#{i mean IF i was going to write a book it WOULD probably be about kim and kole (mostly kim tbh)'s stories or ethan (and mabel by default)-}

[rosecentaur1916]

The irony is that I kind of had this happen. I worked at a Small Tobacco Shop in my home town for less than a year. The owners also own a party shop on the other side of town so that's why I said kind of... anyway! I had worked for them for 11 months or so and over that time even though it was decent pay (took a little over $600 home every two weeks back in 2018) they gave me a ride home every night (I had to walk everywhere as I had no car or even a license), and sometimes let me comp my cigarettes (I quit in 2020) they were mentally and emotionally abusive. So much so my direct manager, who was the youngest brother was so mentally and emotionally abusive to me a customer came in and asked if he had hit me! When that happened I knew something was wrong. I mean, I had a feeling when I'd have to close up the shop and go have a cry in the bathroom pretending I was using it. I was the only one running the store, but they had surveillance camera's up and would call me if they found any shoplifters (which price of anything that was shoplifted came out of my pay) or I was doing something I shouldn't be, which was barely anything. I was so bored because I had come from a small box pharmacy chain and was used to facing and cleaning quickly. I had gotten so fast at it that I had lots of time to spare and had seen in other small businesses that people read books or wrote or did a myriad of things between customers when the shop was empty. So, I started to read at first - got in trouble... so I couldn't do that anymore. Then I tried writing... had to negotiate to be able to keep that... it worked. Thank God... so I wrote. I wrote a lot. When I didn't have anything in my mind that needed to be written I started to do little exercises to keep the boredom at bay. Got in trouble for that too.

Yes, yes what about professionalism. Exercising, writing or reading in store isn't professional blah, blah, blah. I only did it between customers and when the story was emptier than a ghost town. I'd keep an eye out on the front of the store. There were so many advertisements for cigarettes you could barely see into the store, but I had gotten sharp at being able to see through the cracks when a customer was coming and made sure to make myself available, presentable and professional before they came in. Putting down my pen, or shoving my book under the counter. All of the abuse and boredom came to a head and I couldn't take it anymore. I was so beaten down that I could barely function at home... where I was *also* being abused. Something had to give - so I quit the job. My boss had the audacity to tell me I couldn't quit. He tried to give me back my professional quitting letter and tell me that I couldn't quit. I said okay, and never went back. Leaving behind a refurbished first generation iPod that he said later he threw away. Asshole. Lo and behold about six months later the Tobacco Shop was completely closed, storefront completely empty and every single part of the counter, displays and product stuffed into the party shop which was their first business. I had quit and the shop had gone out of business. I was astounded, because that means they couldn't find anyone else to work for them. I didn't know they were probably going to be unable to find anyone else, I just couldn't take the abuse anymore and quit for my own mental health. ...And that's the story of how I shut down a business by quitting.🤷🏻‍♀️💜

[atsadi-shenanigans]

A Misuse of Potions 2 - Invisibility

In which I write probably my most demented smut so far. Predator/prey. Buckle up, friends and enemies, cause that man gets REAL WEIRD in this one. Full-force Creachur Astarion.

On Ao3.

On the third day of Eleint, she comes to him. Her dark eyes are warm, her limbs loose, and he doesn’t even have to scent the air to know what’s going on between her legs.

“Would now be a good time?” she says.

Always, he wants to say, though that’s not always true. Sometimes, even now, the memories seep in and it’s all he can do not to shred his own skin with his claws.

But this is not one of those times. This is the third day of Eleint, his Eleanor has a glint to her eye, and they’ve discussed this subject at length.

Astarion snaps his book shut and lets it drop to the floor. Rolls to his feet to sweep her into his embrace and buries his face against her neck to breathe her in, slow and deep.

Warmth, life. Salt and clean.

Moon blood.

“There’s nothing I’d like more,” he says and means it. Can tell in her gaze she sees the truth of it.

They’ve planned for this. Extensively. His Eleanor does love her planning. She’s quite prepared.

He’s not even surprised when he follows her upstairs to their bedroom, and she pulls a pack from their wardrobe. Removes the items within and inventories them on the bed. He takes a small, velvet pouch she holds out, and his groin is already starting to tighten. From her scent, of course, and from what he knows this pouch will lead to.

She goes over The Plan again. They both need to be certain, after all. There’s not much on his end; neither of them expect much on his end once they start, save for her words “red light.” She’s used them before; by now they’re both comfortable with it and what comes after, even if it sometimes makes his guts squirm.

No pain follows it, though. Not ever. Not after red light, not after cub. Sometimes they resume, and sometimes they just…stop. Hold each other. Dress and move to the lounge. Sometimes she’ll get herself a bite to eat, and sometimes she’ll give him her wrist or her neck when he needs it.

She dressed carefully, this night, from an outfit she had folded in that pack. It’s cheap material. Far too flimsy for road travel, but it’s meant to be cheap, and he watches her slip the layers on and his cock begins to fill in earnest.

She does not wear her moon blood belt. She does not tuck rags into her trousers (her face flushes adorably as she slips nothing but a single pair of panties on, followed by said trousers).

He has to lean against the wall and keep his arms crossed. His own trousers become uncomfortable.

She notices that. Of course she does. Gives him a little smile, the minx.

“Ready?” she says.

He wants to push her to the floor and spread her legs and—

He steps away from the wall. “Very, my love.”

The teleportation spell is not his favorite, even if it is useful. For this, though, he swallows down his complaints (he’ll be swallowing down much more pleasant things tonight), and a moment later, they step onto soft grass.

It’s a lonely patch of woods. Or as lonely as any patch of untended woods can be. They’d scouted it some months back, when passing near the Bear’s newest little enclave. No one lives out here. No guards, no gaggles. No one to get the wrong idea or try to do something stupid and ruin the night for all involved.

There’s also no goblins or worgs or other worrisome beasts. Just the bunnies and other snacks.

The late summer heat clings to the air, but the wind already sweeps a soothing chill over his face. His Eleanor glances about, her poor, human ears straining, and looks to him.

“We’re all alone,” he says.

His fangs ache. The beds of his nails tingle as his claws threaten to sharpen. Alone out here, in the wilds, with her.

They look at each other for a long moment. He lets himself enjoy the way the silver moonlight—nearly full, lucky him—paints over her skin, sinks into her dark hair.

“You sure about your getup?” she says.

He’s wearing his home clothes, the ones he was loafing about it: a loose tunic tucked into his trousers. He hadn’t thought to change. Had only grabbed his city shoes while trying to adjust himself in his underthings.

He waves her off. “I can replace it.”

Gives her an appreciative sweep. She put on a light jacket and a pair of stays, as she would need the support. At least initially. But they’re the most basic pair she owns. Easy to mend. Or replace, should he get a little…rough.

Most of all, his gaze is drawn to the juncture of her thighs, and the small, dark patch just beginning to show itself.

He’s scenting the air, isn’t he.

He slips the velvet pouch from his pocket. It’s a small thing. Light. Holds only two, delicate golden ear cuffs, which spill into his palm as he tips it.

He slides the first one up, halfway between the lobe and the point. His Eleanor licks her lips like a degenerate. He’d had the initial idea for this outing, but she’d leapt on it, proposed all of these additions.

The other cuff pinches on his other ear. They’re rather plain, with only the hint of swirled knot work along the sides. But they warm his ears as he speaks the activation. The magic sinks into them and spreads like warm fingers (hers) over his ears.

Until the world muffles itself. The racing rodent hearts disappear. The thunderous pulse of his love fades to nothing. He flails in his mind a moment—not used to this, danger, if he can’t hear, if he’s trapped in silence again—

“Still okay?”

He catches her voice. He can focus on that. He’s deafened as an elf. As a vampire. But they tested these on her, and she notices no difference.

“You poor thing,” he says, because she has to live like this, in such a dim and dull world all the time.

She flips him off. Unfortunately for her, he’s close enough to snap at the offending finger. Slowly, of course. Gives her ample time to pull away and snort. Which makes him want to kiss her.

So he does. Luxuriates in her hot mouth, the slide of her tongue, her scent and that heavy, heady ambrosia of her moon blood.

Gods, he’s glad she doesn’t mind letting him feast upon her like this. He tries to remember the feel of his life before this, before the beach and the tadpoles, and he cannot fathom existing so long without this. Without her.

But before he can be carried away, his Eleanor takes a step back. Her cheeks are flushed. Neck reddened down to where her skin disappears beneath her light jacket and stays and under tunic. Her eyes are pools of heat, her lips already swollen.

Her moon blood—when not crippling her in pain—can sometimes spike her desire. This appears to be one of those times (gods below, there’s a damp spot high on his thigh where he’s already leaking).

She retrieves a bottle from the pack she’s secured to her person. Liquid silver sparkles in the moonlight. His nail beds tingle hard and this time he cannot stop the claws from forming.

“You’re sure?” he says.

His delightful contradiction, no longer a virgin but having lost none of her hidden boldness, only says, “Close your eyes.”

He does.

A year or two ago, he wouldn’t have. Blindness meant vulnerability. Meant unseen blows to unprotected places. Meant clawing starvation hollowing his guts and drying out his flesh, his throat so withered he could barely produce a sound that wasn’t a deathly, rattling click.

Now, as he obeys, a shudder of anticipation shivers down his spine.

He can just hear her uncork the bottle. Cannot hear her swallowing, or the air in her lungs, or the way he imagines her own heart races in lust and anticipation.

Nor can he hear her shift closer. Not until the rustle of fabric reaches him, right in front of him. And the scent of her blood suddenly surges. His lips part as he gasps, and his demented little love sticks two, wet fingers into his mouth and the taste blinds him to anything else.

“Trackers need a sample scent, right?” she says.

She’s stuck her hand down her trousers. She’s smeared his lips and tongue with her blood. Lets him suckle desperately a moment before she steps away, and he’s left to wipe his mouth to ensure no drop escapes.

“You are utterly deranged,” he says.

“Pot kettle,” she says, another of her people’s charming sayings.

She falls silent after that. Astarion keeps his eyes closed, searching the spaces between his teeth with his tongue for any last hints of her.

“Darling?” he says after a moment.

No answer.

His cock throbs. His claws fully extend, his fangs aching.

He counts to forty three times. Opens his eyes.

He’s alone. The clearing is empty, with no trace of his darling. Nothing but her scent floating in the air, an invitation to him.

He nudges the empty bottle she left at his feet. It’s not like her to waste anything. Which means this is a taunt. The cuffs deafen his ears to her, a potion of invisibility blinds his eyes to her. All he has to track her is scent. Her skin, her hair, and the dizzying harpy song of one of his most favorite things: her blood.

He has one job. Well, two, but they’re the same in the end.

Track her. Hunt her. Capture her.

And take her. Any way he sees fit (that they’ve discussed, and she was quite open). Her blood, her body, her sex. She’ll try to evade him. But he will find her. He’ll plunge into her, first with his fangs, then with his cock. Or perhaps the other way around. Perhaps both at the same time. He’s not sure. Didn’t bother to plan that far, because that’s what she likes to do.

He sucks air deep into his lungs: plush grass (her plush thighs on his hips), damp earth (her wet cunt pulling him in), the almost sweet smell of late-summer leaves (her arousal thick as he slips his tongue against her).

There she is. Headed immediately for the thickest part of the underbrush. Hoping to hide her tracks, hide her trail, slow him down.

He imagines her crouched behind a tree. The startle as he grabs her, spins her, pressing her to that tree and the way she’d moan as he slipped inside her…

He reaches into his undergarments and adjusts his cock. Running like this won’t be fun, but it’ll be so, so worth it once he finds his devious darling.

He stops at the edge of the underbrush. Looks to the closest tree: a large oak. They’re all large, with wide, thick branches nearly touching.

Astarion ponders a moment, and then slips off his shoes. He doesn’t technically need to, but it seems the sort of thing to do.

Sets his bare foot on the rough bark, and scurries right up the side of the trunk into the canopy above.

Brush doesn’t matter to a godsdamned immortal vampire, after all.

***

The rest is on AO3 because I wrote like 14k for this, goddamn, and also for the horny.

[wukyma]

I'm very curious about your Posepoli AU if you are OK with sharing facts about it ? Maybe what you have in mind? Or what Poseidon have in mind withvhis proposition 🤔 I can't only imagine the crew reaction

Also I'm in absolute love with your art ! The way you color? Your Odysseus ? Incredible. Make me think about fairy tales book illustrations you know ? And don't let go on your design of Poseidon ? He look so cold and distanced, it's actually genius!

Oh, thank you so much 💖 It means a lot! I loved illustrated fairytales as a kid and had a similar book of Greek myths, so that's probably where the style comes from, hehe

As for the AU... I lied shamelessly in the other post and speedran through coloring the panels and imma show y'all everything today!

If you haven't seen the previous one go check it out first

SO, Polites lives. But now he has to cope with the consequences of their recklessness,,

⬇️⬇️⬇️ cut because yapping again

The wind bag gets opened, and they're faced with Poseidon seeking revenge,,

Odysseus' apology isn't accepted (who even apologizes like that??), but Poseidon doesn't get to strike him —

Polites steps in and asks for them to be spared.

The god almost laughs in his face because that's an utterly ridiculous attempt, but decides that there's no harm in amusing himself a bit. Yet, no matter what Poseidon thinks about the man and how much he despises his ideals,, Polites is very different from most mortals he met, with his unshakeable belief in a better world (that realization happens much later in the plot, at the moment he's just pissed off)

So, yeah. Poseidon gives them a challenge: if they find another way around the storm, continue their journey without harming or killing (as per Poli's ideology), and get home, he will spare everyone, even Odysseus. The one who's formally "responsible" for holding up their end of the deal is still Polites, and he gets a kind of seal/tattoo as proof that neither side will go against the terms (yay ✨️aesthetics ✨️)

Forgot to mention: the whole crew is alive — 600 men making their way to Ithaca!

Next stop would be Circe's island,,, guess who will become besties? Ehehwhe

Things I believe are important to mention:

Poseidon REALLY doesn't like Polites in this AU (well,, for now) and wants to see him fail, then drown the fleet and be done with it

His main motivation here wouldn't be to avenge Polyphemus, but to prove that Polites is wrong (same as with Odysseus, but more intense)

Get ready for tons of mockery in the next part ( ；∀；)

I headcanon (not just in this AU but in general) that Polites, Perimedes, and Elpenor are also very close friends!

Odysseus is oblivious about Poli's feelings towards him (dude is mole-blind when it comes to that), but Eurylochus knows

Umm, so that's it for now! See y'all next time, because telling things without throwing pictures in seems meh... However, that's up to you, too. I can continue as it is and draw the scenes you'd like to see and/or choose later :3 Just write how u think would be more okayish i guess??

Bonus thing: congrats on reading till the end lol. there is one inconsistency in the comic above. at the sketch stage I flipped 3 of these panels, and they don't match with the other ones (seen in the details) first one to guess (say the nr order, idc) gets to request ANYTHING epic‐related from me :D

[ryuichirou]

TWST boys’ sleeping habits and routine HCs

Our first HC post of the year! Let’s talk about TWST boys’ sleeping habits.

Anonymous asked:

May I request sleep habits for twst? Who snore? Who drools? Who clings onto you in your sleep? Who falls out of bed w/o waking up? Who knocks others out of bed? Who has a constant sleep schedule? Who has the worst? Who likes to share a bed? Who doesn't? Who does no one want to share a bed with?

Anonymous asked:

In honor of the sleepover bday card (Tysm for these, yana) do you have any hcs about their sleeping habits? How long they sleep, sleeping positions, any bedtime routines and the like?

I got the first ask back in autumn I think (yikes), and with each new bday card I kept thinking “I really should write this one faster” lol With the new theme for those cards, as amazing as it is (we’re obsessed), there is a chance that they might drop some crucial information about the topic of this post! Which would mean the most horrible thing – there is a chance that my hc might contradict canon…!! 😱

Jokes aside, please keep in mind that I write them without diving into the new cards. Which is exactly the point I guess – those are headcanons after all…

Thank you for this prompt, it was a very fun one to write, and I hope you enjoy reading it <3 Sorry it took so long!

Anyways…

Riddle – he has a pretty strict regimen, and just like some other boys in the cast, he gets very obviously sleepy around the same time every day. The cutest eepiest slow blinks… He goes to sleep pretty early, maybe around 10 PM, and he is very strict with others in that regard as well, but in actuality sometimes night becomes his opportunity for a “me time” when he can get a little self-indulgent and read a book instead. He knows that he shouldn’t do it, and that he’ll be tired and irritable the next day, but it would be a lie to say that Riddle absolutely never does that. Once he discovers books that aren’t encyclopedias or study guides, he’ll start doing it more often… He also looks like an angel when he sleeps! And he drools a little bit, but also pouts adorably. He also loves pushing his face against the pillow sometimes and hugging it. He’d probably cuddle or press his cheek against someone if he got to sleep with another person…

Ace – a fighter, not a lover. If he sleeps with someone, he’ll steal both the blanket and the second pillow somehow. He’ll also kick and punch and occasionally even nibble a little, just to drool all over the other person and/or a pillow. But also, he wakes up during the night a lot. It’s not like he has insomnia, but sometimes he finds it difficult to fall back asleep, so he ends up just hanging out, scrolling internet on his phone and watching his roommates sleep. Well, mostly Deuce, because his bed is the closest. And even though Ace himself is a pretty obnoxious sleeper, sometimes he can spend like an hour just giggling at poor Deuce… Jokes on Ace though: because of his sleepless shenanigans he hates waking up! He is never rested enough..!

Deuce – he mumbles in his sleep and moves a little… you know when a dog starts suddenly whining and “running” while sleeping because it dreams of chasing someone? That’s Deuce. He is not too active at night, but Ace saw him punching the air once and saying something like “serves you right”, and Ace had to bite his own hand not to laugh loudly waking everyone up. Deuce also says embarrassing stuff sometimes. He also called Ace an idiot in his sleep at least 5 times. He wakes himself up doing that sometimes, but pretty rarely. When he does though, he usually sits up on his bed and takes a couple of moments to figure out what’s going on. Ace loves talking with him when he is in this confused stage…

Trey – he probably falls asleep pretty fast because he gets tired by the end of his busy days. But he never really feels properly rested, even though he sleeps a normal amount of hours… is it because he sleeps on his stomach? He also looks kind of angry when he’s sleeping, as if he’s seeing some very bad dreams. But he never really remembers them when he wakes up, maybe he doesn’t see any bad dreams at all! But it’s not unusual for him to frown and squeeze a pillow or a blanket in a very tight grip while he’s sleeping. He also doesn’t really snore, but sighs every now and then, so a potential roommate might hear a very deep annoyed and disappointed sigh from Trey, only to look at him and see that he’s just sleeping… If he was to sleep with someone though, he’d probably have a hard time relaxing and would wait until the person is asleep. Especially if it’s Riddle.

Cater – he spends the majority of the night in his phone lol he doesn’t even have much to do there, he just scrolls through Magicam or watches videos on topics he isn’t really interested in. And he is sleepy when he does that, he recognises that he should probably go to sleep already, but he can’t quite beat this habit, so he just keeps sleeping for like 3-5 hours a day. He wouldn’t do it if he had someone to sleep with though! Or at least he thinks that, but he’d probably still spend the majority of the night chatting with the person instead lol For now he gets away with it because he snoozes during the classes, but whenever he hears someone talk about how bad it is for your health to cling to your phone instead of sleeping, he gets mildly annoyed.

Leona – a pretty seamless transition between his “just napping” and “sleeping” lol Sometimes he naps after dinner and then at some point it becomes “well it’s night already anyways so might as well go to sleep”. And then he wakes up during the night and walks around his dorm while everyone’s asleep… and goes right back because he is pretty bored, and there isn’t much to do. He changes his positions a lot throughout the night, but usually ends up sleeping on his back – it’s the most comfortable position to him. It’s not unusual to see him sleeping on his side facing the wall, or on his stomach with his butt in the air for some reason. Leona is a pretty quiet sleeper, but sometimes he makes little sniffing sounds. Sometimes he makes one (1) snore and wakes himself up and looks shook for a moment or two. He also calls himself a capricious prince, but sometimes he actually prefers to sleep on the floor. Not all the time though, he loves his bed as well. He also hates the idea of sleeping with someone, but it’s not like he would bother to wake up and tell the other person to leave if he was in this situation.

Ruggie – if he is in a very good mood, well-fed and comfortable and safe, he is a happy snoring starfish. He drools a lot, and even when he doesn’t snore, his breathing is still pretty loud and a bit hoarse, but it also sounds like he is pretty happy. But that doesn’t happen all the time, for the most part he curls into a ball and snores quietly every now and then, with his ears twitching, as if he is constantly trying to still be aware of his surroundings. For the most part he is a light sleeper and doesn’t even sleep for more than 5-6 hours, but when he gets especially tired, he doesn’t wake up easily. He hated waking up at night because when it happens, he has to get comfortable again – he wants his pillow to be super cold, but it’s already a little sweaty and all warm! This is the worst feeling.

Jack – as we know, he always goes to sleep at the same time, and he gets very sleepy at 10 PM. He wakes up pretty early though, probably the earliest in his entire dorm, at around 5 AM. It’s not as hot when it’s this early, plus he really loves the solitude: he feels like he gets more shit done this way, and of course it gives him plenty of time to exercise and jog. As for his sleeping habits, he doesn’t move at all when he sleeps. He just lies on his side, hugs the pillow and sleeps… similarly to Deuce, Jack gets those sleeping puppy moments, but his are a bit different: sometimes Jack growls in his sleep, he also frowns a lot. There are rare moments when he sleeps with his tongue out and breathes through his mouth, but it happens mostly when it’s too hot, and he starts throwing away pillows and blankets without waking up when it happens. He gets hot pretty easily… He also drools a little less than Ruggie, but still a lot.

Azul – he sleeps for exactly 7.5 hours each night to optimise his time, and he is an extremely cautious and light sleeper. Unless he is absolutely exhausted, he won’t fall asleep anywhere other than his bedroom, behind closed and locked doors. It’s not like he is expecting an assassin or two at all times to attack him at any moment, and life on the land isn’t as dangerous as his hometown underwater, but isn’t comfortable with the idea of becoming too comfortable, so to speak. It’s a habit, I guess. Any unexpected sound or movement would wake him up. Unless he is absolutely exhausted, that is; we’ve seen him falling sleep with his head on Riddle’s shoulder in ch6 after all… Azul also lives tiny and dark spaces, so he hides under his blanket. Even though his bed is pretty big, Azul doesn’t take up that much space at all, curling up with his knees almost touching his chin. He also absolutely wouldn’t call himself a cuddler, but it’s not really true: he hugs his pillow a lot with his arms and legs, and if he was to sleep with someone, he would probably hug them as well. It sounds cute, but he is actually too rough sometimes because he is used to grabbing things. He could also pinch the person he sleep with… octopus habits… poor Idia is covered in bruises :(

Jade and Floyd – they have different sleeping patterns, but a similar “base” for it. They go to sleep at different times, and since they share a room, it’s kind of a problem.  Jade goes to bed pretty much at the same time each night; sometimes because he gets tired, sometimes to spite Floyd a little by saying “I am so tired, can you please turn off the lights already?” Sometimes he genuinely wants to sleep, but it’s Floyd who is annoying him… and every now and then there are nights when Floyd is absolutely exhausted and goes to sleep early, and Jade takes it as an opportunity to troll him back by suddenly deciding to clean a terrarium while humming a song. Why now of all times? A sudden strike of inspiration <3 You can either blame neither of them, or both of them for that: both are aware that they’re annoying the other by not letting him sleep. Anyways, when it comes to their sleeping habits, both are swimmers. They either move their bodies in the same manner as if they’re swimming (sometimes it just looks like Floyd is aggressively humping his bed but that’s not it I swear), or rotate. Because eels love rotating, the second option happens surprisingly often, so both of them are at risk of falling from their beds and rotating on the floor until they bonk each other with their heads and proceed to sleep on the floor. The funny thing is, when they sleep underwater, they’re pretty calm and don’t move as much; I guess they do miss swimming… Floyd is also more of a cuddler than Jade, but Jade is more of a muncher. If Idia sleeps with both of them, the bite marks are going to be Jade’s…

Kalim – it looks like he sleeps without a care in the world, which isn’t really the case because his bad experiences have taught him to wake up very quickly and to react to sudden noises. He is actually pretty tender and capricious as well, if something about his sleeping conditions isn’t perfect, he’s going to react. Every now and then Kalim just goes to Jamil with “hey, Jamil? I can’t sleep” and asks for them to sleep together, or insists of chatting because he isn’t sleepy anyway. Kalim loves not sleeping alone, but talking through the night is something that Kalim absolutely adores. They used to do it a lot when they were kids, and always got in trouble for that (esp considering that Kalim sleeps for the entire day after a sleepless night)…Kalim also clings a lot, but then he suddenly gets too hot and pushes Jamil away without even waking up. But then he gets a bit chiller and starts clinging again. He drools and makes cute little sounds, and anyone other than Jamil would probably find sleeping Kalim as adorable as one would find a babbling toddler. Jamil, however, is very tired…

Jamil – another cautious sleeper, he is almost never 100% asleep, so in a way he is worse than Azul. He does get sleepy though, he is indeed very tired, and it sucks because the tiny window of time before he falls asleep is his only opportunity to get some “me time” and read a book or play games on his phone, but he never does that because he is always exhausted. So after his sleeping preparations, washing his face, brushing his hair and all that stuff, he just wants to sleep… he also hates sleeping with someone, because they (let’s be honest mostly Kalim) would accidentally tug on Jamil’s hair, plus it’s too hot to sleep with someone on a small bed, plus he isn’t really a cuddler anyway. Anyways, he goes to sleep like an hour after Kalim’s sleepy time, and wakes up ~3-4 hours before him. Which isn’t enough time to get a nice rest, but… let’s hope that when Jamil gets to travel and has a hotel room all for himself, he’ll have his first ever nice sleep…

Vil – one of the strictest ones when it comes to his sleeping regimen! Beauty sleep is important, discipline is important, and if one has to work or study during the night, they’re just very bad at time management! Of course, there are days when Vil has to stay up late too… but he hates when it happens; he just wants to have his evening beauty routine, wash his face without a rush, take a nice shower, apply an overnight beauty mask, brush his hair, put on his sleepwear, relax in his bed and have a nice deep sleep from 10:30 PM to 5:30-6:00 AM. Oh, he also wears a sleeping mask and even earplugs sometimes, and also tries to teach himself not to use his phone while in bed. It just ruins his mood, and it’s bad for one’s health too, but he still gives in and scrolls Magicam in bed sometimes. And when it comes to sharing a bed with someone, he is a bit conflicted – it’s not like he hates cuddling, in fact, he enjoys spending the night in his loved one’s embrace, and he doesn’t even get too pissy about feeling hot, sweaty or uncomfortable in that situation, but… I guess Vil just loves having a big bed all for himself lol This is his moment of privacy. So whether he’ll spend the night alone or cuddling depends entirely on his mood that day. He is a very quiet sleeper, and the most that could be heard from him is a cute quiet moan when he’s being disturbed by something.

Rook – does he sleep? Or is he too busy being in everyone’s walls? His roommate doesn’t quite get it: when he falls asleep, Rook isn’t there yet, and when he wakes up, Rook’s already left. He knows that Rook sometimes spends the night with Vil, but… In actuality, Rook does sleep, but he is very strategic about his sleeping schedule. He doesn’t sleep much during the night, 4-5 hours is his max because he has too much to do! Sometimes he takes short 20 minutes powernaps during the day while he’s hiding around. This man is, once again, a creature. Also, even though one would say it’s impossible to catch Rook sleeping, people do see him sleeping sometimes – it’s just that he learned how to do it with his eyes open and while sitting up. Which is… a bit scary, so anyways! When it comes to his bedtime routine, after all the beauty stuff is done, he spends quite a lot of time to admire the pictures that he took and the sketches that he drew of everyone that day – this is a very important ritual to him! But despite that, he actually really enjoys sharing a bed with someone, be it for intimacy or just for cuddling. He hugs and kisses a lot, even when the other person is already asleep. He also loves watching him sleep, which is not creepy at all!

Epel – he shouldn’t use his phone in his bed, but he does! When he manages to sneak it under his blanket, that is. But it’s also not unusual for him to fall asleep while holding a phone and to have it fall on his pretty little face, waking him up. So he tries not to overdo it… he is a very cute sleeper though! He makes sounds, but a little weird ones, like little whines or even tiny mewls sometimes. And sometimes he giggles very cutely! What kind of dreams are you having, Epel?! Anyways, he is a deep sleeper that munches on his pillow sometimes. It’s better than sucking a thumb, and I won’t say that Epel just taught himself out of that fairly recently, but I also won’t say that this isn’t the case. Alright, no more bullying lol I think he sleeps on his side while hugging a blanket. Very adorable, until he starts snoring or swearing in his sleep…

Idia – a lot of times he just falls asleep in front of his PC. Especially now that he doesn’t have Ortho to share a room with, but even when Ortho was his roommate, he’d go to the sleeping mode at some point and tell Idia to go to sleep as soon as possible, Idia would reply with “yeah yeah I’m going” and play games for 2 more hours until falling asleep in his chair… Sometimes he wakes up at like 5 AM, realising that he’s been sleeping for a while, and lazily crawls on top of his bed without even changing into his pjs. He doesn’t really have much of a routine… He also curls up when he’s sleeping, looking like a cute kitten, and you almost feel bad for him somehow when you look at him. Is it because his relaxed face is so pathetic? Or should we feel bad because of how troubled he is when he’s asleep? Anyways, Idia either sleeps for 3-4 hours and naps throughout the day, or sleeps for 10 hours and feels weird when he finally wakes up. He is also super not used to sleeping with someone else and would be uncomfortable, but there is a part of Idia that wouldn’t mind getting backhugged by Azul (until he starts pinching) or… sometimes Idia wonders if Muscle Crimson hugs his possibly existing wife when they sleep.

Ortho – I guess not applicable this time :( But he does consider himself charging in his sleeping mode to be his sleeping routine! Sometimes he “wakes up” earlier than everyone and just flies around the dorm though. Human!Ortho would be a very nice sleeper though, he would change poses like 10 times per night, even kick poor Idia a little. He would prefer to sleep in Idia’s bed even when they aren’t roommates anymore, and he would probably be one of the biggest cuddlers in the cast!

Lilia – no regimen, his sleeping schedule is a mess, pretty similar to Idia’s. He used to be very good at it when he was younger, but now he just plays games all night lol And then after saying good night to his internet friend, he decides to go to bed and… stumbles upon some useless junk in his room and decides to play with it! It’s okay, old people don’t need to sleep all that long, if at all sometimes. It’s not unusual for Lilia to completely ditch sleeping, but he can’t do it for more than one day… When it comes to position, Lilia just falls flat on his bed and starts snoring loudly. He has that dad snore… He also changes positions a lot, and he could kill a guy with how suddenly he moves and rolls. Sometimes he also sleeps upside down, hanging from his bed’s canopy. He also doesn’t mind sleeping with someone, he is pretty used to it! In a lot of ways… but people sleeping with him get punched and kicked unless he hugs them tightly, so not everyone is really up to that.

Silver – after his evening training, his nighttime routine and checking on his father to tell him to go to sleep already, Silver comes back to his room… and sleeps. Even his evening routine doesn’t take that long – I don’t think he uses any products on his face or even brushes his hair much. He washes himself, changes into his pjs and goes to bed… And for the most part he sleeps on his back, looking like a certain cursed princess. There isn’t much to say about the way he sleeps, but he breathes very quietly and cutely, and looks absolutely stunning. His roommates really want to kiss him sometimes… but not a single one dared to do it so far. Silver also doesn’t mind sleeping with someone, but to him it wouldn’t really make s difference one way or another.

Sebek – amazingly strict regimen that he follows dutifully! He’s never late, he always wakes up exactly one minute before his alarm and turns it off! He goes to bed at 11 PM and wakes up at 5 AM! And it doesn’t make him sleepy in the slightest – in fact he has too much energy to burn and too much things to do! That being said, sometimes he wakes up randomly in the middle of the night and has a hard time falling back asleep. I guess he’s just too agitated and overly excited sometimes… But he tries to quiet his thoughts and get back to sleep as soon as possible. When it comes to his sleeping habits, he is surprisingly… chill. One would expect him to be more obnoxious, but he yells in his sleep extremely rarely! Once every 2-3 months… so you never know when it’s going to happen next. He also looks at his liege’s portrait before going to sleep and when he wakes up, this is the first and last thing he sees every day, and it warms his heart and fills him with determination. As for sleeping with someone, he doesn’t mind if he has to do it, but he doesn’t see a point in that either. A silly boy…

Malleus – sometimes it feels like he doesn’t sleep at all. Maybe he doesn’t really need to sleep as much as humans do? Which is kind of ironic, but anyways, it’s not unusual for his bed to be empty at night because Malleus suddenly decided that he isn’t really sleepy, and figured he’d rather go on a walk. Sometimes he just walks around the dorm, but a lot of times he goes outside to get some fresh air. He loves the time of night when everything is quiet and everyone’s asleep, he finds it melancholic… perfect for drowning in deep thoughts, admiring gargoyles and reading. Anyways, when he does sleep, he almost doesn’t look alive: he breathes very quietly and looks so pale and cold… he actually gets much colder during the night, so he’d be naturally drawn to another person’s heat. He was very clingy when Lilia used to sleep in his bed~ He still is sometimes…

[imjustdreamingig]

Jesus, what's a girl to do?

Part 1

Pairing: Steve Harrington x fem!reader

Summary: Robin meddles, Steve is clueless, and you're freaking out. So a regular day.

A/N: i genuinely have no idea where this came from, i legit posted the first part like 2 years ago. but I guess I want to start actually writing more? idk! we shall see. anyways, this fic stems from my (occasional) exhaustion to shy!reader and i'm basing this more on how horrifically i acted around the guys i would like even tho i consider myself an extrovert. enjoy whatever this is??? and lmk if u want a part 3! also this is not proof read so bear w me

warnings: sfw, swearing, uhhh i think that's it???

You were screwed. Absolutely, terribly, fucking screwed.

You were also very angry at your mother, giving her a glare every time she glanced your way at the dinner table. She merely gave you a wink in return, not understanding the true implications of her actions.

"So, Steve," your mom began as she cut a bit of the chicken on her plate, "you play basketball, right? Is that something you want to keep doing in university?" This time, you openly stared at your mom, trying to telepathically convey that you would literally kill her if she kept talking. You haven't made up your mind if you're joking or not.

Steve cleared his throat, "Yeah, I do, I'd say I'm pretty good at it, too. Wherever I end up going, I'll probably join their team for fun." He turned to you after taking a bite of his meal, smirking. "You like basketball too, right?"

You choked on your water, wiping your mouth with your sleeve. You looked at Steve properly for practically the first time that night, but your voice never wavered. "No, not really, why?"

He turned back to his food, amusement gracing his voice. "Well, I see you and Robin sitting together at every game, even the away ones, so I just assumed." If your face could sport a visible blush, you knew it would be a bright red, hot, mess.

"Well, I- I get dragged by Robin because she doesn't like sitting alone or going to random schools by herself like, half an hour away. Do you even watch the news? Girls by themselves are basically the perfect bait for random kidnappings and stuff, especially girls in high school, like I mean the statistics for-"

"Y/N" You're rambling is halted by your mother's voice. Steve is looking at you in bemusement. You are contemplating death. The situation is not looking good.

"Could you grab me some water from the kitchen, with ice," your mother said with a strained smile, holding out her glass. You grab it and push your chair out. "Sure, yeah," you replied. As you made your way to the kitchen, your mind replays the last hour of the events that have transpired, wondering what you could've possibly done in your past life to deserve this.

How could your own mother, the woman who birthed you, ask the hottest guy in your grade if he wanted to stay for dinner and not consult you first, all whilst knowing you had the most ridiculous crush on the guy.

Betrayed by the ones closest to you. This is probably how Julius Caesar felt.

After overcoming your initial shock, and lets face it, mortification of being paired up with Steve for your English project, you attempted to the best of your abilities to push down your feelings and remain professional in order to actually work on the project and make sure you got an A. Your grades would not suffer over a stupid crush on a stupid boy, that's where you drew the line. Unfortunately, this plan was not working out so well.

It was actually failing, horrifically at that.

It had been about a month since the semester started and the project had been assigned—a complex analysis of a classic book of your choice and how that particular novel has inspired the creation of others and advanced its genre. You had to write a collaborative essay to hand in to your teacher, as well as create an interactive presentation for your classmates explaining your chosen novel.

This was all due at the end of the semester and you'd be given no in class time to work on it since you had an ample amount time to work on it outside of school. It would also replace the need for a final exam, which was great news. When your teacher had explained the project, you were ecstatic, knowing exactly what book you wanted to do: Pride and Prejudice.

Then, you remembered who you had to do the project with, this huge, daunting, complex, project, where you would need to interact with your partner in close proximity for an extended period of time. You felt faint.

Steve, in his defence, had tried to approach you on multiple occasions to try and figure out when you two should meet to try and start the project. But, obviously, whenever you saw so much as a glimpse of him in the hallway, you would make yourself scarce.

The only time he would actually be able to talk to you was in your shared English class. Robin was beginning to go crazy at your increasingly outlandish excuses as to why you couldn't meet up with Steve after school in order to work on your project.

"Oh sorry, my mom needs my help on some stuff tonight."

"I have to take my brother to soccer practice."

"I can't today, I have an eye doctor appointment."

"My dog actually needs to go to the vet, she's sick, sorry."

"My family and I are going on a road trip this weekend, so I'm not free."

"My sister broke her leg uh— skiing, and she needs help writing stuff for school."

"Funny story, Robin has a crazy ex thats trying to get her to meet up with him again, and I have to help her slash their tires and like, do girl stuff, it's personal, so I'm not free, maybe next week though?"

That last excuse is what caused Robin to snap. She knew that Steve knew that you were making shit up, Robin has never even been in a relationship, let alone have an ex. Also, you didn't even have a sister, what gives!

You also had no clue exactly how close the pair had gotten due to working together at the video store and that she'd told Steve she was into girls. Therefore, like the great best friend she was, Robin decided it was time she intervened, for everyones sake really, but mostly yours.

"God," you sighed, "I never thought I would be so into arms, like not the huge, bulging one, you know? All veiny and red, that just scares me, hello, his are just ones that are like slightly defined, but have a very obvious outline of muscle, like I can tell he's strong, and fuck, his biceps, is it bad that I want to like, bite them? Because every time I look and him and he's fixing his hair I just keep getting this urge to—wait where are you going? Robin? Ok, OK! I'll stop, I promise! Come back!"

If Robin had to hear another anecdote about how you wanted to bite his arms, she was going to puke.

Your continuous blabbering about how good Steve's hair looked or how good those jeans looked on him and your inability to have one proper conversation with him or stay in the same room as him for longer than two minutes was making her go insane. She couldn't take it anymore.

So, Robin devised a plan, which one day she was sure you would thank her for—hopefully.

First, she inconspicuously made sure that you had nothing planned for Thursday night, already knowing you were free but wanting to double check that no random stuff had come up.

Then, she called your mom, who absolutely adored Robin. She told her about your situation and how if she did nothing, your infatuation for Steve was literally going to give her an aneurysm. Robin would tell you that she wanted to hang out Thursday night so you would get ready, but instead of her showing up, it would be Steve.

Not surprisingly, your mom agreed to Robin's crazy plan. She thought it was about time you got a boyfriend. You had already talked about Steve so much to her anyways, but any time she would tell you to just try talking to the guy, you vehemently refused.

"Mom, are you insane, I'm not going to do that," you scoffed as if literally just having a conversation with another person was the most insane idea in the world.

"Mija, how else are you supposed to get to know people if you can't speak to them? Besides, you never seem to have a problem talking back to me whenever we have an argument," you mom shrugged as she continued folding the laundry you were helping her with.

"Oh come on," you sighed exasperatedly, "that's not the same thing and you know it."

"I'm just saying, by the looks of it, I don't think I'll be a grandmother."

"Mom, what, hello!?"

Getting Steve to show up at your house was easier than Robin thought. She conveniently told him right before the beginning of their shift on Thursday that you'd told Robin that they should all get together at your house to finally get started on the project. Robin smiled a bit wider than necessary when Steve enthusiastic agreed to go.

When Robin gave Steve your address and told him that she would be over a little later because she left some stuff at her house, that no, she didn't need a ride and that no, she was fine walking, Steve was none the wiser to her actual plan.

As Robin saw Steve pull out of her driveway and making his way to your house, she gave herself a mental pat on the back and started thinking about what movie she should watch after dinner, knowing that the school day tomorrow would be very entertaining.

When Steve rang your doorbell, he was still clueless about the real intentions of Robin's plan, but when you opened the door and he saw your eyes go wide and your mouth drop slightly open, almost as if you weren't expecting to see him, something clicked in his head.

This was going to be fun.

[lambergeier]

2024 book post

this was simply not much of a reading year! middling start, uneven from month to month, slight revival during mine and emma's scotland trip in august, and then a HARD stop after which i gave up even trying and comics took over in full. the comics will be a separate post lol. recs in bold! except if they're from my vonnegut streak at the start of the year, in which case it would be ridiculous to attempt to recommend or not-recommend individual vonnegut books. it's vonnegut. you know what's up.

JANUARY

Sirens of Titan - Vonnegut (i loved pieces of this book in high school and didn't understand the rest of it and picked it up again to see if maybe a second attempt would assist. really funny bc as it turns out the pieces i didn't understand were like 80% of the book. catie age 15 knew this book was good but didn't know ANYTHING else that was going on. really good and funny and sad--shocking, it's vonnegut. inspired me to start reading the rest of his stuff in publication order)

The Book of all Books - Roberto Calasso (book length of cultural criticism on the subject of the bible, almost wholly the old testament, by a man I had not previously heard of but was apparently a monumental figure in european literary criticism prior to his recent death. as a cultural christian who was raised with truly 0 contact with christian faith at any point, this was a fascinating way to learn about some of the actual events of the old testament--as described by an incredibly impassioned old italian man, and with a whole chapter dedicated, suddenly, to freud. i skipped the freud chapter, but the rest of the book was intensely interesting and, huge credit to both calasso and his translator, beautiful. check that opening paragraph. also made for some engrossing conversations with my beautiful jewish wife who did have some religious education growing up and was extremely helpful in laying out what was more mainstream thought on david and solomon and what was mr. calasso getting On some Shit.)

Player Piano - Vonnegut (vonnegut's first book. good, even great at times, but lightly overwritten by normal standards and incredibly overwritten by what would become his own standards. the leap from this to sirens, his second book, is astonishing. NEVER stop writing, at ANY time you could go from writing perfectly interesting spec fic to producing some of the greatest american fiction of the century. also very interesting to read as a book about automation now, in the time of Newer automation. i think possibly nothing ever changes!)

Mother Night - Vonnegut (i really should have taken more notes at the time lmao. emma says i thought this one fucked. that feels correct. discussion of ww2 and the holocaust and the consequences of both are so eminently more valuable when written by people who lived through them, shocker. and, again, when those people were some of the most observant writers of their generation lmao. the israeli contempt for holocaust survivors that became obvious to me, christian american lady, only within the last year or two, is front in center in the mother night frame story. kinda want to read this again right now. what can individual guilt and responsibility even mean in the fact of all that death?)

Cat's Cradle - Vonnegut (REALLY should have taken more notes!! emma says i didn't vibe with this one. i believe her, but would love to remember why. i read cat's cradle in high school as well, but apparently it didn't click this time. who knows!!! not me, the dummy who doesn't write things down!!!)

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater - Vonnegut (this one washed over me a bit. vivid memories of senator rosewater decrying deodorant as a liberal feminine luxury propagated by those fairies on madison ave, which was sooooooooo fucking interesting to me. bro sometimes the past just LEAPS out at you when you least expect it. this was probably also a masterpiece, i should read it again.)

Slaughterhouse-Five - Vonnegut (exactly as good as it always is. i should also read this again. idk i really should have taken more notes because i think i would have had more things to say, but once again all i really remember is the emotion, which is: man! the children's crusade!)

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity - David Graeber and David Wengrow (OKAY GREAT NOT TALKING ABOUT VONNEGUT ANYMORE SO I CAN GET REAL. I LOOOOOOOOVED THIS BOOK. I THINK EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS BOOK FOOOOOOOR REAL. this is graeber and wengrow over and over again taking the wildest most cherry-picked possible interpretation of the archaeological evidence and being like okay so this is what this pre-history civilization could have been like. and you're like okay well hold up guys. and then they prove that the traditional, mainstream conception of these civilizations is EQUALLY wild and cherry-picked, so why the fuck shouldn't we consider their thing! if we're doing cherry picking! and it fully just opened my third eye re: other/non-western/non-modern-western modes of society building and i love it. i was already uninterested in books that conceive of Society and Nature as deeply opposed forces that can never mix without one or the other being destroyed, and this book really put the nail in the coffin. there are so many other ways to live. people did them. people still do them. it's time to incorporate SEASONALITY into our PARADIGMS!!! anyways please read this book.)

FEBRUARY

American Midnight - Adam Hochschild (emma talks about this one as well, she recommended it to me, but just a fantastic history of american democracy under wilson/during and after ww1. spoiler: it was weak, threatened, and overall bad. fuck wilson and fuck teddy roosevelt fr! i listened on audiobook, but still what i would call a very readable style by a very smart guy.)

MARCH

We Both Laughed in Pleasure - Lou Sullivan (a birthday gift from @brella that i really loved but that i think was still a bit too repetitive in the middle for me to recommend to all comers lol. the collected and abridged diaries of lou sullivan, a trans man originally from the midwest and living in san francisco in the 80s and early 90s (he was killed by AIDS in '91), who was a trailblazing community organizer mostly, by his own admission, because he was a guy who was willing to organize zines and meetings and etc for other trans men before anyone else thought to. the repetitiveness is the fault of the diaries' curators imho--they focused primarily on pulling the passages that focused on sullivan's trans and gay identity and his experience with his own sexuality which was, don't get me wrong, hugely fascinating, but also this guy had a lot of sex and wrote a LOT about it, so eventually it was like. well i think i've read about this particular sexual partner of yours for a few pages now, maybe we could get something else going on? still really loved it. the opening passages, from when sullivan was like 13, focus on his intense, intensely fannish love for the beatles. the paul mccartney do-be problem: it never goes out of style!!)

APRIL

The Traitor Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

The Tyrant Baru Cormorant - still dickinson, yeah (traitor i read in college, monster i read when it came out, tyrant i BOUGHT when it came out but never read, and so when we went out of town in april for passover i was like fuck it. i'm finally reading tyrant. ALAS: it's not that good. traitor is good on a functional level if not the most compelling: gets through its story with limited uneven-ness, characters are barebones but interesting, story itself is interesting, etc. monster is my favorite: nuts, deeply compelling, but not necessarily good. the plot's a bit of a mess but every character leaps off the page--not just baru, but ever side character introduced as little more than a name in traitor is suddenly vivid, breathing, sexy, homosexual, and deranged. srivakir you will ALWAYS be famous. tyrant, unfortunately, is deranged but so so too long. plot throughline is muddled, action is jumpy and erratic, characters are still great but just can't overcome the lumpen nature of the story. i'll still read the last book, but i'm not surprised tyrant took dickinson so long, nor that the fourth book has been so long in coming. svirakir and your lover and your non-sexual throuple and your child and your lightning madness fr call me when you are free tho.) (WAIT ALSO EVERYONE WHO ACCUSED TRAITOR OF HOMOPHOBIA FOR BEING KILL-YOUR-GAYS WAS FOR SURE A HATER THO. EVERYONE WHO THOUGHT THAT CRITICISM WAS WRONG HAVE BEEN PROVED VALID AS HELL. TOXIC YURI STAY WINNING!!!)

The Spear Cuts Through Water - Simon Jimenez (refreshing in that it believed very badly that prose should be beautiful, but i do not think the prose was actually beautiful. huge huge points for trying. pacing in the first half actively bored me, second half picked up, and the metanarrative twist at the end got me good. i don't recommend it recommend it, but i do recommend it on the basis that jimenez should for sure get credit for trying)

Solitaire - Kelly Erskine (read this bc my wife mentioned it and it was like, really funny. good, but then not good? intensely interesting, but then went somewhere else entirely that was like super normie and boring? sci fi written by queer women who really fully believe in the uplifting power of corporatism and MBTI specifically. three short stories mashed together than only vaguely have any relationship to each other. still had a good time.)

MAY

The Saint of Bright Doors - Vajra Chandrasekera (loved this loved this loved this. there IS good debut genre fiction out there. we just have to believe!!!)

JUNE - nope

JULY

Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America - Adam Nagourney and Dudley Clendinen (political history of the american gay rights movement pre-AIDS. had some fascinating insights into the history of lesbian separatism/animosity towards the mainstream gay rights movement (turns out, in the 60s and 70s, between the male-dominated gay rights movement and the mostly-straight feminist movement, one of those things was offering more personhood to lesbians than the other!), and how the gay rights movement failed to respond to AIDS when the first warning signs started to appear. that was crazy. having moved in gay political circles myself, one can really see why everyone did what they did, and it sucks, because it resulted in a lot of death. recommend if political history is an existing area of interest, it wasn't a standout (like last year's Coming Out Under Fire) otherwise.)

Night Theater - Vikram Paralkar (really good, honestly not as depressing as i thought it would be. but only because emma tricked me thinking it would be even worse!)

AUGUST

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall - Alexandra Lange (cultural history of american malls. interesting, but towards couldn't decide whether it was history or cultural criticism or architectural criticism or what. happens all the time. made me think more kindly towards malls as community spaces at least, and the short history of pre-mall shopping and the social forces that led to the creation of urban malls/department stores in 1800s france (including, among other things, paved streets!) was really interesting.)

The Future - Naomi Alderman (wanted to be a cure for tech-poisoned futures, but was itself still too tech-poisoned in its understandings of power/individualism. oh well!)

The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Books 1-3 - Jonathan Stroud (posted about these more extensively at the time--adored them in middle school, read them again for the first time as an adult. still so good. of middling quality all the way up until the end, at which point you are struck dead by god. emma can confirm. got struck dead by god on the train between glasgow and edinburgh. i was there.)

Call for the Dead - John Le Carre

Murder of Quality - John Le Carre

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold - John Le Carre (first three books in what was intended to be a much longer le carre read, and which i should really get back to. call for the dead is a debut, murder of quality is a rightly abandoned attempt to go the classic murder-mystery route, and then spy who came from the cold in is, much like described above, a sudden psychic assault by god. brutal fucking spy fiction, and the only kind of spy fiction worth reading, as in so cynical as to be basically suicidal. spies have never solved a problem they didn't create themselves and perpetuate by means of, at minimum, five innocent lives. NEED to read our game. love and kisses to mr le carre!!)

Martyr! - Kaveh Akbar (love is REAL and so is POETRY and is so fucking your GAY ROOMMATE! very very lovely.)

SEPTEMBER - also nope

OCTOBER

Long Live Evil - Sarah Rees Brennan (svsss retelling meets fe3h character dynamics, fumbles the best elements of both, creates a great premise (brennan grappling very publicly with her own near-death to cancer is the best part of the book and makes for a great framework for an isekai protagonist) but the execution can't keep up with the ideas. alas! not the best book to finish out the year on, but what can you do. at least i read something!)

and that's the end of books for the year!!! 29 total (one not listed here), so a low since 2021, when i only started reading again in like august of that year following a cool post-depressive episode no-reading-spell that lasted several times longer than the actual depressive episode did lol. i have not recently been depressed so i think the dry periods this year were simply dry periods. and, especially the comics started happening, it's not like i've been lacking things to spend brain power on. now those things are just american superhero comics! which is a whoopsie! even a whoopsie-doodle! but i've got a tbr pile as tall as my hip so hopefully i circle back to real books at some point next year. and if i don't, i don't!

[lilithofpenandbook]

A lot of people like to argue that because we only see a few memories, those probably aren't what happened all the time and that Snape was still bullying people in a gang, the memories are biased, yap yap yap

And aside from the Pensieve-is-biased excused being firstly canonically incorrect (it's established very clearly that Pensives show the literal truth and that it's impossible to tamper them without leaving evidence, hence why Slughorn's pensive memories make him more suspicious because the alteration is very clear so obviously he's hiding something) and secondly just plain stupid (why would Severus alter the memories? He removed them to hide them, not to make himself look like a victim for a viewer. We weren't even supposed to see them), there's something else people aren't getting.

That one memory is intended to show the entire dynamic.

It's like a literary/plot device. Obviously no one is going to write the entire backstory. No one has time for that. Instead, the scenes that are shown and written are written with the intention of showing what the dynamic always was (the "Worst Memory" part being explained later by it being the break of Lily and Snape's friendship, not because of the assault).

Another scene that reinforces that the dynamic between Snape and James was always a victim and an abuser is their first meeting where James mirrors exactly what Draco says about Houses. That is not a coincidence or a fun little throwback to book one, no. That's included and written like that to make it clear to the reader that James Potter was the Draco Malfoy of the past, that he was the rich, horrible bully.

Not only that, but just Snape's behaviour should make it clear he's a victim of severe abuse. He's irrational when it comes to Harry, a literal child. He reacts really strongly to Harry, almost disproportionately. That's not the behaviour of someone with just a grudge. That's the behaviour of someone with severe trauma, so much so that it's still affecting him.

But back to the memories. I think what people forget (especially the marauders fandom) is that the books were written by a person who made specific choices for what happened in the story. Yes, JKR is a bad person, but she still made deliberate storytelling choices. The memories we see of Snape's past (which are all unbiased- which should be made clear considering it's very raw and doesn't hesitate to make Severus look unflattering, it's not romanticising him) are chosen and written by her deliberately to show us what the dynamic always was like. Not "tell", show.

That one scene for Snape's Worst Memory should be enough to show the reader that this is how it always was. No excuses, no nuance, no "Mauraders fighting the Evil Slytherins", no. Had that happened, had James had a valid excuse at any point in time, that vital information would have been shown to us. But it's not. Because Snape's Worst Memory is exactly how it always happened.

From Snape being alone, to the predator/prey language, to Lily's "What has he even done to you?" and James' answer "It's more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean", to Harry's shock and disgust and Sirius having to cycle through various excuses, the entire thing is intended to show us what the dynamic always was. Snape was always alone and attacked when he was doing nothing but minding his own business. The Marauders were just cruel bullies. Harry's disgust and shock is written as so because there is no excuse to justify James' actions, there was no Death Eater gang. And further proof is later on, in the deliberate parallel between James and Draco. It's a deliberate writing choice to show us what was always happening.

And to be honest, I think it's this "show" Vs "tell" in the books that have led to people these days being unable to understand Snape or James and completely misunderstanding both characters, and that's showing there's a clear decline of media literacy/reading comprehension.

For Snape, we aren't told he regretted his actions and changed, or that he was vulnerable and his joining the Death Eaters probably had little to do with blood purity, we are shown it. We're shown that he was always alone, we are shown he's a victim of abuse. We are given context beforehand that we can use to realise that Slytherin House was probably hostile. British readers are all too aware of the sheer class disparity and can understand how that would have affected Snape too. Everything about Snape is shown to us. It's there in the text, just not written out as "Snape felt very bad for what he did and was never a blood supremacist ever again".

On the other hand, we're told that James matured. Anything good about James is told to us directly, when we are shown that he was very much an awful person (and no, not letting Severus be killed is not a sign he was a good person in any way. That could easily be because he only didn't want to be in trouble- which is plausible again based on his character). And, if I remember correctly, most of this good about James comes initially from adults praising Harry's parents and later from Sirius and Remus, and all are biased. What we're told about James comes from biased sources, what we're shown comes from unbiased events playing out directly in front of us. We're shown James was an awful person, and just told that he's matured.

And this is where the Snape fandom and Marauders fandom seem to clash over Snape and James. We go by what is shown of Snape and James because we actually have reading comprehension, but they go by what's told of Snape and James.

And part of this is the misconception that Snape was actually part of a gang, which is something we're told by Sirius- that he was part of a gang that all turned out to be Death Eaters- when we're shown that he was on his own. That misconception comes from the fact that people are taking what we're told as fact, and aren't looking at what we're shown, which IS the fact. They're not looking at who's doing the telling either- this information comes from someone who is extremely biased against Severus Snape and someone who has it in their best interests to make him seem like he deserved the abuse. What we're shown is that Severus is often on his own and the only person who he hangs out with is Lily. And it's Lily who tells us that Snape allegedly hung around a creepy evil lot, however that is not shown. What is shown is that Snape tries to laugh the actions of his peers off, rather like how Remus excuses the Marauders' actions.

This is probably where the misconception that the Marauders had a heroic reason for bullying Snape comes too. We are told that they were good people, so surely they would have had a good reason for bullying Snape, who we're told likes the dark arts and knew more curses and hexes in his first year than any seventh year. But we are not shown that. What we're shown is them attacking James unprovoked, and James' reason being "because he exists". And yes, this is something we're told too, however again look at who's speaking. It's James. Him saying this goes against his best interests; he's not even trying to justify it, he's actually making it seem worse. That's because he doesn't have one, otherwise he'd have used it in that moment.

Every "justification" of the bullying, every implication that it was an equal rivalry, comes from what we're told, especially from biased sources. What we're shown says something completely different, and everything we're shown does not imply the Marauders were fighting wannabe Death Eater bullies, that they targeted Snape because he was a Dark Arts Mastermind, that they targeted Snape alone because they were "outnumbering the enemy". It actually implies the exact opposite: that they were rich little spoiled aristocrats who took pleasure in tormenting a boy who was on the complete bottom of the social class, that they bullied and abused anyone they saw as beneath them, and that Snape was entirely alone against them without any gang to speak of (in fact, considering the event with Mulciber that Lily mentioned did not mention that the Marauders came to defend Mary like they would have had they actually been fighting against the wannabe Death Eaters, it's very strongly implied that James and the Marauders left those particular boys alone).

James and the Marauders were not noble, muggleborn-supporting, fighters. They were exactly as shown: abusive bullies who picked on the underprivileged kid. And we see that Sirius is still that same boy, he still tries to dominate and pull Snape down, only now Snape's an adult and actually has more importance in the Order, actually the most important member of the Order, than Sirius, and in their quarrels, it's Sirius who picks them and resorts to childish insults while Snape's responses are cutting, but still facts. Peter is Peter (and in fact I'm going to say Sirius made a sort of Freudian slip- I think- when he said Peter would align himself to the biggest bullies in the playground: he's unintentionally admitted to being the biggest bully in the playground and the only bigger bully was Voldemort). Even Remus isn't the best to Snape, he's passive aggressive, dismisses him and his trauma, encouraged the kids to humiliate him, and constantly calls him "Severus" as if they're old friends when Snape constantly calls him "Lupin". All of this is shown, not told. Severus being a heavily traumatized victim of severe abuse is shown, not told.

There being any sort of Death Eater wannabe gang that the Marauders were battling to protect muggleborns is barely told, much less shown.

The Marauders maturing is told, not shown (no. Lily does not show that James matured. She isn't a goddess of virtue. Considering Sirius said James wasn't gonna take her out and hex Snape in front of her, and considering that at that moment Harry had been pushing him to tell the truth, and considering that Sirius underplays the abuse a lot, it's more likely that James simply learnt to hide his abusive nature better under the guise of maturity. Or the muggleborn witch decided to put aside her personal feelings and married the pureblood aristocrat to jump to the highest class).

But the Marauders abusing a child who was minding his own business? Shown.

The Marauders abusing a child who had absolutely no one to help protect him? Shown.

If you wanna headcanon that there were two gangs in Hogwarts, go ahead. But don't act that's what canonically happened, because it's not. And if you honestly think that's what happened, then I'm deeply concerned about your reading comprehension.

i love when snape fandom is like, the marauders attacked snape four against one/two against one! like, of course they did. what, were they supposed to fight the whole death eater gang at once? you’re SUPPOSED to outnumber your enemy!

[queenlua]

a thing that happens to me pretty frequently, probably because i read a lot of niche bloggers and weird esoteric/mysticism-adjacent books, is i'll read quite a lot of work by someone, and have some assessment of that work fixed in my mind... then find out, later, that the person was probably going through some sort of mental health episode at the time they produced that work, and it changes my perception of said work

(not necessarily a manic or psychotic episode, to be clear, though that happens sometimes—but sometimes just knowing someone was e.g. severely depressed or in the throes of an intensely abusive relationship while writing something can drastically alter a perception)

not in a "wow this sucks" kind of way, just a "can't unsee it" kind of way

(for an old/crufty example, michael o church's blog reads a lot differently if you know some of his biographical details and whatnot)

i'm not sure i like this about me! i would prefer to be able to form some clear assessment from the text alone, sola scriptura or whatever, but i also can't pretend this isn't a thing that doesn't happen

(and it's one of the reasons the internet's promise of at least potential pseudonymity is so valuable to me—i'm quite a bit of an open book On Here, but i think it's neat that that's not at all a requirement to be On Here or whatever, and i know people whose creative output would likely be impossible without that sense of remove)

anyway. justin e.h. smith / justin smith ruiu's latest sure has some Stuff in there!

I wrote at some point, in early 2023, that it was now my explicit and singular intention to “destroy my reputation”. A kind friend of mine wrote at that point privately to tell me that this is in fact a well-established maneuver in the course of a certain kind of life: some Sufis, for example, make an effort to be publicly disagreeable, as part of the cultivation of a form of spiritual goodness that is conceived as an entirely private matter between oneself and God. The delightfully sketchy George Gurdjieff, that mustachioed carpet-merchant turned New Age guru, seems to have drawn on a special interpretation of this Sufic practice in order to justify, perhaps to rationalize, being an insufferable jerk. In its essence the doctrine makes sense though, as a sort of taking to its extreme the familiar Christian prohibition on giving alms in public. Whatever it is to “be good” cannot be a matter of “looking good”. A few years down the line, I do not think I was all that successful in destroying my reputation. Surprisingly, it took an awful long time for news of my rupture to spread at all. It turns out people are not paying nearly as close attention as we sometimes imagine to our accounts of our inner struggles. Not everyone “reads me”, in the various meanings of that phrase. And so I just kept getting called back by my broader network of acquaintances to the same old roles as before, which frustrated me to no end. I felt trapped, as if I had no means available to me to force social recognition of the brute fact, as I experienced it, that I had become a different person. To the question in our title, whether one can become a different person, it came to seem to me that while this may be possible, it is not permitted, not by my society and my era. One can, but one oughtn’t.

also lmao at this footnote:

Pseudonymy also has the advantage —though this is not my reason for adopting it— of preventing at least some people, who do not look too closely, from saying: “You write too much.” To which each time I feel like replying: “You breathe too much, you fainéant.”

[sunset-telepath]

i powered through unraveled mostly out of a morbid sense of horror and disbelief and i must ask, will we ever be graced with sunset's thoughts on this magnificent and infallible work of literature?

Very bold of you to assume I have opened the cover of this brand new item in Ms. Messenger's oeuvre (or that of Stellarlune, for that matter). As a responsible critic, I cannot give a review of the book itself - but I can give a readout of my immediate emotional response to the plot points I heard from various commentators as they went chapter-by-chapter reacting to the plot of the book.

In summary, my response is also perfectly described as: "a morbid sense of horror and disbelief." Thank you for putting my immediate reaction into words because I hadn't yet. I would compare the feeling of hearing what's going on in the series to seeing a train crash into another - you know it's going to happen and yet you can't help but be shocked as the trains violently crash into each other and become crushed and wrecked.

In the same way, given the foreshadowing planted in Legacy, I had a sneaking suspicion that Shannon was going to do something with her bizarre attempt to make Alvar pitiable and pathetic with the mysterious disease. In this book we got to see the decadently indolent, utterly flagrant, and completely shameless cashing-in on this with Alvar and Keefe being best friends in the Forbidden Cities as Keefe angsts about Sophie. Now note that Alvar was one of the people who kidnapped and tortured her in the first book (if we may harken back to a halcyon (and long-gone) age of good writing) and who betrayed them in Neverseen and committed various other crimes and reprehensible actions.

But to bring this up requires us to acknowledge the swarm of chickens flying home to roost in this whole plot point - that Keefe and Alvar are treated differently by Shannon and she has basically written them a blank moral and narrative check. Characters never acknowledge or denounce them for their immoral actions - just watch how Keefe was completely forgiven after betraying them in Neverseen and after cowardly running away in Unlocked (I mean - come on - at this point, put an ankle monitor on him) and faced no serious repercussions for this. Or how Alvar was given total absolution in Flashback and Fitz was treated as crazy or unreasonable for thinking a terrorist might - gasp - commit future terrorist actions and ought to be punished and/or locked away. And how Fitz is portrayed as particularly violent/dark for not. working overtime to save the life of his terrorist brother after stopping said brother from attacking people while a larger terrorist attack was taking place. Or that Fitz was treated as some psycho in Legacy for wanting to find Alvar and finally bring him to justice - and flipping out when Sophie and Keefe upstaged him, found Alvar, and threw away all of his work to find Alvar by letting Alvar go.

I mean. what do you expect at this point? The prospect that these characters are ever going to face consequences for their actions has been vehemently rejected again and again. At some point, true shock simply isn't possible. Just a morbid sense of disbelief and a feeling of bizarre unreality.

Will I read the rest of KOTLC in the future? Probably not. I have better things to read. I think I have grown beyond it. I do, however, enjoy hearing what has happened to it - in the capacity that I need resolution to this series and I must know how something I spent years of my life obsessing over ended (though with the current pace of this series I'm fearing it may never end). And the fandom is amazing and I am deeply loving the new memes out of these scenes:

*Alvar talking about how great it is that gay people exist and matchmaking doesn't in the forbidden cities*

Keefe: I know what you are

I suppose I didn't cover my reaction to the presence of more gay people. I liked that. It's nice to finally be represented in this series. I don't really talk about it anymore, but if you want a more thorough analysis of Keefe and of the series, I can't recommend @the-way-astray enough. They are very talented and I agree with nearly all of their conclusions.

As a final note, anon, you talk in a way that's really familiar and I can't help but ask - are you a past internet friend/mutual? I have some suspicions lol...

[essektheylyss]

I was personally assaulted (honorific) by this essay on ambition. It's very good.

[freebooter4ever]

I always enjoy it when people come up to me while im drawing as long as they're nice about it, and especially kids. And while the last two weeks only seemed to have obnoxious parents (at one point a kid was pointing like 'i want to be able to that!' and their parent replied 'you can't' and i was like ???? Wtf), this week there was a mom and two daughters who were really interested in art and were standing behind me while i sketched for a long while. Neither of the girls could have been much older than 10, and they were super shy, and were asking their mom questions, and i answered one of the questions. And the mom laughed and said 'see, she can hear you, don't be afraid to ask her questions!' and then i turned around and introduced myself a little and explained what i was drawing. And then they just stood and quietly watched me draw for like ten minutes, it was so sweet. 🥹

[charlesreedscoolhat]

Charles: and how do I contact you in the future?

Johannes: you don't 🌟 bye you soggy bitch ✨️🕺✨️🕺🟨🟨🟨

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

so I'm sitting there in tears over my discovery of what the J in Andrew J Robinson stands for

but wait! I've seen that name before....... no...... it couldn't be.........

unbelievable

[the-busy-ghost]

Alright uninformed rant time. It kind of bugs me that, when studying the Middle Ages, specifically in western Europe, it doesn’t seem to be a pre-requisite that you have to take some kind of “Basics of Mediaeval Catholic Doctrine in Everyday Practise” class. 

Obviously you can’t cover everything- we don’t necessarily need to understand the ins and outs of obscure theological arguments (just as your average mediaeval churchgoer probably didn’t need to), or the inner workings of the Great Schism(s), nor how apparently simple theological disputes could be influenced by political and social factors, and of course the Official Line From The Vatican has changed over the centuries (which is why I’ve seen even modern Catholics getting mixed up about something that happened eight centuries ago). And naturally there are going to be misconceptions no matter how much you try to clarify things for people, and regional/class/temporal variations on how people’s actual everyday beliefs were influenced by the church’s rules. 

But it would help if historians studying the Middle Ages, especially western Christendom, were all given a broadly similar training in a) what the official doctrine was at various points on certain important issues and b) how this might translate to what the average layman believed. Because it feels like you’re supposed to pick that up as you go along and even where there are books on the subject they’re not always entirely reliable either (for example, people citing books about how things worked specifically in England to apply to the whole of Europe) and you can’t ask a book a question if you’re confused about any particular point. 

I mean I don’t expect to be spoonfed but somehow I don’t think that I’m supposed to accumulate a half-assed religious education from, say, a 15th century nobleman who was probably more interested in translating chivalric romances and rebelling against the Crown than religion; an angry 16th century Protestant; a 12th century nun from some forgotten valley in the Alps; some footnotes spread out over half a dozen modern political histories of Scotland; and an episode of ‘In Our Time’ from 2009. 

But equally if you’re not a specialist in church history or theology, I’m not sure that it’s necessary to probe the murky depths of every minor theological point ever, and once you’ve started where does it end? 

Anyway this entirely uninformed rant brought to you by my encounter with a sixteenth century bishop who was supposedly writing a completely orthodox book to re-evangelise his flock and tempt them away from Protestantism, but who described the baptismal rite in a way that sounds decidedly sketchy, if not heretical. And rather than being able to engage with the text properly and get what I needed from it, I was instead left sitting there like:

And frankly I didn’t have the time to go down the rabbit hole that would inevitably open up if I tried to find out

[secret--history]

the whole 'there are not very many Great Causes worth fighting for these days' from Julian scanned as WAY more out of touch than the moon landing thing for me the first time i read tsh

[greenerteacups]

hello!!! i wanted to ask if Lionheart will mirror canon so there will be 7 books, or if you’ll extend the story to eighth year and their early careers!!! also, would you be ok with sharing if Lionheart will be a HEA or nah? 😭 i love you, i love your work 💖

Ah, thank you, you're so sweet! As of right now, my plan is to cover seven books, ending with the conclusion of the Second Wizarding War (whatever that looks like). The summary sort of tells you up front: Draco Malfoy meets a girl on a train, and then he ends a war. That's it, that's the story.