You know, as per usual."

"Well, if it makes Medic feel any better, Heavy ran out of olive for sandvich, so eating it was practically useless! I could not even digest it without big frown", he said, frowning in turn.

He grumbled, continuing, "What Heavy means to say is... you are not alone in your troubles."

Medic paused for a bit, before laughing and grinning back at the giant. He was grateful for this goofy big old man.

"Oh, you alvays know what to say, Heavy. Come on, let us escape this prison of an office and find you that olive. I am getting quite hungry and ze papers can wait, after all!"

10 "Off-Target."

[Written 29-3-2024]

Scout's mind just. couldn't. think.

His head was jumbled, a puzzle with the pieces too lost in the messy maze of his brain ever to solve. He wished he could crack open his skull like he did the BLUs on the field; maybe that would knock some sense into him.

He really needed to focus. Sniper always did.

So, why couldn't he?

11 "Our Paths Shall Cross Again."

[Written 4-4-2024]

It pained him to see her like this.

So, for the first time in his life, he put his pride aside and took one last glance at the sleeping lady before leaving the room.

Scout wished he could stay all night and marvel at her familiar, sheer beauty, even as she slept so frail. But he knew what she needed most was not him, but help.

Who knew what she went through those 2 years?

He resigned himself to the couch, closing his eyes. His affections for Miss Pauling would have to wait, as they always did, but he was fine with that.

She was safe, and that’s what mattered most to him.

12 "Guess Who's Up For Surgery?"

[Written 6-4-2024]

Medic was practically laughing with joy! Or, in his peculiar case, cackling maniacally.

Ah, it was of no matter— the doctor was filled to the brim with inspiration! So many projects to start and bodies to stitch; oh, what a wonderful feeling!

Heavy smiled as he watched the doctor go about his merry way.

Sure, when he was in this mood, that likely meant imminent danger for all those around him (they’d be his newest experiment, no doubt), but seeing him happy always made Heavy’s heart feel a little lighter.

So, as the doctor bounced up to him with his newest rambling, he didn’t protest!

* * *

Author's Notes: Over the past weeks, I've been working on being more spontaneous in my writing—no planning, just writing with the flow! And what better way to do that than to write flash fiction about my favourite fandom? (Plus, I have been practically absent here (post-wise) for, what, months? So why not use this as an excuse to share them with you? Ehehe... Okay, let's forget I said anything; moving on!) Flash fiction, with its creative liberties and curt nature, is an excellent medium (not forgetting to mention the fact it's a disgracefully UNDERRATED form of media!) that inspires me to write because it sort of... brutally invalidates any excuse of author's block I have... since it is literally spilling the words from your conscience into text WITHOUT the worry of length (ah! My greatest enemies...). Plus, it is... sort of, maybe, kinda addicting because it's just so freakishly simple, and the more you do it, the more productive you'll be and feel! Isn't that wonderful? (It could even be a drug! Er, well, a good one... wait, is there even a thing as a good drug? Ah- nevermind.) Anyway, if you're struggling with author's block, I'd heavily recommend trying it. Of course, it may not work for everyone (and I am not here to legally endorse this like a paid sponsor!) but it's still worth a shot if you haven't yet already. And hey, if it doesn't, you can feel free to blame me for the waste of time! Don't worry, I won't mind. Before we go on, I have to take this moment now to thank the one sweet old woman (whom I've unfortunately forgotten the name of) who first taught me about it a few years back during a summer writing course. She taught me much about what I know and love today, so I owe this and much of my writing happiness and technique to her! Thank you, lady. May you continue to write on!! Anyhow, to give you more context, these are all excerpts taken from a private account (but not a secret one! It's out there... somewhere...) of mine, edited for quality purposes and also because a few of the original excerpts bugged me due to their... well, innate cringiness. Hopefully, there's less of it now, but I wouldn't count on my eradicating it as it seems that cringe is just a part of my habitual writing style (I am sorry to disappoint, unnamed woman from the course... I have failed you). I hope that at least is is bearable enough for you to read. However, if not, I offer you my greatest condolences. If you'd like some bleach for your eyes, I have that too. You can also tell by the number of Speeding Bullet and Red Oktoberfest excerpts that I was... in quite the shipping mood for some of them. So, if that doesn't bug you, feel free to indulge yourselves in these characters as I obsessively have over the course of writing these!! It would be my pleasure to offer that liberty to you (and perhaps, shamelessly to myself as well, ahaha..), so please, go ahead. Anyway, that's all of the random blurbs I have to ramble on about today. Thank you for reading- or skimming, at the very least- and please have a marvellous day, pally~!

~ Rosain Quivan

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littlexscarletxwitch · 10 months

Text

── ༊*·˚⋆ 𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗴𝗮𝗺𝗲

paring: florence pugh x fem!reader

tag(s): fluff, based on endgame by taylor swift (you don't understand how much i'm loving this song), cute gf flo

warning(s): grammatical errors, unedited

word count: 2.2k

note: omg, it's finally here. I'm so sorry it took me sooo long, it just I was super busy. Was this inspire by Ms. Taylor Swift? Yes, yes it was. I really hope you guys like this one. I'm not a native english speaker, so please let me know about any sort of mistake. Love you all so much <3

note 2: guys, I'm currently reading 'Delilah Green doesnt' care' and it's giving me so many ideas for fics. So would any of you be interest in more mum!florence? Please let me know. Xoxo, M

requests are open! + check my rules here + masterlist <3

Your eyes were closed, your head was on her chest listening to her steady heartbeats, a soft smile formed on your lips.

“Promise me this is forever,” you whispered.

You knew she was awake, she was doing the same thing as you, enjoying the moment, living in the present.

Your eyes found hers already looking at you.

“I promise,” she said, her smile mirroring yours.

Her lips found yours as if sealing the promise forever, but nothing ever lasts forever. The kiss that was first sweet and soft and filled with love, turned bitter, harsh and cold. You pulled back confusion written all over your face.

You blink once then twice, and suddenly you were waking up on your bed, alone. You cursed yourself at the stupid memory. It was so pathetic to still think about Florence that way. You two were history, long forgotten, just a memory of your adolescence.

You shook your head, trying to wake up your foggy brain from the nap you had taken. And decided to get some work done as a way to clear your head from your silly old fantasies.

You made yourself a cup of tea, grabbed your notebook and put your headphones on. You only had three more months to finish your second album. The deadline wasn’t much of a concern of yours, what bothered you was the lack of inspiration. Every lyric you would write down was just trash, it was as if you were missing something. So far you had only five finished songs, and you needed ten more to have the album finished.

You were humming, moving your head to the beat as you let your brain come up with the right words, but it felt as if you were stuck.

“I wanna be your endgame,” you sang to the beat. “I wanna be, I wanna be your… ” you threw your head back in annoyance, frustration getting the best out of you.

You had been sitting on the floor for the last hour, trying to finish this one song but you were not even close to it. You took a deep breath trying not to lose your shit. Your phone buzzed, the screen lighting up with a new notification and that took your whole attention.

“Y/n Y/l/n and Drew Starkey spotted out for dinner,” you read out loud and couldn’t help rolling your eyes at the link your manager and best friend had sent you.

According to the news, you were dating both Drew Starkey and Joe Keery. You also almost got engaged the week before to Rudy Pankow, but apparently cheated on him with Maya Hawke. You knew better than to actually pay attention to fake news, but you couldn’t help to. After all that was now your life, the life of a startpop in the making, so much for a boring Oxford kid.

Your reputation precedes you, in rumours you were knee-deep. But there was nothing you could do about it. Exhausted from your social life and the poor lack of motivation to do the one thing you loved the most, you decided to go out on a walk, hoping it would help to clear your thoughts about both the fake news and Florence, who you tried to ignore from thinking of. But ever since that dream you found yourself thinking about her more often.

You knew she was as famous as you were, maybe even more. You had to admit to yourself that some nights you found some kind of comfort in her movies, watching her cute pouty face, the one she was most known for.

She was your first love, she taught you how to love, what it was to be loved. Of course it wasn’t easy to forget about her, even after all these years, some part of you still craved her love. It wasn’t that you didn’t love each other when you both decided to go separate ways, it was because things weren’t so simple anymore. You two weren’t just two teenargs in love, you were slowly becoming adults. She had booked roles and you were making your way into the music industry.

And without the two of you knowing you two just drifted apart, the two of you too caught up in your careers. But you loved her, so you decided to let her go, hoping and praying to the universe that maybe she would come back to you one day.

Your thoughts were interrupted as you opened the door to your local cafe and someone bumped into you.

“Sorry, I wasn’t… “ but you stopped cold once you saw the strangers eyes.

“Y/n?” she asked, her voice as soft and raspy as you remembered. “What are you doing here?” a smile formed on her face, as if she was genuinely happy to see you.

You shook your head trying to clear out your mind, was Florence really in front of you? “I, um, I lived here,” you blinked once, twice and she was still there. “Just around the corner,” you added, cursing yourself for being so awkward. “What are you doing here?”

Was this a sign of the universe? Have your prayers been answered?

“Visiting my family,” right her family, you thought. “Well, not just that, I’m also working,” she scratched the back of her neck. “I was actually hoping to see you, too.”

“Really?” that had to mean something, the universe couldn't be messing around with you this cruelly. Right?

“Yeah, I have, um… I have been thinking about you.” she smiled at you and you felt the butterflies in your stomach. “I think we should talk.”

“I, um,” what were you supposed to say? Were you willingly going to agree to spend time with the love of your life as if the two of you were going to be just friends? What was that supposed to mean?

“Yeah, sure. When are you free?” you finally agree.

You mentally checked your schedule, you were supposed to finish your songs but taking a break wouldn’t hurt anybody. Plus, you were going to get your coffee and get back to it right away.

“Um, what about now?”

Shit, you thought. She wasn’t going to give you any time to prepare yourself. Well, you better get into it, rip it off like a band aid.

“Okay, I was going to get a coffee and then we can…”

“Yeah, yeah, take your time. I’m going to find us a table.”

You order your coffee while mentally preparing for the conversation the two of you were going to have. What was she on about? Was it really a big coincidence? Did the universe put her in our path for some reason? You shook your head, you needed to stop thinking about the universe’s way of working for a second.

They handed you your coffee and now you had no more excuses to avoid her, not that you wanted to. Some part of you long to be near her, but you were scared of what this whole thing was about.

“So, um, what’s up with Drew?” she tried to pretend she didn’t care but was actually dying to know if you were actually dating him, not that you noticed it.

“Who?”

“Drew? Starkey?”

“Oh, yeah, Drew,” you chuckled, silly you for forgetting your own friend. “He’s just a friend, a really good friend,” was it your imagination or did she just let out a breath of relief. “What about Ashley?” you asked before taking a sip of your coffee.

She smiled at you, “She’s also a really good friend.”

“So, um…”

“Listen, Y/n…”

The both of you chuckled.

“You go first, Flo”

That nickname. It was stupid because everyone who knew her would call her ‘Flo’, but coming out of your lips felt different. She had missed hearing her name on your lips, she had missed you.

“I’m just going to say it, okay?” you only nodded. “I lied earlier, I’m not here for work or visiting my family. I came here to find you,” your lips parted in disbelief. “Ever since we broke things apart, I had been feeling like something was missing, Y/n. And I recently realised it was you. Well, I saw the article about you getting married and all I could think of was that something wasn’t right.”

“Florence I…”

“No, please let me finish,” she cut you off. “I understand that we are strangers to each other, but I would love to get to know you once again. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, it can be like a fresh start. I just really need you in my life, Y/n. I miss my best friend.”

You took another sip of your coffee, stealing time before giving her an answer. The truth was you already knew what you wanted, you knew it the moment you sat at the table, but you wanted to mess with her just a little bit.

You put your cup down, and finally your eyes found hers, “I would like nothing more.”

[...]

Ever since that day, Florence and you had been spending everyday together. Catching up with each other and going back to old habits.

The more you hang out with her, the more you could feel your old feeling coming back. But you didn’t want to rush things just to ruin them again. But one particular afternoon you couldn't hold back anymore and decided to do something about it.

She had fallen asleep 30 minutes ago, you chuckled as you realised her current state because she had picked out the movie but turns out she was more tired than what she let you see.

You headed to your small studio and decided to get back to the song you were working on before running into Florence. You knew exactly what you wanted to say, having found your new inspiration a few weeks ago.

You pressed play and the music started playing, you already had a few things written down in your notebook you just needed to put all your ideas together.

You were so lost and immersed in finishing the song, going at it back and forth, changing some lyrics, singing some ideas, writing and crossing out some bits, that you didn’t realise someone was watching you just when you were about to finish.

You had already recorded the whole song and were just checking it out when Florence leaned in the frame door.

Florence smiled as she listened to your sweet voice. She wondered who this song was about.

Knew her when I was young, reconnected when we were little bit older

Both sprung, I got issues and chips on both of my shoulders

She didn’t want to get her hopes up.

Reputation precedes me, in rumors, I'm knee-deep

The truth is, it’s easier to ignore it, believe me

She felt her heart shrinking in her chest.

Even when we'd argue, we'd not do it for long

And you understand the good and bad end up in the song

She listened closely to the song as you hummed to it.

For all your beautiful traits and the way you do it with ease

For all my flaws, paranoia, and insecurities

Her heartbeat and body temperature were rising.

I've made mistakes and made some choices, that's hard to deny

After the storm, something was born on the 4th of July

I've passed days without fun, this end game is the one

With four words on the tip of my tongue, I'll never say it

She couldn't take it any longer.

“I like it,” she said, getting closer to where you were sitting. “It’s catchy,” she said, trying to shake her feeling away. That song could be about anyone.

“I feel like something’s missing,” you scrunch your nose.

“Sing the corus to me, please,” she looked at you with her doe eyes and you swear you could have melted in that moment.

You shook your head with a smile on your face and compiled, “I wanna be your endgame, endgame,” you finished singing the chorus. “And then it goes. Big reputation, big reputation. Ooh, you and me, we got big reputations, ah,” you sang, trying to not look at Florence.

“You know, it sounds awfully familiar,” she teased, wanting nothing more than for it to be true.

“And you heard about me, ooh. I got some big enemies,” you kept on going.

“What are you trying to say, Y/n?” she kept on pushing you.

“Big reputation, big reputation. Ooh, you and me would be a big conversation, ah. And I heard about you, ooh. You like the bad ones, too,” you finished, trying to tell her that you were thinking exactly what she was thinking.

She was so close to you now, her knees brushing against yours, sending electricity throughout your body. You could feel her hot breath on your lips.

“I want to…” she didn’t finish her sentence because you were already nodding and she smashed her lips to yours in a second.

You felt as if a wave of cold water was washing over you. Her lips felt both familiar and new at the same time. You felt at home as she wrapped her arm around your waist and her other hand cupped your cheek. You didn’t want to ever stop kissing her, but both you and her needed to breathe so ultimately pulled apart.

She rested her forehead on yours, both of her hands cupping your cheeks, caressing your skin with her fingertips.

“I wanna be your endgame,” you quietly sang to her.

She chuckled before kissing you again and again and again.

Likes, comments and reblogs are appreciated! <3

-M

#florence pugh #florence pugh x reader #florence pugh x fem reader #florence pugh x y/n #florence pugh x you #florence pugh fluff #florence pugh imagine #littlexscarletxwitch's fic #Spotify #[🎧⊹♡] based on songs i love

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blubberquark · 10 months

Text

Why Not Write Cryptography

I learned Python in high school in 2003. This was unusual at the time. We were part of a pilot project, testing new teaching materials. The official syllabus still expected us to use PASCAL. In order to satisfy the requirements, we had to learn PASCAL too, after Python. I don't know if PASCAL is still standard.

Some of the early Python programming lessons focused on cryptography. We didn't really learn anything about cryptography itself then, it was all just toy problems to demonstrate basic programming concepts like loops and recursion. Beginners can easily implement some old, outdated ciphers like Caesar, Vigenère, arbitrary 26-letter substitutions, transpositions, and so on.

The Vigenère cipher will be important. It goes like this: First, in order to work with letters, we assign numbers from 0 to 25 to the 26 letters of the alphabet, so A is 0, B is 1, C is 2 and so on. In the programs we wrote, we had to strip out all punctuation and spaces, write everything in uppercase and use the standard transliteration rules for Ä, Ö, Ü, and ß. That's just the encoding part. Now comes the encryption part. For every letter in the plain text, we add the next letter from the key, modulo 26, round robin style. The key is repeated after we get tot he end. Encrypting "HELLOWORLD" with the key "ABC" yields ["H"+"A", "E"+"B", "L"+"C", "L"+"A", "O"+"B", "W"+"C", "O"+"A", "R"+"B", "L"+"C", "D"+"A"], or "HFNLPYOLND". If this short example didn't click for you, you can look it up on Wikipedia and blame me for explaining it badly.

Then our teacher left in the middle of the school year, and a different one took over. He was unfamiliar with encryption algorithms. He took us through some of the exercises about breaking the Caesar cipher with statistics. Then he proclaimed, based on some back-of-the-envelope calculations, that a Vigenère cipher with a long enough key, with the length unknown to the attacker, is "basically uncrackable". You can't brute-force a 20-letter key, and there are no significant statistical patterns.

I told him this wasn't true. If you re-use a Vigenère key, it's like re-using a one time pad key. At the time I just had read the first chapters of Bruce Schneier's "Applied Cryptography", and some pop history books about cold war spy stuff. I knew about the problem with re-using a one-time pad. A one time pad is the same as if your Vigenère key is as long as the message, so there is no way to make any inferences from one letter of the encrypted message to another letter of the plain text. This is mathematically proven to be completely uncrackable, as long as you use the key only one time, hence the name. Re-use of one-time pads actually happened during the cold war. Spy agencies communicated through number stations and one-time pads, but at some point, the Soviets either killed some of their cryptographers in a purge, or they messed up their book-keeping, and they re-used some of their keys. The Americans could decrypt the messages.

Here is how: If you have message $A$ and message $B$, and you re-use the key $K$, then an attacker can take the encrypted messages $A+K$ and $B+K$, and subtract them. That creates $(A+K) - (B+K) = A - B + K - K = A - B$. If you re-use a one-time pad, the attacker can just filter the key out and calculate the difference between two plaintexts.

My teacher didn't know that. He had done a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation about the time it would take to brute-force a 20 letter key, and the likelihood of accidentally arriving at something that would resemble the distribution of letters in the German language. In his mind, a 20 letter key or longer was impossible to crack. At the time, I wouldn't have known how to calculate that probability.

When I challenged his assertion that it would be "uncrackable", he created two messages that were written in German, and pasted them into the program we had been using in class, with a randomly generated key of undisclosed length. He gave me the encrypted output.

Instead of brute-forcing keys, I decided to apply what I knew about re-using one time pads. I wrote a program that takes some of the most common German words, and added them to sections of $(A-B)$. If a word was equal to a section of $B$, then this would generate a section of $A$. Then I used a large spellchecking dictionary to see if the section of $A$ generated by guessing a section of $B$ contained any valid German words. If yes, it would print the guessed word in $B$, the section of $A$, and the corresponding section of the key. There was only a little bit of key material that was common to multiple results, but that was enough to establish how long they key was. From there, I modified my program so that I could interactively try to guess words and it would decrypt the rest of the text based on my guess. The messages were two articles from the local newspaper.

When I showed the decrypted messages to my teacher the next week, got annoyed, and accused me of cheating. Had I installed a keylogger on his machine? Had I rigged his encryption program to leak key material? Had I exploited the old Python random number generator that isn't really random enough for cryptography (but good enough for games and simulations)?

Then I explained my approach. My teacher insisted that this solution didn't count, because it relied on guessing words. It would never have worked on random numeric data. I was just lucky that the messages were written in a language I speak. I could have cheated by using a search engine to find the newspaper articles on the web.

Now the lesson you should take away from this is not that I am smart and teachers are sore losers.

Lesson one: Everybody can build an encryption scheme or security system that he himself can't defeat. That doesn't mean others can't defeat it. You can also create an secret alphabet to protect your teenage diary from your kid sister. It's not practical to use that as an encryption scheme for banking. Something that works for your diary will in all likelihood be inappropriate for online banking, never mind state secrets. You never know if a teenage diary won't be stolen by a determined thief who thinks it holds the secret to a Bitcoin wallet passphrase, or if someone is re-using his banking password in your online game.

Lesson two: When you build a security system, you often accidentally design around an "intended attack". If you build a lock to be especially pick-proof, a burglar can still kick in the door, or break a window. Or maybe a new variation of the old "slide a piece of paper under the door and push the key through" trick works. Non-security experts are especially susceptible to this. Experts in one domain are often blind to attacks/exploits that make use of a different domain. It's like the physicist who saw a magic show and thought it must be powerful magnets at work, when it was actually invisible ropes.

Lesson three: Sometimes a real world problem is a great toy problem, but the easy and didactic toy solution is a really bad real world solution. Encryption was a fun way to teach programming, not a good way to teach encryption. There are many problems like that, like 3D rendering, Chess AI, and neural networks, where the real-world solution is not just more sophisticated than the toy solution, but a completely different architecture with completely different data structures. My own interactive codebreaking program did not work like modern approaches works either.

Lesson four: Don't roll your own cryptography. Don't even implement a known encryption algorithm. Use a cryptography library. Chances are you are not Bruce Schneier or Dan J Bernstein. It's harder than you thought. Unless you are doing a toy programming project to teach programming, it's not a good idea. If you don't take this advice to heart, a teenager with something to prove, somebody much less knowledgeable but with more time on his hands, might cause you trouble.

#programming #cryptography #learn programming #teaching programming

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laurey257 · 8 months

Text

GOOD OMENS SEASON 2 FIX-IT RECS UPDATED LIST (6 weeks out!)

Hello all! I am stunned by how much you all liked my first list of Good Omens Season Two fix-it recommendations on Archive of our Own! Thanks for sharing. Now that we’re 6 weeks out instead of two, there’s lots more good stuff on there and I thought I would post this new and expanded list for you? I broke it into categories, doubled it, and found lots more wonderful stuff to read.

**This was a hard decision but I am excluding works in progress since they need time to mature—all these are complete /compliant and can be invested in without fear.**

FULL SEASON 3 WORKS

To the Universe

22 chapters and I cannot say enough good things. It’s amazing closure and feels SO good to read. Writing style in this one is very compelling and keeps you on your seat until the end.

Somewhere Only We Know

A stunning 40 chapters for anyone who wants to just burrow down in this universe and never leave it. The angel and demon go separate ways only to reunite to (yet again) save Earth one more time.

Daily Report

This is written REALLY well. 6 chapters manages to bring about a really nice arc to reconciliation post Season 2! I was impressed.

MULTI-CHAPTER FIX-IT WORKS

Wouldn't It Have Been Nice?

Crowley is called to Heaven by a dying Angel. Jesus intervenes. Will break your heart, but it has a happy ending.

I Do Love Nothing in the World So Much as You

Soooo nice. 3 chapters bringing them straight through it as Aziraphale comes back and tries to beg forgiveness. NICE arc in this one. Believable.

Oh Simple Thing, Where have you Gone

This one says 7 of ? chapters, but I included it because I like the premise and what is there feels sort of complete? An interesting fixit where the Metatron has devious plans and locks up Crowley as part of that. The Bentley has a starring role in here during several heroic rescue plans.

Something Wrong

Ooooo! A NICE twist in this one. I won't reveal it, but this fic is based on some of the most compelling theories around why Aziraphale might not have been totally consenting when Metatron takes him away.

Jesus, Etc.

Crowley runs into a frantic Aziraphale with Jesus in tow at a Barbenheimer premiere. A battle of the wills with pop songs in the Bentley, Taylor Swift, Kenergy, sushi, a nativity play and a magic show come next.

ONE SHOTS (SMUTTY)

The Second Coming

The Second Coming - Episode6killedme - Good Omens (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Aziraphale “awakens” in the elevator (think ox ribs but sexually) and yeets himself back to earth to roger Crowley six ways from Sunday.

A Middle Ground

Aziraphale and Crowley have been separated, but the Angel won't let go. He kidnaps Crowley to a cloudscape and pleads his case. A Bridget-Jones like WWF bickering throwdown ensures. The part featuring reactions on the part of 737 Ryanair passengers and one airline attendant had me wheezing.

Just Called to Say Fuck You I Love You

This one is just spicy as hell, y'all. Aziraphale picks up on Crowley prayers while in Heaven, and let's just say that he's doing some ACTIVE praying.

Not for all my Little Words

Not for All My Little Words - mia_ugly, soft_october - Good Omens (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

An adorable one where Aziraphale, realizing he screwed up, chases Crowley through loudspeakers and other people’s phones through Europe using famous love quotes until he gets his attention (and some forgiveness.) Smut ensues.

ONE SHOTS (LITTLE/NO SMUT)

Darling, Can you Ever Forgive Me?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/48966298

A daydream, leading to Aziraphale doing the right thing and heading back to Earth to declare his love.

Cause you like me too much and I like you

'Cause You Like Me Too Much and I Like You - alastor_holmes - Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett [Archive of Our Own]

A sweet little one where Aziraphale quietly resigns, has a chat with Gabriel and Beez in the bookshop, and does the apology dance.

Everywhere

everywhere - vivahate - Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett [Archive of Our Own]

Azi Crowley instead from a Heavenly asassination attempt. (Maggie, nina and anathema help!)

Heaven is Not Fit to House a Love

heaven is not fit to house a love (like you and i) - Zaexx - Good Omens (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

A sweet little one with a *small* deviation from canon (that seemed ok because they have a good point.) Crowley had never told Aziraphale about the way the angels managed his trial OR about what he saw in the Heavenly files with Muriel. He jams his way into the elevator (telling the Metatron to get the next one) and tells him.

Magician's Choice

https://archiveofourown.org/works/49066831

Oooooo I like this one. Four ways that the ending could have gone instead, based on four magic methods of sleight of hand. So cool!

A Proper Apology

A Proper Apology - cyankelpie - Good Omens (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

One where the Angel simply calls over and over until they really talk. (Or imagine the idiots simply just used the phone.)

The Nightingales Were Just Sleeping In

https://archiveofourown.org/works/49041145

Cute, adorable, small...just a retelling of the final scene where they really TALK and don't just be idiots.

This is Not an Apology

https://archiveofourown.org/works/48992128

Aziraphale comes to Crowley while he tries to sleep it all off and they actually talk, for once.

Time to Turn it Right

https://archiveofourown.org/works/49162285

Azi tries to fix things. Crowley gets a cat.

We Don't Need Heaven

https://archiveofourown.org/works/49598467

They talk again, this time on the beach, and for real.

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raayllum · 5 months

Text

Been thinking recently about the idea in fandom that boils down to, usually, "the Character that Changes the most being deemed 'the most complex'" and that character development (i.e. character change) being held up as The Golden Standard of a Good Character and...

I fundamentally disagree, but first, a little bit more explanation about what I mean

Very often shows and movies, when being recommended on tumblr, are sold on the basis of having enjoyable/in-depth characters. Often times this also means conflating enjoyable with likeable, but that's a discussion post for another day. And even more often, it means there are characters who are seen as Deep because of how radically they change over the course of a story.

Lots of times, this falls into two camps:

Characters change radically, but early on in the story, and remain largely the same past that point of change (think anytime in a first season) until the end of the story

People recommending shows based on characters having traditional redemption arcs (enemy or bully to friend / good guy / love interest)

Now, I'm not saying that 1) character change can't be deep or 2) that character growth is bad. Neither of those things are true, even subjectively. What I am saying is that 1) character change / a character changing is not the same as automatically being a good, interesting, or well written character and 2) character growth is not the be-all-end-all of character writing. Yes, there can be problems with characters be overly stagnant, but typically that's only an issue if 1) a work is serialized and concerned with character development and they don't change at all, 2) a character never adjusts (rightly or wrongly) according to their mistakes, or 3) all of the above but they're a main character.

However, assuming that Character A has to be radically different at the beginning of a story in terms of their personality/values/etc. as they are at the end of the story is just... not how it works, necessarily. This is, I think, one of the reasons why antagonists who get redemption arcs tend to be more popular than heroes who had good values the whole time, because there's more opportunity to point and go "look, they've changed! they act on and have basic compassion now!" Which, fair enough, but again: other types of characters are fine too.

Particularly for characters fandom tends to have the hardest time with: paragons.

Paragons are characters who are usually the central hero, pretty morally if not entirely moral upstanding, and because they already start out in a place of "always doing the right thing," they rarely radically change by the end of the story. Instead, paragons are used to progress theme/messaging and inspire other characters around them to change (a good example might be Buddy from the Christmas movie Elf and to a lesser extent - as he's more transformative as a character - Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender, who's there to return childhood to his friends as an ideal and carry on Air Nomad values).

And for TDP, that's Ezran.

He's the youngest in the main cast and by far the most measured. While Callum and Rayla are off fighting, he keeps a level head. He assumes responsiblity largely without guilt, holds other people accountable most often without being cruel, he's kind and deeply compassionate, he shows regular empathy for his enemies even when he has to treat them like enemies, he loves his father but does not idealize him, he is king without craving power, he's trusting and honest and while he has his flaws (overly optimistic, his passivity, sometimes struggles to consider other people's emotions, naivety, etc), they - as of yet - are not overly connected to his sense of morality (which is a distinct difference compared to the rest of the main cast).

Now, TDP is less concerned with the theme of Childhood compared to something like ATLA, but Ezran being a child (again, in a way the rest of the cast is not) is also very important. Ezran, and Callum to a lesser extent, is the embodiment of the concept that children aren't born with hatred in their hearts; it's learned, or earned, through experience, society, and suffering. And as Ezran spells out for us in 4x03, he has suffered and been hurt - and he believes in breaking the cycle and believing in hope for a better future anyway.

Ezran's steadfast reflection of the series' core theme of "true strength - to break the cycle - is found in vulnerability, in forgiveness, in love" in both word and action does make him the closest thing to a paragon in the series. He's the one who finds the egg; he's the one who forgives Rayla and Soren; he's the one who still tries to help Claudia; he's the peacemaker, the literal bridge between peoples and species in spite of witnessing so many of their worst crimes/actions.

In both arcs, there tended to be a trio of characters who rapidly change, and a trio of characters who are more, comparatively, stagnated. Early S1 Rayla, Callum, and Soren are radically different in a ton of ways than they are even at the beginning of S3, but especially by the end. On the other hand, Viren - post 1x03 at least - Claudia and Ezran are far more consistent in arc 1; their circumstances change, but their viewpoints and realities and choices are largely the same from season to season - they just keep doubling down. This doesn't mean they don't change at all, but they don't radically transform - they just become more of what they already are.

I'd say that in arc 2, things have switched up, with Callum, Rayla, and Viren being the three who are radically transformed (thus far) with Soren, Claudia, and Ezran still being in the more stagnated corner. (For more notes on Claudia and Ezran's shared passivity, check out this pre-S4 meta.)

Ezran starts out the series as a good hearted, slightly mischevious little boy who loves his family and believes that people can be good. The point of the series is not to change these parts of him. It's to demonstrate the difficulties - losing both his parents, taking on the kingship, struggling to make the right choices, keeping his friends together, caring about peace and sentiment in a world that increasingly does not - of maintaining those positive traits, again, in a world that is determined to test those ideals and attributes.

Ezran is not here to be transformed by the storm, the same way his friends and some of his companions are. He is here to demonstrate the strength and necessity in weathering the storm so that the world cannot make you cold, or uncaring, or violent, even when those paths and emotions would be much easier to go down.

Good character development isn't about changing your character; it's about changing your audience's understanding and perspective of your character. Sometimes that means the character is also changing simultaneously, but that's far from a requirement for a character to be interesting. Like most things in writing, what it really boils down to is execution.

And I could go on about why I think people gravitate towards characters who start off evil (often part of imperialist empires or older, institutionally backed systems) and learn that the evil was wrong actually (and sometimes not even that) but that's a meta for another day, and this one is long enough.

TLDR; Ezran, like a few other characters in the show - antagonists and protagonists alike - is not meant to be a radically transformative, even though he very much has grown and changed. Instead, he's meant to exemplify the importance of not losing your sense of self in an increasingly cruel or difficult world, and what parts we should arguably try our best to hold onto as well.

#writing advice #tdp #as an example #analysis series #analysis #tdp ezran #ezran #the dragon prince #writeblr #i've always preferred paragons / non traditional redemption arcs so my preferences are #very opposed to general tumblr's but not at all surprising #also don't think i need to spell out why paragons would be particularly compelling for ND / autistic folks

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copperbadge · 8 months

Text

Royals/Ramblers is DONE. I split the difference and made two epilogues from the five, and one of them just looks like it's part of another chapter. I am devious in my ways.

I'm letting it marinate for the rest of the day; I'll give it a quick pass tomorrow, then let go of it for a few days so when I come back I'll be ready for slightly deeper editing. Aiming to post it perhaps October or November, we'll see how life goes.

It meant I could finalize a lot of dates in the timeline that I've been building. I've had to shift some things around, so now the trick is to figure out timing for the stories now in the pipeline, based on my notes. There's ten, more or less, and whether I end up writing them all is dubious; it reminds me of plotting out Laocoon's Children, an extremely ambitious task, but unlike Laocoon's Children, I control the canon and I don't have to deal with anyone's stupidity but my own. And I'm really only focused on five of the ten right now. Which, given I wrote four of these books in fifteen months, plus three books' worth (Royals/Ramblers) for a total of "seven" books in less than two years....I guess we'll find out. Might take a break at some point to write something more literary, that's up to the ADHD I think.

Anyway, it's not necessarily the order in which I'd like to write the stories, but I've been holding off on some of these for a year already, they'll keep. I think the slate coming up is:

2023 Autumn - The Football Novel, which is already 2/3 written; it will run through spring 2024.

2024 Spring - The Chicken Salad Wars, Simon's novel, pushed out from this year to next; it has to end in August, because of Plot.

2024 Autumn - The Roman Ruin story, aka Classics Nerds In Love; this has to come relatively soon because it's prior to Jerry finalizing the dissolution of his estate. There's no set ending for this one, but it will likely need to cover at least until late spring 2025.

2025 Spring - The Let's Legalize Psychedelic Davzda story. Not ideal to push this one so far, but it's possible when I get there I could swap it with the Roman Ruin story, though that could make certain plotlines awkward.

2025 Summer - Ofelia's story, which culminates in Galian elections in early fall.

Fortunately most of them should be less work and words than Royals/Ramblers, which is a bit of a sweeping familial epic. Those five are all more-or-less unrelated to the royals directly.

The rest of them are either barely conceptions or can be set at any time (like the Quaker Whaler novel that happens in the past anyway). Which is kind of nice; I now have both a specific agenda for the immediate future and resources that I can build out once I get closer to the end of that agenda.

Phew. What a ride, and I'm still in the middle of it.

(I'd post a bit of story from Royals/Ramblers but for the last 4-5 chapters it's all spoilery.)

#shivadhverse

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exhausted-archivist · 1 month

Text

The Deep Roads are Complicated, and I am in too Deep...

I've been working on and off at mapping the Deep Roads for a while now and after writing 4 pages explaining my methodology of why I think it is mapped the way I put it and then moving on to orienting the ttrpg thaig map, I realized something while taking notes on the directions mentioned and cross-referencing it to the description of Horrors of Hormak thaig description.

You can't map the Deep Roads from a top-down perspective because sometimes the roads change directions and aren't actually going in a straight line.

They need an orthographic map. Or a map that essentially bisects the mountain. The literal map in the corner of both the Origins and ttrpg maps. The maps... that have increments of depth.

Now, I knew that the deep roads had to change elevation, especially considering how they're described and the way they're supposedly below sea level for most thaigs.

But somehow, despite knowing that, I never considered that thaigs and the roads themselves would essentially be stacked on top of each other. Don't know why that never crossed my mind up until I was checking my notes and the passages of the ttrpg and Horrors of Hormak to confirm directions. To which it finally clicked as they both explain how there are galleries/antechambers and staircases/pathways that change directions.

How do we get to the thaig? This tunnel leads to a series of galleries. Think of them as interconnecting wide flights of stairs linked together and occasionally switching direction. We head down these for a few hours and we’ll be on the outskirts of the thaig.

-- Dragon Age Tabletop RPG, Buried Pasts p. 18

Beside him, Lesha muttered a word and her staff began to glow. She pushed it inside the entrance to the hole, giving light to the darkness within. The edges of the circle cast by Lesha’s spell revealed a small staircase that descended into an antechamber slightly larger than the clearing above, carved with a skill and delicacy that rivaled the works of Orzammar, or even Kal-Sharok. At the other end of the chamber, a doorway and a second staircase beyond that which spiraled into the darkness, the entire space lit by the glow of lyrium. And above the entrance, written in dwarven runes, a single word—Hormok.

-- Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights, Horrors of Hormak (p. 86)

Which then gave me pause and had me rereading and looking back at the map. Because the maps looked like they were straight and didn't initially give the impression of any verticality to them. Until you look in the corner. That's when it clicked for me and the mountains suddenly made more sense.

And now I'm screaming about it here. Because both maps are depicting a small chunk of mountain(s) in the Frostbacks. Which, for reference, my wip of the Deep Roads looked like this.

If you follow BioWare's scale of 1 square = 15 miles / 24 km - if the Deep Roads were in working order the journey to the anvil would only be roughly around 2.5-3 days journey. However, we know to get to the anvil and back to Orzammar is a month-long trip. So, with the darkspawn and collapsed tunnels it becomes a 2-week journey there and 2 weeks back. Which is quite a large jump in travel times.

I have a personal scale based on population size, megafauna, and the fact that it is supposed to take over a week to get to the Circle from Orzammar on the surface, among other travel time increments. Which makes each square 38 mi / 61 km. A 4-5 day journey from the anvil to the void when functioning.

Now, I think this map still holds up in terms of placement considering that mountains can have a wide footprint and the map on the Origins Deep Roads has at least two major peaks and a plateau, whereas the ttrpg just has one major peak and a couple of smaller ones. The ttrpg map also speaks of ravines and such so it fits the geography.

But yeah, long story short I need to revise some of my methodology; and maybe rescale the map, so things aren't super tiny.

#dragon age #dragon age maps #deep roads #dwarves #thaigs #dragon age origins #dragon age tabletop #dao #da ttrpg #long post #no cut because if I'm here you're here lost in the deep roads with me #archi is yelling

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