#<- true rambling this is a multi-paragraph essay

[aetherive]

Hhhhhhhhhh

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

-amalgam, right before z goes to sleep.

I was told by Equinox this means I get to ramble about a topic to my heart's consent

Each one of us in this polyplex has some specific character city, and/or nation that they enjoy working on in our "shared" worldbuilding project (it more acts like how the SCP foundation works with just hundreds of people adding and building upon others works) and me personally? It's this one city in southern Eosa called "The Maw".

Now, The Maw first came to us in a dream. Why? Still unsure. But it's basically just a regular desert-based city except a humongous fucking- cave? diety? is partially consuming this city. Like, imagine a city and a giant whale shark decided to pop up from the sand and eat the city, but it only managed to get around a third of the city in its mouth before it was stopped in time and turned into some sandstone-like material. The story on how this big mouth-cave thing is still debated on but most either believe its a diety or just a weirdly formed cave

The folks with more money and wealth available to them live inside the general mouth of the cave, primarily because they have more protection from the sun and dust storms. Although, it's not recommended you live too far in the mouth as there's a good chance that your entire house could just. Disappear one day

Not even go down the throat of the cave it just disappears lol

The "throat" of the cave is also just a straight drop down. Like imagine normal human(oid) digestive tracts like, the esophagus is a straight drop down, correct? It's like that. No one really knows what's down at the bottom of the throat as it goes pretty far, and they don't have the resources to make it down and all the way back up again just yet

Another funny quirk about The Maw is that its home to a fungus that essentially, eats you alive. I don't know how fungi work YET but imagine something similar to Ophiocordyceps unilateralis with a little bit of chytrid fungus mixed in. Very nice fungus ^-^

The Maw also functions on groundwater. There is this pretty large series of underground lakes below the city and to the right a little bit, they aren't really considerate with how much water they use since they thought "oh this groundwater source is pretty big we don't have to be mindful of our water usage for a while lol" <- this mindset would later be the cause of a crisis where they realize that the groundwater size is in fact less than they originally thought and they got scared that they might drain all of the water

And this fear would push them into exploring into the throat of the cave for rumors that there's more water in there but they have to confirm it first SO they would send expedition team #1 and when #1 doesn't come back they send in expedition team #2 and if we were to make a story about this the story would follow expedition team #2 as they explore the caves of the Maw

I would say more about this but its 3am and apparently even insomniacs need to sleep at some point /lh

[disasterdemi]

Mmmmmm I’m getting the “most mainstream definitions of aromanticism are actually incorrect or not inclusive” itch again...

(This post was very unplanned and quite possibly rambly - apologies in advance.)

This is from a government-endorsed website in my country:

Aromantic/aro: refers to individuals who do not experience romantic attraction. Aromantic individuals may or may not identify as asexual.

Asexual/ace: a sexual orientation that reflects little to no sexual attraction, either within or outside relationships. People who identify as asexual can still experience romantic attraction across the sexuality continuum. While asexual people do not experience sexual attraction, this does not necessarily imply a lack of libido or sex drive.

First of all, a bit of inconsistency with the “little to no” - good to see it on asexual, but it should be there for aro too. Secondly, there’s a big difference in the detail of info there, even though much of it could be easily cross-applied. Thirdly, and linked to my next point, note “may or may not identify as asexual” vs “can experience romantic attraction” - it is clear, if perhaps unintentional, through the explicit naming of the asexual label that aromanticism is being defined around asexuality here to some extent. Word choice is important pals.

This issue is prominent in many mainstream definitions of arospec labels I’ve come across. They often say in the first or second sentence: “derived as a romantic parallel to [ace-spec label]” - which certainly bothers me as an allo-aro. This information can be etymologically important, but in that case it should be in the etymology or history section of an article/info sheet. We don’t see things like “Bisexual: attraction to two or more genders, derived as a multi-gender equivalent to homosexual.” (Disclaimer: I don’t actually know if that’s how the term originated)

And then there are the more obvious oversimplifications (which exclude a lot of aros) like “aromanticism is defined by a lack of romantic attraction” and “aromantic people are those who do not desire romantic relationships”

Continued under the cut:

And the classic: “But many aros are still capable of feeling [non-romantic] love!!!” which, while true, is usually placed right after the definition in a poorly-hidden attempt to appease assimilationists. And there is either no discussion of loveless, aplatonic, non-amorous, or having an otherwise-complicated relationship with the notion of love, aros at all, or, at most, it is an afterthought at the end of the paragraph. And sure, I might experience love - I might even experience romantic love as a demiromantic - but I don’t want that to be the important thing about my aromanticism. It’s not a hole that needs to be filled (but that’s a post for another day).

Now you might say, “But disasterdemi, isn’t it important to condense and simplify information to reach more people?”

Of course! We can’t - and honestly shouldn’t have to - give a full-on lecture to every person we meet, and small amounts of info are more easily transmitted (I say, in my essay-length post). But guess what? Here’s a neat 5-word introduction phrase: “little to no romantic attraction” - sure, it lacks some nuance, but it covers greyromantics, doesn’t centre around sexuality, and doesn’t equate it with desire or action regarding romance.

There’s also uhhh no wikipedia page (you know, the first website most people go to when googling something they don’t know) for aromanticism - just a section on the “Romantic Attraction” page, and... well... just read the first few sentences yourself: (emphasis mine)

Aromantic: No romantic attraction towards anyone

One of the attributes of aromantic people is that, despite feeling no romantic attraction, they may still enjoy sex. Aromantic people are not incapable of feeling love; for example, they will still feel familial love, or the type of platonic love that is expressed between friends.

big yikes for my loveless and aplatonic comrades, and another example of jumping straight from a (very brief and narrow) definition to the relationship between aromanticism and sexuality. Also a couple of semantic nuance issues there... (“despite” doesn’t feel great).

I’m not really sure what to do about all this, to be honest. I hate the idea of my identity being misunderstood (and questioning aros being misinformed), but it feels overwhelming - the idea of trying to educate so many people about an oft-neglected identity. Particularly since we don’t have many large, established community networks around the world and off the internet to reach more people with.

Perhaps we just take small steps, chipping away by educating and correcting those around us when we have the energy, and by boosting other aro voices.

(Maybe I’ll lurk on some wiki pages while I’m still on this roll)

*sighs in aromantic frustration*

[epersonae]

fic author meme

tagged by @emi--rose - thanks friendo!

your name: I’ve gone by epersonae online for so long it might as well be an alternate legal name; my actual name is Elaine.

fandoms you write for: The Adventure Zone: Balance, although I am noodling on an Amnesty fic.

where you post: anything longer than a few paragraphs goes on AO3.

most popular one shot: here’s a weird thing: I have a lot of separate fics that are all part of the same continuity, so I’m not sure when something is a “one shot,” exactly. That said, the most popular stand-alone is ofc the one bit of smut that I haven’t locked to registered users only, also my very first smut, which means the very first magcretia smut that ever existed. The next after that is actually a true one-shot, a collaboration of sorts with @anonymousalchemist and @ruffboijuliaburnsides and also the darkest thing I’ve literally ever written: Phoenix Fire.

most popular multi chapter story: The Reckoning Arrives, which makes me happy, because this collaboration with @tarkesians is I think the best thing I’ve written in any format. (Including published poetry and essays that I got paid for.) Most popular solo multi-chapter is The Woman Who Wasn't There, an AU in which Julia survives Ravens Roost and joins the Bureau of Balance with Magnus and the boys.

favorite story you’ve written: It sounds ridiculous, but I’ve written so many stories (see below) that “favorite” changes a lot. (With the exception of Reckoning, ofc.) Literally every time I skim through, or get a kudos email, I go “oh, right, I forgot about that one!” But in particular, I still have a soft spot for Friends for Life, which in a lot of ways was the culmination of a particular narrative arc.

story you were nervous to post: I remember being really freaked out about posting some of that early smut, the combination of sharing porn and posting a ship that literally no one had ever written anything for. I didn’t have a fandom community; I was just a person reading who’d been inspired to write, and it was kind of scary. (Shoutout to Katie, whose current URL I don’t remember, for beta-ing Untied, Undone.)

do you outline: hardly lol. I think Reckoning had the most, and it was more like a series of running notes between the two of us. (which is funny because the one time I finished Nanowrimo, I outlined like crazy)

how many of your stories are complete: AO3 says I’ve posted 142 works, and all but four are done.

how many of your stories are in progress: [stares into space] [blink blink blink] seriously? I have so many WIP to bounce between, although the top two lately have been the one under “coming soon” and the one thing not in my Balance continuity: the Amnesty fic that I’ve been calling Kepler Teenage Wasteland, which centers on Duck, Juno Divine, and Sarah Drake as teenagers in the 90s.

coming soon: the final postscript to Reckoning, which is a long rambling multi-part beach vacation fic that we’ve been working on for a while now. I’m not sure how soon, but soon.

do you accept prompts?: yes! sometimes I’m slow, sometimes it doesn’t quite come together, but prompts are often just the thing to get me going.

upcoming story you’re most excited to write: I’m pretty jazzed about Kepler Teenage Wasteland. [honestly, I’ve been taking a break from writing the last few weeks, with other life stuff, and just answering these questions gets me thinking about lots of other stories I kinda want to get back to now!]

tagging: @androidsfighting, @owlinaminor, @nekosd43, and anyone else who wants to play along!

[dillydedalus]

books i read in july

i stole this format from @berlincorpography and i’m doing it kinda early bc i just started a longer book that i won’t finish today - anyway here’s what i read in july

open city, teju cole (uni) i appreciate what this book is doing as a contemporary postcolonial immigrant take on the flâneur and i know the irritation i felt was all intentional  but it’s still annoying!!! also i don’t think the twist really works and the way it’s used just made me super uncomfortable. 3/5 

the complete stories, agnes owens i mentioned this one in my midyear wrap-up already but like it is just too dreary and bleak and eventually i couldn’t stand it anymore. i think a ‘selected stories’ would have been much better, because some of them are really good - horrible people, dark humour, sharp wit - ‘arabella’ is brilliant. 2/5

the city of brass, s.a. chakraborty (daevabad #1) this is a YA-ish fantasy novel set partly in ottoman cairo and partly in the city of the djinn (daevabad). the protag is a con-artist (!!!) in cairo who has some ~mysterious powers accidentally summons a mean hawt djinn and there’s djinn politics and court intrigue and all that fun stuff. i had fun but it has all the YA Fantasy Tropes Ever to a slightly ridiculous effect. plus the love story goes from Making Out With the Hot Magical Dude Who Kinda Maybe Abducted You, which is incredibly #valid, to ~doomed true love, which. whatever. 2.5/5 might continue the series

do not say we have nothing, madeleine thien a family history in 20th century china - it was interesting bc i haven’t read much lit set in china but i didn’t rly connect with the characters and it was just Too Damn Long. 3/5

wir sind ja nicht zum spaß hier, deniz yücel deniz yücel is a german journalist who was imprisoned under no/bogus charges for about a year in turkey and was only recently released. this is a collection of some of his best texts plus his prison writing. really like his writing & perspective and i would personally fistfight erdoğan and the whole entire afd for his honour so meet me in the pit i guess. 4/5 #deutschlandschaffdichab

not that bad: dispatched from rape culture, various authors, edited by roxane gay a collection of essays on rape culture - most of them of a personal/testimonial nature. i think i expected (and would have preferred) a more analytical approach bc in my Personal SexTrauma Recovery i’m just at a point where reading about other people’s experiences over & over doesn’t do me much good. but that is obvi personal. no rating

love, hate and other filters, samira ahmed kind of cute and it gets better when it adresses islamophobia, but the romance is VERY cringe and gets way too much time devoted to it. plus the writing is often really awkward and i found the character kind of... unbelievable in how she reacts to things emotionally. eh. 2/5

spinning silver, naomi novik AAAAAAAAH. as i have mentioned before, i absolutely adore uprooted, so my hopes were high and overall i loved it & it filled that uprooted-shaped hole in my heart. it’s vaguely based on rumplestilskin, has winter fae with Weird Fae Logic (everything’s a transaction & u better know how to bargain) who are obsessed with gold, a fire demon, and gr8 characters. the protagonist, miryem, is the daughter of a money-lender who’s too kind for his job, and she’s exhausted and hungry and angry (so angry) so she decides fuck this antisemitic piece-of-shit village, and takes over from her father. and she’s really fucking good at collecting debts and at trading, so good that the king of the winter fae challenges her to turn silver into gold for him three times. she’s amazing and sharp and constantly furious and she out-bargains the King of Weird Transactional Fae Logic and i just love her!! (and yes her and her family are explicitly jewish so that’s cool). there are some other pov characters and they’re mostly good but pale in comparison to miryem and i think the plot is a bit overloaded (plus having read this and uprooted i feel like i have some very specific info about naomi novik’s kinks aka abduction seduction) but i enjoyed it a lot and will probably reread it in winter. 4/5 

there there, tommy orange definitely worth reading, important, impactful etc. for me, the multi-perspective structure (12 characters with 2-3 shortish chapters each) didn’t work out entirely; i kind of would have preferred fewer characters and more in-depth depictions of them instead, but this kind of structure is always difficult to pull of well, and i think for some characters it did work. but like, it’s def deserving of the hype and all that. 3.5/5

heißer sommer, uwe timm this is a german novel following a student who becomes involved in the ‘68 student protest movement. it’s an interesting setting & i enjoyed the depiction of the clash between the student’s generation and their parents’ generation - but the clashes within the movement are basically just leftie tumblr discourse but in ‘68. it’s really slow-paced and rambly & there’s a lot of sexism which i thiiiink was an intentional critique of ullrich and the movement but: ugh. 2/5

marat/sade, peter weiss if u like weirdo pomo meta-theatre you’ll probably like this play about a performance of the assassination of french revolutionary marat performed by inmates of an asylum under the direction of the marquis de sade. if you don’t like weirdo pomo meta-theatre you probably rly won’t! 3/5 (it’s also on youtube)

my brilliant friend, elena ferrante (neapolitan #1) complex, relatable & not always likable female characters? genuinely complicated & fraught female friendships that aren’t just ‘catty frenemies lol’? set amid the poverty and hopelessness and violence of post-war naples? good stuff! this one is pretty slow-moving (i’ve heard the later ones are faster-paced) but tbh if knausgaard can write a six-part autobiographical cycle called..... my struggle..... then ferrante should be able to write four novels about stuff that is actually interesting w/o being harrassed about her true identity but apparently not lmao! 3.5/5 (will continue with the series eventually)

assassin’s apprentice, robin hobb (farseer trilogy #1) this is a slow-paced coming-of-age/apprenticeship fantasy story with magical elements and court intrigue - in terms of plot and worldbuilding it’s fairly generic, but it’s well-executed and there are hints of more exciting and unusual things to come. what really won me over were the characters and their relationships and then the finale is really great; also i teared up at the last paragraph so thanks for that robin. i will continue with this trilogy asap (c’mon overdrive) and then maybe go on with the larger realm of the elderlings series (16 books total lol) after a while. 3/5

aaand that’s it for july. i’m currently reading rebecca by daphne du maurier but yeah i won’t finish it today (i will saw tho @ thenarrator look i’m a selfconscious awkward neurotic mess so i can relate but girl you need to chill)

[disarmingly]

fanfic asks (part 1 is here! feel free to send the other numbers tho at this point i lost track im sorry lmfdslfjdskfdskfdlsjl)

2 [ things that motivate you ]

i think this is likely true of most people who make things for public consumption and that's honestly…when people respond to something we make? whether it's a comment or the notes on your bookmark or a message or an ask or a dm on twitter or anything just saying 'hey i read this i liked it' or something in the same vein (more or less a nice thing is a nice thing!) i touched on this with the last set in number 27's answer on the last set.... where i refer to kindnesses as a currency. to be clearer, i write fic to explore ideas for personalities i am already in love with whether characters from an era or canon images or, more likely, a hybridization of the two (plus extrapolations) and also stories/theories that appeal to me but also MEAN a lot to me and in doing so i hope will mean something to others. i write it to connect (i am a broken record but it's what it is isn't it ^^) and sort of see if the way that i think and process can in fact be translated to other people. to see that it can, here and there, is immeasurably important to me. 

i have always wanted to be one of those people who can self-motivate but i find more and more that the truth is i very much look to other peoples' approval and responses, and perhaps that will always be the case, which i suppose means i have to just keep working harder and honing the art as best i can -- give or take. i hold comments close, asks, messages, all of that. i screencap them because i'm afraid the eternal internet will fail me ^^;;; and sometimes people remove t hei r bookmarks or whatnot so like…um i'm glad i screencapped them ^^;;; and there was one twitter convo where the nice thing they said was so far back i couldn't see it anymore ;_; so lol i'm glad i screencapped that too….a-and now u all know i am crazy T////T hahikesduiojklefdsiojk OTL s-seriously though. have i said before i think sometimes people have a natural baseline? i said it in 'below zero' but outside of that i mean…so a good thing a tangible thing when i am below zero (often) ends up being…many things to me. i'm grateful even if i fail to fully harness people's generosity to the extent i ought to.

5 [ since how long do you write? ]

mmm…since i stopped drawing entirely so like hum… /squints/ /rubs chin/ /rubs head/ ahhh like i guess i really started wholly focusing and shifted from visual to verbal in my last year of middle school! ^^;;/ but i wrote fiction primarily at the time because i had a dream of writing a book that would stay with people the way my favorite books have stayed with me. weirdly i am only now able to write narrative for fanfic and otherwise all my original writing is poetry…which is significantly less relatable for people and has such an unforgiving set of standards that i mostly have lost hope for making my way in that area, though i still produce material.

9 [ do you set yourself deadlines? ]

mmm not hard deadlines. i can't trick myself that way per se. but i can trick myself by being like mini deadlines so a paragraph a morning or something of that ilk? i'm very flow-by-flow so hard deadlines are just lolololololol however, i do have friends who work very well within the stricter parameters of a due date; basically your mileage may vary, but for me it works best to say: try to have something complete by the end of a 30 day period, and then to adjust along the way i.e. i clearly won't have this done by 30 days at least get the first draft done. etc. OTL i'm so wishy washy ;_;

36 [ one-shot or multi-chaptered story? ]

NERVOUS LAUGHTER RUBS MY EYES uiojrlekfsdiok i do better when i do one-shots i am like shudders at my multi-chapter ideas but fall down lightly began more as a vignette series and oops got a narrative in real time my MISTAKE because i know everything that happens but have basically made myself so nervous about it i've been staring at the next real chapter for five thousand years. it just doesn't seem good enough ;_; lololol so for the sake of not releasing something that is a waste of time for other people to look at i….haven't. it's a verse i love and i want to complete because I KNOW HOW IT ENDS LMFALKFJD and even what happens along the way but like lololol /stares at my hands unhappily/ ljldskjfs ah well anyway though one-shot i do trust myself more with. because when it's done/posted? it's done. barring revisions ^^;; (and typos T_T;;;)

39 [ do you want to be published some day? ]

the dream ;_; ah. i don't delude myself thinking i could ever make money doing what is most important to me…poetry is not largely a money making facet of the writing industry and even the ones that are real jobs aren't very um…whatchacallit um……huh….productive money wise? not that that should be my focus but i always dreamt if i made a lot of money i could give people lots of things and stuff…which…i always wanted to do… 

._.;;; i digress. but like to get poetry published would be nice. to be accepted a little in that way would be nice. but even honestly if i started releasing it online and people liked it that would be enough for me at this point. i had a teacher who once said to me: your real strength lies in essay writing, you should change your track. and it has been hurting me ever since haha. i don't like writing essays. i HATE it. same goes for journalism. all of which i avoided despite being told 'it's what you're good at'….i …is it weird to say poetry is what i love even if i don't love my own writing? i want my writing to be better and i'll try to keep doing it regardless but that really…ah it's funny how one thing can be a shadow isn't it? long answer OTL I apologize ;_; but like…so yes. i would love it. it feels impossible but … it would be….it would be nice.

42 [ do you plan or do you write whatever comes to your mind? ]

i do both. it depends on the story. sometimes it is literally both for one story and sometimes i run out the gate with the exactitudes and it is what i think it will be (mostly). save me was a combination. follow was precisely as i planned it and so was sidereal. fall down lightly i know the exacts of what happens but not how i want to convey them so there's that. this time around i knew exactly. time and again i had all down in notes so i do know what happens but again not how i verbalize. call and answer was PAINSTAKINGLY planned help me lmdlskfdsj…..as was so far away. dearly beloved was a moment, begin was inspired and stream of consciousness -- as was one thing and balancing act. ;; i'm not very one or the other i suppose…. T////T

44 [ do you write linear or do you write future scenes if you feel like it? ]

like 42 i am both. it depends. i wrote save me as you read it but i literally hop around time within it so i'm not sure if question means that or if i write it all out linearly first??? in which case no??? but only because weirdly if i plan to hop around in time for a story it's best if i do so in real-time as i write it or i lose the rhythm i wanted to actualize for the story's feeling and resolution/end-point. i have notes all of the time too about things i haven't paragraphed out so like…if that is part of the answer….

47 [ how many unfinished ideas/stories are you working on at the same time? ]

o_o;;;; w-well my drafts folder is divided into two parts -- one is complete drafts that need looking at again and one is unfinished works entirely, if you want the final headcount of both it's lolololol

71

rest in pieces me….

._. nowaskmehowmanyaresugakookie lmfdslkjfs no don't. mostofthem. andsomenamkook. lolololol…….helpme…

as with the first asks, thank you for reading. thanks for talking to me and taking an interest. i feel boring and anxious and very sporadic and like too weird/???? like really awkward lame???? but i do like talking about writing...even if i feel...also rambling rambling rambling.....granted these were shorter bc i wanted to do them before i had to run ^^;;;  if any of them need elaboration i can be clearer!!! a-anyway /shoves paper bag over my own head/ …./w-waves gratefully as scurries to the train!!!!…..

also gosh i might've taken too long but …butterfly anon….your message…has been helping me survive this week…ah…i replied longer to your message in a previous post but like.../mentions again…. T_T;;; it's been really….hard…haha…so thank you t_t