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dunno where this line is going but it's going somewhere

#writeblogging #the games of divinity

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LeBlanc Coffee and Curry Honolulu, Hawaii 

Jimmy Tanaka’s Japanese was godawful, but he had grandparents that lived in Okinawa so Sojiro made an effort to help him practice. He had done so much evil in his life that a handful of good deeds would do little to cleanse his soul, but Sojiro hoped that the occasional act of kindness would at least earn him a kinder form of damnation. 

Jimmy spoke Japanese with all the hallmarks of a young man alienated from his parents’ culture, drawing out the u in Sojiro’s last name until it sounded like he was saying “Sah-KOO-rah” despite his gentle admonishments. Still, he was a breath of fresh air among the aging Japanese expats and locals that typically flooded his cafe. They would cluster around the front stoop, grousing about tourists and playing cards while they smoked and waited for their orders to arrive.  It wasn’t too popular; Sojiro never made it a point to advertise. Advertising invited unwanted attention, which Sojiro had avoided successfully for years. 

Hiding in a bustling tourist city on American soil offered him more protection than hunkering down in a bolt-hole somewhere in Japan. S.E.E.S. might be bold enough to march armed into hell, but not bold enough to provoke a response from the United States. The rather liberal Yankee gun-policy meant that Sojiro could reliably stow a weapon under his register without too many eyebrows being raised. He had never been a field operative and would likely die in any fair gunfight. But he kept it meticulously oiled and loaded and never far from reach. The other shoe was going to drop someday, and Sojiro would be ready for it when it finally did. 

Until then, he had work to do; at home, and at the restaurant slinging plates of warm curry and hot coffee. 

“Jimmy, order for Table 2!” Sojiro called in Japanese, sliding two katsu curry plates onto a tray and ringing the doorbell. 

“Table…” The young man’s brow furrowed, trying to remember his Japanese. “Ah, naruhodo!” 

Do you really? Sojiro thought, watching the young man walk to Tables 3, 4, and 5 before finally remembering what the Japanese word for two was. Then again Sojiro’s English was only adequate after nearly a decade abroad. Between the two of them, they had enough English and Japanese experience to carry on a full conversation in two broken languages. 

“You get the overseas news, Sa-ku-ra-san?” Jimmy asked as he returned behind the counter. 

“Nah…been busy,” Sojiro grunted in English, cracking open a glass coke bottle and taking a sip. Synthesizing baalsulfuric aether with components outside the Metaverse was impossible, so naturally it took a whole week of sleepless nights to figure out how to do it. “Anything interesting?” 

“Some hella yabai stuff going on,” Jimmy whistled. “Bunch of…uh… thieves?” 

“Thieves?” Sojiro snorted. “What did they steal?” 

“Nothing yet; they’re like crazy, uh… hacker thieves,” Jimmy said after a moment of fumbling with the pronunciation. “Took over a radio station or something I guess; started making threats to the police and a bunch of famous people.” 

“That so?” Sojiro chuckled. Everyone is a drama queen these days. 

“They got a couple of babes with them though,” Jimmy said, scrolling through his phone and pulling up an image clipped from one of the broadcasts. “Check out the blonde in the catsuit.” 

Sojiro sighed, leaning over to look at Jimmy’s phone for a moment before turning back to the stove. “She’s a bit young for me, but I guess she’s up your- wait! ” 

Panic raced through Sojiro as he suddenly reached out and grabbed Jimmy’s phone before he could tuck it away. “Let me see that again.” 

Jimmy’s smirk spread as he passed Sojiro the phone. “Told ya she was hot…though the chick in the biker gear has some nice legs too.” 

Sojiro was half listening, eyes tracing the lines of glowing energy that snaked under the thieves’ masks in disbelief. “H-How long have they been robbing people?! Have they appeared in public or just on the news?! When did they show up?!” 

“Uh…” Jimmy blinked, struggling with the flood of Japanese. “I don’t really know…maybe a few weeks, or so ago? The forums are all buzzing with gossip but- hey!” 

“Watch the shop!” Sojiro called over his shoulder, grabbing his pistol and tucking it into the waistband of his slacks. “And send me that link!” 

Sojiro heard his protegee call something back to him but couldn’t hear what over the pounding in his own ears. The afternoon sun cast long shadows on the sidewalk as he made it towards his car parked in a side-alley. He whipped out a pocket mirror, carefully inspecting the undercarriage for misplaced wiring or lumpy blocks of C4 before sliding into the driver’s seat and tearing out onto the main road. 

Traffic was infuriatingly dense on the way back to his unassuming white house tucked away in the corner of an unassuming neighborhood. The money from his previous career could have furnished beachfront property, yet the small, overgrown home far away from the tourist spots had been perfect. Neighbors were friendly, but old, blind, and hard of hearing; if the gadget in the basement blew up, it would only kill those who had lived full lives already. Heavy iron bars rattled on the front door as Sojiro’s hands shook trying to open it, the eye of a single security camera following him into the house as he slammed and bolted the door behind him. 

"Hey!" Sojiro called into the house. "Get up here; you need to see this!" 

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Start from the Beginning

#p5 fanfic #polythieves #akeshu fic #feat. Sumire's ex and the stick up Mitsuru's ass #shuake fic #devil summoner akechi goro #demon hunter au

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ursula k le guin was right

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I'm just saying...if Three Houses did the kid from the future shit like Awakening and Fates did...this would be Claude's kid

#genshitposting #there Claudleth shippers you have your fankid design

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As an FYI please do not reproduce my fics on other sites or in physical form. There seems to be a wave of people discussing binding fics (I think it's a TikTok thing?) and I feel kinda iffy about that.

#writeblogging #people forget fanfic is in a grey area legally #and we need to do what we can to keep it there #though I think this might be a bot since the blog was empty #fanart is cool; this is mostly about printing my fics and potentially selling them

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Changeling:The Lost book covers in order.

Core (2007)  Aileen E. Miles   As far as I can tell along with Victorian Lost.

Autumn Nightmares (2007) Targete Along with the other 3 seasons and ER)

Winter Masques (2007)

Rites of Spring (2008)

Lords of Summer (2008)

Equinox Road (2008)

Night Horrors: Grim Fears (2008) Michel Koch

Dancers in the Dusk (2008)  Stephanie Pui-Mun Law along with SaD

Swords at Dawn (2008)

Goblin Markets (2008) Justin Norman

Victorian Lost (2012)

#ngl this series was a HUGE inspiration on my Devil Summoner fic

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Alright, to ao3's soon to be arriving Wattpad Refugees, a basic guide to general user culture:

1.) Unlike Wattpads vote system that let's you like each chapter, the ao3 equivalent kudos only allows one per work. Everyone is generally quietly annoyed about this. To engage with each chapter, you're heavily encouraged to comment. Trust me, it makes people's day.

2.) Ao3 has no algorithm. By default it's latest updated work first. You can find things to your taste through searches, filters and tags.

3.) 'No archive warnings apply' and 'user has chosen not to use archive warnings' mean two very different things. No archives warnings means the work is free from any content that could require a warning tag (character death, graphic depictions of violence, non-con, etc). User has chosen not to use archive warnings means it could contain any of the warning content, be it hasn't been explicitly tagged. Treat it like an allergen. No archive warnings apply is allergen free. User has chosen not to use archive warnings, may contain traces or whole chunks of the allergen. If you're likely to have a bad reaction, maybe don't take the risk.

4.) Speaking of warnings, ao3 has very few restrictions on the type of work that's allowed. Whatever your personal thoughts or feelings on that are, thats how the site is. You're likely to run across some dark subject matters and a lot of people are uncomfortable with reading that. You're well within your rights not like these works and have your opinion on whether they should be allowed, but harassing the authors of such works (or any works) is more likely to come back on you than them. Ao3 operates on a strong policy of 'don't like, don't read'. Use the tagging system to your full advantage to only engage with the kind of works you want to see.

We look forward to welcoming you all and seeing the fantastic works you create. Happy writing!

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actually that ao3 post about calculating kudos-to-hits ratios to decide if a fic is worth reading has me so pissed off. someone put real time and energy into something they are SHARING WITH YOU FOR FREE on a site where you can quite literally filter and search by anything you want and you're STILL trying to find a foolproof method to find stuff that's "good enough to read"???

YOU ARE NOT THE TARGET AUDIENCE FOR EVERYTHING

you don't have to like or read everything in a given fandom or tag, but you also don't have to be a cunt about it and imply that it's not worth reading. this is the kind of shit that moves people to stop creating altogether, and to see people agreeing in the tags is so disheartening. absolutely unserious behavior.

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TK's life took a dark turn after Digimon Tri

#writeblogging #devil summoner akechi goro #I have a bank of random names I pull from whenever I need an npc

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About the AO3 "No Guest Comments for a while" warning

If you're not following any of AO3's social media accounts you might be in the dark as to what kind of "spam comments" have engendered this banner at the top of the site:

These spam comments have been posted about a great deal on the AO3 subreddit for the past couple of days. Initially they comprised a bunch of guest (logged out users) bot comments that insulted authors by suggesting they were using AI and not writing their own fics. Some examples, from the subreddit:

But it then escalated to outright graphic porn images and gifs being posted in comments, again by logged out 'Guest' accounts. Obviously, I'm not going to give examples of those, but between these two bot infestations, AO3 has clearly decided to act and has temporarily closed the ability to post comments for users who are not logged in with an AO3 account.

Unfortunately, this means that genuine readers who don't have an AO3 account won't be able to leave comments on fics that they enjoy.

If you are a genuine reader who doesn't yet have an AO3 account, I strongly suggest getting yourself on the waiting list for one. More and more AO3 authors are now locking their fics down to registered users only - either due to these bot comments or concerns about AI scraping their work - which means you're probably missing out on a lot of great stuff.

Hopefully guest commenting will be enabled again at some point soon, but I suggest not waiting until then. Get yourself on that list.

Wait times are going to be longer than usual at the moment, due to the current Wattpad purge [info on Fanlore | Wattpad subreddit thread], but if you're in line, then your invite will come through eventually.

Update: There's now a Megathread about this on the AO3 subreddit.

#i might as well #might as well use them

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This is what happened when a fanfic site is profit driven. Wattpad sucks 😞

The email from Wattpad is so condescending imagine pressuring writers to update and work while they are doing it for free and fun. Also the discovery? Algorithm? Of Wattpad looks like a stressful popularity contest 😑

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Oh yes people it's Tomboy MILF-o'clock

#writeblogging #devil summoner akechi goro #I have the most INSANE pairing in mind too

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babe wake up! new booktok nsfw censorship term just dropped

#This makes me so glad I never got TikTok

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Not sure if you've seen it on twitter, but someone drew some lovely fanart for the latest chapter of Of Rage and Love https://twitter.com/KokoaDestroyer/status/1780242004783534362?t=ikcPlzOFGBtGRIkhLc73dQ&s=19

ABSOLUTELY BASED AND DRAGONPILLED TY OP!

#writeblogging #the games of divinity #he's so wet and sad but is also ready to start eating people again

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97 Years, 2 Months, 11 Days

“You cannot make anyone like you; you do realize that, don’t you?” 

“I didn’t say I wanted people to like me,” Carole said, tongue sticking out between her teeth as she tried to tie her ascot. “I said I wanted to help.” 

Despite his unique talent for being a wet blanket, Neuvillette took no pleasure in taking the wind out of the little melusine’s sails. He and his Archon were both idealistic pessimists, always yearning for things to go well and always prepared for when they inevitably didn’t. Too much enthusiasm was a warning sign, and the cheery, almost bullheaded way Carole insisted on inserting herself into the Marechaussee Phantom only added to Neuvillette’s anxiety. 

“To help…and one day convince our human subjects that the melusine are trustworthy,” Neuvillette said. 

“Well I guess that’d be nice too,” Carole said cheerfully. “First thing’s first; can’t go counting my melusine before they hatch.” 

It was hard to tell where the line between naivete and optimism was with Furina’s new subjects; the melusine surprised Neuvillette with how readily they weathered the looks of suspicion, the sneers and jeering taunts hurled at them by the humans they served. He had borne all the scorn Fontaine had to throw at him for decades, though with considerably less grace and goodwill. Where Neuvillette became withdrawn and taciturn with humanity, the melusine only seemed to try harder to win their new countrymen’s support. Admirable, to be sure, but the Fontish were quickly learning that the melusine weren’t going to be chased off by a few hard words or thrown stones. Athena hoped this meant the Fontish were warming up to them; Neuvillette knew humanity too well to hope for that.  

“First thing’s first; you will have to learn to tie a proper tie,” Neuvillette sighed, crouching down behind Carole and taking the ends of her ascot in his hands. “Here; watch me.” 

Carole’s eyes followed Neuvillette’s careful knots, taking in none of it as she studied his reflection. “...do you think I’ll be able to keep up with M. Vautrin?” 

“Of course,” Neuvillette said. “Our detective force needs observant agents; so much of the actual police-work has very little to do with combat, so I imagine you will keep up just fine.” 

A dark thought occurred to Neuvillette as he finished affixing the miniature cravat. “...speaking of which, we’ll need to fit you with a very small firearm.” 

“What for?” Carole asked. “I don’t plan on shooting anyone.” 

“Well…of course not, but you have to have something to protect yourself with,” Neuvillette said. 

“How does shooting someone make me safer?” Carole asked. 

“If someone attacks you, you have the right to protect yourself,” Neuvillette said. “Or…rather you will; I’m confident that the bill to allow melusine some expanded privileges will pass and then-” 

“I thought you said we couldn’t make people like us,” Carole asked, a glimmer of mischief twinkling in her eye. 

“Whether or not people like you should have no bearing on the rights you are afforded,” Neuvillette clucked. “Even if humanity never fully accepts the melusine, you still deserve to be treated with civility. With the same liberties and protections as anyone else.” 

“And how does having a gun help with all that?” Carole asked, leaning back with a sharp-toothed grin. “Besides, if I end up shooting someone, I would have to help them with the injury; seems like I could just save a step and not shoot anybody!” 

“Would you really help someone who tried to kill you?” Neuvillette asked. “Why?” 

Carole shrugged, examining her reflection in the mirror. “Would shooting me mean they deserve to be hurt back? That wouldn’t make me feel any better and would probably just make them angrier…besides, I don’t think even M. Vautrin would feel comfortable with an armed melusine walking the streets.” 

How can anyone seriously feel threatened by these creatures? Neuvillette wondered for what must have been the thousandth time. His initial hesitation about adopting the melusine melted away as he came to spend more time with them. They reflected the best parts of humanity; clever, brave, and kinder than their human countrymen. Furina might have teased him for his sudden ‘preference’ but it was hard not to prefer a people who wanted nothing but peace and offered nothing but help. 

“Well…M. Vautrin will protect you,” Neuvillette reassured her. “You needn’t worry…I’m sure this will be the first of many fruitful partnerships between our people.” 

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Chapter 1

#my writing #the games of divinity #neuvifuri #furilette #focalette

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This is a pretty good video essay on dialogue; definitely gleaned a few good points I'd like to apply to my own writing

#writeblogging #not my work #but good points especially for providing exposition through dialogue #Youtube