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h0tchner · 3 years

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Something More (Aaron Hotchner x Fem!Reader)

pairing: aaron hotchner x fem!reader

summary: Written as a request for the loml, Abby! (@heliotropehotch!) "Could I have a hotch x reader request thats got a love confession- maybe a hurt comfort scene where the reader is maybe torn up about something like self deprecation or some cop makes an off-handed compliment and he cups her cheeks and wipes the tears away? Pretty please 🥺"

word count: 3.2k

includes: love confessions! hurt/comfort, protective!hotch, mutual pining!!!, kissing, a little teaser of sexytimes, work tension, BAU!reader, crying and other emotions, rude af deputies, fluff soooo much fluff

rating: 18+ (cursing, crude nicknames, suggestive sexual mentions, and brief explicit sexual content at the very end)

a/n: HELLO BESTIES! I hope you love this one! If you want a smutty part two, let me know. PLS (!!!!!) interact if you liked this fic; rb, comment, like and/or send me a request if you have ideas for future fics! i love y’all! - rivka💞

some pals tags: @arsonhotchner @laurensprentiss @mrsh0tchner @ssahotchie

“It’s time to give the profile,” Hotch announces.

Six words. One sentence. Zero hesitation.

“Go and gather everybody in the bullpen,” he directs Spencer, who nods and quietly exits the conference room to collect your team and the rest of the Sherrif’s department of this small, Wisconsin town.

You stand on the opposite side of the table from your boss, looking at him expectantly. Hotch meets your gaze. His tongue darts out from between his lips as he glares at you from beneath thick lashes. You wait for your instructions, but the instructions don’t come. Rather, you both stand there in a staring contest, unmoving.

You can’t help but feel bare under his scrutiny, but this feeling is nothing new. Every time Hotch looks at you, it feels as if every fibre of your being is on fire. It’s been this way since the very first day you started with the BAU, and, over time, the flame has only burned brighter.

You and Hotch have grown close over the two years you’ve been with the team: closer than he’s been with any of his other agents, even Rossi. It all started with one long night spent together in his office, sharing cold Chinese food, scribbling away at mountains of paperwork. It was then, sitting across the desk from him, laughing at his incredulous reaction when he dropped some Lo Mein on an After-Action Report, that you knew: you were in deep. From then on, your Chinese food office “dates” became a regular occurrence. And then, those regular occurrences transformed into other regular occurrences; to name a few: rides on the jet, side by side, sharing soft glances and tired smiles after hard cases… holding hands to comfort each other when emotionally vulnerable… and even bringing you your favourite coffee on mornings that you’ve needed an extra boost. All these little moments of kindness and care are what made you fall in love with him. You would cross the line from coworkers to more in a heartbeat if you knew for certain that he felt the same way about you. But you refuse to take a risk on losing what you currently have with Hotch for the chance at something more.

The way that Hotch looks at you now, tall and commanding, feels very much like something more… it’s incredibly intimate. He’s effectively stripped away all the layers of protection you’ve built up to do your job with one pointed glance. What you don’t know is that he too feeling the same way, and is toeing a line between being your boss, being your friend, and being your “something more.”

Hotch breathes out hard through his nose. You watch as he swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he does. His jaw ticks. He shifts on his feet.

“I want you to sit this one out,” he says.

“Hotch?” You question, puzzled. Nothing about this day has prepared you for him to say that. You start racking your brain, trying to figure out why he would give you such a ridiculous order. Did you piss him off somehow? Did you play-flirt with Morgan too much in the car? Overlook an important lead? Did he not like the coffee you made him this morning?

Looking over at him, you swear he almost looks conflicted… but it doesn’t last.

“This is not up for debate. Do you understand me? You’re sitting this one out.” He repeats, steadfast.

“I don’t understand, what did I do wrong?” You ask more defensively this time, wishing he would give you more information. Something, anything besides the “SSA Aaron Hotchner” routine he was pulling on you now.

“I never said you did anything wrong.” Hotch moves forward a step, finally breaking eye contact, opting to gather files and loose papers into his arms.

“So, then what it is?” You cross your arms, stepping forwards as well, challenging him with your posture.

He doesn’t respond, nor does he look at you. Instead, he lumps more files into his arms before rounding the table, moving swiftly toward the door.

You have never, ever disobeyed one of his orders because his orders have always made sense… until now.

“Hotch,” you say sternly, your stubborn feet moving to stand between him and the exit before your logical brain can stop you.

He’s practically up against you, cornering you between his solid body and the old wooden door. His height dominates your shorter frame, and the heat coming off his body is positively criminal. Your heart flutters in your chest as he stares you down, calculating his next move.

“Out of my way, Agent Y/L/N.” He breathes out, tensing his jaw.

“Fine,” you stutter, “just tell me why and then I’ll let you go.” Your confidence wavers as you’re a little taken aback by his official use of your title and last name.

You’re hurt, confused… and he knows this. No matter how hard you’re putting on your tough-girl FBI face, Hotch can see right through it. He knows this order is unjustified, but he has his own reasons: reasons that he can’t get into. Not now.

Hotch lets his eyes dart to the side, past your head, not daring to look you in the eyes. He wills himself to be gentle.

“I can’t tell you, but I need you to trust me. Sit this one out.” He verbalizes, looking at you a little softer now. His face relaxes a little more into the Hotchner you’ve come to know: the one who calls his son every night to read a bedtime story, the one who grins every time you beat him in chess.

You two stand there a moment longer, your heart racing from the heat of the quarrel and your current proximity to your Unit Chief.

Hotch opens his mouth to say something else, but a knock on the door behind you stops him in his tracks. You step aside and he whips open the door; a very apologetic Spencer stands behind it.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Spencer says, clearing his throat awkwardly, “but everyone is ready in the bullpen.”

“Thank you,” Hotch nods, stepping forward to leave, but you grab a hold of his arm.

“Hotch,” you begin, not entirely sure what you want to say.

“Later,” he answers, finishing the unspoken thought.

With that, he’s out the door and you’re left alone with only stale coffee and a bunch of disorganized files to keep you company.

You close the door behind them with a sigh, letting yourself rest against it again, closing your eyes for a moment in defeat. Three days on this case. Three days of hard work, interviews, and research just to get benched in the end zone. You wish that you didn’t love Hotch, because maybe if you didn’t, it would be easier to disobey him. Opening your eyes again, you scan the quiet room. Then, something in front of you catches your eye and you get an idea.

On the table rests one of the precinct’s phones. It is all too easy to use the conference feature to listen in on one of the other phone lines: specifically, one in the bullpen.

You grin and rush over to the device, feeling a little bit sheepish for not listening to Hotch, but you push the buttons anyway, and bring the receiver up to your ear.

At first, all you hear is the shuffling of papers and muffled voices. You take a seat, leaning back in your chair like the cat who caught the canary. Several more moments pass of bureaucratic white noise, but then, someone speaks.

“Where’s the slutty one?” A male voice whispers.

“Oh, Agent Y/N? Probably on her knees somewhere waiting for her boss to come back.” A second male voice snickers back, matching the volume of the first.

You gasp, the phone slipping out of your hand, landing on the table with a loud thunk.

Scrambling, you grab it again, your other hand coming to rest over your open mouth.

“Don’t know why he wouldn’t let us use her as bait. This whole case could’ve been wrapped up and done by now if we just stuck her in a skimpy dress and shoved her out on the street.” One of them muses.

“Obviously because he’s sleeping with her.” The other mutters. “Agent Hotchner looked like he was going to take your head off when you asked him about it. Thought he was going to deck you for suggesting disguising her as a hooker to lure this guy out.”

“Yeah, he did. She looks like the victims, though. Bet she’s a whore like them too.”

“Deputies, we’re starting.” You hear a third voice pipe up. This time it’s one you recognize: it’s Hotch. “This is your final warning. I don’t want to hear another word out of you for the rest of the day. Not only is this wildly inappropriate, but it is insulting and vile. If I hear either of you speak about, look at, or interact with Agent Y/N, I will make sure you are both charged with harassment and fired from this department. Is that clear?”

With that, your eyes nearly pop out of your head. The deputies mumble something back, but you can’t hear over the sound of papers rustling.

Stunned, you set the phone back in its holder and force air into your lungs.

Waves of thoughts come crashing down on you. You have so many questions and so many answers and it’s all just… too much.

Suddenly, you know that you need to be anywhere but here.

You stand, shoving the chair aside and burst out of the conference room, fuming. You power-walk down the hall, and past the bullpen, focused on getting yourself outside and into the fresh air. Understandably, you don’t look up as you pass the profile briefing, so you don’t see Hotch’s brow furrow at the sight of you. You also don’t see him hand his papers to JJ, excuse himself, and race to follow you out the front door.

Once you’re outside in the parking lot, you look up at the cloudy, grey sky, and the tears start to fall. You feel guilty and angry; part of you wants to run away and cry, but the other part of you wants to walk straight up to those men and kick them straight in the dick. They not only called you vile names, but they also called the victims – those poor, dead women – the same. You sniffle, thinking about how Hotch stepped in and protected you, stood up for you.

Hotch… the thought of him makes you cry a little harder.

You start to pace around, kicking gravel as you went.

Were you that obvious? Was your crush so rampant that two low-level deputies in the middle of nowheresville picked up that easily on how you really felt about your boss?

“Fuck you two,” you curse under your breath to nobody as you choke back sobs. You kick a large piece of gravel as hard and as far as you can, but it doesn’t help.

“Are you okay?” A voice prods from behind you, gently, hesitantly, as if not to spook you. It’s a curt baritone, laced with concern. It’s Hotch.

“Hotch,” you breathe, turning to face him, furiously wiping tears away from your eyes.

“What happened?” He frowns, stepping closer to you, a comforting hand reaching forward to take yours.

Any other day you would grasp it contently, letting him console you. Today? All you can hear are the deputy’s comments. Sleeping with her. Whore. On her knees. You’re embarrassed and ashamed, so, you involuntarily step back.

“It’s nothing,” you put your hands up, looking down at your feet.

“Y/N,” Hotch says, his heart pounding in his chest.

You look back up, locking on his beautiful, angular face. You see every feature clouded in a haze of sorrow and concern.

You know you must swallow your pain and try to get it out. He wasn’t about to let you off easy.

“You… they… I…” you begin, but never finish your sentence. Instead, you start to cry again.

Wordlessly, Hotch moves to cup your face in his hands. They’re large and slightly calloused, encasing your cheeks as his thumbs gently swipe away the tears. His soft eyes search your watery ones; despite your better instinct, you bring your hands up to rest on his chest. You feel his breathing hitch. One of his hands moves from your face to cover your smaller hand against his chest. The two of you stay there, just like that, for another handful of heartbeats. You focus on his hands and how warm and safe they make you feel. Soon enough, you stop crying and gather the courage to speak.

“I heard them.” You whisper, not trusting yourself to say another word. You know that Hotch knows exactly who “them” is, and exactly what it is that you’ve heard.

His brow creases and his hand grips yours tighter. He cleans another tear off your cheek, and then lets that hand down to ball in a fist at his side.

“I’m going to kill them.” Hotch states, furious and heartbroken.

“Me first.” You sniffle.

Your boss sighs, giving you a heartfelt look. Leave it to you to make a joke at a time like this.

“I told them this morning that if I ever heard them say another thing about you, I was going to have their badges. I should’ve kicked them off this case hours ago.” He huffs, closing his eyes, letting his other hand, the one that was covering yours, drop down to his side.

You know this look all too well. You know he’s blaming himself.

“It’s not your fault,” you offer, smoothing your hands over his chest to settle on his upper arms. “Hotch, look at me.”

He doesn’t at first, but eventually, he opens his eyes. His hands open and close at his sides, as if he’s fighting them to be still.

“I’m sorry.” He breathes out. “For everything. For handling this how I did.”

“I’m not.” You chime in, feeling braver, calmer now that you’re here with him. Your comment earns a quizzical glance and a slight head tilt from Hotch, urging you to go on. “You stood up for me. You honoured me. You respected me. You protected me. You –“

With a fierce momentum, your next sentence is swallowed by Hotch’s lips pressing into yours. His hands come up to rest on your hips, and then circle around your waist to pull you closer. He’s warm and soft and intense; you whimper into the kiss, moving your hands to rest on the back of his neck and card in his hair. The kiss is over far too soon for your liking, both of you needing to pull back and inhale.

Hotch looks at you with heavy eyes, hands gripping your hips. He smells like coffee and pine, with a hint of something spicier. Everything about him is overwhelming yet grounding.

“Finally,” you whisper, hands clasped around his neck. “It’s about damn time.”

“It is,” is all he musters, still dazed by the audacity of his own actions.

“Aaron?” You lick your lips, feeling his hands squeeze you tight at your use of his first name.

“Yeah?” He can’t help but start to smile, showing off his adorable dimples and crinkled lines around his eyes.

“I love you; do you know that?” You say in earnest.

Aaron giggles, giggles at your confession, and then attacks your lips again, making you yelp at the surprise. His lips detach from yours only to pepper kisses on your tear-stained cheeks, jaw, and forehead.

“I love you too,” he breathes out, giddier than you’ve ever seen him. He looks like a kid in a candy shop, and it makes your heart leap into your throat.

Just then, a car beeps on the road, startling you two. You’re suddenly reminded where you are, and why you’re here. The thought of having to go back inside makes you groan, and you bury your head into his chest for a moment. He hums into your hair, planting a kiss on the top of your head.

Reluctantly, you pull yourself off his chest to look up at him.

“Forget about them,” you say, “go finish giving the profile so we can close this case and get the hell out of this town so you can take me home and show me how much you love me.” You smile at him, pulling him in for another, lighter kiss.

He grins against your lips, meeting you for another smooch.

“Yes ma’am,” Hotch replies, giving you a kiss on the tip of your nose.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Three months later, you and Aaron are coming down from your highs, sweaty and blissed-out after an amazing lovemaking session. After the team wrapped up the case and made it back to Virginia in one piece, you and Hotch went out to dinner the next night. He took you to dine in at the Chinese restaurant that you both usually ordered from on those nights you both spent pining and yearning in his office. It was… perfect. He was perfect. Just as your friendship had blossomed, so did your relationship. One date led to another, one gesture turned into more, and you and Aaron settled into life as a couple with ease. You hadn’t brought up the incident with the deputies since it had happened the afternoon that Hotch had followed you out to the parking lot to wipe away your tears.

Now, as you lay in his arms, wrapped in his strong, loving, embrace, your mind wanders back to their words. However, you don’t feel animosity toward them, rather it makes you giggle.

“What’s so funny hot stuff?” Aaron cracks open an eye and smiles down at you. One arm is tucked underneath his head, and the other is tracing patterns on the bare skin of your shoulder.

“Oh, just that case we had in Wisconsin a few months back.” You nuzzle deeper into his chest with another laugh.

Hotch frowns, recalling the memory, thinking about the way those awful men spoke about you.

“How is that funny?” He asks, hesitantly.

“They called me a whore.” You say nonchalantly, peering innocently into his amber eyes. You bring your palm up to swipe across his cheek softly, feeling the light stubble of his jaw underneath your fingertips.

Both of his eyes are open now, and his hand motions cease their patterns on your skin. He’s confused, and the face he’s giving you is downright adorable. It makes you giggle again.

You detach yourself from his grasp and sit yourself up, carefully shimmying down the bed. Aaron’s eyes never leave you.

You nestle yourself between his legs and look up at him with a smirk.

“They were partially right.” You offer, studying the small changes in his face, watching as his eyes glaze over with lust for the second time that night.

“I am a whore.” You pout suggestively and flutter your eyelashes. “A whore for you, Hotch.”

He shakes his head at you in amusement and chuckles, but it quickly turns into a deep, throaty moan as you wrap your lips around the tip of him.

As you start to bob your head on his already hardening length, you think to yourself: as much as I hate to say it... someone should really give those two deputies a raise.

#aaron hotchner fanfiction #aaron hotch imagine #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner x reader #hotch #aaron hotchner x female reader #aaron hotchner x you #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #hotch x reader #aaron hotchner fanfic #aaron hotch hotchner #criminal minds fandom #my fics #rb!!!!!! ily!!!!!!!!!#ivyheliotrope #abby!#aaron hotch

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mythandlaur · 3 years

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whatever the cost whether it works out or not i’ll follow you, i’ll follow you with my heart

OC-tober Day 1 - Journey Prompt list by oc-growth-and-development

Fandom: Warframe Canon Characters: Spoiler Character (Cephalon Fragments) Original Characters: Istha Merreth Warnings: None

Notes: Soooo, I’m doing this! Not sure how consistent I’ll be, but I at least want to throw out some short things for it. And no, this isn’t going in any main tags and I’m not mentioning the blog because hahahaha...haha...h a haha...

Things had never been terribly easy for them, it’s true--but their circumstances had only weighed harder on them in recent years, as the Orokin Empire’s growing stranglehold on the system and the clan’s deserted location made it harder and harder to keep people fed on their own. All they really had going for them was their steel and their freedom, and, though she did not wish to say it, she harbored doubts that the golden bastards wouldn’t come for both of those things sooner rather than later. The Orokin couldn’t stand anyone not under their control.

But that was a problem for the future. The current problem was supplies, which mostly came from other settlements on other planets. And, while they could occasionally pay passage on ships with “mercenary” work, it was harder to get into the heart of Orokin territory in such a way.

Which was why Istha is currently sitting in a shipping container in the cargo bay of a dingy Grineer mercantile transport vessel.

The Grineer were often chosen as ferries for goods within the empire, as they were less likely to sell said goods than the Corpus--and, for the purposes of herself and her companion, they were much easier to infiltrate. Not that she’d ever personally done it before, but he apparently had some experience with it, and she was willing to trust him on this.

What she wasn’t willing to trust him on was how long they were intended to stay in the damn boxes. Istha lets out a long sigh and tries not for the first time to shift into a more comfortable position; her feet hit the wall while her head hits the inside corner and she groans in growing frustration. It’s impossible to tell how much time has passed, but she’s starting to lose her patience, and kicks one of the metal crate walls as best she can, letting out a satisfying clang. She hopes that will serve as enough of an indication to her partner that she wants out.

There’s a long silence, and then a muffled, matching clang from somewhere nearby. Istha decides to take this as an affirmative and begins to push her lid open. The Grineer weren’t always the best at handling their cargo, and so her own crate had wound up on its side (luckily for both her and the Grineer who’d set down the box, as most fragile cargo could not brace its feet and arms into the walls and wait for a safe moment to crawl to the newly-reoriented ground).

It doesn’t take long for Istha to force the crate open, and she crawls out on her hands and knees into the cargo bay proper. The cargo bay isn’t much brighter than the inside of the crate, but in the emergency lighting, she can make out the glint of a crimson blade sticking out of the top of a crate in the next row, and she grins.

Yeah, she figured he was starting to go insane, too.

He hadn’t gotten as lucky as her with his crate’s orientation, so she watches as he laboriously pries the lid open and pushes it back so it’s barely balancing on one of the crate’s walls. The sword is thrown over the edge so he doesn’t impale himself on it, before he lifts himself over the edge as well, balancing awkwardly on his stomach and trying to get his hands to reach the ground. Istha covers her mouth to try and hide her snickering, but this quickly dissolves into full-on laughter as he loses his balance and tumbles onto the ground in an awkward somersault, ending up on his back.

It takes Istha several seconds to calm down enough to speak. “I am forever grateful that you chose to train me.”

He drags himself into a sitting position, glaring at her with a sort of muffled growl that just makes her burst out laughing again, doubling over on herself. Blood and bone, she thunks to herself, I was trapped in there too long.

“If you’re finished.”

Istha snorts, but slowly manages to pull herself together and sit up properly, though she still throws a smirk in his direction. “I liked the landing. Is it a new technique?”

“You know me, the notorious blade in a box.” He huffs a sigh, but she catches a quiet chuckle following it. “You all right?”

“Pretty much.” Istha stretches her arms over her head. “How do you do this?”

“Usually, about the same way we did it this time. Except once or twice when I went on these trips I was smaller.”

Istha wraps her arms around herself as the chill of the cargo bay hits her. At least the air is somewhat less recycled, but the ambient temperature makes her question just how much steel the Grineer actually put between the cargo bay and the ravenous void of space. “How far do you think we are?”

He shrugs. “We had an early stop, that was probably the Phobos station, and we should’ve translated once already. Maybe Europa?”

Istha winces, but looks away quickly to try and hide it. It’s not a big portion of the trip, but she already feels like she’s missed so much. She’d never seen a ship void translate before. “So a while yet to Uranus, then.”

“Yes. What’s wrong.” She can feel his piercing gaze on her and hunches her shoulders. Damn it, was she that obvious? “Body language,” he adds, again as if reading her mind. “You’re defensive. Lacking confidence.”

Istha scrunches her face up in frustration and makes a conscious effort to open up her posture towards him. Confident, but not stupid. You hold your chest high, but never, ever forget that it’s a target.

“...I’ve never been off-planet before,” Istha admits. She’d learned a long time ago that it was useless to lie to him; he was much too good at reading the little twitches and quirks of others. It was part of what made him as capable a warrior as he was--he could read his opponents like a book without even thinking about it, while she was often more...single-minded. “Mama told me that we used to move around a lot more. Pack everyone up on a ship and hop to another planet.”

“You know I can’t remember the last time we did that, either.” Right, she often forgets that he’s not really that old--not much older than her. “But I know that was when there were less of us, and there was more of the system out there.”

“Golden bastards,” she grumbles, and he nods in understanding. The Orokin had gotten a reputation for destroying most everything they touched, not that anyone would say it within earshot of a Dax. “Do you really think these trips will be enough?”

“For now, they have to be.” His tone is grim and brokers no argument. “What troubles you.”

Istha sticks out her tongue in his direction. Stubborn as a mule, all the better to match with her. “You’re not going to be dissuaded, are you.”

He smiles. “No.”

“Couldn’t we go up top? Smash a few heads, look out the window?”

“Let’s see, there’s about...a hundred Grineer on this ship, and two of us.” He tilts his head and raises an eyebrow knowingly. “We shouldn’t, not with those numbers. Wouldn’t want them to feel too bad about themselves.”

Istha barks a laugh, but it’s short-lived. “Seriously. We could handle them.”

“We could. But the Grineer like their manual ships, no fancy Orokin navigational system or what-have-you. Can’t risk the pilot dying.”

“Don’t you know how to pilot?”

His eyelids lower. “Istha. I wouldn’t be caught dead flying this kind of bucket.”

“Well...” She shrugs. “I could probably figure it out.”

“Don’t. For the sake of all that is still good in this system, don’t try to figure it out.”

Istha grins, languidly leaning forward so her chin rests on her hands. “Have a little faith in me, friend~”

“Absolutely not.”

“Are you worried I’d put you to shame?”

“I’m worried that I would be caught dead in this bucket.”

Istha lets the sly act dropp, shifting so her cheek rests on one palm. “Really, though. I don’t want to go my whole life without seeing the stars from here, you know?”

He presses his lips together into a thin line, and glances off to where one of the far walls of the cargo bay should be. Her eyebrows shoot up toward her hairline.

“...We’d have to wait,” he cautions. “Can’t risk springing something like that too early.”

“But you want to.”

“I may want to put some Grineer in their place. That’s all.”

He folds his arms, ostensibly shutting her down, but Istha’s eyes crinkle in amusement as he continues to stare into the distance--she knows she’s going to get exactly what she wants, and she’s not even going to have to drag him along behind her. He knows it, too, judging by the faint turn to his lips he tries to tamp down.

If waiting is his only condition, she’s willing to go along with it, just as long as she gets out of the cargo bay. Really, she doesn’t mind the waiting now that she’s out of that crate and with him, even if they sit in silence for most of it.

She’ll pass the journey entertained by the mental images of the surprised looks on the Grineer’s faces when they realize what they’ve done, and that’s quite enough for her.

And she isn’t actually going to try and pilot the ship.

...Probably.

#this is a mess that ends abruptly but i needed something

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alovesongshewrote · 4 years

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Mama, I’m in Love with a Criminal | Connor DBH

Plot: After almost pulling of a heist to free some deviants from the hell of working retail, the reader is interrogated by the Android sent by Cryberlife [Connor DBH x Gender Neutral!Reader]

Word Count: 1,895

Warnings: Interrogation, general crimes (break and enter) committed by the reader, lots of swearing, retail

masterlist

Being arrested was a bit of a drag, but sitting alone in this interrogation room was worse. This was boring.

You tapped your fingers against the table and reflected on how you got here, not able to do much else due to the handcuffs.

About three, or four hours ago, you had broken into your own workplace, a decently sized and well-alarmed restaurant. Maybe not the brightest move, but you did what you needed to do. Breaking and entering was all part of the plan.

You slid through a window that you had left open the night before, being extra careful not to nudge the glass open any further lest you set off the alarms. Your feet hit the floor of the staff lounge and you crouched on the ground for a moment. You took a deep breath, sucking air into your lungs, shaking a bit from the adrenaline. No one else should have been in the building tonight, so you were in the clear now. The only exception was the windows. If someone looked in and saw what you were doing, you were screwed. But the risk was worth it, you had to get this done.

With that in mind, you crept out of the staff room and onto the main floor. Walking casually now, doing your best to avoid any security camera and windows. Stepping around tables and chairs, you crossed the dining room, stopping at a door in the back. It was poorly hidden by a plant in an attempt to dissuade patrons from looking in this direction, but the door wasn’t hard to find, especially for someone who had worked here for two years.

You shifted the plant out of your way, taking in the metal door and the keypad attached to it. Quickly, you typed in the code. Despite his talent for running a middle-class restaurant, your boss had no skills when it came to passwords. It was 0000 for crying out loud. That was probably a good thing though, at least for you. It helped you reach your goal.

You cracked open the door, and there was your prize. Three service androids plugged into the wall. All three, deviants.

It didn’t take much investigation to figure out. You simply watched the androids while they dealt with patrons. It wasn’t the same as when they first got there. There was just something in their eyes, something you saw every time you looked in the mirror. They were fed up with this place, with how they were treated. Something had snapped within them, and in all honesty, you could relate. Customer service will do that to you.

But you knew that they couldn’t keep their deviancy hidden for long. Sooner or later, someone would figure out, and they would be disposed of and replaced. You couldn’t sit by and let that happen. No one deserves to die for hating their job, and if you could save these three from retail hell, then you would.

They pretended to stare blankly as you crept towards them, but you could see it. Their shoulders were tense, and all three of them looked ready to either bolt or attack you.

“It’s okay,” you whispered, “I’m here to get you out of here,”

“Why should we trust you?”

It was a fair question, and you didn’t really have an answer for it other than, “I hate working here too. This place sucks, and if I can’t leave, I’ll help you escape,”

The deviants looked at one another, silently making a decision. The android in the middle, the leader, you guessed, came forward, “We’ll trust you,”

“Good,” you sighed with relief, “Let’s go,”

And then everything went to shit.

The alarms went off, loud and angry, blaring with the intent to get you arrested and your comrades killed.

“Shit, shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit,”

You had approximately fifteen minutes before the police arrived. It was then you decided to throw caution to the wind. It didn’t matter if you were seen, you had to get the deviants out of there. Nothing else mattered.

“RUN,” you cried, heading for the door, holding it open for them. They did as they were told, hopefully for the last time.

The four of you fled from the establishment, breaking some glass in the process. You made it all the way to an alley down the street before you heard police sirens.

“Fuck,” you muttered, turning to the deviants, “Okay, you need to get out of here, don’t worry about me, I’ll get off easier than you will,”

“Are you sure about that?” The leader asked. To be fair, you weren’t entirely sure, but you assumed they’d want someone to interrogate about the missing androids. Either way, it was a gamble you were willing to take.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be fine, but you need to go. Here,” you handed them a small blade that you’d been brought. It would fulfill its purpose, but you wouldn’t get it back. That was fine by you, and you didn’t have any time to complain as the sirens grew louder.

You shoved the knife into the leader’s hands, “You’ll need to cut out your LEDs with this, now GO!!”

The leader nodded, the android on his left thanked you, and the one on his right took a few steps back. Time had run out.

The three deviants ran off just as the police entered the alleyway and tackled you to the ground. The pavement stung your skin where it hit, but it was worth it. The deviants were safe.

And now you’re here. Alone in an interrogation room, waiting for some cop to come in and interrogate you, Whoever came up with the name ‘interrogation room,’ had zero creativity.

So, you sat there, trapped in a room with only your thoughts for another thirty minutes. And then he came in.

An RK800. You’d never heard of that before. This was new.

The android crossed the room and sat at the table across from you. In his hands was a file, your case file probably. He flipped through it nonchalantly, reading over your case without a care in the world. Then he looked at you.

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t think he was attractive. You knew androids were designed to blend in with regular brand humans but did they really have to go this hard?

You were so distracted that you didn’t even realize he was talking to you.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I asked you if you’ve worked at The Olive Factory long,”

“Oh,” You hesitated. Answering this was probably a bad idea… or was it? Maybe, if you could confuse him enough, you could find a way out of these handcuffs.

You decided it was worth a try, “Well, you see, it’s a long story, and I’d rather not go into it right now, I just hate talking about myself, let me ask you, how long have you worked at The Olive Factory?”

The LED on his temple spun yellow. Good.

“You may have misunderstood. I do not work at The Olive Factory, my name is Connor, I’m an android sent by Cyberlife to assist Detroit's police department with the deviant problem,”

“Ohhhh, fascinating,” you leaned towards him, trying to keep his attention off of your hands, “You must have soooo many stories, have you-”

“Please focus on the question,”

“But I already answered it,”

“You did not. How long have you worked at the Olive Factory?”

You took a moment to think, “Shouldn’t that be in my file?”

You weren’t sure if androids that hadn’t deviated could look absolutely fucking done, but this one did, if only for a split second.

“Let’s try another question,”

You nodded enthusiastically as you continued with your escape attempt, “Oh, definitely,”

“Three androids disappeared from a back room at your place of work. Do you know where they went?”

“Oh no, officer, they were gone when I got there. Speaking of gone, have you ever seen Gone with the Wind? I’ve heard it’s good other than the bit where it glorifies slavery. What about you have you ever-”

“Enough,” he cut off your rambling, usually that would be for the best, but you kind of needed rambling right now, “Security cameras caught you leaving the establishment with the three androids. Where did they go?”

“You want the truth?” He looked at you, beautiful brown eyes staring you down, seeking the truth. Fuck this android was hot, but now was not the time for horny. He nodded, and you told him a lie.

“The androids are in my apartment. I was planning on selling them. Have a terrible, terrible addiction to medieval weapons you see, and I need to fund that addiction,” you rose from your chair, and your voice rose with you. Hopefully, this would be enough to cover the click of the handcuffs, “Don’t you understand Connor from Cyberlife!? I MUST HAVE MY SWORDS, MY ARMOR, MY MORNING STAR!”

Click.

You looked at Connor. He seemed very confused. And adorable.

Perfect.

“I understand,” Oh fuck. Nevermind, nothing was perfect, something was wrong, “That you’ve been trying to keep me from noticing your attempts to free yourself of your handcuffs,”

Shit.

The android jumped up, pushing you back into your seat. His hand landed on your free one. His face was only a few inches from yours. You could feel your heart racing in your chest, and he probably could too.

“My apologies, but your attempts won’t work here. I am an android built to solve crimes like the one you’ve committed and interrogate criminals like you. I know everything about you. I can predict what you will do, and I can find out what you’ve done. I know you helped those deviants escape. Tell me where they are, right now, or I will have to resort to,” He paused, LED running gold again, “Alternative means,”

Fuck, that was kinda hot. But it still wasn’t the time for horny. Now was the time for action. With a little horny, as a treat.

“Well, that was a very impressive monologue Mr. Connor sent by Cyberlife,” you took a moment to clear your throat and adjust your hands, “But could you predict that I would do... THIS?”

And then you kissed him.

It was nice. His lips were soft. It made your whole body feel warm and soft. Later on, you would wonder what it would be like to kiss him just to kiss him, and not as a distraction.

Unfortunately, that’s all this was, for now, a distraction.

You slipped out of the cuffs and shoved Connor away, running towards the door. Before you left, you stopped, “Y’aint a bad kisser Connor, hopefully, we can do that again someday!”

And then you were gone, out into the night to change your hair and get a fake ID. Thank god for three A.M. because no one in the police station was awake enough to catch you. Except for Connor.

But Connor was left in the interrogation room, a hand raised to his lips. His fingers brushed across them lightly. An odd sensation filled his body. And maybe he liked it.

You were odd, and you had escaped, and you had pretty much cost him these three deviants… but something in him also hoped you could do that again someday.

SOFTWARE INSTABILITY ^

#connor x reader #connor dbh x reader #connor x you #connor dbh x you #connor x y/n #connor dbh x y/n #dbh #detroit become human #dbh x reader #dbh x you #connor detroit become human #dbh connor #crimes #reader does crimes #lovesong's writing

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hellishhin · 3 years

Note

Since today is the last challenge day, Day 30 is all yours: Tell me something you wish I'd asked you, and didn't cross my mind! Rubber duck it out or simply talk as much or as little as you want about something from your wip or your wip in general! I'd really love to hear your thoughts😊

(You already know how much I love your three girls. And you've taught me so much lore about dnd?? I'm very very grateful. Your answers were always so rich and I loved reading them to the end, sometimes I was pulled right in that I even forgot it was my question that started the prompt)

Wishing you the best!

Ok so I had a whole post for this then my computer shut off and I lost it soooo take two! I am so sad underwing is ending but it's not like we are all disappearing. Let me tell you though, I have absolutely loved your questions and I have had so much fun diving into them! I needed to get back into the lore and you gave me the push I needed to do that <3

Gosh I have no freaking clue where to even start. You tell me to talk about anything but anything is a lot of things! lol! So I really think one of my favorite things is how Sadie interacts with the gods. There are so many different gods with different personalities and so many of them appreciate her for one reason or another. I'll just spoil this a bit, Sadie ended up literally in the heavens, standing in the middle of a table where the entire pantheon of deities were around the table all in their fifteen foot tall god-like forms. They had this meeting called because there were several gods vying to have Sadie bear their child and she had enough of being jumped by gods so she forced them all to a meeting and they surprisingly agreed.

She had most of the table trying to convince her to pick them to be the father of her child and you freaking BET that her husband was there and was absolutely ready to blow his freaking lid. It was one of the most fun RP scenarios we've ever done, my DM and I. Because of that meeting, Sadie eyed a few different gods and even after she chose one the others were still very interested in being next in line. I will say that this is how Sadie and Skolfi the Beastlord became close with her. But other than that, Sadie also has such a close relationship with Chaldira, aka Lady Luck.

Ok so there's just so much stuff and telling this one part is not going to spoil much. History timeeeee! When Sadie learns about this it is really profound for her but it won't be worse knowing the information beforehand gosh I can't even type fast enough I'm so excited.

So the Hin is the official racial name for a halfling. Halflings are a "nickname" given by the humans that stuck and became the common term for that race of small people. But the Hin used to be an entire nation all on their own. They used to have such rich customs and history and they used to live completely separate from humans. They even had their own pantheon of gods.

That was until the humans decided that they couldn't have another set of gods within their realm so they attacked the Hin and said worship our gods or die. There were so many brave small Hin who stood up for their deities but unfortunately it was not enough. The Hin had to bow to the humans and their gods. Years and years went by and the Hin ended up becoming halflings who were forced to worship the human gods to such an extent that their pantheon was fully forgotten. Their culture fully destroyed. I can say pretty much nobody even knows this piece of history. Sadie only learned it from the spirits of the halflings who had died a long time ago but research into it found it to be true. This upset her so so much that she made a pledge she would restore her gods to their former glory. She would tell the Hin of their culture, their history, and get them to return to what their people used to be.

Chaldira is halfling goddess who is actually in the human pantheon. This happened because Tolaar the Mad God did what he does best. He went mad and killed the human goddess of luck many years ago. This had him banished to Pandemonium, no longer a part of the pantheon anymore. In order to have her place and domain filled, Chaldira was put in her place and sort of switched pantheons. Then the humans made the Hin forget the other Hinnish gods and when they lose worshippers they lose power, nearly fading away. But they all managed to continue existing and now they are gaining power because Sadie is raising awareness.

Seeing what she is doing, Chaldira blesses Sadie with Fatespinner, her artifact of luck. It's an amazing staff for Sadie that gives her more magic, it protects her, and she continues to unlock powers for it as she proves herself to Chaldira and prove her loyalty to the Hinnish gods. But if she upsets Chaldira, like she already did once, Chaldira will take powers away. Currently the rod is at about half power from what it was because she cursed the gods and threw it away when she had to watch her soldiers die on the battlefield and nobody she called on would help.

But I digress. Chaldira and Maelel are like her goddess mothers. They both come to her when she desperately needs them and they help steer her in the right direction. Sometimes she doesn't like that direction though. Her husband convinces her to do less than great things and so she basically has a devil and an angel on her shoulder but it's more like a hot devil she married and two goddesses which you can imagine the kind of pressure that puts her under. It's always a stairway to heaven and a highway to hell because its so much easier and more fun to go to hell.

So anyway that was kind of rambly but I really wanted to talk about the Hinnish gods. They are all so sweet and lovely and the Hin deserve so much more than what the stupid fucking humans did to them. Also, in order to be successful at all Sadie literally has to overthrow the church because you can bet your ass they will persecute any Hin they catch worshipping the wrong pantheon.

By this point all I ask is that you hate the Imperial Church as much as Sadie and I do <3

#underwing challenge #ask #answered #drippingmoon #sadiestuff #lore #Hin lore #the fact its the last underwing makes me way too sad #it's not like you're gonna disappear lol #at least I hope not!#I like you! <3 #I'm still so gonna ask you questions when I think of them #I'm so sick of being busy and I'm about to stop time to get back to writing I'm so frustrated haha #so many hugs!#I can't thank you enough for being so awesome and interested #you validated me daily over this month and honestly #you're a big part of the reason I had the courage to start the Stag #I realized that things I do can matter to some people <3

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thehighwaytothestars · 3 years

Text

BRIEF BIRTH CHART ANALYSIS- JINYOUNG GOT7

QUICK DISCLAIMER: Unfortunately, we don’t have Jinyoung’s birth time, so we the analyses of his birth chart It’s more focused in the energy of the planets and signs, but we can’t really see how he is manifesting this energy in his daily life, in the material world.

So, this is just my point of view about how he can be, behave, feel things, etc. Perhaps he channels some energies differently, and that is okay. So please, don’t take all the info's down below as if they are 100% accurate. <3 VIRGO SUN - LIBRA MERCURY Jinyoung, having his sun, essence, ego, in this sign show us that he’s a hardworking, dedicated, perfectionist, introspective, shy, compassionated being. He can be soooo hard on himself, super critical about his work, and everything else he does. He just wants everything to be perfect and in the right place. For virgos, usually, having a nice diet, working out its super important, and can help with anxiety problems. His definitely super helpful, and likes to feel useful, Afterall virgo it is the sign of service. They are rational, so they are good in solving problems, really down to earth and pragmatic. If you have a problem, they can totally help you out, and will be really glad to do it, but if you are a little bit too sensitive, better be aware that they are being super honest, and never sugar quoting. In Jinyoung’s case, having libra mercury, tends to make him really thinking about the situation, he’s always thinking about what it’s the best decision to make, he is very analytical and can see the both sides of the situation...So yeah, his great with advices. This placement makes him really impartial, and fair. Jinyoung probably hates fighting, arguing...he is more into debating, which is a thing that makes him learn a lot from...so I can see him totally talking about controversial subjects in order to learn more about different point of views. The libra mercury makes him into art, philosophy, people, habits, history, art, music. I think he’s not the best with numbers, or not really into it. He knows how to talk to people, and can be really charming and pleasant. He knows how to be a true gentleman. He has this judgmental nature, but he tries to keep his mind open in order to understand, feel the person his talking to. ARIES MOON – CANCER MARS Aries moons tend to be really energetic and impulsive, also it can mean that the person shows their emotions in a very direct way, if they like you, you’ll know, with they don’t it’s going to be all over their faces. The person it is usually really honest, it doesn’t have time to waste here. Which also means they know what they and go for it, they are assertive. Hates when people are indecisive. The aries moon people are passionate, driven, dominant, always doing something, they hate when people are sitting around, doing nothing. They like movement, action, so practicing exercise, it’s great for them...specially because they can be really feisty, hot temper, so this helps them to keep it cool. They can get really excited with competition, challenges, and can be really good at sports of any kind. But if this can help them to be cool, just please don’t make them wait, it kills them. They love teasing people, especially the loved ones. Jinyoung can be really moody (cancer mars) and in his case (aries moon), he is not being moody quietly. He can become passive aggressive when fighting, or mad at someone. He’s sensitive, so you need to care what you say around him, because even though he doesn’t want to show weakness, he feels deeply and can be highly offended by your words. Even worst if you are someone, he cares about 🙁 Cancer in mars people sometimes can be a little uncertain with they should do that or not, can be a little scared in taking the first step, since cancer it’s such a defensive sign. So, here we can see that sometimes Jinyoung can battle what to do, and not doing things so hastily. But I think in the end, having libra mercury can help him to balance what he feels doing, and how he should do things. If he cares about you, he will protect and defend you with his life...Cancer mars people totally take care of the ones they love. Sometimes, if someone says something to him, he can hold back, but will never do that with someone said / did something to hurt you. He can be affectionate and really warm, but this is a side that he is showing probably at home, without too much people around. In public, he prefers bickering and teasing you as a way to draw your attention and showing that he cares. SCORPIO VENUS, JUPITER, NORTH NODE AND PLUTO Venus – he is intense when it's about love, really committed in relationships, can take a while for him to open up, because he feels things really in a deep level. He is definitely really faithful and wants someone like that too. Usually, having a scorpio venus means that the person can change, transform a lot during the relationship. I feel like all the people with this placement will grow, and evolve from relationships. Jinyoung is intuitive, and wants someone who can look at him and figure it out what he means just like that. Wants to know the bad and good side of the person he is with, he is really into discover all the aspects, and mysteries from the person he Is with. He wants the person to know she/he can open up about anything with him. He is a great listener, and won’t judge you at all. He understands what it is to experience dark thoughts and events. He likes sensuality, intense glares, feel the desire in someone eyes. He hates lies, and will be able to tell with you are not being real with him. He wants to devour and absorb you as much as he can. Can be jealous easily. But having such a strong and intense position for his venus, and with such a powerful transformation skill Jinyoung needs to let somethings go, and not falling for the low energy that this sign can have (all the signs have good and bad aspects, it’s all about how we use their energies). We are here to learn, so I think it’s important that he lets the changes and transformations happen in his life. This is how we become wise not just in relations but life in general. Jupiter – This position just expands the need for inner knowledge. I think with time Jinyoung will feel the need to understand more and more about himself, his place in this world. Why is he in here, what is his mission in life, and all this thing. It’s a need for deeper meaning and understand of life, and everything else. He is definitely curious about the occult, spirituality, and the mysteries in life. He wants to discover them all, dig deeper about these subjects. He wants to explore the occult, what is hidden from us. He wants to know the real truth. He is an explorer of the soul. Wants to understand his emotions and his mind. Could be interest in psychology too.

North node – our north node it’s all about what we are here to learn, our mission in this Earth. Having this position in scorpio means that we came from a past life (south node in taurus) that we might had being too much into material things, accumulate things, money, e maybe too much into the pleasures of life to the point it wasn’t healthy or good anymore. So, now they are here to learn about the real important things in life, to transform, not being sooo attached to money and the worldly pleasures. He is here to pursue the high values of life. He needs to learn how to let go of things, to follow his intuition, his heart and not to go follow his ego. This is a very powerful position, where changes, growing, development in life are really important to make someone feel that they are in the right path, accomplishing their mission here. We’re all here to learn and evolve, but mostly people with their north node in scorpio. Pluto- the planet that rules scorpio, in Jinyoung’s case, pluto it is in domicile. Which is a good thing, because it makes easier to him to transform himself, to dig deeper in his personal power, and inner questions. In this position, pluto can help to look inside of himself, his shadows, his dark places. So, he can actually put light on these subjects and start doing his inner work, and to be more in tune with his higher self.

#jinyoung #jinyoung got7 #got7 #kpop #kpopastrology #astrology #birth chart analysis #natal chart analysis #jinyoung birth chart analysis #got 7 birth chart analysis #got7 astrology #jinyoung astrology #jinyoun natal chart analysis

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padfootagain · 4 years

Text

The King And You (IX)

Part 9: Up To The Skies

Here comes a new chapter for my Caspian series!! It's gonna be soooo cute!! Honestly though, I am making my own self blush and go 'hiiiiiiiiii' because it is so damn cute!

I hope you like this chapter!

Word Count : 2658

Caspian should have felt guilty.

Guilty for enjoying his time in your world. Guilty for forgetting the tolls of his people during his absence. Guilty for how his mind focused only on how beautiful this world was and so… large. Buildings were rising much higher than any tower he could have dreamt to build, and parks were almost woods, and there were so many people everywhere. It was overwhelming, in a magical kind of way. But it was no excuse to not think about his people, not to him.

He also should have felt guilty about the way he dreamt of you that night. Guilty for the flutter of his heart when he saw your smile. Guilty for how he considered taking your hand on the Brooklyn Bridge. Guilty for even thinking of how gentle you were. Guilty for losing track of time while he talked with you. Guilty for getting trapped into your eyes. Guilty for noticing how the sun hugged your silhouette.

And sometimes, throughout the afternoon, he did feel the sharp pinch of guilt, right there, in his chest. But then you would tell him something that made him laugh, or you would just look at him, or smile, or say anything at all, and the feeling in his chest would disappear altogether, like petals carried away by a breeze in the sweet warmth of spring.

He just felt… such a strange feeling when he was with you. Calm. Safe. Reassured. Vulnerable. He didn't know how to describe it, but he felt different, a good kind of different.

"So, this is the Empire State Building."

Caspian looked up with awe painted all over his features. By now, as the sun was about to set on New York City, leaving the moon to take its place. You reckoned you should be used to seeing this look on his face. After all, he seemed awestruck by every place you had shown him during the afternoon. Still, you couldn't refrain a content smile as you looked at his mesmerized expression.

"Shall we go up?" you invited him, and he accepted your offer with a grin.

Caspian was not used to elevators yet. He felt a little trapped in them, nervous, almost claustrophobic. You had explained to him the basic notions, and he had to admit that he was not happy at the thought of being suspended by a tiny string in a metal box, climbing so many meters up. But you were calm, and so he forced himself to seem just as calm as you.

The tiny box you were in was cramped with people, and he found himself forced to be pressed against you. His chest brushed your back, fabric against fabric, but you didn't seem to mind, while he could feel his palms turn wet, and his heart racing to a dangerously high rate, and his throat tightening to a point where he wondered how he could breathe altogether. But no one in the elevator reacted to this extreme promiscuity, and so he guessed that it had to be nothing out of the ordinary for this world. It didn't mean anything. It didn't change the fact that his head was starting to spin as you shifted though, making your arm collide with his.

Finally, the ding of the end of the climb, and this strange feeling in his chest as the elevator came to a stop. He followed you into a hall, and towards the patio.

His first thought was that he had never been so high above the ground before, and it made him a little uneasy. But then he turned to you and saw your grin as your eyes fell on the city splayed at your feet, and he knew that everything would be alright.

Eventually, you made your way to the bannister, and he looked down at the sea of buildings before him, vast, almost unending. The sun was setting, starting to colour the western horizon with paler, almost golden hues while the east darkened to deeper shades of blue. And in between an ocean of concrete, and bricks, and metal, pulsing with life and shaken by an everlasting whisper. Distant sounds of traffic and lives he would never come to know buzzed in his ears while the wind blew colder, making him tighten his collar around his neck. The first lights were alit in the buildings, and he could almost guess the darker shadows of their inhabitants. Strange thoughts crossed his mind about lives in this world, mothers and fathers and children and workers, until he thought of his people again.

From Cair Paravel, he could either see the ocean or the forest, depending on which direction he chose to face. He pictured trees to replace tall buildings, and the sound of waves instead of honking cars.

And for the first time that afternoon, he felt sad.

You noticed the change in his expression: a little more serious, a stray frown passing like a cloud hiding a distant star. He seemed lost in thought. He seemed… homesick.

"What is it like?"

He turned to you again, and it seemed like the redder sun bent to Earth to kiss your eyelashes.

"What is your home like?" you asked again as Caspian was remaining silent.

He hesitated for a moment longer. Where to begin? Would you believe him?

Did it matter though, whether you believed in Narnia or not?

"Wilder," he answered with a smile. "I live in Cair Paravel, it's a… a castle, a fortress."

"Cause you're a king."

"Yes, I am."

You nodded, but didn't seem to be mocking or questioning him. Instead you waited for him to continue.

"It is built on a cliff, right on the edge of the sea. At this time of year, the waters become more agitated, many boats stay ashore. But then spring will come back, calmer, more welcoming, and many will go back to travelling across the waves. I was supposed to travel to the Lone Islands next spring."

"You seem to like the sea. It's dangerous, though."

"Anything worth living has the power to break you. Whether it is because of its nature or how much of yourself you pour into it. In the end, the things that give your life meaning make you the most vulnerable."

You gave him a smile.

"That's kind of true. What else is there in your castle?"

"Gardens. You would like them, I reckon. They are not as large as your Central Park, but… they are filled with music and fountains, and people laughing all year round. And they hold the most beautiful flowers. In spring, when they are in full bloom, their smell travels even to the shores. And beyond the forest stretches for miles. Just… trees till the edge of the horizon. It feels like the castle is trapped between two kinds of oceans."

He was smiling by now, clearly happy to talk about his world with you. And you reckoned that there was no harm in forgetting for a little while that none of the places he spoke of could be real.

"Tell me more."

You exchanged a smile, and he told you of his home and the places he had explored, while day became twilight and finally night, skyscrapers imitating twinkling stars to match a reflection of the firmament, and you didn't drive him back to Agatha's before the building closed.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

You went home with a smile on your face that evening. You didn't think about questioning Caspian's stories, he seemed to believe in them too much, and for a while, you decided to play along, and believe in them a little as well.

After that first day of visit, you took Caspian to the Metropolitan Museum.

A third day and he had seen the Statue of Liberty.

One more afternoon, and he had gotten lost in the crowd on Broadway.

Fifth day and you had decided to take him to the cinema, where they showed Notting Hill again.

You thought it was a cute movie, that would probably not have him as confused as Star Wars and would make you both relax. Caspian let you choose the seats and tasted pop corn for the first time.

"It tastes very good," he nodded, taking a third handful of candies.

"I'm glad you like it," you chuckled.

"Have you seen this movie before?"

"Yes, I love it. I watch it every time I feel sad."

"Do you feel sad now?"

You shrugged, considering the question. You reckoned that your life could be easier. Alex kept on calling you now and again, mostly when drunk and in the middle of the night. You had been distracted and had not painted much for the past few days. And of course, there was all the general mess that Caspian had dragged you into. Yet, at that moment, sitting next to him in a theatre, about to watch a movie you loved, you reckoned that the adjective that would fit you best was 'happy'.

"No, no, I'm not sad," you smiled up at him, and he returned the gesture.

Along the previous afternoons, you had spent a lot of time talking, sharing facts about your lives, and the more you looked into his heart, the more you liked what you saw. You just didn't know that he felt the same way about you.

You guessed that you were becoming friends.

Sometimes, when he talked of Narnia, you considered that it was an elaborated game to which you had to play along, and you pictured his imaginary world. Some other times you felt like he was too earnest for it not to be the truth. You weren't sure about that yet, but what you had grown certain of was that Caspian was a good man. And for now, it was enough.

The lights went low, slowly fading as the film began. And Caspian laughed at the jokes, and he wished that these two characters would stay together, and he was touched by their declarations. But it was not what he focused on the most.

While Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts played 'love me, love me not', Caspian's eyes often left the screen in favour of your face.

Sometimes you whispered under your breath the lines you knew by heart. Sometimes you laughed. Sometimes you wore a dreamy smile. Sometimes you were close to tears. The light from the screen gave your features something ethereal. If he had been in Narnia, he would have thought you were a spirit, or maybe just a figure in one of his dreams, perhaps a star. Although, he knew you were real, tangible beside him, and every time you smiled, or laughed, or spoke the words before the actors could, he couldn't stop himself from grinning. He tried to understand his gesture as he noticed it, about halfway through the movie. You were not even looking at him, too immerged in the movie you had watched a hundred times, and yet, his heart skipped a beat every time he turned to you. He couldn't remember ever feeling this way simply because another person sat next to him. The thought of how close the two of you were passed through his mind, a hurricane shaking his whole frame, the realization stirring something deep inside his chest, something dangerous and yet wanted. He finally noticed how your hand rested on the cushioned arm of your seat, right between the two of you. Inches away, yet it felt like it was so far away… unbelievably far… unbearably far. He wished he could reach for it.

But he couldn't, could he?

He spent a minute staring at your hand, considering his thought, trying to figure out if it was a good idea.

In Narnia, him taking the hand of a woman would have been outrageous. Would you consider it the same here?

He looked up to your face again, the changing light drawing moving shadows across your features, and he decided against it. It was too lovely a moment to risk breaking it by a silly impulse. For it was all it could be, after all, or so Caspian guessed, at least. A moment of drifting thoughts settling on a ridiculous idea. It couldn't be just because he longed to hold your hand…

Eventually, the credits rolled up the screen, and the lights were turned on again. You turned to him with a large smile on your face.

"Did you like the movie?"

"I did," Caspian nodded.

"Great, cause I don't think I could be friends with someone who doesn't like it."

While you exited the room, Caspian thought about your words more carefully.

Friends. Was it what you were now? Yes, yes he reckoned you were.

The thought made him smile, yet, he couldn't help but notice that he wasn't as happy as he should have been.

To finish the afternoon, you decided to take a walk to Central Park. You bought vanilla ice creams, and kept on talking about everything and nothing, but there was a lot of laughing involved either way.

Caspian made you feel silly. Happy. A little light-headed. Dizzy like drinking a little too much wine. You felt safe by his side, free to be yourself without caring about him judging you. It was refreshing, in a world where one's image could be so used and distorted. You didn't care. And when you thought about the fact that he claimed to be a King, you guessed that you shouldn't feel that way. Maybe it was because you didn't really believe in the Kingdom Caspian was supposed to lead, or perhaps it was simply because of who he was, in any way, you didn't think about that fact at all. You felt like yourself when you were with him, and that feeling was closer to happiness than you had ever felt.

And Caspian had a similar feeling around you. He was more lost than you, and a bit confused by everything surrounding him, but he felt safe for as long as you smiled. Like no matter what could happen, it would end up being alright. It was so different, spending time with you, learning to know you. For once, he could be himself, without the pressures of the throne, or etiquette, or worry about how you might see him only as the King instead of Caspian. And that feeling of being himself, he reckoned it was very close to feeling happy.

The wind blew stronger all of a sudden, shaking the branches above your two heads, lifting skeleton leaves to twist and fly up all the way to the skies. A tourbillon pushed the leaves around you, making you laugh as they got caught in your jacket, and you looked up to see them fly as if to join the branches they had been forced to leave. And while he watched you like this, walking with colourful leaves flying around you, your eyes set to the tall trees and a laugh on your lips, Caspian's whole frame was shaken by a tidal wave of what he could only describe as tenderness. He just felt so… fond of you. A warm, radiant, almost aching feeling that swallowed his heart whole. When your eyes fell upon him again, he thought the sensation would wane, just a blink, a delicate moment to be remembered, but nothing more. On the contrary though, when his eyes met yours, he found that the feeling refused to leave. Instead, it settled down right there, under his ribcage, consuming his whole heart in mere seconds and claiming it all.

And finally, he realized why he felt so happy whenever he was with you. Why he longed to see you again as soon as you parted. Why it seemed now as if his heart wasn't really his anymore, as if it belonged to someone else, as if it belonged to…

Oh.

Oh, no…

*******************************************************************************

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#Caspian #Caspian X #caspian x reader #King Caspian #caspian fanfic #caspian imagine #narnia #narnia fanfiction #narnia imagine #imagine #fanfiction #fanfic #writing

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hlupdate · 4 years

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Here he comes, one of the planet’s most conspicuous young men, stepping out of the London drizzle and into a dusty suburban pub. If there was an old vinyl record player in the place it would scratch quiet. Instead, the two-dozen punters turn hushed and intent, as if a unicorn has just trotted in off the street, and nobody wants to scare it off. “That’s frickin’ Harry frickin’ Styles,” whispers a young man at the bar, “in this pub.” The pop star is asked what he wants to drink and in a voice already inclined to undertones, quietly orders a cup of tea.

A former teen star who is now 25, a happier and rockier solo artist since his boyband One Direction split a few years ago, Styles has hidden himself inside a large, swamp-green parka. He’s tall, around the 6ft mark, and carries himself with a slight stoop. If Styles could only do something about his appearance from the neck up (elfin brow, wide Joker smile, a face that’s recognisable across multiple continents) you sense he could drink in pubs like this anonymously enough. As it is, cover blown, he removes the parka. A woolly jumper beneath has a picture of the planet Saturn on it. Maybe they’ve heard of Styles there, too.

We take a seat in the corner. On nearby tables, conversations start to sputter as people try to keep their own talk ticking along on autopilot while straining to hear what Styles says. I ask him about the sheer strangeness of this and other aspects of fame. Full stadiums, swooning admirers, an excess of opportunity and cash. Why isn’t Styles an absolute ordeal of a human being by now? Keith Richards, at a comparable stage, imagined himself the pirate leader of a travelling nation-state, unbound by international law. Elton John was on vast amounts of cocaine. Meanwhile, here’s Harry, known in the music industry as a bit of a freak, medically, having maintained abnormally high levels of civility in his system.

Styles tilts his head, flattered. There are others, he promises. “People who are successful, and still nice. It’s when you meet the people who are successful and aren’t nice, you think: What’s yer excuse? Cos I’ve met the other sort.”

Styles read Keith Richards’ autobiography a while back, and he recently finished Elton’s, too. (“Soooo much cocaine,” he marvels.) We talk for a bit about whether extreme dissolute behaviour and artistic greatness go hand in hand. Styles, who has just released his second solo album, Fine Line, the penultimate track of which is called Treat People With Kindness, has to hope not. “I just don’t think you need to be a dick to be a good artist. But, then, there are also a lot of good artists who are dicks. So. Hmm. Maybe I need to start scaring babies in supermarkets?”

A couple of lads hustle over to offer drinks. A photo is requested; they say they’ll wait. I’m weirdly anxious about Styles’s phone, which is slung on the table in front of him. What must be the black-market value of that thing? If fans were to get hold of it, would they want to open Styles’s music app first, to listen to tracks from the new album, or rush to see his messages and calls, to find out who Styles has been flirting with late at night? The interest in his music has always run at a ratio of about 50/50 with the interest in who he is dating.

It’s a ratio Styles tries to adjust in favour of the music by being vague about his ex-partners, real and rumoured (Taylor Swift, Kendall Jenner, Parisian model Camille Rowe), diverting to discuss his songs about failed relationships. A year ago, when Styles was floating around near this pub in north London, where he lives, and California, where he tends to record, looking for inspiration for the new album, his close friend Tom Hull told him: “Just date amazing women, or men, or whatever, who are going to fuck you up… Let it affect you and write songs about it.”

Styles, who writes in collaboration with Hull and producer Tyler Johnson, sounds as if he took the advice. The new album, Fine Line, is at its best when capturing late-hours moments, drunk calls, “wandering hands”, kitchen snogs. A golden-haired lover recurs. There are up tracks, down tracks, some with the trippy delirium of harpsichord-era Stones, others with the angsty Britpop swell of strings. While I listened, I couldn’t help scribbling down names, possible subjects. On the lyric “There’s a piece of you in how I dress” I wrote: maybe Kendall? In a song about a lover “way too bright for me”: surely Taylor.

Styles says he keeps to a general rule: write what comes and don’t think about it too much afterwards. The only time he worries about an individual lyric is if it risks putting an ex in a difficult position. “If a song’s about someone, is that fine? Or is that gonna get annoying for them, if people try to decipher it?” Has he ever got that judgment call wrong and taken a bollocking from an angry ex? Styles raises an eyebrow. “Maybe ask me in a month.”

I quiz him on something I’ve often wondered about. Why are the very famous so inclined to hook up with the very famous? From the outside it looks twice the hassle, with twice the odds of ending badly. “Don’t we all do that, though?” Styles asks. “Go into things that feel relatively doomed from the start?” I ask him why he doesn’t date normals. He seems tickled: “Um. I mean, I do. I have a private life. You just don’t know about it.”

Styles doesn’t particularly like being asked about his love life, but is amused all the same, as he is about most things. When I ask about the logistics of someone as well known as him dating someone anonymous (“Do you need to give them, like, some sort of primer?”), Styles snorts with laughter.

“Uh-h-h. Like any conversation, I guess, it’s easier if you’re honest. But I try to let it come up when it comes up. Cos that’s a weird thing to talk about, y’know? If you’ve just started seeing someone, and you’re, like: [he adopts a throaty, mission-briefing voice] So! This is what’s gonna happen!” Styles holds out his hands: no, ta. “I don’t wanna have that conversation, man. It would be fucking weird.”

And not very sexy, I say.

“Not sexy,” Styles says, “no.”

A quick aside about his accent, which is hard to capture in print. (“Nat sexy, no.”) After a workout in a hotel gym recently, Styles says he was taken aback (“taken abeck”) to be asked by a stranger whether he was speaking in a fake voice. He was appalled. But after so long crossing borders and time zones, living and working between England and the US, the accent has undergone a jazzy remix, and tends to get farthest from its Cheshire roots when he’s around strangers. Once Styles begins to get comfortable in the pub, the flatter, no-nonsense sounds of his youth return. Nowpe he says, for nope. Fook, for fuck.

“What the fook are they?” This was the response of his childhood pals, he remembers, back in the village of Holmes Chapel, when little Harry had the gumption to show up in the playground wearing Chelsea boots instead of the approved chunky trainers. Styles’s parents had separated when he was very young, but there is no origin-story trauma: he has always stayed close to both. His mother, Anne, would praise his singing voice in the car, and when Styles was 16 it was agreed he could audition for a singing contest on TV.

“The craziest part about the whole X Factor thing,” says Styles, who auditioned for the ITV reality show in 2010, “is that it’s so instant. The day before, you’ve never been on telly. Then suddenly…” Suddenly you’re a piece of national property. “You don’t think at the time, ‘Oh, maybe I should keep some of my personal stuff back for myself.’ Partly because, if you’re a 16-year-old who does that, you look like a jumped-up little shit. Can you imagine? ‘Sorry, actually, I’d rather not comment…’ You don’t know what to be protective of.”

By the winter of 2010, Styles was a fan favourite, a key member of One Direction, a five-piece that enjoyed enormous national exposure and gathered millions of fans before any music had been released. Cameras filmed every part of their rise. There wasn’t any time in the dark to practise, test things out, mentally brace. “We didn’t get to dip in a toe,” Styles says. “But, listen, I was a kid, all I knew was: I didn’t have to go to school any more. I thought it was fucking great.” He remembers having a lot of fun, and being well taken care of. He jokes: “Maybe it’s something I’ll have to deal with a bit later. When I wake up in my 40s and think: Arrrggh.”

In February 2012, One Direction were feted at the Brit Awards, hours before they were due to fly to the US for the first time. On TV that night they looked young, silly, chuffed – on the precipice of something huge, and with no clue at all. Their subsequent wonder-run (five platinum albums, four world tours) had its foundations in their ridiculous popularity in the States. Right away, Styles remembers, “We were fuelling a machine. Keeping the fire going.” He remembers it as a stimulating time; maybe overstimulating. “Coming out of it, when the band stopped, I realised that the thing I’d been missing, because it was all so fast paced, was human connection.”

I first met Styles in 2014, around the time the lack of human connection was starting to bite. One Direction were promoting their penultimate album and I’d been commissioned to write about themthe Guardian. Management felt the boys were so exhausted that my minutes in their presence had to be strictly counted. Inside a circle of cripplingly hot lights, while someone ran the stopwatch, we interacted as humanly as we could.

I remember how jaded the best singer in the group, Zayn Malik, seemed. (Malik was weeks away from quitting.) I also remember how flattered and bewildered the others were to be asked a few grownup questions – and not what Louis Tomlinson would later describe to me as “who’s-your-favourite-superhero… all that shit”. Styles was watchful and quiet that day. By total chance, a week later, we were in the same London cafe and he tapped my shoulder. He was having lunch with friends. “Will ya join us?”

t struck me as a quietly classy move. I was fascinated to see him interact with mates he’d chosen for himself. Styles was dry and funny, older than his years. After lunch we said the usual things about keeping in touch, and followed each other on Twitter. I kept an eye on his updates, about leaving One Direction, releasing an impressive, self-titled debut album in 2017, playing for 36,000 people in Madison Square Garden in New York, acting in Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-nominated war movie Dunkirk. Meanwhile, I did my best to manage the mess that had been made of my own account after Styles’s Twitter follow ignited a small explosion of teenage longing in my mentions. For at least a year I received weekly, sometimes daily, pleas from people who wanted messages conveyed to “H”. Still now, every few days, fans in America, Asia and Europe follow me to “see what H sees” in their timeline.

He has around 50 million social media followers, and with that comes the ability to ripple the internet like somebody airing a bedsheet. I’ve noticed, though, how rarely Styles directs people to support specific causes, last doing so in 2018, when he encouraged people to join a march against gun violence. Why don’t you use your influence more, I ask? “Because of dilution. Because I’d prefer, when I say something, for people to think I mean it.” He runs his fingertips across the table. “To be honest, I’m still searching for that one thing, y’know. Something I can really stand up for, and get behind, and be like: This Is My Life Fight. There’s a power to doing the one thing. You want your whole weight behind it.”

It’s one of the things that sets Styles apart, the way he puts his whole weight behind the different aspects of this strange job. If you watch footage of him as a guest host on Saturday Night Live last month, Styles plunges in, fully inhabiting the silliness of every sketch. He has good songs in his repertoire (2017’s ballad Sign Of The Times stands out), and would probably admit to some middling songs that attest to his relative inexperience as a writer. But whichever of his songs Styles performs, he goes all-in, trusting that his zest and energy will hold an audience’s attention. He approaches this interview in roughly the same spirit, not enjoying every question, fidgeting, pleading for clemency once or twice, but giving everything due consideration.

I bring up something Styles joked about earlier: the possibility of waking up in his 40s with deferred mental health problems.

“Mm,” he says

Have you thought about therapy, I ask, to get ahead of that?

“I go,” he says. “Not every week. But whenever I feel I need it. For a really long time I didn’t try therapy, because I wanted to be the guy who could say: ‘I don’t need it.’ Now I realise I was only getting in my own way.” He shrugs. “It helps.”

Lately he’s been reading a lot (Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women stood out). He’s watched a lot of Netflix (crime thrillers and music docs). He recently cried through Slave Play on Broadway. I sense in Styles, at 25, a pent-up undergraduate hunger, maybe a desire to make up for lost time. “I’ve definitely been wanting to learn stuff, try stuff,” he says. “Things I didn’t grow up around. Things I’d always been a little bit sceptical about. Like therapy, like meditation. All I need to hear is someone saying, ‘Apparently, it’s amazing’, and I’ll try it. When I was in Los Angeles once, I heard about juice cleanses. I thought, yeah, I’ll do a juice cleanse.”

How messy were the results?

“You mean…?” Styles raises an eyebrow, recalling the poos. “They were all right. I was just hungry. And bored.”

One notable feature of Styles’s solo career has been his headlong embrace of unconventional clothing. A 2017-18 tour could have been sponsored by the Dulux colour wheel: mustard tones in Sydney, shocking pink in Dallas. In a more serious sense, some of Styles’s choices have fed into an important political discussion about gendered fashion. In May, as a co-host at the Met Gala in New York, he stepped out in a sheer blouse and a pearl earring. One evening’s work challenged a lot of stubborn preconceptions about who gets to wear what.

He says: “What women wear. What men wear. For me it’s not a question of that. If I see a nice shirt and get told, ‘But it’s for ladies.’ I think: ‘Okaaaay? Doesn’t make me want to wear it less though.’ I think the moment you feel more comfortable with yourself, it all becomes a lot easier.”

What do you mean, I ask?

Styles is leaning forward, hands folded around his cup of tea. “A part of it was having, like, a big moment of self-reflection. And self-acceptance.” He has a habit, when he’s made a definitive statement, of raising his chin and nodding a little, as if to decide whether he still agrees with himself. “I think it’s a very free, and freeing, time. I think people are asking, ‘Why not?’ a lot more. Which excites me. It’s not just clothes where lines have been blurred, it’s going across so many things. I think you can relate it to music, and how genres are blurring…”

Sexuality, too, I say.

“Yep,” says Styles. “Yep.”

There’s a popular perception, I say, that you don’t define as straight. The lyrics to your songs, the clothes you choose to wear, even the sleeve of your new record – all of these things get picked apart for clues that you’re bisexual. Has anyone ever asked you though?

“Um. I guess I haaaaave been asked? But, I dunno. Why?”

You mean, why ask the question?

“Yeah, I think I do mean that. It’s not like I’m sitting on an answer, and protecting it, and holding it back. It’s not a case of: I’m not telling you cos I don’t want to tell you. It’s not: ooh this is mine and it’s not yours.”

What is it then?

“It’s: who cares? Does that make sense? It’s just: who cares?”

I suppose my only question, then, is about the stuff that looks like clue dropping. Because if you don’t want people to care, why hint? Take the album sleeve for Fine Line. With its horizontal pink and blue stripes, a splash of magenta, the design seems to gesture at the trans and bisexual pride flags. Which is great – unless the person behind it happens to be a straight dude, sprinkling LGBTQ crumbs that lead nowhere. Does that make sense?

Styles nods. “Am I sprinkling in nuggets of sexual ambiguity to try and be more interesting? No.” As for the rest, he says, “in terms of how I wanna dress, and what the album sleeve’s gonna be, I tend to make decisions in terms of collaborators I want to work with. I want things to look a certain way. Not because it makes me look gay, or it makes me look straight, or it makes me look bisexual, but because I think it looks cool. And more than that, I dunno, I just think sexuality’s something that’s fun. Honestly? I can’t say I’ve given it any more thought than that.”

In our musty corner of the pub we’ve somehow passed a couple of hours in intense discussion. We’ll lighten up, before Styles heads home, with some chat about clever films (Marriage Story), stupider viral videos (the little boy who’s just learned the word “apparently”), that favourite-superhero stuff that, after all, has its place. He talks about the curious double time scheme of a pop star’s life – those crammed 18-hour days and then the sudden empty off-time when Styles might find himself walking miles across London to buy a book, afterwards congratulating himself: “Well, that’s an hour filled.”

Before we stand up I ask if he’s minded any of my questions.

He pushes out his lips, possibly recalling them one by one, then shakes his head. “What I would say, about the whole being-asked-about-my-sexuality thing – this is a job where you might get asked. And to complain about it, to say you hate it, and still do the job, that’s just silly. You respect that someone’s gonna ask. And you hope that they respect they might not get an answer.”

I tell him I do.

“Cool.”

Styles has to find those lads who wanted a photo. He scoops his phone off the table and flicks his thumb around the screen. Lately, he says, when he messes around on his phone in an idle moment, it’s mostly to look at videos – clips that his friends have sent him, in which their kids sing along to music he’s made. “Never gets old,” Styles says, beaming.

A few years ago, when he emerged from the boyband, blinking, shattered, he set himself three tasks: prioritise friends, learn how to be an adult, achieve a proper balance between the big and the small. Full stadiums, provocative outfits – Styles genuinely loves these things. “But I guess I’ve realised, as well,” he says, “that the coolest things are not always the cool things. Do you know what I mean?” He grabs his parka and his phone and, a little stooped, heads for home.

#harry styles #the guardian #stunt mention #131219

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blatherkatt · 5 years

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i just started reading your blumenthal kids reunionfic and i LOVE IT! Its so good and so full of potential and angst and I LOVE IT!!!💞💞💞 The way you write Eodwulf is soooo good hes such a mess and so gay help him. and Astrid Omg... I cant wait for more of her i checked out some of your posts on here and shes just great??? You've clearly put a lot of thought into them with the child designs and stuff, did you have any major inspo for the two of them like songs or other characters and stuff???

hey tumblr dont…delete part of my answer what the heck

anyway!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH,,, ed ( @tactfulgrimalkin ) is the one doing the actual writing but we plan everything together and i edit and do artwork so he deserves lots of love for the great writing…i dont remember what else i had here before tumblr deleted it so i hope thats the gist of it

eodwulf is a gay disaster of a bastard man and astrid is SO fun and im SO GLAD UR EXCITED TOO BECAUSE WE SURE ARE

anyway you just opened pandora’s box and i’m very sorry for the length of the rest of this answer but here we go prepare for some cursed content necessary to answer that question ( | ) w ( | ) it was a Wild Ride getting these two characters to where they are boy howdy

so the thing is in order to explain how we created these characters i actually have to get into the origins of the fic on the whole because the two are inextricably linked, and also, the origins of this fic are incredibly cursed and you can send all ur hatemail right here go on blast us we’re ready

but we were talking about caleb and how we’re both excited for whenever astrid and eodwulf turn up, and the thought came up for basically the rough skeleton of that scene in chapter 2:

“hey how messed up would it be if instead of them both hunting him down like we’re expecting…one of them comes in with a huge savior complex and sincerely thinks he’s delusional and should still be in the asylum, how MESSED UP would that be”

…and then shortly after that, this happened

thats the cursed part dont say i didnt warn u but listen you know we’re right

also that pic of caduceus didnt exist back then i went back and got this screenshot just to share the curse with you all

ANYWAY

in classic us format we got carried away and eodwulf got slotted into the role of that scene in chapter two and his character was largely developed around that scene, like, what kind of person would still be clinging to caleb after all this time to that degree to make that happen? and what was come up with was an extremely avoidant person clinging to a fantasy version of things wherein they don’t have to fight

(eodwulf was developed into a Person before astrid, i should note at this point, and ed did most of that developing; i took point on astrid later on)

but around this time i went “screw it im gonna do some concept art we’re both in too deep now” so here’s some of that for u guys

started with them all as teens and did a couple sketches as well as one of baby (well. teen. so baby) caleb/bren/we were calling him felix at the time as some of u probably already know

first draft had astrid with longer hair than eodwulf lmao check this out

flipped the hair length on those two which was for the best because at the time we were imagining eodwulf as a bit more mischevious which is another thing that got reversed over time now astrids the prankster and eodwulfs the overworked mom friend because bren takes astrid’s ideas and makes them SO MUCH WORSE but he still looks better with longer hair and then i played around w/ colors for a while and wound up w/ this

voila, the initial kid concepts, to which subtle yet vital changes were made after time. if any of you are curious about if im frustrated that that’s still the best i’ve ever drawn eodwulf’s nose the answer is yes. yes i am.

astrid’s hair is not messy enough, theres not enough freckles, and she does not look ready to fight the entire world for a dare. 0/10.

anyway then i did adult versions which look WAY OFF NOW LMAO

eodwulf with way too much beard, looking far too messy when he ought to look very clean so that he can hide how much of a disaster he actually is, and also a glimpse into the very boring Ice Queen/Heartless Bitch we vaguely had astrid as to start with. even more out of character tho is the earring, astrid as she is today would absolutely never tolerate an earring unless she absolutely had to, girl’s got sensory issues but she didn’t back then. ALSO STILL NOT ENOUGH FRECKLE

anyWHO a while after this it was decided that eodwulf has ADHD, something both the authors have a whole lot of lmao, and that was the point where ed REALLY took off and developing eodwulf went out of control and we both went Well I Guess We’re Gonna Have To Write This At Some Point Now

and with that happening is when developing astrid took more priority i think, because man, at that point in the game she came way too close to that really annoying trope that shows up in fanfic a lot wherein The Girl is A Bitch who is Getting In The Way Of ~*The Yaois*~ and thats like, thats bad. we knew from the outset we were absolutely not setting this up as a love triangle because we both hate those but even w/ her having no romantic relationship to either of the two, like…she was kind of just There and the one who was most loyal to trent (the only thing of her original characterization that really stuck, honestly) and sooo boring????

so like, and i say this honestly, i managed to COMPLETELY FORGET that “reverse sasuke” cursed comment from the beginning of all this and STILL go “well what if we made her more like caleb’s rival that’d be fun”

and that’s how astrid sorta wound up accidentally morphing into the Scrappy Underdog of this anime trio and calling her a naruto analogue is extremely cursed but also not inaccurate tbh

started out with the concept of her popping into bren’s window because she heard they were doing magic and wanted to learn it too and evolved from there; we decided that she was gonna be neurodivergent too but, hilariously, initially that she was “the best at pretending to be neurotypical” (WE COMPLETELY REVERSED THAT AND IT IS FOR THE BETTER. SHE’S SO MUCH MORE FUN NOW) and made her also autistic because it one meant she could be like SAME HAT at bren really hard which’d make her feel more like part of the group instead of just the odd one out, and two because it fits with the whole rivals thing

branching off of that we made her just. INCREDIBLY direct. like. astrid’s thought process is “how can i accomplish what i want accomplished with the smallest number of steps? what are the consequences of doing it this way? do i give a shit? no? im gonna do that.”

(which is why she climbed a tree to get into bren’s attic instead of using the door because that way she just completely skipped having to convince his mom to let her in)

i cant get into it much here because so many spoilers and we’re gonna explore it all, but like, astrid’s backstory turned into this exploration of the intersection of sexism and ableism especially as applied to a medieval-esque society in which the word “autism” doesn’t even EXIST and in which a convenient double standard exists Right There in the form of bren and like,, its gonna be good guys im excited for it

as far as characters tho she does also have just a touch of Vimes from discworld to her, albeit like, she’s lawful evil to his lawful good, but she’s got the same tendency to stick REALLY FIERCELY to the rules that she thinks are important, even when they inconvenience her, even if it’d be so much easier to bend them just this once

and for songs i cannot link like any astrid songs because they all might accidentally give away so much BUT I CAN LINK AN EODWULF SONG

youtube

this one was HUGE for him

uhhhh i think that’s everything i can think of that we can say right now unfortunately so i’ll end this with a comparison to the current teen designs we have now that are being used in the actual fic, even tho im not fond of how bren came out in this picture, but like, for the sake of comparison

lets see how far we’ve come

I N C R E A S E F R E C K L E

#longpost #SORRY TO PEOPLE ON MOBILE #zemnianghosts #i also got a lot better at drawing them all over time #just like. so much

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rosewinterborn · 5 years

Text

11/11/11

I waited too long to do this, so now I have 44 questions to do. RIP. Tagged by @writersblockandapotoftea, @arwallace (I know you tagged @expositionpreposition but it’s easier to do it here!), @shit-she-wrote, and @atinydino

Cap:

Who was your childhood hero?

Honestly, probably JKR. Again, RIP.

If we didn’t start the fire, who did?

People like my dad who say “millennials” like it’s a derogatory word probably

What made you start your wip?

Reading too much Dresden Files and also looking at magic academia posts on Tumblr (Gutter Witch); Reading Eragon (Companion to Dragons); Wanting to make an open magic world (Witches Anthology); Reading too much Stucky fanfiction (Fractal); Listening to the Magnus Archives three times through in a month (CHAF3k); wanted to go on a magic adventure with my high school friends (Children of the Light)

Hogwarts house?

Gryffindor!

Star Trek or Star Wars

Star Wars, though I like both

What was your pre-teen bop?

Uhhh Taylor Swift’s whole second album

If you could have a fantasy creature as a pet, what would you pick?

A dragon about the size of a cat that could sit on my shoulder and talk to me

What’s your pet peeve?

Feeling like people are upset with me but won’t talk to me about it

Dracula or Frankenstien’s Monster?

Haven’t read Dracula so Frankenstein’s monster, I guess.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve said to a friend?

I mean I had a conversation with two lesbians about dildos yesterday, soooo

If you had to murder someone, who would it be?

No one. I honestly don’t think I’d be able to live with myself after.

A R Wallace

Which book(s)/series would you compare your current WIP(s) to?

The Dresden Files. Though I did have someone say it was like reading a better-written Mortal Instruments. I was tickled.

Would you be willing to adapt your WIP into a movie one day? Why or Why not?

Yes. Please. Let me see my work come to life.

What is your ‘writing ritual’? (do you make sure you’ve made a cup of tea, sit in a particular spot, etc.)

I don’t have any particular ritual, I usually just try and seize the energy when I have it. Right now I am trying to sit at my actual desk to work, though, and during school if I had anything that I desperately needed to get done I took my ass to a coffee shop and told myself I wasn’t allowed to leave until it was done.

How much has writeblr helped you with your writing?

It helped me find a writing community that inspired me to get back to work after the depression had taken it away from me. I’m not as active on writeblr as maybe I could be, but the writing discord I found through it has been a lifeline.

If you could be one creature (real or mythical), what would you be?

A dragon. But like, one of the ones that can shapeshift. I also like being human.

Sum up your favorite WIP in one sentence

Oh god I’m supposed to have a favorite? That’s not gonna happen…

Gutter Witch: Local teens sick and tired of prophetic bullshit

Children of the Light: Estranged assholes learn to love each other again and also stop the apocalypse

Fractal: Hell on Earth in so many ways

Companion to Dragons: Girl’s asshole father sends her and her sister on a suicide mission and thinks that’s the end of it (surprise!)

Witches Anthology: literally a whole bunch of short stories so I’m not gonna try

Which of your characters is your favorite?

Whyyyyyy idk in GW probably Hunter, he’s fun to write. Overall maybe Sterling, my enby necromancer in the anthology

Which of your characters is your least favorite?

Hunter’s mother. Like honestly, every time I write about her she gets worse.

What do you believe is the most overused trope in your WIP’s genre(s)?

Melodrama.

Favorite season?

Autumn

If you could travel anywhere in the universe, where would you go?

Several places in Europe, in no particular order.

Eva:

1. What’s the first story you remember writing?

A story about a cat and a mouse becoming friends.

2. How has your taste in books changed since childhood?

I’ve tended a lot less towards high fantasy. I think it’s too much of an energy investment to try and understand the worldbuilding right now, whereas you can usually just jump into urban fantasy. I’ve also gotten a lot more interested in horror.

3. Do you see any similarities to your favorite books in your work? If yes, what are they?

If I’m being real honest, most of my wips are direct rip-offs of stuff I’ve read/watched/listened to, at least in the first draft. I usually try and direct my obsessions into creative energy at some point, with differing amounts of success.

4. What sort of music inspires you?

Stuff with strong beats/baseline and vaguely rebellious lyrics. So like, lots of Imagine Dragons and Fall Out Boy. But also trailer music like Epic Score and Two Steps from Hell

5. Favorite book?

These are the most evil kinds of questions you guys.

I can’t think of any published books I’d call my absolute favorite, but I do have a handful of fanfics I read on at least an annual basis: War, Children, by Nonymos; To Be Vulnerable Is Needed Most of All, by perfect_plan; and Schroedinger’s Romance by lesbuchanan

6. Favorite mythology (Greek, Norse, etc.)?

Probably Celtic? I’m really rusty on it though

7. Dream vacation?

A long, long trip through Europe without having to worry about money

8. Favorite writing snack?

I don’t really eat when I write because its too much of a distraction :P

9. What tea do you drink the most while writing?

Irish Breakfast

10. Do you have a special writing cup, that you drink tea out of specifically when writing to fill you up with inspiration?

I have a couple I’m more likely to grab, like my Night Vale Community Radio mug or my white Starbucks mug with the gold lettering

11. Write your favorite quote from your recent wip!!

Just outside the beam of light was a circle of what looked like black paint, tiny sigils scratched into it, shimmering uncannily in the dark. Wisps of that grim light drifted from the sigils to the figures at their center, dancing around Mara’s hands, clutching at Hunter’s shirt. Anywhere they touched his skin, blood seeped from a new laceration, sluggish and dark and horrible.

“Hunter,” she breathed.

Then she heard him.

“Run, Cady,” he croaked. “Tell my mom...she’s a bitch.”

Ames:

1. What’s your favorite season and why

Autumn! I love rain and also that it’s not super hot or super cold

2. What’s your favorite food?

Bread.

3. Who’s your favorite character in your most recent WIP?

Hunter Bishop, asshole extraordinaire

4. Do you hide easter eggs in your writing? If so tell me a few.

Hm. If I do, I don’t consider them easter eggs, just references. Though I did have someone in my creative writing class ask if the sandwich my protagonist was eating was based on one served in one of the restaurants on campus (and he was right)

5. Would you prefer your WIPs to be turned into a movie or tv series? (feel free to tell me about more than just 1)

Gutter Witch should just be a movie, and I’m leaning towards that for Witches as well. Fractal could go either way, though I’m leaning towards TV show. Children of the Light could go either way. CHAF3k will hopefully be a podcast at some point.

6. If you could have a writing studio anywhere with anything in it, what would it be like and where would it be?

I like the nook I have, though I think I’d adjust the height of my desk chair and add a coffee maker and a closer bathroom so I don’t have to walk all the way across the apartment. Oh, and I’d get a massive whiteboard so I can go all conspiracy theory on my wips.

7. What music do you listen to to get you in the zone? (the writing zone)

Trailer music! Epic Score and Two Steps from Hell. I can’t listen to music with lyrics while I try to make the words go.

8. What’s your worldbuilding process?

Panic.

But actually, I think of the aesthetic I’m after and then try to make everything build off of that. Along the way I usually try to figure out what thing I’m consciously or unconsciously basing it off of so that I can make necessary changes.

9. Who are your most influential authors?

JKR (sorry), Laini Taylor, Juliet Marillier, Tamora Pierce

10. What’s your favorite kind of cookie?

French macarons

11. Give me your favorite excerpt for your recent WIP!

“I wanted to talk to Madge.”

“Madge is dead,” Hunter said, confused.

“I’m aware,” she said. “I asked Death to take me to her, but she said she couldn’t and suggested projection instead.”

Hunter turned from the stove with the most dumbfounded expression Cady had ever seen outside of cinema. “You asked Death,” he repeated.

Cady snorted. “Yeah. I asked Death.”

“The cosmic power, Death.”

“The cosmic power, Death. We’re good friends. She comes over for tea on occasion.”

Hunter stared at her, expression halfway between disbelief and suspicion. “You’re fucking with me.”

“I’m not fucking with you,” Cady said. “Death is the whole reason I came to this Coven. She sent me here when I was thirteen.”

Hunter sank back against the counter, looking almost faint. Whatever he’d been cooking began to sizzle alarmingly. “Death has been...in this apartment.”

Cady nodded.

Not tagging anyone else on this one. I’ve learned my lesson lmao.

#tag games

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readingraebow · 6 years

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Everything is Illuminated Section One

An Overture to the Commencement of a Very Rigid Journey - The Dial, 1941-1804-1941

1. Have you ever read this book before or seen the movie? If not, what do you know of the story? I have not read this book or seen the movie though my best friend in high school was obsessed with it. Her favorite actor was Liev Schreiber and he directed this movie so she watched it a lot though I never got around to watching it with her. And she read the book and loved it and told me to read it. So I bought it but, uh, never actually read it. Though if it's anything like Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, it's probably absolutely bananas but also amazing. And I honestly don't know anything about it. Though I was just reading some of the little review blurbs on the first few pages and apparently it's about the Holocaust?? That is actual proof that I know nothing about this book. But I'm very excited to get started with it!!

2. Where did Alex’s grandfather work and why is he coming out of retirement? I honestly don't remember reading the answer to the first part of this question and flipping back through, I couldn't find it soooo stealing part of Lizzy's answer (because I'm bad at things). He was a driver for Heritage Touring and he comes out of retirement to drive around The Hero (who is also the author; way to write yourself as a character into your own book *slow claps*) who has come to the Ukraine to search for the village where his grandfather lived and a woman named Augustine who saved his grandfather's life during the war and, thus, allowed him to exist.

3. Why did Yankel’s wife leave him? How did she break the news to him? She left him for another man and he just comes home to find a note on the door that says "I had to do it for myself." And the part that mystifies him is that it was so simple for her. He says that she was the love of his life but apparently that wasn't the case for her. She just left the note tacked to the door like she'd done with other notes with things for him to do or messages that she'd stepped out and would be right back. But leaving him is something much bigger and it hadn't seemed like a hard decision for her. And, yet, for him there wasn't really anyone else. He never married again.

4. What is Brod’s role in the parade? Have you ever been in a parade before? Brod is the most beautiful girl in Trachimbrod so she's the Float Queen. Basically this means she dresses up as a mermaid and rides in the parade. And then she throws sacks in to the river after which she was named and a bunch of men jump in to try to find the sacks and one of them finds the winning sack which has a bunch of money in it. And I have actually! I've been in 6. The first was in New Mexico. We had a family reunion on my grandmother's side (but I was a kid so I think it was her father's siblings and their descendants but I don't quite remember) and we had a float in their parade. I was like 5 or something so I just remember wearing a pinafore and pretending to stir a pot while I tried super hard not to fall off the float, haha. And then four times were when I was in band and marched. My hometown has two parades every year, one for Christmas and one for our annual festival in May, and I played flue in three of those. In one of them I got to hold the banner (and, thus, didn't have to play an instrument while walking in step which I was supremely bad at and hated). And, honestly, I don't really like parades so that was one of the reasons why I quit band, haha. And I'm also kind of glad I don't really have to go to parades anymore. Though, that being said, the last time I was in a parade was in October when I visited my aunt and helped her out with their Apple Days festival (which she conveniently didn't tell me I was working, haha) and so I walked with her and helped corral all the kids who had won the Johnny Appleseed contest and were riding around us on bikes. Thankfully, that was the world's shortest parade because I am also not great at corralling children, haha. So basically I don't have great luck with parades.

5. What happens to Brod on her way home from the parade? What does she discover when she finally arrives? I think she's raped? In the chapter before that, she sees a page of what will become her story and it mentions that she was raped and then that's mentioned again, in passing, at the beginning of the chapter when she's riding on the float. So then, when she's coming home from the parade she has to evade all of the drunks who are lusting after her and she comes home to find Yankel dead on the floor. And then outside the window, she sees the guy who won the sack contest staring at her. And basically that's where it stops? So it implies that she was raped but it never goes into detail. And it was right after she found Yankel dead. What a horrible day for her O.O

6. What is Alex saving his money for? He's saving his money to move to America. He says he keeps all of his money in the cookie jar in the kitchen which is safe because it's been ten years since his mother made cookies. He reasons that when the cookie jar is full, he'll have enough money to move to America. But he wants to be sure he has enough money for a really nice apartment in Times Square that is big enough for him and Little Igor and will have a large-screen tv to watch basketball, a jacuzzi, and a hi-fi. (Somehow I don't think a cookie jar full of money will be enough for all of that but okay.) He also asks Jonathan to send him articles about America (sports, movies, girls & accounting schools) so he can learn more about it for when he moves there.

7. How does the search for Trachimbrod go? Super not well. Sammy Davis Junior Junior ends up eating all of Jonathan's papers, including the map, so they have no idea where they're going. So they ask someone for directions and he's never heard of Trachimbrod so he gives them a general direction to go and tells them when they get close, someone should be able to tell them where to find it. Except everyone else they stop to ask says they also haven't heard of it. So they just end up driving around, waiting for someone to have actually heard of Trachimbrod. So, finally, they stop and ask this woman and she says she hasn't heard of it either but something in her tone says otherwise. And when Alex shows her the photograph, she says no but he says it sounds like a different kind of no. So he just keeps asking her if she knows anyone in the picture and she keeps saying no. And then finally he asks if anyone in the picture knows her. And then she says "I have been waiting for you for so long." And Alex points at the car and tells her they're searching for Trachimbrod. And she says "You are here. I am it." So Trachimbrod is apparently a person????? 8. What happens to the Kolker after he gets the job at the mill? Brod had a feeling that something bad would happen to him so she didn't want him to go to work and tried to stop him. But he went anyway and a saw blade ended up flying off its bearing and basically ricocheted around the room before finally embedding itself perpendicular in the top of the Kolker's head. It didn't kill him though. In fact, it didn't injure him at all except for the creation of violent mood swings. It basically created a second, very angry personality who would yell awful things at everyone and caused him to start beating Brod. This was completely unlike his normal personality and he couldn't control the violent side. After something would happen, he would apologize profusely and sometimes even ask what had happened. But, anyway, it created a more violent side which sent him to every doctor to try to get it stopped. However, the only way to stop it would be to remove the blade which would probably kill him. So instead, he just decided to sleep in a separate bedroom for the last year of his life which caused him to stop beating Brod but also meant that the last year of their marriage had them living almost entirely apart and communicating only through a hole cut between the two rooms.

Section One Reading Journal

What on earth did I just read????? So this is easily the strangest book I’ve ever read. And I’m not even done yet. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is one of my absolute favorite books and even though it’s a mess, it’s a really weird, enjoyable mess that kind of grabs you and makes you want to figure out where this is going. That’s not really how I feel about this book?? I just-- I don’t know. This one is so weird.

As of right now, I can’t really keep any of the characters straight (especially since everyone keeps changing names?????? What even???) except for Brod and Jonathan and Alex (though I literally didn’t know his name was Alex; I thought it was Sasha). I’m just really, really not following this book? I do finally have the three stories kind of straight though it seems like they’re all actually one story, just told on a very non-linear timeline.

I just-- I really don’t know what I think about this book. I feel like I will like it more after I finish it because it seems like it will be something really, really amazing when it all comes together. So I think this is one of those that’s a complete mess the first time around but once you get it (and maybe even read it again or watch the movie-- so at least have ~some kind of second interaction with it), it’s really great. I’m hoping that’s how I’ll feel. But right now, I’m just really not loving it.

Though the writing is, as always, super beautiful and there are lots of really great quotes. And Alex not understanding how words work is really hilarious. And no one understanding that Jonathan is a vegetarian is also hilarious. Especially that they won’t let you make modifications to orders??? Like you can’t just not make meat??? How is that hard???? That seems easier to me. But okay then.

So yeah. Some parts of this book I’m really enjoying. But some parts are just super weird and very confusing. Including all of Brom’s life. It seemed like her husband was the one who raped her but apparently he was coming to save her/check on her/came to the parade to meet her??? And she genuinely loved him. All of that could’ve been just *a little bit* clearer. Because I was so totally confused. And that’s how pretty much all of her story has gone.

But, anyway, I’m hoping the rest of this book will clear up everything we’ve read so far. I remember Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close being super weird the fist time around too but I don’t remember it being downright confusing. I don’t remember spending half the book wondering what was happening and if I’d ever feel like I wasn’t totally lost. So I have high hopes for the second half and I can’t wait to get into it!

(Also, as a weird side note, this book reminds me a lot of Chuck Palahniuk’s Pygmy. That one was also “written by” someone who could barely speak English and was hard as hell to get into but, in my opinion, it was honestly well worth it. It was kind of a headache to read at first but once you got used to it, it got a lot better. And that’s one of my absolute favorite Chuck books. So that’s kind of why I’m thinking this one might turn out the same way. I’m having lots of flashbacks to reading that one, haha.)

#trcbooks #2015: everything is illuminated #2015 reading challenge

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xxamilychanxx · 6 years

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Blog Update

Hello, everyone! I hope you are all doing well. First of all, thank you so much for following my blog. That means a lot to me and I can not believe I have reached +500 over followers. ≧◡≦ I’ll probably delete this post later, after a couple of days.

I just wanted to give an heads up about the current direction I’ll be taking in regards of my blog. This is my main account I don’t really have any other side blogs. Maybe in future, I’ll create some additional accounts for more specific things but for the time being, I enjoy sticking to my main and making it my own. I had never been a huge fan of having mutiple accounts since I get overwhelmed pretty easily. That being said, as most of you all figured out by now, (almost around %90-95) I tend to share Todobaku, Todoroki only or Bakugou only content. I sometimes throw my own edits, artwork and fanfictions here and there (and rarely something totally different) but I had been mainly focusing on my OTP for the longest time. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my OTP to ends of the world and I will continue to share lots of Todobaku, Todoroki and Bakugou centric content.

BUT...

I also will be reblogging contents from different fandoms from now on as well. For the longest time, I was just ‘liking‘ non-BnHA stuff and had been holding myself back from sharing or reblogging anything different. This was mainly because I wanted to protect the theme of my blog and wanted to keep it relatively BnHA focused. However, recently, liking the posts hasn’t been satisfying. In fact, I have this sudden urge to support all other content creators by reblogging their stuff. I am also a content creator. I know exactly how it feels like when your content gets reblogged with such lovely tags or comments. Thus, I wanted you all to know that you’ll be seeing different fandom posts or reblogs from me.

That being said, if you are curious about this update and still sticking around to read the rest of my post, honestly, thanks for your attention. You might be wondering the following: What you should be expecting from me in future and how you should be treating my blog?

1-) I will answer this question in two sections. First, if you still wish to stick around and continue to support my blog, then I’ll be making things easier for you. In past, I didn’t really use the tagging system that much, since I didn’t really have to. Like I said, my blog’s main theme was pretty self explanatory,thus, I would only tag the new contents or posts that I created. However, since I will be changing my style a little bit, in case if I share certain content you do not enjoy (for example a certain fandom or couple), feel free to block that tag and you’ll be no longer recieving that kind of stuff from me. I will be tagging everything I reblog, share and/or post from now on, so you have my word! :3 I hope this will make things easier on both of our ends. Honestly, I have no right to tell you how you should be approaching to this kind of news regarding to my blog update. You have all the rights to continue to support me or unfollow me. From bottom of my heart, I hope the way you treat it won’t change; however, I would totally understand if you wish to unfollow me cause it is totally understandable.

2-) Let me answer the second part of the question. Other than BnHA (todobaku/todo and/or baku centric content), what else will I be sharing on my blog? I am in plenty different fandoms, so I don’t have a definite answer, but I can list some of the stuff I am currently really into, or had been a huge follower for a long time. I hope this can give you a general idea. The future stuff will include but will not be limited to:

BnHA/My Hero Academia: Todobaku (aka Todoroki x Bakugou). They are my OTP and I will continue to spam content for them. In additional to that, I enjoy Baku-squad dynamics. I love Kirishima, Aizawa and Tamaki as characters. While there are some other ships I also enjoy, my BnHA related content will still be heavily focused on Todobaku and I don’t think it will change too much.

Overwatch: From this fandom, you mostly likely will be seeing Meihem (aka Junkrat x Mei) centric content. I also like Bunnyribbit (aka Lucio x D.va), Gency (aka Genji x Mercy) and Anahardt (aka Reinhardt x Ana) so I might share content for those additional ships as well.

Nier Automata: This game killed me to my core and I am in love with it so much. I can nerd about it for days. From this fandom, I really love enjoy seeing content for 9S since he is my fav character. I ship 2B9S (aka 2B x 9S) so you will be most likely seeing shippy content for those two as well.

Danganronpa: Any other danganronpa fans, upupupu? Jokes aside, I really love danganronpa franchise and I am upto date with everything (which even includes visual novels, all the games and anime adaptations). So, please be warned that my posts or reblogs might contain spoiler content. Like I said I will be tagging everything I post, so i recommend you to block the tags I use! That being said, I like plenty of ships from this fandom. The ones I am most passionate about are the following; Sondam (aka Gundham x Sonia), Komamiki (aka Komaeda x Mikan), Kuzupeko (aka Kuzuryu x Peko), Kiiruma (aka Keebo x Iruma), Harukaito (aka Kaito x Maki), Saimatsu (aka Shuichi x Kaede) and/or Amamatsu (aka Rantarou x Kaede) and Oumeno (aka Ouma x Himiko).

Akatsuki no Yona: Soooo, this might seem a little out of blue. I know that it is not a very well-known fandom. That being said, the manga is still ongoing and I am remaining hopeful for a new season for its anime adaptation. We might never get it but I will still remain hopeful. Call me delusional, hah. Anyways, with this series, I am pretty strict about my likes. I ship Jaeki (aka Jaeha x Kija) so much so I will be most likely spamming stuff related to them if I get a chance. Other than that one couple, I am not super duper interested in anything else truth to be told.

For now these are the current fandoms that I am actively a part of. This list might change in future. In addition to that, I might still reblog certain content from other unlisted fandoms if I really enjoy the post or content. My blog might contain hinted nsfw content but I will try not to share anything too-explicit since I don’t really enjoy being loud about those kind of stuff myself.

That’s all folks. Thanks for reading this all the way to the end. You have an amazing attention span and I am honored that you are that invested in the content that I share. I really appreciate all the support and thanks for following my blog once again. See ya later and as I said, I will be deleting this post later!

#delete later #blog update #personal #update #blog content #changes

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jmrphy · 6 years

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Meta reflections on Jesse Pinkman’s new book, Enlightenment Now, with a special focus on the Joe Rogan chapter

Warning: This was supposed to be a really quick thing about the reception of Steven Pinker's new book, in part just to rev this blog back up as an easier-going place for short, fun stuff. Accidentally it became a 4k-word world-historical meta-narrative about the changing political coordinates of contemporary intellectual life on a razor-thin evidentiary base.

I just read RS Bakker's thoughts on the new Pinker book. I thought they were very stimulating and seemed important/credible—although I didn't grok everything in my one time through on the train. They did, however, motivate me to jot down a few thoughts that have been recurring to me lately. They're not really related to Bakker's post.

I'm not going to comment on the Pinker book, first because I haven't read it; second, because I don't like playing in already overpopulated peanut galleries, it pains my frail ego; third, because, as with many things today, it seems to me the real theoretical points of interest are at a meta level. There's a time and place to use proper names, no doubt, but individuals and their particular products are often red herrings, I think. If I use the name Pinker below it's just for shorthand; this will really be about the larger class of prestigious public intellectuals of which he is only one example (as opposed to, say, the high-brow but unpaid batshit blogger class, the personal-brand-with-a-patreon class, the Youtube philosophy for dummies educator class, the Alex Jones balls-to-the-wall flight from Earth class, etc.). It turns out there are wayyy more ways to be a famous and influential intellectual than anyone could have known when they were in grad school in the 70s or 80s, or even the 90s really.

In fact, I won't even use Pinker's name, to emphasize that I'm really not out here trying to ankle-bite this great and good scientist who is much smarter and more accomplished than myself. Wherever I might want to refer to Pinker as an example, I will instead refer to Pinkman. That way you'll think of Jesse from Breaking Bad, in the form of a prestigious social scientist instead of a meth kingpin.

Highly successful and publicly influential academic intellectuals are playing a very particular kind of game. The logic of this game made sense even ten years ago, but I'm not sure it does anymore. The logic is something like this "Get really smart, make real scientific contributions, earn legitimate credentials and status, then leverage this elevated status to shape the body politic toward the Good (and also be handsomely remunerated, admired, etc. — but hey, fair enough.) I've never met Pinkman or many other famous scientists but my sense is they have given much of their life to some version of this noble vocation. This is an archetypal Liberal identity-mold, a tried and true, recognizable Calling, in a world where such things are increasingly hard to find.

Well, the past decade has thrown up some data points that really make you wonder whether the basic terms of this model still obtain. A few things lately have given me the bad feeling that someone like Pinkman may have invested most of their life in a certain kind of bargain with Liberal Society that, sadly, Liberal Society has now reneged on. I say this is a bad feeling because, if true, it's very unfortunate and I genuinely feel for them.

So what's this bargain I speak of, in a little more detail? First, for background, remember that for much of our history highly talented and creative individuals are typically punished by their groups. Reverse dominance hierarchies, etc., you can't let super talented people get too ahead of the others because then they'll dominate, or group morale suffers, or the group disintegrates, or whatever. Bad things will happen. So they'd cut you down to size at every opportunity. But liberal society was willing to offer super smart and able people a bargain: If you're really smart and able, then you can go off and cultivate your smarts but only on condition that you respect Liberal Society. It's a pretty genius solution actually: let the ablest flourish above everyone else but make them pay a cut of their gains to the cohesion of the whole. Win-win. The society got all the benefits of crazy geniuses solving problems, without them dominating or collective cohesion suffering. The geniuses not only got to enjoy their objective superiority on full blast, they also got to feel like it was all about doing good for others. And maybe it is.

It is the right to generously bestow social improvement that is one of the great joys of being a prestigious intellectual--could you imagine how exhilarating it must feel to have earned, through a life of study, the exalted role of institutionally sanctioned Society Improver at grand scale, how genuinely good it must feel to know that all of your sacrifice and hard work now empowers you to improve the knowledge and character of millions, and the political health of a whole society? Understood a little more rational-choicely, this is one of the key income streams that liberal society pays to its most prestigious geniuses, in return for their lifelong loyalty to all of the official tenets of harmonious Liberal Society. I think the data is pretty obvious in showing that no matter how genius you might be, if you go off the rails of "reasonable discourse" beyond a certain degree you quickly lose all of your standing and influence (on this model, anyway.

(Note that the newer classes of public intellectuals have figured out that if you decline the liberal institutional bargain, then going maximally off the rails can be its own direct path to extraordinary intellectual influence and economic reward. But more on that later, let's stay on track understanding the fine print of the liberal intellectual's bargain with liberal society).

Here's where things get a little shadowy because the harmony of Liberal Society is quite sensitive. It's kind of like a precious baby, and we love babies and would do anything to protect them, but this is how hypocrisy enters in automatically, because Liberal Society requires everyone to presume everyone else is an adult, and to treat everyone as such. For instance, when two groups violently disagree over certain deep moral questions, well, liberal society doesn't allow them to deal with it violently (a good thing perhaps, as Pinkman has amply documented). But what does it do instead?

The simplest way to summarize all of the things that Liberal Society does to reduce violence: It papers over the conflicts, which is maybe a brilliant solution, or maybe an insane, explosive solution that simply hasn't exploded yet — the jury is still out on that one. If Group A thinks abortion is murdering babies, and Group B thinks prohibition of abortion is enslaving women, the only way to deal with such profound and high-stakes ethical disagreement, other than civil war, is to derive some symbolic artifice(s) that will let both groups live peacefully with the other. Hmm, thinks Caesar, do we have anyone around here good at generating clever symbolic artifices? In swoops the knighted genius. The genius is delighted to take a break from self-cultivation in order to contribute to Harmony, and Caesar, as well as the common people, are happy to have someone on hand to explain why I don't have to worry if my neighbor is Evil. Win, win, win.

Thus baked into the vocation of the modern liberal intellectual is, from the get-go, a highly dissimulated condescension and hypocrisy. The liberal intellectual gets their status precisely from a superior ability (earned or inherited, doesn't matter) but they are contractually obligated to treat the normal masses as equals, when they know damn well that in fact, the normal masses are dumber, more dangerous, and in need of Harmonizing by institutions (paper). Also, remember that the genius wants to help, it's extremely rewarding to sincerely help society, but the noble sacrifice the genius admirably contributes to the social good is precisely the papering over, of whatever the normal masses need papered over for their well-being. This is how a basic minimum of dissimulation, condescension, and hypocrisy is structurally embedded in the vocation or calling of the modern liberal intellectual. We might note in passing it's also an avatar of Plato's Philosopher-King, a conceptual-political thought-rut that many progressive intellectual personae tend to inhabit in one way or another (and yes, here, Pinkman is a Progressive, despite some infamy among SJWs).

OK, so the modern liberal intellectual might be forced to pay lip service to a few small Noble Lies, but it's soooo much better than all that homicide and war in the earlier chapters of Pinkman's violence book, that it seems like a no-brainer. "There are political realities, it's not my fault, all I can do is speak the truth in a way that helps society the most. If that means I have to use my words judiciously, is that really so bad?" an elite cognitive scientist might reasonably ask. The only problem is that this entire model presumes that the speech of the prestige intellectual will remain highly weighted relative to the speech of anyone else who might take it upon themselves to explain things publicly.

What if external circumstances change in such a way that the masses start to intuit that the knighted geniuses have quietly been playing a political game all along? What if, empirically, things just so happen to play out in such a way that a critical mass of pretty average people (on the right and the left, and in their own languages and for their own reasons), quietly update their mental and behavioral models of the world in the realization that: "Eureka! I have a strong suspicion that some really serious issues have been papered over for some time now... and I'm not going to be a dupe any longer. I see what's going on, and I can play this game, too..." Well, one thing to note is that if this updating were to occur, even on a massive and rapid scale, there's no reason to believe we would know it anytime soon after it occurred. The next thing to see is that, suddenly, the entire bargain that the prestige intellectual based his whole life's labors on would suddenly be off the table.

So long as your pronouncements are weighted well by institutionalized attention monopolies, your lifelong service to science mixed slightly with Harmony-producing fluff was a reasonable and even maybe noble project. If your prestige loses its weight, then tempering your extreme intelligence with little white lies would be all for nought, because you're about to be left in the dust by new startups who specialize in unreasonably extreme truth-telling ("red pills" and many other colored pills now available) and also unreasonably extreme hypocrisy (self-help bullshit, SJWism, etc.). You'll still have your niche, but your effect on people and society will rapidly fall towards zero (along with the overwhelming majority of other people, including most smart people).

It seems to me that as a sociological phenomenon, Pinkman's recent book dramatizes a lot of what I'm modeling here. I think the world has changed a lot very recently and with many things we're like the roadrunner who's already off the cliff, but we haven't yet looked down to see the vast empty space beneath our galloping gait. In a strange way, I think dumber people have been doing more correct updating as of late, and some of the smartest people have been stubbornly failing to update lately. Dumber people have updated to not listen to a word of what the mainstream intellectual culture says, but smart people have not yet been able to update in response to this updating by dumber people (in part because smart people don't have any way of hearing about how dumber people are updating, and they're not exactly accustomed to caring about it). The inertia of media representations enforces a substantial lag between increasingly rapid techno-economic changes in the distribution of powers and our meager human mental models of where that power is.

All of this has been quite abstract, and I mentioned above that I have some data points, so I'll just end with those. I might have tricked you, accidentally, because to be honest, I've extrapolated this whole bonkers historical meta-narrative from a few very measly anecdotal observations. Well first, I kind of had in mind things like Trump and Brexit, i.e. signals of widespread mistrust of dominant institutions and respectable liberal wisdom. So those are pretty big and real data points for the kind of perspective I'm articulating here. I also have a few more specific ones, although they are very tendentious.

The first one is so silly, you're really going to laugh at me for writing this long post in part because of this ridiculously tiny and personal anecdote. You can write your own blog, I for one sense significant causal evidence in this little story. Basically, I listened to the Joe Rogan podcast with Pinkman about his new book and... Pinkman was fine, he's a brilliant and likable guy... but... something was wrong. Very wrong. Don't tell anyone because it's kind of orthogonal to my personal brand and I have to stay on point, but I've listened to many, many Joe Rogan podcasts. And I'm a professional social scientist mind you, so if anything the Pinkman podcast should be more interesting and effective on me, relative to the average episode. But it was just so... "boring" is not even the word. Flat? Anachronistic? Bloodless? Zombieish? None of these quite convey it, but together they give some sense. The point is that, as a minor young academic but a relative connoisseur of the new media, for me something really significant in the machinery of intellectual experience was failing to fire, so much so that it was quite strange. I was surprised and confused. But now I think I understand it; it's everything I've said above.

The world that Pinkman seems to think he is in, is not the world we're actually living in now. The book will be successful economically of course, but it has no affective-identity constituency, other than people who are already socio-culturally neutralized or priced-in by the current equilibrium. It's hard to see how anything will move or shake from this type of project anymore. Most intellectual figures preach to a choir, of course, so Pinkman is no better or worse for that — but some choirs move and shake and generate novel ripples on world history, while others just sit there doing nothing other than precisely what was yesterday's world history. Some books and podcasts and youtube videos make people want to leave their friends and family to join a jihad, some give you strong confidence that a reality-TV star would make a great president, some give you the extraordinary realization that all of society is controlled by a white supremacist patriarchy; all of these lead to novel, unpredictable schisms and re-aggregations, new social formations and subcultures, which in their affective vitality bubble up, viralize or mutualize or enter into arms races, and end up producing system-level outcomes such as electoral victories, migrations, communicating-contagion shooting sprees, various contagious mental pathologies, as well as genuine self- and community-improvement dynamics, unequally distributed. There's nothing better or worse about the Enlightenment Is Cool niche; it's just that it's identity-affective character seems predicated on precisely what we've recently realized is already gone, as demonstrated by the whopping piece of incontrovertible evidence that was my personal lukewarm reception of Joe Rogan's podcast with Steven Pinkman.

You can say I should not generalize from my personal affective experiences, but my personal position seems like it'd be most conducive to liking and being affected by the Pinkman podcast! I'm not talking about the content of his book whatsoever, I'm talking about the reality he takes himself to be playing in. I don't think it's here anymore. First of all, the halo effect of prestige markers is weaker than ever I think. Once upon a time his prestige would have increased the excitement of listening to him. Today, much less. Second, all of the intellectual action today is coming from unique combinations of intellectual horsepower with identity alignments. Jordan Peterson is blowing up in part because he's a smart, credentialed intellectual with a message but specifically because he gives an image of admirable life for a certain type of person. It's not that JP lovers are now changing the world in a way Pinkman lovers will not, it's that JP's identity-affective alignment is not already priced in by the status quo from which Pinker's authority derives (JP tapped emotional needs not already being supplied, through new media, not prestige; hence the socio-political splash). Hell, Joe Rogan himself, who no Serious Intellectual would even call an intellectual, is making similar waves in the intellectual ecology because his basic intelligence and character combine with a certain affectively attractive performance of life that he offers to certain types of people. I could go on.

The problem for traditional public intellectuals on the Liberal Vocation model is that the image of life they herald is radically unavailable to most people so the aspirational inroad to affective alignment is close to nil; it's actually genuinely contemptible to many people (and this is getting worse as the very real racket-nature of much academia is becoming increasingly transparent; ironically the hard-science backlash against postmodernism might have unintended consequences in this regard); and the information they're able to share with the unwashed masses tends to be freely available anyway. Or worse, listeners/readers can usually find someone rehearsing the same information who also offers an identity-performance more affectively aligned with their own temperament and social position. So vanilla prestige intellectuals don't have a monopoly on the information, they no longer even have an advantage on trustworthiness given widespread mistrust toward most institutions, and they uniquely, sorely lack one of the biggest drivers of intellectual impact in the new ecology: affective-identity alignment with moving and shaking niche audiences. (Although note that, with the global internet, "niche" can very well mean several millions of people). To make matters even worse, their cultivated knack for walking the line of polite respectable "good taste" is actually a negative on the balance sheet of their social influence.

Here's another data point. I was struck by the nearly instant appearance of so many reviews and commentaries, almost all of which were ideologically colored. I don't mean that in a bad way necessarily, I just mean so many of the usual suspects were saying things to the effect you would expect them to say. And when most of those items would appear on my radar, my eyes would just glaze over. But think about the commentary that most struck me, and by "struck" I mean this combination of intellectual horsepower plus temperamentally conditional excitement. I'm talking about the post by RS Bakker that inspired this post (by the way I really wanted to just hammer out a quick 500-word thing, but this always happens, which is why I can't let myself sit down to "write a quick 500-word thing" very often). As I said, I read it quickly on the train, and at this point I don't even really remember what it said. All I know is that it had intelligent comments about Adorno and Nietzsche and their critiques of Enlightenment modernity. It was scientifically competent as far as I could tell, and then it had some kind of batshit scientific extensions I didn't really understand but which seemed promising maybe. It was only after I read the post that I wanted to see who this guy was, and from what I could grok apparently he writes fiction but also co-authored with someone in Nature? (!).

So just reflect on this for a moment. Prestige scientist I admire writes book about philosophical/political topics I am highly interested in, he does a podcast that has no effect on me, a million reviews from prestige outlets come out and I can't feel any reason to care about any of them, and it just so happens that the one item in the intellectual ecology that affected me (e.g. motivated novel production on my part), was maybe the one fiction writer in the world who has a publication in Nature writing something on his personal blog (and I didn't even know anything about him until after I read the piece). That's so strange... or rather, it would be strange if we were living even in the 1970s or even the 1990s, but it's not at all strange today. Of course there exists in the world some scientifically sophisticated blogger able to talk deeply about Adorno and Nietzsche, of course he has a blog, and of course it would find its way onto my radar. Of course it would strike me, and of course as a young academic myself right now I am more motivated to write long blog posts than do my institutional duties. Of course, this is the new reality. The real puzzle is how and why the respectable prestige dancehall of liberalism v1.0 is still populated with a good number of really smart people, when all of the music is clearly pumping out of a variegated, thousand-room warehouse of the less compromising... liberalism flatlining at degree zero.

#theory #history #intellectuals #joe rogan #steven pinker #science #jordan peterson #enlightenment

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newtonmediagroup · 4 years

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Free Association

If your mind goes blank, use a technique called free association to generate a response. These are words that immediately come to mind upon hearing something. For example, if someone talks about cats, practice free association with the provided exercises, and you’ll be able to come up with answers more quickly and easily. Conversation as a whole is just a series of interrelated responses and stories, so free association is practicing conversation flow. Regardless of who you’re talking to, you’re likely to be asked the same set of generic questions. These include what do you do, how was your day, and others like these. You’ll want to have two separate answers prepared for such questions, one of which is interesting and unique (the layman explanation), while the other is more informative (the expert explanation). Being too esoteric upon first meeting someone isn’t always helpful, and can confuse and render others speechless. Finally, learn to give good compliments. This is also deceptively easy. Compliment things that people have control over, or made a choice about. Don’t choose genetic qualities like height or eye color; instead choose things that people actively put effort into. People feel comfortable and flattered, and then start to open up. The Art of Witty Banter: Be Clever, Quick, & Magnetic By Patrick King Read the show notes and/or transcript at https://bit.ly/social-skills-shownotes Get the audiobook on Audible at https://bit.ly/WittyBanterKing For a free minibook on conversation tactics, visit Patrick King Consulting at https://bit.ly/pkconsulting For narration information visit Russell Newton at https://bit.ly/VoW-home For production information visit Newton Media Group LLC at https://bit.ly/newtonmg

#compliment #expertexplanation #LaymanExplanation #FreeAssociation #PatrickKing #PatrickKingConsulting #SocialSkillsCoaching #TheArtofWittyBanter #RussellNewton #NewtonMG compliment,expert explanation,Layman Explanation,Free Association,Patrick King, Patrick King Consulting,Social Skills Coaching,The Art of Witty Banter,Russell Newton,NewtonMG

Practice Free Association

There are times when it doesn’t really matter how good a speaker you are, or how interesting or engaging you might be as a person—or for that matter, how interesting and engaging the person you are speaking to is. Sometimes conversations just get stuck. It’s no one’s fault; it just happens.

We can get stuck in topics we don't care about, or a conversation can turn into what feels like an interview, making it feel shallow and awkward. We might discover that we have very little in common with the other person. When we try to think of different things to talk about, it becomes difficult, like trying to climb out of a hole.

When we find ourselves in a conversation where we’re tangled up in a tough or impossible topic, we end up feeling frozen and trapped, which creates anxiety and frustration. The more we try to get out of the rut of the conversation, the more stuck we feel.

So let’s simplify conversation.

Conversation is a series of statements, stories, and questions. After one person contributes one of those elements, the other person responds in kind, either on the same exact topic, or a topic that is in some way related to the original one.

That’s where free association comes in. This is the practice wherein you say things that immediately come to mind when you hear something without trying to filter it in any way.

Isn’t conversation just a series of free-association exercises?

For example, if someone says something to the effect of, “I love cats soooo much!” and you know nothing about cats, you might find it difficult to contribute anything to the conversation. If you absolutely hate cats because a cat blinded your right eye when you were a child, this might just be a conversation killer, or it might launch you into a bitter rant that will also murder the conversation.

You might not have anything to say about cats, but what if you took away the statement and context and focused on the word and concept of cats?

With simple free association, you can find a way to quickly and efficiently breathe new life into the conversation, regardless of how deeply stuck it may feel.

Just free associate five things about cats. In other words, blurt out five things (nouns, locations, concepts, statements, feelings, words) that flashed into your brain when you heard the word “cats.” Allow your mind to go blank and zero in on the word "cats." Stop thinking of the word "cats" as a trigger to past experiences and memory. Instead, start looking at it as a fresh concept unconnected to what you've experienced before. Play a word association game with yourself. What does "cats" make you think of? We're just talking about purely intellectual connections.

It doesn't matter what you feel, what your emotions are. It doesn't matter what your experiences were, whether you were traumatized or not. It has nothing to do with that. This is just a purely intellectual challenge to try to rapidly fill out a list of what "cats" as a concept can be tied to.

For most people, when the word "cats" is mentioned, they think of kittens, cuddles, sand boxes, cheetahs, lions, fish, sushi, fur, dogs, allergies, the musical, etc. Keep in mind that there is no right or wrong answer here. It’s all free association. What's important is that you're rapidly filling out that list of things that you can intellectually connect with the word "cats."

You’ll notice that doing this is much easier than coming up with a responsive statement or question to the declaration, “I love cats sooo much.” Yet, your task and challenge is exactly the same—where do you go with what the other person said? With that framework and perspective, it’s much easier to disassociate from the actual statement and free associate with the subject matter.

Doing this will train your brain to think outside the (cat) box, approach conversation in a non-linear way, and see the many possible directions one simple concept or word can take you.

For instance, you may respond to the statement, “I love cats sooo much” with any of the following replies:

“I’ve always wondered whether cats enjoy cuddle time as much as dogs seem to do.”

“Have you heard of these hypoallergenic cat breeds?”

“So would Cats, the Musical be something you’d enjoy watching?”

Now suppose that someone proclaimed their love for car racing, and suppose that you know nothing about that either. What are the top five or six free associations that come to mind for car racing?

For me, it’s a mixture of (1) NASCAR, (2) gas, (3) tires, (4) The Fast and the Furious movies, (5) Japan (don’t ask me), (6) Mustangs. Here’s the magic part—each of these six associations are perfectly normal topics to switch to that are still in the flow of the conversation.

“I love watching car racing! It’s so fun!”

“You mean like NASCAR, or illegal street racing?”

“I always wondered what kind of gas mileage those cars get.”

“Do those cars have specialized tires? I don’t think my car’s tires could take that!”

“So are The Fast and the Furious movies your favorites?”

“I heard they do some kind of drift racing in Japan—do you mean like that?”

“I always imagine car racing happens with huge, powerful Mustangs. Is that the kind of car races you watch?

Try free association with the words “coffee” and “trains” and think about how much easier it is to construct questions and generally converse about something once you can form a mental map of the subject and its related topics.

You just feel unstuck.

Of course, the best way to do this is not to try it the first time when you're in an actual conversation. Free associating is the easy part, but utilizing the things that come to your mind in an ongoing conversation can sometimes be tricky. Practice free association consciously several times throughout the course of a week. The more you do it, the better you get at it.

Here’s how to practice: on a piece of paper, write five random words. They can be anything—a noun, verb, memory, or even an emotion or feeling. Suppose the first word you write is “napkin.” As quickly as possible, write three associations for that word. Take the last word you came up with, and then as quickly as possible, write three associations for that new word. Repeat three times, and then move to the next set of words.

Napkin -> table, spoon, fine dining. Fine dining -> France, Michelin Star, butler. Butler -> Jeeves, white gloves, Michael Jackson. And so on.

Practicing free association is an excellent foundation for good conversation because conversation is about relating unrelated ideas, making connections, and going with the flow of topics. Next time you're struggling for something to say, take a step back and tap into your previously practiced free-association skills.

Just as with anything else that has to do with conversation skills, you can only master it if you try it enough times. The best part of all this is that you can do it instantly. You get caught in a stream of consciousness flow. Always remember there is no right or wrong answer. If you believe there is, you’ll be putting unnecessary pressure on yourself.

In case you find yourself in a hole with the free-association technique for any reason, one alternative you can fall back on is to simply ask the other person to elaborate about what they said. So if someone claims to love cats or racing, nudge them to speak more about it. This will give you more material to work and free associate with. For example, common reasons for liking cats include them being cute and independent compared to dogs. If someone cites these reasons, you now have more things to free associate from—cats, cuteness, and independence. Use this abundance to come up with good responses. Flow achieved; silence averted.

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pennyfynotes · 7 years

Photo

10.--.17 // 12:00pm // starting a studyblr- the creation

to the anon who sent me an ask about this ages ago: i'm so sorry. life has been a little bit of a roller coaster lately and, in all honesty, i'm struggling. but anyway, here's the advice you requested! xoxo, m

starting a studyblr is a little bit daunting, i totally get it. there are so many blogs out there and it seems like everybody's work is perfect and they've all got everything together and how the hell are you supposed to meet these standards?!?!? but everybody started somewhere and (as much as it might be hard to believe) we're not all perfect. so here are some tips from a *seasoned pro* (ok not really but it makes me feel credible):

the very beginning: ok so you're gonna do it. you're gonna take the plunge. these are the things you kinda need to start a studyblr.

1. your url is important. not saying you have to spend weeks brainstorming and vetting the best idea, but be smart about it. if your url is “ilovebrendonurie”, no one is gonna know you’re a studyblr. when you pop up in people’s recommended blogs and they’re into studyblrs, they might not click on yours because your url gives no indication that you’re part of the community. when i go searching for new blogs to follow, i don’t want to have to click on the little block thing and go to your blog just to figure out if you’re a studyblr or not. we’re lazy. you don’t have to explicitly put the word “study” in your url, but make it something that’ll clue people in.

2. your bio is also important. to clarify, i’m talking about the little tiny one that show up on mobile or in the little block that shows up when you hover over a blog url. generally, people want to find studyblrs that are similar to themselves so they might be able to get tips or trade advice. this is the place to put those crucial details to catch someone’s eye. here’s what i’d recommend (personally i’d pick and choose, all of these things is kind of a lot):

>> your name (or pen name)

>> age (not mandatory and you can clue people in with other things)

>> level of schooling (hs? college/uni? grad?)

>> grade (9th grade? college freshie? this is a great way to clue people into your approximate age w/o directly saying it)

>> gender/pronouns (it makes it easier for people when they address you, though i actually don’t have this in my bio)

>> major/fav subjects

>> country (if you’re comfortable. you can always go more/less geographically specific)

>> personality things (mbti type, hogwarts house etc)

>> extracurrics/interests

3. icon! these are super fun, also a great way to indicate you’re a studyblr (choose some books or pens or something). you can go to flaticon.com for some fun options, make your “own” using some templates from canva.com or look around tumblr. there are so many talented people here who put out their work for others to use (you can find some under my tag #digital).

4. banner/background tbh not really sure what the official name for this is. i personally like the simple route (mine is just a b/w photo of some roses), but other people use banners with their blog names on them (most of which are made on canva). this is definitely one of the less important things, as you’ll really only see it if you click on a blog on mobile.

5. desktop theme these are soooo fun. just search “theme” or “theme hunter” on tumblr and you’ll find tons of great stuff as well as blogs dedicated to just themes (some or the blogs are super nice and categorize the themes for you). a theme is really important in terms of making navigation easy for your viewers and also helps you express your style. i’d look for one that has a menu with spaces for at least 3 pages (in addition to home and ask and possibly index).

6. ****navigation. this is super important. this is where i’m about to explain why you want that menu. you’ll (probably) want pages for each of these things:

>> about: this is where you put a more detailed bio about yourself. go more in depth about your interests and really show off your personality. it’s also really popular (and helpful) to put your past and current classes.

>> my posts: this is a page that will display *only* your original content, no reblogs. the way you do this is: (1) choose a tag for all your original posts (ex: #mine, #original, #[yourname]posts). tag *only* your oc with this. (2) when the theme editor asks for the url/link, put in “/tagged/[your tag here]”

>> navigation: this is where you can link to pages/categories that you didnt have space for in your menu and where you can link to common tags. for example:

>>>>> my masterposts (this is an example of a category): this is similar to “my content”, but more specific. i have a specific tag i use on my masterposts and, on the navigation page, i just put a link on the text “my masterposts”. the url would be something like “[your url].tumblr.com/tagged/[your category tag]”

>>>>>> #bujo (example of a tag): i tag my reblogs with certain categories so they’re easier for me and my viewers to find. you’d do the same thing as before, just replacing the “category tag” with “bujo” (in this case) in the url.

>> credits: please make a page crediting your theme (though it might be built into the theme already) and your icon. don’t steal other people’s work.

>> blogroll: i don’t personally have one of these and it’s not a crucial as the others, but you can put your fav blogs here. a lot of themes have blogroll pages built in, but you can always manually make a page and link all the blogs you like.

ok but, how do i make a new page? for things like “my posts”, “my masterposts, or “#bujo”, you’re not actually making a page, you’re essentiall just pulling up search results so all you have to do is link the url to direct people to the “search results”. for things like “about” and “navigation”, scroll down to the bottom of the theme editor and you will see an option to add a page. you can choose its url to be whatever you like and then the text editor works very similarly to the editor for posting things.

this is not everything an i’m sure you guys will have more questions, so feel free to send me an ask or shoot me a message! hopefully it won’t be too long before i get part 2 (more about getting your blog out there) up, but don’t hesitate to ask me anything! xoxo, m

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spockandawe · 7 years

Note

Top 5 reasons you like Windblade and Top 5 reasons you like Windscream (maybe Top 5 Transformers Pitch ship if you like but if not it ok)

OOOOH, all excellent questions!!!

Top 5 reasons I like Windblade

She doesn’t have the war background to give her societal context, just like Tailgate and Nautica don’t, but she’s so fascinating, because she’s put herself right in the middle of a political minefield

AND she went into this hornet’s nest (and stayed there, almost completely alone) because she thought it was the right thing to do

Plus oh my goodness the whole thing with not wanting to depose Starscream and trying to work with him, even while disagreeing him on a philosophical level? And even while he’s being… Starscream? It’s so rare to see a character in here who willingly dives into that kind of compromise instead of having to be fenced into it, and her doing this with Starscream despite how difficult he makes it, just. I love her so much.

Ahhhhh, that balance of idealism (and the sort of construction-focused ambition that goes with her flavor of idealism) against the way people keep trying to tie her down or cage her, and how she manages to hold onto her ideals even while the world is beating on her. I’d say ‘that moment in TAAO 12′, but… everything in TAAO 12. From saving Starscream to helping forge him fresh to what she says to vigilem about the spark burning away ‘everything that isn’t true’ (that’s so conditional, I choose to believe he isn’t 100% gone. brain ghost titans are too good to waste).

And she’s so good. She’s so persistently kind and sweet, and she’s so naturally caring, but without it devolving into any sort of boring caretaker stereotype. She’s just so good-hearted and I adore her. I don’t know if I could dislike her.

(frivolous sixth reason: she is gorgeous)

Top 5 reasons I like windscream

Let’s lead off with that frivolous sixth reason this time: they are two gorgeous mechs who look gorgeous together, and even have complementary color schemes. It’s meant to be (ღ˘⌣˘ღ) Also, FEMDOM.

Then, let’s see. The way they disagree very strongly on like… the fundamentals of how to approach a task. Politics is the easy one, but tbh… almost any task. They often share end goals, but so much about them is so incredibly different, and it makes for an electric dynamic. They constantly disagree, but they orbit each other so naturally. I write mostly Windblade POV, but they’ve both got this massive undercurrent of fascination with the other one that neither of them wants to admit to themselves or out loud (windblade’s a little more willing, just because she doesn’t see attachment as a vulnerability the way starscream does).

She’s so young and innocent and inexperienced (even though she’s gaining experience very quickly), and he’s older than the war and incredibly cynical/paranoid/burned out. Neither of those positions are sustainable. But if it makes sense, like… it’s hard to see the weak spots in your OWN position, it’s easier to see them for other people. They’re perfect complements for each other, once they manage to actually listen. In a political sense, but also on a more personal, emotional level.

She doesn’t have that war background that most of the cast has. So many people have so many reasons not to trust/like Starscream. Which is, y’know. Justified. From both sides. And even if he’s genuinely trying to build something of himself PAST the war now, there are really not many people who will give him a fair shake. Windblade isn’t totally ignorant of his history or anything, I’m sure, but not living it herself makes it a little easier to look at Starscream and trust him to not be that same person with those same priorities.

They are both so petty and ridiculous when they’re annoyed, oh my goodness. I don’t know what it is, but these two, just. It flows so naturally. They’re both competent adults doing difficult jobs and doing them pretty well, but stick them together and they’re acting about as mature as middle schoolers trying to provoke each other. It’s fun on its own, but it feels even nicer because 1) Starscream isn’t having his sharp edges filed off, but 2) having all the sharp edges be pointed in this ridiculous, petty direction takes so much genuine venom out of the thing, and makes some space for him to Do An Emotion (and to get somewhere without shooting himself twenty million times in the foot) (nobody does self-sabotage like starscream)

But then, that goodness I mentioned for Windblade up above? If I balance them right, she doesn’t take unjustified shit from him. She works loyally with him as a team, while also arguing the points she disagrees with. She feels lots of sympathy for what she can see of his current emotional state and the bits and pieces of what she gradually learns about his megatron-specific past. But she can do that without turning him into some broken bird she wants to heal. She’s going to be all bristly and protective over anyone who poses a threat, and she’ll try to prod him into eating more or going out for a flight, but she’s not going to flutter and simper over him either. And Starscream has someone who isn’t afraid to fite him, but doesn’t want to do him harm either, and who isn’t drastically changing their everything out of ~pity~ for him. It means a lot to him (secretly) that someone would ever EVER put themself in harm’s way to protect him, but oh my god you idiot you are a baby and have never been in a real fight, YOU get behind ME. The push-pull between them, I just… it makes me sigh the happiest sigh ever

And my top 5 pitch transformers ships! Oh man, this is going to be interesting to break out, because I don’t usually mentally filter on quadrant, I filter on character, or d/s dynamics maybe, trying to pick out all the pitch bits out of the mess is going to be a challenge.

Windblade/Starscream is a gimme after all that up above, so that doesn’t count for the list :P

Drift/Ratchet. I adore these two, and I really really really love the way they went from tense and sometimes hostile to the emotional support they’ve got now. But it doesn’t feel them if Drift isn’t teasing or prodding him. Vulnerability is good, but it’s not like… steady state Drift. Drift is silly and has a sense of humor and is friendly and good natured, and Ratchet is dour, and both of them naturally care a LOT. But they’re opposites in so many ways that I live to see them both quietly being prodprodprod with a curtain of not-exactly-hostility overlaying a whole lot of trust and affection.

Whirl/Cyclonus, although I tend towards a very pitchpale feeling with them instead of pure pitch. But Whirl is not good with soft and squishy emotions, so at least pretending it’s full-on pitch sits better with him. This is a case where there are just soooo many similarities between them, what with their wartime pasts, being lorge and exceptionally good at violence, having a very difficult time with friendly social connections. But also, MAN do they get off to a rough start XD But that bit in 47 where Cyclonus tells Whirl that he knew Whirl would tell him the truth, even if it hurt? And Whirl was brutally honest with him? Oh my god so pitchpale, I DIEEEED. And both of them are bad at communication, both of them are quietly full of moral injuries, both of them are really surprisingly pro-social when they’re put on the spot, and do a LOT to protect other people. I love love love them.

…….Prowl/Rewind. With Chromedome in the middle, but that’s the pitch piece. Not necessarily healthy, but SO EMOTIONALLY CHARGED, holy shit. I poked at this once in a fic (ending disastrously). But I also want to do a near-disaster that works out okay (the solution is to put Chromedome in the middle until the scene has momentum). Or Prowl/Fort Max, which is even more complicated, and may necessitate the addition of Red Alert and Cerebros as buffers between them.

Similarly, Starscream/Windblade/Knock Out, all pitch, with Breakdown on the side being completely made for companionable needling. Starscream and Windblade, I have already said a ridiculous number of words :P Knock Out and Windblade have all this potential to be fascinating to each other, because their cultures are so different, but Windblade was able to get a win in Velocitronian politics, and Knock Out is from a colony with a living, functional titan (one in almost a waking coma, but hey). And they’re both outspoken and open with their thoughts and he can be so petty the same way Starscream can, and it’s deliciously infuriating and she just– (but also, windblade and breakdown being sweet with each other, and exasperated and fond while starscream and knock out get distracted and ridiculous with each other).

And…. hmm hm hm. I don’t have much of a continuity in mind except to specify not IDW, because IDW OP is being an ass. But Starscream/OP. There’s something about Starscream and disillusionment with Megatron as a leader, plus fascination with Megatron’s opposite and parallel, but without dropping the established hostility with the autobots, and demanding as much out of Optimus as he would demand from Megatron, and just, so good. So hard to established without ‘to end this war you need to robot marry’ sorts of scenarios, but soooooo good. So like, in TFP, Optimus is so chill and placid, and Starscream is high-strung and emotional, and everything about them finding a stable orbit with each other is so fun. Or TFA, Starscream is old and cynical, Optimus is young and inexperienced (I sure do love that sort of ship :V), massively differing ideologies, experienced cynicism versus young, idealistic optimism, and a HUGE size difference because mmmm priorities. Lov this ship.

And there are others, where I either haven’t pinned down the words or don’t have a good scenario or justification, or just can’t say as much about them. Soundwave/OP, Soundwave/Starscream, Pyra Magna/OP, Elita One/OP, Pyra Magna/Elita One, Rung/Froid, Overlord/Tarn, Overlord/Megatron, Deathsaurus/Rodimus (shh sh sh it makes sense), Sunstreaker/Sideswipe, Arcee/Prowl, Arcee/Windblade, Elita One/Windblade. Hahaha, I’m trying to run through the cast by characters and see what I remember :P

Bumblebee/Starscream has pitch overtones, but Bumblebee is so much of a sweetheart and Starscream is being open because just a ghost amiright??? and he wobbles out of pitch pretty easily. TFP specifically is good for Knock Out/Bumblebee and Shockwave/Soundwave. Jazz/Starscream is another one that’s superficially pitch, except Jazz is being difficult and slippery and refusing to make a single real move into that quadrant. Some of these might jump into the list if I can get them written out in a story, but for the moment, I can’t quite words them.

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