#i sort of made myself laugh with this so it WILL be published the void has no standards

[birds-of-forgiveness]

Jaskier: *spots Geralt for the first time*

Jaskier: 

#im really disappointing myself with the quality of my posts post-epiphany #maybe i CAN post whatever i want but SHOULD i? #will i look back on this and laugh?? #being tired is not a personality trait #meme dump #should i put relevant tags?? do i want fun friends? yes i do #jaskier #the witcher #geralt #geralt of rivia #jaskier x geralt #geraskier #content #i sort of made myself laugh with this so it WILL be published the void has no standards

[quaranmine]

The Babysitting Game

They say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, Grian doesn't have a child but he does have an egg and a village. That’s basically the same thing, right?

Grian acquires an egg. His friends help him.

No romantic relationships or content warnings. Mainly fluff! Hermits: Grian, Mumbo, Pearl, and Scar. My first publish fanfic since 2016 and my first hermitcraft fanfic :D ao3 link and some inspirations to be linked in a reblog

Words: 2862

•·················•·················•

"What if I touched it really quick?" Scar asked.

"No, don’t-don’t touch the egg," Grian said seriously. "Look, I even made a sign! It specifically says ‘Do not touch.’" He gestured to the sign in question, but Scar ignored him.

"Can I rub it?" he said. The man leaned over it, studying the object carefully. Grian hadn’t known where to place the egg when he got it, and it was just sitting on an anvil for the time being. He didn’t even have a starter house yet, but clearly he was going to need something soon if he was going to protect the egg from some of the more . . . mischievous residents of their Boatem village.

“No, don’t touch the egg! Scar-” Grian walked closer, hands outstretched, just in time to see Scar reach out with his hand and pat the egg.

Vworp!

The egg disappeared into thin air.

Dragon eggs had a tendency to do that. It was a survival tactic--Grian didn't really know how it worked, but just as endermen could teleport away from danger, so could the egg if it were touched. Now whether or not Scar was dangerous remained up for debate…

Scar giggled. "Oh, where did you go?" he sang, hunting around the area.

Well, he COULD be pretty scary sometimes.

"Scarrrr," Grian whined, helping him look. "I told you not to touch it!"

"It's over here!" Scar shouted, finding the egg at the bottom of a small slope nearby. "Just one more time…." He reached out again.

"No!" Grian said, slapping his hand away. "Look, you've got to pick it up the right way." He demonstrated, carefully lifting the egg and placing it in a pouch slung over his back. He had hurriedly stitched it together not too long ago, worried that transporting the egg normally might break it. “If you do it roughly, you’ll scare it and it’ll teleport away again.”

"I see!" said Scar.

"Now, please, don't touch the egg.”

"Oh," Scar said. He straightened. "You're really serious about this."

Grian glared. "I am."

"I'm sorry, I just thought it was funny!"

Grian sighed. "It's okay, Scar. It's just--this thing is a baby, it needs to be handled gently! You can't just go around scaring it! What if it falls into a hole or something?" he hissed.

"Oh my god," Scar laughed, "you're its mother now!"

"No, no, I'm not!"

"You are!" Scar cried. He suddenly stopped. "Oh no, didn't you kill its mother?"

"Well it doesn't know that!" Grian snapped. "Truthfully I didn't realize there would be an egg! And I couldn't just leave it, you know! Here, look at this." Grian gently withdrew the egg from its pack, and Scar moved closer. He held it up to the sun. "Look at that."

The sun shined dark red through the deep purple shell of the egg, making it glow within. In the middle, the silhouette of a curled up creature was illuminated. Blood vessels radiated outward, and at the bottom there was a blank space that Grian assumed was air. The egg’s shell was too thick for any detail to be made out, but the processes happening within were clear. Grian was enchanted with it.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

"Wow," Scar breathed. "There's actually a dragon in there! What're you gonna do with it after it hatches?"

"Well, I haven't exactly thought that far--I just want to worry about keeping it safe first. I mean, what do you even do with this thing?" Grian put the egg back in its satchel, and rubbed his eyes tiredly. "I suppose you keep it warm and safe but, like, I don't know what else-"

"I could help!" Scar said.

"You were just playing with it!"

"Hey," Scar said defensively, "that was before I knew more about it!"

Grian rolled his eyes.

“What are you guys doing over here?” said Mumbo, wandering over. Grian just knew he’d been up to something, and sure enough, there was a new tree next to his little collection of chests. Grian wasn’t very bothered by it, because he already had a plan to get Mumbo back for it.

“Grian is just showing me his new baby!” Scar teased. “He’s a mom now.”

“I am NOT its mother,” replied Grian tiredly, but he smiled at the sight of the other man.

“A baby?” Mumbo asked, choosing to ignore the rest of Scar’s statement.

“A dragon egg,” Grian answered. “I found it in the End.” He paused for a moment, feeling almost bad. “After I killed the dragon.”

“Grian! You’ve orphaned it!” Mumbo sounded scandalized.

“Why do you all keep bringing that up!?” he defended, glancing between Mumbo and Scar, who both gave him disapproving, albeit playful, looks. “I know you’re Mr. Peace, Love and Plants this time, but we’ve always killed the dragon in every new world!”

“Well, I guess that’s true, but it is a little sad isn’t it? You’re taking care of it but only because you killed its mum.”

“Yeah,” was all Grian said. The dragon always needed to be taken care of in each new world they visited, and while it was always a bit of a shame, he’d never really contemplated it that much. After all, he normally wasn’t the one who fought it--that last time in Evo aside. He didn’t really know what he had gotten into but he felt deeply like he needed to protect this egg. It was like a tug in his chest, drawing him into the egg and telling him not to let go.

“Show him the egg!” Scar said.

“You just want to see it again,” Grian replied, but pulled the egg out of the satchel again anyway for Mumbo to see. The surface of the egg wasn’t smooth, like a chicken’s egg, but bumpy. The purple spots almost seemed to glow, and occasionally little violet particles drifted off of it. Grian felt like he could stare at it in awe all day, and apparently his friends felt the same.

“How’re you going to keep it warm?” asked Mumbo after a moment of admiring it. “That satchel isn’t going to be enough, and to be frank, I don’t see you spending any time sitting on it, even if the mental image is pretty funny.”

Grian rolled his eyes at the comment, but thought about it. How would he incubate it? He may have had wings, but he didn’t know anything about eggs, other than that it was a safe bet to assume it needed to be kept warm. “I'm not sure, actually.”

“Hey, let me design something for you!” Mumbo said excitedly. “I could probably use some redstone and make an incubator of some sort for you.”

Grian smiled. “I’d really appreciate that.”

Asking Mumbo to create a contraption for him--what could go wrong?

•·················•·················•

“I’m not wearing this thing, you know.” Grian said, holding the contraption while Mumbo wheezed with laughter in the background. The design that Mumbo had come up with was essentially a backpack with heating elements strung through it, except for one thing . . .

“You-you wear it in the front,” Mumbo choked out, wiping a tear from his eyes.

“Yes, I see that,” Grian replied, unamused.

“Like a swaddle!”

“Yes, I see that.”

Mumbo laughed harder. Grian had to begrudgingly admit that it was well designed, however. It would fit the egg perfectly, keep it warm, and most important it was mobile to ensure that he could take the egg with him. It was thoughtful, especially since Mumbo knew Grian was quite protective of it.

“I’m not wearing this thing,” Grian repeated. “I’m not going to let you all laugh at me while I walk around the server with an egg swaddled to me!”

“I thought you’d say that,” Mumbo chuckled. “Here, you can switch the straps around and turn it into a backpack.” He unclipped the straps and moved them into the new configuration.

“Thank you, Mumbo,” he said gratefully. “This will certainly do the trick.”

“Glad to hear it mate,” Mumbo replied. “Now, while you’re here, may I ask why there is an incredibly tall tree on top of my camper?”

“Sorry, got to go!” blurted Grian, snatching the backpack from Mumbo’s arms and flying off in a burst of feathers.

“That’s unfair, I don’t even have an elytra yet to go chase him down with,” muttered the man as he watched Grian disappear.

•·················•·················•

Grian sat in the grass in front of his starter home and rubbed his eyes wearily. He was exhausted. Is this how all parents feel? he wondered. Was he just uniquely unqualified to be one? After all, this was only an egg! It hadn’t even hatched yet and he was already tired of keeping up with it.

Carrying it in the backpack was heavy, and Grian tired out quickly. It was hot on his back, and Grian found himself having to take breaks to avoid overheating. It was also cumbersome, and he found it difficult to build with as it shifted his weight. He almost fell off the roof once while building it! Of course, having wings meant that Grian could catch himself easily, but it had still given him quite the scare. Dragon eggs were pretty sturdy, and would teleport themselves out of danger if possible, but he was still so paranoid about breaking it. And now there was the Boatem Hole to worry about--what if it teleported itself into the void? These things kept Grian awake at night.

But if he left it...well, just like Grian had a tendency to lose items in his chest monsters, he also had a tendency to forget where he placed things. He had been forced to go back and rescue the egg from some place he’d left it more than once, which he wasn’t exactly proud of. What sort of parent forgot their child?

. . . He was definitely not admitting to being its parent.

Oh God, what did I get myself into?

“Hey Grian, what’re you up to?” came a voice, interrupting his thoughts. He looked up and saw Pearl standing over him. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail and her hands were in her hoodie pockets. She took a seat on the ground next to him, and followed his gaze overlooking the Boatem village. “What’s on your mind?”

“This--this egg,” said Grian. It sat next to him in its backpack, still radiating heat. “I don’t know what to do with it. I’m just so tired of carrying it around!”

“I have to admit,” Pearl said, “I didn’t expect you to immediately adopt a baby dragon the very next time I saw you.”

“Yeah, well, it was an accident.” Grian groaned. “I don’t know what to do with it now, let alone when it hatches!”

Pearl thought for a moment. “You know, the rest of us are all here for you. The other hermits would be happy to help out, I’m sure.”

The other hermits . . . well of course they would. If it was one thing they were all good at, it was supporting each other. Scar had already taken a particular interest in the egg, although Grian was still a little suspicious of him scaring it again. Mumbo had specially designed an incubator for it. Pearl was visiting him to check up on him and offer help.

All Grian had to do was convince himself to let it go. To let them help.

“I know that but . . .”

“But what? Have you had any reason to believe they wouldn’t?” Pearl asked.

“Well, no.” He thought for a while. He thought of how his friends would lend materials when needed, or how they’d help replace someone’s armor and items if they were lost. He thought about the days where they all teamed up and chose one hermit to help out, and he thought about all the things they did for the good of the entire community without even being asked.

His desire to protect the egg was strong, and putting it into the hands of another person almost felt like simultaneously a betrayal of the egg itself and the biggest leap of faith he could take. But the hermits were good at leaps of faith, because someone was always there to catch you.

“You think it’d be okay?”

“I know it’ll be okay,” Pearl replied. “I haven’t been here very long but from what I’ve seen, I know they’d all help. They wouldn’t hurt it. They might be a little mischievous sometimes,” she said, glancing at Scar’s house, “but they know how important it is and would be happy to help. They helped you before, didn’t they?”

Pearl was right, of course. Nobody on the server had any desire to hurt the egg. He trusted that. If there was anyone that he could trust, it was them.

But how would he get them all to essentially sign up for babysitting?

An idea struck him, and Grian scrambled to his feet. “Pearl, you’re brilliant. Thank you!”

She blinked, a little startled. “Always happy to help.”

•·················•·················•

Grian stood back, admiring his work. A near perfect duplicate of the egg that was currently sitting in the backpack slung around his shoulder, but at a much larger scale. It was built out of obsidian blocks and crying obsidian for the spots, and if Grian was pretty proud of how it looked.

If Grian knew anything, it was that his friends loved minigames. And Grian was not above gently exploiting that fact to get a little help--just like barge game from the last world, where he managed to get his friends to help mine out the stone from next to his mansion. Just slap the title of “game” on something and you could get a hermit to sign up for anything.

“Now . . . I just have to write the signs on the inside.”

The game Grian had come up with was officially called Tegg--he needed to stay on brand with his tag games in every world--but he’d mentally been calling it “The Babysitting Game” for a while now. Because that’s what it really was--each hermit who signed up would also sign up to watch the egg and keep it safe. He set to work outlining the rules.

RULE ONE: Protect the egg and keep it safe.

RULE TWO: Keep the egg incubated or it’ll die.

RULE THREE: Keep a close eye on the egg.

RULE FOUR: Call Grian if it starts to hatch.

Satisfied, he wrote out the rest of the instructions. Because it was a game, he wanted to make it fun for the hermits too, so he’d decided to make it like a scavenger hunt. People were allowed to take the egg, provided they adhered to the rules, and were encouraged to hide it and keep it safe. Otherwise, someone else who wanted to have it could get it. The safer the egg was, the less likely for someone else to find it. The winner was whoever had the egg the longest when it finally hatched. Grian didn’t know how long that would take, but he didn’t want to miss it either, hence rule four.

Yep, totally outsourcing his babysitting onto his friends.

Grian squinted at his wall of signs, before placing one final sign at the bottom: Grian will track the game and has final say on points and rules!

“That should do it,” he mumbled. He still wanted to keep an eye on the egg, to make sure that he knew who had it and how many people’s hands it had gone through. After all, he was the one ultimately responsible for it.

Grian pulled the egg out of the backpack and carefully placed it on the ground. He’d somehow made a habit of just speaking to it every now and then--he had no idea if the little dragon could hear anything in there, but he liked to think that it could. “Hey there,” he whispered, and stroked the top of the egg. “Some new people are going to start taking you pretty soon, but it’s okay. They’re going to give me some help and make sure you’re safe.”

He paused, taking in the little room he’d made and the wall of signs he’d written with meticulous instructions for the egg’s care. It may have been the first thing he’d built for this egg, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t be his last. A baby dragon was a commitment and for the first time Grian really let himself think about what that meant, beyond just an egg that he had to carry around. Would he house it? Train it? Let it stay by his side? Would he love it?

I think I already do, he thought.

He thought of the hermits--their mischievousness, their pranks, their hard work, their friendship, and their goodness at heart. They were his family, now. What was one more addition?

“It’s okay,” he whispered to the egg. “I trust them all with my life, but more importantly, I trust them with yours.”

#hermitcraft #hermitblr #grian #mumbo jumbo #goodtimeswithscar #pearlescentmoon #hermitcraft fanfic #quara fanfic

[ipreferfiction]

i am living in hell (i read the revan novel)

as the old republic discord knows, for some godforsaken reason i decided i wanted to subject myself to karp's revan novel. it was... almost worth it for all the wrong reasons. if this thing was satire? i'd give it top marks.

unfortunately it's not satire, so i'm giving you people a very honest book review of the hot flaming dumpster that is Revan by Drew Karpyshyn. revan spoilers below, etc etc etc, also if you like the revan novel unironicallly this post is not for you in any way shape or form. if you, like me, have heard horror stories of the revan novel and want to know if it's worth it: this is your review.

(note: author shall henceforth be referred to as karp, karpy, or karpshit because i do not have enough respect to look up how to spell his name more than once. also because he deserves it.)

GENERAL OPINION:

on a standard scale of 1 to 5 stars, karp's revan gets a 1 in terms of genuine quality. on that same scale based on whether or not it entertained me, it's a solid 5. karp's writing is irredeemable, his pacing is complete garbage, and i'm not sure he's ever met an editor or a real woman in his life, and good god does it make for an entertaining book. it's a horrible addition to legends canon, but i laughed so hard i cried in multiple spots. no, he didn't intend this, but karp is not the one star wars author who has rights (shoutout to my boy Timothy Zahn) so he can shut up about it. it has some (some) almost redeemable qualities, introduces my favorite old republic character, and is mostly just generally bad in a "how did this get published" way. i'll be breaking it up into three categories to go over in more detail: actual decent parts, things that were so bad they actually entertained me, and genuinely bad parts that had zero redeeming factors. starting with the smallest, let's get started. the rest is below the cut because this is going to be a long post, sorry.

DECENT CONTENTS OF THE NOVEL:

not many, as a matter of fact. let's just get that out of the way first. now, karpy has no full rights as an author, but i will give him slivers of a right for his depiction of Nathema. Meetra Surik feeling as though the void was going to consume her, scatter her into atoms across the entire planet, was fascinating, and her enduring sensation of being hunted by something metaphysical was amazing. the way the entire planet made even sound and color feel devoid of any sort of emotion actually made me envision what Nathema was really like, and it gives a perspective even swtor doesn't. likewise, the bare bones of what karp was trying to convey about the emperor were excellent.

oh: also the introduction of Scourge. he is my beloved and everything about him is absolutely fascinating, karp just can't write.

another fraction of a right goes to the few lines karp spares for describing the way the mask turns Revan into a symbol. that... is exactly what the mask does and what the mask is. we've also got the bits where Canderous is reunited with Clan Ordo and relaxes for the first time in years - possibly since the war itself - and look, that made me feel things. it was a good reunion, and it's clear how much the Mandalorians value clan and family.

i will also say this. the depictions of multiple people getting hit with force lightning were viscerally realistic in a way that karp's writing never actually manages to be anywhere else. descriptions of searing pain, burning flesh, bubbling skin - they were good, genuinely good and actually horrifying. as far as good things go, though, that about concludes the list.

THINGS SO GENUINELY BAD THAT THEY WERE GOOD:

this is most of the novel right here. karpy's writing somehow consistently manages to come off with the sort of description one expects from a cheap romance novel, despite any actual romance being largely nausea-inducing. there are - my count may be incorrect - somewhere around eight or nine uses of the word primal, and exactly zero of them are good. also this is a screenshot from revan's pov that is somehow supposed to be read with a straight face and made the entire discord server laugh so hard they started crying. i am serious. karpshit published this. revan why does this read like you think scourge has a crush on you.

honorable mentions along a similar vein include the fact that every time revan and canderous interact, it reads like they're an old married couple. they were definitely flirting. they share a tent on rekkiad. revan gets bitchy about canderous sneaking out to visit his. wife? she was a person who sure existed, more on her in the next section. canderous kills his wife for revan. said wife tells him to choose between Clan Ordo and revan and he chooses revan! without hesitation!

scourge. just... every single one of his POVs. he's so unnecessarily dramatic, he has a weird fondness for force leaps, he's paranoid as all fuck and is fairly convinced that Everyone is trying to kill him. he lets himself get shot multiple times because his armor can absorb it. he plays 5d chess with himself every time he tries to figure out if something is a trap or not. he wants a seat on the dark council. he's dramatic, has this been mentioned? he keeps stabbing things because he's too annoyed with them. i genuinely think karp's bad writing enhances these chapters because the amount of times i started laughing aloud were unparalleled. take this, for example:

the writing is genuinely abysmal, and that's about the quality karpshit's fight scenes always come across as, but oh boy did it make me laugh. karp's attempts to write a Very Intimidating Sith just sort of ended up with... very much not that. such as the time he jumps over a three-meter fence and lands in what karp assures us is a three-point stance. i lost it. it's hysterical. this is a SITH LORD and his cape is described as billowing behind him as he jumps. he's so needlessly dramatic and it's ridiculously in character, from the constant complaints about rain in his first chapters to his on-sight desire to murder Sechel (that rivalry is also a highlight of the book. it's written so badly and it cracks me up every single time. the highly evolved skills of a true coward still makes me laugh. oh scourge at least you're in character here).

in an effort to not spend this entire section talking about scourge: the weird and hysterical double manipulation thing where Revan is trying to manipulate Scourge into letting him out and Scourge is trying to manipulate Revan into telling him things and they're both entirely aware of what the other one is doing but there's an incredible certainty that They Are The One In Control. it clearly wasn't meant to be funny, because karp takes himself too seriously, but it was hysterical. the return of scourge's mental 5d chess matches with himself and revan thinking... what he thinks in the first screenshot of this section. no one can read this with a straight face and i love it.

...i got very derailed there. in my defense, karp thinking scourge should be taken seriously is very very funny. but, in only tangentially scourge-related things, the fight with Vitiate! containing some of the absolute best lines in the book (in terms of humor, of course. not quality. what do you think this is, goodreads?) my personal favorite is this absolute gem that i don't have a screenshot of because i was too busy screaming about it to the discord:

"No!" Revan screamed from the ground as bits of his friend rained down on him in the form of unrecognizable shrapnel.

yes. this is about... T3. i am dead serious. karpshit decides to have T3 join the battle by shooting at Vitiate with his flamethrower. in retaliation, Vitiate unleashes the full power of the Dark Side on him. he explodes into thousands of little tiny pieces. the above line happens. i was laughing so hard i was legitimately crying. this is so fucking funny. the entire scene of the battle, revan just being turned into crème brûlée by force lightning... and poor little T3 goes out with a quite literal bang.

and now an aside as scourge commits some more murder and it is revealed literally as an offhand mention for the first time in the novel that scourge can use his lightsaber with his left hand as well as with his right. at this point i think karpshit was just throwing darts at the board to see what his latest skillset should be, but it's equally in character. and then comes my second favorite line from this section, a true gem of wit and humor:

Scourge hesitated before joining her, taking a moment to survey the situation, memories of his vision of their failure still fresh in his mind. What he saw was not good.

which, in this circumstance, means revan half-cooked behind his mask and T3 having been made into bestie confetti. yes, i think not good adequately describes this, wouldn't you agree?

and now, some honorable mentions of lines that made me wheeze because they were so utterly abysmal. from the beginning of the book, when scourge was (as per usual) killing some people:

Holding his lightsaber high above his head with both hands, Scourge charged the downed speeder.

i'm... karp are you certain you know how fights work? are you really sure? are you? and then there's the time he describes a three year old as having dark and brooding eyes.

(just read the book, the entire thing is written like this and i'd end up with another revan novel if i tried to copy everything that was this level of abysmally bad.)

and for the grand finale...

KARP PLEASE JUST STOP:

this here comprises basically everything he tries to do with the Force, every single line about, containing, or even remotely mentioning Bastila, basically Meetra's entire character, the name Vaner, Vaner's existence, Bastila somehow being attracted to this Revan, Meetra again, this particular flavor of heterosexuality, and karp's entire writing style. this is why the book is genuinely bad in bad ways as well as funny ones.

the writing style is self-explanatory, you've all seen the screenshots. he's mediocre at his best points, and utterly dull at the worst. unfortunately, karp's particular flavor of misogyny also seeps in. this becomes very evident with Bastila - but my least favorite part is when describing the rumored backstory of Vitiate, talking about what six-year-old Tenebrae did to his entire family.

for background: Tenebrae was a bastard, the son of a poor farmer and the lord of the entire planet, Lord Dramath. there were instances of similar things happening throughout our own medieval history, and they generally had a name: rape. it is incredibly unlikely that Tenebrae's mother was in any position to give consent to the Sith who ruled the entire planet, regardless of whether or not she was married. so naturally, when Tenebrae's adopted father, the woman's husband finds out (unnamed mother "confesses the affair"), he flies into a fit of rage and attacks her. Tenebrae subsequently snaps his neck. he is in fact still six years old. and then we are treated with the following line:

Tenebrae made her suffer for months as punishment for betraying the family, torturing her with the Force as he honed his powers.

yeah. not at all weird, gross, and misogynistic, karpshit, thanks for making me read this.

and it gets worse. not in Tenebrae's case, luckily, but with Bastila and Meetra. i won't go over the whole essays people have written about both their characterizations - suffice it to say they're equally bad, both used pretty much exclusively as props for Revan in various unappealing ways. but the worst part about how karp writes them is the jealousy. Bastila sees Meetra as some sort of threat to her and Revan; the worst offender is this passage from Bastila's first POV chapter.

(as a side note, the constant descriptions of both Alek and Meetra as Revan's underlings/subordinates really rubs me the wrong way and is not at all accurate, but that's another essay.)

the women are pitted against each other, with Meetra much later feeling jealous when Revan says i love you too to the holovid of his wife and three year old son because apparently the bond he shares with Bastila is much deeper than the one Meetra has with him. Bastila's entire character is reduced to the wife of Revan and the mother of his child, and Meetra is little better off. her entire death is over in the span of a sentence and a half, and her ghost is tied to Revan, literally giving him her life's energy so he can resist Vitiate. it's no surprise the outcry over this novel was strong.

because you all don't deserve to suffer through much more of this, the ending complaint is reserved for the clear lack of understanding karpy has for the Jedi Order and the Force itself. revan is described as using both light and dark - even though he's supposedly a Jedi, and the two sides of the Force cannot be used together for any sustained period of time. either you turn your back on the dark, or you fall. but no; revan's special breed of arrogance means he offers to teach his understanding of the Force to other Jedi, and sees the council as backwards and hidebound for refusing, never mind that he's married and with a child on the way. karp claims that Bastila was redeemed through Revan's love for her, that he was redeemed through love - and once again shows the issue that many writers have of conflating emotions and attachments. attachments are unhealthy, things you'd choose over the greater good and things that lead you to the dark side. emotions, including love and relationships, can and have been had in healthy ways by Jedi before. clearly not revan, but others. and this misunderstanding runs through the entire novel, making most of revan's POV chapters utterly insufferable (along with his arrogance and general existence as drew's self-insert mary sue).

CLOSING COMMENTS:

as with everything, you have to decide for yourself if this is worth it. the writing is bad in enjoyable ways, but there are swaths of the novel that i would gladly ignore if i ever did a reread (not that my self-loathing would be that bad, i don't think). the misogyny is a genuine problem, and karp is a very bad writer. on the other hand, you do get some lore and context for things, and scourge's pov chapters especially are. mostly funny in how bad they are, and sometimes actually leaning towards mediocre. i've laid some evidence on the table, so make of it as you will. and may the force be with you if you attempt this, because it sure wasn't with karpshit.

#kotor #kotor ii #swtor #darth revan #revan #lord scourge #bastila shan #jedi exile #revan novel hate tag <3 #kinda sorta but it does give much scourge context #i'm so sorry exile you don't deserve this #who also does not deserve this #??? tumblr can you please function for once #this is star wars! #let me tag it #star wars #i mean that works i guess #but all of you need to see this anyway <3

[moccahobi]

Dancing in the Rain Pt. 1 [Namjoon x Hoseok]

Member: Namjoon (BTS) x Hoseok (BTS)

wc: 1.9k

Summary:  Namjoon lived in a small town. He loved it. It had just enough going on to give him fun when needed and not enough going on that he felt overwhelmed. On top of that, it was only a three hour train ride to Seoul where he met with his publisher and many of his friends lived. It was the best of both worlds. His life gets a bit more interesting when a mysterious bleach blonde with a heart shaped smile enters his life. 

genre: Slice of Life, Strangers to Lovers, Fluff

warnings: lying about one’s name

a/n: this fic is part of @whipped-kpop-creators​ project “a whipped summer” project! I used the prompt “warm summer rain” and heavily relied on their amazing playlist!

Next Part

The rain.

Namjoon loved it. 

He especially loved it in his new area. When it rained, everyone rushed to get to their locations and there was a park nearby that was always void of people when it rained because of that. Normally it is filled with students out of school and friends enjoying picnics, especially during the summer, but when it rains, it’s like everyone hides away and he has the whole park to himself. 

Namjoon walked around the park, slowly looking around at the emptiness. His phone (in a zip-lock bag) awkwardly sticking out of his jacket pocket, a reminder that he had less than an hour to enjoy the warm rain today. He had to get back to his apartment and be chained to his computer in meetings soon, but for now, he was enjoying the rain. 

When he finally got to the park, he slipped his sandals off, making a b-line for the soft grass as he started to meander. The warm rain was a soft, comforting blanket that quieted his mind and in that moment he just was. There wasn’t a meeting in an hour (his alarm would remind him when he needed to return). There weren't any intrusive thoughts. There wasn’t anyone else he had to handle. No parents. No friends. No one. 

It was just Namjoon and the sheets of rain that were coming crashing down.

The park’s animals had hidden away from the rain. Namjoon could just barely see a few of them peek out from holes in trees and under bushes. Part of him wanted to walk closer, tip toe on the sharp mulch, and try to interact with the animals. He knew they’d run away though and Namjoon didn’t want to spend his time chasing after something that would just run away. 

He didn’t care to do that during this special time he had.

Rain was common in this area, it was part of why he moved here, but the warm summer rain that covered him like a blanket was less common and he wanted to savor it. 

His peace was shattered at the loud sound of someone singing further down the path. Part of him seethed at this disruption. The park was peaceful before this and now someone was singing some peppy song and in the distance he could see them dancing as well. Another part of him, and the part that won him over, was curious as to who this person was. Namjoon had lived here for two years now and this person wasn’t someone he recognized and this town wasn’t known for their tourism so this had to be a new person living here. Slowly, Namjoon walked towards them, eyeing them cautiously. They had bleach blonde hair and a wide smile that grew as they kept singing and dancing (it was more of a series and sways and twirls but Namjoon digresses) and Namjoon was struck. 

The rain kept on pouring down but Namjoon was no longer focused on how it felt on his skin, instead his mind was stuck on the man in front of him. He stared on until the stranger stopped singing, their arms wide as if waiting for cheers and applause. 

And Namjoon obliged. 

He didn’t clap because clapping in the rain was hard but he spoke, his voice sounding rough to his own ears, “That was really good. You should think about going professional.” 

He tried to smile but he’d spent so much time brooding and focusing on his writing that the act felt foreign and forced to him. The stranger’s eyes flew open in shock as he eyed Namjoon up and down, his arms slowly falling to his side.

“Thanks. I just might.” His voice sounded smooth and soft as he shyly tucked some wet hair behind his ears.

“I am Kim Namjoon. Are you new to town?”

He nodded and smiled broadly, “I am new. It’s Ju- Kim Taehyung. Yeah… Kim Taehyung.” 

Namjoon nodded along slowly, taking in the baggy and bright clothes Taehyung wore, “Nice to meet you. When did you move in?”

“Uh… last month but I travel a lot so I haven’t had time to really explore…  I really wanted to visit… the local book store but then the rain happened and I just…” He looked around and shrugged, “I couldn’t help myself. The rain is so nice and I don’t get to just enjoy it enough.” 

“Yeah. I love the rain here. No one is out, well almost no one,” Namjoon said with a laugh, “It’s a good time to just walk and be.”

“Oh! Did I disturb you with my song then?” 

Namjoon shook his head and Taehyung’s smile seemed to grow larger, a heart seeming to form from how big his smile was, “Well then, care to dance with me in the rain some?” 

A sadness washed over Namjoon when he finally made it back to his apartment after an hour of dancing with Taehyung. With each sopping step he took deeper into his apartment (at one point stopping to wring some of his clothes out over his plants), he felt a pit of despair growing heavier in him. His legs felt like led and arms slow as he changed and prepared for his meetings. His time with Taehyung today was short. Too short. Dancing in the rain wasn’t what he had intended to do, but the warm rain and his boundless energy fed Namjoon and now all he wanted to do was run back out to Taehyung and continue dancing. 

He had work to do though.

Namjoon could only hope for two possibility:

He comes across Taehyung again in the neighborhood.

Next time it rains, the two meet again. 

Namjoon didn't know which he’d prefer, but in the end, it didn’t matter. He didn’t see Taehyung for a whole month. It was as if the man disappeared off the face of the earth and even though Namjoon didn’t know the man well, he missed him. Plus… he might have felt a little hurt that Taehyung hadn’t gone looking for him after their dance. There wasn’t a time when Namjoon caught a glimpse of bleach blond that he didn’t perk up in excitement. And each time he was more disappointed to have to relearn how bad his eyesight was.

Did Taehyung do the same when he saw a head of black hair? 

Namjoon really hoped so. 

Frustration pooled in his stomach as he left for the train station, a suitcase trailing behind him. It was a crisp morning and he was being forced to go up to Seoul for meetings with his publisher. Normally he enjoyed trips to Seoul (he had previously lived there and it still held a soft spot in his heart), but he wanted more chances to see Taehyung around. He’d just moved in and was bound to be out and about town at some point. 

And Namjoon was going to miss it because his publisher couldn’t hold a few meetings over zoom. 

Hell. Namjoon even suspected that one of them could be an email.

His frustration fermented to disappointment as he looked out the train’s window longly, the town growing smaller all the while. Planning to get together with a friend of his, reading, writing, responding to emails. None of it worked to take his mind off of Taehyung. When the train finally stopped at a station near his hotel, Namjoon was utterly exhausted and dreading all the meetings that were coming. 

The only bright side was that he would be meeting with a friend of his, Seokjin, before he left. 

When he finally entered his hotel room, he took his shoes off, dropped his keys down, and fell onto the bed. He had no energy to do anything at all. All through the walk to the hotel, Namjoon struggled to pay attention to where he was supposed to turn (he barely had the energy to keep an eye and ear out for people near him, let alone his location).

Bless his phone for providing him with the directions that he was mostly able to follow. 

His meetings came and went in a blur despite how painful they were. Almost all of them could have been emails or zoom calls. Just as Namjoon suspected, there was no real need for him to come back to Seoul. All throughout the meetings, his frustration simmered and by the time Seokjin and him met up for dinner, Namjoon was full on venting to the poor man. 

They’d started out catching up but the second Seokjin asked why he’d returned to Seoul, it was like a dam had been released. He hadn’t intended to return. He didn’t want to return. Sure it wasn’t a long trip and he would be back home soon, but he was missing prime time to meet Taehyung again. He wanted to get to know the mysterious blonde who sang in the rain more and his work was proving to be a real hindrance to it!

The more Namjoon delved into his vent, the more occasional laughs left Seokjin before the man was full on cackling. Despite Seokjin laughing like a maniac (or maybe because of it), Namjoon enjoyed his dinner with him. It took him back to when they were both in college and would only meet once in a blue moon due to being at different colleges. The times when they did meet, the two of them would make the best of. From parties to concerts to cooking classes, they always tried to do so much. 

A soft sigh left Namjoon as he watched the waiter walk away with their checks, “Hyung. Is there… like some sort of music event happening tonight? I don’t want tonight to end yet.”

Seokjin snorted at that, “I think that there is something happening in an hour. Yoongi was talking to me about it last night. Let me text him to see if they still have some seats.” 

Yoongi didn’t have seats available though so Namjoon found Seokjin and himself getting some soju and wandering around the streets of Seoul. They mostly just people watched while meandering through streets and occasionally stopped to watch and dance at busker stations (always leaving some sort of tip when they did). Despite not having a concert to attend, they still managed to dance and enjoy good music. 

Drunk Namjoon probably also argued that they had a better time than at a concert where they would have been more crammed in than around a busker. Seokjin simply laughed and listened to his drunken rambles. 

During one busker's performance, Namjoon became hyper focused on an advertisement being shown on a building. It was for some random hair care brand but the brand itself wasn’t what had drawn his focus. It was the man in the ad. 

Sloping nose. 

Soft looking hair.

Heart smile.

Taehyung.

Except… when the ad ended, it didn’t say Taehyung’s name. It said Jung Hoseok. 

Namjoon tried to brush it off and enjoy his night with Seokjin but he kept being distracted by ads that Taehyung… or Hoseok was in. 

Hair care.

Chicken.

Sprite. 

He was in a lot of ads. 

If Seokjin noticed Namjoon getting distracted more, he didn’t comment, instead stopping to get more soju and dragging Namjoon around Seoul more. The next morning, Namjoon was on a train back home, nursing a piercing hangover. In spite of his hangover, Hoseok was practically running around in his mind. The man was more of a mystery to Namjoon than before and a whirlpool of conflicting emotions sloshed angrily around his mind as he tried to think through his next interaction with the man. Nothing should change. Hoseok was still the same man as before just with a different name and Namjoon got why he would lie and give a fake name. A random stranger walking in the rain isn’t inherently the most trustworthy person… but…

Namjoon lost his train of thought.

Next Chapter

#wkcnet #thebtswritersclub #castlebangtan #rainingmxmnet #bts #bts mxm #bts fanfic #bts fan fic #bts fan fiction #bts fanfiction #bts fluff #bts series #bts angst #bts namseok #namseok fluff #namseok series #bts namseok series #bts namseok fluff #bts idol au #bts writer au #namseok angst #bts namseok angst

[bigmeatymudcrabchitins]

A not-so-brief overview of my Skyrim Dova OCs bc i need to scream to the digital void about my ideas

Freyora Lind, more commonly known by her strange alias “Bjorne Icepick”

A Nord-eventually-turned-werewolf who orphaned during the Great War and taken in by a Dunmeri mercenary whose residence was in Windhelm’s Gray Quarter. Grew up in a cramped boarding house setting among desperate mercenaries of varying backgrounds. Many of them would all come and go, but there was always some sort of a familial bond between them all.

From a young age she got in a lot of fights against people who insulted her for living in the Gray Quarter among the dark elves. Eventually she took a fight too far and was jailed for murder around 14, but was broken out shortly after by a band of masked vampires. Turns out some of her mercenary comrades unwittingly caught vampirism during a contract to clear out a vampire den and had to skip town, but not before ensuring one of their own wasn’t left to rot.

Lived in Cyrodil for about 15 years, but returned to Skyrim pursuing rumors surrounding a cure to vampirism, as her adoptive father would be nearing the end of his elven lifespan and had wished to die a normal death.

Seeing as she was literally a fugitive, and her long-belated parents were somewhat renowned for their battlefield prowess, she took on a false identity. AND an act to match it.

She’ll eat raw meat, chase prey with swords instead of using a bow like a normal person, harp about irrational conspiracy theories, and more. Everyone’s foul reactions to her outlandish act are plainly hilarious to her and only encourage her to act even stranger.

The alias “Bjorne Icepick” was simply the most ridiculous name she could think of.

Not the most morally outstanding. Besides drunken brawling, she’ll steal from anyone who angers her, even if it’s things she literally won’t ever need such as all the goblets in a household. It’s the pettiness that counts. “Try drinking your damn high-end wine now, jackass.”

Calls Dwarven Automatons “Gundams.” Including she herself, no one knows what that means.

Joins the Companions out of homesickness and a desire to fill in a gap that leaving home left.

Hasn’t bothered curing herself of lycanthropy because her whole schtick is being incredibly resourceful, and that includes using any means of power necessary. Still doesn’t fancy Hircine’s Hunting Grounds as her desired afterlife, though.

As her journey goes on, however, her lightheartedly eccentric face starts to fall off as a number of events push her to begin to question the legitimacy of her actions up until that point.

Some of which include the eventual death of her adoptive father (and how she was indirectly responsible for it even if it was what he wanted), Delphine’s ultimatum, the civil war as a collective, learning the tragic history behind the Falmer and the original Companions’ role in it, and killing of Vyrthur (no matter how much he genuinely deserved it).

She grows disgusted by herself down to the core. She takes to skooma to cope, and starts to be plagued by serious skooma-induced side effects. She ends up shutting herself away from all her responsibilities and distancing herself from her friends.

Does she get better? Maybe. I haven’t thought up anything past this point lol

Moureneris Alta

A very, VERY ancient vampiric snow elf, (though it’s notable she was born a considerable amount of time after the razing of Sarthaal)

Survived many atrocities. Stayed in isolation with a band of vampires for countless years out of sheer disgust for the nature of the sapient races. (I’ll explain her full story some other time. It’s pretty complicated)

She was abducted from her isolated lifestyle by a certain person i’ll talk about later. She managed to free herself south of Skyrim, and uh, walks right into that Imperial ambush. The rest is history.

Super ignorant to modern society as a result of centuries of isolation. Exploited for comedic relief. (“What in the name of Oblivion is a Cyrodilic Empire? Are you messing with me? And please, how does levitation magic simply get outlawed by this hypothetical Empire? What are you to do when you fall down a crevice? Just... let yourself perish? How degrading.)

She reintegrated herself into society with vengeance in mind under the belief that all humans are savage bloodlusting murderers who had to answer for their treachery. (And she was royally angry there was no Dwemer left to spite, but partially satisfied at the same time). But she grows conflicted after being shown genuine kindness, even as early as being freed from her binds in Helgen.

Subsequently has a very muddled redemption arc. Queue Dragonborn hero stuff

She has impaired vision, but she cultivated detect life magic to aid her in daily life and combat (think Hyakkimaru from Dororo ‘19 and his soul detection or Toph Beifong from ATLA and her seismic sense). At her peak, she can detect life from about a kilometer away.

She can just barely read, but only if she holds the text incredibly close to her face, not to mention her Cyrodilic lessons were left unfinished after her abduction, making reading a very taxing process. Weary travelers are often spooked at the sight of a floating, ghastly looking elven woman with her nose pressed up against crossroad signs, and it has become somewhat of an urban legend.

Isn’t as nearly as skilled with detecting the dead and tenses up in burial crypts or around other vampires for that reason. Unfortunately, being the Dragonborn and all, she finds herself in a lot of crypts...

When questioned about her background due to her unique appearance: “Oh, yeah. My mother was one of those mer from the east. You know the ones. Dark elves, I think? And my father was one of those er, tall elv- no, sorry, HIGH elves. Yeah. They both died in a big fire or something though. It was horrible. I can’t get the noxious smell or the deafening screams out of my head. Good talk, but never ask me about that again.”

Queue sheltered old immortal antics: “Wow, you’re THAT old? Enlighten me on how it felt witnessing the fall of the Dwemer. Or perhaps the rise of Tiber Septim’s Empire. The Gates of Ob-“ “Oblivion if I know. I lived in someone’s basement for thousands of years. And I still don’t know what everyone means by Empire. You all are messing with me, aren’t you? That really annoys me.”

She ultimately returns to faith in Auri-El and makes it her life’s purpose to help the Betrayed find peace, as well as to seek out any remaining snow elf groups. Probably good friends with Gelebor or something.

Had a crush on Serana. We all know how THAT went. Damned temples.

Was originally gonna spiral into a much darker corruption arc (another ATLA comparison being Jet or Hama) but I just felt bad for her. Moureneris can have a little found peace. As a treat.

That’s her preliminary design made. I’ll need a mod to properly play her, because that right there was made by choosing Dunmer as her race. But I can’t do that. I’m on console, and while I got the Steam port a month ago, my PC’s stone age specs can’t handle Skyrim yet and I’ll need to wait until I can afford a better graphics card (thanks economic inflation)

Alexandre Armasi, jokingly nicknamed Alexandre the Curious

A complete and unapologetic export of my character from a dead and unfinished DND campaign. Except there are no Aasimar in Skyrim, so he’s half Altmer half Bosmer. And his initial last name was Armas but I thought Armasi suited his Skyrim counterpart more, as subtle a change it is.

He’s mainly Bosmer in appearance and constitution, save for his hair and eyes, which are more similar to that of his Altmeri father’s.

I can’t really export his original backstory though because the campaign wouldn’t translate well into TES lore at all.

He’s a writer who came wandering into Skyrim in search of inspiration. While he mainly writes dramatic fables, he wanted to divert his focus to crafting his own bestiary and herbal compendium surrounding Skyrim’s fauna and flora. The ones at home are simply too vague to him!

He’s very altruistic, wishing to spread cheer wherever he goes, through the art of song (even though he was a cleric in DND and not a bard. My bad.) However, many of his verses are just blatant self promotions of his published fables.

But he’s too naive for his own good. Dangerously so. In fact, he says what’s on his mind with little forethought, with little grasp on the consequences of his actions, which lands him in lots of trouble. “I don’t favor him myself, but you guys kill people over Talos worship? That’s not very cool. A bit scary, if you ask me.” or “A Stormcloak rebel? Didn’t your leader kill a bunch of Reachmen rebels years back, or so I’ve heard. By the divines that’s not a man I’d make a symbol of nonconformity.”

He’s also insatiably curious. The type to ACTUALLY shove alchemic ingredients in his mouth with no knowledge of their properties, experiment with dangerous rune spells, throw rocks at pressure plates, and more. Needless to say he’s very accident prone.

Doesn’t know common curse words. People exploit this for laughs. Think that episode of Spongebob.

Everyone is a little baffled that HE of all people is the prophesied Dragonborn of legend. This agonizingly imbecilic writer who has absentmindedly wandered into burial crypts, troll dens, bandit forts, and more, too busy juggling his manuscripts to pay attention to his surroundings.

His past doesn’t exactly reflect his outlook on life. His mother and father fought in the Great War aligned with the Imperials despite their elven background. Both managed to live to see the war’s conclusion, but his father vanished without a trace shortly after, and it seems his mother knows something she won’t tell him.

With plenty of exposure to bad influences, his innocence is slowly lost throughout the course of his journey, and his altruism begins to grow twisted. But nevertheless, he maintains his jovial, social persona, except this time with much darker undertones. Kinda like a creepy dentist or something.

Whoops. He winds up becoming a feared Dark Brotherhood assassin. (Haha get it “Innocence Lost”???) He somehow deluded himself into thinking that the life of an assassin was the right thing to do. But he’s a funky little guy so he gets a pass for his heinous crimes against society

#skyrim #skyrim oc #dragonborn #dovahkiin

[imnotdoneyet-forreal]

Deals with the Devil- 14

Author: Amanda Preston

Summary: A need to fill a void and an encounter to start something new, Elijah and Katya never knew that a simple one night stand would wind up into a love affair filled with family drama and side deals gone wrong.

Deals with the Devil Masterlist  

        “I don’t care if you kick me to the curb and set up my room on Craigslist but I refuse to work with misogynistic, egotistical, piece of Euro-trash that is your shitty, lying, cheating ex-boyfriend Lorenzo St. John.”

        Bonnie is out of breath by the time she’s done with her rant and Katya lets out a sigh at all of the prying eyes around her office that are waiting for her response. 

        “I really ought to rethink this whole open-door policy,” Katya mutters tiredly. “I desperately need my door back.”  

        “Katya!” 

        She looks up at her best friend/editor in chief and lets out a sigh. 

        “Look, I can’t.” 

        “You can’t or you won’t?” 

        “I can’t,” Katya repeats. “Enzo wanted me to be his editor and I have too much on my plate to fall onto his lap and do his bidding all over again. You are the only one I can trust that he won’t try to flirt or friend into getting his way. I need you to do this for me not only as your boss but as your friend.”

        She pauses as she notices Bonnie’s resigned expression. 

        “Mostly as your boss though,” Katya amends. “If HR asks, it’s because I’m your boss.” 

        Bonnie has to let out a laugh at that and the tension in your office is soon relieved. 

        “Fine, fine,” she sighs out. “I’ll do it but you owe me. Big time.” 

        “I’m already planning on doing so,” Katya relent. “A midnight bar crawl or a road trip to wherever you choose. Or maybe…” 

        Katya slides the folder across her desk for Bonnie to take. 

        “What is that?” she asks curiously. 

        “Why don’t you take a look and see for yourself?” 

        Bonnie takes up the folder and looks through the contents. 

        “Oh my God,” she exclaims. “The lit mag got approved!”

        Katya grins at her excitement. 

        “This is your baby, Bonnie,” Katya tells her. “I’m letting you take control here but I have to let you know of one big requirement and I hope you don’t hold it against me.” 

        “Alright,” Bonnie nervously agrees. “What is it?”

        “The publication of MoonLit will have to have its first release at the same time as the MoonStone Online Publishing website.” 

        Bonnie lets out a sigh of relief at hearing this. 

        “That’s fine,” she answers. “I won’t have things done by then anyway.”

        “Perfect,” Kaya responds with a smile. “Now, get to work! We’ve got a lot to do today.” 

        “Ay, ay, chief,” Bonnie states with a mock salute. 

        Katya watches as her best friend practically skips her way out of the office. She leans back into her chair relieved to have that issue out of the way but knowing there were hundreds more like it that she had to filter through. 

        A knock on Katya’s door frame interrupts her again and she finds a shy Davina to be the cause. 

        “I’m sorry to break in on your already busy day,” Davina apologizes as she steps up to Katya’s desk. “But I just got a call from Viking Co.” 

        “What did they want?” Katya asks in alarm. 

        She wasn’t sure if the acceleration of her heart was one out of panic or excitement. Katya hadn’t heard from Elijah since their outing on Sunday. She had expected some sort of text or maybe a sudden appearance to her office but he hadn’t done any of those things. Just pure radio silence. 

        “They were hoping to have a follow-up meeting over the online publishing project,” Davina summarizes. “I know it’s late notice, but they set it for this Friday at 5.”  

        “Alright,” Katya mutters anxiously. “That’s quite soon. We need to have something… anything ready for them then. I… crap.” 

        Katya rolls her chair out of her desk and starts to motion for Davina to follow her. 

        “Get Josh into the conference room,” Katya orders. “We’ve gotta bulldoze through two weeks of work in hopefully one day.” 

        Davina’s eyes widen at her statement but does as she’s told watching as Katya stormed into the conference room and began to write an outline on the dry erase wall. 

*

        Katya fidgets with the hem of her skirt unable to stop herself from doing so. She had everything prepared for this impromptu meeting but she couldn’t stop herself from being nervous. 

        “You’ll be fine,” Bonnie assured her as she stopped by her office before she left. “You put your heart, mind, and soul into this and it's perfect.” 

        Katya just smiled nervously. 

        “Unless you’re nervous because of something new altogether,” Bonnie pinpoints. “You never did tell me about that Sunday meeting that took all day.” 

        “It was nothing.” 

        “If you say so,” Bonnie shrugs with a grin. “I guess if all fails, you can always sleep with the gentleman Elijah and hope to appease his mind that way.” 

        Katya had immediately shunned Bonnie out of her office at that comment and had tried to keep her mind clear of any sexual thoughts revolving around her boss.

        It was hard to prevent her mind from straying towards that direction but Katya focused on her work. Her hard and great work. 

        She wasn’t someone who sought praise in everything she did, but Katya wanted Elijah to appreciate the work that she and her team had done in the few days they’ve had. It wasn’t perfect, but the potential it had was driving Katya fully. 

        Katya wanted to prove to Elijah that his investment in MoonStone, that his investment in her, was not a mistake. MoonStone under her leadership has true potential and she wanted Elijah to see what the future held for it. 

        With one deep breath, Katya makes her way to Gia’s desk who is quick to motion her towards the conference room. 

        “He’s ready for you.” 

        Katya thanks Gia before making her way into the conference room. She smiles at the sight of Elijah who immediately stands up from his seat to greet her. Except that smile fades away at the serious expression he held on his face that hid all emotions from her. 

        She keeps up the smile though as she realizes there’s someone else in the room. 

        “Good evening, Mr. Mikaelson and...?”

        Elijah was too slow to make the introduction as Kol is quick to rise from his seat and offer out his hand to Katya. 

        “The younger and more handsome Mr. Mikaelson,” Kol responds with a kiss on her hand. “Charmed, I’m sure?” 

        Katya has to fight back the laugh on the back of her throat as she glances over at Elijah for confirmation as to what has just occurred. Elijah looks as if he’s in physical pain which is the most emotion she’s seen in him since she’s come in. 

        “I apologize for the behavior of my younger brother, Kol,” he explains. “He will be shadowing me for the time being. I hope you don’t mind.”

        “Not at all,” Katya answers as she pulls her hand away from Kol’s hold. “Shall I begin then?” 

        “Yes.” 

        “No.” 

        Katya looks between the Mikaelson brothers confused at the responses. Elijah pinches the bridge of his nose while Kol just continues to grin.

        “Isn’t it proper to have some polite conversation instead of jumping straight into business?” Kol offers up. “Like how’s your day going? How have you been? Etcetera, etcetera.” 

        “My day’s been fine and I’ve been great,” Katya answers as she slides her presentation to the both of them. She was relieved to have made an extra copy now but that ease was quickly turned into turmoil by the chaotic intruder in the meeting. “I’m assuming things have been good for both of you?” 

        “No.” 

        “Yes.” 

        Once again the conflict of their responses do nothing to ease the tension in the room. Elijah simply lets out a sigh and nods for Katya to begin her presentation which she does. 

        “...We’ve got an approximate timeline to launch online MoonStone by early May. My team will be focusing on this solely while my Editor in Chief will have MoonLit magazine ready to launch on the same date as well. As you can see from the budget…” 

        “That’s quite low,” Elijah interrupts. “Are these numbers right?” 

        “Yes,” Katya answers with a small smile. “It’s also just an estimate but I’m confident that we will either reach or be below that budget.” 

        Elijah skims down the spreadsheet and pinpoints the problem. 

        “Your team consists of two?” 

        “Aside from me and some advice from my lawyer Mr. Gerard, yes.” 

        “That’s quite small for the amount of work that is required.” 

        “I know what needs to be done and I know that my team of two can easily do it all.” 

        “Well I beg to differ.” 

        Katya has to refrain from getting defensive. It was such a minor detail in her presentation. 

        “I know what my team and I are capable of…” 

        “Your timeline is a hopeful estimate at best. It would be wise for the sake of keeping the deadline to increase your team. I’ll approve of the new budget once you get those new numbers calculated.” 

        “That’s great but I’m not going to hire more people.” 

        Elijah looks up at her and Katya has to remain calm at the new demeanor he held at the moment. 

        “Excuse me?” 

        “I know I have you backing me financially but the finances are not the issue here. My team is capable of doing the work and to make that deadline.” 

        “More work means more people are required. At least to lighten your load.” 

        “I can’t argue with your logic there,” Katya responds. “But I am no better than my employees just because I’m the boss. I can do the work so I will do it. There is no need for me to expand my team. We’re fine as is.” 

        “You have a company to run. You can’t be spreading yourself thin.” 

        “I am not,” Katya argues. “I know what I’m capable of.” 

        “I don’t think you do.” 

        Katya can’t hold herself back this time. The hitch in her breath at his statement was the only response she could make. 

        “As entertaining as this is, I’m getting hungry.” 

        Elijah and Katya turn to Kol in surprise. Amidst their argument, they had forgotten his presence. 

        “You don’t trust her and she is hurt by it,” Kol continues. “So in order to remedy the situation and wrap this up so I may take myself out to dinner, how about we come up with a solution to this menial problem?”

        “What do you suggest we do?” Katya asks the younger Mikaelson.

        Kol smiles at the question and leans forward in his seat.

        “Middle ground,” Kol suggests. “My brother thinks you need more help and you don’t. Hence, I come into play.” 

        “Kol, enough.” 

        Kol ignores his elder brother and continues with his explanation to Katya.

        “I have no experience whatsoever in the publishing realm so I will be no aid to you which is what you want. What I can do though is keep an eye on you and your team and if you are to fail… spread yourself too thin or miss certain deadlines then I will report to my brother which then he will be forced to expand your team. A win-win and a lose-lose situation.” 

        “I’m not going to allow you to…” 

        “I’m in.” 

        Elijah turns to Katya with a mix of surprise and betrayal. 

        “Katya, you don’t understand…” 

        “It’s business hours, Mr. Mikaelson, you are to address me as Ms. Fontaine,” Katya corrects him as she shuts her portfolio closed. “And whatever I don’t understand you may type up into an email and send to me by Monday morning which is when I expect you at work, Mr. Mikaelson Jr.” 

        “Ms. Fontaine…” 

        “This meeting has surpassed the hour scheduled for it,” Katya continues ignoring Elijah’s attempt of mending the situation. “I won’t keep you much longer. We wouldn’t want you to spread yourself thin just because this meeting ran too long.”

        “Katya, please…”

        “If you have any questions or concerns, call my assistant and set up another meeting. Have a good night.” 

        Katya packs up her things and takes her leave without another word. Elijah simply watches her go knowing better than to chase after her while Kol was present. Though, he regretted not doing so anyway.

        “Well I think that went very well considering you insulted her blatantly to her face,” Kol states with a grin. “All of this could be remedied though if you just…”

        “I’m not firing you, Kol,” Elijah interrupts him. “You made a commitment now and you’re going to follow through it.” 

        Elijah leaves the conference room and Kol simply shrugs off the order. 

        “You’ll regret this soon enough, brother. Just wait and see.” 

#elijah mikaelson #elijah mikaelson x reader #elijah mikaelson fanfic #elijah mikaelson fic #elijah mikaelson x oc #elijah mikaelson x ofc #the originals au #the vampire diaries au #tvd au #to au #elijah mikaelson x you #fluff #angst #tvd #the originals #deals with the devil masterlist #deals with the devil part 14

[pcttrailsidereader]

14 Lessons from theTrail

As the 2021 hiking season is well underway, the time is right to share wisdom from seasoned veterans of the trail.  Brett Fisher (Backtrack) – http://www.wanderabout.org/ – suggested that the five lessons from the PCT as articulated by Anna (North Star) and Chris (Shutterbug) – http://wanderingthewild.com/ – along with the five more added by Bobcat –  http://roamingbobcat.wordpress.com/ – and finished off with his own four, would be worthy of publishing.  I agreed.  Reflection is such an important part of the PCT experience.  

These 14 lessons are a powerful reminder to each of us long distance hikers.  I love the positive spirit reflected in their words. You may have your own to add and you may take issue with some (I’m still chewing on #8) … please let us know.

Brett ‘Backtrack’ Fisher

North Star and Shutterbug noted that their thru hike of the Pacific Crest Trail taught them many things. Here are five of the most important lessons they learned on the trail.

1) Senses awaken in nature. After years of living in a city, our minds subconsciously created filters to deal with the contant  jumble of sensory information. It was thrilling to remove those mental filters and reawaken our senses in the great outdoors. The crack of a distant twig alerted us to an elk, almost hidden in the forest. We could smell day hikers’ deodorant and laundry detergent from several feet away. Our eyes tracked the subtle movements of a soaring hawk adjusting to shifting air currents. The longer we lived in the wild, the sharper our senses became.

2) People are good. On the trail, day hikers and trail angels gave us encouragement, kudos, and tasty food. Other thru hikers shared our joy during good times, and cheered us up during harder moments. Crews of volunteers labored to maintain the trail. The people we met in the small towns along the PCT were incredibly friendly and accommodating. Strangers went out of their way to give us rides, find us rooms, and some even offered us their homes for a night. The kindness and generosity we received went beyond anything we could have expected. We saw the fundamental goodness of people during our thru hike.

3) Hike your own hike. Hikers often tell each other to “Hike your own hike” (HYOH), recognizing a wide variety of backpacking preferences. We knew this phrase before starting the Pacific Crest Trail, but its meaning really sank in with a few hundred miles under our feet. HYOH worked for us in many small ways, such as our hiking pace — we walked slower than most thru hikers so we could take more pictures. But we also realized HYOH applied to larger life choices, such as our decision to continue hiking long trails, rather than immediately returning to desk jobs. To Hike Your Own Hike is to allow yourself to do what works best for you and your passions, and to support others in doing what works for them. The result is greater happiness for everyone.

4) Fewer possessions is freeing.  We found that the less we had, the happier we were. Each possession was not only physical weight to carry, but also mental weight. Carrying just one set of clothes meant no decisions about what to wear in the morning. Instead of carrying chairs, which could break or get left behind, we sat on the ground or on logs. Taking only the food we needed made meal choices simple. We didn’t bring bowls and plates, all of which we’d have to clean. Rather we ate right from our pot. With less items to think and fret about, our minds could relax and be open to all the beauty around us. The simple lifestyle is truly freeing.

5) Wilderness is home. As the weeks passed, we became more and more comfortable living in the desert, the mountains, and the forest. A primal part of us came to the forefront. Fresh air, clean water, and open space surrounded us and sustained us. As our relationship with the wilderness deepened, we felt more at home there than we did in civilization. We had not expected this, but it turned out to be one of the most powerful aspects of the hike.

                                                                     Photo Credit: Rees Hughes

These are the five added by Bobcat.

6) Joy is our natural state. On the trail life is reduced to its most basic necessities: water, food, sleep, shelter, safety from the elements and natural beauty. Because our minds are freed from having to handle what Northstar and Shutterbug call the constant jumble of sensory information, we are open to tackle deeper and deeper levels of thought. Because the trail is so long, at some point we run out of things to ponder, analyze, consider or solve. When that happens, the void that is left seems to immediately be filled with a sense of joy and peace. So, at our most basic level, underneath it all, this must be our natural state.

7) Life is a mirror (you get what you give). I have experienced this more than once on the trail: If I approach the road in a joyful and optimist state, I wait for a hitch less than five minutes; if I approach it with a bad attitude, it will be a long while before I get picked up. The kindness and generosity we received as hikers I believe is in direct correlation to our own state of open-mindedness. The opposite is true also. Fear attracts scary situation. People who feared bears had bear encounters. I started the trail worried about poisonous plants and managed to get poison oak on one leg and poodle-dog-bush on the other. When I became grateful for the cortisone cream two generous hikers gave me, the oozy mess cleared up over night.

8) All you need is love and gratitude. Somewhere in the first few hundred miles of the trail, I became so frustrated with my UV water purifier and so jacked up on iodine that I stopped using any sort of water treatment. Instead, I held the water to my heart and told it, sincerely, “I love you, please don’t make me sick, thank you”. The method proved excellent the whole trail, including with that one batch of “bear pooh water” (see “I believe in angels”). Inspired by my success, I also used this method as sunscreen (I love you Sun, please don’t burn me, thank you), bug-repellent (I love you spider, please stay off my tarp, thank you) and holographic deck (I love you trail, could I get a shady spot, mosquito free, by some water, thank you). Seriously, it works. Try it for yourself.

9) Freedom is an intrinsic quality. Before I left, a good friend told me that the PCT would likely be the one place where I could find enough space to accommodate my humongous need for freedom. All former thru-hikers I have met mention “freedom” as the greatest gift they received from the trail. All that fresh air, clean water and open space seeps into your soul and sticks. I think freedom is always in us, but sometimes our vision of it is clouded. Once we touch that quality within us, it remains wherever the end of the trail finds us. Some of us continue to wander, travel, explore or hike; others return to former lives and jobs from an expanded perspective. In all cases, you can take the hiker off the trail, but not the trail out of the hiker.

10) Laugh it off. Never mind great truths and life-changing discoveries; we know nothing. Any labeled identity we create for ourselves will be destroyed as soon as it’s uttered. I once wrote that my feet hurt, the next day my feet stopped hurting. I once wrote that I preferred solitude, the next day I found myself  hiking with a small group of fun people and loving it. I once was very upset at the thought of no-longer being a “thru-hiker”. I think we all feel that way. That is in part why we seek the company of other thru-hikers post-trail. Am I still a hiker if I’m not hiking? Who cares! Each experience is worth its weight in gold. I think it’s important to not take ourselves too seriously and as Dacia so eloquently put, to get out of our own way, learn to surf the wave, revel in the power of it, and let it all come together.

                                                                         Photo credit: Jim Peacock

And the final four from Backtrack.

11) It’s not a race. Lightweight, a hiker who hadn’t yet escaped the vortex at Casa de Luna, started a list in the Anderson’s trail register, “How To Win the PCT.” First on the list: Be the last to Canada. If you’re hiking northbound that is. Hiking a long trail is not a competition. There aren’t winners and losers. All of us get there only one step at a time.

12) It’s not about the miles, but what happens between the miles. I heard this from my daughter, Dances With Lizards, the only member of Team No Hurries to get to Canada this year. Maybe this is a variation of “the journey is the destination.” We live between the miles. Not in how many miles we’ve walked today, all week, or the whole hiking season.

13) It is what it is. It’s 105 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s 18 miles to water. There’s a thunderstorm right on top of us. The snake ate the rabbit babies. I am very hungry. It isn’t good and it isn’t bad. It is what it is and has no need for meaning. I take a break in the shade in the heat of the day. I carry 4 liters of water. I hunker down from the rain and lightning and watch the display. A snake’s got to eat, too. I eat some food. It is what it is, now and in this moment.

14) There’s pain but that doesn’t mean there is suffering. A day hiker descending Mount Whitney says to me, “Are we having fun yet?” I am huffing and puffing and legs burning on the way up and pant out, “I think we do this for other reasons than fun.” Walking on blisters hurts. Legs and knees and ankles and feet sometimes ache, and sometimes all ache at the same time. Sometimes I am very hungry. Sometimes I smell very bad and so do all my companions. My socks have holes in them. Yet, I laugh at the pain and discomfort. We laugh together. There is joy out here on this trail. Between every step and every mile.

15) add yours here …

[the-mykie-show]

Neutral Ground (NeganxLayla)

In which Layla gets thrown into the Alexandria drunk tank and Negan finds an unlikely friend.

Not my gif- full credit to @hughxjackman

**warnings- Negan's typical potty mouth, drinking, public intoxication, talk of violence and killing**

**A/N this is my first publicly published fanfic, and I do not have a beta reader yet so please forgive any spelling or grammar mistakes. This is part one, if folks are interested part 2 will be coming soon. If you would like to be tagged in my fics please let me know!**

If I would have known there were still laws about public intoxication in the apocalypse I would have never said “what are you gonna do? Throw me in jail?” to Alexandria’s head of security. Because, yes that is exactly what she intended to do.

“goddamnit” I muttered as I watched Michonne slam and lock the metal door at the top of the stairs I'd just unceremoniously staggered down, officially putting me in time out for my unruly actions. I'd almost forgot that I wasn't alone down here until a deep gravelly voice spoke from the dark void in front of me. “please tell me you're not a barfy drunk, I don't want to smell that shit all night.”

“No, luckily for both of us I'm not.” I can just barely make out his silhouette behind the iron bars by the moonlight streaming through the small window of his cell.

“So, what're you in for?” he asks.

“I got drunk and started a fight over expired pop tarts.” if anyone wasn't going to judge me for my actions it'd have to be the man who had been locked in the cell since I'd joined the community a year ago. My mind was still clouded with just enough alcohol for me think it was a good idea to ask the prisoner the question I'd been wondering about for a long time. “What about you?”

“You mean you don't know?” he seemed genuinely surprised. The only thing that the Alexandrians had shared about their prisoner was his name was Negan, and he was lucky to even be alive after what he had done, and warned me away from ever going near his cell.

“No, they don't talk about it. Just told me you were a bad man and deserved to be down here.”

“I would tell you but this is the longest conversation I've had in a long ass time and I sort of don't want to ruin it yet.” shit, I wasn't expecting the evil prisoner to tug on my drunk heart strings.

“Try me. I don't scare easy, and I've still got some booze left in here.” I raised the bottle of whiskey I still held in the hand I wasn't using to support myself against the cinder block wall. “I'll share if you spill.”

“You got yourself a fuckin' deal.” Negan slid down to the floor and sat with his back against the bars, I did the same next to him.

“I had a place of my own, a place with rules, an economy, jobs, I called it the Sanctuary. The whole place ran on the idea that people were a resource, and if everyone did their part we could rebuild civilization.”

“That doesn't sound so bad.”

“It wasn't, at least I didn't think it was.” he sighed “Everyone had a job to do in the Sanctuary, we had a point system, it worked like currency, the harder the job the more points you earned, the better off you were. It worked, kept the peace, kept people alive, but a lot of people still couldn't get by. So I started finding new communities, and I offered them protection from the dead in exchange for half their shit. I'd give them supplies to build fences, soldiers, medical care, whatever I could spare”  

“Seems fair.” I took a swig and passed the bottle through the bars to Negan.

“It was until the communities decided they didn't need us anymore and they stopped providing. You gotta understand...I had my own people to worry about, children, pregnant women, old people, sick people- so I did what I had to do and I killed the leaders of those communities who wouldn't work with us and I made a new deal.” he took a swig from the bottle.

“I wouldn't kill anyone else if they kept providing for the Sanctuary, and as it turned out ruling with an iron fist suited me.

Before long the Sanctuary grew, I had outposts, less people died, I lived like a king. And then one night Rick and a few of his people snuck into one of my outposts and killed all my people in their sleep all while trying to kill me too. Even burned a few alive.”

“you're shitting me right? Rick did that?” I almost couldn't believe it. Was he manipulating me? Was this what the Alexandrians warned me about? But the moment I looked into his eyes I knew he was telling the truth.

“Nope, I'm dead ass serious.” he passed the bottle back to me.

“So I arranged a little talk between us out in the woods, and I killed two of Rick's guys. It was only supposed to be one person, but Rick's little lackey Daryl decided to throw a punch at me so I killed one more. And that's what started the war.”

I listened to Negan tell his story in silence, only pausing to pass the bottle between us, by the end I saw Rick in a whole new light, and shame in Negan's eyes. He wasn't proud of what he'd done, he was sorry. Which was more than I could say for most people these days.

“wow that's really…fucked up, I'm sorry. When do you get parole or whatever?”

“Never.”

“Never?”

“Nope, I'm gonna die in this hole.” Negan didn't even look sad, just decided. Like he'd accepted his fate as a fact he couldn't change.

“So what about you? What's your story?”

“Not much of a story really. Born and raised in Roanoke,went to art school at a liberal arts college for the sole purpose of pissing off my parents, worked from home as a graphic designer. I was alone when the world fell, found Alexandria a while after.” I took another drink, and passed the bottle to Negan.

“What no husband? Boyfriend?”

“Nope, just me and a fish, and some friends from college who enabled my drinking habit and got me into this mess.” I laughed, and so did Negan. It sounded like he hadn't done that in a while, and seemed surprised that he even remembered how to laugh.

And it was then I realized that there was something very sexy about Negan when he laughed.

#negan #twd negan #negan fanfiction #negan x oc #negan x original female character #jdm #jeffrey dean morgan #the walking dead #twd #twd fanfiction #the walking dead fanfiction #the walking dead fandom #negans thirst squad #negan's thirst squad #negan fic #negan fanfic #fanfic #mykie writes

[foxykey]

Imagine: Hoseok Comforting an Insecure Friend

requested by @moretoyouthanjustanothergirl

“I don’t know why you’re working yourself up into a frenzy,” Hoseok said, flipping through one of the comic books on his best friend’s coffee table. “Everything is already spic and span around here and your cooking is always awesome. What can anyone possibly complain about?”

“I just want to make sure everything is perfect,” Eunji stated, carefully rearranging the throw pillows on the couch around Hoseok.

“Everything is amazing.”

“It can’t be amazing, I need it to be perfect,” she reiterated, snatching the book from his hands and tucking it back into place on her bookshelf.

Hoseok gave a grunt of protest before sagging in defeat, giving her a judgemental look. “I don’t understand why you get like this whenever your family is coming to town.”

“Because, I was supposed to stay out in the boondocks and carry on the family farm, not move to the city to make it big. They all think my photography is a joke already, I don’t want to give them any reason to look down on my style of life. If they think for one second that I’m struggling-”

“But you’re not struggling,” Hoseok interrupted, standing as if to make his point. “You’re on retainer for several travel magazines, you’re published for god’s sake… how can anyone think your work is a joke?”

Eunji paused for a moment, letting out a soft breath. “Thanks, Hobi, you’re sweet. But it’s just… different for them. They can’t understand it.”

“But they should. They should be bursting with pride.”

“It’s not like they don’t love me. They do, in fact in their eyes they just want to see me safe and protected and their life back at home is the only thing they know.”

“Yeah, but they shouldn’t be actively rooting for you to fail just so you come back home. I don’t know, if it was my daughter, I’d be her number one fan. I’d want her to do what makes her happy. What she’s good at.”

Eunji’s eyes flickered between his own. This was why she loved being around Hoseok, why she had opened up to him so quickly and let him in so deep; because he was honest and kind and he had this way about him and the things he said that just made her feel better about herself. Ever since she had moved to the city - very much a tiny fish in a gigantic pond - Hoseok had been there for her.

It had surprised her in the beginning, they’d only met a few times, but he remembered important dates and events, like when she was up for an interview or when they were picking the winner of a contest she’d entered or even her birthday only a month after they had been introduced.

But now, a little more than two years later, she could probably say that if anyone was her biggest supporter, it was Jung Hoseok. He went to every gallery exhibition, bought the first printing of every magazine her work was published in, had all three versions of her photography book.

Eunji gave a soft smile, breaking her gaze away before she started to blush. “It’s not like I’m really that good or anything…”

Hoseok tilted her chin up so she could see his wide grin. “Yes you are. You’re beyond good, don’t sell yourself short.”

She swatted his fingers away with a modest laugh and headed to the kitchen, enough of a break taken by now. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. I need to start cooking.”

Eunji loved her family, but after each of their visits, she felt drained beyond belief. Her father was always sternly silent, giving little huffs and grunts periodically as she spoke about her work or city life. Her mother was overly terrified of everything foreign to her and passive aggressively suggested that maybe she wasn’t cut out to live in such a dangerous place. And her brother always fueled the fire with snide comments about her being a big shot with a giant ego who was pursuing a childish hobby rather than helping provide for her family.

This visit was particularly poignant and awful. Her brother was being even more of a sarcastic asshole than usual and he mother was looking over her apartment with a sort of disappointed pity that made Eunji want to climb into a hole. The worst, though, was when her father flat out told her to come back home.

She was just starting to show off her recently published photo novel when he had set his drink down with a loud thud, effectively silencing her.

“Enough is enough, Eunji. This was always a fanciful daydream and we’ve tried to give you time to grow out of it, but it’s obvious you won’t see reason. Photo books and travel magazines? Is this the kind of nonsense you’ve thrown yourself into? You’re twenty-five already and it’s time to start acting like an adult. Come back home, where you belong.”

When she has refused, in a trembling voice, standing her ground, he’d gotten indignant and upset. Her mother had tried to calm him down, but he’d declared that it was time for them to go shortly afterwards. And then, her mother, trying to sooth the situation over, had just hammered the nail home.

“We just want what’s best for you, honey. You should come back home, where you belong. This weird, artsy stuff… it isn’t for people like you.”

And now there she was, sitting on her couch, intermittent tears breaking past her lashes without a fight. That was how Hoseok found her a hour after she’d texted that they had left.

When he came in and saw her, there was an initial flash of anger before he sighed and came to sit beside her on the sofa. For a long while, he merely sat there with her, neither of them even looking at each other.

Then, “That bad, huh?”

Eunji gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Worse.”

“What’d they do this time?”

She told him the whole story, starting from the judging scan of her home right when they walked in and ending with her mother’s misguided advice. Eunji shook her head sadly, feeling strangely void.

“I love the unexpected,” she said. “I always did, ever since I was a little girl. It was why I came to the city in the first place; somewhere you couldn’t predict. So many new experience and people and adventures. And photography lets me capture that and chronicle it. I thought if they could see the progress I’ve made, how I’m making a name for myself, they’d be really and truly proud of what I was doing. But they’re just as terrified now as they were when I first left. They’re only more adamant now. And maybe… shit, maybe they really are just looking out for me. Maybe I am setting myself up for failure and I really am no good-”

“Shut up,” Hoseok snapped, cutting her off sharply. Eunji turned to look up at him, surprised by the bite in his tone, but he was glaring down at his hands. “You are better than good, you’re incredible. Phenomenal. And they should see that, god. How can they be so blind? You have this raw artistic talent that just overwhelms. You were made to do this, no matter what they think. So don’t second guess yourself, not for them, not for anyone. You’re doing something remarkable, leaving your imprint on the world. That’s amazing. You’re amazing.”

“Hoseok…”

“And I just wish…” he ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “God, I just wish you could see yourself the way I see you.”

Eunji felt her throat go dry, cheeks tingling in a sort of physical understanding that her mind had not caught up to yet. A hope.

“And how do you see me?” she whispered.

Finally, Hoseok turned to look back at her. His dark eyes were heavy and turmoiled, obviously weighed down by something. His hands were clasped tightly between his knees. He swallowed hard, Adam’s apple bobbing.

“Perfect,” he rasped, voice low and intimate in the air between them. “You’re the most amazing person I know. Talented and smart and so humble. I… I really, really just admire everything about you. I’m crazy about you.”

Eunji’s mouth parted slightly at the confession, her breath catching and holding in her lungs as she stared at her best friend. Hoseok met her gaze for a long time. Then, he lifted a hand to cup her cheek, leaning further into her, eyes flickering all over her face. Still, Eunji was held immobile, waiting, breathless.

Hoseok’s eyes flicked down to her lips and then a second later he was kissing her. His mouth was warm on hers and all at once the breath she had been holding in came flooding out. Hoseok took advantage of this to tilt his head and kiss her deeper, his tongue probing carefully at the seam of her lips. Eunji let him in, her hands coming up to grab fistfuls of his shirt as he stroked along her own tongue tentatively. There was a short pop as they parted, breathing affected.

Hoseok breathed a sudden laugh, tucking her hair behind her ear, refusing to drop his hand from her skin. “I’ve been wanting to do that for ages.”

“Really?” Eunji exclaimed with a broad grin.

Hoseok nodded. “Oh yeah, a lot.”

“And you never said anything?”

“I was afraid you were too posh for me.”

Eunji laughed and shoved him before settling curled into his chest. “Well, this was certainly unexpected, but very welcome. Is this why you’re my number one fan?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he saluted, grinning. “Lee Eunji all the way!”

She laughed again, burying further into him and laying her head on his shoulder gingerly. “How quaint, my own cheerleader. My faithful watchdog. Don’t know how I’ll make it up to you.”

Hoseok rested his cheek to the crown of her skull with a wide grin. “Oh, I’ll think of something.”

#bts #bangtan sonyeondan #bangtan #jhope #hoseok #jung hoseok #hobi #jhope fic #requested fic #request #answered asks

[ardenttheories]

Okay, if overarching narrative isn't Homestuck's strong point (which I completely agree with, it only kind of makes sense to me because my brain likes torturing itself by twisting into knots but it still has lots of holes), then what attracts so many people to it?

Homestuck creates an entire universe of lore that is oh so juicy to dig into. 

I mean, can you think of another piece of media where the general plot is that once a universe becomes old enough that it needs to be replaced a game will come into existence and the previous planet will be destroyed while a series of children attempt to complete the game by dying, becoming gods, fighting against a King and Queen inherently affected by their actions, breeding Frogs in order to create a new universe which is an incredibly big Frog that hosts every single instance of that universe inside its colossal mass, and taking such a long time in doing so that they mature into adults whom are worthy of becoming the actual living Gods of the universe they’ve created? 

It’s the depth that we can get into, too. Skaia, the Lands, Quests, Ectobiology, The Ultimate Riddle, Sprites, Alchemy, the importance of Doomed Timelines/Selves, the existence of Null/Void/Barren sessions - each piece of SBURB comes with such intricate lore that half the fun of the journey is understanding how everything works and why it all tangles together into something as coherent as this one game. 

Classpects just by themselves are interesting enough to warrant hundreds of blogs on Tumblr to have some sort of focus on them, and maybe thousands of people around the globe trying to figure out what their Classpect would be - something which has no inherent affect on their life besides the importance and meaning we read into them. 

It’s a creative universe that we want part of. We know enough that we can make our own universes, our own sessions, and all of them are technically viable; this isn’t a comic where the path we see is the only one. This is a comic wherein the path we see is only one tiny, tiny portion of the much, much larger implications we’re faced with in the lore. The Beta kids aren’t the only kids on Earth playing SBURB; Earth isn’t the only planet in existence chosen by the game. 

Hussie himself even confirmed that pretty much anything goes - because the whole point of Homestuck is that, through timeline shenanigans or weird, spacey bullshit, anything you can think of probably exists. That AU where the trolls are all bloodswapped? That exists as a possibility within the Alternian Genesis Frog. That AU where SBURB doesn’t exist and the kids go on to live normal lives? That exists as a possibility within the human Genesis Frog. 

This is the sort of creativity that drives a fandom. 

It’s also important to note that Homestuck isn’t just a comic. It has games. It has flashes and music and gifs inside it that all come together to create a unique experience that has since been copied, but never truly to the same extent. Homestuck is something different; you’re not going to find anything like it anywhere else, not for a very, very long time. Part of Homestuck’s draw is some of the unique things that it does - such as the animations and music, which drew me to the comic because I just straight up couldn’t believe that something like that was possible. 

It’s the humour, too. Homestuck has a way of making you laugh that really settles well with the humour a lot of us have developed online; even now, some of the jokes - like “the circle of stupidity is complete” - can get enough of a chuckle out of me that I really doubt I’m ever going to forget them. 

Hussie’s writing is pretty good when it comes to developing characters - at least, when he wants to. I’ll be honest; I’ve read a lot of books, because I’m a fucking nerd and also because that’s sort of what I shoved myself to do in education. I’ve read books from America, from the Victorian era, from the Middle ages, I’ve read things written in Old English, I’ve read comics and extended, fluent fiction published officially and excessively long fanfiction written totally for free - and yet I really can’t think of anything that makes the characters as real as Homestuck does. 

It’s easy to tell, sometimes, that you’re reading a book. That the characters are really just that; characters. There’s some note to them that makes them inhuman, that makes them a bit cutout and stiff. Homestuck never really does that (again, unless the characters aren’t meant to be focused on). The main kids are written in such a way that they are believable as people; if you showed me an out of context conversation between John and Dave in Homestuck, I would 100% believe that it was a conversation between two real, 13 year old boys. The way they grow is believable, too; Dave changes during the Retcon timeline, especially when he starts to get closer to Karkat and thus more at ease with himself, but he never stops being Dave. Characters like Dirk, too, tend to change without changing away from their core; Dirk might become a better person, but some of his flaws are still there, all those traits that are still him staying constant while how he presents them shift as he as a person shifts. 

I think a lot of it boils down to creativity, too. Hussie created an entire cast of aliens with a unique breeding system, caste system, and biology system, all which he draws into a narrative that makes sense. Sure, we don’t know in depth everything about the trolls, and there’s definitely still flaws, but it’s enough to be exciting to learn what little we do know and to imagine the rest of it ourselves.

That’s a big thing, actually! So much of it is the fandom. Yeah, the fandom can be horrendous, but when you’ve got a fandom like this, one that picks everything apart and tries to make sense of it and latches onto the characters and becomes emotionally invested in them to the degree that we made a fucking global holiday out of 413, it’s hard not to get drawn in. It’s hard not to want to love each character, write your own theories, share ideas with people, become part of this wider community that has existed and thrived since 2009, to create OCs or AUs that the fandom eats up because nobody really wants to let Homestuck die. 

And that, I think, is probably most important part. I currently have 272 followers. That’s 272 people who want to follow this barely updating, kind of long winded blog filled with my own rambles and personal opinions, because it’s some sort of new content for a thing they love. My blog isn’t popular by any means - so imagine how many followers some of the big classpectors, theoriests, fanartists have! For a lot of people, Homestuck was a huge part of their lives for years - this thing ran for, what, around seven years? - and almost everyone I’ve seen online in any sort of fandom circle knows of Homestuck at least by proxy. Letting go of something like that is super hard, and I’ll be honest, my attempts to get into new fandoms always lead to me coming right back here - and I was only around for Homestuck’s end! 

Seeing a fandom that in love with a comic that it thrived for around seven years, and that is still going strong even when the main comic has ended and all that’s keeping us afloat is a game that we’ve heard no news of for months and a secondary game that’s more an introduction to characters to tide us over till it eventually comes out, has to be interesting for some people. 

For most people I know, both IRL and online, at least some of their interest in Homestuck came from the line of thought that “I’ve seen it just enough to be curious, and at this point I’ve got to know what the hell the hype’s about”. 

So, there we go! My thoughts on the things that attract people to Homestuck. Even if the narrative could be better and I definitely don’t agree with certain choices Hussie made, it’s in no way enough to lessen my enjoyment of the characters, lore, or comic as a whole. It’s just too charming, even with all the bullshit. 

#long post #sburbtheory #Anonymous #homestuck ramblings

[count-demonlord-of-decadence]

A WEEK OF CHANGE

Tuesday; I started my new shift at the job and already miss the eye candy that made employment worthwhile. There seems to be very few trollops on this shift, though I did find a specimen of nigh physical perfection. I’d like to begin stalking her but I have to move this week, look for that Korean restaurant and return some DVDs (Ernest Goes To Jail, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Tokyo Gore Police & Larry The Cable Guy).

Wednesday; My new boss is okay (nice tits) but they doubled my workload. I’m getting on with my new coworkers but them seem rather… “meat and potatoes”. Ironically Amir Kussein left a message inquiring as to when another party would be held. There hasn’t been one since “Perfectly Natural Human Behavior” I believe. While there are no such plans what with the move, I send him a text informing him I put him on the VIP list for the next one.

Thursday; Upon reaching my British racing green Mercedes Benz E55, after exiting a local supermarket, I find myself confronted by four men in black suits. The first is noticeably shorter than the other three. he has long hair and is armed with a pair of Chinese butterfly knives. To his left was the largest of the four. His head is shaved and he’s armed with what appears to be an iron bar half a meter in length. Next was a guy who styles his hair like he’s in a boy band despite being clearly in his mid to late thirties. He’s armed with a meter of chain. Last is a man with his long hair in a ponytail. He’s armed with a Zatoichi style dagger 14 inches in length overall. They announce they’re from the Purple Dragon Triad; there’s negotiating with them. The funny thing is, they stand a reasonable chance of defeating me if they keep their wits about them. I throw my pocket knife at the big guy, positive he’ll deflect it. Chain rushes in, as predicted thus reducing their chance for victory. He swings downward, striking the asphalt where I am no longer. My shin hits him on the back of the head as ponytail rushes in with the dagger. But he’s failed to notice I’ve grabbed the chain. The chain lands just to the left of his nose, just missing his eye. The last two links did hit his ear and he falls atop the guy who had the chain. Butterfly knives comes at me but the chain blocks all four of his attacks before he narrowly avoids a chin to groin strike from the chain. His face betrays his frustration. he clearly didn’t expect this level of resistance, but has clearly resolved not to withdraw. The big guy attacks, his aim to pincer me between him and butterfly knives. I spin to avoid the iron bar, spin again into a leg sweep, once more to whack him in the back of the head with the chain and a final time to make a stylish pose with the chain that blocks butterfly knives next attack. He takes a knee to the urethra and I drop the chain to get dual wrist control on him. I make a pez dispenser out of him with his own knives. Ponytail has cleared his head and regained his feet; I allow him to take in the scene. One friend laying in a pool of his own blood, one friend writhing on the asphalt making noises indicating brain damage and one friend not moving at all. He opts to flee, but only makes a football move before the chain trips him up. I parked far enough from the entrance so this altercation isn’t noticed by any one of consequence; so I put ponytail in the trunk of my car. I call Risa and schedule a party.

Friday; I spent the morning making arrangements for the move and the party on Monday. I go out of my way to invite Aamir Kussein. After work Meghan Schmidt takes Nelson Marquez, Sunako Kakihara and I to see her niece perform the lead in a local production of Swan Lake. After we went to a club called DMP. The following morning I found a dent in the hood of my British racing green E55 under a brown wig. I don’t recall driving that night though.

Saturday; After work and dinner at this terrible Tibetan restaurant I head to the airport, where I board a chopper piloted by Lavar Wintergreen. Nina and Cammie are waiting for me on the tarmac. They inform me Viktor’s team is ready and will be on station in 16 minutes. It’s a 20 minute flight to Ling-Li Chang’s villa. She is head of the Purple Dragon triad and ordered the hit against me because of what I did to her sister 27 months ago in Macao. That incident is so minor and trivial it’s hardly worth mentioning here. Needless to say between the aerial advantage provided by the chopper and the ferocity of Viktor’s team, their defense though substantial, is decidedly futile. Ling-Li is captured alive despite her efforts not to be. Any of her bodyguards that survive the assault are disemboweled and left in the night. Ling-Li is taken to await the party.

Sunday; My friends, I’m afraid I’ll have to omit the details of that evening. A bacchanalia of such lubricity and decadence occurred the exacting details of which would make this entry far too long and far too colorful. Some would no doubt delight in hearing such details and far be it for me to deny them. But I shall assume that the reader is among the most timid and innocent of souls, chaste in their virtue, and not spell out the details of such an event here & now. For those of you among the former, further details can be found in an entry titled “Impromptu” to be published at some uncertain date in the future. Suffice to say the move is complete, the party is held, Ling-Li is witness though not participant and a grand time was had by most.

Monday; I was having lunch with a woman named Veronica Muniz, a marine biologist I’d been on two prior dates with, when the entire Starbucks took on a dark orange hue. At first I didn’t react to it because no one else did but when the sound devolved into a continuous open D flat on a faux 1958 Fender Stratocaster with Maple Fretboard Sunburst tuned by a angsty male teenager who wished he didn’t have to conform to society’s binary gender labels except whenever it was advantageous for him (or is it her at this point…?) while trying to master

Kirk Hammett’s guitar solo from Master Of Puppets; but can’t get it right because the notes in his/her (their…?) head are in fact from Megadeth’s Holy Wars... The Punishment Due; that I thought to ask Veronica, “What the hell is going on?” but I couldn’t utter the words as Veronica, along with everyone else in what I assumed was a Starbucks but no longer am so sure, became dark and distorted as if depicted by H.R. Giger; terrifying me to a fault. I hit the floor, which was pink and soft and undulating like a stomach in the process of digesting something difficult to process, and crab walk to the nearest corner. I must have toppled a table for I remember some profanity in either Latin or Hindi followed by what I assumed to be a kick to the ribcage in my right leg. I laugh in pain, slur the line, “Listen to the box man.” and stab the first man I can grab with what appeared to be a green plastic fork I found on the ground three times around the belly button. I know it was a man because around the second stab I noticed he had an erection and it was clearly bigger than mine. I’m smashed into the ceiling by what can only be some sort of telekinetic attack that causes me to void my bowels and utter an unpardonable blasphemy. I wish to flee but the terrain has to consistency and smell of half chewed strawberry starburst covered in stallion semen and suddenly my only concern is to avoid getting the concoction in my mouth as I fight to avoid the inevitability of my sinking into such a mixture screaming the most vulgar and foul obscenities possible in the short time and breath until completely enveloped...then darkness...no feeling of pain just a voice, a meek and simple voice that reminds me it’s not my time yet and I awaken to a Double Ristretto Venti Half-Soy Nonfat Decaf Organic Chocolate Brownie Iced Vanilla Double-Shot Gingerbread Frappuccino Extra Hot With Foam Whipped Cream Upside Down Double Blended, One Sweet'N Low and One Nutrasweet, and Ice being thrown in my face before Veronica storms out a sickly normal, and all too real Starbucks. I consider burning down the establishment when I see how much her drink cost. But I don’t because I’m too busy weeping as I pay with my ATM card. I immediately go home and sleep naked in the bathtub afraid of both everything and nothing.  

#Evilcorey's pointless fiction #pointless fiction #fiction

[meguwumibear]

Our Love is God

This was inspired by @harringtonhargrove​. They mentioned wanted a Heathers and Stranger Things crossover, and I just couldn’t help myself. This is was longer than I anticipated. I had a ton of fun writing this so there may be another part, especially because I want Billy and Steve to interact more. 

________________________________________________________________

        Steve’s sitting at the bottom of the stairs furiously scribbling in his journal when Heath McNamara and Heath Duke approach him. They’re both dressed in their designated colors: yellow and green, respectively. Heath M is clad in a yellow vest, no shirt underneath, that shows off the muscles he’s spent years acquiring via a decade of football; Heath D is clad in a more respectable green blazer that hides his shape. He’s convinced he’s overweight, despite the fact that he actually weighs less than Heath M. And, shit, if Heath is overweight that makes Steve morbidly obese.

           Heath M slams his knee into Steve’s leg sharply. “God, come on, Steve,” he says, not bothering to indicate what he needs from him. The Heaths always just assume that Steve can read their minds. To their credit, there isn’t really much going on in those air heads of theirs, but that doesn’t mean Steve can always discern what they want from him. Actually, he’s never really quite sure what they want with him. The Heaths are nothing more than an enigma.

           “What is your damage, Heath,” Steve demands, rubbing his sore leg. All these years of weight lifting, and Heath still underestimates his strength. Steve can already feel a bruise forming where Heath so graciously kneed him. Sometimes he wonders why he even bothered trying to make these men like him.

           “Don’t blame me,” Heath says. “Blame Heath. He told me to hall your ass into the caf, pronto. Back me up Heath,” Heath says, nodding at Heath.

           Steve turns to look at Heath, knowing full well the green bean would only agree with his yellow counterpart. “Yeah, he really wants to talk to you, Steve,” Heath confirms.

           “Okay,” Steve says, closing his journal. “I’m going, Jesus Christ.”

           The three of them walk in silence to the cafeteria where the majority of the grade has already gathered to eat a government approved meal of God knows what. Steve thinks that the government has no place regulating what students can and can’t eat. There’s no way that grey slop that both looks and tastes like wet cement they’re trying to pass off as food holds any nutritional value whatsoever. If students want to fuel their bodies with caloric drinks and sugary food they should be allowed to, even if they might end up looking like Martha Dumptruck, who oddly enough was about to become the center of Steve’s attention.

           Heath Chandler is standing by their designated table, tray of slop in hand. His outfit is mysteriously void of his signature red, save the crimson cap on his head. “Hello, Heath,” Steve greets him, already dreading what Heath could possibly want from him today. Heath C is many things, and nice is not one of them. Creative, yes, but nice no. Just last week Steve found himself neck deep in dirt, letting the three Heaths shoot cricket balls at him.

           “Steve,” Heath says, turning to meet him, “finally. I got a note of Tommy H’s. I need you to forge a hot and horny, but realistically low-key note in Tommy’s handwriting, and we’ll slip it onto Martha Dumptruck’s lunch tray.”  

           Steve almost cannot believe what he’s hearing. Sure, the Heath’s have done shitty things in the past—you don’t get to be popular at this school without having pulled off at least one undesirable act—but this is a new low, even for them. “Shit, Heath, I don’t have anything against Martha Dunstock.” He took care to use Martha’s real last name and not the pseudonym that had been so cruelly gifted to her.

           Heath furrows his blonde brows, “You don’t have anything for her either. Come on it’ll be very. The note’ll give her shower nozzle masturbation material for weeks.” Heath and Heath smirk at each other, knowing full well that I’m going to relent.

           “I’ll think about it,” Steve sighs, only prolonging the inevitable.

           “Don’t think,” Heath says, turning to Heath. “Steve needs something to write on. Heath bend over.”

           Heath obliges immediately. Heath hands Steve his cherry red clipboard and a pen. Knowing this isn’t a battle he could win—actually, he’s never won a battle with a Heath—Steve positions the clipboard on Heath and looks at Heath for guidance.

           “Dear Martha, you’re so sweet,” Heath begins.

           Unbeknownst to Steve his actions are attracking the attention of none other than Billy Hargrove, the mysterious new kid with an affliction for fighting. Billy watches as Steve submits so easily to the will of the Heaths with a tender sort of curiosity. The Heath’s reputations precede them, but Billy knows next to nothing about the blue clad Steve Harrington. Needless to say, his interest is peaked by the boy.

           Having finished writing the note, Steve hands it off to Heath who in turn hands it over to Heath. Heath was the table, Steve the writer, and Heath the perpetrator, so Heath will have to be the one to clandestinely deliver to note that should never have been written. Steve regrets relinquishing control of the letter the moment it leaves his hands, but there’s nothing he can do about it now. All he can do is watch as Heath slinks behind Martha and slips the note onto her tray.

           The Heaths all take their seat at the table. Steve follows suit, unable to take his eyes off of the note. Heath mutters something about whether or not they celebrate Thanksgiving in Africa, so he pipes up, “Oh sure, pilgrims, Indians, tater-tots, it’s a real party continent.” When no one laughs at his comment Steve makes a mental note to himself to remind him that the Heaths don’t keep him around for his sense of humor.

           “Harrington, guess what today is,” Heath says, grabbing hold of his clipboard.

           “Ouch,” Steve replies. “Lunchtime poll?” Steve hates asking the students lunchtime polls almost as much as he hates forging fake steamy notes. Every week the Heaths come up with some obscure question to ask the students of Hawkins. Last week’s question was: imagine you’ve gone deep sea diving and stumbled upon a peculiar brass lamp. As you reach out and touch the lamp, a Genie emerges and promises to grant you one wish, but there’s a catch. Once your wish is granted you must assume the role of the Genie. Do you make the wish, and if so, what do you wish for? “So what’s the question?” Steve asks.

           “Yeah, so what’s the question, Heath,” Heath parrots.

           “Goddamn, Heath. You were with my in study hall when I thought of it,” he scolds.

           Heath looks down at his plate taking a sudden interest in his milk carton. “I forgot,” he apologizes.

           “Such a pillowcase,” Heath jests.

            Steve wants to stand up for Heath, but he knows if he does he’ll just end up on Heath’s shit list, which is a list no one wants to be on. So, instead, he just asks, “This wouldn’t be that bizarro thing you were babbling about over the phone last night, would it?”

           Heath rolls his eyes, “Of course it is.”

          Heath stands and starts walking, Steve’s cue to do the same. As he begins to walk Steve’s gaze meets the gaze of Billy Hargrove, who hasn’t stopped looking at the kid since he first laid eyes on him. For a brief moment, all the air in Steve’s lungs disappears as he melt under the stare of the curly haired stranger. Billy—who’s name Steve will learn before lunch is over—is staring at Steve like he wants nothing more than to devour him. His stare is positively electric. Once Billy realizes he has Steve locked in his gaze, he suggestively runs a hand through his blonde hair. The action catches Steve so off guard that he’s only brought crashing back down to reality when he slams into something, or rather someone.

         “Oh, Steve, I’m sorry,” says a startled looking Jonathon Byers.

        “Jonathon Byers, gosh,” Steve muses. “Hey, I’m really sorry I couldn’t make it to your birthday party last month.”

       Jonathon shrugs, causing a bit of his unkempt brown hair to fall over his eyes. He pushes it away from his face in one deft motion. “It’s okay,” Jonathon tells him. “Your mom said you had a big date. I think I’d probably miss my own birthday for a date.”

        Steve’s mom hadn’t exactly lied about him having a date, though he wasn’t sure how “big” it was. The Heaths have been trying to get his cherry popped ever since they initiated him into their eccentric group, so Heath C took it upon himself to set Steve up on a date with Nancy Wheeler. Steve liked Nancy just fine; she was pretty in a sort of innocent way, with big doe eyes and naturally messy hair, but he couldn’t bring himself to sleep with her. There was just no spark. The two of them spent the night haphazardly sipping beers by his pool instead.

        “Don’t say that,” Steve says to Jonathon, guilt snaking its way into his heart. It was no secret that Jonathon had a mega crush on Nancy, so going out with the girl on his birthday was kind of like two big old fucks yous in one.

        “Come on, Steve,” Heath huffs, growing impatient with him. Cool kids like Heath have no time for outcasts like Jonathon. He roughly takes hold of Steve’s arm and manhandles him away from Jonathon.

      As the two approach their first table, one of the girls lets out a quiet, “Oh great, here comes Heath.”

      Another kids follows up with an, “Oh shit.”

     Both of these comments were made loud enough for Heath to hear, but he is undeterred by the words. “Hi, Carol,” he smiles. “Love your cardigan.” Heath says the comment just nice enough that the sarcasm flies right over Carol’s head.

     “Thanks,” she smiles. “I just got it last night at the limited. Like totally blew my allowance.”

     Heath sucks in an irritated breath and says, “Now check this out. You win five million dollars from the publisher’s sweepstakes, and the same day that that Big Ed guy gives you the check, aliens land on Earth and say they’re going to blow up the world in two days. What do you do?” Wow. Somehow this week’s question manages to be even more outlandish than the last.

     A boy sitting across from Carol is the first to answer, “That’ easy. I just slide that wad over to my father, because he is like one of the top brokers in the state.” Clearly the kid hasn’t grasped that even the best bank broker in the world couldn’t save the world from a hypothetical impending alien attack. What good does investing the money do if you won’t be around to use the payoff?

     “If I got that money,” Carol begins, upset that the spotlight has been taken from her, “I’d give it all to the homeless. Every cent.”

     She says this in a tone made to make the people around her feel inferior. She says it as if the money will be useful to the homeless after the world is gone. “You’re beautiful,” Steve tells her, turning to start on the next table.

     “If you’re going to openly be a bitch-” Heath starts following him, but Steve cuts him off.

     “It’s just, Heath, why can’t we talk to different kinds of people?”

     “Fuck me gently with a chainsaw,” Heath guffaws. “Do I look like Mother Theresa? If I did I probably wouldn’t mind talking to the geek squad.” He gestures towards a table in the back of the room where the school mathletes gather. One of them—a lanky kid with thick black glasses too big for his thin face—spits up the milk he’d been drinking when he sees Heath gesture their way.

     “Does it not bother you that everyone in this school thinks you’re a piranha?” Steve asks before he can stop himself. He takes one look at the scowl on Heath’s face and knows he’s crossed a line.

    “Like I give a shit,” Heath huffs, trying to shake off the insult. “They all want me as a friend or a fuck. I’m worshipped in Hawkins, and I’m only a junior.” He pauses to suck in a breath then adds, “I can’t believe this; we’re going to a party at Remington University tonight, and we’re brushing up on our conversational skills with the scum of the school.”

     Steve shakes his head and turns to meet the geek squad. “Hey,” he says, flashing them a smile. Heath can piss about it later; Steve’s tired of pretending he’s better than the other nine hundred kids in the school.

    “Hi,” one of the boys replies. It’s the same kid who spit up his milk earlier. There’s a wet spot on the front of his shirt that’ll no doubt become a stain.

    Heath sighs and storms over. “So this is what’s called a lunchtime poll,” he says, then repeats the absurdly long question. Steve manages to convince him to make a full round of the cafeteria, so before the afternoon is complete they’ve gathered a large variety of answers ranging from traveling to Egypt with a girl to using the money for an end of the world get together. The former answer was provided by the milk nerd, the latter by Jonathon. Tommy offered up that he’d pay Madonna a million bucks to sit on his face have her ride him like the Kentucky Derby. Steve liked Jonathon’s answer better.

     Heath and Heath run over to Steve and Heath, whipping them around in the direction of Martha. “Oh my god, here we go,” one of them says. Probably Heather M, but Steve’s spent so much time with the three of them that he knows anyone of them could’ve said it.

     He watches Martha with a heavy heart, wishing to God that he could turn back time and unwrite the stupid letter. He should’ve refused to write the thing, or at least he should’ve fought harder not to. The poor girl doesn’t deserve to be tormented like this. No one does. His brain is screaming at him to intervene, but his body just won’t listen. So, he just stands there, rooted to the ground, watching Martha pick her may over to the nefarious Tommy H. He thinks he’ll go to hell for this.

     Tommy and his gaggle of idiots all fall silent as Martha approaches. She looks hesitantly at the letter in her hand before dropping it in front of Tommy. Behind Steve, the Heaths giggle gleefully. Tommy takes one look at the letter and bursts into cacophonous laughter. He tosses the thing at his friends who upon reading it join in his festivities. The Heaths too have begun laughing, though quieter to avoid drawing attention to themselves. Steve prays to the heavens for God to strike him down with a bolt of lightning.

     Without meaning to, Steve glances back at Billy, who shakes his head at him. The kid knows Steve is guilty; the kid knows exactly what he’s done. Steve forces himself to peel his attention away from Billy to look at Martha. She’s already halfway out the door, sobs audible over the boy’s laughter.

     Steve balls his fingers into fists and walks away from the Heaths. He knows if he spends one more second in their company he’s bound to deck one of them in their pubescent faces. Heath C follows him, taking hold of his arm when he’s close enough and says, “You wanted to be a member of the most powerful clique in school. If I wasn’t already the head of it, I’d want the same thing. Come on, Steve, you used to have a sense of humor.”

     The rest of the Heaths find their way over to the two of them before Steve can respond. He quickly swallows down whatever retort he was about to throw Heath’s way. It’s one thing to challenge the guy in private, and whole nother thing to challenge him with an audience.

     Steve chances a glance back Billy’s way. The damn kid is still watching him. Heath M notices their heated exchange, “God Steve drool much?” When Steve doesn’t say anything Heath continues, “His name is Billy Hargrove. He’s in my American history class.”

     That’s it, Steve decides. He has to meet this mysterious new kid with the scraggily mullet. He saunters over to Billy’s table, his confidence faltering the closer he gets. Never the less he forces one shakily leg in front of the other until he’s standing directly in front of the kid. Billy eyes him curiously.

     “Hello Billy Hargrove,” Steve says.

     “Greetings and salutations,” Billy replies, giving Steve a once over. The intensity of Billy’s gaze makes Steve’s cheeks redden. No one has ever looked at him this way before. When he’s done sizing him up, Billy points towards the Heaths and asks, “You a Heath?”

     “No,” Steve laughs, “I’m a Steve. Harrington.” He adds his last name as an afterthought. Billy offers no additional commentary; he just keeps looking at Steve in a way that makes his skin crawl. “This may seem like a really stupid question,” Steve blurts out, desperate to end the silence.

     “There are no stupid questions,” Billy tells him.

    Steve bites his lip; clearly the kid has never participated in a lunchtime poll before. “You inherit five million dollars the same day aliens land on the Earth and say they’re going to blow it up in two days. What do you do?”

    Billy’s blonde eyes knit together, “That’s the stupidest question I’ve ever heard.” After that response, Steve doesn’t think the kid is going to answer, but to his surprise Billy adds, “Ah, I don’t know. I’d probably row out to the middle of a lake somewhere, bring along a bottle of tequila, my sax, and some Bach.”

    Steve smiles at him, “How very.”

    “Come on, Steve,” comes a voice from behind Steve. He’d been so caught up in the moment that he didn’t even hear Heath C approach. Heath takes hold of Steve’s arm and starts dragging him away from Billy.

    “Later,” Steve manages to say to Billy.

    “Definitely,” Billy responds.

#steve x billy #harringrove #stranger things #heathers #steve harrington #billy hargrove #this is an au #most of the dialogue comes directly from the movie #im such trash for these two yikes #there's probably going to be a part two but no promises #billy x steve #billy hargrove x steve harrington

[scarletjedi]

My wife, gentlepersons

Brig was already aboard the boat when Gimli and Legolas arrived, attending the rigging for the simple sail and making ready to depart.@brydylcai​: All of the writing asks because I worry you don't have enough to do

so. 

all the ones I haven’t answered yet. Behind the cut because long

1. Tell us about your WIP!

Heh, which one? I’ve started writing chapter three of We Are Made Wise because I’m finally getting over my block (I think there was a little burnout). I’ve just updated Old Man Luke, and Pineapple 2 is next. I’m almost finished with my next original short, I’ve figured out where to go next in my novel, and...yeah. :)

2. Where is your favorite place to write?

Where it’s quiet and I can focus. Sometimes that’s the living room. Sometimes it’s my office. Sometimes it’s the Starbucks on the corner. 

4. Do you have any writing habits/rituals?

Depends on where I am. I have to have some sort of ritual to get focused. In my office, I light candles. In the living room, I put on music. At the coffee shop, I have a snack. 

6. Favorite character you’ve written?

My original character, Jamie, from my book is a HOOT. He’s a gay Jewish teen whose convinced that *he* will be the one to capture definitive proof of the Jersey Devil. He’s the non-magical pov in the fic, and his voice is fun. 

7. Favorite/most inspirational book?

Well, on the one hand, I re-wrote the Hobbit, so that’ book is clearly an inspiration. 

8. Do you have any writing buddies or critique partners?

@brydylcai is my in-house sounding board, the same way I am for her. I don’t have a regular beta, but I’ve worked with several depending on the project/story, and they’re all lovely people. 

9. Favorite/least favorite tropes?

I love revelations/coming out stories. I hate deliberate misunderstandings. 

10. Pick an author (or writing friend) to co-write a book with

@brydylcai and I have discussed writing a book together already, so Imma go with her :)

11. What are you planning to work on next?

I have the doc with We Are Made Wise open, so either that or my next short, depending on if I write more tonight or wait until tomorrow. 

12. Which story of yours do you like best? why?

Comes Around Again is the one that earned me what little notoriety I have, and Old Man Luke is doing the same in Star Wars, but I’m most proud of Drowned in Moonlight. That fic was written to excise some grief over Carrie Fisher, and I think I did her proud. 

13. Describe your writing process

I’m tempted to say “Incoherent screaming into the void” but that’s a joke that’s been made before. My process. Hmm. 

I tend to write by the seat of my pants. I like to see what develops and grows naturally. Once I get to a certain point, I’ll stop and make a plot sheet/note page, but I usually have the rough shape figured out before I start to write. 

Once I have a draft, I’ll edit. Sometimes I’ll print and edit on paper. Sometimes I edit online. My original works tend to get more editing than my fanworks. 

14. What does it take for you to be ready to write a book? (i.e. do you research? outline? make a playlist or pinterest board? wing it?)

ha ha ha ha - My original novel has been 15 years in the works, and has gone through many drafts. It’s working now, but I need familiarity. So, I think what I need is research for context and an outline for plot, and a good enough knowledge to feel like I’m winging it. 

15. How do you deal with self-doubt when writing?

I put it down. If I’m not confident on one project, I’ll put it down and turn to another. (This usually means putting down my original work in favor of fanfic, because I’m more confident with that overall, but...). I know what sounds right to my ear, and if I’m not hearing it, there’s usually a reason. Distance/time often lets me see it. 

17. What things (scenes/topics/character types) are you most comfortable writing?

I’m a Jersey Girl, so I tend to set things in Jersey. I love dramatic conversations, so I’m comfortable there. Queer characters. 

18. Tell us about that one book you’ll never let anyone read

That I wrote? Or that I read? Twilight/50 Shades. 

19. How do you cope with writer’s block?

I beat it with a hammer unitl it’s writer’s pebbles. 

20. Any advice for young writers/advice you wish someone would have given you early on?

Write what you love. Write the truths that you know, and research to write the things you don’t know. Don’t be afraid to break your characters; you can put them back together in new and interesting ways. You’ll be given a lot of advice over the years--read enough to recognize what you like. Develop your taste. Take the advice that helps taylor your work to your taste. Reject the advice that changes it away. 

21. What aspect of your writing are you most proud of?

Subtle meanings and implications. 

22. Tell us about the books on your “to write” list

Here are 3:

a) The Lesbian Werewolf Romance Novel. 

b) The Teenage Zombie Novel. 

c) The American-Teenager-Falls-Into-Fantasy-Realm-and-there-are-also-dragons novel

23. Most anticipated upcoming books?

Jer Keene’s next book. I read the first as fic, and then read the novelization, and now I REALLY want to know what comes next. 

The Kingkiller Chronicles book 3

25. What’s your worldbuilding process like?

Seat. Of. My. Pants and flailing. Seriously, I write something because it sounds right, and then figure out how it works after. 

26. What’s the most research you’ve ever put into a book?

I wrote parts of CAA with the hobbit, the lotr, the unfinished tales, and the moves on and open in front of me. 

I became a pagan, and my research for that has influenced my writing of my book. 

27. Every writer's least favorite question - where does your inspiration come from? Do you do certain things to make yourself more inspired? Is it easy for you to come up with story ideas?

I mentioned I was pagan? My patron, Brigid, is among other things, a muse. She pokes, and I start thinking (or I think, and she eggs me on. I’m not sure of the order. could be either or both). But, most of my ideas come from things I read. When I want inspiration, I read. 

Ideas don’t come as easily as I would like, but the fact that I have several projects at once means that it comes easily enough. 

28. How do you stay focused on your own work and how do you deal with comparison?

I have a hard time focusing period, so that’s a challenge. I have put effort into being less jealous because it’s ultimately a useless exercise. 

29. Is writing more of a hobby or do you write with the intention of getting published?

I want to be published like JK Rowling or Stephen King - one thing that gives my financial security, or with enough frequency to do the same. 

30. Do you like to read books similar to your project while you’re drafting or do you stick to non-fiction/un-similar works?

tbh, i read mostly fanfic these days. Most Genre fic makes me angry because there’s something missing from the text. it’s usually women/gay people. 

31. Top five favorite books in your genre?

scifi/fantasy

a) American Gods - Gaiman

b) Foundation/Elijah Bailey mysteries - Assimov

c) The Hobbit

d) Guards!Guards!

e) Years of Rice and Salt

32. On average how much do you write in a day? do you have trouble staying focused/getting the word count in?

Depends. There are days i can’t get a word out. There are days I’ve written about 10k. It depends on if I’m having a good focus day. 

33. What’s your revision/rewriting process like?

long. 

34. Unpopular writing thoughts/opinions?

....like what?

35. Post the last sentence you wrote

““The things I do for the greater good,” Gimli grumbled, his frown softening as Legolas’s laugh rang out to echo through the cavern. “

36. Post a snippet

from Old Man Luke, chapter 11 (probably):

Obi-Wan stood just to the left of the closed door, hand stroking his beard ad the sight of those assembled. It took all of his focus to keep his eyes from growing wide, or let his hands tremble the way they wished to.

Before him, sitting at a conference table, was Asajj Ventress (scowling at the table like a chastised Padawan, though she had submitted to the indignity of the locking cuffs easily enough), and the adult twinned children of Anakin Skywalker.

Luke sat much as he had before, calmly and with no outward signs of concern, reminding Obi-Wan uncomfortably of his own master. Leia sat back from the table, her arms crossed and her expression sardonic. She, too, was apparently unconcerned, if outwardly exasperated, and Obi-Wan knew that if hadn’t already been told, he would be able to see the resemblance between father and daughter in a heartbeat.

Still, Obi-Wan had the distinct and uncomfortable sensation of not quite living up to her expectations.

The bulk of her resentment, however, was aimed directly at the only other occupant of the room—Anakin.

Their father.

Obi-Wan needed a drink.

37. Do you ever write long handed or do you prefer to type everything?

I write long-handed when I’m having focus issues. It’s slow enough to make me focus. 

38. How do you nail voice in your books?

I talk to myself. Out loud. Constantly. 

39. Do you spend a lot of time analyzing and studying the work of authors you admire?

When I read, I’m known to stop and think “that was a perfectly crafted sentence!” or “How did they do that?” 

40. Do you look up to any of your writer buddies?

all of them. They’re all awesome, though in different ways. 

41. Are there any books you feel have shaped you as a writer?

Harry Potter. I’m not sure how, but I’m sure it has. 

42. How many drafts do you usually write before you feel satisfied?

Depends on how fully formed the story was in my head before I started. Fanfic gets 2 - rough and beta. Original fic gets rough, first, second, etc

43. How do you deal with rejection?

Badly at first. Then it evolved into a desire to prove them wrong. 

45. First or third person?

Third. 

46. Past or present tense?

Past. 

47. Single or dual/multi POV?

Depends on the needs of the plot. 

48. Do you prefer to write skimpy drafts and flesh them out later, or write too much and cut it back?

the first is what I do. The second is what I’d like to do. 

49. Favorite fictional world?

A Galaxy Far, Far away. (Then Middle Earth). 

50. Do you share your rough drafts or do you wait until everything is all polished?

depends on the fic. I like to show things to @brydylcai, but only in the fandom’s she’s in. I have been known to invite friends into docs as I’m writing, so...

51. Are you a secretive writer or do you talk with your friends about your books?

I’m more open than I used to be about fanfic. I’m less talkative about my original works. 

52. Who do you write for?

She knows who. 

53. What is the first line of your WIP?

Of this chapter: “Brig was already aboard the boat when Gimli and Legolas arrived, attending the rigging for the simple sail and making ready to depart.”

54. Favorite first line/opening you’ve written?

my book begins with a ghost hunt. that’s fun?

55. How do you manage your time/make time for writing? (do you set aside time to write every day or do you only write when you have a lot of free time?)

I try to set aside time while not working, but i also tend to write in whatever little moments I have. Between classes, standing in line, etc. 

#brydylcai #ask meme

[thepanicoffice]

The Life & Exhaustive Works of Richard O. Jones

[...]

As promised/threatened, in order to mark THIRTY (30) vainglorious years of the life of Richard Owen Jones, I am providing a preview of the biography that I have written in my own blood (figuratively) and bile (literally). It is due to be published shortly with the University of Tungsten Press, and with Limpet, Fecund & Sproles in North America as part of their ‘Lives of the Utterly Vacuous’ series. As this whole week is dedicated to his manifest failings and sparse achievements, this represents only the first of two installments. Consider that your first and final warning.

The Exhaustive Life And Works of  Richard Owen Jones: A Compilation of Calumny A Testament of Tyranny A Litany of Larceny A Chronicle of Crimes Most Odious

____________________________

Author’s note:

I am unfortunate enough to have, at various times in my beleaguered life, held the acquaintance of Rich Jones, noted raconteur, wit, and five-time winner of the WBBO welterweight boxing championship. His acquaintance has also held me. Forcefully.

As a consequence, much of the material contained in this biography is culled from personal reminiscences, decaying memories, and the vivid fantasies that dance among them in my syphilis-riddled mind. Syphilis, I would hasten to add, that Jones himself gave me ‘as a joke’ for my 22nd birthday. He said that for my 23rd he would cure me. We laughed. He still has not made good that promise.

As such, the more lucid passages in this book may be interspersed with fevered ramblings and paranoid delusions. But I’ve never been one for self-editing (it seems like writing twice what you’ve only been paid to do once) so I’ve not bothered to look back through it to weed out the madder stuff.

References to Jones’ numerous works, his poems, plays, articles, photographs, and correspondence, have all been harvested from the Richard Jones Archive, held at the University of Tungsten.[1]

This scholarly work is intended, above all, to serve as a warning to posterity that to turn a blind eye to a tyrant is to leave your back exposed. And then the knife plunges in.

Take heed, O complacent world!

R.M. May 2019 ---------

[1] The contents of the archive were donated by myself, made up of the scraps I had managed to steal on previous visits to Jones’ house. The archive collection also contains a fine selection of nose rings, nail clippings and one used pair of boxers. Rumour has it that this latter item will soon be auctioned and the proceeds used to pay for a new Geography faculty building.

_________________________________________________

Introduction

Where, I ask, can one begin to describe a life such as that of Richard Owen Jones? How do we delineate something as prosaic and limited as the ‘beginning’ and ‘end’ of a life?

How does one describe the life cycle of a star? Does it begin with the collection of carbon that gathers around a mote of dust as it waxes across the face of the infinite void? Or does it begin with its collapse, its supernova, as it scatters the hot, bright matter with which it succours a universe yet to come?

The answer is obvious: we’ll start with his birth. The star talk was a rhetorical red herring. Let us begin.

_________________________________________________

Chapter I: The Birth of a Titan

The weather report contained in the Evening Standard for X May 1989 noted with mild horror that the River Thames had turned to a tide of roiling blood, surging as through a dilated artery, and that its banks were choked with the bodies of the dead. An inauspicious, if not entirely coincidental, sign that the man who would come to be known – by me, at least[1] – as the Black Messiah had arrived to Earth.

Richard Owen Jones was delivered of a jackal, on a comfortable private healthcare plan, at an hour in which God had averted his gaze: three thirty-seven AM. This much can be certainly ascertained by the fact that the clocks in the hospital (West Festering DGH, near Bermondsey) had stopped, presumably in their unwillingness to acknowledge any subsequent seconds in which the Beast still breathed.

His father, Tony Jones, declared in a letter to an associate that he remembered being “wholly unnerved” by the appearance of his singular progeny but acknowledged that he soon overcame his “overwhelming desire to dispatch the creature with a rock hammer”. Their relationship went from strength to strength, with Tony choosing to secrete the infant in his beard, like a sort of coarse, bristly papoose. This, in many ways, is likely to have been the crucial psychosexual event that caused Jones’ lifelong adoration and erotic longing for facial hair. If there is a moment of space-time around which all future achievements (including the Brighton ‘Beard of the Year’ award 2011) were pinioned, it would be this one.

I have done some cursory research to provide some colour and context for the first year of Jones’ life. Geopolitically, the world was a crucible of change. Khomeini had declared fatwah upon Salman Rushdie; tanks struggled to find the reverse gear in Tiananmen Square; the Berlin Wall was fitted with several viewing holes; the Notre Dame Fightin’ Irish beat the West Virginia Mountaineers for the college football championship. These were dark days. An appropriately stark and eerily lit stage on which our anti-hero could take his first tentative steps, and deliver unto the world his first squalling monologue.

_________________________________________________ Chapter II: The Blighted Childhood

This is, first and foremost, intended as an artistic biography; one which seeks to analyse (and, where possible, brutally criticise) Jones’ creative output. So here were must review his ‘juvenilia’, such as it is. After haunting the corridors of his former primary school (not like a paedophile – more like a ghost) and forcing the door of a barely locked store cupboard, I have located some of his archival papers. These we might describe as his earliest ‘works’.

To begin with, we find a story written in year 3, which, with hindsight, provides a chilling commentary on his mental state and a grim foreboding of his life yet to come. The story is entitled “Ode to Summers Green” and is written in a childish scrawl, like the death-flailings of a drunken spider, on scraps of yellow sugar paper. Despite its pastoral title, the work is remarkably dark, seeming at times to be an inversion of the classic tale of Faust. In it, the principle character, Benwort Kleinson (clearly a feebly veiled figuration of the author himself), seeks to trick various classmates out of their possessions, culminating in a set-piece in which he tricks the naïve James Garner to part with his immortal soul. The piece is fairly rudimentary and simplistic, with casual allusions to only one or two key pieces of Continental philosophy. It is therefore unsurprising that his teacher, Miss Fallopia, gave the piece a ‘Well done!’ and smiley-face sticker, rather than the 2:1 he would have hoped for as a bare minimum.

But what of the boy beyond these infantile scribblings? Reports from those who knew him, including the parents of his school chums, described him as “possessing a penetrating gaze, that appeared to touch upon the very tissues of the soul” and “a bit weird”. It can scarcely be a shock, then, to discover that he transferred schools a total of seventeen times in his young life, leaving behind him a trail of mysterious disappearances and swelling psychiatric reports. _________________________________________________

Chapter III: Adolescence

Puberty hit Jones with much the same force that a cannonball might hit, say, a hummingbird (i.e. with devastating force). One moment he was minding his own business, constructing a thesis on the Greek scholar Rectilineus, the next he became a seething mass of lustful membranes, engorging and subsiding at random intervals. One can scarcely imagine the terror that this struck into the ill-educated, superstitious, and slightly backward inhabitants of Stoke-on-Trent.

It was at this time that he began his love-affair with the theatre. He called her Gertrude. He was banned from visiting after he was found behind the stage curtain making love to a rostra block. Despite the injunction placed upon him by the courts, he knew that his place was on the stage. He joined a group of travelling players, putting on performances of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson and some of Jones’ self-penned pieces. The annotated playscript of one such work – ‘The Passage of Love’, a grotesque and innuendo-laden piece, designed purely to infuriate censors – still survives. From the jottings which adorn the margins like some aggressive yeast infection, it becomes clear that Jones gradually fired all the other actors, one by one, until the play became a single-hander. Given that that the script calls for twenty-three separate speaking roles, we can only imagine that the performance was a unique spectacle. The Pembrokeshire Gazette has a two-star review, describing it as “exhausting and frenetic” and “a herculean feat that was as unrewarding as it was mentally taxing” before kindly requesting that Jones “never darken the boards again”. Jones took this review to heart and burned down the office of the Pembrokeshire Gazette. Then he gave up acting. Then he burned down the home of the Editor, Deputy Editor, Arts Editor, and Theatre Correspondent of the Pembrokeshire Gazette. The Pembrokeshire Herald dubbed it ‘The Night of the Thousand Fires’.

_________________________________________________ Chapter IV: The University Years

After turning his back on the theatre for the next ten years, Jones turned his hand to poetry; a skill he would come to hone in the brutal killing fields of the University of Sussex Poetical Society. The members of this surprisingly esoteric society would meet in a circle drawn in purified salt and, in the form of a duel, recite each other into submission. Jones’ fighting record concluded in 2013 at 37 wins, 2 draws and no losses, highlighted by one evening when, propelled by a stimulating decoction of cocaine and soy sauce[2], he took on any and all comers in a remorseless poetry maelstrom. By the end of the evening, seven men lay dead.

It was at these events that I first met Jones, watching in breathless wonderment as he dispatched his rival, the upstart Argentine poet Cedric Espadrille, with an audacious piece which would come to be recognised as one of his early poetical masterpieces, Chorus of the Bowels.

O garrulous gastrointestinal tract Bespeak your bizarre Faustian pact With my humble meal of cheese and bread You confabulate and leave nought unsaid O moaning, grizzled, groaning bowels Through which long-winded warning prowls. My meals dictate its daily speech An egg, hard-boiled, extends its reach To friends, Romans and countrymen Visceral rhetoric much the better when A spicy plate’s for me prepared It utters truths no others dared. Without this fuel its words are failure - Wet suck of human penetralia - But with stew and sausage laced with sage Turns guts to greatest speaker of this age When a shard of fart is lodged in me And culminates in flatulent oratory.

Indeed, as would become a theme with his more mature works, this poem takes the form of an ode or exhortation to his increasingly unruly bowels. This remarkable poem, delivered with his trademark aggression and an unusual poise for a man so thoroughly stupefied by the Chairman’s Indulgence, caused Espadrille to take early retirement, at the age of 19, and move to a tree-worshipping commune in Dundee. Jones passed out, and awoke as a legend in the world of poetry.

During his time at the University of Sussex he also turned his hand to the study a sociology. Here he was hopelessly influenced by a sordid cabal of cultural Marxists, allowing their mild, tweedy dissidence to stir his blood with filthy socialist ideals. This political reorientation was, thankfully, short-lived and he soon returned to his usual habits of subjecting the University’s poorer students to blackmail, extortion and bullying them into indentured servitude.

-------

[1] And indeed at most.

[2] A mixture he developed himself, called ‘The Chairman’s Indulgence’ in honour of Mao’s revolution. [END OF PART ONE]

#Maslin #Editor #Richard Jones #Deputy Vice Editor #Calumny #Biography

[silver-pond-of-light]

Being Praskovia

The best setting for a love story is a peaceful/bustling evening city spot.

The best setting for a story on existence's futility is an early morning. The episode I am going to describe perfectly fits in the second setting, disappointing and puny in itself.

OK. I don't want any unnecessary escalations right in the beginning! There is in fact a certain kind of mornings that I enjoy - Saturday mornings. Throughout all of my January, February and some part of March I normally don't have anywhere too important to go to except for the shop to buy smth to my coffee. That's why each Saturday I wake up all revved up about all the idle hours stretching in front of me ;)

It started the same yesterday. I woke up at 5:39 (it seems to have become my habit now) and immediately started watching all the current affairs, educational programmes that I had been putting off during the whole working week. Having waded through all the usual stuff to watch, I opened my vk-chats and found something really extraordinary. My friend had sent me a link to the film both of us included in our to-watch lists looong ago. 'England Is Mine' (2017) by Mark Gill. The film, telling the story of Morrissey’s life before he met Johnny Marr and started their famous band The Smiths.

Obviously not the best biopic in the world, but the special allure about it, for me personally, is the central character, Morrissey, the future frontman of The Smiths, the band that had changed my life and encouranged my creative inclinations.

Morrissey, his passions and influences that I once revealed here http://www.passionsjustlikemine.com/influence.htm as well as in his interviews had one of the most massive impacts on my personality. I admired both his incredibly profound lyrics and everything that inspired them. 'Bedroom years' would be mentioned as a creative incubator for everything he created as a part of The Smiths or in his solo career. Being influenced by Morrissey's example, I would often seal myself off the outside world for weeks (sometimes for months) turning only to books, movies and music for comfort. That, of course, racked my senses to a dangerously harsh degree at times.

Come to think of it, much has changed in less than a year, and while I was watching the film yesterday I caught  myself thinking that my own bedroom years seemed so distant to me. As a matter of fact, I was sometimes even happy that I was no longer concentrated on books and writing during last 6 months of my living in Krasnoyarsk and lecturing at the local uni, as all those attemps at originality would often leave me empty and alienated. I guess, that was the reason why I didn’t want to stay this kind of girl living only for a written word, for whom ‘people come second or possibly third’. At some moment of my past I’d finally got it that being Morrissey was not really cool.

I was still thinking about all these things, applying some huge efforts to concentrate on what was going on on the screen, when I realised that my mom was leaving for work. I was wearing headphones and so failed to recognize that she had been trying to attract my attention to her. Apparently, for quite a time :D What she had told me then, staying at the threshold of the room, changed my whole day.

Anyone who knows me is also aware of the fact that my mother is an extremely nice person. You can sense it straight away watching the way she laughs, uses her gestures or the way she smiles while thinking about smth. It takes just a fraction of a second to grasp her warm-hearted nature, void of offence. It is evident to whoever approaches her. And, well, she is often the one to be approached, especially by strangers! It has always made me wonder and laugh when strangers come to her asking for directions. Almost each time me go out together there is at least one person who would approach my mom, asking how to come from A to B. We have got used to it. But the day before yesterday my mom met a woman who had made some striking impression on her, and she couldn’t help sharing that.

My mom told me that she was walking home from the musical school on Surikova street she works at, when some woman suddenly approached her. As you might have already guessed, the woman wanted to know how to come to one department store in the city centre. My mom explained her how to get there and, what’s very typical of her, decided to accompany the woman. Soon she learnt the stranger’s name - Praskovia, or better say - Praskovia the Poet. The woman happened to be very easy-going and sincere. She appeared to be in  her mid-forties. Her fragile appearance together with her modest height had obviously charmed my mother. She discovered that Praskovia used to be a literature teacher at one of the Krasnoyarsk’s schools. She told that she loved working with children, but lately she had been only engaged in writing poems. Having found such an appreciative audience, she shared some of them, which my mother would later describe as a true poetry, not just tasteless and trifling doggerels anyone can come up with. 

At that moment of my mom’s story I had  realised I had an urgent need to somehow hide my eyes or turn away, as I started feeling that tears were welling behind my eyes. I pretended not to be listening and glued my eyes to the screen. After noticing that, my mother told me there still was some milk for coffee in the fridge, three waffles and an apple on the table, wished me a nice day and left.

What followed was some enormous emotional whirl and deluge of tears which I couldn’t stop for about two hours. A response too bewitching and overflowing, you’d say. Reason? The simple fact that I am too far from being Praskovia at the moment. Oh, yes, it sounds all clumsy and awkward since the most instant association with this name is a song by Uma2Rman about a girl with the same name, cheated by some guy, and having to crucify her love and feeling for him to start over again. Even without knowing the stranger I’d been told about, I recognised her poetic soul. The one that I  am afraid I am starting to lose (or have I lost it already?) This wouldn’t be a great deal unless I really cared about my writing ambitions. No. It’s not about being published, it’s just about being able to capture my feelings about the world and people out there, about music I listen to, books I read, films I watch. The thing is that in the course of these six months of my calm life in Krasnoyarsk (yes, calm, despite about 20 classes a week with my students, it is not the most challenging stuff I have ever been doing) I have somehow stopped discovering music, books and films, or these discoveries are too rare compared to what was happening in my previous life. It’s clear that I have never had much free time. Striving to live up to everyone’s expectations, I was spending my days on studies, all sorts of musical, theatrical education. What’s more, it wasn’t always that I didn’t have friends or boyfriends :D for whom I also managed to find proper time. Besides, each and every free minute was filled with books and writings. I am sensible enough to recognise that Zeitnot-issues have always been present in my life, but they never posed some daunting difficulties for me. Trying  to recall when  was the last time I wrote something personal, I could only come back to the journal’s note from November, 7th - my unofficial birthday, my usual 1-person party celebrating  life’s changes. However, I don’t really remember when  was this last time when I wrote or was able to analyse smth in a deep and eloquent way. Why has it all changed? Why have I suddenly lost resemblance with Praskovia the Poet?

Let’s face it, it’s mostly because of my current occupation entitled university professor. Sounds fancy. Makes wonderful impression on strangers. And deludes into thinking that you are cool enough  to be trying harder. I could never believe that this  sort of thing may happen to me. I was always delirious in my efforts to do my best in each and every subject, astonish everyone with my academic performance. Often at the expense of health or through some other sacrifices. I was never satisfied with myself and future prospects, and I had an yearning to improve that. Favours and respect I am enjoying at the time being at the university have probably dumbed aspiration to keep up with the best. With the best of me. I am showered with all the possible attention from my students (not all of them, but still), I am used to my function at the uni and have become comfortable with it, managing classes, checking tests and correcting essays and mistakes. The outcome has been certain blindness to the mistakes I make. Being fancy and ostensibly smart has eventually become such a familiar part of my routine that there is sometimes as much incentive to notice my intellectual and creative blind spots as there is to notice ubiquitous elements like clouds, trees or usual piles of handouts on my table :D

My reaction towards poetic genius of some stranger called Praskovia, this woman I am least likely to ever meet, exposed the trap I’ve fallen into. Deep in the cell of my heart I knew about that stranded intellectual position I inflicted upon my self with all the working hours, worthless ways of spending that little time I have. I thought, without books and my writings I would be better off. I wouldn’t need to stamp at my personal insecurities, dramas and problems while describing what’s happening to me. I decided to crucify my absorbtion with knowledge and everything intellectual, thinking that would be much better to leave out all such things, at least just to get some peace of mind. Which never happens all the same!;)

After I have learnt Praskovia, I can’t cling to such way of thinking anymore. Of course, I wouldn’t like to be as fragile and, perhaps, as helpless and lost as she seems to be. I know now, it’s impossible to solve life’s challenges at a wave of syllable. But what’s also clear to me is that I am too afraid of becoming a wordless girl. So, coming back to this Russian song I’ve mentioned above I am absolutely  positive that I can crucify or supress any kind of love, but NOT the love  for writing and it’s high time to return to everything I used to be before I’d got my current position ;)

P.S.

And if you must, go to work tomorrow Well, if I were you, I wouldn’t bother For there are brighter sides to life And I should know, because I’ve seen them (But not much often)

[terriblevalveartandocs]

About Valve OCs and the blog

This has been on my mind for a while.

This blog never got a satisfying end in my books, and I’m sure for other readers as well. Even though closure is a myth perpetuated by mainstream media, I will make this post to try to rectify past mistakes and general truancy of this blog. I have my own suspicions that most of my readers are dead (considering all of the porn bots are now starting to follow me), so I write this post in the darkness of the night into the void that is Tumblr. Read my cry if you care.

Firstly, this blog will never update again. There are multiple factors that have led to this blog’s extinction and I think they’re important to address

Motivation

This blog took up a large chunk of my life back when it was active. Don’t get me wrong, bad art still gets me to cringe and I find myself on occasion still pining over weird ocs and art styles on Deviantart. However, maintaining it as a blog with daily updates became a chore for me along with promising critiques of ocs and such. I’ve come to discover that I can’t do what I love as “””work”””. While bad art still remains a passion for me, I don’t see myself continuing this in blog format.

OCs have changed

The OC market has changed. Base art has definitely taken a downturn in the past few years and you’re more likely to see people hand-drawing their ocs or writing them out. Thanks with the culture of memeing about bootleg fandom ocs (This is my own original character blonic, donut steels) , it seems that people are more drawn towards creating their own worlds and characters rather than shoving their mary sue into their current fan favorite content. These are good changes in terms of originality for artists and writers in my opinion.

However, a lot of the formats for OCs have changed as well. There tends to be an emphasis on their sexuality and race in OC culture now. I don’t consider that a bad thing but I’d rather not poke that hornet’s nest of gender identity and race of fictional characters. What used to be the standard straight, bi, gay has expanded into other territories that I am unfamiliar with and now we have more ocs outside of the standard white chick but with Japanese last name because the creator really likes naruto. Again, this just seems to be the trend and I think my last few revival posts kinda show them.

Valve as a games publisher

LOL when’s half life 3???

Valve has definitely moved from being a game developer to a digital distributor.  Steam definitely seems to be their focus outside of Hat/Weapon Skin collecting and online gambling (and also their weird consoles/controllers???). Not that I would continue this blog if they released more content (They published another update to the TF2 comic, can’t wait for that to get updated in a year).

Along with this slump of their own original content, this has led to a slump in original characters for their franchises. There are not as many fan ocs and art isn’t being produced for their franchises (except maybe with comic updates for TF2 and nostalgia for old games).

This blog was created at the optimal time imo with L4D2 still being fresh, TF2 still having an active userbase, and Portal 2 giving some great content in terms of creative material.

Also I’m not interested in reviewing Dota 2 art and I don’t think there are enough Counterstrike ocs.

Negativity

I don’t know if this blog was a source of positive or negative energy. On one hand, I was ridiculing people’s art without much hesitation and not acknowledging how much time and effort that might have been put in by the artist. But on the other hand, it provided laughs for people during its duration and gave me a creative outlet in terms of humor, arguments, and writing. I think I did my best to avoid any harassment for these artists by removing any watermarks that might lead any rude reader to them, but I’ll never know if they suffered any bullying. Obviously I’m not going to put this on my resume as work experience but I like to think that this blog help think critically about their content, regardless of what role you played on the blog be it me, a submitter, an observer, or the subject. Maybe if some supreme being questions why I started this blog in the afterlife, I can tell them I did it for the lolz.

In the end, I think I did more harm than any general good for the world and nobody will really understand that weird pain if I try to repent for it publicly. I don’t know of any key examples of this (or really remember because I haven’t done this shit in years), but I do apologize if I ruined anyone’s ambitions for writing/drawing.

I’m glad there is a stronger hugbox mentality for artists who aren’t very good and I embrace that style of encouragement. I guess my only concern is veering too far into that and just embracing everything as perfect and awesome and never improving. Criticism has its place in society.

Perhaps the real lesson is that who the hell gives a shit about what you post on the internet. Why should you give a stranger any control over how much your art is worth? However, this also gives the argument into determining if any of your art is worth anything based on your preconceived notions on your art’s merits since you are only a stranger to me. Why should you tell me that your art is valid and equal to anything else produced when it looks like you drew it with your tablet pen stuck up your ass?

Maybe we all just need to learn to stop giving invisible voices the power to ruin our emotional states and work on our self satisfaction.

Growing up????

I wrote most of this blog like a million years ago. It was a stronger part of my identity and a part of a community in a way of similar blogs in the same style. But I don’t really relate to the content as much I used to. Valve games are still near and dear to me, but they’re more nostalgic than my current flame and muse. I feel the same happened to other blogs in the same vein as mine. Perhaps also age and the changes of time led to our own focuses in our own lives than looking at the scribbles of some stranger on the internet. While it’s still one of my internet past times, it is not my main focus in life to critique bad art (unless it starts paying serious dosh). I just don’t relate to the words and passions anymore. In a way, this is my own cringe that artists produce when they’re young on Deviantart. It’s kind of funny in a weird way.

This blog will continue to remain up but I’ll probably move into another blog of some sort (I accidentally made this my primary blog and I can’t delete it). It sort of became my main lurking blog and I guess its time that I make a less weird not ghost blog (I’m probably confusing a lot of the people that I follow with my constant hearts and comments).

I guess I wanna say thanks for all of the people who followed this blog and its contents. I probably wouldn’t have continued for very long without followers so you’re all to blame for this negative impact I’ve made on the world (jkjk). I like to think we’re connected with our mutual spirit in improving how we create things and wanting to see improvement in others. I think this blog helped me see the dumbest of things and not be afraid to say it was dumb and I hope it did for you as well. I also hope it brought you laughs in the content that was displayed or the humor I attempted to convey. It did genuinely warm my heart whenever I got a heart, reply, reblog, or messages to keep up the work. It kind of makes me sad to think that I left rather abruptly, but better blogs have died quicker and quieter. Simple fact of life really. Thank god my ego keeps me in check to constantly remind people of my existence.

To any artists out there, bad art is a fact of life. You do not come out of the womb knowing how to do two point perspective and 3d shapes. You mess up doing 3d shapes each any every time until you get it and then move on to the next thing you’re not good at. There’s a common TIL leddit post about how Michaelangelo burnt all of his old works so nobody would know how bad he was when he was starting out. I don’t know how true that is, but that’s not a great mentality to have for your art. Seeing that bridge between your former self and current self is important for seeing self growth in your skills. Plus you won’t have those juicy likes and comments on instagram when you do the art redraw and show how far you come like how can you skimp on that you dingus.

All of the great content creators right now love showing off the shitty art they did as kids because it gives them a sense of progress in their work and their accomplishments and continues to drive them in their own works. (unless you’re rebecca sugar and drew ed edd and eddy shipping porn lol). Heck, some of them even take the stuff that was once cliche characters and expanded on them in their own Original Universe Donut Steel. And thanks to their own Original Universe Donut Steel, now tens of thousands of impressionable young artists can look at it and say “that’s awesome, but it would be way better if there was my own character...”.

OCs are weirdly one of the ultimate ways of fan expression where you enjoy the content so much you wish you were part of it. Even though it’s very disjointed and out of place, it’s usually done in a place of love for the franchise or the characters. So for those of you that are doing that still, keep at it I guess.

Fan art is sorta in the same way where you enjoy something so much that you want to replicate the style/themes/characters in your own or the content’s style. While not as extreme, it’s still in the same place of love and people generally like that more than original shit anyways so continue to make it so I can buy your posters at anime conventions without supporting the original creator lol. 

If you want to harass me further for my sins against budding artists, I guess I’ll link my personal blog if anyone actually asks me. I also wrote this at 3 am so it is extremely unedited and awful but it’s the most “pure” for my usual diatribe. Consider it my first OC for the blog.

Good night, good life, and farewell.

#valve #terriblevalveartandocs #wow this dead blog finally got an obiturary #that's right grandma decided to haunt this blog and repeat this blog post to those who enter #came back from the dead to remind you i'm dead #but this is on my own terms death ahahahah #there go my dreams of being tumblr famous #i love all of my ...*looks at smuged handwriting* smefty hundred followers #NOW I CAN SLEEP #this was actually part of my repentance for church that my pastor assigned me #now i can get into heaven where i belong #also the real reason i stopped updating was because i was in prison for 3 years for cyberbullying #i hurt too many bronies feelings #thankfully i'm back and i ended up joining a brony prison gang #guess what my cutie mark is #why do i still think i'm funny