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xoxoladyaz · 9 months

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AU-gust, Day 3: Writer

TW: References to monster smut and genitalia, Shrek

Robin’s mad at him.

(Well, mad isn’t the right word. Frustrated? Annoyed? Shocked by his enduring stupidity? All of those are probably better options.)

“Seriously, dingus? You haven’t told him yet?!”

Steve anxiously ran his fingers through his no-longer perfectly-styled coif. “I’ve tried, Robin! It’s just kind of hard to tell the guy that you’re falling in love with that you write monster porn for a living!”

It had started when he was a senior in college, reeling from his break-up with Nancy and trying desperately to find anything to distract himself from his heartbreak. It was a total joke at first, trying to find the cringiest romances he could find and reading them with Robin as they got progressively more and more drunk on whatever cheap booze he’d squirreled away from Tommy that week. But then one night he found himself in bed crying when Matthias the Minotaur sacrificed his life for his one-true love and he couldn’t stand it because Matthias deserved a happy ending after everything he’d been through and Steve had read enough of these books, for fuck’s sake, he could write a better ending!

It was just a hobby for a while, a secret shame that got him through the doldrums of working for his father while trying to figure out what he wanted to do next. Steve could never keep anything from Robin, though, and while she initially teased him for writing “monster porn,” after she read one of his stories she demanded he submit it to some indie romance publishing houses and she didn’t give up until he had done so and now – well, now Steve was making a truly obscene amount of money off of his many, many monstrous and paranormal romance books (with Robin as his editor, of course) and had kissed his shitty parents goodbye.

(And if his pen name was his father’s name, which meant that anytime someone googled “Richard Harrington” the first thing that popped up were book titles like “Prisoner of the Gargoyle’s Heart” and not his father’s incredibly influential law office, well, that was just payback for twenty-five years of bullshit.)

The thing is, Steve isn’t even ashamed of it, not really. He’s always been a kinky guy, first of all, and besides, it’s not all about the sex (although his sex scenes are some of the best in the business and he hadn’t shied away from writing queer books when the rest of the world had.) What he liked most about the stories he wrote was that regardless of what his monsters had looked like, or lived through, or done in their past, or where they’d come from, they all found someone who loved them because of their differences - because of their monstrousness – and not in spite of it.

(And yeah, okay, he liked the sex stuff too. Who wouldn’t want to fuck a dragon with two dicks? Or Prince Titian, the golden-haired merman who had both sets of humanoid genitalia? Or Neptus, the half-man, half-octopus who had all those huge tentacles - )

“Dingus. Stop thinking about Neptus.”

“Huh?” Steve asked, shaking his head. “How did you - ”

“Because I know you, Steve Harrington, and there’s only one person slash fictional entity that you get that weird horny look for and honestly, I could have lived my entire life without knowing about your tentacle thing - ”

“ROBIN, it’s not – I don’t have a tentacle thing - ”

“ – but we can deal with your weird fetishes another day, right now we need to discuss why your boyfriend still thinks that you’re an accountant and the fact that you need to tell your boyfriend about your job so I can tell my girlfriend about my job so she understands why I need so much therapy and why I know so much about your sexual preferences - ”

“Jesus, Robin, I got it, I got it!” Steve stood and headed for his minibar. “Look, it’s not – it’s not that I don’t want to tell him, it’s just – people can get kind of weird about it.”

“Yeah, and those people suck,” Robin replied as she followed after him. “But Eddie isn’t Nancy or Tommy or Cheryl or Brad or Kel, he’s Eddie.”

“Yeah, world-famous-high-fantasy-author-Eddie-Munson! He’s, like, actually legit Robin! He’s won the Hugo Award twice!”

“He also likes to go to the Renaissance fair dressed up as a faun and annoy people by playing the pipes, Steve. And you’ve seen his weird monster dildo collection which I know you have too - ”

“I know, I know!” Steve exclaimed as he poured both himself and Robin a glass of Merlot. “I just,” Steve turned to face Robin and sighed. “I’m just scared, Robin. Like, it hasn’t even been that long but he makes me feel – I don’t even know, like, I haven’t felt this way about someone since Nancy, you know? And Eddie - this feels like it could be more than that. Like a forever sort of thing.”

Robin sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder. “I know, dingus. And I know that people have you given you all kinds of shit in the past, but that’s not going to be Eddie. And if it is Eddie, I will kick his ass into the ocean and feed him to your squid-man.”

“Neptus isn’t a squid man, Robin - ”

/////

Robin was right, of course. Robin was always right.

(Except for when it came to best Marvel movie, she said Civil War when everyone knew that Thor: Ragnarok was the superior film.)

Anyways.

Robin was right, it was time for Steve to tell Eddie the truth. And Steve had known that too, knew that stretching it much longer than two months would probably end really, really badly, especially if Eddie didn’t take it well, but enough of his relationships (romantic and otherwise) had been ruined by people just not understanding or not caring enough to try to understand his stories or why he loved what he did, but Eddie was different. Successful and handsome and creative and intelligent? Sure, Steve had dated people who had all those qualities before. But only Eddie Munson spent hours on the phone with Steve’s friends, talking them through their D&D related problems. Only Eddie Munson showed up on their first date with flowers for Steve, when Steve was the one who normally had to go all out for his partner.

And only Eddie Munson would learn Steve’s favorite Taylor Swift songs in his free time (instead of the latest Metallica or Ghost) because he wanted to make Steve smile, which is what Eddie was in the middle of doing when Steve finally worked up the nerve to tell him.

“The stakes are high, the water’s rough, but this love is - ”

“Hey, uh, Eddie? I kind of need to tell you something,” Steve interrupted him as he walked into the living room, beers in hand.

Eddie stopped what he was doing at Steve’s entrance and beamed, setting his acoustic guitar off to the side. “Everything alright, angel?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I just – here,” Steve handed him a beer. He waited until Eddie had taken a sip (and swallowed) before continuing. “I, uh, well – look, we’ve been dating for two months now - ”

“Two months, three days and fourteen hours,” Eddie winked as he took another sip.

“ – and – right,” Steve flushed bright red at the look in Eddie’s eyes. “Right. Uh, anyways, we’ve been dating for two months and I just thought it was time to tell you and – okay, it’s not a big deal but it is kind of a big deal? But not what you’re probably thinking, I’m not, like, married or anything, I – I’m not an accountant, okay, I’m a writer!”

“I know.”

“ – not, like, a normal writer, I write – wait, what?” Steve gaped at Eddie. “You – what?!”

“Baby,” Eddie started slowly, his finger running in tempting circles around the rim of his beer, “you know I know people in the romance world, right?”

“I – what? You knew this whole time?”

“Yep,” Eddie shot Steve a sultry smirk along with another wink. “I knew exactly who you were when I asked you out, big boy. Or, I knew who Robin was and I put two and two together.”

“I – how?!”

“Baby, you didn’t even change your last name.”

Steve just sat there in stunned silence while Eddie continued to sip on his beer, a teasing gleam in his eyes. “But – I – and you’re okay with it?”

At that, Eddie’s smile grew a bit more serious, and he set his beer down on the coffee table so he could hold Steve’s hands in his. “Of course I am, sweetheart. You’re insanely talented, Stevie.”

“I – I write porn, Eddie. With monsters in it.”

“I know, it’s stupidly hot.”

“But you – it could hurt your career if people found out,” Steve said softly, sadly, squeezing Eddie’s hands. “People – people would give you so much shit, Eddie.”

Eddie squeezed back. “Steve, my nickname was ‘The Freak’ in high school. I was a poor kid with shitty parents who was raised in a trailer park. People have given me shit my entire life and frankly, I couldn’t give a flying fuck about what anyone said about you and your writing. If anything, people are going to ask me what the fuck someone as handsome and gifted as you is doing with someone like me.”

Steve snorted and Eddie let out a laugh. “I mean it! You’re like Prince Charming or some shit and I’m the ogre living in the swamp.”

Eddie froze for a few seconds before a maniacal grin overtook his face.

“Eddie?”

“Stevie, baby, have you ever considered a sexy Shrek retelling?”

“No. No.”

(“There’s an Ogre in His Swamp” was released on April Fool’s Day the following year. The author, Richard Harrington, posted a dedication in this book, the first of many that he would dedicate to his husband, E. W. Munson:

To my Ogre – thank you for being my happily ever after.)

#steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #stranger things #steddie fanfic #writer Eddie munson #writer Steve harrington #august fanfic challenge

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literaticat · 10 months

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I have a question about your post regarding AI in which you detailed some agents' concerns. In particular you mentioned "we don't want our authors or artists work to be data-mined / scraped to "train" AI learning models/bots".

I completely agree, but what could be done to prevent this?

(I am no expert and clearly have NO idea what the terminology really is, but hopefully you will get it, sorry in advance?)

I mean, this is literally the thing we are all trying to figure out lol. But a start would be to have something in the contracts that SAYS Publishers do not have permission to license or otherwise permit companies to incorporate this copyrighted work into AI learning models, or to utilize this technology to mimic an author’s work.

The companies that are making AI bots or whatever are not shadowy guilds of hackers running around stealing things (despite how "web scraping" and "data mining" and all that sounds, which admittedly is v creepy and ominous!) -- web scraping, aka using robots to gather large amounts of publicly available data, is legal. That's like, a big part of how the internet works, it's how Google knows things when you google them, etc.

It's more dubious if scraping things that are protected under copyright is legal -- the companies would say that it is covered under fair use, that they are putting all this info in there to just teach the AI, and it isn't to COPY the author's work, etc etc. The people whose IP it is, though, probs don't feel that way -- and the law is sort of confused/non-existent. (There are loads of lawsuits literally RIGHT NOW that are aiming to sort some of this out, and the Writer's Guild strike which is ongoing and SAG-AFTRA strike which started this week is largely centered around some of the same issues when it comes to companies using AI for screenwriting, using actor's likeness and voice, etc.) Again, these are not shadowy organizations operating illegally off the coast of whatever -- these are regular-degular companies who can be sued, held to account, regulated, etc. The laws just haven’t caught up to the technology yet.

Point being, it's perhaps unethical to "feed" copyrighted work into an AI thing without permission of the copyright holder, but is it ILLEGAL? Uh -- yes??? but also ?????. US copyright law is pretty clear that works generated entirely by AI can't be protected under copyright -- and that works protected by copyright can't be, you know, copied by somebody else -- but there's a bit of a grey area here because of fair use? It’s confusing, for sure, and I'm betting all this is being hashed out in court cases and committee rooms and whatnot as I type.

Anywhoo, the first steps are clarifying these things contractually. Authors Guild (and agents) take the stance that this permission to "feed" info to AI learning models is something the Author automatically holds rights to, and only the author can decide if/when a book is "fed" into an AI... thing.

The Publishers kinda think this is something THEY hold the rights to, or both parties do, and that these rights should be frozen so NEITHER party can choose to "feed", or neither can choose to do so without the other's permission.

(BTW just to be clear, as I understand it -- which again is NOT MUCH lol -- this "permission" is not like, somebody calls each individual author and asks for permission -- it's part of the coding. Like how many e-books are DRM protected, so they are locked to a particular platform / device and you can't share them etc -- there are bits of code that basically say NOPE to scrapers. So (in my imagination, at least), the little spider-robot is Roomba-ing around the internet looking for things to scrape and it comes across this bit of code and NOPE, they have to turn around and try the next thing. Now – just like if an Etsy seller made mugs with pictures of Mickey Mouse on them, using somebody else’s IP is illegal – and those people CAN be sued if the copyright holder has the appetite to do that - but it’s also hard to stop entirely. So if some random person took your book and just copied it onto a blog -- the spider-robot wouldn't KNOW that info was under copyright, or they don't have permission to gobble it up, because it wouldn't have that bit of code to let them know -- so in that way it could be that nobody ever FULLY knows that the spider-robots won't steal their stuff, and publishers can't really be liable for that if third parties are involved mucking it up -- but they certainly CAN at least attempt to protect copyright!)

But also, you know how I don't even know what I'm talking about and don't know the words? Like in the previous paragraphs? The same goes for all the publishers and everyone else who isn't already a tech wizard, ALL of whom are suddenly learning a lot of very weird words and phrases and rules that nobody *exactly* understands, and it's all changing by the week (and by the day, even).

Publishers ARE starting to add some of this language, but I also would expect it to feel somewhat confused/wild-west-ish until some of the laws around this stuff are clearer. But really: We're all working on it!

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waddingham · 7 months

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would love to hear some happy news today, hows poppy doing 🥺

aw im sorry i didn't see this before i went to bed so here have this <3

When she pushes her hair back for the fifth time in half as many minutes, this time with an adorably tiny huff of frustration, he intervenes.

"Poppy, honey, is your hair botherin' you? You want me to put it up for you?"

She nods, scowling at the game in front of her, and Ted makes a mental note that it might be about time for a haircut.

Poppy pops up and disappears without explanation, so Ted follows her up the stairs to the bathroom. He finds her on her tip-toes digging into a drawer filled with colorful hair contraptions.

"Whatcha lookin' for, hmm?"

"Here," she says, holding up two tiny yellow hair ties to him. "Can you do the plaits like Mama does, please?"

"Oh," he says, taking the hair ties. Shoot.

He has no idea how to do her braids. And he really is certain it won't be as neat and efficient as Rebecca does it.

But she's pointing those doe eyes up at him and it can't be too hard. And he would love to know, to be able to do it as easily as Rebecca, so it's about time he learned.

"That depends," he says, squatting down. "I've never done your braids before, Pop. But if you're patient while I learn, I think we can do it."

Poppy nods and he smiles, sweeping her up onto his hip as he rises.

"Alright, c'mon."

He gets her settled in front of him on the chaise end of the sofa, occupied with a coloring book. They're French braids, he knows that, and he's watched Rebecca do it, but at speeds he couldn't follow if he tried, so his first order of business is a consultation with Mr. Google.

He watches a video as he mindlessly combs his fingers through Poppy's waves, which seem to have less and less real curl by the day. He works out any little tangles with his fingers as he gets the gist of the twist.

"Looks simple enough," he mutters mostly to himself.

He gets her hair parted all the way down, knowing she wants two braids. That should make it easier, maybe, he thinks as he ties up one side to keep it out of the way.

He starts at the top of her head scooping up some hair. He splits it into three sections, then goes back to the video to make sure he's got it right when he starts crossing the side strands over into the middle. He doesn't even get to adding hair before he realizes he is way too close to her part for it to be right, and starts over.

It is tricky. Way trickier than the video or Rebecca makes it look. The first twists are easy enough, but trying to pick up the right amount of hair and add it to the bundle without mixing it in with the other two strands or dropping any is difficult.

"Oh, this takes practice," he mutters as he combs it back out, having accidentally made one strand twice as big as the rest.

"This might take a minute," he warns Poppy. "You okay with that?"

"Yeah. I'm colorin'," she assures him and he smiles. Of course she doesn't care as long as it's out of her face.

He tries to figure the best way to hold onto the strands to not make a mess of this, asking Poppy about what she's coloring as he does some trial and error. Very slowly, he starts to get it, and learns how to backtrack without having to take the whole thing out and start over when he messes it up. Which really speeds the process up.

"Okay," he says slowly, smiling as he braids the ends of her hair until they're too small to work with, bundling them together just below the edge of her shoulder. "I think we got something here."

He holds a hand out in front of her.

"Hair tie me."

She hands him the little elastic and he ties it off. It's a little lopsided as one third grew too fast, maybe a little loose at the top where he was wary of pulling too tight, but it looks like success.

It's easier the second time, now that he's got the motion down, even though he still fumbles a little bit with it. But Poppy's unbothered and he goes slow, trying to get it smoother than the other side.

He grins wide as he secures it, satisfied with the mostly-symmetrical, somewhat messy result.

"How's that, Pops?" he asks, leaning forward. "That feel okay?"

She nods, bringing her hands up to feel it.

"It ain't pullin' or anything?"

"Nope," she says, turning around with a smile. "Good job, Teddy."

He grins at her heartfelt praise as she gives him a little hug before climbing down from the sofa.

"Thank you, pumpkin," he chuckles.

She goes back to her game on the floor and he goes back to his laptop, finishing up his chunk of the coaching report. He kills some time with Poppy then, letting her explain the baffling rules of the game she's made up with the Guess Who? boards. He's just starting to think about what they might do for dinner when he hears Rebecca come in the front door.

She calls out a greeting and Poppy hops up, always eager to greet her mother. She meets her in the doorway to the living room where she gets lifted up with a, "Mummy."

"Hi, baby," Rebecca smiles, kissing her little girl's cheek. She does a double take when she pulls back though, sweeping a hand over her hair. "I didn't do this this morning, did I?"

Poppy shakes her head, smiling. "Teddy did it."

"Teddy did it?" she says, turning to where Ted is still stretched out on the floor. He gives her a smile at the look on her face.

"Well, let's just have a look," she says, setting Poppy on her feet on the couch, where she spins around.

"How'd I do, boss?" he asks.

She nods, the corners of her mouth pulled down in an expression of impressed surprise.

"Very good for your first time and not having someone to teach you," she says, giving him a smile.

"Poppy was very, very patient with me," he praises.

"He only pulled once," Poppy says, turning to her mother with a pointed look.

"Oh, unlike your horrid, evil mother who just lives to tug on your hair," she says dramatically, pulling Poppy into her arms again. She cradles her against her, tickling her belly and squeezing a giggle out of her as she continues to lament, "Oh, how terrible, how cruel she is."

Ted snorts, having heard this particular topic argued probably a dozen times now.

Rebecca drops down onto the couch with Poppy in her arms, letting out a sigh. Poppy wiggles until she gets herself upright on Rebecca's lap, who looks over her hair again with a soft smile, tucking one loose bit beneath another.

"Did you thank Teddy for painstakingly teaching himself how to manage your hair?"

She frowns as she thinks, then gasps, "I forgot!" before she climbs off Rebecca completely.

She comes to him with a sweet, "Thank you, Teddy," and presses a teeny tiny little kiss to his cheek that has him smiling wide.

"You're very welcome, baby."

#poppys doing great. in the ch i have started she's starting school and being so brave about it #i wish i could get more out but all my ideas are like this just half formed little unrelated ideas that i don't know how to put together :(#anon #tl drabbles

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not-souleaterpost · 9 days

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ENTP CRONA DUMP

Not going back on my word, just forgot to post a dump of "ENTP Crona" stuff I planed to just post all at once in a year, but after trying to stop doing stuff like that, I just thought I post what I had and be done with it.

, the thing even I don't really find funny, but I think I have to do it to get it out and book end it. A lot of it isn't really funny, some of it may sound a bit edgy or abrasive, but it's just in good fun, still putting it under the "keep reading thing" because of the amount and shittyness of the "content" Enjoy or yeah...sorry

ENTP Crona experiencing a soul rejection, screaming in agony because of not being able to deal with figuring out if "video games are art" or "video games aren't art" is the more contrarian oppinion at the moment

ENTP Crona reading shizophrenia symptoms on google "Wow, he is literally me"

ENTP Crona fleeing into the desert, going down a hole to cry

Ragnarok "Wait, the cow already killed Medusa a year ago, why we doing this bitch shit again?"

ENTP Crona "I posted a deliberately controversial and edgy meme into the group chat again, when they all see it, I wont be able to deal with how angry everyone will be..."

Soul: "You cant just nonstop spam shit on the internet, people will think you don't have a life"

ENTP Crona: "But I kinda don't..."

Soul: "Still writting on every single subject for 10 hours straight must be tiring and exhaustive, take a break"

ENTP Crona: "But I wrote everything in the last 5 minutes

Soul: "Heh, dont like partys either? Guess reading the room can be stressful even for somebody as cool as me sometimes-"

ENTP Crona "No, I can read it just fine, just then choose to say the thing that sets the roof on fire and regret it five seconds later.

ENTP Crona trying to figure out if Maka subscribes to the theory that Holden is a child abuser himself in "The Catcher in the Rye", only if yes, to arguee that not even the creep teacher was one and it is a misreading, and its actually about idk, read it in school so cant even come up with an explantion.

ENTP Crona trying to cheer up a crying Maka, after she got made fun of for liking bad music by Soul

"No, I like Speeding bullet 2 heaven too! Well except the Beavis and Butthead skits, even I am not that contrarian"

ENTP Crona curled up in the corner of the dark dungeon, not able to face the world, cause liking Ringo Star is to mainstream now but changing to hating him is just too painful...

ENTP Crona after everyone gets confronted with their lives just being fiction

"Well actually I prefere the anime ending"

But after mostly everyone agrees

"But, actually the manga works in a certain way afterall-"

ENTP Crona during the anime only scene where Maka and Crona talk about Maka's mom - its the same scene lol, remember those 4th wall breaking snide comments Crona barely managed to not blabber out loud lol

ENTP Crona "Marvel movies were allways bad"

Marie "Oh you aren't dumb and incompetent!"

ENTP Crona "Why did it took me 8 hours to put together the IKEA table?"

Marie "Oh dont be to hard on yourself, screwing in the table legs upside down could happen to anybody!"

Maka confronting Medusa: I'm here to save ENTP Crona and Mary!

Medusa: Nah, they both are still stuck in the maze going in circles

ENTP Crona after a tourist asks for directions in Death City: "I'll be honest, even though I am living here for years now, I myself cant deal finding my home without google maps"

ENTP Crona "I'm the Joker, baby! (Jared Leto version)"

ENTP Crona "-oh so a glorbo, or smol bean, cinamon bun is a charachter like Paulie from the Sopranos!"

ENTP Crona after trying to read "Finnegans Wake" "Damn, thats how high I still have to climb..."

ENTP Crona watching X:RA "Wow, I actually get 90 percent of the wordplay! This show is great!"

MGMT Patty : "Time to pretend..."

*ENTP Crona visualising all the different ways to take out and kill the people around*

Ragnarok "And I thought I was the psychopath! We aren't even eating souls anymore, whats guipi wrong with you?

ENTP "Grocery shopping is boring and I thought about the 3 different storys I'll never write down enough for one hour..."

ENTP Crona "-and that's why the metodology that is used to diagnose diseases by only relying on a checklist of data points that may have many different origin points is flawed

Stein "I am the doctor with 10 years experience, take your antibiotics prescription and get out!"

Stein, litting a cigarete after ENTP Crona goes out after apologising "Damn, the kid may be right, shit..."

ENTP Crona be like "Actually, I think Epstein is still alive"

ENTP Crona "Yeah Myerrs brigs and Horrorscopes are the same... Because they both actually are describing something and aren't completly wrong, if you know you know...

ENTP Crona actually getting a tatoo even though it is a stupid thing to do in general, because thats the only way to remember Maka's birthday. Cause aint nobody remembering more than 4 digits...

ENTP Crona using all experience and time to reflect, to start a dramatic uplifting speech that leads into Maka defeating the Kishin with a punch- Ah wait thats just what happened in the anime again lol

ENTP Crona: "I wore a dress for most of my life, yet that is not as embarassing as riding on an electric scooter"

ENTP Crona "Oh ofcourse I'm to scatterbrained and lazy to actually finish a webcomic, that's why I included an in universe callout by a charachter, so I will stay motivated out of spite and want of being better than those, proving the mean pixels wrong!"

ENTP Crona: -the setting being the aftermath of a nuclear testing site is a brilliant synedoche of our society pre and post world war 2, how the atomic age is nearly unrecognisable, being both so much more advanced that previous incarnations do not even look human in retrospect, while exagerating ourselfs into cartoon versions of ourselfs do to paranoia and stereotypes, shared faster and faster, that we soak up like Sponges, being the perfect worker and consumer in one - in a way thats Rock Bottom, the breakdown of communication, only restored by recognising the humanity of the other, even if they look at us with even more potent disgust than we already do.

Maka: Wait, I thought these iceberg videos were just supposed to list of fun facts and triva about Spongebob

ENTP Crona: What gave you that idea, Maka?

TERF Maka: I STILL hate J K Rowling

EC: "Borat is racist-"

M: "No the joke is that he exposes the prejudices of the common american person-"

EC "against Kazakhstanis"

M: "No no- wait... you are right..."

EC: "If MF Ghost was with the culture, it would have used Phonk instead of Eurobeat"

EC: "Where the fuck is Marioh Judah?"

*EC annoys excalibur into quitting*

EC :"Im like prince, everybody thinks In gay but actually im homophobic-"

EC: "Non-cellular phones actually had their purpose - like if somebody called them, you would either know nobody is home, or the person who answered could either inform you where the one you are calling is if you didnt reach the person or just find them - also the fact it was in the same spot ment nobody lost it and could allways find it when needed and it never ran out of battery, also-"

M: "If you don't like the phonecase I gifted you just say so...

R: "Dude, dont we still use mirrors for comunication"

EC "Think Im constrained by the limitations of canons?"

TRAD Tsubaki "Well they didn't make a sign of the cross in the church, so they kinda deserved being slayn by Ragnarok..."

M "Hey you are looking down, everything ok?

EC "Thanks for caring, but the thing is, to explain it all, all the connections and reasons and evidence would make me just look more weird and whiny, and this all, including the fact that I cant even say why I cant say without being whiny and long winged is part of it...

EC "I used trouble not descending into negative loops of self pity and disgust with myself and the world... But then I just developed a hyperfixation on not-having-hyperfixations"

???? Death: IDK

EC *reading the bible* "It even predicted people obssesing over lolcows with the whole golden calf story, damn...

EC: Rip Kissinger

EC: Slouching? No, I'm just posture-divergent

EC: I do love myself - one has to love even their biggest enemy...

EC in the future:

M: Are you really ready for children?

EC: I accidentally watched a trailer for despicable me 4, and after hearing all the pandering 80s song and repetitive family hinjix humor I just thought "Oh, how cozy would this be to watch with my Kids and Wife!"

So yeah, I CAN deal with it

#ENTP Crona #Crona #Soul Eater #Au #Soul Eater Au #worst thing I ever came up with #this is it #besides iceberg uploads and links #also by the end I abriviate entp crona to ec #includes a few bonus four letter modifiers for other charachters....

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randadrives · 3 months

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Blog 1

For a long time, I always said I wasn’t creative. In my mind, creativity meant being vulnerable, and I was afraid to be seen. I had a heavy appreciation for the creativity of others. I spent my childhood with a book in hand constantly, and I loved googling different artists (did anyone else go through the Rene Magritte/Salvador Dali phase at 13?), as well as going to street festivals to look at the jewelry people made by hand. I would go home and write about the things I saw, write about my experiences, and keep all my “notebooks” (because I couldn’t call them journals) as secret as possible, standing by my idea that I was logical, and smart, but absolutely not creative. I was convinced I was not blessed with that specific gift as my sisters were, not realizing until much later in life that often creativity is a practice, not something a person is just given.

Meanwhile, there I was most of my life practicing the creativity of writing and just never letting anyone see it. I carried my notebooks around from move to move, apartment to house, over and over like I was afraid to lose that part of me. Two years ago, I made the decision to start letting go of the past. To start that process, I re-read each notebook, took notes on it for my therapy sessions, and with each one finished I burned them in a barrel in the backyard. At the time it did feel quite therapeutic, if not dramatic. My notes outlined how early my anxiety could be seen manifesting, when my depression started, my struggle with religion at a young age, negativity, and much deeper emotions as the years went on. I was forced to look in the face of life events that I had decided to bury deep down. Therapy was starting to make more sense. All the times before my dear therapist, who I will call “Rebecca,” would say “feel your feelings, sit with your feelings” I couldn’t comprehend how to do that. Doing this practice made it start to click, though I still struggle and have to make myself really stop and feel, as miserable as it might be. No one said therapy was an easy process!

At this time, I was going through some major life decisions. Not only was I dredging up my past in my therapy sessions on a weekly basis, but I was also debating with myself on leaving my career, and I had just transitioned out of the Air Force Reserves. I was trying to find a hobby, as well as wondering what I could do with my future if I wasn’t tied to the job I had chosen that sucked up all of my energy, time, and compassion. I thought maybe I should try something I haven’t done before. Something creative? I attempted to try to start a blog, as well as took up a noncredit photography class online through a local college. Both of those things I felt terribly unskilled with, and one of my domineering personality traits is I HATE to be bad at something. So, I didn’t continue, but kept saying out loud when people would ask: “I’m going to start a blog! I got a camera and am going to start taking photos!” There was some hope, albeit a small amount. I figured maybe the more I said it, the more I would convince myself to just start already. All these people already knew what my intentions were! I told myself over and over to let myself be bad at it, practice more, and maybe I’ll eventually get better. That was a year and a half ago, all the way up until now. These things take time, right?

Part of my struggle to commit was a theme. Every blog I’ve come across has been a niche that I didn’t feel connected to, or convinced me the market is saturated and what quality do I possibly have to contribute to this? There are 600 million blogs currently. I kept a running list in the Notes app on my phone of what I was interested in writing about: women in the military, travel, books, my 30’s, women’s safety, being child-free, books, post-DD214 life. All of which has been done before! But it’s taken me this long to remind myself I don’t write to provide never-before-seen content. I write to feel my feelings! To share opinions, and celebrate the small joys in life, to make a written history of things I may not even remember in 15 years. And I think finally, 10 months after making the active decision to leave my job, and a year after I purchased a travel trailer and committed to an alternative lifestyle, I finally realized that I can write about things that have been written about before. I can take photos of trees and birds and be bad at it for a while. I can grant myself grace in trying something new and being vulnerable.

Cheers to myself for taking the first step, even if it was a very looooong step. I’m not going to be an influencer, or content creator, or make money. But I am going to write and attempt to share my musings, and hope others can take that step as well. You don’t have to be naturally talented to try something new, and no one is an expert their first time.

Photo taken at Todd Nature Reserve in Pennsylvania, October 2022

#travel #nature #child-free #blog #lifestyle

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itlivesproject · 2 years

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could we get a peek at the writing process for ILW? like did you make character playlists? pinterest moodboards? storyboards about how scenes will play out that you then have to write or anything like that? are there any abandoned plotlines you initially wanted to add but they didnt make the final cut? and who was the first person to want to create this project? was anyone at all friends before or everyone was atrangers? when did the project start? did yall have zoom meetings or sorted everything out on tumblr through text? sorry for the amount of questions! its ok if you dont want to/cant give answers to everything, i just really admire the ILW team for coming up with this masterpiece a lot haha

Ooh this ask looks fun! I'm gonna add a read more because this is getting long.

So once upon a time in the summer of 2020, the choices fandom was getting more active (I think) because of COVID. A bunch of people were bored and lonely and playing choices. So I got involved in the fandom and replayed It Lives, and it got me thinking about a book 3. I became obsessed with the craft of telling a choice based story. I was analyzing choices books, noticing things I thought they could’ve done to make more impactful choices, trying to figure out how to go from novel writing to VN novel writing where there are multiple paths, etc. So I started talking to my sister who also plays choices and we came up with the basics of ILW. We created the bare bones - character sketches, basic lore, potential endings, etc. I then downloaded renpy and started to teach myself coding.

Cut to January 2021, when It Lives 3 was officially canceled. I made this post:

I got my original recruits from this post, including mod maggie and mod eri! Aside from my sister and me, none of us knew each other before the start of the project, aside from being vague acquaintances, though I think maggie and I were actually mutuals at that point because we'd bonded over noah x mc a couple of times. Once the project was further along, we ended up getting more writers/artists/programmers who are active on the team now, including mod sugar, mod m, mod evie, and other members who aren't mods on this blog.

Anyway, after I got some recruits, I made a discord server and shared google folder. The server has a million channels, channels for each writer, artist, for backgrounds, for music, for characters, for programming, for nonsense. In our drive folder, we have different folders for art, planning, writing, and each writer has their own folder where they put their scenes into. Once their scenes are finished, I copy the scenes into a compiled folder where I put everything together and we can freely edit the scenes.

When we first started, the most important part was planning and sequencing out the story. We didn't start writing until we had everything planned from beginning to end (mostly). We had the endings and figured out how everything would work, we planned out all the lore docs and complex background lore. The only thing we didn't fully plan out beforehand are scene details, but we had the general arc/main point of each chapter from the beginning. While planning, we used to talk basically nonstop every day. We had voice calls on discord once or twice a month on the weekends, and we made a chart with google sheets that had everyone's time zones so we could plan times that everyone could attend.

Anyway, once the planning stages were ready we made the outline. We took the different arcs and interspersed them through chapters. We try to make each chapter have a mostly cohesive arc as well. The outline has the short version, which is split by scene with a small description and an assignment of who's supposed to write it. Then we have a detailed outline that the writers refer to before starting their scenes. In the detailed outline, it has more information about what's going on in the scene. For example (ch 8 spoiler) the short outline scenes were:

Scene 1 - Linc shows up at Matthy's house/argument - Lindsay

Scene 1A - Lincoln diamond scene - Lindsay

Scene 1B - Abel diamond scene - Maggie

Scene 2 - Annie convo - M

Then if you go to the longer outline, there are more fleshed out descriptions. However, often times there's just a short paragraph explaining the scene, like "Linc shows up and gets mad that rowan is with matthias. you find out matthias is lincoln's dad, rowan can either side with him or not. they get back to the cabin, linc and abel get into an argument about matthias, and again you can either side with linc or abel or neither." So important plot points are mentioned in the scene description, but it's still up to the assigned writer to flesh out the scenes. Often times, in our personal writer channels, we'll ask other team members to help us come up with ideas, figure out how to make things happen, improve dialogue, etc.

In addition, we often have little writing parties on the weekends. We have a bot that does word sprints for us, and the winner of the writing retreat will sometimes get some kind of reward from yours truly. You know, to increase motivation and whatnot.

We don't really have pinterest boards, moodboards, or playlists. I just don't bother with that because it's not something that particularly interests me I guess, and I haven't seen anyone else do any of that either. Mostly we just talk a lot and when we finally sit down to write, we're constantly messaging each other in the channels haha.

There are some things we were thinking about including that have been cut or changed. But I feel like for the most part, we surprisingly have somehow managed to keep a lot of our original ideas. I guess a lot of them just evolved from one form to another, so even if it's not the same thing as the original idea, I feel like it is because I was there for the process of how it changed.

Anyway, hope this answered your question! It was fun to write up <3

#ask #anon #mod win #writing

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secretlywritingstories · 1 year

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So there is this online space where I met a lot of great friends. We’re a whole group. It started as an anonymous chat room with weekly productivity chats, partly for fic writers, which eventually evolved into daily chats and hanging out while also doing productivity rounds. It’s been running steadily like that for actual years by now, and it’s such an ingrained part of my routine.

It’s now were I’ve met some great people that I consider very dear friends. We’ve watched movies, we’ve got a discord, we’ve done book club, we’ve had video chats, there has been irl meet-ups and will be more in the future. It’s just great, and I don’t know how to imagine not having these incredibly cool people in my life and coming into that online chat almost on a daily basis. Sometimes for hours and hours while hanging out online, sometimes just for a quick chat.

While some fandom backgrounds are shared, we’re also all over the place with what we enjoy, though there are an overwhelming amount of writers and I am almost always in the chat when I am writing. We get to share sentences, cheer each other one, beta each other’s fics, exchange ideas, ask for opinions. It’s such a lovely and creative space and I am sure it helps keep me on track with my writing.

And then today, BAM, out of nowhere, we were told that the space that hosts our daily chats might shut down. Instant confusion. Imagine us all running around like headless chickens. We took to the discord of course, reached out to each other through dms, made a new online chat on the site that we’ve used as back-up before. And yet, devastation traveled through us all, almost as if we were one collective being.

We were instantly trying to look up other sites that could host daily chats and testing out their features, making Google Forms to come up with ideas, Google Docs to figure out what we’d want our homes to look like. Just a collective effort to instantly find a new home now that “ours” had so rudely been foreclosed on without warning. It really felt like we were standing homeless out there in the street. It was a time where I was very thankful for both the shared tumblr and the discord server.

Not that we’d all suddenly lose each other, but it felt like it could have scattering effects on the group as a whole. And it’s a very dear group, with a routine that many of us treasure. Now it looks like we might have our home back, after what is just half a day thankfully. The relief I personally felt coming into the white chat with the blue border, our little names with pronouns and emojis and control over our username colours.

When trying to write what we wanted in our online home, I could just think of all that we have in the original one. Here’s to hoping that it stays open and we do not get a scare like this again. But we can never know. Online spaces are fragile, we are not guaranteed to keep them. Just like tumblr could one day vanish too, which would honestly hurt my heart so much.

But for the group of people that I am happy to call friends, I was very reassured to see how we all scrambled and worked together. It was a mutual effort, a mutual desire to continue to have a shared house we can stroll into. We can get work done, cheer each other one, catch up and hang out. It is incredibly lovely to see how much that was valued by us all.

#personal #friendship #my tumblr dabbles

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wordsinhaled · 1 year

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about me

thanks for the tag, TJ! :D tagged by @tj-dragonblade

nickname: N

sign: virgo sun, virgo moon, sagittarius rising

height: 4’9-10”

last thing i googled: “gwendoline christie” for drawing references! i’m trying to figure her face out for the sandman tarot i’m working on

song stuck in my head: “let’s go to bed” by the cure

amount of sleep: between 6-7 hours usually

dream job: therapist with work-life balance

wearing: oversized black hozier tshirt (thanks @ghostboyjules !!!), black corduroy pants, docs, black belt w/ silver buckle. my wife said i have “80s boyfriend” energy today which is honestly goals

movies/books that summarize me: hmmmm. medieval literature: sir gawain and the green knight. also, the green knight (the film with dev patel). then… the sandman. american gods. pan’s labyrinth. the 8th doctor movie. and probably many others!

favorite song: a tie between “pyramid song” and “reckoner” by radiohead

aesthetic: i’m still figuring this out clothingwise since i own very little clothing currently that sparks true joy. but - aesthetically - the ideal clothes vibes would be mainly thrifted, a little bit vintage, a little bit witchy, a little bit tailored menswear, a little bit goth… stick that in a blender and you get… whatever mishmash of things i’m putting together that feel cool and probably confuse conservatives who wanna know what my gender is. artwise/visual aestheticwise - art nouveau, art deco, MCM, illuminated manuscripts, dusty libraries, whatever la roux & stromae have going on, etc etc.

favorite authors: i come back to neil gaiman most frequently and consistently so - yes!

random fun fact: uhhhhh. i’m learning french on duolingo right now!

tagging @dancinbutterfly @moorishflower @fishfingersandscarves @ghostboyjules @wizardofgoodfortune @teejaystumbles @mandolinearts @ginjones @landwriter and anyone else who would like to :) (no pressure at all and also… pardon if you’ve already done this!)

#shamelessly using this for friend book n music recs: it’s more likely than u think

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twosroos · 2 years

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hello, nurse!

chapter three: hard decks and rock bottoms

( bradley “rooster” bradshaw x oc, eden benjamin )

(previous chapter) (next chapter)

Eden might just start to find her footing along the aviators, but one mistake after another leaves her reeling and waiting for answers.

word count: 6760

notable characters: penny benjamin, pete “maverick” mitchell, bradley “rooster” bradshaw, natasha “phoenix” trace, jake “hangman” seresin, robert "bob" floyd

tws: cursing, drinking/drunkenness, excessive flirting, near-death experiences, talk of past injury

ao3 link! (features authors notes :D!)

When Eden gets home, she plops her books on the counter and rushes upstairs to grab her notebook. She’s determined to get this shit done, after promising Warlock he’d see her tomorrow at the base. She sprawls the books out, eyes scrutinizing every document. Each book or file was between forty and a hundred pages, and she knew it would take her some time to read through them all, so she tried to figure out exactly which one felt the most important. She settles on the medical book since it’s what she’s there for. As she reads about g-force, and engines, and does some Googling for words she doesn't exactly know, she slowly fills up a notebook with page after page of information. Figuring she’ll organize it later.

She manages to work for a solid few hours, considering it's only about one o’clock by the time she gets home. Amelia won’t be back from classes until three, and who knows where her mom ran off to. After a while, the silence of the house gets too much, and Eden has to turn on music to make herself feel a bit better. Then, suddenly and with a slam of the door as it shuts, Penny comes home. Eden pauses her music and turns her chair, causing it to squeak as she tries to see her mother come out and towards the kitchen where Eden sits.

“I hate him,” Penny growls from the foyer, her heels being thrown off before she’s making her way into the kitchen. She physically jumps seeing Eden.

“Hi, mom.” She laughs softly and Penny lets out a surprised breath as she places her hand on her chest,

“I thought you’d be at the bar.”

“Nope. Just finishing up this chapter of this Flight Surgeon’s guide before I get ready.” Eden leans on her elbows, “Maverick said he’d see me there, so I want to at least be able to tell him that I studied a good amount.”

Penny pales at the mention of her daughter's instructor, “Eden, honey, why don’t you stay home instead of going to the bar? You only have, what, three weeks to the mission?”

“Tomorrow they’re doing more flight training, the same as today I think, but with the pilots trying to catch each other instead of Maverick catching them?” Eden hums, pulling out a little calendar that Maverick had given her so she’d be on track, “I’ll just study then.”

“Are you sure? I’m not gonna be at the bar tonight, I have to do scheduling and such in the office.” Penny seems to really not want Eden to go, which is odd because Penny has always let Eden go places and make her own mistakes. She tries not to think about what that might exactly mean.

“I’ll be fine, Mom.” Eden laughs, gently shutting her notebook as she begins to pack her items up from where they lay across the kitchen countertops, “It’s not a huge deal, the only one I really need to look at is the medical guide and I already know the majority of this from my USMLE testing days.”

Penny lingers, but sighs, and says a soft okay. As Eden thanks her, she stands, gives her mom a one-armed hug, and slips up the stairs and to her room. She took a world record time shower, but then spent an hour brooding over what to wear. She knew pretty much everyone would be out of uniform tonight, since they weren’t coming straight from the base, and she wanted to wear something a bit less formal than her pink suit and the other various suit-like outfits she would wear to the base in the upcoming days.

Eden ended up picking an item she adored, a white-based sundress with a garden scene-based corset top. She paired it with all gold jewelry and tied her hair up in two half-up pigtails with golden-colored hair ties, and some simple tan sandals. Her make-up was quick and easy, considering it was just The Hard Deck, and when she was finished spraying herself with enough perfume to last the night, she remembered the one item besides her wallet she was supposed to bring. And It might be a stupid decision for Eden to do, but she slides on Rooster’s jacket over her dress. It’s big on her, definitely, and when she stands in the mirror she can't help but adore the way it lays on her smaller frame. She gives herself a little twirl, runs her fingers along the patches she doesn’t recognize, and double-checks to make sure she has everything in her crossbody bag before she’s heading out the door.

The drive to the Hard Deck is only, maybe, fifteen minutes and when she’s walking in, there’s already a hustle and bustle of people there. She ducks through the crowd and makes her way back to the pool table, where she can see Maverick expertly conning Hangman out of a winning game. Eden chuckles to herself, adjusting the jacket that she now just rests over her shoulders, as she walks up to the crew.

“Hello, Aviators!” She calls with a goofy grin across her lips, “This is your captain speaking, buckle your seatbelts, and get ready for a pool table ass-whooping.”

“Oh? Bradshaw, huh?” Maverick leans back from where he’s bent over the table, setting up the billiards, an almost protective look flashing across his eyes as they narrow. Noticing it, Eden flushes, stammering a bit as she shuffles in place as the other pilots make various noises and comments.

“Relax, guys. When I got sick last night, he brought me home and left his jacket in my room by accident.” She shakes her head in disbelief at their assumptions of more… intimate relations.

Coyote snickers, grabbing a cue for himself after passing one to Hangman and Payback, “It’s not like the two of you don’t flirt excessively already. Who are we to assume you haven’t done more?”

“It’s all jokes, plus I’ve only known him for a day, what would I have done?” Eden clarifies, feeling her cheeks redden even more than before, “are you jealous or something, Coyote?”

“I’ve got my own relationship issues to worry about,” He waves a hand, “But thanks for the offer.”

Eden huffs, rolling her eyes as she slips into the crowd of pilots, grabbing a cue as well, “And for that comment, you’re going down.”

The squadron whoops, laughing as Coyote takes the first hit, sending the billiards ricocheting across the table in various directions. Eden waits, watching before she bends (happy she decided at the last minute to wear shorts under her skirt), and immediately whacks a striped billiard into a hole.

“Oh, shit,” Hangman expresses, and Payback whistles as she turns, and manages to get another ball in easily, though as she's bending for the third (which she knows she has to rebound across the wall,) someone leans across her and shifts the cue an inch or so to the left.

“There,” A voice purrs behind her, undoubtedly Bradley’s, “Try now,”

And she does, and it works, making Coyote yell something intelligible. Eden stands after Bradley does, and she grins, “Go ahead and start, Coyote, I feel a bit mean.”

He does, and Hangman walks over, slinging an arm around Eden and making her lips pull taught and she glares up at him, “now, that’s something to brag about.”

“Get your paws off me, Bagman.” She complains, and when he doesn’t move, Bradley steps in, grabbing Hangman's arm and lifting it up and over her head. The two don’t speak, just exchange various glares and hand motions, before Hangman walks away with a slouch, and Phoenix snickers from where she’s next to Bob and Payback.

“Thanks from all of us, Rooster!” She calls as she points across the bar, and the waitress there wastes no time ringing the bell on Hangman, who groans. With a loud laugh, Payback is quickly asking what everyone wants to drink while Fanboy rushes up to grab another one for free.

“I’ll have a shot of Tito’s!” Eden calls and Payback quickly writes it down on his phone, Bradley watches as Coyote hits another ball into the hole and cheers, another pilot– Omaha, slapping him on the shoulder in congratulations.

“I’ll just have a Corona for now.” Bradley says when he’s asked, then he’s enveloping an arm around Eden's shoulders, leaning close to her ear, “Y’know what they say about a woman wearing her man’s jacket?”

“ Her man's jacket ?” Eden replies as she leans back against the pool table, eyes rolling to look at him, “enlighten me, Bradley.”

He grins, letting his lips graze her ear as he talks, eyes fluttering up to Maverick, who watches the two with a calculated gaze, “Well, he has to take her to bed.”

“Oh no–” Eden moans as leans back on him, dramatically fanning herself. The aviators look over and notice her relaxed pose, and how she's making him laugh by doing it before she yells, “take me to bed or lose me forever, Bradshaw!”

Bradley freezes, his hand on Eden’s waist as his lips hover by her jugular, and she can practically feel the heat radiating off his face. He stutters a bit, before opting to keep his mouth closed as the pilots laugh at the scene around them. Hangman is practically on the floor laughing at this point, Phoenix shaking her head at him as he wheezes dramatically, and Maverick claps, standing.

“Alright. Let’s move on from… whatever that just was.” He says, not without Eden noticing an odd strained rise in his voice, and the team agrees, not without some mindless jabs from Coyote, something about Rooster’s callsign not being far off from the truth. Unsurprisingly, Coyote gets a whack aside the head from Payback (who’s returned with most of the liquor), and Eden begins to take off the jacket when Bradley stops her, a hand coming to her now bare shoulder as he leans down again, closer this time, so close she can feel his lips brush her ear before he even whispers to her, breath hot on her skin.

“Keep it. I like seeing my last name on your chest.” He grins before he’s striding away, calling the first shot at another pool table. It takes her a second to refocus, then she's standing back up from her position of leaning on her backside the table, absolutely flushed from head to toe. A second passes, then, Coyote taps her shoulder.

“Your turn, Mrs. Bradshaw,” he says and she whacks his shoulder, cursing at him while he cackles, a Michelob Ultra in hand.

“Not surprised Bradshaw’s found a new girl to flirt with.” Another pilot says before he turns to her, “Sorry, I’m Omaha, Neil Vikander.”

“I always forget there's a bunch of you,” Eden comments, whacking another billiard perfectly, “How’re you feeling after those two hundred pushups?”

“Like shit.” He chuckles, watching as Eden stands up, he’s definitely ogling her, and she tries not to think about it as she has to move closer to him for a hit.

“Leave her alone, Omaha!” A girl hollers as she walks up with two other pilots behind her. After Eden hits the billiard and narrowly misses the hole, she turns to look at her. The name tag on her flight suit reads Halo, and behind her are Yale and Harvard– ironically Harvard is Yale’s WSO if Eden remembers correctly. The only person she doesn’t remember is Omaha.

“Lieutenant Callie Bassett, Halo.” She says, “And this is Brigham Lennox, Harvard, and Logan Lee, Yale.”

“Nick to meet you all, formally.” Eden smiles, “Eden Benjamin.”

“Oh, are you Penny’s?” Harvard asks as Yale waves before practically being tackled by an already drunk Payback who shouts,

“Where’s Fritz? He owes me a beer!”

“Yeah,” Eden laughs at Payback's antics, “I’m her eldest.”

“Weird.” Halo comments, “I could've sworn you were Maverick’s.”

Eden scrunches up her face, narrowing her eyes in confusion and almost disbelief, “Maverick’s?”

“You look a lot like him.” She continues, “Phoenix and I thought you were his when he made that Hello Kitty comment this morning.”

“I mean, there’s surprisingly not a lot of white people here with black hair and green eyes.” Coyote comments from the pool table, “but I dunno, Maverick would have to have been pretty young if he’s the age I think he is.”

“That’s true.” Harvard states, “Whatcha think, Omaha?”

He flirts, “She's pretty, but I don't see the relation to Maverick.”

Eden sighs, sending Phoenix a look for help, causing her to butt in, “This is just a weird conversation.”

Payback slips over to hand Eden her shot, which she takes without hesitation or a wince, and turns back to the others, “I agree with ‘Tasha over there.”

“What’s weird?” Payback asks, taking her shot glass as he hastily writes down more drink orders for his friends, his eyes narrowing as he struggles to spell Michelob right for the fifth time in a row. Behind Eden, Coyote manages to get two billiards in the hole, making it Eden’s turn again. Somewhere behind Coyote, Maverick watches the team interact, noticing who doesn’t talk to who, or who completely isolates themselves. They need to be a team– hell, a family event–

“--I don’t look like Maverick, dude.” Eden’s whining after Harvard says it again, “I don’t even know who my dad is. My mom refuses to talk about it with me.”

Over Eden’s shoulder, Rooster watches as Maverick winches, before slipping away into the crowd. It’s bizarre, and Eden notices him looking perplexed, so she quickly ends the game of pool and tells Hangman it's his turn before she crosses the bar to where Bradley lounges.

“What’s the matter over here?” She purrs, sitting down on the couch next to him. He hums, leaning his head on her shoulder, a half-finished drink swirling in its cup as he shifts to be more comfortable.

“Tired.” He says, and for once it's truthful, before he grins sloppily, “I wonder if it would be easier to sleep with you by my side?”

“Does the only thing your mouth knows how to do is flirt?” She says, rolling her eyes with a goofy smile as the rest of the aviators move around them as if they aren’t even there. It’s like a perfect moment of respite, Bradley’s soft laugh only adding to it in Eden’s opinion.

“Well, it knows how to do much more, if you’re interested.” He states and she ooh’s before delving into a soft laugh as she bumps her head against his before he sits up with a very obvious flush on his cheeks.

“I’m gonna grab a refill, do you want anything?” He watches her face as she bites her lip, smiling softly as she thinks.

“Uhm… a lemon drop, in a tall glass, with extra lemon, please.” She smiles.

He pauses before smiling a bit bigger than before, “Ah, a martini girl?”

“Of course, my Momma raised me to have an expensive taste.”

“Good thing I have a big paycheck then, yeah?” He stands, and Eden gets up immediately after, making her way over to the new jukebox she had insisted her mother get put in. It was a digital one that updated monthly with new songs, so Eden thumbed through them absentmindedly. Until she settled on ‘Boyfriend’ originally by Dove Cameron, but this was a cover because– well, it was easier to get covers on something like this. She grinned, swiping her credit card, and selecting the song to play after someone's selection of an old Kenny Rogers song.

“Found you.” Bradley says, passing her a yellow shaded drink with a soft smile, “Just as you asked, your mom was behind the counter.”

Eden blanks, “That’s weird. She didn’t want me coming tonight because she wasn’t gonna be behind the bar. I guess plans got changed.”

Bradley shrugs, then offers his cup toward Eden, “a toast, to the newest member of our little ragtag squadron.”

“Aw, how sweet.” Eden smiles, clinking her drink to Bradley's, and taking a sip, before hissing about how strong it is, making Bradley’s face light up in a happy laugh as the two hide off in the little back corner of the bar. Though, not all goes unnoticed, because Eden can see her mother lean over the bar to whisper something to Maverick, who (after a beat) glances at Eden. Something crawls in her stomach, a sick subconscious realization she can’t quite place yet, and she turns back to Bradley who’s now taken a spot on the wall next to her.

“Why the hell does my mom treat Maverick like he’s the best thing since sliced bread.” Eden huffs, rolling her eyes as she breaks Maverick’s eye contact. Rooster hums, taking a decent-sized gulp of his drink as he sighs out.

“Well, they are both single.”

“Ew!” Eden laughs, shoving Bradley, who stumbles a bit as he holds his hands up in mock surrender. The two chuckle a bit before the fake Dove Cameron voice comes over the small speakers, which are easy to hear in this mostly vacant corner, and Eden starts to softly sing along. Her real voice this time, and Bradley looks floored, he smiles and hums along to the chorus.

“So this is how you really sing, Benjamin?” He questions and she giggles, rolling her weight across her shoulders and to her side as she leans on the wall, now facing Bradley. She catches Maverick staring at the two of them again, this time with daggers in his eyes, and she bites her lip. Well, she knows one way to make someone look away– make them ashamed for even seeing what they’re watching.

“If I could give you some advice,” She sings along to the song as she places her hand on Bradley’s chest, leaning in close to him and pressing her stomach against his leg that’s propped up so she’s standing between his legs. His whole face flushes a bright red as she leans in, bringing her face close to his as she whispers– not sings, the lyrics, “I would leave with me tonight.”

She winks, stepping back as she drags her hand down his chest, before she taps the embroidered ‘Bradshaw’ on her jacket and spins, making her way further into the dinner crowd that swarms in through the side door from the beach. She knows it takes Bradley a second to follow her because there's a pause before a hand is on her waist. As she stops a foot or so away from where Bob and Phoenix watch Payback and Fanboy attempt a “world record pace” game of eight ball, Rooster tilts into her.

“This is the game we’re gonna play, Benjamin?” He practically growls, as if it's irritating him. She was surprised she was able to get him this hot and bothered on the second day of knowing him, but she should probably tone it down. There was a pretty inflexible no fraternization rule for a reason.

“Sure.” She smiles, leaning her head back to look up at him, “I think I'll win.”

“In your dreams.” He says, and even though Eden’s not really sure what the two of them are competing for, she knows she made Maverick and Penny finally stop staring, so that’s good enough for her.

A few hours later, Eden finds herself outside, helping out a sick Bob who got stuck doing shots with Fritz. It hadn’t ended well for Bob, who wasn’t a drinker in general. Plus, Fritz had willingly chosen Southern Comfort. Which was… terrible , frankly.

“Poor Bob,” Phoenix says, setting a water bottle next to her WSO. Eden slaps his back as another round of… whatever he’d eaten this morning comes out. Once he’s finished, Phoenix nurses him to a water bottle while Eden shuffles around in her bag for painkillers she knows she has. Though she keeps finding Benadryl, which is great, though she’s not having an allergic reaction right now.

“Where’s my fucking Ibuprofen?” Eden clamors, “I don’t want fucking Nyquil!”

Phoenix snorts, patting Bob on the back as he bends over the railing again, “Do you have a whole pharmacy in there?”

“Pretty much– Aha!” Eden holds out the almost empty bottle and makes a mental reminder to buy more soon, “Here you go, Bobert . And I have some Pepto Bismol.”

He smiles, wiping his lips with a towel Eden had found in the kitchen, “You’re literally an angel.”

“Let’s get you feeling better,” Eden opens both bottles, taking out a capsule of Pepto Bismol, and two tablets of Ibuprofen. The three of them laugh when Eden nearly drops it, Bob whining about how he needs the medicine now or he’ll die. Seconds later, Phoenix is nearly spitting out her own water when she watches through the window as Hangman falls and eats the floor while trying to dance on a chair.

“I think Maverick’s gonna hate us tomorrow, we’re all gonna be hung over.” Eden looks back through the window where Halo sings dramatically with her arm draped over Coyote’s shoulder, “And I’m running out of medicine by the end of the week if you all keep being idiots like this.”

“Oh, definitely.” Phoenix giggles, “but I’m glad we can all let loose a bit, even if it takes alcohol for that to happen.”

Eden laughs too, a bring smile on her lips as she hopes– no, prays, that this all works out because never in her life has she so easily slotted into a group like this. Something about these pilots was new, different from her ex. And It made everything feel so… new. For once, Eden was breathing oxygen after being submerged in a frozen lake. Or like she was seeing the world through new glasses lenses.

Maybe it was just the alcohol talking though. She hoped not.

“Alright, if he’s got medicine in him, I’ll take him back to base,” Bradley said as he stepped out of the back door with his car keys in hand. He’s only had two drinks in the five or so hours they’d been at the bar, so he, Phoenix, and Eden had become the designated drivers.

Eden nodded to him, setting her bag by her feet as she started to tug off Bradley’s jacket, “Give him like ten minutes to take the meds, just so his stomach settles. And here, this is yours.”

“You can keep it, honestly, I don’t mind.” He laughs as he stares out the outstretched jacket, “It’s not uniform or anything.”

Eden holds it out to him, shaking it now, “Yeah, but it’s the summer in San Diego– it’s burning hot, and if I show up wearing this again I’m afraid Hangman will buy me a pregnancy test with genuine intentions.”

Phoenix barks out a laugh from where she stands, holding the pills for Bob as she rubs his forehead in pain, but a small smile at Eden’s comment creeps across his lips. Bradley takes it, throwing it over one of his shoulders as he smiles.

“Did you spray it down with roses or something?”

“My perfume,” Eden laughs, “I forgot it was on my bed and sprayed a bunch of perfume on me before leaving. The poor jacket was behind me, it must’ve picked up quite a bit.”

“Just enough.” He murmurs, watching as the night stars dip through the waves only say a hundred or so feet away from where they stand on the deck. High tide comes in slowly as time ticks by. And though he stares out at the beautiful scenery as Phoenix announces seven minutes until Bob can take his medicine, Eden finds herself being unable to look away from him. The curve of his jaw, the scarring on his skin, the way he’d pushed his sunglasses up onto his head, so now they served as a makeshift headband.

Maybe now she hoped the alcohol was talking, but god, he looked good.

The next day, Tuesday, training goes by without a hitch, Eden completes most of her studying and manages to stop at least ten different arguments. Even though the group acted like best friends when liquored up, the second they weren’t under the influence Eden felt like she was stuck in the world's most annoying dick measuring contest. Hangman was antagonizing everyone, and he’d probably gone close to five hundred push-ups today as punishment for his antics. Bradley had flirted with Eden every chance he had, mostly because he’d realized how much it irritated Maverick. Everyone else had behaved, for the most part, and Eden went to sleep with a new group chat blowing up her phone.

Wednesday starts the bomb-drop training. Which wouldn't usually scare Eden, since her ex’s best friend had almost died in G-Loc. So, when Maverick mentioned how possible it was to happen today, she’d been practically sweating bullets. The first few hours of tests are fine, then Maverick goes to fly it with Coyote, and shit goes so wrong so quickly. One second she’s standing next to Fanboy and Phoenix, watching as Coyote hits the mark perfectly, then the next second she’s screaming at him as he falls unconscious and his plane starts to drift down.

“C’mon!” Maverick yells over the comms, “Wake up, wake up, Coyote!”

Eden wasted no time throwing herself out of the chair to scramble over to her medical equipment. She worked with bated breath, fear making her hands shake ever so slightly as she dug out the little guide and re-read what procedures she needed to do for G-Loc events. Everyone relaxes the second Coyote’s able to right his plane with a panicked breath as Maverick softly directs him, voice stern but gentle as he runs Coyote through the entire touchdown process Eden was sure the both of them could do in their sleep by now. Once Eden snaps herself out of her anxiety-filled trance, she throws a bag over her shoulder and grabs another bag at her feet, tearing out onto the tarmac as she radioed in.

“Miramar Central, this is Doctor Benjamin with ID-1301,” Eden says as she watches Coyote's plane make a shaky landing, bouncing way more than his usual, and she just knows he’s out of it.

A woman’s voice comes across her walkie, “Benjamin, this is the central dispatch for Miramar.”

Eden watches as Maverick lands behind Coyote, and the second the two are parked, he’s climbing out hastily as Coyote stays put, “I need the other medic for ID-1301 to Taxi G-0, one of our pilots just came out of G-Loc.”

“I’ll send Doctor Bianco.” The woman on dispatch says, and soon steps are brought to Coyote's jet so Eden can make her way up to him in the cabin as quickly as possible. Aka, she's running up before they’ve locked the steps in place.

“Hey, Javy,” Eden calls as she kneels on the top step, she can hear Maverick coming up behind her. He pauses once she sees Eden beginning a concussion test by having him follow her finger, tell her the answers to simple questions, and by checking his pupils. When everything looks good, she has him stand up and exit the jet. As the two make it down the steps, a male doctor steps off a golf cart and tsks.

“What are you doing?” He shouts at Eden, “You were told to wait until I got here!”

“I wasn’t told anything, and my concern is the pilot who just blacked out for thirty seconds in the air!” Eden snaps back immediately, her eyes narrowing at her so-called co-medic. Without having ever met Doctor Bianco before, Eden already knew the two of them wouldn't get along. He seemed to be more fact-oriented, whereas she was more heart oriented (which was probably bad for the Navy) and she was sure they’d rip each other's heads off at some point.

“I– god, you’re fucking hopeless . Give him here–” Doctor Bianco goes to grab Coyote, who leans onto Eden harder in protest. As his knees nearly give out, Coyote’s whining about his head pounding with all the yelling, the rest of the team watches anxiously as Eden leads him to the medical cart, having him sit down so she can continue the assessment, ignoring the other doctor as he complains.

“Hey,” Maverick comes up beside the two, “Relax, she’s doing just fine. Better than most medics we get out here on the tarmac.”

“She's not a real flight surgeon!” Doctor Bianco cries, “She’s gonna get you all killed!”

“Full offense,” Phoenix cuts Maverick’s comeback off, “I’d trust Eden with my life a million times before I’d trust you.”

And when Doctor Bianco turns around to snap back at Phoenix, he can see the whole team behind Phoenix watching him with quite a few confused and concerned looks. He huffs, not liking the fact he’s being pushed against, clearly evident by the way he crosses his arms and huffs again as he turns to where Eden does another round of tests on Coyote.

“We’ll get him an MRI.” Eden turns back to face him as she speaks, “because of the loss of oxygen and the rush of blood pressure to his brain, plus his reactions are a bit slow and his breathing is slightly off.”

“Fine.” Doctor Bianco says, not even being able to argue with Eden’s point, and he drives away with Coyote now in the passenger's seat as he pages an on-base ambulance to transfer him to a local hospital just ten minutes drive away. Unluckily, because her name tag and such were still being processed, Eden was unable to follow him due to security reasons. It was annoying, but she was glad those security measures were in place. Just in case.

“Well, Warlock and Hammer want us to end for the day.” Maverick sighs, Eden had never noticed he had slipped away for a moment. The pilots all murmur amongst themselves before they start to split off. Watching them go, Eden wraps her arms around herself and shakes her head as she takes a swallowing breath.

“Hy, kid, are you alright?” Maverick asks, grabbing her shoulder and squeezing it.

Eden sighs, “Yeah, sorry, it just freaked me out, being all... in the moment– baby’s first medical emergency.”

Maverick laughs softly, watching Eden with a fond look in his eyes as he brings a hand up to tousle her hair a bit, “You’ll get used to the emergencies, it comes with the job.”

Eden finds herself nodding in agreement, even though she personally doesn’t really think that she’s cut out for it as she shifts from foot to foot, watching as the pilots softly converse amongst themselves, cliqued off, as they pack up to leave.

“Hey, Eden!” Halo calls, “Can you text us when they update you on Coyote?”

Eden smiles, “The second I get a message, y’all will know.”

The pilots yell various thank yous, and Maverick nods in thanks as he splits from the group to leave, and Eden finds herself clicking on her phone to see if there’s a message. When she doesn’t see one, her anxiety spikes with the fear of never getting a message from the hospital. It comes faster than she thinks it will, three hours later as she’s cooking, her phone idly vibrating on the counter while Amelia plays some song on her violin. She answers the call, a nurse named Violet telling her the instructions for Coyote’s next few days, and when she ends the call she finds herself relaxing for the first time since three o’clock that afternoon.

iMessage: ID-1301: The Best of Top Gun

Bagman : ‘Let’s play 8-ball!’

Fanbo y: fuck u bags

Bob : no one wants to play 8-ball, ever.

Phoenix emphasized ‘no one wants to play 8-ball, ever’

Eden Benjamin : Hey crew

Eden Benjamin : Good news, Coyote is a-ok. No concussion or anything, but he’s off of screen time for the rest of the day while he gets some rest. You can visit him if you want, but I’d call and ask beforehand. He won’t be flying the next few days, but will be attending class, be nice, and don’t smack him about while he rests up.

Eden Benjamin : And now I'm putting this chat on do not disturb because I’m about to beat my sister’s ass in Mario Kart. Call me with serious questions ONLY. If someone is not dead or dying I don't wanna know.

Jacket Giver (Bradshaw) : Yes Ma’am, thank you, Ma’am.

Halo, Phoenix, Harvard, and three more emphasized, ‘Yes Ma’am, thank you, Ma’am.’

Eden sits at the hanger the next morning, staring at the ceiling as she takes a slow breath. They were doing the same drill again, this time Coyote joining her on the ground. They’d been going at it all day, paired with a break for lunch at a local deli, and a momentary switch to the drill they’d done Tuesday that Eden decided to dub Cat and Mouse. But for now, Hangman and Halo were running through the bomb drop and massive climb drill Eden still hadn’t named. So, Eden and Coyote sat in the safe shade of the hangar, Coyote writing a letter to his youngest niece (who just turned eight) as Eden worked quietly on her books.

Luckily today she’d decided to brush up on everyone’s medical history, and pretty much everyone had clear histories. Except for Phoenix, Maverick, Rooster, and Coyote. Surprisingly, Coyote’s was the most detailed on a severe injury to his left wrist after a dogfight left him with bullet metal in his wrist. Not bullets, ‘bullet metal’ was how it was written. Meaning the bullet had broken, most likely.

“Hey Coyote,” Eden says as she looks up, “You and Rooster were involved in the same accident?”

“Our first deployment, we got in a dogfight with the enemy. He had to eject, I stayed in to cover his parachute before I ejected myself. We were stranded in a desert for a few hours before we were found by a rescue team, which, ironically, Doctor Bianco was a part of when he first started.” Coyote explains as if the idea of near-death doesn’t scare him in the slightest, “Did you get to his file yet, I think it explains it more?”

“Uh…. not yet.” She says before she’s flipping through and finding Rooster’s file. There, it reads that he’d ejected after his engines had been shot by an enemy pilot. He’s hit his shoulder on the canopy, dislocating it and breaking his clavicle, making him unfit to fly for four months. As she read through the file, it also detailed a ‘severe psychological break’ that resulted in his prolonged absence from flying.

“Yeesh.” Eden murmurs, thumbing through the rest of the file, observing the photographs of his X-Rays on his shoulder.

“Not a fun time.” Coyote sits up, eyes glancing over at the screen with a confused look. He sets his pen down, standing up now, and making his way over. Eden ignores him for the time being, scribbling down to check Rooster’s shoulder before they get flown out to the carrier in two weeks' time.

“She hit a bird,” Someone says, and Eden perks up to see Halo rushing into the room, “Eden, Phoenix, and Bob hit birds.”

“Is she able to extinguish the engines and glide?” Eden closes her notebook as she stands, idly making her way over to where the rest of the group is beginning to hover around the computers. This was the last test of today. Why did something have to go wrong like yesterday?

“She's trying, but it's not working well.” Harvard calls and now Eden’s grabbing the headphones– a new addition as of this morning, to listen in to the comms. As soon as she’s on them the first thing she hears is Maverick yelling, and Phoenix uncharacteristically panicked.

“Phoenix, Bob, eject !”

The whole team freezes, except for Eden, who’s ripping the headphones off of her head and running to grab her medical equipment. She nearly slips and falls on someone's discarded water that had spilled in the rush to the computers, but manages to right herself with a jump as she stands to rush out of the hangar, there’s already a helicopter warming up and she’s not sure who exactly told them to get ready to go and retrieve the pilots.

“We’re gonna follow Maverick’s location on his plane,” one of the flight members says and Eden throws on a spare headset as she buckles in.

“How far away?” She asks.

“Ten minutes if we leave now.” The other pilot says and Eden nods, the helicopter taking off before she can even begin to logically think. She should have Doctor Bianco with her, she should have at least another medic, but she doesn't find it in her to care. She told herself she was going to be the best and this right here is the only way to really know. As they fly dead forward for ten minutes, the other two passengers– two retrievers as she’s heard Hangman call them once or twice, scan the area for flares or parachutes. Luckily, they’re in the desert, so it's easy to find two identical parachutes with a jet making circles a few thousand feet above them. The two other passengers drop down and bring Phoenix and Bob into the helicopter, they look relatively okay, save for Phoenix’s bloody nose, so Eden moves across the seats to begin assessing them.

“You both scared the shit out of me.” She says softly, handing Phoenix wipes for her nose while she gently shifts it around. Luckily, nothing is broken, it will most likely just bruise a bit.

“Sorry,” Bob says softly and Phoenix shakes her head.

“It’s my fault, Bob, I should’ve been watching.”

Eden watches the two as they look at each other, a sad conversation passing with glances– something Eden’s realized only backseaters do with their pilots before Phoenix turns back to Eden so she can hand her an ice pack and a bottle of water. She hands Bob the water as well. She begins to do simple assessments, checking for concussions, reflexes, taking blood pressure, and such. Everything she does, she does with confidence. She does assessments and teaches assessments a thousand or more times, her hands don’t shake, and she works with the efficiency of every great doctor she’d seen in her life.

“We’re gonna go land at the hospital so they can do assessments,” the pilot says, “Plus, it's mandated for every ejection too.”

“No worries,” Eden says as she sits back, going to ask Bob a question when she sees him lull forward as if he’s passing out, “Okay, a little worry, speed up.”

“Bob?” Phoenix looks over and he coughs, bringing a hand to his head and Eden’s unsure if the painkillers he’d asked for this morning for his headache are wearing off, or if it’s serious. Internal bleeding, or a broken bone, maybe punctured lungs? Nothing she can easily assess now.

“Bob, what hurts? Talk to me.” Eden sits up, using her leg to drag her medical equipment a bit closer as she grabs a stethoscope that's basically useless in the air, but she's gonna fucking try anyway.

“I… my rigging for my parachute was pulling on my side, it burns now. My whole chest and stomach just hurt a lot.” He says and unluckily, Eden can't undo the top of his uniform without removing the whole thing, so she has to just hold out on the flight to the hospital.

“Just breathe, okay? Try and stay awake.” She speaks, trying to hide the tremor in her tone, “did either of you hit anything on ejection?”

“No,” both pilots echo.

Eden nods, listening to Bob’s heartbeat the best she can through his flight gear. It's strong enough for her to hear it, and from what she can hear it sounds perfectly fine, “Then we most likely only have to worry about the change in altitude, okay?”

The two pilots in front of her nod before the helicopter is slowly descending over the hospital. Eden scoots back, holding onto a handrail as they land and nurses and doctors begin to swarm the helicopter with wheelchairs and gentle reassurances as they guide the aviators into them. Almost immediately, Eden is grabbed by a nurse and she’s asked to explain the symptoms she’d been able to gather from both pilots, but soon they’re moving them down into the hospital, and Eden has no choice but to stand in the waiting area and wait for someone to tell her what’s going on.

And she finds, for the second time, that she abso-fucking-lutely hates waiting.

#bradley bradshaw x oc #bradley rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw #top gun #top gun: maverick #top gun fanfiction #top gun maverick #robert bob floyd #natasha phoenix trace #jake hangman seresin #pete maverick mitchell #penny benjamin

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