“but It Wasn’t That Bad”

once i beat the depression and the burnout and the anxiety and the loneliness and the exhaustion and the guilt and the awkwardness and the apathy and the low income and the chronic illness and the impatience and the vulnerability and the creative block and the capitalism and the cruelty THEN you'll see

AN II Not sure what this is, but I might expand on it at some point.

Reader who somehow is an impeccable judge of character. Reader who deescalates situations before others notice it's going off the rails. Reader who draws the attention of Price when they come to stand behind a child whose guardian took a menacing step towards them, face more threatening than he has ever seen it. Reader who, after months and years of working with Price, still surprises him with their instinctive ability to be at the right place at the right time. Reader whom he sees flinch for the first time when their family comes to tap them out for the holidays. Reader who comes back from the holidays quiet and jumpy. Reader who shrinks at harsh words. Reader who falls into blind panic when Soap pins them down during training. Reader who breaks his nose to struggle free. Reader who cant breathe. Price whose heart breaks when he realizes why reader is so good at predicting chaos.

Burglar in the house

Summary: The boys were trying to surprise you by coming home early from a deployment. They end up being surprised themself.

Authors note; I'm really rusty, if anyone can give me tips I'd appreciate it! (Shut the comment section if you have nothing usefull to say though <3)

Soap

-gets so offended

-secretly impressed

-milks it for attention

Soap nearly trips over the coffee table in his attempt to navigate the dark living room. He's trying to be quiet, trying not to wake you. The plan was to slip into bed without you noticing so he could be the first thing you see when you woke up early in the morning. Two days ago you had whined to him on the phone how you had to wake up at the crack of dawn to come pick him up from base. Lucky for you, the mission had ended just a bit early, giving him the opportunity to take a cab and surprise you.

His hand wraps around the handle of the bedroom door, blood pumping like he's on a mission. It's thanks to that adrenaline that he can avoid the gass bottle you swing at him as soon as the door is open. He can't react fast enough to keep from loosing his balance when you barrel into him, the momentum of your attack causing you to slip.

The air is knocked out of him first by the impact with the floor and then by you landing on his chest. He hits his elbow and curses when the funny bone in it starts singing.

"What the hell. Bonnie?" his eyes squint in the dark, hands warm against your waist.

"Johnny? What are you- I thought you were a burglar! What are you doing here?" you try to scramble off of him, conscious of your full weight on him. His grip tightens and you give up all too easily. Your hands tremble from the fright he'd given you.

"So you try to kill me? And I thought I meant something to you..."

"I wasn't trying to kill you, I thought-" you ramble on until you catch the way his lips quirk up with supressed laughter. His eyes glint with humor even in the little light coming in through the window. Slapping at his chest, you finally pull away and reach to switch on the light. And there he was, the man you missed for almost five weeks now, pinned under you and looking all smug after giving you the scare of your life. "It's the middle of the night, what are you doing sneaking around the house you idiot?"

Still straddeling your boyfriend on the ground, you try to stand, planning to return to your warm bed but he pulls you back down to him.

"You wouldn't leave me all alone on the floor now, would you bonnie?" he's giving you wounded eyes, lips pouty and unbelievably kissable. "See, I hit my elbow!" he lifts it next to his face. You squint at it, leaning close to assess the damage. Only he surges forward and steals a kiss from you, eyes twickeling in delight as you glare at him. In the end you can't stay mad at him when he looks at you like that, but you do insist on taking the smooching to bed.

Ghost

-so proud

-loves that you'd be able to defend yourself in case of an actual break-in

-thinks it's really hot

The house is too quiet when he kicks his boots off, low lights on, meaning you were still awake. You always had some kind of background noise running, silence setting you on edge like it did him. He had planned on surprising you by coming home for your two year anniversary. The mission had run a bit dry with the leads going nowhere and he had convinced Price to give him two days off to spend with you. The flowers he had bought for you now lay forgotten on the bench in the entryway, freeing his hands for a knife.

He's creeping through the house trying to find you when you dart out of the kitchen, roaring a battle cry, slashing at him. He sidesteps you, narrowly avoiding the second attack and disarming you on the third. Your bread knife and his combat knife clutter to the floor as he presses your back to his chest, arms caging you in. You struggle against him, spitting curses at what you think is an intruder. His blood is roaring with adrenaline and the relief of having you safe in his arms

"Bloody hell love, it's just me." he grunts in your ear as you kick at him, arms pinned to your side. You still in his grasp, vibrating with energy.

"Simon? But you aren't supposed to come back until-"

"Couldn't let you spend our aniversary alone. Didn't expect this greetig though." if you didn't know him as well as you did, you might take the rasp in his voice as annoyance. Luckily, you recognize it from many times spent entangled with each other. That and you can feel him poke your ass.

Gaz

-s h o c k e d

-thinks it's the funniest thing in the world

-will not let it go, teases you forever (lovingly)

The music is blasting when he comes home. He kind of expected you to come running, excited to see him after two month of absence. Then again he supposes you didn't hear the door fall shut over your own singing. He follows the sound to the kitchen, leaning against the doorframe to watch you sing and dance to your favourite music. You are busy whisking batter in a bowl, hips swaying. When he can finally tear his eyes from your ass, he sees your cookbook, the recipe for his favourite cake open.

The soft smile on his lips quickly fades when you decide to twirl with the bowl in your arms, loud singing turning into a startled screech as you spot the man in your kitchen. You hurl the whisk at him quicker than you can recognize him and it plaps harmlessly against his chest. You both stare at each other, deers caught in a headlight, music still blasting. Slowly, he looks down at the stain on his tshirt, meets your eyes again and you both just double over in laughter.

"So I make it the whole deployment without getting hit only to be attacked by my partner..!" Gaz is wheezing with laughter, pulling you into him. You jokingly hit his chest, shaking with your own amusement.

"Stop, you're getting it all over me!" you grin up at him, loosing yourself in the molten brown eyes you know so well.

"Only fair my little assassin." he plants kisses all over your face and you wrap your arms around his neck.

He will tell this story to the team and all of his friends and your friends. He'll bring it up at every family get together too, just to see you blush and squirm.

Price

-sort of reassured that you can defend yourself

-has to comfort you, you feel so guilty

-trains you in self-defense

When Price opens the door to the bedroom, he has no chance to duck away from the book that comes flying at his face. You have the bedside lamp raised over your head, ready to strike the intruder but recognize him in time. The hardcover book you had thrown at him as a distraction had hit his face, a corner digging into his cheek. He's still not quite sure of what happened when you let the lamp fall to the floor and rush at him.

"John! I'm sorry, I thought you were trying to rob me- You're bleeding, I'm so sorry, let's get you fixed-"

You're shaking as you turn his head this and that way, hands gentle against his cheeks. Tears are gathering in your eyes, guilt swallowing you whole. You're trying to drag him to the bathroom where the first aid kit is when he gently cups your face.

"I'm fine love, look at me." all you can see is the drop of blood from the wound you caused. You watch as it seeps into his beard.

"I didn't mean to hit you, but there's been so many break-ins recently and I heard someone creeping through the house and you aren't supposed to be home until-" he cuts you off with a gentle kiss, slightly chapped lips moving against you until you have to part for air. Foreheads pressed together, you marvel at each other.

"You're good. I'm good. Your book might have a few dog ears though." his eyes crinkle when you blink at him all dazed.

The moon is beautiful reblog if you agree

Ace folks are queer. Die mad.

There are still apparently folks (some with genuinely good intentions, some just looking to outrage farm) who don't get why asexual/aromantic folk belong in queer spaces.

I'm ace. So if you keep saying "Someone explain it to me!" here's your explanation, right from the source:

The queer community (at least in my part of the world, yours may be different) is for anyone who doesn't fit into 'standard' cis/hetero norms. Ace people are not attracted to the people we're 'supposed' to be. This often leads to very different values and lived experiences from cultural 'norms.'

It's a different experience than many other LGBTQ+ people have, yes. And it's easier to hide in straight spaces. But it's also easier to hide in straight spaces as a bisexual, cis woman than as a trans woman, or a lesbian woman, or any number of other things. Our camouflage options don't define us, just as they don't define you. You do not become a bush when you put on a ghillie suit. Is my experience different from yours? Probably. BOTH of our experiences may be different from a cis gay man's. That doesn't mean his experiences are invalid, unworthy of support, or not in need of protection.

Exclusionist takes stem from the same attitudes conservatives have about women's clothes. I'm not kidding (and I grew up in that space so @ me at your peril). If a conservative person lived in the 1920's, women shouldn't wear pants. Hardline view right there. But in the 70's and 80's jeans and trousers had become so normalized only the MOST conservative groups had any kind of opinion on them, and nowadays skirt-only groups are even rarer.

Exposure and experience made those garments cultural standards instead of something scary and new.

The same thing happens in all spaces, including queer culture.

Ace/aro folks aren't new to the planet, but we've only gotten any significant attention relatively recently. Because people may have to stop and consider out experiences instead of nodding along and going, "Yes, I know what gay generally means," the natural instinct is to push it away.

Challenge that instinct.

We're a community, not a clone factory. We're supposed to be celebrating diversity this month, not playing Mean Girls and defining our moral superiority by who we exclude.

Yes!! I go on vacation the week around my birthday so I can have my special day where nothing and noone matters but me! Its the best birthdays I can remember (even if it is a bit lonely sometimes but I much prefer that over mandated family meetings or stressing about a party I have to plan). Do it! Do it scared bit do it! If you dont like it, dont do it next year but try it! Personally I usually also go place where I dont have wifi so I can detox from my way to high screentime too. Its amazing I could go on and on and on and on

Let me tell you, I've taken lots of vacations by myself, and I've also taken lots of vacations with other people, and by far vacationing solo is the easiest, most stress-free vacation you can imagine. There's some kind of societal stigma against this. Ignore this. Vacationing by yourself is amazing. There is zero negotiation or compromise. You do exactly what you want to do when you want to do it. You eat whatever you want to eat, whenever you want to eat it. You pursue whatever tourist attraction you want, or none at all. It is the purest release from all obligations and responsibilities. You don't need to worry about whether anyone else is walking faster than you or slower than you and you've lost them in a crowd, did they want to do something different, have you railroaded them into doing what you want to do?

And it's easier to buy solo tickets to things. It's easier to squeeze into crowded bars. Everything about it is just so incredibly relaxing. Don't let society talk you out of it. It's obviously good to socialize and have friends and family who you want to hang out with and see, etc., etc., and it's okay if traveling solo just doesn't appeal to you at all. I'm just saying, I was just on vacation with people, and I had a great time, but we were out to dinner at the hotel restaurant and at the table next to us was a woman by herself having a glass of wine and eating spinach and artichoke dip for dinner while she read a novel and I was just like, honestly, I know that kind of dinner and it's so great lol. If you've ever wondered what it's like to travel solo, it's like that: dip for dinner and a glass of wine and a book lol

Queer 👏 people 👏 are 👏 not 👏 all 👏 fucking 👏 activists 👏

Stop quizzing us on queer history and asking us questions we aren’t qualified to answer about the world and about politics and about our identities

Stop trying to back us into a corner so you can justify your discrimination on the basis that we don’t know what we’re talking about or can’t “defend” ourselves to you

Stop treating every queer person that stands up and says “I want to be treated like a person” as if they’re an activist

Cut that bullshit out

Marginalised people just want to exist and be happy

I don’t know everything, and that doesn’t make me undeserving of your respect or my human rights you fucker

I don’t even owe you the stuff I do know- I still am entitled to basic fucking respect

TLDR; Queer people shouldn’t have to be historians or scientists for you to not be a fucking dick

Imagine 141 moving into a quaint little town post retirement and you’re the only baker in town. You love making sweets, breads, and desserts and own a cute bakery to show for it, know everyone in your town so these four new men who come early morning to try your breakfast deal immediately excite you because- new perspectives and tastes and opinions! It’s become a habit of yours to share bites of whatever new item you plan on adding to the menu, so the more diverse opinions the merrier in your opinion.

And you are glad you didn’t let their demeanor- big gruff men, especially the one with the black surgical mask- scare you away because they are sooo nice, calling you sweetheart, doll, birdie, and bonnie. So many nicknames, it has you blushing the sweetest pink shade. And they are all too happy to help taste-test for you, giving you lots of praise.

(Though you never quite notice their immense disappointment at seeing the little ring on your finger.)

Still, at the very least one of them comes over to your bakery once a day. Sometimes they come together, sometimes only two of them- but they come anyways and tip you every time despite you insisting otherwise. It’s a lovely friendship you build with them. But they do note you never mention your partner much.

Until Simon drops by one day, intent on buying one of your apple pies and maybe fluster you enough to turn the same shade as an apple, and he sees the bruises that peek out just so from your sleeves and the collar of your outfit. Puffy eyes, more makeup than usual, your smile not quite there…

And he understands. He knows this all-too-well. And the fact that it’s happening to an embodiment of sunshine like you? Unfair. Unbelievable. Unacceptable.

Simon gently takes your hands, squeezing them so lightly. “Everything’ll be well, luvie. Promise.” And that’s all he says.

And maybe it’s cruel of you to be happy when you receive a call a few days later, the sherrif of the town telling you your husband was found mauled to death by one of the bears that roam around the woods occasionally, but you just… don’t care.

A week later, when it seems appropriate enough, you open up the bakery again and your smile is blinding as you greet the 141 men and tell them for today, everything’s for free.

Question for the next part

Was playing Stardew Valley last night, extremely high, and realized I wanted to install some mods. I'm not new to modding games but I'd never gotten into modding SV so I went to install SMAPI, and holy shit y'all.

The love and care that was put into designing this piece of sortware. You run it and it pops up a command prompt and *it has instructions for how to use a command prompt built in.*

This is the single friendliest piece of software I've ever encountered. There's a meticulous wiki page with screenshots of exactly what everything looks like, where to click, what to type, everything.

It's designed so literally anybody can do it.

And it's designed to not be scary to somebody who doesn't understand computers very well but wants to download mods for this cute little farming game. Deadass had me crying of the amount of compassion and *care* that a whole community put in to make it so accessible, for free.

Humans are good, actually, and you can't change my mind

[edit] Dang this thing blew up! Got an ask for where to find it to start modding so I wanted to stick it here - if you want to start modding, install SMAPI first! If you know how to extract a compressed (zipped) file, you can most likely handle this.

And if the guides are still a little scary, please ask for help! This game and its modding community are for everyone of all levels of tech literacy. My inbox is open.

Do you have any ways to check in a fanfic is written by AI? I have no trouble detect if a work email is written by AI but when it comes to fanfic, I just can't. English is my second language too. There are a bunch of fics of this one author on Wattpad that when I was reading, it feels weird? A little bit uncanny. I don't want to misunderstand them if it's just a me problem but I also hate everyone using AI to write so I'd appreciate a method or a tool to check. Thank you.

I don't have any solid indicators, however, if it feels off, you're likely noticing something off about the writing. The "em-dash" claim (that AI uses em dashes a lot) isn't really something to rely on.

(A better way to identify AI is an overuse of bullet lists, which, uh, I'm about to do, so here goes.)

Inconsistencies and repetition. This is a tough one right out of the gate, but all writers have a style. There's a turn of phrase, sentence structure, or common words that tend to pop up in their writing again and again. AI, on the other hand, does not stick to a distinctive style. It may repeat the same sentence structure over and over, or seem overly formerly written, especially in dialogue. The longer a document/fic, the more repetitive writing structures you will see.

Lack of depth or subtlety. Do the descriptions feel stilted or odd? Are the metaphors mixed together in a way that doesn't make sense (describing something dark using a comparison to something bright, odd comparisons that you've never heard before, etc)? Does it feel like the emotions are flat and not connecting to the story? All of these things could be things to watch out for.

Perfect grammar. I'm still finding grammatical errors in stories I wrote years ago. No amount of spellcheck will save me from a typo. AI never has that problem, but it also won't use punctuation to make a point (like using commas to indicate a speech pattern).

Updated too damn fast. If someone is uploading thousands of words a day, there's no way they're writing the story themselves. Massive, rapid-fire updates are something to keep an eye out for.

Now, all of these things alone do not indicate someone is using AI. Everyone's written a bad metaphor before, some people are great at grammar, and folks new to writing may have an inconsistent writing style. As you have noticed, speaking English as a second language makes folks overly prone to being flagged as using AI, which is also not helpful.

There's also no perfect AI checker, as most tend to throw up false positives. But the longer the story, the more indicators will pop up. Scenes might get repetitive, or sex scenes start to feel the same.

I also, unfortunately, don't have any advice for what to do if you feel like AI is being used to write fanfiction. You certainly don't want to falsely accuse someone of using it publicly (though I'd reach out to friends to see if they have the same suspicions). Ultimately, the best case scenario is that people will identify when they use AI (there's a whole tag for it on AO3), but I don't know how common that will become. In a pinch, when I suspect something has been plagiarized or written by AI, I shift the writer to my "do not read" pile and move on.