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mirrortouchedsea · 6 months

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⬛⬛⬛ was seven years old when his mother died. He remembers being sad, mourning her sudden loss in the way children process death. He stayed by her bedside as she took her last breath, holding her hand and crying, begging her to stay. She loved him. She had spent her last moments making sure he knew that he wasn’t alone and never would be, as long as he could keep her in his memory.

He remembers crying out as her casket was closed for the final time, lowered into the ground. Something snapped in him and he was begging her to stay again, begging them to not take her away.

⬛⬛⬛ didn’t come out of his room for weeks afterwards. He sat in his room, cradling a photo of his mother in his hands. His father would leave food for him and he would eat it, never taking his eyes off the photo.

So when his father came home after only two months of his mother being dead, ⬛⬛⬛ was not what one would call happy. Even though he’d started going back to school a few weeks ago, he wasn’t ready for someone else to take her place. Nobody else could ever be his mother.

He got into an argument with his father that night. At seven years old, ⬛⬛⬛ decided that he couldn’t bear to live in a house with a man who could so easily replace the woman he claimed to love. He didn’t know where he was going but he took the clothes on his back, the photo of his mother, and some cash he’d been saving up and just walked out.

He made his way to the bus stop and got on, thinking about where he would even go. He wasn’t sure he could make his way to his mother’s family on his own, as they lived on the other side of the country, and he definitely didn’t want to see his father’s family. So he stayed on the bus as long as the driver would let him stay.

Eventually though, he did have to get off. It was sprinkling out, not enough to make him uncomfortable, but it was a sign of heavier rains to come. ⬛⬛⬛ made his way from the bus stop to a restaurant that looked like it was about to close, but still had the lights on and maybe they could give him some shelter from the rain, at least for a while. He stepped inside and stared at the workers cleaning up the dining room. They looked…concerned that a child his age was alone at night, especially in this part of town, one would say.

They asked him what he was doing out, if he lost his parents, if he was from the area. It’s not safe out here for kids like you, they told him. He doesn’t remember responding, but he must have because they shuffled him to the back of the restaurant to their boss and asked what to do with him. None of them could really afford to take a child in but he hadn’t told him where he was from or where his parents were. They suggested calling the police, but ⬛⬛⬛ started crying at the suggestion, not wanting to get them involved. I can’t go home, he told them, my father is a bad person.

The restaurant manager agreed to allow him to stay for a bit, giving him a meal on the grounds that he’d leave by the end of the week. ⬛⬛⬛ agreed, scarfing down the food like it was the best thing he’d ever eaten.

Over the next few days, ⬛⬛⬛ bid his time by doing dishes, greeting customers, learning to read from the menu. The staff treated him kindly, but they felt distant, unsure of what to do with him, though by the time the weekend came, he hadn’t figured out where he wanted to go. A few of the staff pointed him towards an orphanage in town, but one of the cooks slipped him a one way train ticket to a few cities over, somewhere he could get out of that area, a note attached with directions on where to go to meet someone who would take him in.

He held the ticket in his hand, scanning it as he walked through the station to the loading area, the note clutched in his hand. ⬛⬛⬛ was practically shaking as he entered the train by himself. A few adults asked if he was okay, if he knew where he was going. Yes, he said, I’m just not used to traveling by myself, but my uncle is going to meet me at my stop. That was a lie he’d rehearsed on the way there but they let him be. He had to fight himself to keep from falling asleep and missing his stop, but he must have succumbed to it at some point, as one of the adults next to him gently shook him awake as they approached his destination. He thanked them and hopped off his seat, getting ready to depart the train car and start his new life.

He stepped onto the platform and was greeted by a bustling crowd. It was overwhelming to say the least, so many strange people just going about their day. ⬛⬛⬛ made his way to the staircase where someone came up from behind him, introduced himself as the person who would be taking care of the young boy. He could call him “Priest”, as his true name was of little importance. He asked if the young boy had a name, which the boy muttered under his breath. When asked to repeat it, he said he wished to give up his name, as he no longer wanted to be associated with the person who gave it to him. The Priest agreed with him and said they’d find a suitable name for him soon enough. There were many names in the world, but for now he’d be referred to as the Prodigal Son, or simply the Son for short. The Son found this amicable and agreed to the change. He remembers wondering what that meant, as he had never heard of the word “Prodigal” before, but he would come to understand it in due time.

The Priest taught the Son many things, reading, writing, the history of Japan, things that he remembered being taught in school before his mother passed, but he also taught the Son many other things one would never find in a normal school. The Son learned the art of disguise, impersonation, how to manipulate his voice. Some day, the Priest had told him, he’d be called upon to use his gifts for the greater good. The Son, not knowing any better, accepted this and that his skills would be useful in the future.

The Son went through many identities in his time studying under the Priest. His hair had been cut, extended, dyed and bleached, his eyes were a dozen different colors and none of them. He could mimic any voice after observing the speaker for ten minutes. He went by many different names, though he always came back to the Son. In due time, he forgot his father entirely, but he carried the last photo of his mother with him in his pocket wherever he went. It made him feel at ease, as if she were watching over him from the afterlife still, protecting him from the harsh realities of the world. The photo had faded with time, the wear and tear on it having almost removed her face entirely, but the Son could still picture it perfectly. It had been burned into his mind on the day he watched her take her last breath.

The Son started University at age 17, younger than many of his peers in Japan, and he graduated at age 20. It hadn’t been easy, but he had honed his skills and developed them on the stage, playing off his talents as being simply that, talent and skill, not something he had used to bring about political upheaval in the past and likely in the future.

The Son had kept his distance at University though, going by another fake name and only attending the bare minimum of classes and extracurriculars that were required of him by the Priest. He had begun proper vocal training to learn how to sing, something that he had been told would be useful soon, though he had not been given the details, and further developed his voice by participating in several musical performances, though he still remained rather distant from the rest of the cast and crew, exchanging only the bare necessities of pleasantries and making excuses to get out of bonding time outside of scheduled practice hours.

The Son was a lonely man, and he knew this. He knows this. He is a lonely man. He was about to turn 23 when the Priest finally told him about his newest mission. Do you remember your father, the Priest had asked over the phone. No, replied the Son, not more than I need to, anyway. So you remember you had a father, and he had another wife after you left, the Priest continued. The Son hummed in agreement, Yes I ran away because of her, you know this. Of course I do, but I just wanted to make sure, Anyway did you know he had another son with her? What do you mean by another son? I mean that you are an older brother, and your younger brother needs help. I do not want to speak to anyone else related to that man. Oh but you’ve been training to help your brother, haven’t you, he dreams of being an idol, someone who sings and dances on stage like you. Theater performances and being an idol are two different things. Yes, well it wouldn’t exactly be easy to get you to train to be an idol with no intentions on debuting, so we had to make do. Why should I help him? Out of the love in your heart for your own flesh and blood. I do not consider that old man my father, nor that boy my brother. He has a secret he needs to keep, something I’m sure you’re familiar with of course. What secret? All in due time, Son, will you help him or not?

The Son refused to meet his brother in person for the first few months, preferring to instead communicate only by phone. He had been studying at Reimei academy, he told him, as part of the idol course. His mother loved idols, loved them so very much and it was the only memory he had of her. The Son understood his brother on that level. During their phone calls, the Son learned about his brother’s rival at the school, a boy by the name of Tatsumi Kazehaya who happened to be in the year above him. Tatsumi Kazehaya was perfect in many ways, something that his brother found infuriating. Why couldn’t he be like that? He lamented in one phone call. The Son told him that some people are simply born with talent, and Kazehaya was one of them. His brother relented and continued to update the Son on his progress.

Despite the Son knowing his brother’s name, Kaname Tojou, his brother did not know his, instead choosing to refer to him only as “Onii-chan,” a word that grated on his ears. He was not a cute older brother to be looked up to and in fact he’d rather be doing anything else than be there, and yet. He stayed calm. Once Kaname debuted and got on his feet, the Son would fade back into the background as if he never existed. That was the plan, anyway. The Priest had told him that he would be free to do as he pleased away from his watchful eye if everything went according to plan.

After a year of guiding his brother in the ways of being an idol, the Son wanted to see how he was progressing. Kaname hadn’t said anything about a performance, but since the Son was very good at keeping an ear to the ground, he had found out about a performance between Kaname and Tatsumi to be put on for the entire school. He wasn’t entirely sure what the purpose of that was exactly, but it would be a good time to gauge Kaname’s progress and how well he had followed the Son’s instructions. The Son made his way through the crowd, finding a spot near the front but not where Kaname could see him and he watched the empty stage, waiting for any sign of life.

The projectors came on and a video began playing, a video about the exact secret that the Son had been safeguarding even from his brother. It was a video about Kaname’s mother and how she had ruined the career of one of the best idols that had ever existed in Japan. The energy in the crowd was agitated, vibrating with anger as they waited for the two aspiring idols to take the stage. The Son wanted to run backstage, warn his brother of the impending danger, but could only watch in horror as the curtains raised and the crowd rushed forward. The Son looked on as the two young idols were yanked from the stage, a scream lost to the noise of the crowd, unable to do anything.

When it was over, he had found himself in the hospital waiting room, pacing the length of it as he went over the potential outcome of the surgery. His brother had suffered greatly, that much was obvious to the Son as they loaded the two boys into the ambulance, but how much damage was done had yet to be seen.

Someone approached the Prodigal Son while he was pacing and placed a hand on his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks. Thank you for coming home.

#shay writes #enstars #ensemble stars #himeru #OKAY OKAY. IM JUST POSTING IT IDC I NEED TO GET THIS OUT OF MY SYSTEM #HIMERU BACKSTORY BUT I HAD TO WRITE IT LIKE SARAMAGO IDK IT JUST KINDA HAPPENED #BUT I HAD SO MUCH FUN WRITING IN THIS STYLE YOU HAVE NOOOOOOOOO IDEA #i edited about 3 pages of this and then was like. fuck it i cant do this anymore #hate reading my own writing hate hate hate it but yeah. oremeru backstory #theres more that i want to maybe expand upon eventually but i need more time to rotate those ideas in my mind #so like. runaway meru and then with the priest. but only a little with the priest #also idk when priest died. i know it happened slightly before the current era but idk by how much so.#to me? he was the one who got oremeru in contact with kaname and then died some time between that phone call and the current era #ik they mentioned priest being dead in one of the 1.5 tours i think the mayoshino one but blegh #or maybe it was a scout story idr its not super relevant i'll read it eventually but yeah.#okay enjoy 2.3k words of me just throwing things at the wall

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jumpingjollyrancher · 7 months

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Day 29: Contravention

an action that violates a law, treaty, or other ruling.

"You would flout the base of our very society?" Hades looks aghast at him. He has looked shocked, exhausted, and put out by his actions before. But this is far from those days of teasing and silliness. The sky above them is burning and many are already lost. "We are to care for the star above all! That is our purpose as sheperds of this star."

Despite the ruin around them, Apollo's hair still shines like a golden halo around his head. The smoke streaks on his face only highlight the undimmed glow of his eyes. "Are the people not part of that?" He asks it quietly, tiredly. "How many will you sacrifice for this...stopgap? It will not address the cause, only add a thicker barrier."

"It will reshape everything to protect us from this, this decay!" Hades grabs his arm. "It will secure our future. Why do you think so many volunteered?"

"Sacrifice or death is not a choice." Apollo tugs at his hold, but Hades's grip is white knuckled. Apollo covers his hand with his own. Both of their fingers feel like ice, but the touch sparks a flicker of warmth. "I already resigned. I refuse to do this."

"You think you can fix this somehow?" Hades shakes his head. "No, Venat and her lot are dreaming. This is our only answer."

Apollo looks up at the burning sky, the falling stars. They leave burning holes across the sky. For a moment, sparks flicker behind Apollo's eyes and he exhales. "Maybe you're right. But I will not take part. I have my own path."

Hades's eyebrows knit. "What have you seen?"

"Nothing. I cannot tell you if this is fate or folly. We are on our own." Apollo turns back to him. He kisses Hades's forehead. "Goodbye, Hades."

It sounds final, too final. Hades tries to cling to him, but now the warmth turns to flames. Hades drops him, staggering back. The flames die from him, but Apollo wreathes himself in them like Lahabrea's firebird. "Apollo! You cannot! The Convocation will never forget this contravention!"

"Let them remember it. I will see our people to a future unshackled." Apollo whistles a familiar tune, his favored spell. He disappears in an flash of light, leaving only a scorched street and Hades alone.

Wherever he's gone, whatever he will do, it will come to naught. Hades must do what needs must be done, even if it sickens him. "Fool," he spits. "You will see. We will restore our star and all who lived."

#ffxivwrite2023 #shadowbringers spoilers #endwalker spoilers #Apollo #Emet-Selch #ancients drama~#this will get so edited and expanded when I have more time to think it over and work on it #ffxivwrite

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love-songs-for-emma · 11 months

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i think will knew he was special considering he tells hannibal he's all alone and that they're alone without each other. will understands that hannibal is alone even with all the other murderers he surrounds himself with, because he cannot find the same fulfillment in the company of others as he does with will because only will can see him and understand him and take away his loneliness.

hi anon ! thanks for sending this bc it's smth i've been meaning to expand on for awhile. i wrote a post many moons ago abt it and have another ask thats just been Waiting for a proper reply (srry!) and maybe now's the time to address it

okay so. i think this ask is in reference to my tags on a recent reblog, screencapped here for reference:

i think youre right that will is aware that he's special to hannibal, considering he's special enough to be one of the patients hannibal decides to try and coerce into their "Becoming." but! i do question will's understanding of the Depth of his uniqueness to hannibal.

in shiizakana (s2e9), after will finds out about randall tier having been hannibal's patient and margot visits him at home to chat abt hannibal's therapy, will has a bit of a stress fit in his next session:

pacing the room, avoiding the chair. he's questioning what he has in common with hannibal's other patients... he wonders how many others there have been – even bringing up his brief conversation with hannibal's own therapist who tells will he isnt in a particularly unique dynamic with hannibal

but. this is in shiizakana, 3 eps before the quote you're referencing. so let's move forward and see what's changed:

in tome-wan (s2e12), will finally gets to properly speak with the famed dr. du maurier and he asks how they can bring down hannibal. her only advice being

so. hannibal's got a bit of an ego (shocker). and during their next session,, things get a lil dicey. will leans hard into this idea. he essentially lists off all the work hannibal's done to get will to be entirely his

i'd like to argue that will doesn't see this list as a "why im special to hannibal" list but rather a way to stroke hannibal's ego, like bedelia had explicitly said would be hannibal's downfall. bc the fact is,, will Knows hannibal can and likely has done this level of insane shit to others. and narratively,, i'd say a lot of will's dialogue in this scene is influenced by bedelia's advice from the scene before where she advises will to stroke hanninal's whimsey and his need to feel Unique, even god-like. and hannibal even sees will seeing him!

so yeah will's saying "we're unique together," but that's also flattery on his part towards hannibal.! he's using hannibal's knowledge of his empathy to convince him that Only Will Gets Him. he's saying "yes ive been applying myself to your perspective and u are so unique and special." it's will manipulating BACK. (thats our powerful lil gay.) and i'd argue that all these layers of lies and deceit leave little room for truth and Feelings to leak through the cracks. how much of what hannibal says does will believe? how much of what will himself says does he believe?

all of this and we're still left questioning: does will know just how important and special he is to hannibal? well. i'l leave yall with some words from bedelia

#hehe. so maybe will doesnt consciously know he's hannibals whole world. but hannibal has begun to acknowledge it #hannibal knows will. will knows hannibal. they. they!#is this even coherent? i'd say mostly #i def could edit more and put more thought into it but. im simply too tired for that #instead ill simply say thank u anon for giving me an excuse to ramble about this #all for me to end up essentially shrugging and being like ''but anyway. who fuckin KNOWS what these guys r thinking am i Right''#they're so many layers deep in manipulations that i doubt they even rlly know what they feel or have the time to unpack that #but i personally dont think will really Really gets the depth of his uniqueness to hannibal until they're burning patient files #or when he sees abigail again #knowing hannibal saved her. for him.#or ultimately when he's bleeding out on the kitchen floor #(and then i have a Whole other ramble about will's back&forth confusion about his worth to hannibal again during s3a #but thats a story for another post. one ive already made but would Love to expand upon)#i just love saying words alright #this fricken SHOW #hannibal.txt #nbc hannibal #mizumono #hannibal s2 #hannibal lecter #will graham #hannibal #shiizakana #tome-wan #.txt #.png #maria is literally just rambling. hi #asks #ask #anon

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blushweddinggowns · 10 months

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Idea expanded, Rockstar Eddie falling head over heels for Bartender Steve working in a high class club type of joint. He sees him working one night and thinks God damn, he's hot. I'm taking him home tonight.

Except bartender Steve has developed a significant distaste for celebrities and rich people in general because of getting cut off from his homophobic parents for coming out and the general bad way many have treated him at work whilst sloshed. But lucky for Eddie, Steve doesn't recognize him. And even though he started off in a trailer park, the fame has gone to his head a little and he asks Steve out with the full intention of getting into his pants and never seeing him again.

But oh no, would you look at that Steve isn't easy. And what Eddie thought would be a booty call ends up being a ten hour date around the city where he has more fun than he even thought was possible. Just from talking with Steve about anything and everything, flitting to parks and museums. And Eddie doesn't even realize until he's back at his hotel that they didn't even kiss.

And they go out more and more, and Eddie likes him more and more and he finds out where the rich people hate comes from. And it scares him. So he keeps lying. Like an idiot. And he tells Steve a fake last name, he tells him a fake job (which is only half fake because he did used to be a tattoo artist) and he rents an air bnb that he pretends is his own place. And the lies keep getting more elaborate to cover up more lies. And he keeps refusing to meet Steve's friends out of fear that they'll recognize him. And he really just drove himself into a corner here because he is absolutely in love with Steve at this point but how the fuck can you have a normal relationship when you are pretending to be someone else?

Turns out you can't, and Steve finds out the truth despite his efforts. But the twist is, he thinks it's fucking hilarious. After a normal period of What the fuck reaction time he gets over it. But never let's Eddie live it down.

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6/27 Edit: Welp, now there's a fic.

Two fics actually. The other is by KikiZ on ao3 which is great if you're not looking for an explicit fic! Because mine will be. It's also a bit more introspective than what I got going on, and also thus far, hella romantic.

#steddie #steddie ficlet #steddie fic idea #that i am getting too interested in #rockstar eddie munson #steve harrington #eddie munson #just...ideas #we're just talking #steddie drabble #steddie fic #i just like the twist of avoiding classic angst #i find it very funny #all that work and stress and axiety #just for your boyfriend to call you a dumbass with affection #it...intrigues me #if I did write this I think a one shot basis could work #in theory #just in theory

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vulcanhello · 2 years

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star trek the savage trade was. so much. there were implications. there were friendships. there were ten thousand unfulfilled ideas. it was not well written but it WAS a ten course meal of food for thought

the most interesting part of this book was the complexity between spock and valek which was completely disregarded even though it arguably had the most interesting stuff going on. for example; when they meet up again after over ten years

varen is her twin brother, which we’ll get to. but here she’s pretty rude towards spock, despite later telling kirk that she felt bad for bullying him/formally arguing against his existence when they were kids. which. okay. only to LATER find out she’s been amongst humans for over ten years. she even starts this little romantic thing with kirk like this

she does stuff like this multiple times. kirk as the narrator even frequently mentions how ‘un-vulcan’ her actions are

i thought it might have been heading in a direction where she also felt like her emotions were getting the better of her as a kid, maybe making her feel like spock was better than her even being half vulcan, but no. it was just about her going along with every other vulcan’s prejudice towards him. then there was this whole thing where she came to take back her opinions because she respected sarek and amanda so much, and of course once spock grew up and proved himself’ she respected him too. but like. there’s so much there. the main point made here regarding all this was that vulcans underestimated spock because obviously spock is great but he couldn’t earn respect until he proved himself in his profession. until then though it was public debate over his existence. imagine your classmate getting up and arguing you shouldn’t be alive. and the only person who’s disagreeing with her is her brother. WHICH.

next point: spock ‘when i feel friendship for you i feel ashamed’ has longtime childhood friends he still keeps in contact with? obsessed. what’s this? you’re not going to include him in the narrative? bro. varen is apparently spock’s only friend from way back and this isn’t even talked about. it’s basically just the reason why valek was angry with spock as kids but she already didn’t like him so it wasn’t like her brother and spock being friends was a catalyst. what i’m getting at is that this author put SO MANY interesting things in the story and then just didn’t use them. ACTUALLY GOING OFF THAT

obsessed when novels mention sybok. this one’s especially interesting as according to her, sybok was seen as better than spock. in the final frontier novel it went that sybok felt like an outcast already, and was noticeably more emotional than other vulcans. spock, who assimilated and became as vulcan as possible to offset being half human, was still seen as less? insanity. i just feel like there’s so much going on here talking about spock’s childhood and then when you read the end of the savage trade spock’s just chillin with ben franklin absolutely uncaring (which good for him. if i met a childhood bully who was now everything she bullied ME for? i would be ruthless. spock elects to lose to benny frank in chess multiple times so he’s above all that)

anyways there was so much the author could have done with valek because she was really really interesting but her and spock almost never interact and it ends up falling pretty flat. LOST OPPORTUNITIES, like pretty much every star trek book in existence

ok one final thing the spock and varen being vulcan lab partners thing was really cute

#sorry i literally want to tear this book apart with my teeth THERE WAS SO MUCH THAT COULD HABE BEEN EXPANDED UPON #and yet the runtime is filled with kirk and valek trying to get togethr 💀#also like half the plotlines of the first half of the book were completely dropped in the end this was NOT a well written book but bro #whatever happened with valek and spock and varen was ten thousand times more interesting #especially if we wanna discuss spock having a single friend from childhood he still keeps in contact with #i think that’s nice that’s something i want for spock even if it doesn’t really fit his character as someone who felt so alienated from v #vulcans that he ended up in starfleet #i would love to read abt him and varen what do they talk about? apparently varen attended the VSA so #they send their upcoming papers back and forth for editing and in the space version of google doc comments they drop all the drama from #their respective workplaces #ok fr tho i think this part of the book would have benefitted from valek and spock having more interactions. i mean she’s REALLY out here #acting very human and the FIRST thing she does is get on his case about FRIENDSHIP? when literal chapters later she commits the same crime!#i KNOW its bad writing bc in what world would spock admit to having friends but BRO. in the context of the story taking it at face value BRO #also. it was kinda funny that in the beginning of the book kirk is so wow mr spock its like we have a consistent and ongoing mindmeld we’re #so in synch <3 #and then turns around and falls in love with this woman because she’s sooo vulcan #sorry! it’s funny to me. what do you really want sir 🤔#ok kidding i thought the valek / kirk thing was kinda sweet #i need to annotate this book and everything because the only thing mccoy did this whole story was have crazy sex with the ex gf of the #guy who wrote candid which. not my fav of the high school lit but #there was a slavery plot that mostly got dropped with the two alien races from the beginning #i think if i could rewrite any book it would be this one because it was THERE IT WAS ALL THERE. it just needed the talent and the time #okokok im done. for now #captain’s log #trek books #tos

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ineffable-romantics · 9 months

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Some thoughts on why and how I believe Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship would incorporate sex/why I do not read them as wholly asexual:

This is something I've seen the most discourse about in this fandom, and I've had a few thoughts of my own that I really wanted to expand upon in a full meta/character analysis post. I do understand that this can be a contentious topic, so first, let me clarify a few things:

First of all, this is going to be long. Tbh it probably won't be that organized either. I ramble and I'm not very good at editing, so just... you know. Be warned. (*Hi, it's me from 2 days after writing this; I'm really not kidding, it's LONG)

These are all my own thoughts. They might not be hot takes, because recently I've seen more than a few people come to the same conclusions on a lot of these points as I have. But I've also had these notes in my drafts for about a week and a half now, and have been continuously adding to it as things have occurred to me. This post is essentially just somewhere for me to collect the separate but related meta I've been kicking around in my head.

I fully respect anyone who does see and prefer an asexual reading of this relationship. These are my own thoughts and interpretations as someone who is not asexual. I am in the LGBT+ community, so while I do know a few things about the asexuality spectrum, I am by no means an expert.

This is NOT something I expect, need, or even necessarily want the show (or, God forbid, Neil's tumblr ask box) to address. Tonally, it's just not that kind of show. Newt and Anathema's sex scene was very much played for laughs, and it worked for that reason. If the show found a way to address it in a way that was both appropriate for the tone of the show and ultimately satisfying, then great! But there is so much more to this relationship than sex, and I didn't need a kiss to confirm their love, so I certainly don't need a sex scene. As immortal beings (as I assume they'll stay) there is so much of the rest of their lives we'll never get to see. You can headcanon them as asexual and potentially be right. I can headcanon them as not and be equally potentially right. Again, these are just a collection of my own thoughts, because I think the question of sexuality (or lack thereof) is just as interesting a facet of these characters as any other.

Note: Tbh I've been second-guessing this whole post and debated deleting the whole thing several times for being silly or unnecessary, bc I don't want anyone to think that this is the only thing I care about when it comes to this story/characters. But if nothing else, it's inspired me to write in a way that nothing has in a very long time, so I've decided it's worth continuing, if for no other reason than that.

This is going to be a mixed bag of textual reading, subtextual reading, and a full-on reach or two. It's been a while since I've been in an English class, but if my teachers expected me to find a deeper meaning behind blue curtains, you can expect me to read too deeply into the symbolism of a loaded rifle or an ox rib. (This is probably not what my professors had in mind when grading my literary analysis papers but oh well) My point is, if it feels like a reach, I'm as aware of it as you are. I am in no way saying that all (or even any) of my points made were deliberate on the part of Neil or the actors or the writers or the directors. I am no longer the delulu Apple Tree Yard child of my youth, I promise.

If anything said here is in any way offensive or hurtful to anyone in the asexual community, please do not hesitate to message me or comment and let me know exactly what it was. I promise you it is not my intention to do so, and am happy to clarify or outright edit anything that reads that way.

With all that being said, let's talk about why I think Crowley and Aziraphale would absolutely fuck nasty incorporate sex into their relationship.

Note: I am out of practice with essay writing, so I think I'll just go down the bullet points of notes I have been making, and expand on each as best I can

Food

Where better to start than with Aziraphale's introduction to Pleasures Of The Flesh? (Just a heads up, this entire post may feel very Aziraphale-heavy, and with good reason).

This might be the least hot take here. We've all seen the Job minisode. We've all seen That Scene.

Whether this was intentional or not, the symbolism here is off the charts. Eve was tempted by an apple. So why not go a similar route and tempt Aziraphale with another fruit, or cheese, or bread, or literally anything else for his first experience with food? Instead, we go with a huge, glistening slab of fresh meat that he proceeds to absolutely go feral upon, moaning and gasping into his meal while Crowley watches with what definitely doesn't look to be disgust or even satisfaction with a good temptation. There's surprise at the ferocity of Aziraphale's appetite, certainly. But ultimately he looks to be intensely fascinated by it, while the thunder crashes, the music crescendos, and the earth literally shakes around them.

(It's also interesting to note how very little it takes for Crowley to tempt him with the ox rib. One murmured suggestion, a bit of unwavering eye contact, and vavoom Aziraphale immediately meets him in the middle.)

Cut to Aziraphale devouring the rest of the meat with Crowley splayed back on a makeshift bed, drinking wine and continuing to watch him indulge through half-lidded eyes. Outside a thunderstorm rages while they're learning secrets about each other in warm flickering firelight. It's cosy, it's intimate, and if they'd thrown in a bearskin throw blanket, it might as well be a post-coital scene straight out of Game of Thrones.

The next time (chronologically) we see them discuss food is when Aziraphale "tempts" Crowley with oysters in Rome. So Crowley first tempts Aziraphale with meat and then Aziraphale tempts Crowley with what is widely regarded to be an aphrodisiac. Interesting.

And then chronologically after that, the Arrangement begins to form, which has always reeked of a friends with benefits situation. Just to throw that in there.

It's What Humans Do

In the very first episode, we're shown Gabriel's obvious disgust and bewilderment towards Aziraphale eating sushi, calling it "gross matter" and being proud of the fact that he does not sully his body with it. Aziraphale initially tries to defend his own enjoyment in it, before passing it off as something that humans do, as something he simply has to do in order to blend in (which we know very well is not the case).

He does this again in season 2, passing off Nina and Maggie being in love as "something humans do". But it isn't, is it? Angels are beings of love, and can sense it, and understand very well what it is... up to a point. Even romantic love is obviously within their wheelhouse, given what we now know happened between Gabriel and Beelzebub (we'll come back to them).

What the "humans do" that angels wouldn't understand is messy, physical forms of love.

But here's the thing: Aziraphale and Crowley love doing what the humans do. They love drinking, they (or at least Aziraphale) love eating. They love music. Crowley loves driving and sleeping and watching rom-coms and sitcoms. Aziraphale loves reading and doing magic and earning little licenses and certificates for achievement in his various hobbies. They love to playact at being human so much that they've stopped playacting and started building a genuinely human lifestyle for themselves and with each other.

Once together in an unambiguously romantic sense, why do we think they wouldn't also want to explore one of the most prominent, intimate, powerful human expressions of love and desire with each other?

Angels, Demons, & Asexuality

Here's where I really want to clarify that in no way do I mean that sex is necessary for a healthy, fulfilling, and loving romantic relationship, or that the lack of desire for sex makes you any less human. Asexuality is a sexuality as valid and human as any. What I would say is that it is definitely in the human minority compared to allosexuality.

Angels and demons, on the other hand, are predominately asexual. Sexless/genderless unless Making An Effort. (Which, btw, is a concept introduced as early as the original book; why even bring it up as a possibility? Why not keep angels/demons being sexless/asexual as a hard and fast rule, if not to open up the potential for later use? Chekhov's Effort, if you will. And isn't that something that Aziraphale in particular is shown to do time and time again? He makes an effort in French and driving and magic, doesn't he?)

And this is why I don't believe Aziraphale and Crowley necessarily need to be asexual, narratively. There is already a huge amount of ace rep within the angels and demons (and no, not just the horrible ones. Muriel also doesn't "drink the tea" and has no reason or desire thus far to Make An Effort, and there are certainly other angels and demons who aren't horrible like the archangels seem to be who likely wouldn't Make An Effort either).

The central conflict for Aziraphale and Crowley is that they are on their own side, the ones who went native, the ones who are so different in so many ways from their respective hives. It would make sense for them to also break away from traditional angel/demon asexuality.

I say "traditional angel/demon asexuality", because I would also like to note that I would absolutely not rule out demisexuality for either of them. This post is being written to as a response to people who specifically believe that they (like the rest of the angels/demons seem to be) would be sex-averse in a relationship, and that it wouldn't be a factor in their relationship. I could easily read them as demisexual, but I do think there would be no real way of verifying this, because they've never been able to form as close an emotional relationship with anyone else but each other. Certainly not in heaven, and I can't imagine they would be able to form that kind of attachment with any of the humans, who they love and emulate but ultimately regard as the separate species they are. So yes, they could either be allosexual or demisexual, in my opinion.

Then again, now that I think about it, Making An Effort itself could be a great metaphor for demisexuality, since they would be entirely sexless/asexual until they have enough of an emotional connection with someone to consciously manifest otherwise. Since the other angels and demons don't generally form those types of emotional connections with anyone, there hasn't been a precedent for it.

Except...

Brielzebub

We do have a precedent for it now, don't we? Gabriel and Beelzebub fell in love. They are a direct foil for Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship, speedrunning right through their courtship and finding their happily ever after on the other side of things.

For being such a 1 to 1 comparison, it feels deliberate that they did not kiss. They held hands, they were gooey with each other, but they did not kiss. That feels like such a deliberate thing to omit when you know what's to come at the end of the episode between Crowley and Aziraphale.

And going back to the food = sex metaphor for a moment, let's notice how even as they fell in love over the years, even when pints and crisps were there on the table in front of them, they never felt the desire to reach out for them. They didn't need to. It's a date (love story) even if you aren't eating dinner (sleeping together).

Yes, I know Jim liked hot chocolate. No, I am not counting it because I don't consider Jim and Gabriel to be the same person with the same proclivities, and Jim was highly suggestible at the time anyway.

Gabriel and Brielzebub's big happily ever after moment (as of now) was one between two asexual supernatural beings. They did not need to kiss to drive the point home. They showed what Crowley and Aziraphale could have, if they would only acknowledge it.

Crowley & Aziraphale's Dissatisfaction

But they do have that already, don't they? If you really think about it, what do Gabriel and Beelzebub do with each other that Crowley and Aziraphale don't already? They hold hands, they spend time together, they create little rituals, they give gifts, they're visibly and verbally affectionate with each other, etc. They are more or less already in a romantic asexual marriage relationship with each other, aren't they?

And it doesn't seem to be enough for either of them.

At the beginning of the season, Crowley is immediately shown to be unsatisfied with the way things are. Obviously part of it comes from living in his car, but it seems to be more than that (especially since Aziraphale makes it clear that the bookshop is just as much Crowley's as his, implying that he could have been living there the whole time and is choosing not to, for some reason?). You could argue he's feeling unmoored without Hell telling him what to do, but isn't that what he wanted? Isn't that what he still wants, by the end of the season? All season long, he's never indicated the desire for a new job, or a new project. He stopped the apocalypse because he wanted the freedom to openly spend time with Aziraphale, to spend his time on Earth however he sees fit. Until Gabriel arrives, he has exactly that (minus a flat).

So where does the dissatisfaction come from? And if it represents anything to do with his relationship, what does he want out of it that he isn't getting already?

I think Crowley only really comes to the realisation of what he's missing when Nina names it for him, not only putting them in the category of romantic, but physical (outright asking if they are sleeping together). These two posts [1], [2] go into more detail about what I mean, but I think it really pushes him into acknowledging that their relationship is more human than either of them have stopped to consider, and what that might mean as far as everything a human relationship can entail.

After all, Nina and Maggie only advised that he should talk to Aziraphale, make clear his feelings. The decision to kiss him, to tip them over the edge from nonphysical to physical, that was all him. And no, kissing isn't sex, but I wonder how taboo even that might be in the kind of all-encompassing asexuality most angels seem to identify with. (If they're disgusted by food and drink, I can only imagine what they think of snogging, much less sex.)

Aziraphale doesn't have this moment of someone observing their relationship from the outside. He loves Crowley, and as of 1941 probably even knows he's in love with him in a way that Crowley doesn't understand yet. Which makes sense, since love is technically his job, he'd be more likely to recognise it for what it is.

However, Aziraphale's reference for romance and relationships is Jane Austen. It's chaste. It's dancing and dinner and doing sweet things for each other and roses and candles and handholding. He contextualises his love for Crowley in that soft fantasy sort of way, where it's there, it's obviously there, but it's neat and easy and unspoken. Not to quote Glee in this, the year of our lord 2023, but it's all very "the touch of the fingertips is as sexy as it gets".

Someone should tell that to Aziraphale's face, then.

I'm not going to pretend I know what Michael Sheen's script notes were, but there were definitely some Choices™ made. Because yes, there were plenty of moments in both seasons with Aziraphale looking at Crowley in a sweet, loving, smitten way. And then there were moments that were yearning.

But yearning for what, exactly? All of those sappy Jane Austen tropes already apply to the two of them. So why are there moments where Aziraphale is looking Crowley up and down like the last eclair in the window and licking his lips and visibly exhaling like he's trying to get in control of himself (see: Bastille scene + Crowley telling Muriel to ask him if they have any other questions about love)? Why is Aziraphale not only unconcerned when Crowley shoves him bodily up against a wall in s1, but staring at his lips and a beat too late in noticing Sister Mary's arrival? Why are some of his lines so suggestive? I'm sorry, but the car ride after the church explosion might as well have been the beginning of a Pizza Man porn with a really weird Blitz theme. If even my mother picked up on that vibe, I can't imagine it wasn't intentional on part of both the dialogue and the delivery.

(This section may feel like more of a reach/joke, but I'm really only 20% joking. These are writers and actors who are EXTREMELY good at their jobs; they know what they were doing here.)

More importantly, I don't think Aziraphale is even aware that there is more to what he wants. He lives in the Jane Austen fantasy and it never even occurs to him that he might be interested in anything further. It never even occurs to him that, as an angel, there is anything further to be interested in in the first place. Until Crowley forces it to occur to him. Just like I believe Nina forced Crowley to confront the idea that romantic love is what he's been feeling all along, I believe Crowley forced Aziraphale to confront the idea that physical intimacy is something he's been wanting, without even realising.

Aziraphale's Hedonism

Expanding on Aziraphale for a moment. We talked about his relationship with food, but we all know that Aziraphale is defined by his love of things that Feel Good.

It isn't just that he and Crowley love human things. Aziraphale loves the best of the best, or at least his version of it. He doesn't just love food, he loves going to fancy restaurants. He doesn't just love clothes, he loves soft, cosy, warm, plush clothes, or shiny, flashy, bougie fashion. He loves the warmth of tea and cocoa, loves getting drunk, and sitting in a comfy chair in the sunlight. He doesn't just experience, he indulges.

Given the emphasis put on things that Aziraphale loves just because they Feel Good, it feels narratively strange to assume that he wouldn't enjoy the feeling of being touched, or that he wouldn't be willing to try it, at least once, with someone he cared very deeply for. And just like the ox rib, I think that once he gets the first taste of things, he would absolutely tip over into complete and utter self-indulgence.

Dancing

I also think that dancing could be construed as a huge metaphor here. After all, we're told flat-out that angels don't Dance. Except one.

I would argue that Aziraphale, in fact, Made An Effort to learn how to Dance. He threw himself into the gavotte with delight (at a Victorian gay club; noted) and worked hard to be good at it. He's chomping at the bit to Dance with Crowley, working up the nerve to ask him with undeniably romantic intent and eagerness. So, angels don't Dance... unless they Make An Effort to do so.

We are told that demons, on the other hand, do Dance, but not well. Makes sense, since they're the ones who would want to encourage a deadly sin like lust, but have as little understanding of human love and physical intimacy as the angels. Crowley, however, is shown to be an excellent dancer at the ball, especially in his compatibility with Aziraphale.

(But Aziraphale WandaVisioned the ball so everyone knew how to dance! Yes, he did. However, the rest of the brainwashing doesn't seem to affect Crowley in any way, and they did actually live through the time period where this sort of dancing was a social norm; I'd be surprised if he never needed to learn. After all, the demons can't spell either, and Crowley is at least functionally literate, as far as we know.)

As of today, it's also been confirmed that when Aziraphale asked Crowley to dance, Crowley replied with "you don't dance." Not "WE don't dance". So going along with the metaphor, Crowley is just now discovering that Dancing is something Aziraphale is interested in at all, much less with him, and not denying that he himself is interested in Dancing. In his defense, I believe he was asleep for a few years while Aziraphale was learning the gavotte, so he wasn't exactly aware of Aziraphale's hot girl summer.

Love Languages

I want to expand on that; Crowley and Aziraphale's compatibility. Specifically in regards to their individual love languages.

We all know Crowley's love language is Acts of Service. I don't think there's any debate there. He loves it, Aziraphale loves it, they're both aware of it, we're all aware of it, God and Satan are aware of it, no surprise there.

You may disagree with me, but I believe Aziraphale's love language is Physical Touch, for a number of reasons. One of which being his aforementioned hedonism. Aziraphale likes things that Feel Good, remember? He likes soft clothes, and well-worn books. Neil himself has said that they like holding hands. And any time he is taken by surprise (Brielzebub getting together, the wave of love in Tadfield, etc.) what is the first thing he does? Reaches out for Crowley. He stops him with a hand to the chest in the pub. He leads him by the hand to the dance floor. He guides him by the waist in the graveyard. He reaches out during the entire Brielzebub scene, whether he can reach Crowley or not. Despite his own turmoil, he grasps at Crowley's back during the kiss.

The one time Crowley reaches out for him (not counting the kiss yet; we'll get there), he is aggressively pushed against a wall (by someone he loves and trusts) with a complete and utter lack of concern (and perhaps some interest, depending on how you read it).

And when he isn't reaching out for anyone, or there isn't anyone to reach out to? Well, he's wringing his own hands together, squeezing his own fingers, as if to find that physical comfort in himself.

So. With that theory in mind, we have Aziraphale (Physical Touch) + Crowley (Acts of Service). Throw in 6000+ years of deep love, cherished companionship, and forcibly repressed longing, and there is a very real potential of this combination resulting in fierce sexual compatibility. Where Aziraphale would want to touch and be touched, to indulge in physical pleasure with someone he adores, in the same the way he indulges in every other fine thing in his life. And where Crowley would want to indulge him in return, to give him everything he wants, and to take pleasure in Aziraphale's pleasure, in the same way he enjoys watching him take joy in food everything else.

So Aziraphale is an angel who is insecure about his own less-than-holy desires, who would want to treat Crowley like a luxury to be touched and cherished and adored. And Crowley is a demon who has, over the millennia, been unhappy about how they've been forced to deny even their friendship with each other, who would want Aziraphale to feel comfortable and safe and encouraged to indulge in earthly delights. That sounds like a stunning recipe for sexual compatibility to me.

"You said 'trust me'" / "And you did"

Just like the Job minisode, the Blitz is RIFE with symbolism (intentional or otherwise). This one will be quick, but I did want to touch on it because I thought it was interesting. Maybe I'm reaching at this point, but I'm assuming you read the tin.

First of all, Crowley not wanting to admit to never firing a gun before; comes off as someone who very much does not want to admit to their crush that they're a virgin ("You must have done this lots of times!" / "Umm.... yyyyyeah.")

(You could make the argument that Aziraphale having a firearms license and a Derringer in a hollowed-out book is symbolic of him not being a virgin while Crowley is. I disagree, for reasons I'll go into later, but it's a valid reading. However, I see it more like keeping a condom in your wallet; it's there in case you need it, but the opportunity has not yet risen no pun intended.)

More importantly, the theme of this entire minisode is trust. We already know they trust each other with their lives against the rest of Heaven, Hell, and the world. But specifically, this is about the importance of having complete trust in your partner in a charged, physically vulnerable, intimate moment, where the only danger is between the two of you.

Aziraphale needs to believe Crowley would never hurt him if he can help it. Crowley needs to trust Aziraphale's unwavering blind faith in him. Frankly, it all feels very symbolic of two people deeply in love losing their respective virginities with each other.

The trick is a success, and they share an intimate candlelit dinner in which they reaffirm their faith in each other. Aziraphale also begins to voice his agreement with Crowley, that maybe Heaven's rules shouldn't have to be as black and white as they are, and that there are benefits to... blurring the lines, shades of grey, wink wink (at which point even my mom was like, whoa guys, this is a family show).

Btw also: Can we all agree how much it looked like Crowley was getting ready to get a lapdance in that one scene? You know the one.

Also also: "Aim for my mouth"? Come on.

The Birds & The Bees

Now that I think of it, there's also something to be said for the fact that Crowley and Aziraphale are both obviously familiar with where babies come from (how they're made and how they're born) while the other angels aren't.

Something something Aziraphale and Crowley fundamentally understand sex and reproduction in a way the other angels (and probably demons) very much do not, nor have any desire to.

Probably not important. Just thought it was worth mentioning.

The Kiss™ & Religious Trauma

The Kiss. Where to even begin?

This has definitely been the hardest one to start, because there is so much going on here that I definitely won't be able to cover it all, and will certainly miss a few things here and there.

Aziraphale's reaction to the kiss afterwards is the most interesting to me. And I don't mean directly after, I don't mean the "I forgive you" part. I mean the way he touches his lips when Crowley is no longer in the room and he no longer needs to save face, when he is completely alone. Had it been directly after the kiss, it would have been rightfully read as horror, or disgust, a shield to discourage further action.

It's not. It isn't just a touch, it's a press. As desperate and angry and unexpected and imperfect as the kiss had been, Aziraphale is pressing it into himself, recreating the feeling as best he can. Beneath all the poor timing and shock and hurt from their fight and fallout, I think it's fair to say that it was something he enjoyed. Something he doesn't think he should enjoy, something that Feels Good that he only allows himself to indulge in when completely alone.

Remember, Aziraphale's idea of love is Jane Austen and gentleness and courtship and fantasy. If he'd ever even considered kissing an option, it might have been gentle pecks, cheek kisses, forehead kiss, hand kisses. Soft, safe, chaste affection.

Crowley's kiss turns all of that on its head. He introduces physical intimacy in a very real, very messy, very human way that I don't think Aziraphale ever even considered could apply to them. Considering what other angels are like and what they look down on, even Aziraphale's Jane Austen fantasies probably would have been considered taboo.

So for their first kiss to be rough and desperate and passionate in the way it was, of course he was confused and in shock. It was deeply physical, and as overwhelming and awful as it was in the moment, it Felt Good. Enough that he grasped at Crowley and kissed back, if only just for a moment, before stopping himself. Enough that he actively pressed it into his lips afterwards, in private, to remember.

I adore how Neil has decided to evolve these characters past the first book/season. More so in this season, Aziraphale and Crowley have both become such interesting allegories for queer people on either side of the spectrum of toxic religion. Aziraphale in particular obviously, because he is the side that so desperately wants to believe, to make a difference, and to unlearn all of the propaganda he's been fed over such a long time. Just like so much of organised religion, there is so much that he is told, time and time again, that he should not want, that he is silly or stupid or outright wrong for wanting. It reminds me so much of the severe Catholic guilt one might feel for wanting/engaging in sex for the first time, and the stigma of being queer layered on top of that.

What is so critical to Aziraphale's character is that he goes on wanting, and more than that, actively pursues. He was convinced to go up against Heaven and Hell and stop all of Armageddon because he wanted to go on listening to music and eating lunch and reading books and enjoying the simple company of the person he cares most deeply for, even if that person is supposed to be the enemy.

All this to say that if angels are as generally asexual/sex-averse as I believe them to be, narratively speaking, it would make sense for Aziraphale to be singular in that regard as well. Mirroring his first experience with food, it would make sense for Crowley to be the one to first introduce this new messy, physical, human dynamic between them, for Aziraphale to hesitate (obviously we are at the Hesitation phase at the moment), and then (eventually) for him to dive in wholeheartedly, to absolutely glut himself on this new thing that Feels Good. It would make sense for his character development to show him overcoming his metaphorical Catholic guilt and pursuing the sexual intimacy most (if not all) of the other angels would scorn.

(I can't help but remember that plot idea Neil described from the unwritten sequel, with Aziraphale in a hotel room trying to watch a full porno by way of the free 2-minute teaser clips so he wasn't technically sinning by paying for it. I so hope this is used in season 3, because gosh, I wonder why Aziraphale would suddenly be so interested in observing human physical intimacy after 6,000 years. Lonely and doing a little surreptitious research there, angel?)

Crowley, on the other hand, is the queer person who has broken free from his toxic religion. He prides himself on being his own person, on their his own side. He doesn't have the hang-ups Aziraphale does. He doesn't worry that he's going to be judged or cast aside for wanting things he's not supposed to. So it only makes sense for him to be the first one to suggest/initiate physical intimacy. It makes sense for him to be the one who "goes too fast" (another fantastic example of this dynamic beginning as early as s1; what is that conversation in the car meant to represent, if not Aziraphale being overwhelmed by the intensity of their relationship, and his fear of succumbing to it when he believes he shouldn't? It's also interesting that this is the first conversation to take place in Soho, just after watching Aziraphale realise he's caught feelings for a demon, with the red glow of lust serving as the backdrop).

Do I think the kiss in and of itself was sexual? No. I think it was a passionate and devastating last-ditch effort on Crowley's part to convey the way he feels for Aziraphale. Not just that he loves him, but that he loves him in the most human way possible. But I do think that the kiss represents how they can move forward from here, and what they might want to explore with each other once they feel free enough to do so.

In Conclusion

I am sure, deep in my bones (unless we are explicitly told otherwise), that this was both of their first kisses no, I'm not counting the gavotte, and that neither of them have ever thought to do anything else physical with the humans while they have been on Earth. Like I said before, they adore the human race and lifestyle in general, but ultimately view them as a separate species altogether, and they seem mostly happy to keep to themselves and each other, unless otherwise necessary. I just can't see either of them being drawn enough to a human to pursue anything close to sex. If Crowley in particular has had anything to do with sex in the context of temptations, I'm positive he would be inciting lust amongst the humans themselves, not involving himself directly. At least not that directly.

So, like every other human experience they've had on Earth, sex is something new that they could explore together, just the two of them, on their own side. A deeply intimate, tangible declaration of their love and everything they've gone through to earn it. A visceral finger to give both Heaven and Hell. A renewed appreciation for their corporations and for each other's. A enjoyable method for immortal beings to simply pass the time in each other's company. A new and exciting way to Feel Good, and all the variations that come with it.

You might agree with this post, or you might not. Whether this is something that is ever addressed or not, it doesn't matter to me. This is a brilliant love story either way, and I genuinely feel so privileged to witness it.

But I just can't find it in myself to imagine, given everything we know about these two characters, that sex isn't an experience they would both consume with wholehearted enthusiasm, curiosity, and profound, ineffable adoration.

___________________________________

Bonus feature: the very silly notes I made to myself that inspired this post

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punisheddonjuan · 3 months

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How I ditched streaming services and learned to love Linux: A step-by-step guide to building your very own personal media streaming server (V2.0: REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION)

This is a revised, corrected and expanded version of my tutorial on setting up a personal media server that previously appeared on my old blog (donjuan-auxenfers). I expect that that post is still making the rounds (hopefully with my addendum on modifying group share permissions in Ubuntu to circumvent 0x8007003B "Unexpected Network Error" messages in Windows when transferring files) but I have no way of checking. Anyway this new revised version of the tutorial corrects one or two small errors I discovered when rereading what I wrote, adds links to all products mentioned and is just more polished generally. I also expanded it a bit, pointing more adventurous users toward programs such as Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr and Overseerr which can be used for automating user requests and media collection.

So then, what is this tutorial? This is a tutorial on building and setting up your own personal media server running Ubuntu and using Plex (or Jellyfin) to not only manage your media but to stream your media to your devices both locally at home, and remotely anywhere in the world where you have an internet connection. It’s a tutorial on how by building a personal media server and stuffing it full of films, television and music that you acquired through indiscriminate and voracious media piracy ripping your own physical media to disk, you’ll be free to completely ditch paid streaming services altogether. No more will you have to pay for Disney+, Netflix, HBOMAX, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Peacock, CBS All Access, Paramount+ Crave or any other streaming service that is not named Criterion Channel (which is actually good) to watch your favourite films and television shows, instead you’ll have your own custom service that will only feature things you want to see, and where you have control over your own files and how they’re delivered to you. And for music fans, Jellyfin and Plex both support music collection streaming so you can even ditch the music streaming services. Goodbye Spotify, Youtube Music, Tidal and Apple Music, welcome back unreasonably large MP3 collections (or FLAC collections).

On the hardware front, I’m going to offer a few options catered towards various budgets and media library sizes. The cost of getting a media server going using this guide will run you anywhere from $450 CDN/$325 USD at the entry level to $1500 CDN/$1100 USD at the high end. My own server cost closer to the higher figure, with much of that cost being hard drives. If that seems excessive maybe you’ve got a roommate, a friend, or a family member who would be willing to chip in a few bucks towards your little project if they get a share of the bounty. This is how my server was funded. It might also be worth thinking about the cost over time, how much you spend yearly on subscriptions vs. a one time cost of setting a server. Then there's just the joy of being able to shout a "fuck you" at all those show cancelling, movie hating, hedge fund vampire CEOs who run the studios by denying them your money. Drive a stake through David Zaslav's heart.

On the software side I will walk you through, step-by-step, in installing Ubuntu as your server's OS, configuring your storage in a RAIDz array with ZFS, sharing your zpool to Windows with Samba, running a remote connection into your server from your Windows PC, and getting started with Plex/Jellyfin Media Server. Every terminal command you will need to input will be provided, and I will even share with you a custom #bash script that will make the used vs. available drive space on your server display correctly in Windows.

If you have a different preferred flavour of Linux (Arch, Manjaro, Redhat, Fedora, Mint, OpenSUSE, CentOS, or Slackware etc. et. al.) and are aching to tell me off for being basic using Ubuntu, this tutorial is not for you. The sort of person with a preferred Linux distro is the sort of person who can do this sort of thing in their sleep. Also I don't care. This tutorial is intended for the average home computer user. This is also why we’re not using a more exotic home server solution like running everything through Docker Containers and managing it through a dashboard like Homarr or Heimdall. While such solutions are fantastic and can be very easy to maintain once you have it all set up, wrapping your brain around Docker is a whole thing in and of itself. If you do follow this tutorial and enjoyed putting everything together, then I would encourage you to maybe go back in a year’s time, do your research and and redo everything so it’s set up with Docker Containers.

This is also a tutorial aimed at Windows users. Although I was a daily user of OS X for many years (roughly 2008-2023) and I've dabbled quite a bit with different Linux distributions (primarily Ubuntu and Manjaro), my primary OS these days is Windows 11. Many things in this tutorial will still be applicable to Mac users but others (e.g. setting up shares) you will have to look up yourself. I doubt it would be difficult to do so.

Nothing in this tutorial will require feats of computing expertise from you. All you will need is a basic level of computer literacy (e.g. an understanding how directories work, being comfortable in settings menus) and a willingness to learn a thing or two. While this guide may look overwhelming at a glance, this is only because I want to be as thorough as possible so that you understand exactly what it is you're doing and you're not just blindly following steps. If you half-way know what you’re doing, you’ll be fine if you ever need to troubleshoot.

Honestly, once you have all the hardware ready it really shouldn't take you more than an afternoon to get everything up and running.

(This tutorial is just shy of seven thousand words long so the rest is under the cut.)

Step One: Choosing Your Hardware

Linux is a light weight operating system, there's almost no bloat and there are recent distributions out there right now that will run perfectly fine on a fourteen year old i3 with 4GB of RAM. Running Plex/Jellyfin media server isn’t very resource intensive either in 90% of use cases. We don’t an expensive or powerful system. So there are several options available to you: use an old computer you already have sitting around but aren't using, buy a used workstation from eBay, or what I believe to be the best option, order an N100 Mini-PC from AliExpress or Amazon.

Note: If you already have an old PC sitting around that you’ve decided to use, fantastic, move on to the next step.

When weighing your options, do keep a few things in mind: the number of people you expect to be streaming simultaneously at any one time, the resolution and bitrate of your media library (4k video takes a lot more processing power than 1080p) and most importantly, how many of those clients are going to be transcoding at any one time. Transcoding is what happens when the playback device does not natively support direct playback of the source file. This can be for a number of reasons, such as the playback device's native resolution, or because the source file was encoded in a video codec unsupported by the playback device.

Ideally we want any transcoding to be performed by hardware, which means we should be looking for an Intel processor with Quick Sync. Quick Sync is a dedicated core on the CPU die designed specifically for video encoding and decoding. This makes for highly efficient transcoding both in terms of processing overhead and power draw. Without these Quick Sync cores, transcoding must be brute forced through software which takes up much more of a CPU’s processing power and takes much more energy. But not all Quick Sync cores are created equal, and you need to keep this in mind if you've decided either to use an old computer or to shop on eBay for a used workstation.

Any Intel processor after second generation Core (Sandy Bridge circa 2011) has Quick Sync cores. It's not until 6th gen (Skylake), however, that those cores support H.265 HEVC. Intel’s 10th gen (Comet Lake) processors support 10bit HEVC and HDR tone mapping. And the recent 12th gen (Alder Lake) processors give you AV1 decoding. As an example, while an 8th gen (Kaby Lake) i5-8500 will be able to transcode a file encoded with H.265 through hardware, it will fall back to software transcoding when given a 10bit H.265 file. So if you’ve decided to use that old PC or to look on eBay for an old Dell Optiplex keep this in mind.

Note 1: The price of old workstations varies wildly and fluctuates frequently. If you get lucky and go looking shortly after a workplace has liquidated a large number of their workstations you can find deals for as low as $100 for a barebones system, but generally an i5-8500 workstation with 16gb RAM will cost you somewhere in the area of $260 CDN/$200 USD.

Note 2: The AMD equivalent to Quick Sync is called Video Core Next, and while it's fine, it's not as efficient and not as mature a technology, only becoming available with first generation Ryzen and it only got decent with their newest CPUs, we want something cheap.

Alternatively you could completely forgo having to keep track of what generation of CPU is equipped with Quick Sync cores with support for which codecs, and just buy an N100 mini-PC. For around the same price or less than a good used workstation you can pick up a Mini-PC running an Intel N100 processor. The N100 is a four-core processor based on the 12th gen Alder Lake architecture and comes equipped with the latest revision of the Quick Sync. They offer astounding hardware transcoding capabilities for their size and power draw and otherwise perform equivalent to an i5-6500. A friend of mine uses an N100 machine as a dedicated retro emulation gaming system. These are also remarkably efficient chips, they sip power. In fact, the difference between running one of these and an old workstation could work out to hundreds of dollars a year in energy bills depending on where you live.

You can find these Mini-PCs all over Amazon or for a little cheaper over on AliExpress. They range in price from $170 CDN/$125 USD for a no name N100 with 8GB RAM to $280 CDN/$200 USD for a Beelink S12 Pro with 16GB RAM. The brand doesn't really matter, they're all coming from the same three factories in Shenzen, go for whichever one fits your budget or has the features you want. 8GB RAM should be enough, Linux is lightweight and Plex only calls for 2GB RAM, and a 256GB SSD is more than enough for what we need as a boot drive. 16GB RAM might result in a slightly snappier experience, especially with ZFS, and going for a bigger drive might allow you to get away with things like creating preview thumbnails for Plex, but it’s up to you and your budget.

The Mini-PC I wound up buying was a Firebat AK2 Plus with 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD. It looks like this:

Note: Be forewarned that if you decide to order a Mini-PC from AliExpress, note the power adapter it is shipping with. The one I bought came with an EU power adapter and I had to supply my own North American power supply. Thankfully this is a minor issue as a barrel plug 30W/12V/2.5A power adapters are plentiful and can be had for $10.

Step Two: Choosing Your Storage

Storage is the most important part of our build, and the most expensive. Thankfully it’s also easily upgrade-able down the line.

For people with a smaller media collection (4TB to 8TB), a limited budget, or who will only ever have two simultaneous streams running, I would say that the most economical course of action would be to simply buy a USB 3.0 8TB external HDD. Something like this Western Digital or this Seagate external drive. One of these will cost you somewhere around $200 CDN/$140 USD. Down the line you could add a second external drive or replace it with a multi-drive RAIDz set up as detailed below.

If a single external drive the path for you, move on to step three.

For people who have larger media libraries (12TB+), who have a lot of media in 4k, or care about data redundancy, the answer is a RAID array featuring multiple HDDs in an enclosure.

Note: If you are using an old PC you already have as your server and have the room for at least three 3.5" drives, and as many open SATA ports on your mother board you won't need an enclosure, just install the drives in your old case. If your old computer is a laptop or doesn’t have room for more internal drives, then I would suggest an enclosure.

The minimum number of drives needed to run a RAIDz array is three, and seeing as RAIDz is what we will be using, you should be looking for an enclosure with hree to five bays. I think that four disks makes for a good compromise for a home server. Regardless of whether you go for a three, four, or five bay enclosure, do be aware that in a RAIDz array the space equivalent of one of the drives will be dedicated to parity at a ratio expressed by the equation 1 − 1/n i.e. in a four bay enclosure equipped with four 12TB drives configured in RAIDz we would be left with a total of 36TB of usable space (48TB raw size). The reason for why we might sacrifice storage space in such a manner will be explained in the next section.

A four bay enclosure will cost somewhere in the area of $200 CDN/$140 USD. You don't need anything fancy, nothing with hardware RAID (RAIDz is done entirely in software) or even USB-C. An enclosure with USB 3.0 will perform just fine. Don’t worry about bottlenecks, a mechanical HDD will be limited by the speed of its mechanism long before before it will be limited by the speed of a USB connection. I've seen decent looking enclosures from TerraMaster, Yottamaster, Mediasonic and Sabrent.

When it comes to selecting the drives, as of this writing, the best value (dollar per gigabyte) are those in the range of 12TB to 20TB. I settled on 12TB drives myself. If 12TB to 20TB drives are out of your budget, go with what you can afford, or look into refurbished drives. I'm not sold on the idea of refurbished drives but some people swear by them.

When shopping for harddrives, look for drives that are specifically designed for NAS use. Drives designed for NAS use typically have better vibration dampening and are designed to be active 24/7, they will also often use CMR (conventional magnetic recording) rather than SMR (shingled magnetic recording) which nets them a sizable performance bump. Seagate Ironwolf and Toshiba NAS drives are both well regarded. I would avoid Western Digital Red drives at this time. WD Reds were a go to recommendation up until earlier this year when it was revealed that they feature firmware that will throw up false SMART warnings telling you to replace the drive at the three year mark when there might be nothing at all wrong with that drive, and when it will likely be good for another six, seven or more years.

Step Three: Installing Linux

For this step you will need a USB thumbdrive of at least 6GB in capacity, a way to make it into bootable media, and an .ISO of Ubuntu.

First download a copy of Ubuntu desktop (for best performance we could download the Server release, but for new Linux users I would recommend against using the server release as having a GUI can be very helpful, not many people are wholly comfortable doing everything through command line). 22.04.3 Jammy Jellyfish is the current Long Term Service release, this is the one to get.

Download the .ISO and then download and install balenaEtcher on your Windows PC, balenaEtcher is an easy to use program for creating bootable media, you simply insert your thumbdrive, select the .ISO you just downloaded, and it will create a bootable installation media for you.

Once you've made a bootable media and you've got your Mini-PC (or old PC/used workstation) in front of you, hook it in directly to your router with an ethernet cable, and plug in the HDD enclosure, a monitor, mouse and a keyboard. Now turn that sucker on and hit whatever key it is that gets you into the BIOS (typically ESC, DEL or F2). If you’re using a Mini-PC check to make sure that the P1 and P2 power limits are set correctly and not arbitrarily lowered, my N100's P1 limit was set at 10W, a full 20W under the chip's power limit. Also make sure that the RAM is running at the advertised speed. My Mini-PC’s RAM was set at 2333Mhz out of the box when it should have been 3200Mhz. Once you’ve done that, key over to the boot order and place the USB drive first in the boot order. Then save the BIOS settings and restart.

After you restart you’ll be greeted by Ubuntu's installation screen. Installing Ubuntu is really straight forward, select the "minimal" installation option, as we won't need anything on this computer except for a browser (Ubuntu comes preinstalled with Firefox) and Plex Media Server/Jellyfin Media Server. Also remember to delete and reformat that Windows partition! We don't need it.

Step Four: Installing ZFS and Setting Up the RAIDz Array

Note: If you opted for just a single external HDD skip this step and move onto setting up a Samba share.

Once Ubuntu is installed it's time to configure our storage by installing ZFS to build our RAIDz array. ZFS is a "next-gen" file system that is both massively flexible and massively complex. It's capable of snapshot backup, self healing error correction, ZFS pools can be configured with drives operating in a supplemental manner alongside the storage vdev (e.g. fast cache, dedicated secondary intent log, hot swap spares etc.). It's also a file system very amenable to fine tuning. Block and sector size are adjustable to use case and you're afforded the option of different methods of inline compression. If you'd like a very detailed overview and explanation of its various features and tips on tuning a ZFS array check out these articles from Ars Technica. For now we're going to ignore all these features and keep it simple, we're going to pull our drives together into a single vdev running in RAIDz which will be the entirety of our zpool, no fancy cache drive or SLOG.

Open up the terminal and type the following commands:

sudo apt update

then

sudo apt install zfsutils-linux

This will install the ZFS utility. Verify that it's installed with the following command:

zfs --version

Next, it's time to check that the HDDs we have in the enclosure are healthy, running and recognized. We also want to find out their device IDs and take note of them:

sudo fdisk -1

Note: You might be wondering why some of these commands require "sudo" in front of them while others don't. "Sudo" is short for "super user do”. When and where "sudo" is used has to do with the way permissions are set up in Linux. Only the "root" user has the access level to perform certain tasks in Linux. As a matter of security and safety regular user accounts are kept separate from the "root" user. It's not advised (or even possible) to boot into Linux as "root" with most modern distributions. Instead by using "sudo" our regular user account is temporarily given the power to do otherwise forbidden things. Don't worry about it too much at this stage, but if you want to know more check out this introduction.

If everything is working you should get a list of the various drives detected along with their device IDs which will look something like this: /dev/sdc. You can also check the device IDs of the drives by opening the disk utility app. Jot these IDs down we'll need them for our next step, creating our RAIDz array.

RAIDz is similar to RAID-5 in that instead of striping your data over multiple disks, exchanging redundancy for speed and available space (RAID-0), or mirroring your data writing two copies of every piece (RAID-1), it instead writes parity blocks across the disks in addition to striping, this provides a balance of speed, redundancy and available space. If a single drive fails, the parity blocks on the working drives can be used to reconstruct the entire array as soon as a replacement drive is added.

Additionally, RAIDz improves over some of the common RAID-5 flaws. It's more resilient and capable of self healing, checking for errors against a checksum. It's more forgiving this way, and it's likely that you'll be able to detect when a drive is on its way out well before it fails. A RAIDz array can survive the loss of any one drive.

Note: While RAIDz is indeed resilient, if a second drive fails during the rebuild, you're fucked. Always keep backups of things you can't afford to lose. This tutorial, however, is not about proper data safety.

To create the pool, use the following command:

sudo zpool create "zpoolnamehere" raidz "device IDs of drives we're putting in the pool"

For example, let's creatively name our zpool "mypool". It will consist of four drives which have the device IDs: sdb, sdc, sdd, and sde. The resulting command would look like this:

sudo zpool create mypool raidz /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd /dev/sde

If for example you bought five HDDs and wanted more redundancy, and are okay with three disks worth of capacity, we would modify the command to "raidz2" and the command would look something like the following:

sudo zpool create mypool raidz2 /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd /dev/sde /dev/sdf

An array configured like this would be able to survive two disk failures and is known as RAIDz2.

Once the zpool has been created, we can check its status with the command:

zpool status

Or more concisely with:

zpool list

The nice thing about ZFS as a file system is that an array is ready to go immediately after creating the pool. If we were to set up a traditional RAID-5 array using mbam, we'd have to sit through a potentially hours long process of reformatting and partitioning the drives. Instead we're ready to go out the gates.

The zpool should be automatically mounted to the filesystem after creation, check on that with the following:

df -hT | grep zfs

Note: If your computer ever loses power suddenly, say in event of a power outage, you may have to re-import your pool. In most cases, ZFS will automatically import and mount your pool, but if it doesn’t and you can't see your array, simply open the terminal and type sudo zpool import -a.

By default a zpool is mounted at /"zpoolname". The pool should be under our ownership but let's make sure with the following command:

sudo chown -R "yourlinuxusername" /"zpoolname"

Note: Changing file and folder ownership with "chown" and file and folder permissions with "chmod" are essential commands for much of the admin work in Linux, but which we won't be dealing with extensively in this guide. If you'd like a deeper tutorial and explanation you can check out these two guides: chown and chmod.

You can access the zpool file system through the GUI by opening the file manager (the Ubuntu default file manager is called Nautilus) and clicking on "Other Locations" on the sidebar, then entering the Ubuntu file system and looking for a folder with your pool's name. Bookmark the folder on the sidebar for easy access.

Your storage pool is now ready to go. Assuming that we already have some files on our Windows PC we want to copy to over, we're going to need to install and configure Samba to make the pool accessible in Windows.

Step Five: Setting Up Samba/Sharing

Samba is what's going to let us share the zpool with Windows and allow us to write to it from our Windows machine. First let's install Samba with the following commands:

sudo apt-get update

then

sudo apt-get install samba

Next create a password for Samba.

sudo smbpswd -a "yourlinuxusername"

It will then prompt you to create a password. Just reuse your username password for simplicity's sake.

Note: if you're using just a single external drive replace the zpool location in the following commands with wherever it is your external drive is mounted, for more information see this guide on mounting an external drive in Ubuntu.

After you've created a password we're going to create a shareable folder in our pool with this command

mkdir /"zpoolname"/"foldername"

Now we're going to open the smb.conf file and make that folder shareable Enter the following command.

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

This will open the .conf file in nano, the terminal text editor program. Now at the end of smb.conf add the following entry:

["foldername"]

path = /"zpoolname"/"foldername"

available = yes

valid users = "yourlinuxusername"

read only = no

writable = yes

browseable = yes

guest ok = no

Ensure that there are no line breaks between the lines and that there's a space on both sides of the equals sign. Next step is to allow Samba traffic through the firewall:

sudo ufw allow samba

Finally restart the Samba service:

sudo systemctl restart smbd

At this point we'll be able to access to the pool, browse its contents, and read/write to it from Windows. But there's one more thing left to do, Windows doesn't natively support the ZFS file systems and will read the used/available/total space in the pool incorrectly. Windows will read available space as total drive space, and all used space as null. This leads to Windows only displaying a dwindling amount of "available" space as the drives are filled. We can fix this! Functionally this doesn't actually matter, we can still write and read to and from the disk, it just makes it difficult to tell at a glance the proportion of used/available space, so this is an optional step but one I recommend (this step is also unnecessary if you're just using a single external drive). What we're going to do is write a little shell script in #bash. Open nano with the terminal with the command:

nano

Now insert the following code:

#!/bin/bash CUR_PATH=`pwd` ZFS_CHECK_OUTPUT=$(zfs get type $CUR_PATH 2>&1 > /dev/null) > /dev/null if [[ $ZFS_CHECK_OUTPUT == *not\ a\ ZFS* ]] then IS_ZFS=false else IS_ZFS=true fi if [[ $IS_ZFS = false ]] then df $CUR_PATH | tail -1 | awk '{print $2" "$4}' else USED=$((`zfs get -o value -Hp used $CUR_PATH` / 1024)) > /dev/null AVAIL=$((`zfs get -o value -Hp available $CUR_PATH` / 1024)) > /dev/null TOTAL=$(($USED+$AVAIL)) > /dev/null echo $TOTAL $AVAIL fi

Save the script as "dfree.sh" to /home/"yourlinuxusername" then change the ownership of the file to make it executable with this command:

sudo chmod 774 dfree.sh

Now open smb.conf with sudo again:

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

Now add this entry to the top of the configuration file to direct Samba to use the results of our script when Windows asks for a reading on the pool's used/available/total drive space:

[global]

dfree command = home/"yourlinuxusername"/defree.sh

Save the changes to smb.conf and then restart Samba again with the terminal:

sudo systemctl restart smbd

Now there’s one more thing we need to do to fully set up the Samba share, and that’s to modify a hidden group permission. In the terminal window type the following command:

usermod -a -G sambashare “yourlinuxusername”

Then restart samba again:

sudo systemctl restart smbd

If we don’t do this last step, while everything would appear to work fine, and you will be able to see and map the drive from Windows and even begin transferring files, you'd soon run into a lot of frustration. As every ten minutes or so a file would fail to transfer and you would get a window announcing “0x8007003B Unexpected Network Error”. This window would require your manual input to continue the transfer with the file that was next in the queue. It will reattempt to transfer whichever files failed the first time around at the end, and 99% of the time they’ll go through, but this is a major pain in the ass if you’ve got a lot of data you need to transfer and want to step away from the computer for a while. It turns out samba can act a little weirdly with the higher read/write speeds of RAIDz arrays and transfers from Windows, and will intermittently crash and restart itself if this group option isn’t changed. Inputting the above command will prevent you from ever seeing that window.

The last thing we're going to do in this part before switching over to our Windows PC is grab the IP address of our Linux machine. Enter the following command:

hostname -I

This will spit out this computer's IP address on the local network (it will look something like 192.168.0.x), write it down. It might be a good idea once you're done here to go into your router settings and reserving that IP for your Linux system in the DHCP settings. Check the manual for your specific model router on how to access its settings, typically it can be accessed by opening a browser and typing http:\\192.168.0.1 in the address bar, but your router may be different.

Okay we’re done with our Linux computer for now. Get on over to your Windows PC, open File Explorer, right click on Network and click "Map network drive". Select Z: as the drive letter (you don't want to map the network drive to a letter you could conceivably be using for other purposes) and enter the IP of your Linux machine and location of the share like so: \\"LINUXCOMPUTERLOCALIPADDRESSGOESHERE"\"zpoolnamegoeshere"\. Windows will then ask you for your username and password, enter the ones you set earlier in Samba and you're good. If you've done everything right it should look something like this:

You can now start moving media over from Windows to the share folder. It's a good idea to have a hard line running to all machines. Moving files over Wi-Fi is going to be tortuously slow, the only thing that’s going to make the transfer time tolerable (hours instead of days) is a solid wired connection between both machines and your router.

Step Six: Setting Up Remote Desktop Access to Your Server

After the server is up and going, you’ll want to be able to access it remotely from Windows. Barring serious maintenance/updates, this is how you'll access it most of the time. On your Linux system open the terminal and enter:

sudo apt install xrdp

Then:

sudo systemctl enable xrdp

Once it's finished installing, open “Settings” on the sidebar and turn off "automatic login" in the User category. Then log out of your account. Attempting to remotely connect to your Linux computer while you’re logged in will just result in a black screen!

Now get back on your Windows PC, open search and search for "RDP". A program called "Remote Desktop Connection" should pop up, open this program as an administrator by right-clicking and selecting “run as an administrator”. You’ll be greeted with a window, in the field marked “Computer” type in the IP address of your Linux computer. Press connect and you'll be greeted with a new window and a prompt asking for your username and password. Enter your Ubuntu username and password here.

If everything went right, you’ll be logged into your Linux computer. If the performance is too sluggish, adjust the display options, lowering the resolution and colour depth do a lot to make the interface feel snappier.

Remote access is how we're going to be using our Linux system from now, outside of some edge cases like needing to get into the BIOS or upgrading to a new version of Ubuntu. Everything else from performing maintenance like a monthly zpool scrub (this is important!!!) to checking zpool status and updating software can all be done remotely.

This is how my server lives its life now, happily humming and chirping away on the floor next to the couch in the corner of the living room.

Step Seven: Plex Media Server/Jellyfin

Okay we’ve got all the ground work finished and our server is almost up and running: we’ve got Ubuntu up and running, the storage is primed, we’ve set up remote connections and sharing, and maybe we’ve moved over some of favourite movies and TV shows.

Now we need to decide on the media server software to use which will stream our media to us and organize our library. For most people I’d recommend Plex, it just simply works 99% of the time. That said, Jellyfin has a lot to recommend it by too even if it is rougher around the edges, some people even run both simultaneously, it’s not that big an extra strain. I do recommend doing a little bit of your own research into the features each platform offers. But as a quick run down, consider some of the following points.

Plex is closed source and is funded through PlexPass purchases while Jellyfin is open source and entirely user driven. This means a number of things, for one, Plex requires you to purchase a “PlexPass” (purchased as a one time lifetime fee $159.99 CDN/$120 USD or paid for on a monthly yearly subscription basis) for access to certain features, like hardware transcoding (and we want hardware transcoding) and automated intro/credits detection and skipping, while Jellyfin offers this for free. On the other hand, Plex supports a lot more devices than Jellyfin and updates more frequently. That said Jellyfin's Android/iOS apps are completely free, while the Plex Android/iOS apps must be activated for a one time cost of $6 CDN/$5 USD. Additionally the Plex Android/iOS apps are vastly unified in UI and functionality across platforms, offering a much more polished experience, while the Jellyfin apps are a bit of a mess and very different from each other. Jellyfin’s actual media player itself is more fully featured than Plex's, but on the other hand Jellyfin's UI, library customization and automatic media tagging really pale in comparison to Plex. Streaming your music library is free through both Jellyfin and Plex, but Plex offers the PlexAmp app for dedicated music streaming which boasts a number of fantastic features, unfortunately some of those fantastic features require a PlexPass. If your internet is down, Jellyfin can still do local streaming, while Plex can fail to play files. Jellyfin has a slew of neat niche features like support for Comic Book libraries with the .cbz/.cbt file types, but then Plex offers some free ad-supported TV and films, they even have a free channel that plays nothing but Classic Doctor Who.

Ultimately it's up to you, I settled on Plex because although some features are pay-walled, it just works. It's more reliable and easier to use, and a one-time fee is much easier to swallow than a subscription. I do also need to mention that Jellyfin does take a little extra bit of tinkering to get going in Ubuntu, you’ll have to set up process permissions, so if you're more tolerant to tinkering, Jellyfin might be up your alley and I’ll trust that you can follow their installation and configuration guide. For everyone else, I recommend Plex.

So pick your poison: Plex or Jellyfin.

Note: The easiest way to download and install either of these packages in Ubuntu is through Snap Store.

After you've installed one (or both), opening either app will launch a browser window into the browser version of the app allowing you to set all the options server side.

The process of adding creating media libraries is essentially the same in both Plex and Jellyfin. You create a separate libraries for Television, Movies, and Music and add the folders which contain the respective types of media to their respective libraries. The only difficult or time consuming aspect is ensuring that your files and folders follow the appropriate naming conventions:

Plex naming guide for Movies

Plex naming guide for Television

Jellyfin follows the same naming rules but I find their media scanner to be a lot less accurate and forgiving than Plex. Once you've selected the folders to be scanned the service will scan your files, tagging everything and adding metadata. Although I find do find Plex more accurate, it can still erroneously tag some things and you might have to manually clean up some tags in a large library. (When I initially created my library it tagged the 1963-1989 Doctor Who as some Korean soap opera and I needed to manually select the correct match after which everything was tagged normally.) It can also be a bit testy with anime (especially OVAs) be sure to check TVDB to ensure that you have your files and folders structured and named correctly. If something is not showing up at all, double check the name.

Once that's done, organizing and customizing your library is easy. You can set up collections, grouping items together to fit a theme or collect together all the entries in a franchise. You can make playlists, and add custom artwork to entries. It's fun setting up collections with posters to match, there are even several websites dedicated to help you do this like PosterDB. As an example, below are two collections in my library, one collecting all the entries in a franchise, the other follows a theme.

My Star Trek collection, featuring all eleven television series, and thirteen films.

My Best of the Worst collection, featuring sixty-nine films previously showcased on RedLetterMedia’s Best of the Worst. They’re all absolutely terrible and I love them.

As for settings, ensure you've got Remote Access going, it should work automatically and be sure to set your upload speed after running a speed test. In the library settings set the database cache to 2000MB to ensure a snappier and more responsive browsing experience, and then check that playback quality is set to original/maximum. If you’re severely bandwidth limited on your upload and have remote users, you might want to limit the remote stream bitrate to something more reasonable, just as a note of comparison Netflix’s 1080p bitrate is approximately 5Mbps, although almost anyone watching through a chromium based browser is streaming at 720p and 3mbps. Other than that you should be good to go. For actually playing your files, there's a Plex app for just about every platform imaginable. I mostly watch television and films on my laptop using the Windows Plex app, but I also use the Android app which can broadcast to the chromecast connected to the TV. Both are fully functional and easy to navigate, and I can also attest to the OS X version being equally functional.

Part Eight: Finding Media

Now, this is not really a piracy tutorial, there are plenty of those out there. But if you’re unaware, BitTorrent is free and pretty easy to use, just pick a client (qBittorrent is the best) and go find some public trackers to peruse. Just know now that all the best trackers are private and invite only, and that they can be exceptionally difficult to get into. I’m already on a few, and even then, some of the best ones are wholly out of my reach.

If you decide to take the left hand path and turn to Usenet you’ll have to pay. First you’ll need to sign up with a provider like Newshosting or EasyNews for access to Usenet itself, and then to actually find anything you’re going to need to sign up with an indexer like NZBGeek or NZBFinder. There are dozens of indexers, and many people cross post between them, but for more obscure media it’s worth checking multiple. You’ll also need a binary downloader like SABnzbd. That caveat aside, Usenet is faster, bigger, older, less traceable than BitTorrent, and altogether slicker. I honestly prefer it, and I'm kicking myself for taking this long to start using it because I was scared off by the price. I’ve found so many things on Usenet that I had sought in vain elsewhere for years, like a 2010 Italian film about a massacre perpetrated by the SS that played the festival circuit but never received a home media release; some absolute hero uploaded a rip of a festival screener DVD to Usenet, that sort of thing. Anyway, figure out the rest of this shit on your own and remember to use protection, get yourself behind a VPN, use a SOCKS5 proxy with your BitTorrent client, etc.

On the legal side of things, if you’re around my age, you (or your family) probably have a big pile of DVDs and Blu-Rays sitting around unwatched and half forgotten. Why not do a bit of amateur media preservation, rip them and upload them to your server for easier access? (Your tools for this are going to be Handbrake to do the ripping and AnyDVD to break any encryption.) I went to the trouble of ripping all my SCTV DVDs (five box sets worth) because none of it is on streaming nor could it be found on any pirate source I tried. I’m glad I did, forty years on it’s still one of the funniest shows to ever be on TV.

Part Nine/Epilogue: Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr and Overseerr

There are a lot of ways to automate your server for better functionality or to add features you and other users might find useful. Sonarr, Radarr, and Lidarr are a part of a suite of “Servarr” services (there’s also Readarr for books and Whisparr for adult content) that allow you to automate the collection of new episodes of TV shows (Sonarr), new movie releases (Radarr) and music releases (Lidarr). They hook in to your BitTorrent client or Usenet binary newsgroup downloader and crawl your preferred Torrent trackers and Usenet indexers, alerting you to new releases and automatically grabbing them. You can also use these services to manually search for new media, and even replace/upgrade your existing media with better quality uploads. They’re really a little tricky to set up on a bare metal Ubuntu install (ideally you should be running them in Docker Containers), and I won’t be providing a step by step on installing and running them, I’m simply making you aware of their existence.

The other bit of kit I want to make you aware of is Overseerr which is a program that scans your Plex media library and will serve recommendations based on what you like. It also allows you and your users to request specific media. It can even be integrated with Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr so that fulfilling those requests is fully automated.

And you're done. It really wasn't all that hard. Enjoy your media. Enjoy the control you have over that media. And be safe in the knowledge that no hedgefund CEO motherfucker who hates the movies but who is somehow in control of a major studio will be able to disappear anything in your library as a tax write-off.

#long post #streaming #plex #tutorial #linux #piracy #major works

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byoldervine · 15 days

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Writing Tips - Beating Perfectionism

1. Recognising writing perfectionism. It’s not usually as literal as “This isn’t 100% perfect and so it is the worst thing ever”, in my experience it usually sneaks up more subtly. Things like where you should probably be continuing on but if you don’t figure out how to word this paragraph better it’s just going to bug you the whole time, or where you’re growing demotivated because you don’t know how to describe the scene 100% exactly as you can imagine it in your head, or things along those lines where your desire to be exact can get in the way of progression. In isolated scenarios this is natural, but if it’s regularly and notably impacting your progress then there’s a more pressing issue

2. Write now, edit later. Easier said than done, which always infuriated me until I worked out how it translates into practice; you need to recognise what the purpose of this stage of the writing process is and when editing will hinder you more than help you. Anything up to and including your first draft is purely done for structural and creative purposes, and trying to impose perfection on a creative process will naturally stifle said creativity. Creativity demands the freedom of imperfection

3. Perfection is stagnant. We all know that we have to give our characters flaws and challenges to overcome since, otherwise, there’s no room for growth or conflict or plot, and it ends up being boring and predictable at best - and it’s just the same as your writing. Say you wrote the absolute perfect book; the perfect plot, the perfect characters, the perfect arcs, the perfect ending, etc etc. It’s an overnight bestseller and you’re discussed as a literary great for all time. Everyone, even those outside of your target demographic, call it the perfect book. Not only would that first require you to turn the perfect book into something objective, which is impossible, but it would also mean that you would either never write again, because you can never do better than your perfect book, or you’ll always write the exact same thing in the exact same way to ensure constant perfection. It’s repetitive, it’s boring, and all in all it’s just fearful behaviour meant to protect you from criticism that you aren’t used to, rather than allowing yourself to get acclimated to less than purely positive feedback

4. Faulty comparisons. Comparing your writing to that of a published author’s is great from an analytical perspective, but it can easily just become a case of “Their work is so much better, mine sucks, I’ll never be as good as them or as good as any ‘real’ writer”. You need to remember that you’re comparing a completely finished draft, which likely underwent at least three major edits and could have even had upwards of ten, to wherever it is you’re at. A surprising number of people compare their *first* draft to a finished product, which is insanity when you think of it that way; it seems so obvious from this perspective why your first attempt isn’t as good as their tenth. You also end up comparing your ability to describe the images in your head to their ability to craft a new image in your head; I guarantee you that the image the author came up with isn’t the one their readers have, and they’re kicking themselves for not being able to get it exactly as they themselves imagine it. Only the author knows what image they’re working off of; the readers don’t, and they can imagine their own variation which is just as amazing

5. Up close and too personal. Expanding on the last point, just in general it’s harder to describe something in coherent words than it is to process it when someone else prompts you to do so. You end up frustrated and going over it a gazillion times, even to the point where words don’t even look like words anymore. You’ve got this perfect vision of how the whole story is supposed to go, and when you very understandably can’t flawlessly translate every single minute detail to your satisfaction, it’s demotivating. You’re emotionally attached to this perfect version that can’t ever be fully articulated through any other medium. But on the other hand, when consuming other media that you didn’t have a hand in creating, you’re viewing it with perfectly fresh eyes; you have no ‘perfect ideal’ of how everything is supposed to look and feel and be, so the images the final product conjures up become that idealised version - its no wonder why it always feels like every writer except you can pull off their visions when your writing is the only one you have such rigorous preconceived notions of

6. That’s entertainment. Of course writing can be stressful and draining and frustrating and all other sorts of nasty things, but if overall you can’t say that you ultimately enjoy it, you’re not writing for the right reasons. You’ll never take true pride in your work if it only brings you misery. Take a step back, figure out what you can do to make things more fun for you - or at least less like a chore - and work from there

7. Write for yourself. One of the things that most gets to me when writing is “If this was found and read by someone I know, how would that feel?”, which has lead me on multiple occasions to backtrack and try to be less cringe or less weird or less preachy or whatever else. It’s harder to share your work with people you know whose opinions you care about and whose impressions of you have the potential of shifting based on this - sharing it to strangers whose opinions ultimately don’t matter and who you’ll never have to interact with again is somehow a lot less scary because their judgements won’t stick. But allowing the imaginary opinions of others to dictate not even your finished project, but your unmoderated creative process in general? Nobody is going to see this without your say so; this is not the time to be fussing over how others may perceive your writing. The only opinion that matters at this stage is your own

8. Redirection. Instead of focusing on quality, focusing on quantity has helped me to improve my perfectionism issues; it doesn’t matter if I write twenty paragraphs of complete BS so long as I’ve written twenty paragraphs or something that may or may not be useful later. I can still let myself feel accomplished regardless of quality, and if I later have to throw out whole chapters, so be it

9. That’s a problem for future me. A lot of people have no idea how to edit, or what to look for when they do so, so having a clear idea of what you want to edit by the time the editing session comes around is gonna be a game-changer once you’re supposed to be editing. Save the clear work for when you’re allocating time for it and you’ll have a much easier and more focused start to the editing process. It’ll be more motivating than staring blankly at the intimidating word count, at least

10. The application of applications. If all else fails and you’re still going back to edit what you’ve just wrote in some struggle for the perfect writing, there are apps and websites that you can use that physically prevent you from editing your work until you’re done with it. If nothing else, maybe it can help train you away from major edits as you go

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joelmillersmunch · 19 days

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cruel summer (dbf!joel miller x chubby/curvy!f!reader)

Summary: After being away for five years, you've returned home for the summer. Joel doesn't expect to see you tonight. He doesn't mean to stare, really.

Ratings/Warnings: E. MDNI. NSFW. NO OUTBREAK. modern! au. dad's best friend! au. age gap (reader is 25, joel is in his 40s) curvy reader. reader's mother is awful. reader struggles with self image and insecurities. reader and joel flirt. reader gets touchy with joel. masturbation (m). joel can't stop staring at reader. I HOPE I HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN ANYTHING.

Word count: 2.2k

A/N: Soooo, I'm dabbling with the idea of making this into some kind of short series. Let me know what you think! I hope you enjoy! Please ignore any grammar or typos. I didn't spend much timed editing. Ooooops.

He couldn’t keep his eyes off of you. Joel knows he should be ashamed, gawking across the room at his best buddy’s kid. Except you weren’t a kid anymore. You weren’t the same 20 year old, sophomore-in-college girl he met when he moved across the street from your family five years ago. You were so much more now. A gorgeous grown version of the girl he had met only a handful of times before you left for the fall semester.

You hadn’t been back since, having gone on some fantastic trips abroad over the summers to expand your studies. You graduated about a year ago with your bachelor’s degree and have been enjoying post grad life with your friends. You decided to come home for the summer, having been so long since you’ve been back to Austin. It’s been two weeks since then, and he only got a brief glance from his window when you pulled in, jumping out to embrace your parents.

He had no idea you’d be here tonight. The crowded dive bar was Joel’s normal Friday night spot, usually accompanied by Tommy and some of their other crewmates. Joel had texted your dad an invite, completely forgetting about the fact you’d come back into town. Your dad walks in first, a huge grin on his face as he makes way to the table Joel is seated at.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I brought some company,” He says, stepping aside to reveal the fact you had joined him tonight. Joel’s breath catches when he sees you for the first time, covering it up with a fake cough.

“Mr. Miller, so nice to see you again! It’s been so long!” You say brightly, reaching for an embrace. You feel so soft in his arms. Joel quickly tries to compose himself, but your voice entrances him. It’s so grown, so sexy. He can’t help himself from breathing your perfume in a little harder than he probably should have. Oranges and lime, the beach, summer, sunshine. It made him dizzy in the best way, a refreshing hug of aroma encasing him.

“Hi, sweetie. Welcome home, nice to have you back.” He says, releasing you. You have a big, beautiful smile plastered on your lips and agree that it’s nice to be back.

“I’m gonna go get a drink,” Your dad cuts in, turning to face you. Saying your name, he asks if you want to join him. “I know they don’t have the wine stuff you usually get, but any daughter of mine can drink a beer!” He finishes, teasingly wrapping his arm around your shoulders and leading you to the bar. Joel can hear you complaining to your dad, furiously telling your dad you know they wouldn’t have wine here. He laughs and turns back to his beer.

So here he is, thirty minutes later, watching you from the bar. He’d offer to buy the next round after you very proudly proved to be your father’s daughter and downed your first beer like it was nothing. He watched you while he waited for the handful of beers as you hovered over the vintage looking jukebox. A wide grin spreads across your face when you find the song you were looking for, and a folky-banjo country song plays loudly from the speakers. Joel thanks the bartender after paying, and takes the tray of beers back to the table as you find your way back with him.

“I can’t believe they have this song!” You exclaim, happily taking one of the beers from Joel and taking a big swig. Joel and your dad laugh at you and you look at them confused.

“It’s 2024 here too, sweetie. Don’t know why you’re so surprised. That jukebox is brand new, it just looks that way to fit in better here.” You dad says, chuckling with a shake of his head. You roll your eyes at him and take a seat next to Joel, across from your dad.

“You know what? You can sit by yourself now, Dad. Joel here won’t be rude to me, now will ya, Joel?” You say, jokingly patting his arm as you lightly rest your head against his shoulder. Joel’s eyes go wide, and your dad breaks out in a bark of a laugh.

“Oh, yeah. Cause Joel’s such a big softie,” Your dad says, taking a swig of his beer. You laugh and release him, allowing Joel to finally breathe again. “When’s Tommy getting here, Joel?” Your dad asks.

“Oh, uh, didn’t plan on inviting ‘em tonight. Was gonna see if you wanted to go watch the game at my place after this, but..” He trails off, trying to politely hint to your dad that things are different now that you’re here. Not that Joel minds, but you probably don’t wanna go back to his place and hang out with two old dudes watching baseball all night. Joel accidentally catches your eye, and quickly looks away before you can catch on.

“What? Before you knew that I was coming?” You ask with a light laugh. “I can watch baseball! But if you two don’t want me hanging around, I can just walk home. It’s not like I live across town.” You joke.

“No, it’s not that!” Joel says, not wanting you to feel like a nuisance. “I just figured you didn’t want to hang out with these ol’ guys all night.” He finishes, giving your dad a friendly shove on his shoulder.

“No, I don’t mind! But please tell me you have something better than this beer at your place?” You ask, an exaggerated pleading look on your face. Joel can’t help but laugh and offer you an apologetic smile.

“Sorry, darlin’. Welcome home, I guess.” He says and the three of you make your way out of the bar.

When the three of you arrive at Joel's place you’re already pretty tipsy. You’re laughing at a stupid joke your dad made as you stumble into the house. Joel rests a hand on your shoulder trying to steady you. You lean into his embrace and sigh out a thanks.

“You okay, kiddo? You sure you don’t wanna head home? I can walk you over there and come back,” Your dad says, a concerned look on his face once Joel has you seated on the couch.

“I’m fiiiiine,” You say, waving him off. “Joel, could I have some water?”

“Of course, darlin’,” He says, rising from his chair. “I’ll grab it for you. Do you want anything while I’m up?” He finishes, looking at your dad who declines. He walks into the kitchen, leaving you and your dad alone in Joel’s living room.

“Didn’t realize you were such a lightweight, honey,” Your dad says with a chuckle.

“I’m not usually, but I don’t know…” You start, immediately sobering up at his remark. “Lately, I’ve been struggling with my self image. I think all the drinking has something to do with it.” You pause, looking at your dad’s shocked expression which causes you to scowl at him. “Oh, don’t act so surprised. Mom made sure to let me know that she noticed my weight gain.” You finish with an eye roll.

“She said that?” Your dad asks, a certain tone in his voice you didn’t recognize.

“Yeah, when you brought my bags into the house for me when I first got back. I just figured she told you or you had noticed too,” You say, crossing your arms over your waist.

“Honey, you know I think that you’re beautiful. You are just growing into your adult body. I can’t believe your mother would say something like that to you! I don’t know what her problem is lately..” He says trailing off. He coughs to cover up the tension when Joel reenters the living room, handing your dad a beer.

“You know me so well,” Your dad says, chipper as ever.

Joel can’t help but overhear your conversation from the kitchen. It’s a small house, for christ's sake! But that doesn’t help make him feel any less guilty while he listens to your vulnerable conversation with your dad. He had to admit, he was a bit surprised at how drunk you got off just two beers, but he’s not one to judge. It all made sense now, and he can’t believe your own mother would say that to you. No one should speak that way to their own daughter, but especially to you. Joel always thought your mom was a bit insufferable, and now he knows he was right all along.

He loves your figure. The way your jeans curved over your hips and ass. The softness to your cheeks and arms. He will dream about roaming his hands over your waist and legs tonight. For now, he has to interrupt this very personal conversation between a father and his daughter. His friend and his daughter. His friend’s daughter. Joel sighs, grabbing a beer and hoping he doesn’t embarrass anyone.

After about an hour and a glass of water later, you’re fully sober and mindlessly scrolling on your phone as your dad and Joel watch the game. Well, as Joel watches the game and your dad snores softly in the recliner. Joel is sitting next to you, his eyes never leaving the TV. At least, that’s what you thought. In reality, Joel can’t stop checking you out from the corner of his eye. The way you’d laugh at something on your phone and then bite your lip to suppress a smile when you realized you laughed a bit louder than you meant to. God, he needed a beer.

“I’m gonna go grab another beer. Need anythin’?” He asks, standing up. The feeling of your warmth and smell of your perfume invading his head, intoxicating him. You look up at him and smile, shaking your head no. He nods and quickly leaves to the kitchen. He leans over the sink, hands on the counter and dropping his head. Breathing in and out, he tries to calm his fucking dick. The way you looked up at him, beautiful eyes burning with attention. He wanted to kiss you, leave your eyes wide in surprise. Fuck, this is a problem, AND his dick won’t get soft. He continues to calm his breathing when he feels a tap on his shoulder, his stomach dropping at the contact. He turns to face you, a worn out smile on his face.

“Oh, you startled me, darlin’,” He says. You give him a coy smile, shaking your empty glass.

“I realized I did need something.” You say, stepping closer so that your bodies are touching. Your fronts nearly rubbing as you lean over him, chest bumping against his arms as you turn the faucet on to get more water. He breathes in a sharp breath, your scent invading him again.

“Now, sweetheart…” He says as you move closer, standing so that one of your legs is in between his thighs, and the other on the opposite side of his leg. You were almost straddling him, sipping your water back. You cock an eyebrow at him, a trail of water sneaking past the cup and sliding down your chin. He closes his eyes and breathes out, feeling you move to rub against him. He opens his eyes to see you smirking back at him, finishing the rest of your water in a final drink. You lean back over him, chests bumping into each other. You place the glass in the sink, jumping when you feel him wrap his arms around you.

“Thank you, Mr. Miller. I feel so..refreshed now.” You say, lifting up to whisper in his ear. “But you want to know what else I need?”

He feels you grind into his leg, looking up to stare you in the eyes. You’re smirking at him, and he feels himself flush. He’s so hard it feels like he won’t ever get soft again. You pat a hand over his cock through his jeans, a satisfied look on your face when he grunts at your touch. A loud snore from the living room snaps you and Joel back into reality, and about 6 inches away from each other. You look at him and laugh.

“Maybe next time?” You ask, and leave him in the kitchen. He needs to come, now. He plans to make a phony excuse to you to go to the bathroom when he enters the living room, just to see you raising your dad from his slumber.

“Sorry ‘bout that, Joel. Long day, I guess.” Your dad says, patting Joel on the shoulder as the two of you make your way out of the house. You turn to look back at Joel, a smile on your face.

He watches as you enter your own house. He pretends to not notice for the first time that your room faces his own. He pretends that he can still feel your hips dip into his. He pretends that it’s your hands on his hardened cock, thumbing over the swollen tip. He pretends he can still smell your perfume on your neck as your chest rubbed against his forearm. He pretends he doesn’t like the way you called him “Mr. Miller.” He pretends you’re watching him from your window. He pretends he can feel your eyes scanning over him as he thrusts into his fist. He pretends it’s your mouth. He pretends to see your shocked expression, eyes wide as he comes. He pretends it’s all over your face. With a groan, he grabs a rag and cleans himself up. So much for pretending.

A/N: dividers by @saradika-graphics thanks so much!!

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nrdmssgs · 8 months

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CONGRATS ON 500, you 100% deserve it and more !!! 🥹🌷💐 i just love your art and work so, so much!!

if it's alright, can i request 37 with könig? my husband, i need him !!!! 😮‍💨

Masterlist List of prompts What? An author, who practically inspired me to come here and start writing? An author, who gifted me the biggest brainrot for many sides of König? Sends me a request? Orla, I am such a huge fan!!!!!! I love your style, love your bold, picturesque oneshots, love your eagerness to discover so many themes. I owe you so much, you don't have an idea. I made a text and a picture in case, you don't like the text. Sorry, I'm fangirling and I'm nervous)

Does it make you nervous, when I stare?

Pairing: KonigxReader Warning: this is NSFW. And König here is not the shyest guy on Earth, because this is colonel edition.

Oh, the things, you would let this man do to you. Unspeakable, ungodly things. Things so unhinged, you wouldn't mention them even after a few rounds of shots with your besties.

One sight of his fingers tapping the tabletop during the debriefing, and you can't think about anything other than the salty taste on your lips, left by his thumb. It would take him just one word, or maybe even one glance to make you cover his index and middle finger in saliva, as he would slide them against your tongue. You'd be so good - standing on your knees for him, sucking his fingers so eagerly, fighting your own gag reflex.

One glance thrown at his forearms, tightly hugged by black cloth, and you imagine his massive hands picking you up like you weigh nothing at all. You'd freeze, learn to hold your breath for as long as he wants, until you'd feel only the brush of his mouth against yours and the grumble of his impatience when he pushes in. The intoxicating thickness of his tongue against yours would be a taste that would rocket to your core and melt you from the inside, as he'd hover over you, pushing apart your legs with the brush of his massive thighs between yours. He'd take and take and take. And how obediently will you keep giving him anything, he demands.

Looking at his hips is a serious danger. Slick outlines of his muscles, his fingers brushing up and down his lap, black holster straps spanning his thigh make you go absolutely feral. You'd be standing still, feeling his low growl with your entire body. You'd hold your hands high against the wall and arch your back, so he can have access to every single part of your body. You'd accept him reminding you, with each his hungry thrust, where your place is: wrapped in his arms while he rubs you senseless, his teeth on your neck leaving you on the edge of pain.

All that fantasies you could hide from König, if it wasn't for his eyes: deep cold silver light, sparkling with interest, every time, he caught you staring. You couldn't make yourself look away: his stare was a predatory gaze, luring you closer, easing you into a thought of coming closer, stripping you of any bit of self-preservation instinct. Yes, when he caught your eyes - König took his time, ravishing in a sight of your desperate blush, letting go of you and turning his gaze away only when you were literally choking with shame, trying to drive away the visions that he awakened in your mind. This man was to become the end of you, and every next day it was only harder to fight that feeling off.

So when you hear, he is expanding his team, it feels only natural to surrender and use this ghostly opportunity to get closer to him. You know, your chance to join the team, his inner circle, is almost zero. By no means, you can be considered a poor professional, but the Colonel is a legend here. He doesn't want just 'the best' he wants those outstanding even from the best. And your personnel files scream 'just good' at best. But you have a motivation, the one so strong and specific, that maybe only you here have. Your obsession with König is pushing you to the darkest void, you were too scared to come to earlier - the threshold of his office.

"Come in." His voice at it finest: not too loud, not too harsh, all honey and slumber. When he wants, he can be mesmerizing as a siren.

You clench your hand into a fist behind your back, thus trying to calm the trembling that is rolling up to your knees.

"Just don't look him in the eyes, and it would be ok. Hands, yes, you can bear looking at his hands and not lose it. Afterward you can have whatever you want - your toys, your fingers, your cushions... Just look at his hands, breathe deep, and it all will be alright." Your inner monologue is interrupted only when he is pulling a folder from your hands, obviously tired of waiting for you to finally give it to him.

"What do we have he- oh..." Your breath hitches, you practically hear an uncanny smile spreading across his face.

"Die Kleine will in meinem Spiel?*" König sounds amused. And although you don't entirely understand, what he said - you get the message and nod, not daring to look him in the eyes.

"Very good. I could use such a treasure..." He flips the pages and clicks his tongue when some of your personal indicators impress him. And before you manage to exhale, he adds: "But I'll need to test you. See, if you are... ready."

"Anything, Colonel!" You blurt it out and immediately shut your mouth, realizing that it might sound ambivalent. But that's enough to make König raise from his seat and lead you from offices to firing range.

You blame it upon a rush of blood to your head, but you pass his test with flying colors. Physical tests, advanced weaponry, strategy, even sparing with König leaves you alive and just a little trembling.

The thing, that breaks you, is not even a test or a check. It happens late in the evening, when you two end up in the locker room. You just need to remove one layer of the tactical gear you were using, you'll still have your shirt and jeans on. But you stop, paralyzed, seeing out of the corner of your eye how König leans against the wall, arms folded on his chest. His gaze, you feel his gaze: lingering and hungry.

"What's wrong, treasure? Are you hurt?" You are afraid to answer and reveal your trembling voice, so you just shake your head.

"You don't know, how to loosen those straps? Want me to help you?" Again: you only shake your head, hiding your gaze.

"Is it my eyes, that make you that nervous, Schatzi*?" His accent thickens, voice drops low, as he steps closer.

You instinctively lean back, but hit the wall behind you. He takes one more step towards you and places his hand between the wall and the back of your head, so that you don't hurt yourself occasionally. But very soon, he guides you to finally look up at him. There it is: silver light, that you can never look away from, once you saw it.

"Talk to me. There can be no secrets inside my team." His voice is soft once again, but you know, it is a trap. And you fall for it.

"I just get distracted. Don't worry, Colonel, I'll learn to ignore it or to live quietly with it. Sorry..." Your voice, your entire body, is trembling.

"There's nothing to apologize for." Something sparkles deep inside his eyes. He moves his veil up, so you can see his lips, and leans right to your ear. "In fact, how about you come at the same time to my office tomorrow, treasure? After all, you've proven, you can be so good for me... It's my turn to convince you, I too can be good for you, Schatzi."

Die Kleine will in meinem Spiel? - Little one wants in my game?

Schatzi - little treasure

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mikodrawnnarratives · 5 months

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*cracks knuckles* @paper-lilypie

WEDDING BELLS YALL

and brainrot. I've been sketching these ideas out for like, a year. And done nothing with them until this point

this has been festering. in my mind.

*note: I didn't get around to drawing it, but I imagine Sun, Moon, and Y/n say their vows at the Bell place thingie that I need to reread in the fic. Y'know, the place Moon climbs up to, to get away from y/n. Yeh they declare their love up there and smoochies*

I should really reread that bit actually lol

Before moving forward, I'm gonna rant about outfits

this is the outfit that I base Sun and Moon's wedding look on because I just think it fits so well. I share this so you guys see the vision and forgive my inexperience with drawing these folds

Cool? cool.

Also, I went through several variations of what Y/n would wear before settling on this bc nothing that came up when I searched "gender neutral wedding gear" really fit

Wanted a mix between gown and suit and y'know this ended up being more suit but I like it a lot so we're going with that. It also came to me in a vision so that has to say something.

(Ok but I did envision Y/n having a dress similar to this one character's dress in Bad Guys but I couldn't draw it so I scrapped it)

(ok some details stayed but most of the concept had to go)

so like- you see it right?

Btw. All of them (including guests) have pockets. just. to ease your mind.

ok back to actually drawn wedding shenanigans

Because, there are many, wedding shenanigans

Y'know the trend of smashing wedding cake into the bride/groom/wedded partner's face right?

There's no way this wouldn't escalate and y/n wouldn't enlist their siblings in the chaos.

They'll get like- one or two good wedding pics before this.

the cake tasted good tho

Let me just say. I am so proud of how I did these hands I'm oogling my own art I did so good GHGHHHHHHFDS

I like??? Want to do more?????

cuties shenanigans below they are obnoxious and they know it

By the way by the way you may notice the flower dress

I WILL be getting around to Lily x DCA STUFF I WILL

Tho I got busy and had a really hard time drawing/finishing sketches when I did have time so. I chose to post what I have so far so it's out before November ends

CONSIDER THIS A PART 1

LILY YOU ARE NOT SAFE

well Ig u are safe

for nowwwww

Bouquet toss real

fun fact I initially wanted to draw Sun, Moon, and Copper y/n tossing the bouquet together

but their arm lengths would NOT make that work kjfdkljsdklj

so y/n tosses the bouquet bc they are the specialest

(Or they won the round of monopoly)

(who's to say)

(we don't talk about game night)

But all three of them are the criminal. masterminds. They planned this from the start. Holly and Chica HAD NO CHANCE after the role they played in getting Y/N AND SUN AND MOON together.

I think this video would also be something cute that I could see happening for their wedding lol

Y/n and the daycare attendants hand the bouquet to Holly and then she gets proposed to by Chica

Anyway I still have a whole list of wedding shenanigans I need to draw

Sarah and Yao being some because when I tried before I couldn't sketch them out to my liking.

And the more CCRT gets expanded on, the more I'm sure will be present in their wedding since there are only 3 chapters out so far and enough art for me to make my guesses dlkkldsf

I'm sure there are plenty of fun things that can be included into this wedding, or edited, once more is revealed of the characters and their relationships

and who would be wedding guests is a little more up in the air, for instance and... who'd be able to show up in the first place considering unknown state of... living

(*cough cough*-Glamrock Foxy-*cough cough*)

...and being on good terms! thats.. important too. y'know moon and foxy weren't really exes but it may still be a bit awkward if he got invited y'know yknow

941 notes · View notes

toomuchracket · 2 months

Text

if you're too shy (office nerd!matty x reader fluff)

in which the other music journalist at the magazine you work at is the cutest weird boy you've ever met. enjoy <3

in hindsight, coming back from a two-week holiday the same day the magazine goes to print was a misguided idea.

your editor-in-chief tells you as much when you enter the office, pulling you into a half hug. “don't get me wrong, it's lovely to see you,” she says, scraping her hair back into a bun and securing it with a pencil. “but you'll be doing nothing all day, i'm afraid. maybe some last minute proofing, but i think everyone in nightlife and reviews has been alright. double-check with marianne.”

you do just that, weaving your way through people running copy and coffee between departments until you reach your own. it's mercifully quiet compared to everywhere else, the ten or so people dotted at desks around the sunlit room looking at their laptops and wearing headphones; you actually have to flick marianne on the back of the head to get her to notice you. “oi.”

“who the- oh, hi!” marianne's face softens when she sees it's you, and she stands to pull you into one of her infamously bone-crushing hugs before pulling back to get a good look. “well, you look annoyingly well-rested. but i suppose a fortnight in a spanish villa will do that to you. bitch.”

“i had a great time, thanks for asking,” you grin. “how’s everything been with you? stressful, without your star reporter?”

“well, for starters, you've been succeeded for that title.”

you frown only half-jokingly, scanning the room to try and guess which of your colleagues has replaced you as marianne's unofficial favourite. “who the fuck…?”

“language,” she lightly slaps your arm, in spite of the fact she was just about to say the same thing, then smiles suspiciously. “and i’m talking about our newest recruit.”

the brewing annoyance in your stomach dissipates immediately, replaced by a flock of tiny butterflies. “oh,” you try to keep your smile to a minimum. “that's okay. i like him.”

marianne sees right through you, though. she rolls her eyes. “oh, you would.”

“what?”

she sighs, motioning for you to lower your voice and modifying her own to a whisper. “he’s a curly-haired pretty-eyed vaguely scrawny white boy. you'd like him even if he didn't think the sun shone out of your arse.”

“marianne!” you hiss. “he does not!”

“don’t act all indignant, he has literally looked over at you once every thirty seconds since you walked in - and don't look, idiot, you'll freak him out. we need him on the ball, today of all days,” she rubs her eyes. “but yes, he’s very good at his job. i like him, even if i've no idea what in the world he goes off on his tangents about. great writer.”

“yeah, he is,” you risk a glance towards him, but all you can see is the back of his laptop - covered in stickers for things you can only name half of - and dark curls peeking out from the side of his headphones. “i like the references. different perspective from me, innit? that's why we hired him, after all.”

“who's we? you were too pissed off that i was hiring another music critic to agree to be part of the interviewing panel.”

you'd love to disagree, but you really were pissed when marianne and the other editors told you they were expanding the nightlife section. it didn't matter that it was in response to an increase in funding and readership, with the magazine switching to a print format as well as the online edition you'd contributed to since its creation - your fierce independence and pride meant you didn't take the news well, made you think it was an issue with your competence and writing ability that meant you'd be getting a new colleague. but once you were reassured that you'd still get to keep the Big Gigs and restaurant reviews to yourself, you were slightly more agreeable to the idea.

and once you actually met the new guy, stumbling over both his words and his own feet as he introduced himself, you couldn't quite remember why you'd been opposed in the first place.

“well,” you say, snapping back into reality. “thank goodness i'm over it now.”

“because you want to get under him?”

“no!” you stand indignantly, and then grin. “on top, maybe.”

“good grief,” your boss shakes her head. “don't you go bringing it up to him - excuse the pun - before this edition goes to the printers,” she points at you as you move to walk away. “or talking to him at all until then, actually, you hear me? i love you, but you're a distraction to him, and he's my best journo.”

“he's not, but alright,” you pat her head as you walk back towards the door. “i'll be in the staff room if you need me. and i won't talk to anyone, mum, i promise.”

“i'm only five years older than you!”

“whatever you say!” you reply in a singsongy voice, giggling to yourself as you wander towards the sunny kitchen. the little radio on the windowsill is on, as it always is, and you nod along to the cure while you wait for the kettle to boil. once you've made a cuppa (and grabbed a slack handful of the chocolate digestives marianne always keeps the cupboard stocked with), you settle at the table with your laptop, typing out ideas for your next feature and doing your best not to think about the boy down the corridor you've been instructed not to talk to for the time being. for the most part, you succeed.

that is, until he walks into the staff room two hours later.

you frantically wipe your face of biscuit crumbs as he does, smiling as sweetly as you can for someone with no idea if she has chocolate on her teeth or not. “hi, matty. how are you?”

“oh, hi! i'm, uh, i'm alright,” matty smiles widely enough that his verbal emotional downplaying is blatant - still, he's so cute, beaming at you like that with his little sweater paws. he’s always in a jumper or cardigan or hoodie of some kind, and on more than one occasion in the three months you've known him, you've absolutely thought about literally cosying up into him instead of doing any work. “how was spain? and the wedding - it was a family wedding you were going to, yeah?”

“that's right,” it’s not a big deal, but you glow at the fact he remembered. or maybe it's the soft intent he looks at you with. “it was lovely, yeah. although - wait, have we gone to print?” you ask, suddenly recalling marianne's instructions. “i'm not keeping you from work?”

matty's curls bounce as he shakes his head, light hitting off the metal hoop in his earlobe (that you're only mildly obsessed with). “we've gone. i'm just in here to get my lunch,” he pulls a tupperware from the fridge, cheeks rosy as he waves it. “made some soup last night.”

he makes his own soup. the thought is so endearing that it takes everything in you not to sigh; you settle for a smile. “carrot and coriander?”

“you can tell from one glance?”

you shrug. “s'my favourite.”

“really?” matty's face seems to light up. “mine too,” he busies himself with putting the tupperware in the microwave, taking his time pressing buttons and turning dials before looking bashfully at you. “so, you had a nice time at the wedding, then?”

“i did, thank you. do you, um,” you start, suddenly shy. “d'you want to see some photos from it, while you're waiting for the soup to heat up?”

he nods back just as shyly, sitting quite awkwardly on the seat next to yours; while you open your photos app, matty twists a stray curl around his finger, and the movement seems to send your nerves into vibration as well as the molecules in the air. with a series of shallow breaths, you locate the folder of the wedding pictures and set your phone on the table. “feel free to flick through them, if you like.”

“thank you,” matty sits forward, carefully swiping through the album. you lean on your elbow, doing your best not to beam adoringly at the way he looks intently at each photo before moving to the next. “the venue is really beautiful.”

“yeah, it was stunning.”

the next picture is one of you in your bridesmaid dress, taken by your sister the morning of the wedding. you watch, slightly heartsick, as matty's mouth falls open as he looks at you; the feeling worsens when he tentatively does the same thing in real life, those pretty eyes of his sparkling as he smiles softly. “so are you. really. like,” he looks down at the photo again, shaking his head slightly before looking back up at you. “that colour is beautiful on you. honest. you look incredible.”

“thank you,” the words come out in a whisper, and the two of you silently smile at each other for a moment until you clear your throat. “um, there are more of the official pics on my instagram, let me… actually, do you have my private account?”

“oh, no,” matty shakes his head again - god, you love the way his hair moves. “just the one for your writing.”

“well,” you tap on the app with an almost-imperceptibly shaky finger. “that's the username there, if you'd like to follow. no pressure, of course. don’t wanna fuck up your algorithms or anything.”

your nervous chuckle at the end of the sentence turns to a giggle when you see matty's face as you share your username; it lights up so much that you'd be forgiven for thinking he'd just won the lottery. he pulls his own phone out and taps away at it. “you don't have to follow me back, by the way,” his cheeks flush a deep red, a beautiful colour. “m'not posting anything interesting.”

doubtful. he might be one of the most interesting people you've ever met, all talent and sweetness and a wealth of cultural understanding wrapped up in a sweater and a pretty face. “no, i'd like to.”

“alright. thank you,” matty's cheeks seem to get even redder as he watches you hit follow back, face twitching as though he’s trying to stop himself smiling too big. when the microwave dings, he all but skips over to it, almost tripping over the leg of his chair in a sweetly awkward way; he swears under his breath when he lifts the steaming container out, turning back sheepishly to look at you. “sorry.”

“don't worry,” you grin at him, feeling slightly bold. “i still think you're sweet when you swear.”

he giggles, and the noise makes your heart leap; in addition to being one of the most interesting people you think you've ever met, matty healy is without doubt the cutest. watching his lips pout in concentration as he stirs the soup and checks the temperature, you briefly imagine what they would feel like against your own, how he would be if the two of you were to kiss. just as giggly and endearingly awkward as he usually is, you think - eager to please, lips and tongue a little sloppy and unsure but enthusiastic enough for you not to mind, slightly unsure of where to put his hands so as to not make you uncomfortable… the scene is as clear as day in your head, and you really, really want to recreate it. you'd devour him right now if you could, the sweetheart.

and then, matty reaches up to get a bowl from the shelf, the hem of his shirt goes with him, and your want to devour him suddenly takes on a less pg-rated meaning than it did a second ago.

he has a fucking hip tattoo.

you’re pretty sure it's only a sliver of the full design you can actually see, but the hints of red and blue and black ink and the glimpse of his happy trail are enough to fuck you up completely. as you register what you're seeing - what you're discovering about the seemingly buttoned-up, shy, unassuming-to-everyone-but-you matty - your breath catches in your throat, forcing you to cough quite obviously on the mouthful of lukewarm tea you'd just taken. one cough turns into another, and you clap a hand over your mouth to make your tattoo reaction attack the least obvious it can be.

still, the ever-perceptive man across the kitchen notices, running over to crouch in front of you with concern filling those beautiful eyes of his. “you alright, darling?”

darling?! no, you most certainly aren't alright.

but you can't tell matty that, so you stick to gesturing to let him know you'll reply once you've managed to swallow your tea. “i am, yeah, thanks. tea just, y'know, went down the wrong way.”

matty tilts his head. “you sure?”

“yeah,” you smile, slightly embarrassed. “really. thank you, though.”

“of course,” he smiles in return, knee brushing lightly against your leg as he steadies himself; he looks down, eyes widening as he registers how close the two of you are, and quickly stands. “i'd better, y'know, get my lunch.”

you nod, despite the strange loneliness settling into your bones at the lack of him next to you. “i can head back to the office, if you want peace?”

“no, no, please stay!” matty all but gasps, turning to look at you like a deer caught in headlights - he clears his throat, blinking a few times before speaking again. “please don't feel the need to leave on my account, i mean. or feel obliged to talk, really - i was just going to read.”

“you're sure i won't be a bother to you?”

matty smiles warmly, shaking his head. “that'll never happen.”

christ.

“okay,” you whisper, winking at him - and savouring the little giggle that bubbles out of him when you do - before turning back to your laptop.

matty settles at the table a minute or so later, pulling a paperback from his back pocket and holding it open quite attractively with one hand. you peek over the rim of your laptop at him every so often, never for more than a couple of seconds at a time; partially to avoid the mortification of him catching you, but mostly because if you look at him any longer you know your mind will wander back to that fucking hip tattoo of his, and what it might look like completely visible to you, and what it might feel like under your lips, and what noises matty might make if you slowly dragged your tongue all over it before moving to the side to lick a wavy line up the length of his-

enough. he's literally right there.

the room feels hot, all of a sudden, your cheeks flushing and throat drying to match. on only slightly shaky legs, you pick up your waterbottle and head to the water fountain, crouching as best you can to fill it. even though he stays silent, you can feel matty’s eyes on you from across the room, but it doesn't bother you or freak you out in the way that other men ogling you at a water fountain would - it's quite obvious that matty has some sort of more-than-platonic affection for you, but his gaze has always been one of appreciation and awe when it comes to you, not the predatory one you've come to expect from men. and yet, his is the only male gaze that makes you feel slightly nervous, unused to being looked at with such reverence and tenderness by an attractive boy; in complete contrast, though, it also makes you lower your guard, pull down the bricks from the wall you've built around your heart, and allow yourself to actually feel something for matty, for once. something good, honest, promising.

matty looks up from his book as you sit down, smiling pleasantly. he opens his mouth as if to talk, and then closes it immediately, shaking his head slightly.

this intrigues you. “you okay, matty?”

“hmm? oh, yeah, i was just thinking,” his cheeks go a shade of pink you would buy in blush form if you could find it. “when you were first talking about the wedding… you said although, and then we got off-topic slightly. what, um, what were you going to say, if you don't mind me asking?”

“oh, right,” you wrack your brain, doing your best to not get distracted by how cute you find his perception. “i think i was going to say something about how, as good as it all was, there's nothing like a family wedding to remind you of how single you are.”

his jaw falls open. “you… you don't have a boyfriend? wait, sorry,” he blinks. “or a partner?”

you shake your head, biting the inside of your lip to stop yourself smiling. “no boyfriend, no. and thus, constantly advised by a never-ending flock of aunts that i should get one so i could get married.”

“christ,” matty winces. “yeah, my cousin's getting married in a couple of months - not looking forward to everyone asking me when i'm going to meet a nice girl and settle down, as if i can answer.”

no girlfriend. how interesting. “you're single? really?”

he rolls his eyes, still smiling at you. “be serious. course i am.”

“i am being serious! that surprises me,” you lean on one elbow, tilting your head to look at him. “you're lovely, matty.”

matty’s eyes widen, and he blinks adorably a few times before he smiles shyly again. “thank you. i think the same about you.”

“you do?”

he simply nods, total sincerity in those pretty eyes.

you feel your cheeks warm, but you make no effort to hide it. “thank you.”

matty shrugs. “just telling the truth, darling,” he looks panicked when he realises what he's said. “sorry for calling you that, twice, it just-”

“i like it, matty, it's alright,” you say reassuringly. “and i like-”

“oh, thank god you're both here,” marianne bursts into the room, carrying her laptop; you frown petulantly at her for ruining your moment, but shuffle your chair round closer to matty's so she can sit at the table too. “something weird’s happening.”

matty squints. “what d'you mean by weird?”

marianne pushes her laptop towards you both. “there's overlap in your planned reviews - the band you're going to see at the end of next week, matthew, have just been announced as the opener for the next Big Gig. i need to know how we want to go about this.”

“oh,” he looks at you. “i don't mind if you want to just review them as part of yours.”

you're shaking your head vehemently before he even finishes talking. “no, that's not fair,” you tap your lips with your index finger the way you always do when you concentrate, trying to ignore the glow within your body when you see matty looking at them from the corner of your eye; inspiration strikes, and you turn to marianne. “matty could come with me, couldn't he? if he reviews their headline gig, and then he does a follow-up review of their opening set in the Big Gig feature - we could just do a joint byline, work together on it.”

both of them turn to look at you in slight shock. marianne is the first to speak, her words trickling out slowly as she processes the fact you've just agreed to let someone else work on a Big Gig for the first time. “you're… happy with that?”

“if matty is, yeah,” you turn to him, smiling. “sound alright?”

he beams. “more than. thank you.”

“of course,” you turn back to the boss. “there you go. sorted.”

she sighs, relieved. “thank goodness for that. alright,” she stands, picking up her laptop and heading back to the main office. “i'll coordinate press passes. thanks for making that simple - you're both stars.”

“anytime!” you call after her, before turning back to matty. “you're sure you're happy to do this? i realise i've just given you more work to do, but…”

he laughs, a beautiful sound. “nah, i don't mind. also,” he shuffles in his seat, bashful again. “i actually have a spare ticket for the first show, if you'd like it - bought it before i saw it was on the review roster. doesn't seem fair that i get to go to two gigs while you only get one, i think. i mean, no pressure, obviously, but the offer's there.”

god, he’s so fucking cute. how could you ever say no to him? “i'd like that a lot, matty, thank you,” you beam at him. “i think us working together is going to be a lot of fun.”

matty beams back just as enthusiastically. “i think so too.”

#mads muses #mads does writing #office nerd au #matty healy fanfiction #matty healy fanfic #matty healy fic #matty healy fluff #matty healy x reader #matty x reader

270 notes · View notes

marlenesluv · 7 months

Text

Home. (OP)

request -> “hi! if it's not a bother, could you do a oscar piastri x adhd reader (very hyper and bubbly), from Brazil (Paraná) but she speaks a bunch of languages, and is studying mechanical engineering, also she's 18, thank you ❤️”

note: lovey love love this sm. oscar is so sweet, not enough oscar love out there fr. i might start writing for him more?.. happy to write some brazilian reader too, i love this. i made this to skip the launch, just some cute stuff of them dating! anyways, i hope you enjoy :)❤️

warnings: none!!

fc: rafaella consentino

masterlist here -> masterlist link

^ check my list for all posts! ^

liked by: y/n.user, landonorris, and 289,024 others

oscarpiastri: back to her roots 📍Paraná, Brazil 🇧🇷

view comments…

oscar.y/nfanpage: oscar 🤝 turning into a y/n fanpage

y/n.user: happy to be back and show you around😊🫶

|> oscarpiastri: we walked 15 miles in one day, how much more to see is there??

|> y/n.user: so so SO much more

|> oscarpiastri: i’ll only walk my feet off for you🫶

f1.edits: they are so sweet, they give me a toothache 🥹

y/n.wagpage: my favorite wag 💁‍♀️🙏

pastry.fanpage: brazil is so beautiful, enjoy your break with your gf oscar!

landonorris: no invite?

|> oscarpiastri: next time

|> y/n.user: OO YAYAYA i’m such a good tour guide

|> landonorris: oh no, im gonna have to walk 100 miles, aren’t i?

|> oscarpiastri: 😁😁

f1.updates: i love me some summer break content. and when it’s oscar & y/n? NEED

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liked by: oscarpiastri, francisca.cgomes, and 173,135 others

y/n.user: finally got a break from building stuff and finals🫠 agora posso mostrar ao Oscar minha casa

translation (i used google so this might not even be correct but pls bear with me): now i get to show oscar my home

view comments…

oscarpiastri: i love you💚💛💙

|> y/n.user: aww, i love you too💚💛💙

|> user7: i’m- stop. this is so cute

y/n.fans: multilingual queen👸

francisca.cgomes: you guys are the cutest

|> y/n.user: kikaaaa <3

f1.wags: just wondering, does anyone know what other languages y/n speaks??

|> y/n.fanpage: portuguese is her main language, then english. and she also knows japanese, french, italian, spanish, some german, and i think she said she’s learning dutch!

|> f1.wags: howwww….

|> y/n.user: haha, you got them all! my parents thought i needed to know as many languages as possible, so i try to always expand :)

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liked by: oscarpiastri, charles_leclerc, and 182,294 others

y/n.user: is he as good on a moped as he is in an f1 car…?

view comments…

lilymhe: i just cant believe you EXIST. you’re stunning

|> y/n.user: LILYYYYY 🥹😭 i cant believe YOU exist

f1andf2.wags: i love the way that all the wags are friends wtf🥹

|> wag.postsoff1: me tooooo

oscarpiastri: yes, yes i am

|> y/n.user: my kens job is vroom

|> francisca.cgomes: mine too!

|> carmenmmundt: wow! mine too, guys😇

user77: you beautyyyyy💛

_______________________________________________

your instagram story:

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liked by: oscarpiastri, danielricciardo, and 199,246 others

y/n.user: back to the paddock fits😁 so excited to annoy the mclaren engineers while i do my coursework 😇

view comments…

oscarpiastri: they love you, it’s okay

|> y/n.user: i love gossiping with them☺️

f1.wagpage: cutest couple ever, STOP IT NOW

formula1updates: so excited for the paddock posts!!

oscary/n.ship: pls teach oscar some portuguese🙏

|> y/n.user: trust me, i’ve been trying. he’s getting somewhere

pierregasly: can’t wait for you to steal my gf again

|> y/n.user: is it stealing if she comes over willingly?🤨

editsforwags: the first look so good🤝

mclaren: excited to have you both back🧡

*liked by creator*

user04: 日本に来てください！(come to japan!)

|> y/n.user: すぐ！(soon!)

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(reposts, comments, and likes are appreciated!^-^)

#formula 1 #f1 #formula one #oscar piastri #oscar piastri x you #oscar piastri x reader #f1 x you #f1 x oc #f1 x female reader #f1 x y/n #f1 x reader #smau #oscar piastri fluff #oscar piastri smau

548 notes · View notes

thechekhov · 1 year

Note

thoughts on the huge OGL debacle around DnD at the moment?

mmmmmMMMMMM BOI

I was going to be holding off on commenting until something was confirmed by WotC because I hoped to get more info but. I think we basically got what we need.

For those who don’t know - the CONTEXT:

Earlier last month there was a leak that made the DnD community peek up out of their little holes like a bunch of meerkats hearing a stampede. Y’see, currently, Wizards of the Coast (a company owned by Hasbro, a corporate giant in board-games) is working on a new DnD version that is meant to replace 5e (5th edition of DnD, the most current one). They’re calling it One DnD, and it’s in play-test right now. But there’s a problem. Along with new stuff, they were apparently planning to revise the OGL - the Open Gaming License which had been a staple of the DnD Era since 2000.

The OGL 1.0 was essentially an open world ticket for third-party creators to use DnD game mechanics to build worlds, create monsters, and expand upon the creative base that was DnD. In 2008 they attempted to publish 4th edition DnD under a different, less open gaming license, which ended up severely hurting their overall standing with the community. When they published 5e, they returned to the OGL and DnD has gained traction with the public thanks to various gaming groups (such as Critical Role) rising to fame. Because of the OGL, many people have made adventures for 5e DnD, making monster manuals compatible with the game, and basically expanding on a huge, growing world. There have been kickstarters for new adventures, new compendiums, etc, which were an incredible creative sandbox for just about anyone who wanted to try their hand at creating.

And now it seems like they fucked it up.

A leak made it clear that WotC is working on OGL 1.1 - which is basically a giant middle finger to everything the original was. They are now demanding royalties from anyone creating new content if they make over 50kᶜᵒʳʳᵉᶜᵗᵉᵈ 750k a year from their creations - which in and of itself isn’t super unreasonable.... except for the fact that they can lower this number at any point.

ALSO with the new OGL (1.1) WotC would OWN the rights to anything made using any of their content (including homebrew made by creators - yes, they would own settings/character just because those adventures use their system) indefinitely, demand they receive financial reports from anyone making 50k or more.

What’s more, they reserve the right to change their own license at any point, with only 30 days notice. (Which basically means that if at any point they decide to demand recompense from people making more than, say, 20k from their little homebrewed setting in 5e, they can do that with nary a month’s warning.)

“...according to attorneys consulted for this article, the new language may indicate that Wizards of the Coast is rendering any future use of the original OGL void, and asserting that if anyone wants to continue to use Open Game Content of any kind, they will need to abide by the terms of the updated OGL, which is a far more restrictive agreement than the original OGL..." (source)

So as you can imagine, for the past few weeks, the entire DnD community and the ttrpg community at large have been gearing up for either a fight, a mass exodus, or both. It would not be the first time.

And then, just recently, we had another comment, this time from inside. An email was sent out, which has been evidently confirmed by one of the recipients as true, describing what is happening inside of WotC.

[I'm an employee at WotC currently working on and with business leaders on the health of the product line. If you want I can provide proof of this.I'm sending this message because I fear for the health of a community I love, and I know what the leaders at WOTC are looking at:

They are briefly delaying rollout of OGL changes due to the backlash.

Their decision making is based entirely on the provable impact to their bottom line

Specifically they are looking at DDB subscriptions and cancellations as it is the quickest financial data they currently have.

They are still hoping the community forgets, moves on, and they can still push this through

I have decided to reach out because at my time in WotC I have never once heard management refer to customers in a positive manner, their communication gives me the impression they see customers as obstacles between them and their money, the DDB team was first told to prepare to support the new OGL changes and online portal when they got back from the holidays, and leadership doesn’t take any responsibility for the pain and stress they cause others. Leadership's first communication to the rank and file on the OGL was 30 minutes on 1/11/23, This was the first time they even tried to communicate their intentions about the OGL to employees, and even in this meeting they blamed the community for over-reacting.I will repeat, the main thing this leadership is looking at is DDB subscription cancellations.Hope your day goes well,PS will be copying and pasting this message to other community leaders]

(source)

As for my comment in all of this?

I won’t pretend to be a local expert in legal terminology. Others can probably parse the full leak far better, and I don’t think there is anything to be gained by running around in a panic and screaming...

However.

The fact of the matter is, Hasbro/WotC are shooting themselves in the foot. I don’t believe they have the right to destroy the original license. Make a new one for OneDnD? Sure, knock yourself out. Try it, see how popular it’ll be. But destroying the community-driven 5e will do only that - destroy it. They will not be gaining any money from the fans which are already plenty used to supporting small-level creators first and large companies second. It’s a supremely counter-culture move which will eat them from the inside out.

The only ones that I feel for are Critical Role - who originally played in Pathfinder and then switched to 5e and paired up with DnD Beyond.............and are now being screwed over because they’re likely locked in a contract with WotC and are contractually obligated to not speak out negatively against the changes.

In my heart of hearts, I kinda hope that their tablets all mysteriously ‘break’ for the next few games and they go back to pen and paper instead of barking out DnD Beyond ads as they’re expected to do. But I don’t know if that’s something they can afford to risk.

(.....though hell, I hope they try to afford it. They have a community that will stand behind them, and that community has MONEY. We won’t know until we know, though, and I know that there are legal repercussions that may go beyond a simple income slap on the wrist.)

Personally, here’s my two cents:

I think people should cast a vote with their money.

Cancel your DnD Beyond subscription.

Don’t give any more money to Hasbro or Wizards. Keep playing whatever 5e games you want, but do it using third-party digital character sheets, OR just go old school and do pen and paper. Let me know if you need sources for it.

Don’t buy the Players Handbook, leave DnD Beyond behind, don’t engage with One DnD. There are resources out there that let you play the game that also don’t require you giving money to corporations that are only here to fuck around and find out. You want an adventure module but don’t want to bow down to the dragon sitting on its hoard? Hit me up. I’ll give you some alternatives.

Hell, I myself will be looking into Pathfinder 2e because I’ve heard good things, and if I need to switch any future games to a different system because Fountry VTT or Roll20 will stop offering the 5e presents, it’ll be a very good alternative. Paizo just came out with a statement that they will write their own version of the OGL which will keep the spirit of the open game alive, and Kobold Press is gearing up with their own stuff.

I won’t be throwing out my own games, and I don’t feel there’s a need to stop playing 5e. I have a Curse of Strahd game to finish, and that game belongs to me and my group now. We don’t need the module - it needs us.

... all that is simply to say - Wizards may soon be realizing that when you live on the Coast... pirates are never far.

(edited thanks to corrections from @magpiesarefluffy )

#dnd #dnd 5e #wotc #ttrpg #d&d #wizards of the coast #ogl #ogl 1.1 #ogl 1.0 #chekhov answers

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