#doing the field background was WAY HARDER than it needed to be

[coloredpanels]

They’re such goofy teenagers. This is a super popular image and I thought I’d try my hand at it :) it also was just sitting in my download folder for weeks whoops my bad Eyeshield 21 chapter 9 illustration

#doing the field background was WAY HARDER than it needed to be #like im so stupid and did so much destructive editing #es21 #es21 edit #eyeshield21 #eyeshield21 edit #football #manga #manda edit #deimon devil bats #hiruma #hiruma yoichi #yoichi hiruma #sena #sena kobayakawa #kobayakawa sena #kurita #kurita ryokan #ryokan kurita #mamori #mamori anezaki #anezaki mamori

[kaibacorpintern]

tips and tricks on writing the kaibacorp environment

yes, this is pedantic. but more than that, YES i love small background details that lend a greater sense of accuracy and structure to a fictional world. this is not a complete or exhaustive list. (you are, of course, free to ignore and do whatever you want.)

Kaiba Corporation does not have "clients" - Kaiba doesn't do project work for hire; he's not an attorney or a consultant or an architect, he doesn't do billable hours. his meetings are most likely with his investors or business partners like Pegasus, with his board or c-suite executives (e.g., his chief technology officer, his chief legal officer, his chief human resources officer, etc.), various departmental meetings he might find interesting, and so on. Kaiba Corporation does have customers (the people who BUY the duel disk)/consumers (the people who USE the duel disk) but people who go to Kaiba Land will probably be referred to as visitors or guests. his primary responsibility, as the CEO of a publicly-traded corporation, is creating (financial) value for his shareholders and investors. (whether or not he gives a fuck about this responsibility is up to you.) .

Unless it's something he is responsible for, like quarterly earnings calls and shareholder calls, Kaiba doesn't have to finish or work on reports; he has very few deadlines he himself has to meet; he is not reviewing anything except the most important documents. Even then, as the CEO/president, someone is probably writing the most important documents FOR him and then handing it over for him to present or read off later - which he might revise/adjust as he likes. Kaiba's workdays most likely consist mainly of meetings where people report on how things are going to him, setting business strategy with the c-suite, meeting with the more heavy-hitting investors (for the drama: 'we will withdraw our investments unless you do X,') and writing a bajillion emails. .

Kaiba and Mokuba do not do any hiring or interviewing except for c-suite positions, because those are the people they work with most directly every day, and the people they most need to know are capable, qualified, and competent. they are way too busy to sit down with each one of the 38783 entry-level candidates Kaiba Corp combs through every day. for positions like their executive assistants or chief of staff, who might manage day-to-day schedules and do things like order lunch, an HR manager narrows the field to several qualified candidates and THEN Kaiba would make the final decision on who he wants to hire. .

No one is getting past the front desk at a place like Kaiba Corp without an appointment or a badge. Any given visitor X has to check in at the front desk - the front desk receptionist will look them up in the appointment register, give them a badge, and then let them through. For the c-suite level, or anywhere Kaiba takes his most important/official meetings (like his own office), there might be a second lobby/second desk controlling access. .

Some important dates on Kaiba's and Mokuba's calendars, when the pressure is on and they might be working much harder than usual (for the stress and the drama): - end of quarter/EOQ (4x a year) - end of fiscal year/EOFY. may not be aligned with calendar year - for example, the end of fiscal year might be march 30 - quarterly earnings call (4x a year) - yearly earnings call. Kaiba himself, or someone very high up, like a c-suite exec or a VP, will lead these calls - for things like duel disks, the months leading up to the holiday retail season (when they're preparing for greater demand on consumer product goods) and the holiday retail season itself - for things like Kaiba Land, the summer vacation season, but largely dependent on where their parks ARE (southern california when the weather is nice year-round? tokyo when you have colder weather in the winter and slightly lower attendance? etc.) .

VERY IMPORTANT: Kaiba has an office minifridge. imagine whatever you want in here. his executive assistants or office managers will keep this well-stocked. .

Kaiba, or Mokuba, might lead the quarterly "all-hands meeting" - which is an internal meeting for all employees. for a place like kaibacorp, which KT said has ~2,000 employees, this might be held in a large hall/auditorium. things that might happen at the all-hands meeting: hiring updates (we hired 300 new people in the EMEA region), new mission statements, reiteration of core company values, sharing the company's progress on various OKRs/objectives & key results or key targets (duel disk 2.0 released this year to great acclaim and we made 34.5 billion dollars! suck it nintendo!), public (and potentially anonymous) question-and-answer session at the end, where Kaiba or Mokuba might field employee questions. .

Kaiba or Mokuba might also be responsible for a weekly or monthly all-staff email keeping the entire company apprised of announcements, new partnerships, new business ventures, progress on whatever, new investments, etc. again, someone else (like a marketing manager) might write this for them and send it over for their review/adjustments, but the email officially comes from them. i personally like to imagine Kaiba writes some absolutely bonkers staff emails

#intern memo #this is not to say 'YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG' but instead 'if you want kaibacorp to feel real and accurate this may help' #enjoy. i welcome any additions or polite and friendly corrections

[tsams-confessions]

We're coming off anon with this one boys. It's long and I apologize but it's been weighing on my mind for quite some time.

There are three things people tend to know me for in this fandom. My art, my fanfics, or my thread on TSBS server. Said thread is a place where I talk about the psychological aspects of the show, as well as do character analyses and sometimes even analyze entire lore uploads for the kicks and giggles. I'm a psychology major, I also have ASPD. I made the thread so I could talk about Eclipse, who at the time I suspected had the same disorder I do and which was later confirmed less than a week after I made the thread. Since then Ruin has also been confirmed as an ASPD haver, which I personally deeply enjoy. It's fun for me to talk about my disorder and relate it to the show since ASPD is really hard to understand. 99% of people are inherently capable of empathy, and about 2% of that 98% lose that ability during childhood. So it's understandably not a very well-understood disorder. It's also a very scary and dark disorder, and I can say that honestly because I live with it. Due to this fact, it tends to be villainized in media, and I am very refreshed by the fact that TSAMS does a good job of not making their ASPD havers raving lunatics with a thirst for blood. 

Anyways, that's just background information. So far I haven't met very many weirdos about ASPD in this fandom. Almost everyone is very chill with the fact that I am a sociopath and I haven't received a ton of weird comments about it. It's a relief since I deal with a lot of open stigma and harassment irl because I refuse to pretend to be something I'm not. However, there was an instance in my thread when I was actively talking about ASPD, and a new member decided to. . . I don't even know. It was creepy and weird, and really uncomfortable. They basically told me that I'm 'too nice of a person to be a sociopath' and that they could tell that I wasn't a sociopath because they see the good in people. They also said that they were surprised that there are sociopathic people and inferred that sociopaths are pretending, whatever that means. They kept going to keep making weird and stigmatized comments about the disorder, as well as continuing to compliment me in a very unnerving way. I think about it a lot because it was very uncomfortable to be interrupted like that in the middle of talking about ASPD. There was the new mod online and participating in the conversation, but they didn't say anything to the person who was actively making me uncomfortable, even though I expressed such in the chat. 

I deal with a lot of stigma and ableism in my day-to-day life, where people tell me that I can't be a sociopath because of really stupid shit. Like the fact, I get along with people or want to help people in the medical field. Or the time-tried 'but you're a woman' comments. I don't understand why the mod kinda just left me to fend for myself and ignored the person causing issues, and while I don't hold it against them, I do have anxiety about this situation repeating itself in the future. It's not easy to talk about a disorder that the average person could not even dream of understanding, and it's even harder when people who don't know you are trying to tell you that your disorder is fake based on flimsy reasoning. It's really invalidating of the actual hellscape I had to survive to be able to even turn 18, and it rakes up my anxiety to a 10 just at the thought of it. There's not a lot of safe spaces for someone to talk about having a dark disorder, and even less for something as rare and misunderstood as ASPD. It's hard enough as it is being a high-functioning sociopath, and I just needed to rant, I suppose. Haha, could make it a "tl;dr even I get offended sometimes."

Anyway, not dropping names, but it wasn't a private matter. Nor am I upset with the mods, it's just a thing that happened that I think about a lot because it's a very rare thing for me to be offended. Glad that the majority of this fandom that I've interacted with has been willing to hear me out ASPD, but I just worry about having a repeat situation like this. It's a very sad thing to witness in this fandom that talks about inclusivity. We can't pick and choose our disorders, and where there are canon sociopaths in the show one would think the fans would try to be a little more educated on the disorder (not directed towards anyone and I appreciate the people who are willing to ask me things about it instead of making assumptions).

.

#sun and moon show #the sun and moon show #tsams #sams #tsams confession #< block this if you dont want to see these #mod 1blood #ableism cw

[noorpersona]

Broken Telephone Pt. 3

For the most part, you’d gotten over the ‘grocery shopping incident’ as you liked to call it. You’d had a very stern talk with both Kugisaki and Itadori the next day, making sure that they wouldn’t tell this secret of yours to the one person who you’d never want to know. The man of the hour, Fushiguro.

“This kinda feels like you’re threatening us…” Itadori had said, sitting in front of you, unable to look you in the eye. In full intimidation, you had simply raised a brow and said, “And?”

Just like that they dropped it and promised to not mention anything to Fushiguro. Well, Itadori at least, Kugisaki just scoffed but you took it as the best you could get from someone like her.

You could be pretty scary if you wanted to be, especially if it was a topic such as this. You seriously needed to do some damage control, because the more people who heard about this little secret, the greater the chance an unspeakable evil would announce itself. And if it did, you’d be absolutely screwed.

So with the two biggest mouths sewed shut, you didn’t think you had anything to worry about.

But just because they promised to not tell Fushiguro, didn’t mean that they promised to never bring it up again.

*Yeah, you really should’ve read the fine print. *

You’d learn that lesson the hard way almost a week later when the entire situation had once again left your mind.

In hindsight, that was truly your first mistake.

But to be fair, it’s harder to concentrate on your mortifying secret being exposed when you’re getting an ass-kicking of the century by your upperclassman.

It was a day hotter than most, considering you were still in the thick of spring. But that didn’t stop the unblocked sun from beating down enormous amounts of heat on you as you lay on the grass, trying to grasp the escaping breath that had been kicked out of you—courtesy of Maki-san.

“Nice, that’s five to zero. Wanna go for round six?” Maki didn’t seem out of breath in the slightest, doing a little twirl with her staff. And while that would give you enough fight and energy to push you to go another round, that was what pushed you the four other times.

You think it was safe to assume you weren’t going to be winning anytime soon.

“Thanks for the offer, Maki-san, but I think I’ll pass. Maybe I’ll spar with someone who’s more merciful.” You’ve sat upright now, panting shallowly while you wipe the sweat off your face.

“I think you’ve worked her enough Maki. I don’t think you want a reputation of being more cold-blooded than you already are, and to be known for beating up your underclassmen.” You heard Panda-senpai from behind you and you turned to see his extended hand, or rather paw, offering to help you up. You give an appreciative smile as you stand, your legs straining from the pure exhaustion Maki-san put you through. You were definitely going to get her back for this.

Yeah, as if you could.

“It’s not training if you aren’t pushed.” Maki stated defensively, crossing her arms sourly. You decided to not add your input.

You stretch out your tired muscles while looking across the track and field area you were training in, noticing that the others were nowhere to be seen. Others being Fushiguro, Itadori, Kugisaki, and Inumaki-senpai.

“Where are the others?” You ask, and Panda points to a small shaded seating area. You assume they’re getting a break from the sun. Wordlessly, you all head towards the area, finding the students as Panda said, sitting in the shade. You make eye contact, and they wave you over.

“Finished getting beat up by Maki-san?” Kugisaki asks, smug voice enhancing her teasing gaze. You narrow your eyes, debating on whether you want to fight her today. You decide that you’ve fought enough for the day and choose to be passive.

“Yeah pretty much. By the way, how was falling practice with Panda-senpai? Still eating dirt?” Your face mimics hers as you see hers drop, hearing the other members of the group chuckle in the background. You said you wouldn’t fight, but you wouldn’t take her shit sitting down. She tsks and you nudge her playfully, before looking among the group, and noticed immediately that it’s missing a key face.

“Where’s Fushiguro?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” You hear Itadori’s voice creep up, face dripping with mischief, knowing eyes boring into you, with Kugisaki joining him almost immediately. On the outside, your face remained passive and calm, as if there wasn’t a hidden meaning to their words, but on the inside, you were considering how much trouble you could get in for murdering your classmates. And whether it’d be really worth it.

The penalties weren’t really that much of a deterrent at this point.

“Yes, that’s why I asked.” You respond plainly, trying to stop the suspicion growing in the second years, the tone in Itadori’s voice most likely letting them know something might be up.

“Salmon roe.” Inumaki responds to your question, making a motion with his hands to help you understand what he means.

“Off to get drinks?” You ask to confirm, and Inumaki nods.

“Kugisaki made him go off alone a little while ago.” Itadori adds, deciding to drop the teasing. You hum in understanding.

“I’ll go over there too. I doubt he got what I wanted.” You were being completely honest when you wanted to go to the vending machine to just get a drink. Of course, Fushiguro alone would be a bonus, but you didn’t like altering your actions simply to get a boy’s attention, you simply found it below your own level of self-respect.

But of course, idiots didn’t see it that way. And you should’ve realized that.

You hear the two idiots in question hum knowingly, and you don’t even have to look to see them smiling at each other smugly.

“Sure…” Their simultaneous response paired with the look they were sharing had you stop dead in your tracks.

“Careful, or I’ll convince Fushiguro to give me your drinks instead.” Your voice is calm, delivered with your usual dryness but mixed in with severe undertones of ‘drop it, you assholes’, but that sure as hell didn’t stop them.

“You can’t get him out of your mind for a second! Even your plans to screw us over involve him!” At this point, you swore you could feel your blood pressure rise.

You realize that Kugisaki is crass and blunt, and you’re willing to accept that, but you really can’t accept her lack of awareness.

It was really too much at this point.

You clench your teeth, knowing now that you’re completely screwed. The second-years weren’t dense, and you knew they’d already be somewhat suspicious at the first comment, but those two Neanderthals just put the final nail in the coffin.

“What’s going on?” You hear Maki ask, looking between you and the other two, slightly cowering at the pure aura of anger now surrounding your form.

Silence fills the area, with the first years not knowing what to say, and second years standing there in basically complete confusion.

And then it happened.

“[Name]’s in love with Fushiguro!” Kugisaki blurts out, and your jaw drops to the floor. Immediately all eyes were on you, causing your already there blush to burn ever redder across your cheeks, giving everyone the confirmation that it was indeed true.

To some extent.

“Wha-what?! I am not! I-I never said-“ You continue to stutter and cut yourself off, the stares of the first and second years being a little too much. You bury your face in your hands as you hope and pray that the world swallows you whole.

No such thing occurred.

“Well, To be fair, [Name] said that she liked him, not loved him.” Itadori, of all people, is the one who comes to your rescue.

Well, kind of.

You snap your head up at his words. “O-oi!“

You go unnoticed by the two loudmouths, who were getting sucked into their own argument.

“Hah? Are you stupid? Of course she loves him. She talks about him all the time, and told me that she even wanted to get screwed by-“

“I never said any of that!” You felt like you wanted to pull your own hair out at this point, stomping your foot like a child and cutting Kugisaki off. Your little outburst manages to snap them out of it.

But you just couldn’t seem to catch a break.

“Is this even new information?” Maki’s words hit you like a freight train, whipping around to look at the now unimpressed second-years.

“Wh-what?”

“I mean, even if you didn’t say anything, it’s pretty damn obvious that you like him.” You swore you could feel your heart stop.

“That-That’s not true! I’ve never shown my feelings for him.” You’re quick to defend yourself, not hearing your own words.

“So you do like him?” You hear Itadori pipe in, making you jump. You don’t even have any time to smack him until Panda decides to add his fifty cents.

“Regardless of whether she’ll admit it, she does. Whenever he’s training, she’ll stare at him so hard you can practically see hearts in her eyes. I’m surprised you guys didn’t know until now.” You know what, you’ll retract your previous statement. Now you want the ground to swallow you whole.

“Can all of you shut up?! I do not stare at him!” You yell, trying to keep the last shred of dignity you have intact, only for it to be completely shattered by the disbelieving eyes of your classmates.

“Bonito flakes.” It’s the tired tone of your upperclassmen that manages to finally push you over the edge.

“Okay, okay, fine!” You snap, the redness running across your cheeks removing any seriousness or intensity you wanted to have. The only thing you’re met with is indifference and amusement as your classmates watch you.

“Believe what you will, whether it’s true or not is irrelevant.” You say through clenched teeth, ignoring Maki’s eye roll and Kugisaki’s scoff. “But just keep this ridiculous theory to yourselves.” You weren’t really talking to the second years at this point, but the only people dumb enough to tell Fushiguro and effectively ruin your life.

You stare down Itadori and Kugisaki. With them looking at each other and then at you. “I don’t care what it is I’ll have to do, but you two are as good as dead if you tell Fushiguro anything.” You hiss, too angry to notice that their eyes are now not looking at you, but behind you.

“Tell me what?”

The voice makes your heart drop all the way down to your feet.

You whip around to an extremely suspicious-looking Fushiguro holding a small bag of drinks. He looked extremely confused, but not awkward. He didn’t hear anything.

You silently thanked all the Gods you could think of. But you weren’t off the hook just yet.

He started to look to the others, searching for someone to fill him in, but they didn’t give him a coherent answer, purposefully avoiding eye contact and mumbling to themselves.

Some friends they are. You make a mental note to curse them out later.

You needed to come up with a reasonable excuse, and quick. Because the more time you let him think on this, the harder it’ll be for him to believe anything half decent.

But being the presence of your crush, (Yeah, you weren’t going to deny it anymore.) your mind draws a fat blank and you just end up dumbly opening and closing your mouth like a gaping fish.

The seconds are agonizingly slow, and the silence among the group is soul-crushingly loud. You knew it must’ve been extremely hard to watch. And maybe it was because it was hard to watch, or she was bored, that Maki decided to help dig you out of the hole you fell into.

More like pushed into and buried, but you digress.

“She was just embarrassed that she lost to me so many times during training. She doesn’t want you to think less of her.” Her tone is light and casual, and you’re almost scared of how convincingly good your senpai sounds. You see the others follow her lead, nodding and adding small agreements. You catch on quickly.

“Uh… yeah, that’s it. I was just a little embarrassed.” You add on, avoiding looking at him so he couldn’t see the redness on your cheeks that you couldn’t seem to get rid of. He raises a brow, and your heart beats faster as you watch him process your excuse. You feel your blood pulse through your ears as you wait for his response.

“Well, Maki-senpai is a formidable opponent and she does push people a little hard.” You hear Maki let out a scoff, but you pay no mind to it. “Plus, you just started training recently. I wouldn’t be too upset about losing to her.” He finishes. You could tell by his face that he wanted to add more, but decided to keep it to himself.

You’d take that any day.

You laugh, trying to edge out the awkwardness and nervousness in your voice before speaking. “Yeah, you’re right. It sounds stupid now. I’d appreciate it if we just forgot about this.” You rub the sides of your arms, still avoiding looking him in the eye.

“Alright. Here.” You hear his bag rustle and it causes you to look up at him. After a couple of seconds, he pulls out your favourite drink. You show your confusion. You didn’t ask him for a drink.

Seeing your expression, he explains himself. “I always see you get this one. Figured you’d want it.” He hands it to you before giving everyone else the drink they requested, acting like five minutes ago never happened. Rowdiness of the group returning to homeostasis.

You stare at the drink with the dumbest smile on your face, not being able to hide it.

You chose to ignore the looks of your classmates.

#jujutsu kaisen #fanfic #writing #jjk megumi #megumi x reader #megumi fushiguro #jjk x y/n #jjk x reader #jjk #maki zenin #panda jjk #toge inumaki #nobara kugisaki #yuji itadori

[sirianasims]

After the main course, Paul went to the kitchen to get the dessert ready before midnight. I excused myself and said I needed some fresh air.

I had been to Del Sol Valley a few times when I was little, visiting my grandparents, but I didn’t remember much about the city itself.

The back of Paul’s mansion was the only thing not surrounded by fences, and the view was both breathtaking and terrifying. Bright lights as far as the eye could see, occasional premature fireworks going off, faint background noise from traffic that never stopped.

It felt like we were gilded birds in a cage up here, always on display yet forever out of reach.

I couldn’t imagine anything further from Copperdale and the quiet, snow-covered forests around it.

I wondered if Paul would expect me to move in with him at some point. I didn’t see how he’d be able to work from anywhere else. I could work wherever, but could I live here? Surrounded by fences and cameras and security guards in a huge, empty house?

I pushed the thought away as I heard the clacking of heels behind me.

“Julia, can I talk to you for a moment?”, Sierra asked softly. “I would really like to apologise for what I said earlier. It was never my intention to insult you.”

“I know you didn’t mean it like that, but I still can’t help feeling that you don’t like me very much. Or maybe you just don’t think I’m good enough for Paul?”

Sierra bit her lip.

“I shouldn’t have brought up his exes, especially not in front of you. The thing is, they rarely lasted long enough for the media to catch on – half the time I didn’t even get to meet them before he ended things. So when Paul first told us about you, I got worried. I saw him falling harder and faster than ever before, but you’re so much younger than him and I was struggling to see how it could possibly end well.”

“Right. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I’m just being honest with you. I tend to be, perhaps, overly protective of Paul. He was even younger than you when we met, we shared a shitty apartment with a few other aspiring actors, all trying to break through. We cheered each other on, audition after audition, practicing lines, commiserating over rejection letters… And then he got the call for Llama Man, and I ended up as an extra in a cop series which later got me the lead in Cop & Llama, but I’ve fought hard to escape that, branch out to other roles, and Paul just… didn’t even try.”

“But he says he prefers the voice acting, though. If you’re his friend, why do you keep pushing him if he’s perfectly happy?”

“Because I’m his friend. Sure, he says he’s happy. Maybe he even believes it. But Paul was always the best of us, and he never took his talent seriously. He’s a great voice actor, but it always felt like he secretly wanted more, he’s just scared. What if he sucked? The media would have a field day, writing about how he should just stick to his cartoons. You’ve seen what they’re like, you just had your first front page. Which, by the way, must be rough. I’m sorry for adding to the stress you must be under right now. Can we maybe start over?”

“Apology accepted, I’m too much of a fangirl to be mad at you anyway. And I’m managing, but I must say, being on the cover of a magazine is a lot less fun than advertised.”

“Trust me, it depends heavily on the kind of magazine. But being hung out to dry by some gossip rag is a rite of passage in this business. You should have seen the frenzy when rumours about me and Dave started circulating. It was wild. I once walked out of an interview because they asked me if the llama costume stayed on during sex!”

“Well? Did it ever?”

Sierra grinned.

“No way – do you have any idea how heavy and warm that costume is? It’s not exactly a sexy superhero muscle suit, it’s a full size sports mascot.”

“True. Although I’m not sure I’d appreciate it if Paul kept his costume on either.”

We both laughed, and I barely registered the steps behind me before I felt Pauls arms around me, his warm hands covering my eyes.

“Guess who.”

I heard Sierra chuckle. “Actually, Paul, we were kinda busy out here, bonding over the trials of dating men in llama costumes. It’s a very exclusive club.”

“I guess Dave and I have to start our own club then. But it's almost midnight and I would like to borrow my girlfriend, if you don’t mind.”

“Fine, you can have her back. I’ll just go get myself one of those fruit tarts before Lee and Dave eat them all.”

She walked back inside without waiting for a response.

She wouldn’t have gotten one anyway.

beginning / previous / next

#duchellilegacy #duchellichapters #duchelligen5 #julia duchelli #paul romeo #sierra moss

[doctorhelena]

Hi @theawkwardterrier!

I’m your @steggyfanevents Steggy Secret Santa this year, and in true Steggy fashion (and in my own personal tradition for the past few years), I'm late. 😂😩

The good news is that I have a fully completed draft of a story I think you'll enjoy, and editing is progressing well! The bad news is that it's quite a bit longer than I'd intended (I really thought I’d come up with a short, self-contained idea this year! 😭) so editing is taking a little longer than I’d hoped, and even with the extension I'm not quite going to make it. But I really, really hope I’ll have it for you very soon!

In the meantime, please accept this short preview excerpt.

Context: Post-Endgame Steve has received a short and uninformative "I need an emergency lift ASAP" phone call from Peggy (who didn't kiss him hello when she got in the car because the lipstick she's wearing would make that a bad idea.)

-------

The lipstick was another thing he wasn’t exactly jealous about. Peggy had been a spy long before Steve had met her, and he’d always known that, thanks to the Sweet Dreams knockout lipstick Howard had made for her, kissing unsavory individuals was sometimes the most efficient way to do her job. And he understood that there was a difference, for her, between kissing for personal and professional reasons. Still, he didn’t particularly like to think about it actually happening, and Peggy always looked a little guilty, and then annoyed at herself for feeling guilty, whenever the topic came up. 

To top it all off, Howard, unprompted, had recently developed two further prototypes: Forget Me Not, making the recipient of a kiss forget everything that had happened in the past half day, and Always Be True, containing a truth serum that lasted for about five to six hours, at Howard’s best guess.

“At your best guess?” Steve had asked him when he’d brought it over. Howard had shrugged unrepentantly. “I’ll have a better idea after Peg gathers some data from the field.” He’d proceeded to cheerfully ignore Steve’s patented Captain America look of reproach, while Mr. Jarvis had simply shaken his head wearily in the background.

Peggy, too, had regarded the new lipsticks with a healthy dose of suspicion - and Steve, having heard the story of her adventures with Howard’s ‘Bad Babies’, understood why. But the fact was that Howard was generally pretty reliable once he’d declared an invention ready for action, and Steve knew that Peggy now kept all three in her bag along with her regular lipstick, having had Howard mark the different tubes with a series of notches and grooves so that she could easily tell them apart by feel. 

“What happened?” he asked her now, as he slowed the car to a stop and waited for a truck to pass on the cross street. It was snowing a bit harder now, and he could afford to drive more cautiously now that he knew Peggy was safe.

“Howard Stark,” Peggy said with great exasperation. “I’ve ruined my chances at getting vital information from the arrogant ass I’ve been unpleasantly cultivating for weeks now, because Howard Stark is a bloody idiot.”

#fanfic #preview #steggysecretsanta #steggy #my fic #peggy carter #steve rogers

[jorvikpov]

You found them in the stables last night.

They did not ask why you were there, and you were grateful for it. They do not need to know that almost half your nights are spent there, cradling your horse’s head and desperately aching for something you cannot quite identify. They do not need to know that in your dreams, the dam bursts, and your horse is all that can comfort you when you wake. They do not need to know that you, the fifth meant to lead the four, need more comfort in the deep hours of the night than any of them.

You did not need to ask why they were there, because what you saw told you all you needed to know. Anne was curled into Alex’s side, shaking with quiet sobs, and Alex was desperately trying to soothe her. Above them hovered Concorde, so much larger and nobler and yet still with the same sweet, innocent look in her eyes. She turned her head to look at you when you entered the stables, and something in her expression was desperate, as if she was trying to puzzle together what she had done wrong. Anne began to cry harder, and Alex held her a little closer.

You wondered, for a moment, how they had managed the ride from the Forgotten Fields at all—if Anne had been this much of a mess the whole way, or if it was only upon arriving, tired to the bone after what must have been a full day’s ride, that she finally broke. The desperate look in Alex’s eyes when she turned them to you for a moment was enough of an answer. This was not the first time she’d had to comfort Anne, and she was running out of ways to soothe her pain.

You knew what Anne had done, of course, but you did not know that she had taken it this poorly. It was to be expected, you had thought, that this Concorde even once grown would not be the same as the one she had lost. When she and Alex kept staying away, you feared that perhaps something had gone terribly wrong, but you know deep in your bones that this Concorde is the same as the foal you met, and your eyes work more than well enough to tell you that neither she, Tin-Can, or either of their riders have been physically injured. This is nothing other than devastation. A plan gone wrong, even though it went about as well as anybody except for Anne herself could have possibly hoped for it to.

You did not sleep in the stables. In fact, you hardly slept at all, kept awake by the knots in the ceiling and their endless questions that you cannot answer. At least this time you had something other than yourself to keep coming back to: Anne. You realised sometime in the deepest hours of the night that you had not seen her express sorrow even once since she came back from Pandoria. Up until last night, she remained stone-faced, stoic, and perfectly poised. Perhaps Concorde’s transformation not going according to her plan was simply the final crack that made her dam burst.

Whatever the case, she was back to her usual demeanour early this morning when the Druids called all of you to council. They were angry, of course, but they have been angry for a week. It does not stick with you any longer. By this point, it is little more than background noise, or a mosquito flying around by your ear. Today, Anne is the subject of their anger for having gone to the circus master for help with Concorde and, thus, having sullied a near enough sacred ancient guardian of Jorvik with Pandorian magic. Yesterday, it was you, Lisa and Linda for withholding information on Anne’s and Alex’s whereabouts. Last week, it was Anne and Alex for running off in the first place. It makes no real difference. What did stick with you, though the Druids neglected to mention it, is that you are complete at last. Five riders in union with their five horses. There is little left to stop you.

Somewhere, Fripp told you just before dismissing you, is the Light Ceremony Book. You must retrieve it, or all will be lost.

Now, you lie awake, staring at the knots in your ceiling. They ask you why you are so afraid of finding the book. They ask why you so stubbornly fear being the Fifth to Lead the Way. They ask what would happen if you were to let the dam burst.

You ask yourself why you keep looking up at them and letting them ask you questions you cannot answer, and then you turn over to look out of your window instead. The stars are bright above the trees and mountaintops. They do not ask questions, nor do they give answers.

In your dreams, the dam does not burst. Something terrible happens anyway.

#sso #star stable #star stable online #ssoblr #sso fic #ssofic #jorvikpov #special thank you to Manda for helping me out of my 'uh oh did I put a huge plot hole' panic and then helping me space out a mega sentence

[dat-physics-boi]

A leap of faith and Physics (part 2)

Now that we knew how to find the crystals, the scientific community was tense. Itching to do something with them.

One paper had just unveiled a method of propulsion using the tachyon background and directed linear resonance chirping. The tachyon background, as it turned out, is self organizing. Unlike the tardionic world we were used to, entropy actually decreases over there. There is a natural tachyon base frequency, one so high that they travel really slowly. That's also weird about tachyons, how the more energy they have, the slower they move. But we knew that part beforehand.

Anyway, the paper outlined how to use a subharmonic of that base frequency, that could slowly be chirped in one direction to one harmonic lower, which would generate physical thrust on the tardium crystal used for chirping. Only problem was that once the frequency arrived at the new subharmonic, the tachyons decayed into their base frequency, completely stopping the propulsion. This stopping effect, though detrimental to the experimental setup in terms of having broken it multiple times, begged the question though: Since it stopped, momentum isn't conserved, despite motion happening.

Just half a year later, some madlad had designed an actual engine based on that concept, that should in theory exceed the speed of light. To be fair, the tardium crystals did that, for a couple attoseconds. Unfortunately for the rest of the prototype, normal matter doesn't appreciate being moved at superluminal speeds, and therefore broke apart when the craft approached the light barrier.

Despite that setback, people kept on theorizing and engineering. Then, two years later, Star Trek came to the rescue again. A research group posited that they could make a 'structural integrity field' by sprinkling microscopic tardium crystals into the steel and ceramic of the hull, and engineering a tachyon field that would keep them at a constant distance relative to the drive crystals. Ten months later, and a tiny prototype did what we thought to be impossible: For 24 milliseconds, it traveled at about 1.000000001c, and it came out of this experience unharmed. However, the sharp drop from superluminal to low subluminal speeds did de-tune the structural integrity field. Unless we got someone to board the vessel and re-tune it after every drop from superluminal, this wasn't going to work out. Especially because the chirp would not last all that long.

Now that the principle was proven, though, the engineers and mining crews took over. While the former slaved over engine and hull designs, the latter set up multiple extra bases along the asteroid belt, undulation mining all the tardium crystals they could get their metaphorical hands on. They were tiny, but since we needed most of them for the integrity field anyway, that wasn't a problem. What was harder was finding good, sufficiently large drive crystals.

Meanwhile, the engineers had settled on a design that was, for some reason, a flying saucer. They explained that they needed three or more engines to run at the same time all the time, to be able to adjust course. And also have more than that so some could be stopped, reset, and be ready to chirp again before the active ones were done. Therefore, at six points radially along the saucer, there were 2cm sized drive crystals which would propel the craft. They would be working on three cycles, while one pair was resetting, the other two pairs would be actively propelling the vessel. This way, continuous propulsion could be achieved. And the integrity field would not need to be re-tuned every couple milliseconds.

For low subluminal speeds, the engines didn't actually require the integrity field to be active. This had the advantage, that the vessel could be contacted. Because as prototyping quickly revealed, as soon as the integrity field was up, communications were all blocked in their entirety.

But, well, after 5 more years of prototyping and biological compatibility testing, the first starship was deemed spaceworthy and safe for humans to be on the inside of. Turned out that as long as the hull integrity field was up, the inside of the craft needed no further cautions, and you could float around in it like normal. The field itself didn't even extend much further inside beyond the outer hull. Though, when the field was down, you would experience the g-forces of the drive, which sounds bad, but actually made for some handy way to produce artificial gravity during the ascent from the surface. Once the field was up, the magnetic boots of the uniforms anchored you to the floor. Or you could grab onto two handles and anchor yourself that way.

We would love to have made a bigger ship than we did, but unfortunately, the Enterprise (because of course they named it that) was limited by the amount of available large tardium crystals for the drive. So we deemed its first mission to be getting some more. Trade for them, get permission to mine them, whatever, we just needed some larger ones.

As for now, the enterprise had just one deck in the wider saucer, but 3 in the middle, which was bulbed out for no discernible reason i could find, other than to make it look like a proper UFO. And maybe to house the living quarters for the crew of 45 brave explorers. And also to transport back more tardium in the cargo hold, located smack dab in the middle of the ship.

We sent a request for the isocoordinates of the closest civilization to us over vibromessage, and after receiving them, we gave the go ahead.

We however forgot to take into account that due to the message blocking of the structural field, we could no longer send our friends in the Andromeda galaxy any messages. Nor could we check in with the Enterprise, as it would be in the tachyon slipstream continuously, so as not to need to re-tune the integrity field as often. Because that takes a while each time.

So for 30 long years after the sendoff, we didn't know anything. We didn't waste that time, but with so much of our supply of crystals built into that ship, we needed a while to even start on other experiments. And the first thing we did was to upgrade the control network for the dyson collectors. I say first thing, as if we finished that project quickly, when in reality it took us 2 of those 3 decades. The last decade was pretty calm. Humanity had endured so much excitement, that the new generation now pushed to refocus on our culture. So, now that the collectors were precise enough, we finally began to enact our long awaited plan to terraform Mars. But that would take about a century in total, so it wasn't like there was much daily excitement to be had about that.

Then, thirty years and 5 months after launch, at 0:1 PFJ, we received a vibromessage from Andromeda. Enterprise had made it.

Quickly thereafter, the prime administrator called me, demanding to be connected to the tachyon network at once, now that comms were open once more.

I didn't really watch the negotiations that followed, but to make a long story short, our wayward crew was allowed to mine asteroids in the system of the aliens for tardium, so long as the aliens got a 40/60 cut. They themselves admitted to being unable to mine them by themselves, so they gave us the lion's share.

For the domestic scientists, this meant the reserves of tardium were opened more to experiments, as more was on the way soon-ish.

This resulted in the discovery of how the tachyons decayed into their base frequency, or vacuum state, if you will. We knew that in tardium, the tachyons directly couple with the phonons, which are the vibrational excitation modes. However, in vacuum, when coupling with themselves in order to decay into a higher frequency, the excitation was mitigated by an elongation of the surrounding spacetime in turn. We had finally found the explaination for the expansion of the universe: Whenever tardium gets excited and tachyons of non-base frequencies are sent out, their decay mode stretches the universe. Or, well, it stretches spacetime, with isospace being left unaffected. Our drive tech basically anchors the vessel to isospace anyway, so even if the universe keeps expanding, we can still visit everyone we want with the first drive we made. But... negative spacial curvature was something we wanted to achieve for centuries. And now, we were able to!

With this discovery, the engineers went back to work to try to make this into a method of propulsion as well. This necessitated a name for our first, working engine, which we decided to call the slipstream drive. This was fairly intuitive of a name, as the vessel would couple to isospace instead of regular spacetime, where it would be carried by the pressure of the tachyon field on one side, while the chirpers destructively interfered with it on the other side. Thus essentially creating a slipstream pocket in the front, into which the tachyon pressure would continuously push the vessel.

Speaking of names, the newly conceived drive was uncreatively christened the warp drive. To be fair, it was pretty much exactly what a warp drive in pop-culture had been. Except, turns out, it didn't work that easily. The warp prototypes at the moment had small drive crystals. And so, their warp fields collapsed fairly rapidly, due to unwanted resonance we couldn't shunt away. No prototype even managed to break the warp 1 barrier yet, though they did achieve fairly decent sublight speeds. And, interestingly, they could still be communicated with via tachyon message. This was due to the fact that they worked on the opposite principle of comm-arrays. Where communications needed to stay stable over vast distances, the warp drive needed the tachyons to rapidly decay into the ground state in order to achieve propulsion. Anyway, as exciting as the warp drives were, in terms of actual propulsion, they weren't all that revolutionary.

The theoretical development of better, more efficient slipstream drives on the other hand flourished. Once Enterprise got back, the engineers were confident that the next trip to Andromeda could be tackled in about a month or two, with the new engine design. Maybe three, if some unforeseen hazards appeared.

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

The high council of Krg didn't really know how to react to the news of the Humans' arrival.

Nobody could wrap their minds around how they got here. Or really why. Well, they stated that they wanted to mine the asteroids in the star system for tardium, but why they came to the surface was beyond the council's understanding.

They had to wear thick, bulky suits, with gas containers for respiration, as Krg didn't have an atmosphere. To even get to our habitats, we had to open one of the pressure doors, which we normally use to get to the surface whenever we want to access the telescopes. It was such a strange feeling, letting something else then a Krgian crawl through our living spaces. Usually when that happened, the intruder was some kind of pest, which we quickly drove out.

The Humans had trouble with the steepness of some of our tunnels, but they still insisted they come down here. Our multitude of locomotive limbs allows our kind to easily traverse these tunnels, but that didn't mean the Humans didn't manage. When we thought it would be too steep for them to follow us, they unveiled a rope and pulley system, which they used to hoist themselves down along the wall. Ingenious!

Though i couldn't help but ask: "Are you sure you can get back up?"

The lead human, furthest down the rope turned its head, and replied: "Yeah, easily. The gravity here is so much lower compared to Earth, it will be a cakewalk. Ah, sorry, human expression, what i meant was it will be a simple matter. To be honest, i am more worried about the light."

Light? "Oh right, you Humans have sensory organs that require light." I had forgotten about that, but supposed it made sense for surface dwellers such as them.

"Yes, we can't see much down here with our measly flashlights."

"What is a flashlight?"

"A portable light source, which can be directed into a specific direction. But in tunnels like these, in the dark, i can see why your species has evolved vibrational senses first and foremost."

"You are familiar with them?"

The Human made noise that sounded as if it had trouble with respiration. "Yes. We have lots of life forms on Earth that have whiskers like yours. Not even all of which live in tunnels. Some live together with us."

This surprised me. "There is another intelligent species on your planet?"

"No." came the swift reply.

"Ah, a pet then. Or is it livestock?"

"No, cats are pets. Though jury's out on who's domesticated whom."

I wanted to ask for clarification, but we had arrived at my workstation.

"We are here," i announced to the humans, opening the hatch. "You may enter."

"Whoa. Is that? A tardium crystal?" The third Human in line extended their forelimb toward one of the array crystals. "It is gigantic!"

Appraising the crystal, it was only about one and a half body lengths of the Humans. "It is for a communications array, after all. Though it is not the largest single crystal we have," i informed them.

"If the boys back home saw that, they'd be foaming at the mouth, you know that?"

"Isn't mouth foaming a bad sign?" I wasn't sure about all the intricacies of Human biology, i was a communication officer after all, not a biologist.

"It would be, if that wasn't just an expression. Sorry, i keep forgetting that idioms require context that you don't have. May we use the array to send a message back home? Our vessel is only equipped with a short range communication grid."

Another human whispered something i think i wasn't supposed to hear, but could clearly: "ET phone home." It was said in English, which i was rusty in, so i didn't know what it meant. We had been conversing in basic so far.

Of course, i agreed to let them use it. They proceeded to turn their heads in many different positions, but didn't go to the controls.

"Is something wrong?" i asked.

"We have no idea how to work this thing."

Oh. I went over to the vibromotor-controls, and softly brushed the control crystal. Brushing the harmony for communication with Earth, the vibromotors undulated, configuring the array crystals into the correct alignment.

The Humans then initiated a small scale communication from their own limited range communicator, which i configured the array to pick up and amplify, then transmit toward Earth. On the side, i used internal communications to call the council of elders up here, who to my surprise agreed to come right away. Only two millirotations later, they crawled up the side entrances, their chitin softness dampening their approach to a respectably low volume.

At the same time, the communications array was picking up a response, from the leader of Earth.

"Shall we leave the leaders to their decision?" one of the Humans asked me.

"Probably." i responded. We made our way outside the cavern.

"Do you have a water reservoir here somewhere?" one of the Humans requested. "We need to refill our oxygen supply, but we have electrolyzers and hydrogen fusers in the ship. So if you could spare a couple tons of water, that would really help us."

I had no idea what half these words meant, but lead them to a communal pressure well. We use those to transport cargo from the lower levels, but we had more than enough liquid water to spare. A couple tons were nothing.

After a trip back to the surface, hauling some metallic objects down the tunnels, the humans went to work. Why they were using construction material was beyond me, but soon, a rythmic hum came from one of the devices.

"Fusion in 3. 2. 1. Fusing now," one of them announced, having connected a soft pipe from one device to the other.

"What exactly is it that you are doing?" i inquired.

"Electro-chemically splitting the water into hydrogen and oxygen, then using the hydrogen for the fusion reactor, which in turn powers the electrolyzer."

"I have no idea what any of that means," i admitted.

The Humans turned their heads to one another for a moment, then back to me.

"We're using a machine, or two machines rather, to make breathable gas out of the water."

"Oh, so you breathe water vapor?"

"No. But we can make what we breathe out of water. We don't just vaporize it. I don't think i can properly explain chemistry or electrolysis right now. We don't have the time for that."

"Don't we have plenty, while the negotiations are underway?" i inquired.

"If you think they will take multiple cycles, then maybe. But i thought it would only be a few rotations, right?"

It takes multiple cycles to explain?

What?

Just what is up with these Humans?

...to be honest, i kind of wanted to find out for myself at this point. Maybe, just maybe, they would allow me to travel back to Earth with them. I didn't have a clutch of eggs to care for, nor a mate. Which hadn't exactly bothered me, but it did mean i had nothing holding me here. Except for the now obsolete thought that i couldn't go to any other civilization.

Hello, Author here. I am sorry to say this, but this is probably the last thing i write for this world. ADHD refuses to let me do such a sustained project. If any of you want to write something in this setting i created, though, be sure to run it by me to see if it fits the setting. Also, if anyone has a cool idea what to call this worldbuilding/setting/universe, feel free to send me an ask with a suggestion, i'll edit the tags so we can find stuff written in that setting later on.

#humans are space orcs #worldbuilding #i know a couple of you followed me for this story #but the thing is i'm now pretty much done with it #adhd refuses to let me work on long sustained projects #sorry

[kalevalakryze]

The Ghost Of You

Bo-Katan Week Day 3: Bo-Katan and Satine Pairing: Bo-Katan Kryze & Satine Kryze, Bo-Katan Kryze/The Armorer (background) Characters: Bo-Katan Kryze, Satine Kryze, The Armorer Warnings: Grief, Loss, Blood & Injury Mention, Force Ghost Satine (kinda) Notes: Look, listen… I may not know as much as I want about these two and their beginnings, but I know that I love them, and that Bo-Katan deserves to have someone looking out for her. Also, I am not great at writing anything motivational, but I’m trying. That’s all I can say. Tidbit at the end is inspired by this, also, big thanks to @beladonna02 for reading everything through for me ! Word Count: 3,565 Summary: Satine would appear in her nightmares, when the horrors were chased away by the woman that she had only reconsidered an older sister hours before her death. Satine never spoke in these dreams, and would disappear with the war zones she chased away. Tonight, however, as Bo-Katan tucked the darksaber under her pillow and reclined in her cot aboard the gauntlet, preparing to manage some rest before going home, to see if Mandalore could be saved, things changed. Her dream put her in a field in Kalevala, long grass tickling her fingertips as she pressed forward, muscle memory leading her to a clearing atop one of the many mountainous cliffs. There, Satine stood, looking as if she’d been waiting quite some time. “Satine…” AO3 Link: Here!

Nothing could ever be simple, not for Bo-Katan Kryze. There always had to be something to fight back against even in the simplest tasks, a trait she’d had since she was young. She would always argue the points of things, like brushing her hair, or doing things with her family, or, as she got older, their stances on the way Mandalore was run. During basic training, Satine had always been there, though Bo had never known just what her older sister had gone through to soften people’s reactions to the child’s brash nature, she’d never thought about how much Satine blocked for her, until she’d left, and there was no one to stand between her and the consequences of her actions. 

Death Watch had been Bo-Katan’s chance to be something other than the little vod’ika who couldn’t hold her tongue, but she’d had to change so much just to survive, Pre had killed those he deemed weak, and he’d always pressed down harder on Bo-Katan for her relation to the Duchess of Mandalor, even if Bo-Katan had readily thrown away familial ties the second Pre had asked. 

The girl who used to follow Satine Kryze around was as good as dead, compared to the warrior that sprouted in her place. She did exactly as Pre asked, kept quiet when her opinion didn’t matter, and recognized a true Mandalorian, had aided in every operation to take down her sister, even if it meant Satine would have to die, it was what Mandalore needed, right?

Bo-Katan would face the consequences of her actions when Pre’s operation with the CIS came to an abrupt end, when he’d allied with the dar’jetti, and she’d decided to speak out against it, against him. She had enough bruises to keep her quiet, for a time, until Pre met his end at the business end of the dark saber. 

From that day forward, nothing had slowed down, the loss, the pain, the consequences she had to face for living her life while someone else took the blame. 

Bo-Katan had exactly an hour of peace, an hour of forgiveness and the feeling of someone having her back in a way that even Ursa could not have truly provided. “There was a time when we weren’t enemies. Perhaps that time has come again,” Though neither of them could have ever guessed that it would have been a matter of minutes, before they were pulled apart once more, a mere matter of hours before the Jetti, Kenobi, was telling her of her ori’vod’s death, like she had some kind of right to be upset.

Air never came to her lungs without a fight since that day, every breath she took was a struggle to plant herself in the sand and declare that she wasn’t going to die, not yet. Without Pre to fill her head with how she was supposed to feel, or the threats of death at being seen as weak to keep her in line, the kid she’d buried in basic had pounded at the bars in her heart. 

She didn’t just leave behind her family when she’d left for Death Watch, she’d left the kid who wanted to read her sister’s datapads with her work on it, or read holonovels about mandalorian history, the kid that would bug Satine into staying up to watch just one more documentary with her. Every day since Satine’s death, that kid tried to break down everything she’d spent so long building, the blood, sweat, tears, and mountain of corpses she laid as foundation for the woman she’d become, it all threatened to come tumbling down each time the adrenaline wore off. 

Sometimes, when the adrenaline started to ebb from her veins and she had a moment’s respite in her ship, the redhead would fall into a fitful sleep. Warzones mottled with enough grief to have her waking up more exhausted than before were suddenly memories long forgotten. Some nights, she would be at her families castle on Kalevala, the blurry faces of her buir explaining something or another that Bo had found interesting, her ori’vod giving her piggyback rides around the grounds, or even the protectors showing her some of their moves, after she bugged them enough. The kid she refused to acknowledge as herself would grow quiet for a few days, after nights like this, and she would walk through war zones with an unabashed sense of safety.

Bo-Katan had never given much thought to the temporary shift from her nightmares, not until she was striking against the Empire. An explosion had sent a sharp piece of Durasteel through her side, an inch away from her armor that would have protected her. She’d hit the ground hard, had scrambled to try and stand instead of put pressure on the wound, had been busy firing at the troopers. The only thing she had been certain about that day was that she had been completely alone, and that she hadn’t called into her comms once. Bo-Katan hadn’t given any of her weird happenings any thought, until the feeling of hands pressing against torn skin, keeping both sides close together and keeping a great deal of pressure on the wound, within moments, Koska and Axe had been there, but she’d felt when the first set of hands had been replaced with Koska’s, the first set had been so cold, but they’d felt safe. It was all Bo could recall, after she’d woken up in the gauntlet with her side stitched up and enough batch to keep her down a few days, along with the knowledge that if she hadn’t applied pressure before Koska and Axe had gotten there, she surely would have died. 

Bo had started to pay attention, after that day, to all the oddities that had occurred in her life. How her armor would be removed when she was sure she’d passed out with it on, or how a Niteowl would show up right when she needed a hand, before she could even think to call. Or how, when she lay her head down at night, there was an undeserved feeling of safety and love, and the ghost of fingers brushing the tangles from her hair after a long day.

Her dreams changed more often, the ever present nightmares were still there, but so was Satine. She would never say anything, but she would take Bo-Katan’s hand and lead her away, would lead her home, even in the nights since the Night of a Thousand Tears, even after Bo-Katan had failed to protect Korkie. Satine would lead her home, and Bo-Katan would sit in the fields on Kalevala, or would jump around the palace on Mandalore, looking at all the architecture their people designed. It had been relieving, until it wasn’t.

Satine’s presence in her nightmares were eventually met with anger and hate from the redhead, not unlike their last days as sisters, before Bo had grabbed her armor and left for Concordia. She failed to win the dark saber, and she couldn’t justify challenging Din Djarin, she failed, and her fleet left her. So why Satine’s ghost stuck with her when literally anyone else deserved her presence (wasn’t Kenobi still floating somewhere, she could go do ghost shit with him) was a loss on Bo. 

She deserved the nightmares, and the anxieties, and the pain that pulsed through her being, day in, day out, as she sat on that throne on Kalevala. She didn’t deserve the haunting memories that offered respite, or a breath of fresh air against the ebbing darkness that consumed her. When the Imperials destroyed Kalevala, she figured she’d deserved that too. Until Din Djarin brought her home, took her to his people, and they accepted her as one of their people, as long as she fell in line. 

It had been easy enough, just like with their predecessors, Bo-Katan had fallen in line, had kept her mouth shut about their ideals and just followed the creed the way they wanted. Of course, even the comfort of being told what to do by the tribe did not last. The Armorer had seen something in her, something Bo-Katan truly wished would die, just like the kid she had forced into the back of her very being. 

She’d felt someone else’s hands against her own, when she’d taken off her helmet in the forge, the ghost of fingers brushing through her hair as she swallowed her anxieties and met The Armorer’s gaze. There had been a fear of being cast aside for good, that day, but the feeling of a hand in her own, and the reassurances from The Armorer, had loaned her the strength to find their people. 

Now though, with the dark saber officially her own, under Din Darin’s technicality, their people united, and plans to reclaim their home, Bo-Katan had breathed easy for the first time in over a decade. 

The dark saber was stuffed under her pillow in her cot aboard the gauntlet, The Armorer, still helmeted, lay already asleep in the space beside her, allowing her to find some semblance of comfort between the durasteel wall and the solid form of the other leader, Bo-Katan was able to relax. The kid had come with the comfort, however, bringing the redhead to curl into the warmth at her side, until the cold ghostly feeling of someone stroking the bridge of her nose lulled her to sleep.

Tonight, it was not one of hundreds of battles that played behind her eyelids, but the familiar sights of Kalevala, although, Bo-Katan had never visited this particular mountain, far off from the castle and too difficult to climb as a child who could never hope to reach. 

A muscle memory she did not have had her walking through a long overgrown path, pushing past the brush to the small clearing on the other side. The redhead stopped cold in her tracks as she took in the view. Near the edge of the cliff, a figure clad in white stood, blonde hair falling loose down her back, caught in the breeze as the wind sung its way through the mountains. “Satine…” Bo’s words were no more a whisper as the wind, but the woman still turned towards her. 

“I’ve been waiting for you, for quite some time, Bo,” The woman stepped away from the ledge, before lowering herself onto one of the large boulders that must have landed years before on the cliff’s top from mountains above. When she patted the spot next to her, the redhead moved, almost numbly, to drop inelegantly into the indicated seat. 

“Waiting for me?” Her hands went to feel her own pulse point, feeling for the thumping of her own heart, which responded with rapid thumps into her fingertips as she pressed her fingers into her bare wrist. 

“I was sure you would have come years ago,” Satine shook her head, an almost fond smile pulling at her lips. “Though, Obi-Wan said he hadn’t been able to see his master until he was good and ready either.”

“What are you talking about…?” Bo-Katan’s brows furrowed as she leaned forward, elbows settling into the tops of her legs as she stared hard at her sister. Satine still looked young, which was rather jarring to the woman pushing fifty, with wrinkles pulling at her face and age wearing her down. The drop it caused in her chest had Satine reaching to take her hand, as if she could feel it the spiral of Bo’s thoughts. 

“I’ve always been around, Bo-Katan, no matter how you’ve viewed me, or yourself,” Satine offered, squeezing Bo-Katan’s hand.

The coldness of the hand against her own, the way blue eyes settled on her, it was… certainly too much, to real, and too familiar. “This is some force osik, isn’t it?”

A soft laugh, hidden behind her sister’s hand and the nod of her head met Bo’s ears. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

“Why are you talking to me now?”

“You let me in,” Satine’s brows furrowed in a way that was achingly similar to Bo’s own, as she looked to the redhead. “I was never able to speak to you unless you were ready, I managed to get through occasionally, when you needed me, but you always shut me out before I could say anything,” The soft pads of her fingers brushed against the top of her hand, bringing Bo’s gaze down to stare at the pale, unblemished skin, against her own, scars littering her knuckles and the backs of her hands. 

“We had others in our clan,” Bo pointed out, forcing her gaze to a patch of wildflowers nearby. “They could have used your help more,” The stability of the dream shifted as she spoke, and Bo had to clamp her eyes shut to avoid the way Satine’s image had flickered into that of a corpse. 

“Bo, if you shut me out, I will lose this connection, I can’t be here without your consent,” She reminded with a gentle voice. A beat passed before the dream stabilized once more, and Bo could open her eyes. 

“I just, don’t get it, sometimes,” She let go of Satine’s hand to wrap her arms around herself. The kid she tried so hard to lock away soared at the comforting action, one the Mandalorian hadn’t allowed herself since she’d walked away. 

“Talk me through it,” 

“I walked away, Satine,” The blonde’s hand rested on her shoulder, a gentle pressure, until the redhead was tucking herself into the woman’s side, head dropping onto her shoulder, like they’d done so many times before. “I left, and I actively plotted to kill you, I took each opportunity I had to make things harder for what you were trying to do, and I only decided to change when the consequences of my actions started to catch up to me,” Her hands pulled at the soft fabric of her shirt, one she didn’t recognize as something she’d ever owned, but it was comfortable, at least, as her hands fisted into the fabric to release some of her frustrations. 

“I tried to do something right, and I failed, at every, single, step.” 

“That’s not true, Bo. You’ve united our people, you’re going to go to Mandalore tomorrow, and you’re going to lead our people into a new age, you’ve brought them together,”

“Until they find out exactly what I’ve done, Satine. Korkie is dead, because I wasn’t enough, because I gave up,” Bo’s teeth ground together as she flexed the muscles in her jaw. If it wasn’t for the arm wrapped around her shoulders, she probably would have stood and started pacing, just so she wasn’t sitting still.

“There was no way you could have avoided Gideon’s betrayal. If you wouldn’t have surrendered, you’d be dead with them,”

“Maybe it would have been for the best,” The arm around Bo’s shoulders disappeared, before her chin was being pushed up to meet the anger in blue eyes. 

“That isn’t true,” 

Before Satine could continue, Bo batted her hand away and stood, rising to meet her with just as much, if not more, anger. “You can’t say that and believe it, Satine. If you’d lived, Mandalore never would have been lost!”

“It would have, Bo-Katan, I could never convince the warriors to unite to my ideals, we would always be at war with each other, if I had continued. But you have learned, have you not? You have walked both worlds because you have seen what your actions have created. You have met the Children of the Watch, those who faced the consequences of your actions in Death Watch. You have fought, won and lost and everything in between to get to this point, and you are learning what no other has before. Too much Mandalorian blood has been spilled, there is a balance to this choice that only you can weigh. If you push for warriors that strike out against everything, you face annihilation, if you push for pacifism, you face annihilation, but you know the way to balance it all, because you’ve lived it,” 

Bo-Katan scoffed and turned her back on her sister, though she kept her foot pointed towards her, afraid that if she closed her body language off entirely, she would lose her forever. 

“I hate it,” She admitted after a moments deliberation. 

“Hate what?” Satine’s hand rested once more on her shoulder, and once again, Bo-Katan leaned into the contact. 

“I hate what I’ve become,” When she looked at her hands, she only saw blood, when she looked at her blasters, she remembered only the lives of her own people that had been cut out by the other end. “I hate that I survived, when you didn’t. . . I hate every year that passes, that reminds me I’ll always be older than you ever got to be, that Korkie never got to be as old as you, before he’d died, that there are Mandalorians out there who have never known Mandalore when it was full of life. I hate what I’ve done to survive, I hate Pre, even though I chose to follow him, I hate the way he made me feel, I hate it all, Satine.” Bo ranted, now able to pace across the clearing, creating a small path in the wildflowers she’d trampled. 

“Well… What are we going to do about it?” Satine offered as she lowered herself back onto the smooth face of the boulder. 

“There isn’t a ‘we’, Satine, you’re dead. This is just… a figment of my imagination gone wild,”

“You and I both know that isn’t true, Bo,”

“It’s easier than thinking this could be real,”

“Bo-Katan, just, sit, please,” Again, Satine patted the spot beside her, a smile pulling at her lips as the redhead dropped beside her. “You are worthy of love, in it’s many forms. Wether it be whichever way I am able to reach you, from your friends, or even from the woman you’ve allowed into your life,” 

“How do you know about The Armorer?”

“Force osik,” The sisters laughed together, and Satine once more pulled her ‘little’ sister close, until she could run her fingers through her hair. “You have always been worthy of love, just like you are capable of change. You need to learn to love those things you hate, but-“ Her finger tapped the tip of Bo’s nose, “You do not have to do it alone,” each word was emphasized with a tap to the tip of her nose, until the redhead was crinkling her nose and lightly batting at her hand. 

“I know,” Bo-Katan’s smile faltered for just a moment, as she dipped her head into her ori’vod’s shoulder. 

“You’re going to have to trust me on this one, Bo. The Mandalorians at your side tomorrow are not there for the darksaber, they will be there because you’d proven that you’re capable, even at your lowest, you’ve saved their younglings, had brought new foundlings to the tribe, and are leading them home, together. There may come a point where that saber is gone, but they will still be with you, just as I am. Mandalorians are stronger together, you just have to let them in to help you. And maybe, you won’t have to be the person you’d become to survive, because you’ll be able to live,” 

“How did I ever survive all those years without your motivational speeches?” Bo’s voice was muffled into Satine’s shoulder, though the blonde could feel the smile on her sister’s lips. 

“Would you have listened, even if I told you this while you were moping around on the throne?”

“Probably not,” 

“Exactly, so just, be quiet, and let me enjoy this time with you,” Satine shook her head, before her fingers found Bo-Katan’s hair once more, brushing it out as she pointed out different birds or talked about the flowers around them. 

When Bo-Katan woke up, hours later, she was tangled entirely in The Armorer’s arms, legs interlocked, fingers grasping at the soft material of her flight suit, and the woman’s gaze boring into her sole. “Did you sleep well?” The Armorer questioned as Bo’s cheeks flushed and she started to unwind herself, nodding as she dropped herself into the space beside the woman. “Were you aware that you talk in your sleep?”

“There was a lot to talk about, apparently, I’m sorry if I woke you.” Bo-Katan reached to pull the dark saber from under the pillow, settling it on the edge of the bed to clip to her belt once she got ready. 

“Your sister, Satine?” The Armorer questioned, bringing Bo to a grinding halt. 

“How did you..?”

“You are not the first one she’s reached out to in the night,” The Armorer had left it at that, even with Bo’s continued questioning glances, and a stifled laughter in the air. 

Days later, as Bo-Katan stood in front of the forge, in front of their people, she’d felt a familiar weight at her side, and as the torch was passed to her, there was another hand guiding her to lower it and light the flames. In the chanting of their people, she heard not just those standing around her, but the echoes of hundreds, of Satine’s own voice ringing in her ear. It wasn’t her song, but it was Mandalore’s. From Mand’alor the great, all the way to Bo-Katan Kryze, they were all there, in some way, shape, or form. 

Translations: vod'ika - little sibling ori'vod - older sibling Jetti - Jedi dar'jetti - sith osik - shit kriff - expletive 

#bo katan kryze #bo katan #Bo-Katan Kryze #Satine #Satine Kryze #Bo and Satine #The Armorer #Bo-Katan Kryze x The Armorer #nitearmor #armorkatan #speculating about what happened to Korkie #again #BKW2023 #bkw2023 #Bo Katan Week

[whenthechickencry]

Cornelia, The New Priest

Released between EP5 and EP6.

The episode starts with listing how Cornelia's job betrayed her expectations, starting with her having more free time than she thought she would and having a "looser" atmosphere than she thought.

She then complains about her lunch break being 15 minutes more than in the books and how she is allowed to speak in normal language in the office, I am sorry Cornelia but oh my god would I hate having you as a coworker.

We dog et some background into why Cornelia is like this, though, apparently she used up any allowance money she received in order to attend weekly court language class, and her parents were poor. Certainly feels like they aren't taking seriously something she used a lot of effort to learn

Some foreshadowing for Will here, neat.

Cornelia isn't in the department she wanted, she is in General Affairs, despite top students usually getting their choice and Cornelia being top of the class. They mention it probably has to do with the interviews, which I assume they noticed she's kind of naive and probably too by the book for field stuff.

Cornelia's issue is not that she won't speak in normal language but she can't, despite very obviously speaking the same language others struggle to understand her. I can relate a little bit as someone that's bilingual but has an accent that I can't rid of, lol. Anyways, everyone kind of hates her after failing to order and considers her incompetent...

Cornelia and Gertrude meet, which fills Cornelia with newfound confidence as they both struggle to communicate, so if she can be promoted so can she. She admonishes Gertrude in her head about not speaking in court language, and Gertrude corrects her way of thinking.

Gertrude then recommends for Cornelia to submit to some projects, and that she has high hopes for her.

Cornelia I think some offices would kill you on the spot if you suggested this as a newbie.

Cornelia is struggling a lot between ideal and reality, how to make her dreams come true while still operating within what is possible. It's hard to not feel very bad for her as she goes on with this even if you don't agree with her at all.

Cornelia is pretty sharp about her flaws and about what must be done, all things considered... it's just a lot harder to apply what you know abstractly to be true when it's not what you are used to at all.

After talking with Gertrude about changing the world vs changing yourself, Gertrude resolves to first focus on becoming an adult, someone who can face the hardships of day-to-day life, before trying to change the world.

This episode is speaking surprisingly close to my heart right now. I used to feel really bad about how useless I thought I was, how little skills I had, how there was no point in even trying because I am incompetent. But internalizing that I have a lot of time to learn things, and that even if I might be a little behind compared to others that is perfectly ok, I will keep trying and I will learn the skills I want to learn, has helped me a lot.

Meanwhile, with Dlanor and Gertrude...

Dlanor's eternal youthfulness gets a bit of a recontextualization here, with the whole being naive and childish but keeping your ideals vs becoming an adult, you can see Dlanor as someone who managed to achieve both. This one was really neat, actually, I like characterization for the side characters and this story hit a lot of notes that felt were very needed to me at this moment.

#umineko #umitsubasa

[the-heaminator]

Kiss prompt 44 with RusEng please

Tentative kisses given in the dark.

Shhshshd imma melt, thank you anon.

Night was easily their favourite time of day, nice little antithesis there, anyhow, they loved the darkness, they loved the way that until relatively recently into their long lives, it used to completely envelop even the largest cities, lanterns could only do so much to ward against the cloying darkness.

Arthur was partial to the stars, he still was a seaman at soul, navigating by their dull yet constant twinkle for centuries before better technology came about.

Ivan liked the moon, he'd always looked up at the pockmarked orb, ever since he was a child all those centuries ago and in recent centuries him and America had so much to do with it's so far lifeless surface, he had lost the whole space race, but his interest had only been fuelled, he liked astrophysics and was darn good at it too, it had always been there, its phases were consistent and constant, odd in a life such as theirs.

The night was comforting for the both of them both alone and together, and while Arthur may have not been the best with the physics behind it all, he was certainly knowledgeable about them, he was older than Ivan by quite a long time, over double his age, at least nationally, physically they weren't too far apart, he could easily make out constellations on a clear night, joining the dots where Ivan simply couldn't, constellations were odd, but then again Arthur had relied on then for centuries, so it made sense that he was familiar with them.

It was difficult to see the stars in cities, too much light, too much smog, usually cloudy too, only the strongest were seen, and even then it was barely a twinkle, it was a little sad to see how much they faded into the background both in the sky and peoples minds nowadays, the moon hung darker than it used to, but still giving a good amount of light, well reflecting, but let us not worry about semantics shall we now.

On warm summer evenings the two liked to hazard going into a field some distance away from the city, it was always the same few fields and they had never been caught for trespassing so they must've chosen correctly, and when they weren't in the city, Arthur and Ivan both had a number of houses in the slap middle of nowhere when they just needed to leave; that was even better, the sky glistened like the scales of a fish.

It was nice, laying in the warm grass, in the musty and often heavily perfumed air, they both kept roses, wild ones which had grown to trees by this point, or climbers that had seeded their way into the very house itself, they had good fun when they did it, warm and content both inside and out, Ivan always made sure there was some type of food there, just to make sure Arthur ate something before bed, if he did sleep that is, and Arthur made sure to bring some drink, tea or hot chocolate, they both had a rather large soft spot for hot chocolate, a rather recent but pleasant discovery, though again that was more for chillier nights nearing autumn and spring.

Sometimes they cuddled, kissed even, they both liked being held, though it was considerably harder for Arthur to hold Ivan than the vice versa, so he tended to sit and put Ivan's head on his lap and slowly stroke on it, oftentimes one of the two, or both of them, would fall asleep, and when they didn't they usually went about the exact same thing, tentative no matter how many times they had done it.

It always went the same, one or the other would slowly lift the others face up, eyes searching the face for any reservations or the like, in case their advances weren't reciprocated, they almost always were, and they kissed, slowly and quietly, not sensually, they were relatively chaste, most of the time at least, but they were certainly packed with affections that neither of them knew how to word properly, under the light of the moon and the twinkle of the stars, they had seen this many many times, differing times from the 1700s on and off.

The same stars had seen them change as they aged both nationally and physically, sneaking out of camps at the dead of night, they were less suspicious due to their rank, but they had both been teased mercilessly for it in their day, a few soldiers had seen their notoriously logical and frankly a little scary commanders just sitting in a field some distance away from camp with another man, another commander, though not wearing the same uniform staring up at the stars, they hadn't seen what was after that because let us just say that would've gotten a lot more than a bit of teasing.

That night was the same, slow and careful, like the other would break at the softest touch, precious like glass or porcelain, not like they had killed more people than they could care to even think of, that was the first time, and many times afterwards were almost embarrassingly similar, sneaking away for a little kiss before not speaking of it for days afterwards, they were incredibly embarrassed about it even as one was certainly quite loose in many ways, they had only gotten close enough, really less uptight to try and unpack that whole thing, and here they are now, doing the same thing they did a whole three centuries ago, embarrassed and flustered by affection though they've been doing this for so long, and that was unlikely to change, but as they lay in the grass, asleep in eachothers arms, maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.

#The heam writes #Hws England #Hws russia #Ruseng #This was a different level if rambly even for me I'm sorry anon #You can tell I'm a fluff writer at heart lmao #I live in the city but my grandparents live in fuck nowhere Kashmir. And holy shit I didnt know stars were so pretty

[caracarnn]

He wants to react to the calming weight of Mat's hand on his shoulder, wants to look into his friends eyes and tell him that everything was going to be alright. He knew that the mask that Mat held up in front of his face was something that he was hiding behind. It had to do with remaining strong, it had to do even with living in denial regarding everything that had happened. Could he not accept what had happened? Mat didn't seem to be someone that enjoyed truths very much and this one was one truth that not many people wanted to accept.

His father, even, was skirting the line of accepting everything that had happened. He worked his lands and acted as though his family was still in tact. Like one day he'd wake up and he'd have grandchildren to read stories to and a daughter-in-law that would make this home feel like an actual home again. That was a glaring lie that Rand found hard to swallow. Had he disappointed his father? Had he torn down his dreams to where the only thing that existed was what was left of his son?

But how could any of that be his own fault? Rand hadn't chosen to Channel. He hadn't sought out Saidin. He had sat out in the fields behind his father's farmhouse and he had called out to The Creator to take it from him. If anything just to strip him of it. Of course he had intended to be cured of it with just one single prayer but not in the way that it had happened. He hadn't just been stripped of Saidin but he had been stripped of his mind, his sanity. They said that they wanted to cure his Madness, that they had to make him safe for the world around him. But Rand found that he wasn't safe for himself.

"I've been funny." He wanted to smile but it felt limp and lazy on his face. It felt like there wasn't a single expression on his face at all. He didn't feel the emotion he was trying to emote, instead he felt like he was attempting to force himself past a barrier of emotionlessness. A Void much like the one that his father had taught him to linger in and yet this one wrapped around his soul as much as it did everywhere else. Darkness existed in him, a numbness that he couldn't expel.

Slowly he turned his face and looked down at Mat's hand there on his shoulder, trying to figure out how to react to the press of contact that it felt like he had been without for far too long. He swallowed thickly, blinking his eyes clear of the emotions that were thriving inside of him. Emotions that were buried and yet he couldn't reach. Those deeply buried emotions that belonged entirely to another man. A man before Aes Sedai had taken him away from himself. A man that had existed with needs and wants and everything else. They had left tragedy behind them and they had left with his soul.

He left Mat's hand there and turned his gaze out the window. He saw his dad's retreating figure, the stalks giving way for a small pathway so that he could walk. He was well built and, for just right then, Rand really did hope that he lived forever. What would he be without him? Especially if it happened that Mat, one day, did decide to find a life outside of The Two Rivers? A well deserved life. It was selfish to want to tether his father here with him and yet being alone sounded as scary as waking up every single morning did.

"My dad..." he trailed off, still staring outside but, this time, he was watching the rays of yellow sun breathing down on the ground, green grass sprouting gently. There was a soft wind, birds fluttered about everywhere and the sheep bleated in the background. "...he's hired a nurse for me. Recommended by the Wisdom herself." he wet his lips and then forced his gaze back to Mat. Sometimes staring outside at the ever changing world was harder than staring at nothing. "She's meant to cook my meals and such while my dad goes to town for Winternight to sell his brandy." He almost longs for the world before but he can't bring himself to have enough urgency for that. "But, between you and me, I think that he secretly hopes children will come."

Now that should give Mat a laugh. Tam kept going on and on about how pretty this Lynne was and what good stock she came from. He mentioned her talents and about how much she was recommended by Nynaeve. Even if Rand was without his wits most of the time it wasn't so off kilter to say that he wasn't observant of the world around him. He just couldn't bring himself to care very much. And yet he cared if Mat laughed just then, didn't he?

"So, maybe it's about time that you did...find a place for yourself? Maybe my dad's the one who's tired of seeing you around here." His brows rose and he waited on reaction. Mat deserved a world outside. He deserved a life outside of playing bloody nursemaid. It just didn't seem to be fair to consign him to the same invalid life that had been subjected onto Rand. Mat wasn't the one who had been Gentled.

@luckhissoul - cont'd from here

#.thread #luckhissoul #v. flicker flicker

[elfpen]

Hi!!! So, this is going to be a weird (and probably invasive) question to ask a stranger on the internet but. um.

So I saw your add-on to the post about historical remedies and such and it FASCINATED me. The cross between historical and scientific study was just... so cool!

And I'm in High school, right now, and I'm still trying to decide what I want to major in. So I wanted to ask--

What major did you write that thesis for? How did you get into that major (like, what kind of credits/ background/grades did you need to get accepted)?

And-- this one you don't have to answer at all, bc I don't want to pressure you into doxxing yourself or anything, but-- What college/colleges did you go to/ consider going to that had good programs for said major? (I live in America, if that helps?)

Sorry for the random (and a lil' aggressive) questioning on major details of your life is uncalled for-- which it probably is. I just!!! Your research was really cool and it felt like something I'd want to consider pursuing!!!

TY for your time <3

No worries! None of those questions are what I would consider really invasive, and I don't mind talking about the basics.

That thesis was one that I wrote for my Master's degree. My major in undergrad was history—no specific area of history because it wasn't an option at my school—just history. While there were some classes I was required to take, whenever I was able to choose my own classes, I took classes that dealt with medieval history, which was something that interested me. Most of my large writing projects in undergrad I wrote on medieval topics. My uni didn't even have that many of those classes, but I basically found ways to work those subjects into my work anyway lol. In topics as broad as history, you have to carve out your own space.

I graduated with good grades and went straight into graduate school. I'm not sure I would recommend going straight into grad school after undergrad, but I knew myself and knew that if I didn't do it right away, I would not go back.

At the graduate level, no matter where you go, if you study history you will pick an area/region of history to study in depth. I chose medieval history, and within that carved out an unofficial specialization on early medieval British history. My advisor wasn't even an expert in that topic, but she was supportive, and connected me with other academics who knew more about it. I was a bit of an oddity in the department because I was one of the few students who was getting only a masters degree, rather than going for a PhD. The only reason I did this was because I was also studying for another degree which was more relevant for my desired career path; I chose to study history as in addition for the broadened experience and also because it really interested me.

Now, I know you're in high school still and this kind of decision is a long ways off, but for the sake of my on conscience I am going to pause here to say that you should not get a masters in history unless you are either going on for a PhD and are committed to a career in academia, or if you have another solid career path open to you (like having another degree or other experience). Studying history can give you a lot of great skills and experience and insight that will make you compatible for a lot of jobs, however, if you already have a bachelors, a masters degree in something like history will generally not increase your marketability, and can be very expensive. Alright, you didn't ask for career advice, but I couldn't not say it.

But yeah! As far as prerequisites and such, it's a fairly straightforward matter of keeping up your grades, which may sound kinda lame. The harder and more vital part of pursuing the research you want is to define your goals, communicate those with your professors, and foster relationships with professors who can help connect you with opportunities to present your research and meet others in the field. If you have the chance to present at an undergrad conference, do it. If your professor has office hours, talk to them not only about the current assignments, but about the kinds of things you're interested in. By the time you're a senior in college, having positive relationships with one or more professors will help you find connections beyond college.

This has turned into career advice, I'm sorry if that's not what you were after! I hope that helps.

[classicslesbianopinions]

Hi, I am an undergrad classics student in my 6th year. Had lots of failings and barely making it atm. I want to get better and I really want to engage with the subjects and everything but I didn't have a good high school education so basically have no clue about the general outline of studying and being a student. My profs aren't any help and my uni is the only one with a classics major in my country. How does one become a better classicist? What do I do? I feel very lost.

oh nooo i’m sorry anon. classics can be really inaccessible sometimes, and i will say like i had a great high school education but i have never spent more time studying for anything than i spent studying for greek tests in undergrad. i don’t know what it’s like in your country/at your uni but like. it can be a really brutal field and it is even harder if you don’t have a background in latin or greek going in or if you’ve got any kind of societal disadvantage or if literally any extenuating circumstances come up while you’re doing your degree.

so i guess first i’d say that it’s okay that you’re struggling, it’s not your fault the field is super inaccessible, and don’t let anyone make you feel inadequate. a lot of people have a lot of advantages going in that it sounds like you didn’t have, and you’re truly doing your best with what you’ve got. which is amazing in itself.

i am honestly myself absolutely terrible at studying, but what works for me is often using quizlet or memrise to make flash cards and really drilling with those. sometimes you can find a set someone else has made too. another good strategy is copying out the stuff you need to study onto another sheet of paper— writing stuff helps it stick in your brain. and then challenging yourself to summarize the material without looking can help too.

and learning to take my time reading and really look for details etc was something that really helped me in high school! i usually underline in my texts which works if you own yours and don’t mind writing in books, but you can also take notes on a separate sheet of paper or use sticky notes inside the book.

if you’ve got the sort of language test where you have to sight translate a random passage of a work, unfortunately the best way i know of to study is just to translate the whole section the test might cover, which honestly always took me an unreasonable amount of time (but again i’m awful at studying so it might be a very normal amount of time and i just am not good at time management in general). my professor would tell me to translate it once with the dictionary and once without but i never had time for that second translation. but also the first translation with the dictionary helped a LOT when it came to the test!

and my strategy to keep myself doing stuff is to set a timer for half an hour or so and work non stop for that half hour— something about having a timer going overrides the part of my brain that would rather die than concentrate for five minutes.

the other good thing to know is that writing papers is literally just about writing down whatever you think. like you’ve got to give it a bit of structure eventually but the best place to start is by typing out whatever your opinion is like you’re talking to a friend, and then you can refine and organize it from there into something that looks academic and polished. i think it can be easy to be intimidated by papers in general but like every academic paper is just someone going on about their opinion. and your opinion is important and legitimate and don’t be afraid to state it! especially if you can back it up with sources! like it’s 50% about confidence sometimes. you may be struggling but you do belong and you have to act like you know you belong even if you don’t feel like you do. (this applies to everything but it helps me a lot with papers.)

so i don’t know if any of this helps but those are my thoughts. if anyone else has advice for anon with the studying or with anything else in classics please put it in the reblogs or replies! i feel like our followers probably have some good wisdom here. some of them have probably been in similar situations. and i feel like i don’t have that much help but i really feel for you anon and i want you to be successful. classics is hard to break into but it is possible for someone like you to do well.

#mod felix

[soulrph]

Hi Blue! I was wondering, do you by chance have any thoughts on meme accessibility? More specifically, I'm talking about the format of memes being accessible to people who possibly struggle to read certain formatting or that kind of thing. For example, I find that your meme lists are VERY accessible, but I find so many of these meme/resource/rph blogs are not (they use multiple spaces between words that make it harder to read, use too many fancy fonts that are difficult to read and don't show up on screenreaders, etc). What are your thoughts/feeling on memes being inaccessible in this way, and how have you had to adjust your meme formatting to ensure you've got accessibility for your own memes (whether here or on soulprompts)?

i have some thoughts, my light! although, fair warning, my thoughts are actually fairly ?? like, middle-of-the-field, i think? so i'll list a few of them here, and you'll understand what i mean by that in a moment!

accessibility is, in my opinion, a unique thing to each person. so, a while ago i tried to use the blue font on my posts for this blog, bc my name is blue, the colour theme for this blog is blue, it just felt like a very cute idea, and at the time i was using the dark tumblr background, so it stood out very clearly! all was well! all was happy! but then i got a new laptop two days later, and the default is the blue and white background for tumblr, right? so i was looking at the posts and it dawned on me that the light blue font is actually pretty difficult to see on the default screen, and i made a post asking if people would be happier for me to just not use the light blue font anymore, and one person said yes, so i just keep using black font now! mainly because the light blue is more of a pretty aesthetic thing; the black on white contrast is clearer for everyone, and if people need to lower the contrast, their personal computer settings would more than likely accommodate that!

however, the reason i think accessibility is more of a personally unique and tailored thing is because of a recent debate surrounding spacing in a formatted post. now, me, personally? i can read and follow just about any format there is. purple prose is an exception to the rule, and only because i feel like i have to sit down and translate it WHILE forming a reply to the thread, you know? but single spacing, double spacing, triple, etc? it doesn't bother me. i'm very fortunate that way, but i digress!

i have some friends who need single spacing in their responses, and i have others who require the additional spaces to separate the words more distinctly. something that's been more present on rules pages lately is that many people are happy to accommodate the personal preferences and needs of their writing partners; likewise, many people are very aware that we're all only human, we will forget things, we will make mistakes in our formatting, and steps are generally being taken to ensure that we, as a community, are hospitable enough to allow people to speak up and say "actually i can't read the double spacing very well" or "would you mind making the font just regular from now on?" and we'll be able to communicate these things more clearly and comfortably!

i feel like i'm rambling and not answering the question, so i'm gonna make the rest of my points shorter and more concise!

many of the meme blogs which i frequently rely on are run by compassionate and lovely people who happily change their formatting to suit their followers. this is a stark change from 5+ years ago, when these requests could have been responded to with indignant tones of "well why don't you use a different blog?" or "it's not MY responsibility to make YOUR experience a good one". i have a frighteningly but wonderfully large number of followers on this blog, and i actually consider it a privilege when people make these requests, because it tells me that i'm doing something right that people are comfortable enough to ask me these things!

as for how i format things on my blogs, i admit that i do use the fancy fonts for the titles of the memes (although i'm very VERY happy to change that to a regular font if it's something ye want!) and as far as spacing is concerned, i like to leave a few spaces for the action prompts, but it's always single spacing after that! so like:

[ ANSWER ]: receiver answers the lovely sender's question.

and that's only because i think it's a little easier to read, but again, i'm happy to change that if people want me to!

i hope this answered your question my angel! thank you for asking! if you want more input on this, @leneemusing has several very informative and insightful posts made on the subject of accessibility in the rpc!

#ooc. #psa. #not rp related #cinnanon roll. #( thank you my angel! )

[bonmotx]

Anonymous asked: I here there is this other streamer, I think her name is Ereshkigal? Thoughts on her?

...is this just gonna be a thi

QUEEN MEDB’S STREAMER REVIEW VIDEO!! (OMG?? #TEA???) LEARN ABOUT THE ENTERTAINMENT WORLD WITH ME BRAVES~~

Okay, so like, I don’t think we’re really comparable in terms of brands, you know? I couldn’t see that woman using her sex appeal if she tried, and she’s wearing a bathing suit. Honestly, she’s just too stuck up for it to manage it.

Like, there’s a difference between making yourself a martyr and being forced to be a martyr. You’re telling me she couldn’t legislate? Start divvying up tasks? You’re the Queen. You’re the Goddess. If you want something done, it will get done. So don’t give me excuses about being the only one who could or who bore the responsibility. 

She could never go big on her own merit because she’d be unable to get people to do shit for her. I mean, maybe a significant other or whatever, but c’mon... Sure, you can edit videos and trim streams down to a reasonable length, but that takes going through the entire thing. She could just leave it alone, but the graphics and technical aspect seem... kinda beyond her, you know? People underestimate the effort it takes to do this shit. Most people don’t just set up a camera and be done with it. Getting emojis made for the chat, getting an overlay, getting some kind of theme music or something even, hell, editing is way harder than just cutting shit together if you wanna put effort into it and have a good sense of it. Having good comedic timing, making it more seamless, or accentuating the abruptness for a purpose... I can’t see her really wanting to learn, or letting someone else do it? Plus, she just doesn’t strike me as the kind to do it for her own enjoyment. 

With that painfully shy aura, sure, other people would follow for the ‘my insecure waifu who is so shy but not around me’ cred, but why even do it?

She’d need one person as a motivation to do it. We all know who, don’t we? Love interest based motivations... it’s... ugh, I won’t say pathetic, since it’s sincere enough, but she’d just be unable to do it for her own reasons. Why would she enjoy being watched by countless people?

I mean, if we just analyze her face, hell yeah she’d make it. She’s cute, she has that awkward charm, and she’s easy enough to disarm the crowd would have a field-day making her blush and get flustered. But she can’t act for shit, she’s not outgoing enough to enjoy it, and she’s not purposefully manipulative enough to lie and pretend everyone is ‘the one I do it for’. 

So you have an awkward woman whose charm would be built upon selling the impression of intimacy. Sure, lots of people can do that. Really successfully at that. But tell me she’d be able to lie. Tell me. Have you seen how pissed idol fans get at the mere implication their precious idol-chan has even been on a maybe date? That’s the crowd she’d attract.

That world would chew her up and spit her out. She’s just not an entertainer. That’s fine. She’s a damn queen and goddess, why bother unless she’d have fun with it? Can you see her enjoying it? Really? I mean, I guess we’re not close, but come on.

Even if she did... I mean, I could see her getting popular just on her face, yeah. But doing it out of her own desires... nothing I’ve seen points towards it. Because of that, what motivation does she have to get better, to handle the hardest parts, get past the late nights and the hate? They’d want her to do lewd things, be gleeful at her embarrassment, torment her... and her charm would need to be built upon lying that they’re close, otherwise, only the people with certain tastes would watch. If you watch someone to pretend she could be your girlfriend, why watch someone who is a streamer cause she’s someone’s girlfriend?

Let her be the background cameo or special guest to someone that actually would enjoy it. The community has enough half-assed people, at least leave room for the ones who don’t wanna be here who are trying to cause they need the money or whatever.

#medb ic. #((THIS GOT SO LONG I APOLOGIZE ANON #((i think ereshkigal is cute but you asked medb here