#this was a lot of me projecting but not necessarily in the way you'd think

[royalarchivist]

Phil briefly talks about QSMP, the admin situation, Quackity, the new team, and the harassment both Quackity and the admins have been receiving.

Please listen to the clip and read the transcript in its entirety. Keep in mind that things can easily be taken out of context (even this clip, though I did try to include everything he said).

If you'd like to see the full unedited conversation, Phil started talking about last week's interactions with YD and Bad ~1h 57m into today's VOD, which led into this conversation about QSMP.

[ Complete Transcript ↓ ]

—

Phil: Yeah, she's great. Another- another reason why QSMP is just like... fuckin' incredible. That was like, not even ever going to happen without QSMP. Like, obviously it's had its problems, it's go– it's had its problems. Those problems are being rectified. All the people that were wrong'uns have been fired [Laughs] And Quackity's put a new team together. So like, I'm so happy that I'm like– that Q is doing everything he can right now to make it like, right.

But I am still just sad that Chayanne and Tallulah are just asleep, that is just making me real sad. So I've been like, logging on whenever I can to just like, hang out and stuff and just, you know, be around. But I am- I am just sad boy now. [Laughs] I've like– throwing all those penguins into the- the Spawn area was like, my limit. And the like, laughing with YD and Bad kind of cheered me up a bit.

But yeah, I'm sure most of you can agree. It's like, once- once you've been making content on a server a certain way, it's- it's been like, 6 - 8 months of like, the same like type of content I've been making on that server. It's been very lore-heavy, it's been very Egg hanging out with the Eggs and just chilling. Like, not even like doing anything crazy. We would just hang out. But yeah, I'm sure everyone's in the same boat. Like, we all just like, miss that, you know?

So... just gotta wait around. Just gotta wait. Wait for things to get better. Trust in Big Q.

But yeah, moments- moments like the other day, Chat, where me, Bad, and YD were just hanging out just like kind of... you know, it just kind of like... What's the word I'm looking for? Like, drills home how important the QSMP is and can be for connecting people. Not just now, but in the future. And like, that- I feel like that is something that's definitely worth protecting, or something that's worth like, seeing happen in the future with other people. Not even thinking about like, if I'm gonna be interacting with anyone like, thinking about like other people interacting with other people in the future. It's fucking- It's so cool.

Like, imagine seeing like, brand new streamers that you might've not have heard of interacting with people that you know right now. Not necessarily me or people that I know, but like– like, the connections that we've all made.

Dude, Me and Kristin went to fuckin' Switzer-France to hang out with these people! [Laughs] Cellbit and Lore traveled from fucking Brazil to Switzer-France to hang out! The- these connections are like, mental. Just never would have happened without the server, and that's definitely something worth protecting. And like, ensuring it is done the correct way in the future.

That means a lot to us Chat, it does– [Briefly responds to Chat] It means a lot to us and like, obviously the admins being well-taken care of is like, at the fore-front.

And Quackity speaks very highly of this new team. He's like- he's chatted to us like, in calls and stuff. He's been keeping us up to date on everything that's been going on behind the scenes, everything that he can tell us anyways. And like, he is very happy with this new team. He pretty much said that they are like, very passionate about the project, and we can like, trust that he trusts them to do a very good job. So...

Yeah, I'm excited but like, we just have to kind of like, wait. Like, there's a lot being changed around, there's a lot of plans. But the good thing to know is that the people that caused harm have been removed. And now the people that are like, in charge are like, very passionate about the project and just want to see everyone happy and succeed and be taken care of. But these things take time. So we just have to hang about, we have to wait.

[Responding to someone asking about what happened with QSMP and the Admin situation] I'm not going to go into too much detail, you can find out exactly what has gone on, and it's not as simple as black and white. It's- there's a lot of gray areas in there, and it's like very complicated, so you can go look it up yourself, but ultimately, all you need to know is that the initial admin team, the like, head people at the top that Quackity put in charge like ages ago when the server first started were making decisions that were like, not good for the health and also the well-being of the actors, and like, admins and like, the staff. So like, some staff were fine, other staff had a shit fucking time, and it was unfair and terrible and went unnoticed for a while, and then it all came out and Quackity's been like, fixing it since.

Most recently, he stepped down from the team because of like, how serious shit was getting. Like, people online have been fucking awful. And it's very dangerous at the minute for like the ex- like, members of the team, and also him. It's like- it's terrible.

So it's very heated, very– it's– again— and it's not as simple as just like "This- this is– this is right, this is wrong." It's like- it's very- there's a lot of muddled areas, and it's not as easy as just saying "This is exactly what happened." I'm summarizing. I'm literally just summarizing. But all you need to know right now, the latest update is that the team that are in charge are very passionate about the projects and are like, much, much better and will take care of the new people and the admins and all the actors and stuff a lot better than the last fucking team because the initial problem was that Quackity kind of like, took a bit more of a step back and he wasn't like, overseeing every single thing that was going on behind the scenes, but now he's had to- he's had to take a step back, he's been forced to take a step back, but he's left it in the hands of a team that he truly trusts this time. Like, he's actually fully-vetted.

So HOPEFULLY– again: there's more things that need to be done behind the scenes, and I'm not an official spokesperson, I'm just a person playing on the fucking server that my friend has made, and I'm very happy to support him, and I trust that he will do and continue to do the right thing.

But yeah. Not as simple as just [Snaps fingers] "This is this." It's like– there's so much fucking like, middle ground and shit that's gone on. And that's all I'm gonna say on it! 'Cuz otherwise it's just gonna go on and on and on, and people are gonna be like, "What do you know?" and be like "I don't know shit!" And the stuff that I do know, I probably can't talk about right now. There's like, certain things that like, can't be said, for legal reasons and stuff.

#Philza #QSMP #Quackity #QSMP Admins #April 15 2024 #Transcribed #Edited #This isn't the cleanest edit but I was trying to get this out fast

[jennamoran]

The Far Roofs: Systems

Hi!

Today I’m going to talk a little bit more about my forthcoming RPG, the Far Roofs. More specifically, I want to give a general overview of its game mechanics!

So the idea that first started the Far Roofs on the road to being its own game came out of me thinking a lot about what large projects feel like.

I was in one of those moods where I felt like the important thing in an RPG system was the parallel between that system and real-world experience. Where I felt like the key to art was always thinking about the end goal, or at least a local goal, as one did the work; and, the key to design was symmetry between the goals and methods, the means and ends.

I don't always feel that way, but it's how I work when I'm feeling both ambitious and technical.

So what I wanted to do was come up with an RPG mechanic that was really like the thing it was simulating:

Finding answers. Solving problems. Doing big things.

And it struck me that what that felt like, really, was a bit like ...

You get pieces over time. You wiggle them around. You try to fit them together. Sometimes, they fit together into larger pieces and then eventually a whole. Sometimes you just collect them and wiggle them around until suddenly there's an insight, an oh!, and you now know everything works.

The ideal thing to do here would probably be having a bag of widgets that can fit together in different ways---not as universally as Legos or whatever, but, like, gears and connectors and springs and motors and whatever. If I were going to be building a computer game I would probably think along those lines, anyway. You'd go to your screen of bits and bobs and move them around with your mouse until it hooked together into something that you liked.

... that's not really feasible for a tabletop RPG, though, at least, not with my typical financial resources. I could probably swing making that kind of thing, finding a 3d printing or woodworking partner or something to make the pieces, for the final kickstarter, but I don't have the resources to make a bunch of different physical object sets over time while I'm playtesting.

So the way I decided that I could implement this was by drawing letter tiles.

That I could do a system where you'd draw letter tiles ... not constantly, not specifically when you were working, but over time; in the moments, most of all, that could give you insight or progress.

Then, at some point, you'd have enough of them.

You'd see a word.

That word'd be your answer.

... not necessarily the word itself, but, like, what the word means to you and what the answer means to you, those would be the same.

The word would be a symbol for the answer that you've found, as a player and a character.

(The leftover letters would then stick around in your hand, bits of thought and experience that didn't directly lead to a solution there, but might help with something else later on.)

Anyway, I figured that this basic idea was feasible because, like, lots of people own Scrabble sets. Even if you don't, they're easier to find than sets of dice!

For a short indie game focused on just that this would probably have been enough of a mechanic all on its own. For a large release, though, the game needed more.

After thinking about it I decided that what it wanted was two more core resolution systems:

One, for stuff like, say ... kickstarter results ... where you're more interested in "how well did this do?" or "how good of an answer is this?" than in whether those results better fit AXLOTL or TEXTUAL. For this, I added cards, which you draw like letter tiles and combine into poker hands. A face card is probably enough for a baseline success, a pair of Kings would make the results rather exciting, and a royal flush result would smash records.

The other core system was for like ... everyday stuff. For starting a campfire or jumping a gap. That, by established RPG tradition, would use dice.

...

I guess technically it didn't have to; I mean, like, most of my games have been diceless, and in fact we've gotten to a point in the hobby where that's just "sort of unusual" instead of actually rare.

But, like, I like dice. I do. If I don't use them often, it's because I don't like the empty page of where to start in the first place building a bespoke diced system when I have so many good diceless systems right there.

... this time, though, I decided to just go for it.

--

The Dice System

So a long, long time ago I was working on a game called the Weapons of the Gods RPG. Eos Press had brought me in to do the setting, and somewhere in the middle of that endeavor, the game lost its system.

I only ever heard Eos' side of this, and these days I tend to take Eos' claims with a grain of salt ... but, my best guess is that all this stuff did happen, just, with a little more context that I don't and might not ever know?

Anyway, as best as I remember, the first writer they had doing their system quit midway through development. So they brought in a newer team to do the system, and halfway through that the team decided they'd have more fun using the system for their own game, and instead wrote up a quick alternate system for Weapons of the Gods to use.

This would have been fine if the alternate system were any good, but it was ... pretty obviously a quick kludge. It was ...

I think the best word for it would be "bad."

I don't even like the system they took away to be their own game, but at least I could believe that it was constructed with love. It was janky but like in a heartfelt way.

The replacement system was more the kind of thing where if you stepped in it you'd need a new pair of shoes.

It upset me.

It upset me, and so, full wroth, I decided to write a system to use for the game.

Now, I'd never done a diced system before at that point. My only solo game had been Nobilis. So I took a bunch of dice and started rolling them, to see ... like ... what the most fun way of reading them was.

Where I landed, ultimately, was looking for matches.

The core system for Weapons of the Gods was basically, roll some number of d10s, and if you got 3 4s, that was a 34. If you got 2 9s, that was a 29. If your best die was a 7 and you had no pairs at all, you got 1 7. 17.

It didn't have any really amazing statistical properties, but the act of rolling was fun. It was rhythmic, you know, you'd see 3 4s and putting them together into 34 was a tiny tiny dopamine shot at the cost of basically zero brain effort. It was pattern recognition, which the brain tends to enjoy.

I mean, obviously, it would pall in a few minutes if you just sat there rolling the dice for no reason ... but, as far as dice rolling goes, it was fun.

So when I went to do an optional diced system for the Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine RPG, years later, to post here on tumblr ... I already knew what would make that roll fun. That is, rolling a handful of dice and looking for matches.

What about making it even more fun?

... well, critical results are fun, so what about adding them and aiming to have a lot of them, though still like rare enough to surprise?

It made sense to me to call no matches at all a critical failure, and a triple a critical success. So I started fiddling with dice pool size to get the numbers where I wanted them.

I'm reconstructing a bit at this point, but I imagine that I hit 6d10 and was like: "these are roughly the right odds, but this is one too many dice to look at quickly on the table, and I don't like that critical failure would be a bit more common than crit success."

So after some wrestling with things I wound up with a dice pool of 5d6, which is the dice pool I'm still using today.

If you roll 5d6, you'll probably get a pair. But now and then, you'll get a triple (or more!) My combinatorics is rusty, so I might have missed a case, but, like ... 17% of the time, triples, quadruples, or quintuples? And around 9% chance, for no matches at all?

I think I was probably looking for 15% and 10%, that those were likely my optimum, but ... well, 5d6 comes pretty close. Roughly 25% total was about as far as I thought I could push critical results while still having them feel kind or rare. Like ...

If I'm rolling a d20 in a D&D-like system, and if I'm going to succeed on an 18+, that's around when success is exciting, right? Maybe 17+, though that's pushing it? So we want to fall in the 15-20% range for a "special good roll." And people have been playing for a very long time now with the 5% chance of a "1" as a "special bad roll," and that seemed fine, so, like, 20-25% chance total is good.

And like ...

People talk a lot about Rolemaster crit fail tables in my vicinity, and complain about the whiff fests you see in some games where you keep rolling and rolling and nothing good or bad actually happens, and so I was naturally drawn to pushing crit failure odds a bit higher than you see in a d20-type game.

Now, one way people in indie circles tend to address "whiff fests" is by rethinking the whole dice-rolling ... paradigm ... so you never whiff; setting things up, in short, so that every roll means something, and every success and failure mean something too.

It's a leaner, richer way of doing things than you see in, say, D&D.

... I just didn't feel like it, here, because the whole point of things was to make dice rolling fun. I wanted people coming out of traditional games to be able to just pick up the dice and say "I'm rolling for this!" because the roll would be fun. Because consulting the dice oracle here, would be fun.

So in the end, that was the heart of it:

A 5d6 roll, focusing on the ease of counting matches and the high but not exorbitant frequency of special results.

But at the same time ...

I'm indie enough that I do really like rolls where, you know, every outcome is meaningful. Where you roll, and there's never a "whiff," just a set of possible meaningful outcomes.

A lot of the time, where I'm leaning into "rolls are fun, go ahead and roll," what it means to succeed, to fail, to crit, all that's up to the group, and sometimes it'll be unsatisfying. Other times, you'll crit succeed or crit fail and the GM will give you basically the exact same result as you'd have gotten on a regular success or failure, just, you know, jazzing up the description a bit with more narrative weight.

But I did manage to pull out about a third of the rolls you'll wind up actually making and assign strong mechanical and narrative weight to each outcome. Where what you were doing was well enough defined in the system that I could add some real meat to those crits, and even regular success and regular failure.

... though that's a story, I think, to be told some other time. ^_^

#the far roofs #jenna moran #rpgs

[hazbinpage]

Alastor x reader hcs

(not explicitly romantic, but not explicitly platonic, either — you're just really close and important to each other)

WC is a little over 2000 I think

A/N: This is my first time writing like this, and my first time writing for Alastor, so forgive me if it's a little OOC! It has to be, given that he would never be in a relationship in the show, but I tried to keep him as close to cannon as possible. Please enjoy and lmk what you think!

-Your relationship is that of a very slow burn.

-You might have met in the hotel, desiring to better yourself or wanting a place to stay; you might have met through a mutual connection, Mimzy, Nifty, or Husker having been someone you've grown close to and followed to Charlie's project; or he might have considered you one of "fairer means," and protected you from another demon, earning him your respect and fear and causing you to join the inhabitants of his current residence; regardless, you start out as acquaintances living in the hotel.

- Once settled there, you slowly get to know each other. You both start off with observation: Alastor noting how you interact with the others, your ticks, your strengths, your weaknesses, and your flaws; you seeing the subtle and not-so-subtle ways he reveals his power, his distant stature, his observance, his likes, his dislikes, and just how little he truly discloses. He's a mystery to you, and one you're not sure you should try to uncover.

-You mostly see one another in group dynamics in the first couple weeks or so. If you knew him before you came to the hotel, he might have greeted you ("Ah, Husker's little companion, greetings! (Y/N), was it?") Otherwise, though, he would stay mostly silent until Charlie introduced him herself, after which he'd give a short, fairly dismissive, yet exhuberant welcome. After this, you'd rarely speak, both instead watching as the other engaged with the remaining residents' antics.

- After a few weeks of barely speaking, something would change. You'd begin to show a common interest of some sort, be it music, dance, radio, dad jokes, or food. One of you would approach the other, asking for a friendly dance or striking up a conversation about dinner. You might also connect over a common dislike (modern technology/the Vs, dogs [if that's still cannon], being touched, ect.) While you don't have to have a lot in common, one or two things will spark interest in spending time together — something that is necessary for your relationship to progress.

- After a while of hanging out, you'd become friends, or at least friendly with one another — he enjoys having a companion in his interests.

-He'd probably end up initiating all of your time together, though; he's busy and prefers to be in control of his own schedule. He wouldn't mind necessarily if you tried to reach out, not at all, he'd just decline. If he wanted to hang out, he'd make it happen.

-While he considers you friends, he doesn't care about you — at least, he doesn't at first. He enjoys you in the way he might enjoy watching a character in a book, similar to how he feels about Nifty, just not familially in nature like he (seems to maybe) view her.

-Somewhere along the line, underneath his awareness, his interest in spending time with you will shift in purpose from manipulation, or the desire to engage in his hobbies unalone, to actual interest in you as a person. He doesn't notice this change for a while (sue him, he's been busy running a hotel; why would he pay attention to his feelings toward a side character?), but when he does realize what has happened, he'll be fairly confused by himself. Nothing about you is particularly interesting; you're fairly standard, with an average skillset and personal history. Why does he find himself so intrigued by you? So desiring to spend more time getting to know you? He'll admit, you've been a fun dance partner, and he enjoys when you sit with him as he broadcasts his radio show across hell. And, as much as he loves the fear in your eyes at his more gruesome displays, he always appreciates the kindness in them as you catch up over breakfast. Perhaps that was it — it was a lovely feeling to be feared and cherished at the same time — one so unoften given to him by a demon of a lower stature. He supposes little things like this could result in a friendship, however temporary. It's a similar story to how he befriended Mimzy, after all.

-He's decisive and it doesn't take him long to come to this conclusion. He'll start spending more time around you outside of your mutual interests and dragging you along to affairs outside the hotel. He'll have you meet Rosie and try to get you to eat demon meat. He'll respect it if you refuse, insisting it's your loss, but it won't be the last time he tries to "expand your taste."

-He'll be relatively comfortable with you touching him outside of dance at this point, though only briefly and informally (pats on the back, high-fives, a short hug or two if you haven't seen each other in a while, ect.).

-He'll tolerate more nosiness than before as well; he enjoys the attention from someone he knows and likes, and, depending on the question, he might actually answer you.

-He loves compliments; they feed his ego, and he doesn't mind dishing them back out when appropriate.

-That's the extent of your relationship, though: he finds you enjoyable to hang out with (now as a person more than a character, though there's still some of that sentiment), and he spends more time with you.

-The key to moving past this not-close-but-not-entirely-distant friendship stage is to do something out of character for his sake. If you're greedy, give him something he knows is important to you, no strings attached. If you're easily angered or vengeful, let go of previous wrongs to spend time with him. If you're shy, stand up to someone badmouthing him, especially if he's not there. Such intentional displays of will and care take him off-guard (as off-guard as he can be with someone he's gotten to know so well — you might not know him, but he certainly knows you) and make him feel very cared for.

-Slowly, after these displays, your friendship will progress. He'll start doing things for you, too — at first, in the form of minor deals, where he still gets something but often less than what he gives. Then there are mere trades, where you have most of the benefits with less security for him. Finally, he'll start giving you gifts and doing favors without charge, just as you have for him, on the condition you haven't tried to manipulate him in any way while he felt out the waters. He's slow to trust even someone who he views as harmless; please let him go at his own pace!

-He spends even more time with you as well, finding his preference to be in your company rather than out of it.

-Over time, slowly but surely, you grow closer and closer together. You trust him, and he…kind of trusts you. He has a lot to lose, so the partial trust is the most he's willing to give. It's also the most he's offered to someone since long before he died, perhaps the most ever, aside from his mother.

-This is especially so, given that he's already bound with a deal of his own. He gives himself permission to indulge in this close relationship with you only while knowing he would abandon or use you if it allowed him to be free. He's so desperate and scared, and he knows he’d do anything to rid himself of his burden. He tries to suppress and devalue the guilt that comes with the knowledge of his own ultimate disloyalty and succeeds only most of the time.

-There's no specific turning point either of you can locate where you became more exclusive than friends. You just know that it was before he moved an extra bed into your room so he could be with you while you slept.

-A couple years down the line, when you're more comfortable with each other, he'll sleep in your presence as well. He'll also be willing to cuddle, if you'd like, but he's going to be bad at it (stiff as a board, that one — plus, even when he gets comfortable with it, he'll almost always think of something he needs to do and leave halfway through). He doesn't necessarily enjoy it, but he loves you and is willing to do things he doesn't actively dislike for your sake.

-He'll let you touch his ears, something he hasn't let anyone do before, and finds he enjoys being stroked on the head. I hc this was something his mom did for him when he was younger as he fell to sleep, and is a major comfort to him now. You're just the only person he trusts to do it.

-Head strokes are also the only physical touch-y thing he'll actively seek out and enjoy; everything else is either for manipulation, to make a statement, something he just kind of lets happen (think Nifty crawling on him), or for your sake entirely. He will, however, not do anything or allow you to do anything he actively dislikes. He's very clear about his boundaries in that sense, and if you don't respect them, it will put a damper on your (already quite fragile due to his guilt and fear) relationship.

-In terms of smooching, he will kiss you on the back of your hand and the top of your head once you've grown closer. Closer still, and he'll kiss you on the cheek when you ask. If you've been together for years, he semi-trusts and fully loves you, and you haven't tried to pressure him to do anything he doesn't want, he might kiss you on the lips upon your request. Even after centuries together, though, this is a very rare occurrence.

-His breath stinks anyway; you should thank him for keeping his unsanitary meat grinder away from yours.

-Speaking of which, you have to hound him to brush his teeth. Almost nothing you say convinces him ("I make people uncomfortable, you say? Of course I do — I'm the Radio Demon! Nothing brings me greater pleasure.") The only point you could use that might get him to semi-regularly practice oral hygiene is that demons could look down on him for it. This is entirely dependent, though, on his mental state and general public status at the time.

- He doesn't care to define your relationship; he lets it define itself. He doesn't know what a QPR is and doesn't care to know. He does want you to be at least semi-exclusive, though.

-He also doesn't care if you view him romantically or not; so long as you respect his boundaries and care about him as much as he does you, he's content.

- While he isn't comfortable with you calling him your boyfriend ("It's far too juvenile a term for one such as myself, my dear!") or your husband ("Haha, don't call me that!"), he's more than okay with being referred to as your partner, significant other, or dearest companion; if he calls you anything but your name to others, these terms are what he uses. He views these titles as more ambiguous than explicitly romantic while still giving the context that you are

his person — the most important individual in his life — and that he will have no other.

-Pretty protective, but you might not see it often. He's fully confident in his ability to keep you out of harm's way; he's one of the most powerful demons in the pride ring, after all. Why would he have to worry? That being said, if you ever did manage to be hurt, he would be beyond pissed. He would broadcast your assailant's screams on his radio show for longer than he ever had before.

- Whether he makes it a point to tell other demons who's protection you're under entirely depends on what is revealed about his character in later seasons. He might be very very public about it, talking about you all the time on his broadcast and angering Vox with his PDA (usually just a hand on your back or something of the like to make a statement). On the other hand, he might keep your relationship very private, fearing that the few demons powerful enough to cross him would use his care for you against him. It's one or the other, in my opinion, with very little room in between.

-Speaking of Vox, he would loathe you. Your existence would both flare up his one-sided crush on Alastor and his desire to see the Radio Demon suffer — you take away any non-existent chance of his unrequited love being returned while also making Alastor happy, which he doesn't want. Vox might try to hurt you at some point, though very much away from the public eye, or to steal you away, but his attempts don't go on for very long before Alastor makes it very clear that he's to discontinue his behavior.

-While a person of any demographic could be Alastor's significant other, it will be harder and will take longer for a relationship to develop between him and someone he views as a threat (your relationship would start with him trying to use you for your power, and it would take a long time to fully stray from that nature), and/or another man (it's by no means impossible to develop a relationship with him as a man; he just seems to have more initial patience and fondness for women in general).

-You'll hear more about his life alive than almost anyone else, and he'll especially speak of his mother. He wishes you two could have met. "She'd just adore you," he'd say. It's one way to know how highly he thinks of you.

-He'd let you hold his staff. You wouldn't understand what it meant to him until it broke during his fight with Adam. If you see the fight, that is, he'd be very hesitant to let you near the battlefield. If you ever find out about his deal before he ends it, it's while treating his wound from his fight with Adam, and the information is spilled more or less by accident.

-Chances are he wouldn't come to you while injured, though, both because he doesn't want you to see him as weak and because he doesn't want his cloudy mind to spill any secrets.

-Overall, his relationship with you is a very slow-to-manifest but close and loving one that he holds very dearly in his heart. The only thing he holds closer is freedom. When the deed is done, though, and you're gone, he might realize his priorities were out of order.

#hazbin hotel #alastor #alastor hazbin hotel #alastor x reader #alastor/reader #reader is a sinner #what a Guy #the radio demon #idk what tags this fandom uses #hopefully these are alr #my writing

[darylbrainrot]

Cold winters ᯓ★

Gojo x F! Reader (8.4k word count)

⋆ SYPNOSIS: you and a classmate get assigned to work on a project together only for your feelings to progress the more you work together.

⋆ INFO: fem reader, modern au, no curses, fluff, classmates to lovers, self-consious thoughts from reader, not proof read, gojo might be ooc, cursing.

You seemed to enjoy cold winters—the snow dusting the ground and creating a seemingly dream-like atmosphere. The only thing you disliked about these snowy times was the countless couples seeming to show up and appear out of nowhere. Shoving their relationships into your face (they were just holding hands) pointed out how you felt lonely with nobody to share your body heat in an attempt to keep warm in these harsh times. Yet your countless failed relationships or situationships confirmed your struggles to find someone interested in you as much as you were interested in them.

This was until a certain blue-eyed boy showed up in the equation; he was cute, of course. You thought nothing more of it, knowing that it wouldn't lead to anything. This was just wishful thinking on your part, believing you would have a chance with him despite the countless number of girls fawning over him—countless prettier girls than you thought.

You met him in one of your high school classes; you actually had him in most of your periods. Your 7th-period teacher has assigned a project with assigned partners, and you were assigned with him. You only had minor conversations with him; most of them were him asking you for help since he wasn't paying attention and was just messing around with his friends. Yet now you'd have to work with him both outside and inside of school to finish this project, which was worth a lot of your grade. You weren't really looking forward to it, thinking that you'd have to do most of the work with him slacking off, yet you still had hope for at least a decent grade.

December 4th.

"You guys will be working on a project with assigned partners; your partners will be shown on the screen, so get to work. This will be due at the end of the month and will be a big percentage of your grade." Your teacher says, You turn to the screen to look for your partner. Scanning through a list of names of your classmates, you find yours: "y/n & gojo." You read through your squinted eyes while trying to search for your name. You were hoping I'd be at least one of your friends from this period, yet you get someone known for being a class clown—someone who doesn't necessarily pay attention… You're hoping it wasn't bad. Being too caught up in your own thoughts, you didn't realize Gojo was making his way toward you.

"Heyyy y/n…" he said, with, of course, an alter motive clear in his voice. "yes, gojo?" You stare at him as he makes his way in front of your table while dragging a chair behind him and placing it in front of you. "You know I appreciate you and respect you, right?" He grins, batting his lashes at you. "Gojo, I'll do most of the work if you at least put some effort into it." You sigh at his antics, moving to put your check into the palm of your hand. "Deal!" he grins at you. "What's your number, y/n? I want to be able to text you if I need help on this project…" He grins at you once again, this smile of his always making your stomach turn. "Oh, uh, do you have your phone on you? I can just type it in if it's okay with you." He nods towards you, gravitating to reach for his phone to give it to you.

"Here you go." He passes the phone to you with the new contact page open already, going to grab his phone while typing your number into it. "Uh, if you have questions or anything, you can just text me. We should set up a day to meet up so we can try to finish this as early as possible so we won't have to worry about it later on." You look at him only to find his eyes already on you. "Is this a way of asking me out on a date?" He smirks at you. "You wish; I just want to get this assignment over." "Yeah, yeah, whatever." He frowns slightly, this action going unnoticed by you.

December 6th.

It was finally Friday. Thank the gods. You had finished a bit less than half of the project with Gojo only doing anything, yet it was Gojo. What did you expect? You dreaded going into your 7th period, knowing Gojo would just be bugging you for most of the period, barely allowing you to do at least some of the work to be considered on track. As your 6th-period bell rang, signaling that you should head toward your 7th period, you started to head toward your class, attempting to avoid other students who were just being loud in the hallway. A stark contrast to your character.

As you entered your class and headed towards your seat, you found Gojo already there, awaiting your arrival. You found him with his head down on the desk next to yours. As you got to your seat, you got your laptop and materials from your bag and placed them on your table. Only now do you realize the soft snores leaving Gojo. Realizing he is asleep, you try your best to keep quiet. This can at least allow you to do some work while Gojo keeps quiet.

As you pull up the assignment on your now-opened laptop, you notice Gojo stirring in his sleep. This was a sign for you to stop your movements, trying to keep quiet, although the whole class was loud— you were surprised at how Gojo can nap in such a loud environment. You kept your eyes on him for a while, looking for when he'd stop moving. As he stopped moving, you turned your eyes back onto your shared document with Gojo. When you decided to finish one of your slides that was half done, you were too focused on gathering your research and typing it down to realize that you were reaching the end of the period.

The end of the 7th period bell alerts you. At the end of this period, you start to pack your things away, only to still find Gojo asleep. You were at least glad your next and final period was a free one, finding this as an opportunity to finish other work and to relax for a while. But Gojo still had a period next; you attempted to wake him up to no avail.

"Gojo, wake up; it's 8th period now, and you're going to be late." You shake him only for him to finally stir in his sleep. "5 more minutes." His voice was groggy from his nap. "No extra minutes; you have to wake up." "I don't want to…" his head still in his folded arms on the desk. "Well, you have to; you literally have like… 3 more minutes to get to your next class, gojo." As you say that, he finally lifts his head off of the desk and looks at you with a pout. "Aren't you going to be late? Or do you care so much about me that you don't care about that?" he says as he makes fake kissing noises to mock you. "Okay, shut up, dude. I have a free period next, but I know you don't, so wake up and get going." He yawns as he stands up, grabbing his bag in the process.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," he says as he drags the 'r. ' You start to head towards the door before Gojo beats you to it and opens the door for you. "Ladies first." He winks at you while you give him a deadpan look, and despite your seemingly reactionless response, you can't help but feel the flutter that's caused in your stomach. Your own body is sabotaging you.

"Thanks," you mutter under your breath as you exit the class. "Since today is Friday, would you want to go to a cafe to try and finish the project?" Gojo asks, with a slight tint of blush covering his face; this also goes unnoticed by you once again. "Sure, just text me when and where." You turn towards him with a slight smile gracing your lips as you turn back around to start heading toward your own destination. Once you turned around, you couldn't help but smile a bit more, knowing this was just a study session, nothing more and nothing less, but you still couldn't help but feel a bit happy knowing he was the one who asked you.

It was finally the end of the day, and you were feeling eager, awaiting a text from Gojo. Yeah, you felt a bit silly waiting for him to text you, but you're just a girl. What? Can't a girl dream anymore? Call it delusions or whatever, but you noticed your feelings growing over time working with him. His small mannerisms rubbed off on you so much that even your own friends noticed. A vibration from your phone caused you to snap out of your thoughts and look at the new notification, only to find it was from Gojo, speaking of the devil.

(xxx)-xxx-xxxx: hey its gojo, I was wondering if you wanted to meet up right now and go to the cafe that's a couple blocks down?

y/n: yeah thats fine with me, meet me in front of school?

quickly saving his contact, you await his response, only for him to respond in a matter of seconds.

gojo: c u there :)

You checked the time; it was 3:25 as you started heading towards the front of the school from where you were originally. Trying to get there slowly so you can find Gojo first rather than him finding you.

You finally exit the school doors and find Gojo leaning on the wall right next to the doors. As you start making your way towards him, he looks up from his phone to look at you. "you ready?" He asks, the sun hitting his tinted lenses, making his eyes barely visible. "Yeah, which cafe are we going to? I didn't know there was one nearby.." "We're going to this small cafe by here; it's pretty good, but I've only been there once." You nod as you start to follow Gojo towards the cafe.

On your way there, you had small talk; there was silence, of course, but it was nothing uncomfortable—you welcomed that silence because it was nice. After awhile, you noticed it started getting cold. You started to regret not bringing a sweater to school today, as the winters were getting colder by the second. You started to slightly tremble, wrapping yourself in your own hands to try to create the warmth that you so desperately needed. Gojo noticed this and decided to take off his sweater and hand it to you.

“Here, take it.” His hand was right in front of you, with his sweater in hand. You wanted to wear it, but, I mean, hell freeze to death as well. “I can't; you’d be cold too, Gojo." You turn to face him with worry displayed on your face. "Nah, I’ll be fine; you need it more than me—I mean, you're practically shivering. The cafe isn’t that far, and I don’t want you to get sick 'cause we have to finish the project.” At this point, you both stopped in your tracks. A sigh left your lips as you took his sweater and put it on.

You let out a barely audible thanks to him; it would go unnoticed by those not paying attention—yet Gojo's attention was all on you, yet you never noticed.

“This is the cafe; it’s pretty small, but I think it's pretty good.” He winks at you, flutters erupting in your stomach, yet you think nothing of them. Just you wishing they’d go away. He goes to open the door for you, muttering a soft thanks under your breath as you enter.

You felt warmth immediately welcome you in this cafe; it was homey; it was particularly small, with open space and windows at the front of the cafe, with a table right by the window. It had a light brown interior with darker brown accents, with paintings and pictures adorning the walls. This and the green plants and flowers that were all over the corners and counters. It was, honestly, a very pretty and nice establishment for one so small.

“This is really pretty gojo; where do we sit?”

“We can sit by the windows; it's a nice view outside, so I think it’ll be nice.” You hum in agreement as you make your way to the table by the windows and place your things down. “Should we go order now?”

"Yeah, lets just look over the menu first before hand.” As you both looked up behind the workers counter to find the menu behind them, you were trying to figure out what to order before deciding to order a matcha latte and a chocolate croissant. You turned your attention towards Gojo to see if he was still contemplating what to order, only to find him thinking extra hard about his decision, finding it funny how the only time he pays decent attention is when it doesn’t regard any school work.

“You decided what to get yet?” You asked Gojo, "Uhhh… I think I might get some kikufuku and a hot chocolate; what about you?”

"Uh, I'm just going to get a chocolate croissant and a matcha latte.”

You both start heading towards the registers to order, with Gojo saying both of your orders. As the cashier starts to read out the cost, you reach into your pocket to grab your wallet, only for Gojo to beat you to it, paying for both of your orders. After the transaction, you both returned to the table to wait for your order to be called.

“Gojo, why’d you pay for both of us? I could’ve paid for my half.”

“It's fine; I mean, I was the one to offer to come here, so it is only a man’s obligation to pay.”

"Let me pay you back at least; I feel bad making you pay for my half." You frowned, feeling bad that he had paid for your order. "The way you can pay me back is for us to finish the project." He has that shit-eating grin on his face, the one he has on his face while poking fun at others. You grunt in response, reaching into your bag to take out your laptop to continue with your work.

"I was able to get some slides done from my part today, but you're gonna have to do a couple of the slides from your part.” As Gojo was about to speak, he got interrupted by the person calling our order.

“Order for Gojo!”

“I'll be right back.” Gojo grins at you. Your eyes follow his person as he walks up to the counter and gets your orders. You can clearly see the cashier trying to flirt with him, trying to make any advancements toward Gojo. You were glad you couldn’t make out what either of them was saying; you knew if you could, you’d get upset. Do you know why? Yeah, it was because you liked Gojo; it was clear now, and you hated it. It would have been stupid to get upset at a girl trying to flirt with him; I mean, you both weren’t even together. But you understood her; he was handsome, and she was also pretty. You were thinking that if you were as pretty as her, if you were that confident, maybe you’d have a chance with Gojo. caught up in your own thoughts that left a bad taste in your mouth, you didn’t realize Gojo was making his way back towards you. You were too busy being spaced out and caught up in your own thoughts, thoughts that you so very much hated.

“You good, y/n?” You were still spaced out, too focused on the worker behind the counter to realize Gojo. He cleared his throat; that was the thing that managed to catch your attention. "Huh?" You say, now staring at Gojo.

"I asked if you were okay; you were spaced out." "Oh, yeah, I'm okay. Did you get our order?" He nods at you while passing you your order as he places his down on the table by his seat. He takes his seat across from you and takes out his laptop as well, getting ready to "do" some work. (He won't do work.)

"We can probably finish a couple of more slides today, so we won't be behind on our work. We should probably do about two slides each? I think that would be good enough so we won't be behind." He hums in agreement, reaching for his hot chocolate to take a sip from.

"What even is this project about?" He says, taking another sip of his hot chocolate afterward. Your face goes blank at his idiocy; you honestly can't believe he got so far in high school. I mean, you were seriously doubting his abilities as of now.

"Are- Are you being serious?" You attempted to hold back your laugh at his simple idiotic actions, yet your attempt is in vain. You're now full-blown laughing, not even trying to hide how hysterical you find his stupidity.

"Oh my god— you're so hopeless!" You're holding your stomach in pain from your laughter; you can't even contain the tears from falling. Those tears of laughter basically taunt Gojo for his lack of intelligence. "What? It's not that funny." He huffs in an attempt to heal his bruised ego.

"Okay, I'll stop. I'm sorry, Gojo." You still had that grin on your face, although you were 'apologizing' for your actions. "We're just doing a group project about ideas for a new software application. Like doing research on our idea, putting down evidence on why this would be a good software idea, and explaining how it would help others. We have a doc that the teacher shared with us; did you not see it?" You ask, still having a grin plastered on your face from making fun of Gojo's lack of intelligence.

He scoffs, trying to play off the incident that just happened. "Yeah, of course I did; I was just seeing if you knew what we were doing." He attempted to gather whatever there was of his shattered ego, clearly and very painfully failing at this attempt as well.

"uh huh."

You grin at his antics, finding them quite funny—and quite endearing as well.

"Okay, well, we should get to work. Ask me if you have any questions or anything else. You have the shared in the gmail I sent you." You say, followed by you taking a bite out of your chocolate croissant, savoring the sweet taste of it. Gojo hums in agreement as quietness follows, both of you—well, at least you—in deep concentration on the work in front of you.

You didn't notice how much time had passed until you checked your phone; it was now 6:50, and it's gotten way darker than it was when you got to the cafe with Gojo.

You sighed as you ran your hands through your hair with a small "shit" muttered under your breath. Gojo caught your disturbance and looked at you through his tinted glasses. "What happened?" You hummed as you turned your attention to him. You nodded to the window, showing how dark it had gotten outside.

"I just noticed how late it is, and I gotta walk home too. I think I have to go home now before it gets darker." Gojo stands as he notices you standing as well, wrapping up your items and placing them into your bag. Going to throw away your finished drink and food before Gojo cuts you from your tracks.

"Let me walk you home; it's too dark for you to walk alone, y/n." You turned to face him, finding his eyes already on your figure. "You honestly don't have to; I'll feel bad enough for making you walk me home while you also paid for me."

"You're not making me walk home if I offered." He has that smirk on his face, the one he always has on. "You don't have to gojo, like, honestly." "Well, I want to, so let's get going; lead the way." You grabbed your bag and slung it over your shoulder while grabbing your trash, as Gojo threw his a while ago. As you started making your way towards the door leading out, Gojo was there, holding the door open for you. Muttering a small thanks as you left the small establishment.

You started leading the way to your house; it was only about 10 minutes away from the school, so you started to head to your school and then to your house. Gojo is right next to you, him being the one that's closest to the road. As you reached the school, you realized you still had Gojo's sweater on, which he lent you on the way to the cafe. You felt a feeling crash over you, your cheeks growing a slight tint of color, although it was already flushed due to the cold—caught in your own silly thoughts of Gojo, all this because of a sweater he lent you. Just a kind action, nothing more, yet you can't help but be stuck in your own thoughts. You didn't realize Gojo caught onto your little actions—not your thoughts swooning over him, but your demeanor. Your reddened cheeks, being stuck in your own mind more and more often, and seemingly being in your own little world—in a kind and soft reverie.

His eyes were on you, hyperfocused on you and only you. Thinking you were some sort of angel only for him and nobody else, he knew that was false; you weren't his, but he wished you were. Time passed so fast with both of you stuck in a reverie of each other. You didn't even notice the fact you'd arrived at your home, only figuring you were there when you were right in front of your house.

You sighed as you saw the familiar figure of your home, signaling that you had no more time to spend with Gojo. Breaking the silence with you taking off his sweater and handing it to him.

"Thanks for walking me home, paying for my things at the cafe, and lending me your sweater, Gojo." A smile graced your lips as you recalled those events as you handed him his sweater back. Although they just happened today, you were already reminiscing about them. "Yeah, of course, y/n." You nod in his direction before remembering something.

"Text me when you get home, Gojo; make sure to be safe." He nods at your request before walking off to his house as you enter your own.

About 15 minutes later, you received a text from Gojo.

Gojo: i just got home rn

Gojo: i hope u enjoyed that cafe too

Grinning at his text was nice; although it was nothing special, it was nice knowing he remembered to text you when he got home.

y/n: i actually did enjoy that cafe a lot actually! it was nice, and again, thanks for paying for me

y/n: next time let me pay for both of us to make it up to u pls

Shit—you didn't mean to make that second text sound like that. Was that you coming off too hard? Does it make you sound desperate, wanting to have another study hall with him? Maybe he's going to find you strange for assuming there is going to be a next time? A thousand thoughts are racing through your mind at 100 miles per hour. You were getting anxious at what Gojo's reply was going to be; maybe he didn't see it like you're seeing it, and you're just overreacting.

Gojo: is this ur attempt at asking me on a date ;)

That fucking asshole, knowing him, this is a total him response.

y/n: fuck off bro, u wish i was

Gojo: yeah, i do wish u were asking me on a date.

Fuck. Is he being serious? Maybe you're just overanalyzing it; maybe he meant it as a joke, but that couldn't help your stomach erupt in butterflies. Suddenly, a confidence you didn't even know you had took over, deciding to play with this act of his cocky personality.

y/n: since im not asking you on a date, y dont u ask me on one instead?

Little did you know Gojo was going crazy behind his screen just like you; you felt like a teenage girl fawning over her first boyfriend. Gojo could be in the exact same predicament as well.

Gojo: hmmm, i guess ur right

Gojo: would u like to go on a date with me then, y/n?

You couldn't believe your eyes right now; things were happening way too fast. You couldn't even adjust yourself to how fast things were going. Well, technically, not fast, but seemingly fast enough for you to stress out.

y/n: sure then :)

y/n: lmk when and where?

Gojo: ill lyk then, y/n

You honestly couldn't believe your very own eyes. This felt as if it wasn't real, as if it was just one of your dreams where you got the boyfriend of your dreams.

December 16th

It was already December 16th, and you and Gojo had already finished your project. It was surprising, but you both started spending more and more time together after that study hall you had together. Today was also the date Gojo had planned; you were going to Gojo's house and watching shows, baking, and just spending time together. It was nothing big, but it didn't matter to you; as long as you were with Gojo, it felt like it was the best day.

You were getting ready for him to pick you up in his car; it was surprising when you first saw it until you remembered that his family was well off money-wise. You just wore some casual clothes, not trying to make it seem you were trying too hard. You were in your room waiting for Gojo's text, signaling that he was outside, ready for you.

Gojo: im outside :)

y/n: omw

You bid farewell to your family, telling them you'd be back later on and that you were going over to a friend's house. Leaving the front door of your house, you found Gojo waiting right in front of your house by the passenger seat, ready to open the door for you. As he saw you, he waved at you with a smile on his face.

"Thanks, Gojo," he said, smiling at him as he opened the door for you to take your seat in his car. He hums in response as he turns to go to the driver's seat. As the car sank with his added weight, he was making adjustments to the car's heater to make sure it was warm enough for the both of you.

A nice atmosphere filled the car as Surf by wave to earth was playing in the background, adding a calming sense to everything. It was a nice night out—cold, snowy, and calm. You hummed along to the lyrics, as this was one of your favorite songs by wave to earth. You remembered bringing it up to Gojo once; maybe that's why it's playing now. Maybe he remembered your favorite song and played it just for you.

As Gojo started to pull into the driveway of his house, he told you to wait in the car as he went to open the door. It was a cute action he took, always making sure to open doors for you—something you found endearing. As he opened the door, you thanked him for opening the car door for you.

"What do you wanna do first?" He asked, making his way to the front door with you following close behind him, making sure to walk carefully to avoid tripping on any of the ice. "Hmmm, wanna bake first?" you said, tilting your head at him, although he couldn't see you since his back was facing you. He hummed in agreement.

He went to the front door, taking out his keys quickly and opening the door, waiting for you to walk in first before he entered. Locking the door behind him and placing his keys on the small table by the door. Taking off his shoes as you followed suit and placing them on the shoe rack. You followed him as he showed you where the kitchen was.

"Do we even know what we're gonna bake?" smiling softly at the total clueless actions of the both of you, both of you getting too far ahead of the details in the excitement of today. "Oh, you're right." He deadpans, realizing his flaw in this plan.

"Uh, we can make brownies? I think I have a brownie mix around here somewhere." Scratching his head as he tries to remember where he last placed the brownie mix when he decided to make something sweet to tame his sweet tooth, only for him to figure out he was too lazy to make it for himself; he found this as the perfect opportunity to make it.

“Found it!” He exclaimed as his hand held the box of brownie mix. You smiled at his goofy antics—just anything he does you find cute. “What do the instructions say?” You asked Gojo as you rolled your sleeves up. "Uh, it's asking to preheat the oven to 350." He said, squinting at the instructions on the back while you hummed with his answer, you went to preheat the oven as he placed the mix down.

"What pan do we use?" You were asking as you started pressing buttons on the oven. "We can use this glass one." He said this as he was searching the cabinets for a good-sized container. Humming in agreement, you put the pan beside the oven. You went to grab the mix to read the next instruction. "We need two eggs, 1/4 cup of water, and… a half of oil. Could you grab me that?" He hummed as he went to the refrigerator to grab the eggs. Once he grabbed them, he placed them at the counter. He then grabbed the measuring cup, oil, and water and placed them beside the eggs.

"what's next?" He says this, looking over your shoulder, his breath hitting your ear. "We mix all the things together with the mix." Gojo hums going to grab a decent-sized bowl so everything can fit. Once he found one, he went back to you and placed it on the counter between you both.

"You get the eggs, and I'll measure out the oil and water." You said this as you started to pour the mix into the bowl. He began cracking the eggs on the counter and opening it above the bowl. The only thing he was doing wrong was getting a bunch of eggshells in the bowl. You caught him trying to take them out of your peripheral vision, so you turned your attention on him.

"Gojo, how did you manage to fail the most simple task?" A small smile was evident on your face, growing by the second into a full-blown smile, taunting him. "It's not my fault! The egg was being stubborn." He huffs, trying to convince himself more than you that the egg was why this happened. You sort of forgot Gojo was well off; that's probably why he's not that used to cooking for himself. "Yeah, yeah, whatever you big baby," you giggle at how he looks—as if he's trying to murder that egg for not "cooperating" with him.

After that, things went sort of smoothly. You guys put oil on the glass pan before spreading the brownie mix on the pan. As he was pouring the brownie mix into the pan, you were just watching him; he looked the most focused doing this. As if this is some really important life-or-death action—his tongue slightly sticking out, a habit you've seen him do more than once when he's deep in concentration. His brows were slightly furrowed, creating creases on his forehead between his brows, and his eyes were narrow and deep in concentration on the task at hand. Although he was doing the most basic task known to man, you thought he looked quite celestial to you, as if the gods had bestowed him on you and only you to view. As if he were an important painting made out of gold hanging in an art museum, only meant for your eyes to see and enjoy.

He noticed your quietness when he finished trying to spread the mix evenly. He thought maybe something was wrong, so he turned to glance at you. Only for him to find you staring deeply into his features as if he were food a starving man has been absent from. The thought of you being so caught in your own thoughts about him made him feel warm and flushed. His checks, proving this as a pink dusted his pale checks, adding some warmth to his features. He then turned back to the container of brownie mix he had long forgotten about when he caught you staring. He cleared his throat to try to calm down the sudden butterflies he felt just then.

This also seemed to snap you out of your thoughts as you turned your attention to the pan filled with brownie mix. As if on queue, the oven beeped to signal that it was done preheating and was ready for the dish.

"Are you done with the brownies?" tilting your head as you waited for his response. He let out a small "mhm" as if he didn't trust his own words right now. You went to grab the pan in front of him and placed it in the oven. You went back to your place next to him as you looked for your phone to place a 35-minute timer.

As you were going to grab your phone from its place on the counter, you dropped it onto the floor. You muttered a small fuck under your breath, wishing and praying it didn't leave any new cracks on your phone. As you went to bend down to grab it, you didn't notice how Gojo placed his hand on the counter corner to prevent you from hurting yourself on it.

"Ima set a timer for 35 minutes; you wanna watch a movie meanwhile?" Your phone is now in your hand as you stod up, looking for the timer app on your phone to set the timer on. "Sure, what type of movie?" He made his way to the living room as you followed him while setting the timer.

"Hm—how 'bout a Disney movie? You pick the movie, though." Gojo laughs at how you recommended a Disney movie. Sure, there's nothing wrong with that, but he expected you to say something like a horror movie; a Disney movie seemed out of character for you.

As you both sat down next to each other on the couch, Gojo started to scroll through the Disney+ account he had, looking through some options before he stopped at one. He picked Frozen to watch, and you weren't really surprised. You thought he gravitated to that movie because maybe he and Elsa were related; maybe they were both long-lost twin siblings.

As he clicked on the movie, he started to get himself comfortable on the couch; he seemingly fused with the couch. As the first couple of minutes started playing, you couldn't help but feel your eyelids get heavy and droopy. You felt yourself slip more and more into slumber, so you just laid your head on Gojo's shoulder to get more comfortable. You didn't think anything of it, but Gojo's mind was on fire right now, man. If you could look at him right now, his face was full of a flushed look just because of this small action.

Your breath started to slow down, your breaths becoming shallow, and Gojo realized you had given into your sleep. Gojo decided to get himself in a position where you wouldn't wake up with a sore neck and wouldn't be uncomfortable in your nap. Soft snores left your parted lips now, although you would've hated Gojo knowing you snore in your sleep. Gojo still can't help but find this cute and endearing. He felt almost proud? Proud in the sense that you felt comfortable enough around him to let your guard down and let yourself sleep on him.

A third of the movie passed when your alarm finally rang; you weren't awakened by it, though. Gojo reached for your phone and shut off your alarm as he slowly laid you down on the couch as he went to the kitchen to take the brownies from the oven. Once he came back from the kitchen, he found you sitting up, stretching your limbs as you yawned, rubbing your eyes after you were done with your quick stretch.

"How long was I asleep?" Your voice came out groggy with a light rasp to it, and your hair from the side you were lying on was slightly messy compared to the other side. "Like 30 minutes, I think? Maybe slightly less, but you knocked out after a bit of the movie." Gojo said as he made his way to you, sitting next to you.

"Shit, I'm sorry, Gojo." You yawned again, covering your mouth with the back of your hand. "Your fine, y/n. Are you still sleepy?" Gojo had a lopsided grin, and you clearly looked half awake. You hummed, and you scratched your neck. It seemed as if you just woke up from the best nap you've ever taken. Maybe it was the best nap you took. Maybe it was because Gojo was here with you.

"You wanna take another nap in my room? It'll be more comfortable for you."

"You sure? I don't want to intrude much."

"Why would I ask if I didn't mean it?" He chuckles. You always seemed to ask if he was sure about things he was clearly sure about. He stood up, waiting for you to follow him to his room on the second floor of his house. As you followed him close behind as he made his way up the stairs, once you reached his room, he opened the door for you. It was decorated with a light gray wash on the walls, wooden furniture adorning the walls for storage, and different-sized posters and paintings covering the walls. His room wasn't messy, but there were a couple of clothes piles on his floor. You felt as if his room was a great match for him and his personality, as if it suited him perfectly.

As you made your way to his bed, you shoved your face into his cold pillow, finding it comfortable and refreshing. "Hey y/n?" You hummed as you turned your head to face him. "Yeah?" "You wanna stay over?" You seemed stunned; you didn't really expect him to ask you that; you wouldn't mind staying over with Gojo.

"Actually?" "Of course, why would I ask you if I didn't mean it?" he smiles.

"Sure, I'll stay over, but I'm just going to let my family know." You reached into your pocket to find your phone to text your mom that you were going to stay the night at your friend's house. "Thanks for letting me stay over; your bed is way more comfortable than mine. I don't wanna let this opportunity slip by." Your voice coming out muffled due to your face being stuffed into his pillow again. You already claimed his bed even though it wasn't even yours. I mean, he was okay with it, of course; he's okay with anything if you ask.

"So you just decided to claim my bed?" "Hell yeah, this shit is way too comfortable to pass on, man." He grunts in reply, scooting you to the side as he lies next to you now. "What are you doing?" Your face is finally out of the pillow, and you are now looking at his face, which was staring at yours. "Well, this is my bed, is it not? I'm not gonna sleep on that floor, so you better make space on MY bed." You roll your eyes as your face goes back to laying on the pillow.

A few minutes go by before you start to slightly snore, your face facing Gojo. He felt like a creep; he was just staring at your sleeping figure, admiring you. Sure, it might seem creepy, but it wasn't intended to be creepy. He looked at your slightly parted lips, hair falling from behind your ear, how your chest went up and down with your breaths, and how you'd move slightly to get more comfortable every so often. He didn't even notice him dozing off into slumber as well, he was too focused thinking of you. You were on his mind as he was awake and now as he drifted to sleep.

It was now the next morning and gojo was the first to wake up. He woke up with you in his arms, he wondered if you noticed this too. He felt flustered as if he was just a prepubescent boy who just got their first girlfriend. He slowly removed his arms from your figure as he went downstairs to figure out what to make you and him for breakfast.

He knew he couldn't trust his cooking skills so he resulted to just order food for the both of you. He ordered you and him breakfast from some nearby fast food restaurant with a good breakfast. As he waited for the food to get here, you started to make your way down the stairs.

"Gojo?" Your voice comes out groggy and raspy. "I'm over here," Gojo says, his voice coming out loud so you can know where he is. You followed where his voice came from, finding him in the living room sitting down on one of the couches scrolling on his phone. He looked up from his phone taking in your barely awake appearance. "How did you sleep?" He asks, well based on your appearance you slept pretty well. "Hella good dude, your beds fucking comfortable." Yawning as you made your place next to him.

"By the way, I ordered some breakfast for the both of us," He tells you since he assumed that maybe you were hungry. "Really? Thanks, where did you order from?"

"I ordered from Dunkin', is that okay?" He hears an audible gasp from you. "Hell yeah, dunkin' breakfast is my favorite man." You had a grin on your face, clearly enjoying that he bought you food.

"What did you order?"

"I got you a sourdough sandwich and a matcha latte, is that okay?" That grin on your face only growing more, he assumed maybe because you liked the food he got you. "Oh my god, you're the best person to exist right now, that's literally what I always get." He laughs at this, glad he got you something you liked.

"I think the food should be getting here in like, 3 minutes?" Those 3 minutes went by fast as now you both were sitting in the kitchen enjoying your food. You looked as if you were starving by the way you were eating your sandwich, although you might've found it embarrassing how you were eating right now— he thought the opposite, he thought you looked quite cute.

As you both were finishing up your food and drinks, you thanked gojo for buying your food and persisted in paying him back. He, of course, denied your pleas. You sighed and gave up on begging him to let you pay him back.

You two were now relaxing in the living room, watching some random show on the television yet you two weren't really invested in it. You were both just having a conversation about anything and anything coming to mind. Amidst your conversation, Gojo brought up how you can just call him his first name, you agreed with this as you found it more fitting now. The room fills with both of your voices with occasional laughter erupting from both of you. Both of you clearly enjoyed each other's presence, whether it was quite or loud, you just enjoyed spending time with each other. As it became quite, you realized you should probably go home now. Sighing in realization you broke the silence.

"Hey Satoru, I think I have to head home now." You frowned slightly, not wanting to go home as you were spending quality time with him. Gojo hums in acknowledgment, feeling upset that he can't spend more time with you. Yet, he doesn't ignore the way his first name rolls off your tongue, as if his name was made for you to say. "Let me drop you off, y/n." You hum, knowing that if you protest, Gojo will ignore you. As you went to collect your things and put your shoes on, Gojo went to the garage to heat his car up. Once you were ready, you made your way outside to where Gojo was waiting for you.

He, of course, opened the door for you to enter his car. You told him your address as you were connecting to the speaker, which he told you to connect to. You decided to play Pyramids by Frank Ocean, a song you enjoyed and you were in the mood to listen to it. You were singing along to the lyrics as Gojo was too. You two were having fun, just singing together and talking when you weren't singing.

You finally arrived at your house when you thanked him and bid farewells to him, reminding him to text you once he got back home. You weren't sure how much time passed by when you got a text from Gojo telling you he was safe and sound at his place now. You were spending your time now sending texts back and forth to each other, texting turned into a call. Hours went by as you two were talking and laughing playing Roblox, making fun of some random kid, and praying your account wouldn't get banned the next day.

It was somehow night now, you both were still on call. You two didn't even realize how much time passed. You both basically spent the day with each other. Now here you are dozing off on the call together. It was cheesy, but it was cute. You liked spending this much time with him and so did he, he enjoyed spending this much time with you— he wished he could spend as much time with you as possible.

December 22nd.

It's been 6 days since your little date with Gojo. 6 days where you and him have gotten closer— his and your friends even noticing this. Teasing you both whenever they saw you together, which was most of the time. You both were basically inseparable, spending each available minute together. You spent so much time with each other that others thought you were already dating. Yet you weren't, yet.

You were now at Gojo's place once again in his room, lying in his bed as he was at his desk working on some homework he had for one of his classes. You were just scrolling on your phone trying to find something to do to cure your boredom. This was until Gojo started to spark a conversation with you. It was till the end of the conversation that Gojo finally found the confidence to ask you something.

"Hey y/n?"

"Yeah"

"I've been wanting to ask this for god knows how long because I'm so infatuated by you and everything about you. You make it impossible for me not to swoon over you, I've liked you for god knows how long, even before we started talking. You were just my hallway crush or something, but now, I want you to be something more. I just wanted to ask, I'm sure you got the gist of it but, could I be your boyfriend?" He's now sweating so much, you didn't even know it. He was flushed from head to toe, his palms were clammy, and he was on the brink of breaking due to his nerves.

While you, you were flustered. You knew that maybe eventually you'd end up dating, but you were still caught off guard. Who knew that your long-time crush was here confessing his undying love for you.

"Of course, Satoru. I've liked you too for god knows how much time, I was just scared to act on it. Although you were insufferable most times, that could never stop me from fawning over you at any given moment." You both now had a large grin on each other's faces, glad and released that you could get it out.

As of now, you both were on his bed enjoying each other's warmth and embrace. Talking to each other about anything that sprang to mind, you both were now in bliss realizing that you were both finally together. That you were finally his and he was finally yours, a thought that was always running through each other's mind.

December 31st.

You found it funny how just in a month, you got together. Well, of course, you talked before. But this month, it was more than before, you were constantly together. If not you were on calls, but on the rare occasion when either of you couldn't call— you'd be texting each other constantly. Spending each available minute together, something either of you wouldn't give up.

You two were now strolling around in the city, entering shops when you found something interesting that Gojo insisted on buying you. Hand in hand, gojo carrying the bags of clothes, trinkets, and items he bought you just because you spent a second too long looking at them.

You found it nice how the project was due at the end of the month, exactly tomorrow. Yet that project wasn’t the only thing that was progressing, it was also your and Gojo's relationship that went along as the days.

Now you were thinking that maybe that these cold winters weren't going to be as bad. Now you had someone to share it with, to be cold with, and to be warm with, you could be like those couples you were always envious and yearned for.

Maybe these cold winters will be enjoyable now.

masterlist.

#gojo x reader #gojo satoru x reader #satoru gojo x reader #gojo satoru #satoru gojo #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #fluff #jjk fluff

[eldritch-nightmare]

Mk, so, how about Liu, and any other characters of your choice with an S/O who has selective-mutism, but one day they just randomly decide to say something, but it’s in a completely different language. Idk where I got the idea from.

a/n: i saw liu's name and i couldn't restrain myself. i'm monolingual so i had to use various translation sites so if these are incorrect then i am so sorry. nd i opted to just have the reader randomly say 'i love you' because that seemed like an easy phrase to not butcher. except for liu. with what i wrote, i did have to give a full phrase other than 'i love you' and i put it through multiple translation sites so uhm fingers crossed that it's accurate uhm if you speak danish and it isn't then first off i am so sorry and second off can you please tell me what the actual translation is anyways this is a long note sorry fdhjfh hope you enjoy!!

with a selectively mute s/o that speaks in a different language.

includes: homicidal liu, the doll maker, nurse ann, and clockwork.

warnings: gn reader, it's honestly mostly just sappy, liu downplays a stab wound but that's really it.

HOMICIDAL LIU.

Liu doesn't really think about your selective mutism. You'll talk to him whenever you're comfortable, and if that's never then that's fine with him. All he cares about is your comfort.

Besides, if you ask him, he does enough talking for the both of you. At least... he thinks he talks a lot. It definitely feels like it. And who knows, he probably just teaches you morse code so you two can communicate like that.

And little did either of you know, today was the day you'd speak to him for the first time. And not for good reason, sadly. You see, Liu... isn't necessarily a careful person when it comes to his own safety.

So he may or may not have gotten hurt. But it's not like it's a life-threatening injury or anything like that! Besides, he's taught himself how to treat minor wounds like this. Really, it isn't that big of a deal.

You think otherwise, because, uh, he was fucking stabbed. Who the hell considers a stab wound a 'minor' injury?!

So when you saw him cleaning and stitching up a stab wound, this obviously led to some bickering between the two of you. Liu is telling you that he's okay, while you're aggressively telling him via morse code that he's been stabbed and that he needs to get professional medical attention. But Liu was fine. He's gone through way worse than this, so you really don't have to worry.

But him saying that just leads to you throwing up your hands in frustration as you say, "Dammit, kan du ikke se, at jeg er bekymret, fordi jeg elsker dig?!"

And... well... Liu doesn't really know what you just said but he feels really bad knowing that this is what made you speak to him for the first time.

He'll sigh and apologize for not taking his injuries seriously, and he promises to get professional help rather than just treating it himself. He... is legally classified as dead, so he can't go to a hospital but... I mean... he knows a guy who was studying medicine. And a very suspicious doctor.

THE DOLL MAKER.

Vine's native tongue is Russian, so more often than not he'll mutter to himself in his mother tongue rather than any other language.

He doesn't really care if you speak or not, mostly because he feels more comfortable in the silence. He's not the best at holding conversations.

He was busy making a doll with non-human parts this time around. And you were roaming around his little workshop, inspecting all his half-finished projects and sketches of future dolls he planned on making.

Vine trusts you to be around his work, so he's not worried about you accidentally making a mess or breaking anything but he does find himself feeling a little nervous.

Dollmaking is his passion, it's something he loves doing. And he loves you as well and values your opinion more than anyone else's. What if you think he's not doing a good job? What if you think he could make something better?

You've never given him the impression that you dislike dolls or find his creations and passion to be 'childish' but it's still a thought that lingers in his mind nonetheless. Thoughts like this constantly plague his mind.

But when he glances away from the doll he's working on to see you gently straightening out the dress of another one that's on display, a small smile gracing your lips as you admire his creation...

"Я тебя люблю." The words just sorta slipped out of his mouth, and it took him a moment before he went to repeat what he said in English but you spoke before he could even open his mouth.

"Я тебя тоже люблю." And oh. That's the first time he's ever heard you speak, he thinks.

NURSE ANN.

She too is selectively mute, though she doesn't speak because it physically hurts to more often than not, and also... she sees no real reason to talk, to be honest.

You two probably communicate via sign language or writing, though she'll quietly whisper to you if she has to.

Ann doesn't care if you talk or not. She gets it, even if you two have vastly different reasons for your selective mutism.

She's not going to have that big a reaction when you do talk, though she will tilt her head to the side a bit when you speak in an entirely different language.

It'll probably happen while the two of you are spending time together in silence, Ann doing her own thing while you're sitting nearby.

She was caught up in her own little task, mind empty. She was vaguely aware of your gaze on her, but she only really came back to reality when she heard you sigh and softly murmur to yourself.

"Ich liebe dich."

She blinks, taking a moment to process your words. She... doesn't understand German, but the way you softly spoke the words, and the way you were looking at her with such fondness... well, she had a vague idea of what you said.

And very quietly, she whispers back, "Love you too."

CLOCKWORK.

Natalie seems like the type of person who wants to learn a new language, and even begins starting to, but her motivation for it just evaporates two days after starting and she stops trying to learn. And it's just a cycle that rinses, washes, and repeats itself.

Anyways, she overthinks a lot and needs constant reassurance more than she would like, so at the beginning of your relationship, communication was probably a little rocky.

But you guys manage to come up with other ways to communicate rather than vocally.

She'll catch herself wondering what your voice sounds like, and she'll sometimes wonder if you'll ever feel comfortable enough around her to speak but she doesn't push you to talk.

She understands, trust me.

But she's definitely surprised when you wake her up from her nap just to look her in the eye and bluntly say, "Anh yêu em." and you don't even give her a chance to process it before you walk away.

She's just baffled and confused. What the hell did you just say to her? You just spoke. What the hell did you say? Is she dreaming? She feels awake. She's definitely awake.

Natalie has to dig around for her phone to try and search for the translation of what you said, and it takes her a few tries before she finally manages to type it out correctly. She definitely buries her face in a pillow when she reads the translation. And she ends up falling back asleep.

It's only when she wakes up again that she'll go and find you. She'll wrap her arms around your waist and rest her forehead on your shoulder before placing a gentle kiss there and tiredly murmuring, "I love you too."

#anon #homicidal liu x reader #the doll maker x reader #nurse ann x reader #clockwork x reader #creepypasta x reader #homicidal liu x you #the doll maker x you #nurse ann x you #clockwork x you #creepypasta x you

[faetaiity]

hey if it’s okay with you can you please write the rise turtles helping reader out with overstimulation? thank you! also delete/ignore if you don’t want to!

Hi! yeah, sure! I can write for this! But it's gonna be how I experience overstimulation, which makes me irritable, passive aggressive and want to be alone for the rest of the damn day- You didn't specify poly or separated so I went with separated because it was quicker to write.

Yeah, this is 100% self-indulgent.

Separate! Rise! Turtles x Overstimulated! GN! Reader

Post Format: Headcanons

CW: Crying, Leo getting depressed, mentions of separation anxiety + arguments, and Reader wanting to be left alone in their room for multiple hours (Not necessarily Isolation, but wanting to be in an environment that they can control) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Raphie:

Is the best in terms of reaction

The worst reaction he has regarding you snapping at him is irritation, he will almost never snap back at you

He (mostly) doesn't blame you for your outbursts, he knows what you're going through, and he knows that you'd never snap at him without a valid reason

Hates when you stay in your room for hours by yourself, but he never intrudes when you're trying to calm down unless you're on the verge of doing something dangerous

Tries to keep overwhelming stimuli out of the lair when you're visiting

Yes, that usually can include Leo.

However, the first time you got overstimulated around him did go poorly

He kept asking you what was wrong, pretty much making you want not want to talk about it

At one point it got too much for the both of you (He started getting pushy, irritating you more and making him also start to become irritated) and you just went home to cool off

It took you the entire day to calm down

Once you did, you felt horrible and apologized to him, explaining you tend to get overstimulated really badly around noises and crowds

And asking questions or touching you makes it worse, because being overstimulated makes you easily agitated

He understands and you two talk about what irritates you during these times

He makes sure no-one else bothers you, so that you can calm down quicker

After you've calmed down, please spend time with him, despite the fact that he understands why you need to be left alone, he still feels distressed when you snap at him or can't stand being around anyone.

Leo:

Is the worst in terms of a reaction

He has separation anxiety, so when you leave for hours to calm down and relax, he gets whiny

Often texting you and BEGGING you to let him come in, he swears he won't do anything!

You learned that is a lie the hard way

You relented once, he came in and cuddled you, kissing your cheek softly, making your skin feel like it's getting pricked by needles

You didn't say anything that time, not wanting to hurt his feelings, you felt you could tolerate it as long as he didn't talk or ask questions

Despite the fact that he wants to be in your room while you're relaxing, he gets really aggressive if someone else tries to come in

He once yelled at Mikey to get out when Mikey came to ask you if he could borrow something for an art project

Mikey has never left your apartment quicker lmao

The first time you got overstimulated after you met him was a fucking wild ride

It was a giant argument, making you cry from frustration

He kept getting in your space and touching you up until you snapped at him

He instantly starts freaking out, trying to defend himself (from what you may ask? nothing rational, just thinking his crush suddenly hated his guts) and started asking questions, irritating you further until you left

He got into a depressive episode, almost crying because he thought you hated him, he pretty much was a bit of a simp since day one, so this was a blow to his false confidence

Once you calm down and talk to him, apologizing for your behavior, he calms down as well, understanding that you couldn't help it and that you didn't hate him.

He reacts a lot better now, but please give him attention when you're feeling better, because if he's the cause of your Overstimulation, he'll definitely be in a depressive episode until you are okay with him being around you again.

Donnie:

2nd best reaction out of all four.

ONLY second best because unlike Raph, he will snap back if in a sour mood or if he's overstimulated as well.

If asked, he will leave you alone, only texting you every few hours to see if you're okay

As I've mentioned, he also gets overstimulated, and will ask you if you can leave him alone for a few hours so he can relax.

Also gets aggressive if anyone tries to visit you

Especially Leo, because he's aware that Leo can overstimulate you more than most people can

First time you got overstimulated, he most likely realizes the signs early and backs off

Once you leave, he might wait a few hours before sending you a text

Donnie: Hey (Y/N), you okay? you were pretty irritable when you were here

He won't force you to talk about it, but he is there if you need to talk.

If for any reason, you can't leave while overstimulated, he'll take you into his lab, putting headphones and a weighted blanket on you for your comfort

After either of you calm down from being overstimulated, you two tend to seek each other out, usually to talk about what happened so perhaps you can avoid triggering each other.

Mikey:

Has the 2nd worst reaction

Only because he doesn't get extremely depressed like Leo when you go to cool off, but he's just as clingy

Doesn't like it when others come to bother you but isn't nearly as aggressive as the others.

The first time you got overstimulated around him, he got panicky and started asking you questions, causing you to become irritated

He starts crying a little once you snap at him and it hits you like a truck

You calm down enough to tell him that you just need time alone, which he tries to deny, not understanding why you want to leave him, but eventually he relents and lets you go home

Once you calm down you call him and tell him to come over

It takes him about 20 minutes to come but once he does, he instantly hugs you and apologizes over and over, for what you may ask? he doesn't know, all he knows is that he made you angry.

You tell him he didn't do anything wrong and sit him down to talk about it

He understands once you explain why you got so irritated by his response to you being overstimulated

He does still spend time with you, even when you're in your room trying to calm down

He doesn't interact with you, all he does is draw while on the floor.

When you calm down, please cuddle him, he'll feel so much better.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Made this at 1 am, sorry if it's ass lmao, me sleepy.

#rottmnt headcanons #rottmnt #rottmnt x reader #rottmnt x gn reader #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles x reader #save rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #save rottmnt #raphael #raph x reader #leonardo #leo x reader #donatello #donnie x reader #michelangelo #mikey x reader #fae being a dumbass #chaotic gremlin fae #fae rambles #fae rambling

[writingquestionsanswered]

I have this problem that finally showed up after many years, I'm a few chapters away from completing my book. After almost 5 years writing this through happy times and sad times, I'm finally done! Yet, I can't move on. Instead of being happy to finally complete my passion project, I feel myself grieving the eventuality. I spent years building my world, story, characters etc... and now I don't want it to end, I don't want to complete it. Suffering from success if you will.

Do you have any tips on this fear of completion? My book is set up as a stand-alone, so making a sequel wouldn't work.

Have you ever had this "completion grief" and if so, how did you move on from it?

Thank you

Dealing with Creative Grief When Story is Done

It's normal to feel grief upon completion of a story, especially one that you've been working on a long time and/or has been emotionally demanding. Here are some things you can do to help work through this feeling:

1 - Be Proud of Your "Baby Bird" - Your baby bird has flown your now empty nest, but take a moment to recognize the beauty of this moment... this project you've worked so hard on is now complete and ready to fly away. You've done everything you can for it, so now it's time to let it spread its wings and live a life of its own. As much as it's sad, it's exciting, too. And it's a huge accomplishment!

2 - Find Closure with Celebration - Many creatives find celebration a helpful way to find closure when a project is finished. This can be something small, like ordering pizza or enjoying a glass of champagne, or it could be something bigger, like having a nice dinner out with friends, or even throwing a little party. Having any sort of event to mark the occasion can help it to feel more final, but in a way that is happy and comforting.

3 - Start a New Project - With one project finished and out in the world, you may find it helpful to start planning a new project, or at least start thinking about one. Throwing that leftover creative energy into something new helps with that sense of emptiness, distracts you from creative grief due to the finished project, and heals your heart with enthusiasm for a new world, new characters, and new plot.

4 - Schedule a Future Visit - Sometimes it helps to plan to revisit the completed project in some way at a future date. That could be reading it at some point, if you're able to read through finished projects and enjoy them. It could be creating a collection of mood boards for the story and characters and sharing them with your readers. It might be doing a reading of the first chapter on an Instagram live, or--hear me out on this--writing a companion story. Now, I don't mean writing a sequel or even a story that you'd share necessarily, but more something for yourself, kind of like fan-fiction of your own work, just as a way to get into your story and revisit the characters and world. And truth be told, if you plan to do this--say on the six-month anniversary of when your story was finished--it will give you a sense of the story living on that will help you get through your grief now, but by the time you get to that point, you probably won't need to do it anymore.

5 - Wait for It To Pass - Of course the hard thing about any kind of grief is there's not a whole lot you can do to make it go away. For the most part, you just have to acknowledge that it's there and give yourself the grace needed to get through it. Most of the time, it passes more quickly than you might expect, and you'll be onto something new in now time.

I hope that helps!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[another-lost-mc]

thoughts on obey me as an actual game? anything u wan a change if given the chance?

it honestly makes me mad everytime i think about the obvious lack of effort for world building but specifically for the nobility plotline... sooooo underutilized it's upsetting. like i've read isekai manhwas with better use/grasp of the nobility and political climate... also (can't remember if it's from swd or nb) the fact that lucifer and the brothers' are basically living off an allowance/salary set for them by diavolo is just... ugh. they couldn't have given them actual positions with titles ??? they couldn't have brought their title as princes/lords of the underworld into play ??? like i get they did it for the game, for shits and giggles and idk maybe it's just me lawl

sorry for ranting lmao i've sent asks a couple times and i quite like your insights and takes on things. was wondering if you'd have anything to say 🫡

I love talking about this stuff! I know it's a dating game and the lore/world building is basically an afterthought because the game's focus is on MC's relationships with the characters now, and not necessarily on the world/characters before MC existed or became involved.

I've mentioned before that the world feels really empty to me at times because they don't really talk about characters that exist (in a meaningful way) unless they're the established dateables (or soon-to-be dateables) for MC. Many of them are nameless demons/angels (the demon lords, the owner of The Fall that's been mentioned more than once by his title but not name), generic sorcerers and angels we know exist in the other realms. (For some reason, Uriel has been name-dropped twice with very little info besides that.)

Part of my motivation for developing the angel/demon OCs is to give more context and depth to the world that MC interacts with, even if they don't necessarily interact with MC in their own day to day lives. There are countless Devildom businesses that keep the realm running – who owns them? Who are the demons that develop their technology and vehicles? Who are the demons that acquire the raw materials used to build these items, or design/build the Devildom's architecture and homes? Who are the professsors at RAD and the other students? They're probably not all demons born from nobility, so where did they come from? What do the parts of hell outside the Devildom metropolis look like? Do they live on other levels? Rings? How easy can you travel between them, or why would you want to (or not want to)? Who are the demons that make up the demon armies and where do they live? Also, how in the world did Solomon end up in pacts with so many powerful demon lords, and now that he's not a power-hungry king, how do those pacts serve him (and the demons he's bound to)?

So yeah, maybe I think about the game world a lot because there's so much potential that goes ignored. I understand that the game isn't meant to be an in-depth look at the Devildom or Celestial Realm outside of what's relevant for character development or plot purposes, but it would be nice to have answers for some of the obvious questions that come up over time. Some of the information we're given in Nightbringer feels incomplete or doesn't match the tone/characterization we were presented with in the OG game either which makes me worry about continuity issues and retconning going forward.

(This got long so the rest is going behind a read-more link. lol)

When I started developing/outlining The Fall, it was meant to be a personal interpretation of the game's lore and my own creative spin on filling in all the gaps. At the heart of it, it's a love story between two angels-turned-demons. But the worlds they live in change over time, and there's a lot of nuance and deeper insights to explain how and why those things happen.

Some of the topics I wanted to explore in this project include:

Rank/power structures in the Celestial Realm. Basically, how do the various ranks of angels interact with each other, and how do they view angels with ranks higher or lower than their own?

Xenophobia. How angels and demons interact and perceive the other races/species. Metatron is an angel that was originally born as a human and ascended to the Celestial Realm after being chosen by Father to do so. Knowing that, how does his former human life impact what other angels think of him, if it does at all? (Spoiler: It does.) There's also significant issues that come up with the arrival of fallen angels, although Meta and Azra falling has very different reactions compared to Lucifer and the others later.

The role of the Seraphim. This story begins before the Celestial War with Lucifer, so he and Michael are still the two primary beacons of power in the Celestial Realm. How often do they agree or disagree on handling disputes, and how do they resolve their differences of opinion? I also wanted to explain the role of other Seraphim – basically, it's not just Michael or Lucifer calling the shots, and the other Seraphim are expected to lend their voices to discussions/debates about serious matters and it's treated almost like a council where majority vote wins if they can't all agree on something.

Side note: I really don't like the idea that Michael (or any of the other Seraphs) are free to do whatever they want without any sort of accountability or repercussions. I think the things Michael might want to do (ex. sneaking into the Devildom in disguise) and what he should do (literally anything but that) are two completely different things, and being emotional/grief-stricken isn't a good excuse for a leader that wants to YOLO his way through his problems when he has an entire realm of citizens he is responsible for. Gabriel is my solution to some of Michael's emotional impulses and rash decision making. He's the angel OC that acts as Michael's voice of reason when he struggles to separate logic and reason from emotions. He keeps Michael in-check when he wants to do things that are too erratic or personal, but he whole-heartedly supports Michael's plans or ideas that benefit the Celestial Realm. I like to imagine Gabriel and Barbatos are similar in that way and have the potential to be good friends as they bond and commiserate over their loyalties to leaders that sometimes act like spoiled children.

Fallen angels in general. There are a lot of fallen angels besides Lucifer and his brothers. Meta and Azra are two angels that go through the process of falling together and I had a lot of ideas about how I think that looks on a physical and spiritual level. There are differences for angels that are cast out by the Seraphim for breaking the rules/putting the Celestial Realm at risk vs. angels that choose to fall vs. angels that are punished by Father for defying him regardless of what the Seraphim choose. Azra and Meta's motivations and reasons for how/why they fall are slightly different, and how that plays out (and the impact on the angels left behind) are different too. They don't have a pre-existing relationship with Diavolo to pave the way for their new lives in the Devildom either, so how do they cope? Who helps them start their new lives, and how do they navigate being strangers in a foreign land while undergoing the physical and emotional changes of becoming demons? Diavolo's father is still the Demon King when they fall and it's only Belial's involvement that keeps things from completely going off the rails after their arrival. The fact that Belial himself is a former angel has its own significance. There isn't a manual or one-size-fits-all approach to this either, and Azra and Meta demonstrate how the Devildom's negligence of their newest citizens can lead to disastrous results sooner or later.

Navigating tension and conflict between the Celestial Realm and Devildom. There is violence that breaks out between the two realms, so how does the Celestial Realm respond to that sort of crisis? Once in the Devildom, there's a glimpse of how the Demon King (Diavolo's father) handles these developments and why the conflict happened at all. (Spoiler alert: Belial is an antagonist in this part of the story for a reason.)

What is Solomon up to? He has all these pacts with powerful demons and he's no stranger to the Devildom, so of course he's going to be interested to meet some new fallen angels – especially one with as much power and common interests as Metatron. Solomon is very human in this story too. He has his own selfish motivations for getting involved, but he also shows genuine care and concern for those he considers friends. He gets involved maybe more than he should, but for good reasons. He's a useful bridge to help the demons understand some of the obvious implications of having ex-angels living in their world. He also manipulates things a bit behind the scenes because of his connection to Barbatos (and therefore Diavolo) but there's no immature feud souring their relationship in this story. (Gonna be honest, I do not think Barbatos's problem with Solomon had anything to do with his place on Solomon's list of demons.)

Lesser demons and the nobility. I wanted to explore the lives of lesser demons versus the lives of noble demons. Where they live, what they do for a living, how they view demons of higher/lower ranks than themselves and other races. Zee's an example of a lesser demon who does whatever he needs to do to earn a living for himself, and Azra doesn't have much clout behind him so they almost meet each other as equals. It's an interesting look at their friendship and the way connections to more powerful demons (like Belial) help them both make better lives for themselves in the central Devildom where they eventually grow their business and social reputations. Meta, despite being a fallen Seraph, has practically no motivation or reputation to speak of and this has its own consequences later. But Zee's not the only lesser demons in this story, and if you thought the nobility in Nightbringer had problems with fallen angels, the lesser demons are far more hostile towards them – they're the ones on the front lines whenever war with the Celestial Realm breaks out, so its understandable they might not be very welcoming. For the demon nobility, the ones that aren't actively criticising fallen angels are mostly indifferent to them, but that's not such a great thing either.

There are other areas I wonder about that I don't explore in The Fall, but I hope to do so for the various OCs and their stories. The Devildom's power hierarchy/use of titles is one of them. The demons of the Ars Goetia all of their own armies at their disposal, and some are dukes while others are kings. That doesn't seem to have any meaning or impact in the game world, but surely there are ways that can affect how the demon nobility interacts with each other? It certainly made a difference to Solomon, I doubt he would've wanted so many pacts if the demons didn't have anything to offer him at the time. The how and why of Solomon's pacts is it's own area of exploration, which I hope to do with Belial and Bathin.

#I have SO MANY THOUGHTS #can you tell that I studied history #I want to know ALL THE THINGS #jes.replies #jes.world building

[qqueenofhades]

hiii ❣ it's a bit random but do you have any advice for a beginner writer?

i want to write web series and while i'm going to write for my pleasure, i still would love my work to be good enough to have readers.

but while i read stuff and write fics, i don't think it's enough to help me write an original several episode work. + i want to write in english but i'm not a native english speaker.

do you have a textbook or any resource in mind that you'd reccomend to a beginner writer?

Unfortunately, I don't have one single one-size-fits-all resource or silver-bullet magical writing improvement tool that I can recommend, as everyone learns/practices in different ways and some people swear by things that don't work for other people. I can't speak to the value of Grammarly or any other online tool that promises to make you a better writer, as they can often be used to feed your work into AI, make bizarre and/or flatly incorrect suggestions, or otherwise be confusing and unhelpful for a newbie writer, especially someone whose first language isn't English. If you work better within an interactive framework or just want to see if it does seem useful, then by all means do check it out, but don't feel like you HAVE to use it (or anything else) if it doesn't offer much to your process.

As ever, and unhelpfully, my advice for becoming a better writer is to write a lot and read a lot, in all kinds of genres. There's really no get-good-at-writing-quick hack to suddenly get you where you want to be overnight, but you CAN get there by dint of steady and sustained progress. You say that you already read things and write fics -- which is great! You clearly already have some practice with the overall concept, and you are not starting from total scratch. While a lot of writers have a goal of something they really want to do (i.e. in your case, write a web series) and feel like the first one they write has to be The Real and Good One that they only launch into after appropriate years of practice, that's not the case. You can start writing the series now, if you want to. You'll have to also share it with people who you trust to give you helpful and honest feedback (the mortifying ordeal of being known, etc) while also respecting the skill level that you're currently at and not tearing it down for being up to professional standards or something else that doesn't accurately reflect where you are and what you need feedback on. But yes, you will have to write steadily, share your writing with others, and challenge yourself to read and write in different kinds of texts -- i.e. not just fic or amateur fan content, but literature, nonfiction, genre fiction, academia, special interest subjects, and so forth. Writing by professionally published authors is not necessarily always better, but it does give you a sense as to what is deemed marketable, what the general skill level and standard is, and what you might like to emulate or try to do with your own projects.

Also, as a side note, I think that plenty of amateur or fan-written content on the internet is not necessarily outstandingly good, technically speaking. This doesn't mean it's bad -- plenty of people read and enjoy it anyway, and aren't coming in expecting it to be an award-winning piece of fine literature. Standards for what is good, enjoyable, or well-written vary dramatically by genre, medium, what your audience is expecting and/or paying for, and so forth. Some people also have high and/or picky standards for what they will read or what they find enjoyable to read, while others will just go along with the story and don't care as much about the format or technical prowess or so forth. So it is very much a subjective measurement, and if you get to a place where you enjoy reading your own stuff and find it engaging -- regardless of what arbitrary skill level you feel yourself to be on -- chances are that other people will too.

#anonymous #ask #writing advice

[twinsoftriumph]

Do you have any hc for the twins ? Regular or angst ones ?

oh man yes ABSOLUTELY. before i go on though a few Disclaimers. some of these have been alluded to in asks before so there might be a bit of repetition in that regard. and also some will be theory related and moreso going off the assumption that certain extra material is not necessarily Canon in game. also i go into more Individual headcanons later in the post. i won't go into EVERYTHING but this gets long regardless. headcanons below the cut!

concept art related stuff

i've probably brought this up at least 3 other times but it drives me a little crazy that in the concept art timeline, the TWINS are the ones present at the king's coronation ceremony. this pic sucks but it's the only one

this is the first thing that made me believe the twins would have sided with the king in the whole dark stone/light creature conflict

concept art says "The Twins used to lead ceremonial spectacle that honored the King's victories in the Dark Stone Era" which is self explanatory

it ALSO says "Amphitheater was original site of King's coronation" as well as stuff about being free from fire worship and using dark stone for defense.

another reason is valley itself being a city of entertainment even before we got dreams and performance. i'm not saying this was All there was to valley as it seems genuinely culturally rich, but it gives a very Bread And Circuses vibe (superficial distractions from serious problems)

not to mention valley having darkstone contraptions Everywhere.

and who better to lead this than two energetic entertaining athletes?

since they were labeled the "priestess" ancestor in concept art, i think that could very much relate back to the king coronation ceremony. i can see them holding religious ceremonies in the fire era or very important kingdom-wide events (and i'd go as far as to say the king's coronation is religious in its own way due to the godlike powers granted by darkstone)

but on a less dramatic note, i also like to imagine it meant they were in touch with the emotions of their people in valley, offering advice and listening to their troubles Like a priestess would

more personal hc stuff

of course i think there is a genuine significant degree of sibling rivalry, but i ALSO think they play it up for the entertainment aspect. everything in the public eye is a big performance to them

the Sibling Rivalry is a little more complicated than that though due to my belief that they split into two upon falling to the sky kingdom and at times have such insane synergy that you'd think they're the same person because in a way. they Are (i talked about this in an in-character ask once)

but anyway i think they are very smart and aware of how they present themselves to other people and of their influence

they know how to get people energized/riled up regardless of whether they're the ones competing or not. GREAT commentators who can project their voice and capture everyone's attention with incredible persuasion and dynamism

do i think they flirt with the crowd? yes.

due to them representing young adulthood, i think they have a lot of internal contradictions and conflicts that they have a hard time working through

they can absolutely be arrogant and Not in a fun way. they want to feel justified in their convictions especially when it comes to siding with the king so strongly. so basically they doubt themselves but if you doubt them you'll probably just piss them off

they feel their emotions strongly but also have an incredibly logical aspect to their emotions and will get irritated at themselves for "irrational" emotions

they care A Lot to the point of trying to distance and distract themselves from caring, especially when shit is going down in the dark stone era

they love the attention but very much value their time out of the spotlight and even away from each other.

i like imagining that valley has Fights For Entertainment (not like any sort of gladiator to-the-death thing). they'll fight each other once in a while for a crowd but their sparring in private is very different

i think they have petty squabbles over small things but private sparring is letting off steam and being open to genuine criticism. by which i mean they are there to stay sharp and help each other by pointing out weaknesses

there's no aspect of entertaining an audience but it still flows like a dance. it is, however, more... ruthless? no intentionally slipping up for drama or dragging things out or interacting with the crowd

the nicks/cracks in their masks are from each other. i also did an in-character ask for this (i hate how it turned out lmao) but i think the idea i prefer now is that they had an Incredibly rocky time orienting themselves as a split star and dealing with their identity. i dunno maybe they tried to kill each other at one point. just sibling things

at the end of the day they are ride or die

they have adhd. To Me. (<- has adhd)

individual headcanons

they have similarly androgynous voices but there are some distinctions which i am Not sure how to describe. i imagine sah to have a clearer voice that sounds more playful/teasing with a bit of an Edge. for mekh i imagine a more theatrical, regal quality with maybe a sort of... smoothness to it? (this part is especially influenced by how they carry themselves in their cutscene)

sah tends to skirt around what they mean, mekh is more blunt

mekh is slightly taller. don't bring this fact up around the twins

when it comes to theatrical productions, i think it's funny to imagine sah being invested in like. the romance and comedy like Oh my god they were roommates and for mekh to be like YEAHH RIP EACH OTHER'S HEADS OFF and very into the drama

sah roasts a mean dark crab

mekh goes to the counter and says They asked for no pickles (yes i already drew this yes im saying it again)

with other elders

i will quickly reiterate and elaborate on some stuff i've stated before

daleth: noble and gentle, always seems to understand the bigger picture. the twins clashed a lot with them in the dark stone era and treated them rather flippantly, which they regret later on as daleth gave them very important guidance when they were trying to figure out their identity. daleth eventually reached a point where they felt the twins were too out of reach amidst their glory, and interactions were resigned on daleth's part and curt on the twins'

ayin: always hopeful and kind towards the twins, but ultimately they could not truly understand each other. ayin wished to be closer to them and also helped them in designing the valley's architecture. again, with how close ayin was to the light creatures, the twins became rather standoffish and especially defensive in believing dark stone was absolutely necessary to the livelihood of their realm

teth: someone they could connect with emotionally. they had a quiet understanding of each other's feelings of self-contradiction, and teth was not one to demand conversation or vulnerability. teth was, however, someone who would not back down from an argument, so they were more prone to Heated Verbal Disagreements even if they were relatively friendlier. neither are sure they can trust the other's impulses

tsadi: trained with the twins and became protective over them at some point, maintaining a friendly and mutual relationship a decent way into the dark stone era. both feel a great deal of loyalty towards the king, believing themselves to be standing for the good of the ancestors. things eventually sour between them as conditions in now-wasteland degrade, but tsadi blames themself far more for everything that happened than literally any of the elders

lamed: very mixed feelings. lamed recognizes their sheer influence and skill but still finds them to be too impulsive. the twins really are not that shallow or oblivious to lamed's opinions, but lamed is the Genius of geniuses and can come off as condescending or above-it-all even without intending to. stiff in the face of lamed's occasional sentimentality

ok im just gonna. stop myself here because i think my brain is melting from Samekh Thoughts but um. if you made it this far congrats! i hope this was enjoyable to read!

#ask #this is.... so long. oops #i know i didnt go that much into them as individuals but i just have So much to say about them in relation to others #headcanons #sol talks #ooc #thatskygame #sky cotl #sky: children of the light #valley elders #samekh

[onlycosmere]

Boatload of Mummies

Cheyenne Sedai: I'm really curious about Boatload of Mummies because Brandon did mention on his updates that you'd worked on it for NaNoWriMo for the past couple of years which is really cool. And the title is incredible.

I don't know if that's gonna be the final title, but that's what it's always been referred to. How have you been doing with that?

Isaac Stewart:

Thanks for asking us. It's a project that I love. So I finished it. Finished a draft in September of last year. It's rough. It's a really rough draft. There's a lot of things that I'm still working through. I'm trying to narrow down the shape of the plot in a way because there's a little bit of--it wasn't inspired necessarily by these things, but it was after the fact that I realized, "Oh, it's part this, part that."

It's sort of begins King Kong, if you imagined getting people on a boat. And then it continues as Death on the Nile. Then you get to a portion on an island. And then it ends The Mummy. And throw in a healthy dose of Venom. So it's like, "Okay, am I doing too much here?" And that's kind of where I'm at. You know, is this even a thing? Have I thrown too much in? Is this too much of a storyline? And i don't think it is.

It really is in the end kind of a Raiders of the Lost Arc sort of story. You could pull out those some of those same elements and say, "Raiders of the Lost Arc starts out King Kong." But the basic plot line is there. There's going to be scenes in the current draft that are basically finished. I don't think they're going to change too much from the version that it is right now to the end.

Will it be called Boatload of Mummies? Probably not. I can't see that as a title of a Cosmere book, right? But we can affectionately call it Boatload of Mummies as long as we want. The working title is Book of Nails. And whether there's a series title or not, we'll have to figure that out if it's a story that people want to continue learning about.

But let me tell you Nicki Savage is so much fun to write. Don't expect exactly what you get from the broadsheets because she is writing to a particular audience, and has learned some skills from Allomancer Jack--though I do think Allomancer Jack's stories might be closer to the truth than Nicki's are.

You will see parallels between this story and some of the elements that are in the broadsheets.

But she's basically: if you can imagine a Mary Poppins. who is incredibly interested in the supernatural, and is not afraid to beat up people.

That's basically your character right there. And she's just, she's a load of fun. A boatload of fun.

Cheyenne Sedai: I imagine from what you've said that you still wouldn't be ready to give us what could eventually function as a back of the book blurb?

Isaac Stewart: During the first NaNoWriMo that I worked on it we had to come up with our elevator pitch on that, and I wrote the Readers Digest, TV Guide version of it, and it was "A woman with a strange, magical power journeys to an island to find a mythical book that might raise the dead." Something like that.

This particular book is interesting because... How do I pitch this when it's a spin off of a different series. It's a spin-off from Mistborn, technically. But it's not a Mistborn book. You can't pitch that to somebody who doesn't know Mistborn.

And that's been some of the fun in trying to figure this out is "How do I tell a different story here, but then have to reintroduce how Allomancy works? But now in this era, we know about Allomancy, we know about Feruchemy, we know about Hemalurgy. We have crossovers from other worlds. How do you write this book without confusing somebody entirely without... "There's like 50 magic systems in here, and I don't understand."

And that then goes into the pitch. How do you pitch this book?

People who know the Cosmere, you just say it's set on Scadrial, but it's not really a Misborn book. It's just hard to encapsulate and someday I'll figure it out.

#book of nails #boatload of mummies #cosmere #cosmere future #word of issac #cfsbf #brandon sanderson #root #long post

[seafoamreadings]

Hi! I really enjoy your blog, and thought I'd throw a question your way that is both astrology and tarot related. I've seen some info online that associates specific tarot cards with a given sign. I think usually these are meant to be read as sun signs, but do you think there's a more accurate way to go about it? What cards do you associate with each sign? Or if you'd rather talk in more specifics, what tarot cards would you associate with Pisces sun, Scorpio moon, Leo rising? Thanks!

ooh fun question, thank you for including tarot!! i like to remind everyone periodically that's where i have my real roots :) i have been doing astrology for a little over 8 years but i have been doing tarot for much, much longer, and my whole entire family is a tarot family - my mom has been doing this since she was quite young so it predates my existence in my genes. i am the only one who does astrology though lol.

those associations are actually what got me into astrology in the first place. i was a tarot-only girl for a long time and scoffed at such frivolous pursuits as astrology ;) (now look at me, lol)

they are usually meant to be the sign itself, not any particular planet in a sign and not any querent's sign. most, not all but certainly most, of these correspondences come from golden dawn and similar ceremonial esoteric traditions, with some deviations from that system like crowley's (although such deviations are still very similar).

so the chariot for example has the correspondence cancer. for at least the RWS deck and arthur waite's plans for it, that was just cancer, not the sun in cancer, not anything in cancer. just that sign, cancer, and its energies.

now, crowley's thoth deck is layered and layered and layered with extra symbolism. the chariot is still cancer. but you have things a little more specific in the minor arcana, like off the top of my head the four of wands in the thoth deck is called completion, and it is associated specifically with venus in aries.

so it's going to depend on what deck you are using, and whether you are comfortable applying eg the crowleyan themes to other decks. nothing stops you from doing that and it can be useful, but it's not necessarily the intended use, and purists might frown on it. i am not a purist.

a lot of modern artists who make their own decks don't necessarily include any such associations. you could choose to read them utterly without the astrology, or you could project one of these systems onto the deck.

personally when i read cards i don't delve into those astrological correspondences UNLESS something pings in my intuition that reminds me to do so. then it turns out to be relevant. but those are strictly intuitive choices i make on a reading by reading, card by card basis. AND in my head/intuition it changes somewhat. i may draw like, a king of cups, and be like oh, some water sign man. could be any of the water signs. at other times i may have the thoth deck in mind or be holding the actual thoth deck, in which case crowley's intended meaning was specifically the degrees in the last decan of aquarius and the first two decans of pisces, and lady frida harris drew a crab on the card, so i might think more specifically of cancer.

there is a story i think from rachel pollack? about drawing the chariot and a diagnosis, medically, of cancer - a weird association with that card but a valid one. (rachel pollack was a very cool lady btw, if you aren't familiar with her, look into her life and work!)

it's all so situational!

just for fun though, with no particular deck in mind and going strictly based on vibes for the big three you mentioned (some folks may disagree with my picks here) i would say page of cups for pisces sun, the high priestess for scorpio moon, three of wands for leo rising. (but there's not really any tradition applied here. just vibes and my brain.)

thanks again for the very cool question, love this :)

#astrology #tarot #tarot decks #astrology in tarot #tarot correspondences #magickal correspondences #crowley #golden dawn #RWS #thoth deck

[toxicpineapple]

hi, I don't know if you want to tell us more about this but... I saw an old post you wrote about toxic and healthy oumota. I was curious about how you'd write them differently, if you feel like the portrayal of the ship isn't satisfying sometimes.

it's been months since i got this ask. maybe even over a year. but the reason i left it sitting was because i wasn't sure how to articulate my feelings and thoughts and i think i've formulated properly what i want to say now.

so there are two main angles people can come from when they portray oumota in a way that i personally feel is unhealthy. both have to do with reducing either kaito or kokichi's agency.

from kokichi's end, if they kind of soften/wooby kokichi, they'll make him really wimpy and weak and focus on his small bone structure or whatever. really pick on him in the narrative and have kaito charging in to be overprotective and take care of him. a lot of times also they'll have kaito kind of acting as the. what do you call that. "seme"? except in the sense that they'll really like have kaito treat kokichi like an object, often times initiating kisses or more without asking or elaborating. a lot of size play in that dynamic, where kaito will kind of take advantage of kokichi's smaller stature. but this isn't portrayed as a bad thing i need to emphasise, like, it's written as romantic and so cute when in reality it's kinda terrifying-- especially when they'll also write kaito as overprotective and aggressive towards the others who interact with kokichi. so basically you can tell that op assigned them "girl" and "boy" roles.

on kaito's end, you'll see a lot of content where kaito is really really stupid, and wrong, and kokichi is very right. a lot of stuff playing on the idea that kaito is like, a massive hypocrite or coward and everything he puts on is a facade. i don't necessarily take issue with the read that kaito's hero complex is exaggerated -- i personally feel that he projects outwards to hide an inferiority complex -- but sometimes people push it a step too far. kaito's earnest and goofy and he likes helping people, and kokichi is NOT completely correct about him. kokichi misunderstands kaito in a lot of ways. kaito's not wrong about everything and oumota should not exist for kokichi to tell kaito "your entire ideology is flawed, come join my emo band". like i think they work because they challenge each other and if you take away that dynamic on kokichi's end and just make the pairing kaito getting schooled then i'm not into it. i also don't really like this thing oumota fans will do where they won't like. let kaito have friends lol. not that i think he has to keep any particular friends, but he should have friends outside kokichi and his relationship with kokichi. otherwise he's just kinda isolated.

what i want for oumota is for them to have a really strong back and forth. they have conflicting viewpoints in such a way where both of them is correct on the issues where the other is wrong. that's COOL because it means there's mad growth potential for them while interacting. they can challenge each other to think beyond what they've always assumed and they can also cover each other's blind spots in tough situations. i like that! it's cool.

it's important to me also that they HAVE failed each other in many ways. kokichi targets kaito's biggest insecurity repeatedly and intentionally because he fundamentally misunderstands who kaito is. kaito does not understand kokichi from the get go and struggles repeatedly to see what he's really saying, even when he says it outright. there are failures. but then they still choose to work together, they find a common ground and learn to understand each other and when everything seems hopeless, they stand up together against the killing game. that makes them stronger in my eyes than two people who have always been in agreement. this is the RIGHT choice and they BOTH think so. middle ground.

so what i look for in healthy oumota is push and pull from both sides. they're both right. they're both wrong. they can mess up and hurt each other, but i want to see them BOTH apologise and take responsibility; it can't just be kaito saying it, and kokichi DOES have to change how he communicates sometimes in order for kaito to feel seen and heard. simultaneously though, i don't want kokichi to have to change who he is or stop lying just for the relationship to work. i think oumota is strong because regardless, kaito will always chase after kokichi, he will always keep falling for the jokes-- and also, because kaito is a liar in as much the same way as kokichi is. his free time events are full of tall tales just like the kind kokichi is always telling. shuichi just sees them as more benign because they're hoeric. they're silly and childish and i want kaito to see what he does and what kokichi does aren't all that different.

i want them to play together!!! banter!!! wrestle!!!! kokichi pulls pranks on kaito and kaito chases him down and tickles him. they launch into these mad stories about whatever bullshit they made up today and leave everyone else just kind of struggling to keep up. kaito wants a partner who will challenge him and always leave him trying to get the next point. kokichi wants someone who will chase him to the ends of the earth and meet his eyes when he shows who he is. they ARE each other's ideals, they ARE the best for each other.

just. you know. some people aren't really sure how to write that.

#oumota #momota kaito #ouma kokichi

[literaticat]

Hi, Jenn! I don’t know how to phrase this without seeming arrogant or whiny, but I write a LOT. I feel like I would be a good candidate for IP work. I think I’m listed on my agency’s site as being open to IP, but how does that actually happen? Should I push the IP idea with my agent? Do I need to reach out myself?

It doesn't sound arrogant or whiny, it just sounds like a fact. You write a lot and think you would be a good candidate for IP work. Fair enough!

In my experience that usually happens in one of two ways:

-- An editor approaches me about a specific published author I rep. Like, they are looking for somebody who is already published or "known" in some way -- like, "Because Maggie Tokuda-Hall is known for her YA sapphic mermaid fantasy, would Maggie be interested in writing a gay YA romance between Aquaman and Namor set in the baroque underwater world of Atlantis?" -- they might then want Maggie to write a little sample, or they might consider her already-published work to be sample enough, either way, the point is, they are coming to me in this example BECAUSE SHE'S MAGGIE, they aren't looking for some random other person. IF she doesn't want to do it, they'd choose somebody else, but it would likely also be somebody who has something of a name.

-- An editor approaches me (or the agency as a whole) and says something like, "Hey, we are looking to do an IP series about a diverse team of junior league Pickleball players -- think "MG League of Their Own but for Pickleball" -- let me know if you have any authors who do voicey and heartfelt MG that have an interest in pickleball!" And then we give them some names of some potential candidates who do contemporary MG and play pickleball (or whatever), who might "audition" by writing a sample. In this case, they aren't going for a specific author, they'd likely be open to newer authors, though it would have to be somebody who fits whatever demographic (in this case, sports-loving, does voicey contemporary MG), and is good at writing quickly and to a specific kind of brief.

The problem of course is, if you aren't already somewhat well-known/well-published, the first one probably isn't going to happen. The second one might! Though of course, we can't control how often these opportunities come up, OR if you'd necessarily be the appropriate choice for every opportunity. Like, if it was about a group of teenage Mexican-American pickleball players, they might want a Mexican-American sporty YA author. If it was a ghostwriting gig for a Picture Book by a specific Chinese-American pickleball child prodigy, they'd want a PB author who is into sports and is Chinese-American. You get the picture.

So while we probably have a handful of these kinds of IP / ghostwriting type opportunities come in every month, they are usually targeted in such a way that a fairly narrow swath of our possible authors would be appropriate.

ALSO: Some editors have databases of possible IP writers and agents who rep them, and are happy to add to those databases. Even if they don't have any projects cooking RIGHT NOW, your agent can reach out to editors who do a lot of IP and say, hey, I have this great person, please think of them if something appropriate comes up. This just makes it more likely that an editor will reach out to your agent when they DO have something.

So I don't think it would hurt to remind your agent: "Hey, just putting it out in the universe that I'm very keen to be considered for IP opportunities, if you hear about something that would be good for me, please throw my hat in the ring! I'd be especially interested in: [XYZ]. And feel free to be kind of specific here if you like, giving both appropriate categories (MG series? YA? PB? Chapter Books? GN texts? etc) and fave genre/style/topics (fantasy? romance? contemporary? sports stories? animal stories?) and, if applicable, any possibly relevant cultural / pop-cultural / demographic components that might come into play (I am LGBTQIA, I'm into theatre, I'm a Blasian comic book nerd and obsessed with all things Wakanda, I'm a horse person, I'm into martial arts and baking, whatever)

In other words, don't say EVERYTHING, nobody is good at and interested in EVERYTHING, and if you are being a little specific with some key words, that will help you stand out from the crowd when an editor is looking for something specific. (Like, if they are looking for a writer for a MG superhero project, they are unlikely to notice EVERY author who just puts "MG" -- but WILL notice somebody who has MG + superhero, or MG + Marvel, or MG + comic book nerd, yanno?) Yes, that WILL leave you out of some potential opportunities -- but if you're a MG/YA person, you probably wouldn't be the best fit for a PB or whatever anyway -- and IMO, it's much better all around to get an IP project that really is a fit for you, rather than just taking a flyer on something that isn't in your wheelhouse. Once you have some under your belt, and you've proven that you're reliable and good, people will think of you for further ones, too.

#IP projects #workforhire

[iraprince]

Hi Ira! I hope I'm not totally offbase in saying I think you'd enjoy CJtheX on youtube's most recent video on 'art sins'

a lot of their advice for avoiding unhealthy perfectionism/authentically building an audience felt like things you've mentioned in the past! plus their videos are just super fun to watch as a fellow ADHD haver tm

hey, thank u for this rec! this is a really cool video. (link for ease, for anyone who wants to see it.)

i will be honest, the delivery style actually doesn't work for me -- BUT i've ended up watching the whole thing anyway while doin my warmups bc, u were not offbase, i heavily agree w a large chunk of what they're saying here and even the stuff i don't necessarily agree w is still articulated in a way i find really interesting and enjoyable

(like notably if ur curious, a lot of the "wrath" segment did not land for me, but not rly in a "i vehemently disagree w this!!!" way but more in a "huh. i guess that's a way to look at it. i don't feel that way" way. but also like, how much is it me actually not agreeing vs. perhaps being a little defensive bc ongoing anxiety/fussiness abt whether or not my work is interpreted "correctly" IS an issue i've always had lol. but also i've had entire fine art projects/series based on destroying/redacting past work! so i think i'm just coming to it from a totally different perspective)

on the flip side, i feel like the lust segment is a part that like -- i have touched on this, re: authentically building an audience, but this person has articulated it so much better re: tying that to marketing specifically in a way i think i haven't ever gotten around to? in that like, yeah, esp when it's your job, you do have to "market" your art, but like, what can that look like in a way that still honors + respects what you're doing and why u do it vs just being a thoughtless kneejerk cycle of actions meant to shove it in ppl's faces and drive engagement. i really liked what they said abt how when ppl are chasing engagement they're probably actually after what that engagement is supposed to symbolize, i really connect + agree w that. just a rly cool discussion of that issue overall

anyway! neat video, i liked it. i think other ppl who follow me will probably like it too. (also don't ever worry abt being "offbase" on a recommendation. like, what's the worst case scenario if u recommend me something and ur "wrong" about it. i'll be like "nah, not for me/i didn't really like that!" and like literally who cares abt that)

[transpoettryinghisbest]

I want to talk about that one line that Godot says in Bridge to the Turnabout. Everyone knows which line I'm talking about, the "proof" that Godot is a sexist and a mysogenist and a terrible person.

Yes, what he said wasn't great. It's been debated that it was a translation error, or it was just him hating Franziska specifically, and not all women, I've seen these points made so many times, but I feel like we're missing the most obvious point. Even if Godot was fully in the wrong and he said something bad, context is important. We should for once see it from his perspective.

Godot has been trapped on that side of the bridge for at least a day, in near fatally cold conditions, trying to look after a child who isn't his. Just a few hours earlier he went through the trauma that was not only taking a life, but the life of his dead girlfriend's mother. And you can argue that that was his decision and a bad decision (and it was) but it's not a decision he ever wanted to make or wanted to have to make. He did what he could in that moment with that adrenaline to protect someone he cared about, and now he's feeling all of that without the ability to even talk to anyone about it. Couple that with the fact that he's injured, he got cut in the face, while probably still really hurts at the time he's talking to Phoenix and Franziska, and not to mention he doesn't know where Maya is. He risked all of this to save someone and he doesn't even know if it worked or was for the best.

Shortly after his lash out at Franziska, he starts ranting at Phoenix about Mia. Possibly because he's trying to project or distract himself from his guilt (which isn't great, but a normal thing for a human to do), but it could also be because his emotions are in such overdrive that he's thinking about everything bad that happened to him at once. Not only does he feel terrible about Misty and Maya, but it reminds him of how much he's still hurting from losing Mia.

Now put yourself in Godot's shoes. You've had a traumatic event happen to you not one day ago and are going through emotional and physical turmoil, and some random loud child (because she's the same age as Maya, he definitely sees Franziska as a child) starts yelling at you for something that in the grand scheme of everything doesn't matter. How would you react? Would you be super kind and understanding? No. You'd probably snap. And that's what Godot does.

This doesn't necessarily forgive him for the comment, and Franziska's initial feelings upon hearing it would be valid. But we can't treat this as a random isolated incident. Even Phoenix says that Godot seems really different. I quote: "There's something different about Godot today... I'm getting such a strong sense of... something from behind that mask of his. Is it anger? Or... Is it... sorrow?". Godot is upset and has no way of letting off steam without hurting anyone.

This was just a speculation that hit me, because I feel like we do it in real life a lot. It's easy to judge someone based on a comment or an action without looking into why they did it, but we have to try to work past that if we're to ever understand and connect with people.

#ace attorney #ace attorney godot #prosecutor godot #aa3 spoilers #aa3 #trials and tribulations spoilers #Ace attorney essay #Ace attorney rant #Idk how to tag this lol #tw murder mention