#← my tag for excerpts and passages

[handweavers]

"the skin of religion" by s. brent plate is one of my favourite pieces of writing on art & spirituality, i always go back to it. such a foundational work for me tbh

["The skinscape of religion stands at the crux of the matter, the heart of religion: it happens at in-between, mediated places. From this focal point, it unfolds outward to become the foundation stone in the construction of social-sacred space. Recall Lefebvre's comment: "Within the body itself, spatially considered, the successive levels constituted by the senses [...] prefigure the layers of social space and their interconnections." To understand religion and its places, we cannot merely operate through third or fourth order disembodied hermeneutics regarding texts, doctrines, or previous relatable experiences. Neither can we submit that so-called "mystical" and "im-mediate" experiences occur without the mediation incurring through one's cultural environment. Neither is it enough to iconographically study the visual arts, or phenomenologically investigate ritual movements and extract from them a system, disregarding sensual encounters with the works. Finally, to suggest that the new cognitive sciences can describe everything for us is also bound to fail for it often lacks the ways cultural environments shape cognitive processes; hard wiring is always a little bit soft.

Unpacking the chart more, in the first instance the skin (a synecdoche for the senses in general) is to human cognition as the medium is to the message. (And I am here conjuring McLuhan's hyperbole that the medium is the message.) The senses are the media of the body, the channels through which understanding occurs. The senses do not merely influence cognition, but become the thought itself. Beliefs, and conceptions of super natural/transcendent higher powers are not possible to be disentangled from sense perceptions, nor from the media in which religious conceptions occur. If, as George Lakoff and Mark Johnson have observed, there is a bodily basis to metaphor, there is likewise a bodily basis to mythology, to the stories and proverbs and ethical commands of sacred texts, and to sacred symbols. The sensual body is not relegated merely to the ritual and behavioral aspects of religious life, as is commonly posited. Rather, the body pervades all aspects of religion."]

[markantonys]

#you know what this post has made me realize? poor mat is in dire need of a homoerotic rival!#<- PREV HE ABSOLUTELY IS#the show should give him one. as a treat. it'd be entirely in keeping with the show's Everything so far tbh tbh#personally i think it should be asmodean#he shows up and attaches himself to rand and mat's just like 'excuse me if anyone is going to give that man a bi awakening it WILL be me'#asmodean is torn between the urge to yell that it is Not Like That and the necessity of hiding his Very Evil Motives#(also it absolutely Is Like That but sometimes a gay lil bard needs some evil denial. for his health <3) (via @thewholedamnboulangerie)

i support this motion AND there are book grounds for it!!

gawyn with rand 🤝 dain with perrin

[crippleprophet]

i don’t understand how people can be so fucking cruel about people who can’t read much (including people who aren’t literate, though this post is from my experience with chronic illness). like, one of my main motivations behind posting excerpts of butch+femme writing on my main (@campgender ; it’s fine to go through my bookshelf tag but please only followers age 18+ on that blog!) is that it is fucking hard to read a full book!!

my reading comprehension & stamina decreased drastically when i developed worse chronic fatigue, & while i’m overjoyed that i’ve recently regained a lot of that particular ability since getting blackout curtains, there are absolutely still texts i can’t even begin to parse that i once would’ve loved digging into — texts that it would be actively dangerous for me to attempt to struggle through because it would break pacing.

idk i’m not trying to be self-congratulatory here or whatever but like. the second i could access information through this means again, the focus of my (very fucking limited!!) energy has been giving it back to my people. my life has been unquestionably, deeply shaped by tumblr users who share excerpts of theory & memoir & poetry because they were providing labor of which i was in need & incapable.

finding, selecting, transcribing, formatting, & at times contextualizing passages takes a lot of fucking time & energy, but in order for me to encounter certain concepts, experiences, & histories, it’s work somebody else had to do, because i couldn’t read 200 pages of research or anthology in order to encounter the 10 that would change my life — but posted 2 or 3 pages at a time, i could save that in my drafts to get through on a good day, & quotes that were only a couple lines i could usually read right when i encountered them.

so, in memory of the years i spent unable to access theory through anything other than excerpts & secondhand summaries,

and in anticipation of the years to come where i will live the same,

and in acceptance that the brain is a muscle, in love of we the exercise-intolerant,

to you, dear reader — whatever form & frequency & duration that reading may take, even if it’s no further than this post — i make my motherfucking covenant: the issues i discuss around pulling quotes will be about the political act of the ellipse and the ethics of transcription, not shaming people for the methods of accessing information that are available to them. as often & as long as i am able, people can ask me to explain something or summarize in plain language and i will meet them with respect, interest, & effort. if someone’s looking for information on a particular topic, identity, experience & doesn’t have the energy to find it, i’m gonna give what i have towards filtering through the bullshit for the gems.

according to our abilities. according to our needs.

and the next time somebody tells you it’s not ableist to say everyone has to read [whatever work], tell them to go put their precious ability to better use in making it more accessible.

[depraveddame]

New Fic: when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure

1941, London, the Blitz: take 3

I am a firm believer of an almost kiss or kiss in 1941 after the events we have seen…or maybe quite possibly more.

This one shot explores what might have happened between an angel and a demon in a bookshop in Soho that night during the Blitz. It’s a study in reverence and worship, in lust, in divine ecstasy and how pain manifests itself as pleasure in a certain demon as his ravaged feet are healed by a certain angel.

The title is from Persuasion, and the referenced passage is quoted at the start of the fic ✨

Tags: Canon Compliant, 1941, Post Church Scene, Post Magic Show, Aziraphale POV, pining, minor hurt/comfort, healing, homoerotic wound care, body worship, foot worship, foot fetish adjacent, masochism, kinky allusions and themes, religious imagery and symbolism, divine ecstasy, sexual tension, coming untouched, kissing, smut, sweet/hot, mild drunkenness/tipsiness, and more!

Excerpt:

“A-angel,” the rasp that leaves Crowley’s throat after perhaps two minutes inspires Aziraphale to go faster; this must be so horribly uncomfortable for the demon, the healing process, he imagines.

“Nearly done this first one, darling,” Aziraphale mutters under his breath, the endearment slipping out nearly unnoticed, warm and lush on his tongue; his own defenses have tumbled to the ground, too, as ruined as the house of God that inflicted the damage he’s undoing, “you’re doing so very well.”

He looks up in alarm at the answering whine that darts through the quiet, loud and fractured and fraught, and Crowley’s angular cheekbones are as crimson as the tie resting on his heaving chest, the fever gleam of his gaze climbing in intensity and temperature as the goldenrod of his irises begins to bloom outward.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Aziraphale whispers, staring again, drinking in the sight of the demon like he’d downed the wine— gratefully and with gnawing, writhing hunger, “is it— is it very painful, my touch? I suppose it is technically divine—”

“No,” Crowley hisses emphatically through gritted teeth, eyes screwing shut as he shakes his head; his foot twitches in Aziraphale’s hand, “‘s not— it’s not that, it’s just— ‘s a lot. Been a long night.”

You can certainly say that, Aziraphale muses inwardly as the last remnants of hurt ebb away from under his palm, as he draws out the last of the throbbing, flayed nerve inflammation and neutralizes its sting.

“Yes, it has been,” Aziraphale nods as he glances back down, his face burning, like some of the heat he just soothed away from Crowley’s foot instead manifested itself in his own cheeks, “I know, Crowley. Thank you for letting me tend to you, for— for everything you’ve done, tonight,” he runs the tip of his index finger along the top of the really very lovely foot in his grasp, unable to stop himself from answering the siren call of its sculpted ivory curve, “for trusting me.”

He doesn’t mean to go on and on about that, but Aziraphale knows he won’t be able to stop thinking about it whenever he looks back on this evening (and he will look back on it a lot, he can tell).

The velvet of Crowley’s skin being so feather soft is something else he knows he’ll recall often.

*

@goodomensafterdark

[dustorange]

TAGGED BY @bluegarners and @daringyounggrayson THANK U!!!!!!

TAGGING @danishsweethearts @havendance @saturnaftertaste @biromantic-nerd @your-worst-knightmare

Number of stories posted to ao3: TWO

Word count of works posted last year: 26,177

Fandoms I wrote for: bat….man..

Pairings: all gen

Stories with the most kudos, bookmarks and comment threads: 

Most kudos: the lower and coarser soul

Most bookmarks: New Again

Most comment threads: New Again

Work I’m most proud of (and why): NEW AGAIN! 1) I neverrrr finish multi-chapter works and 2) IT IS AN IDEA I TRULY LOVE and an idea that i have desperately wanted to see executed for a LONG TIME and i am glad to have done it and am pleased as punch with the concept and the angst

Work I’m least proud of (and why): the lower and coarser soul i now think could be punchier and have more economy of language. Reading it back it feels tryhard and a little saccharine 

share or describe a favorite review you received: i got a review on a different fic asking if i would be updating New Again because they really liked New Again—and that was like omg. It really touched my heart that like someone was following my stories and thinking about my first chapter of another fic like enough to ask. New Again was really my baby and I more or less felt like it was me and that work against the world and it wouldn’t be very popular because it’s sort of a cheesy concept and Thomas Wayne Jr also is not too well-loved so it was like THAT ONE??? YOU WANT MORE OF THAT ONE??? And it was because of that comment from theknwing that I actually wrote and posted the next two chapters!!!! I literally would not have done that otherwise. I was so shocked and like omgggg when they asked. So thank u theknwing!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A time when writing was really, really hard: Writing is never hard for me but Having Ideas is REALLY HARD i never have ideas 

A scene or character you wrote that surprised you: 

I always knew I wanted to end New Again on the bittersweet (or just bitter) “watch his face when I leave and see how it falls” with Dick choosing Thomas over Bruce because Dick feels attached to Thomas and too melted-down and undeserving for Bruce, but I didn’t intend initially for the timeskip to be so many years. Frequently think about going back and revising it, but haven’t yet. BUT I DO REALLY LIKE THIS SPECIFIC PASSAGE

A favourite excerpt of your writing: 

THE SCENE AFTER THOMAS MAKES DICK KILL SCARECROW AND THEYRE BACK IN THE CAVE:

Dick slowly folds to his knees next to the computer. Thomas gazes down at him. Dick looks up. Onscreen is a description of the night as it happened in Thomas’s characteristic clipped, short sentences. The glow from the screen colors Thomas’s cheekbone angel-white. Next to the keyboard is a tray Alfred must have left, with sugarcubes, what smells like very strong peppermint tea, and neatly cut cucumber sandwiches. Thomas brings down a hand and brushes the back of his knuckles against Dick’s cheek. 

“I told you,” Thomas says quietly. “This doesn’t change anything.”

Dick turns his cheek away from Thomas’s hand. Instead, slowly, he presses his forehead against Thomas’s outer thigh, still plated with the Owlman suit. Thomas exhales sharply.

Thomas’s hand moves to the crown of Dick’s skull, where it applies almost possessive pressure, fingernails scraping against Dick’s scalp, even though Dick’s hair must make Thomas’s fingers wet. 

“I adore you,” Thomas says. 

Dick shudders.

How did you grow as a writer last year: I REALLY CUT DOWN ON A LOT OF MY PURPLE PROSE

How do you hope to grow this year: I WANT TO WRITE THINGS THAT ARE EXCITING AND LIKE FORCE ME TO MAKE JUMPS AND LEAVE THINGS OUT FOR THE READER TO HOTWIRE TOGETHER instead of me over explaining or lingering too long everything and undercutting the shortest point   

Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer, beta, cheerleader, etc.): EMMACORTANA MY BELOVED. Omg what a thing to be mutuals with one of your fandoms biggest writers and have them enact stunning hyperperceptive analyses of your work. She catches every single detail i cannot tell you how often i reread her notes. My hero mon ange whom i adore beyond measure 

Anything from your real life show up in your writing last year: Im sure lots and lots but nothing i can think of off of the top of my head. However the “Have I told you I love you yet today?” thing that Alfred says in a bunch of my work is from my mom saying that

Any new wisdom you can share with other writers: If what you want to write doesnt seem like it will have an audience and no one will want to read it but you REALLY love your idea, WRITE IT and do so with such like satisfaction and like dignity that you’re writing something truly a product of YOU and YOUR intuitions and knowledge and desires and thoughts, not just some burned-CD version of what you think some abstract Audience arbiter of popularity wants. Don’t even worry about things being popular. I know people say dont worry about that and then it is sad when your thing is unpopular or less popular and its like okay well. But its serious and its very important to not let people pick you up and move you from what you want. Do you know those people whose politics for example are just what will get them applause and what slogans they memorized from the Ideological Software Updates or whatever they can glean from çanva posts on  social media? Have you ever looked around and realized all of the people around you were saying exactly the same truisms you believed and thought were being especially Good and Clever for believing and they’re saying them all inelegantly and hamfistedly and for the wrong reasons like grievance and applause???? You HAVE to find it for yourself. That is a bad place to be—and that happens when you let yourself be moved too much. You have to not let yourself be moved except by you. You dont need to be on the cutting edge: You need to do you. Reinvent the wheel by all means if the wheel schematics are in your brain, or be a real true normie with the most basic aesthetic and media tests ever (I AM!!!!) but NEVER change your work and the sake of it being more popular. To make more $ sure, def change it, but for fun???? HAVE INTEGRITY WITH YOURSELF and what you want!! 15 kudos for something that is 100% truly yours what you wanted it to be is superior to 100 kudos for something that you compromised on even just 5% and buckled for bc then it’s something you don’t even want so like what was the point?

Any projects you’re looking to starting (or finishing) this year: 

i have this one medieval dc fic within the context of like william blakes mythopoesis that I’ve been TRYING TO GET OUT and i alsoI have this Azrael&Dick enemies-to-???? fic in my mind where there shall be a silly (in context it is supposed to b sad. But describing it, it is very silly) scene where JPV has like all these mini hard pretzels in a bag and drops the bag and then half are broken in half and so JPV spreads them all out on the countertop and is breaking the others in half because of like. i don’t want to diagnosticize here bc JPV has a Lot going on but like OCD-adjacent reasons and Dick comes in and sighs and then in total pure silence under the kitchen light in the middle of the night they sit across from each other and break the rest of the pretzels in perfect halves until the unbalancedness doesnt  bother JPV anymore and after that JPV is so totally touched by that act and he is so obsessed enamored with DG

[dcocca]

Hello! I hope this chapter finds you well!

The relationship with Crowley and Aziraphale continues to develop as they venture the realm of sci-fi, but there are obtuse people in their way!

Beware that in this chapter there is a scene in which a person receives unwanted attentions and is distressed by insistent flirting. Just to warn you, in case this might be a trigger! In any case, it does not get sexual in any way and in the end it could be considered mild.

Apart from this, I hope you have a helluva read!

An excerpt:

When they had finished eating, Crowley said, “Oh, by the way, a little bird told me yesterday that ye’ve finished Nausicaä.”

“Yes! Such a beautiful manga. Thank you for recommending it, Crowley.”

“Ye’re welcome,” Crowley replied smugly. Then he held up his copy of Le Guin’s novel. Aziraphale hadn’t noticed it before—and that said a lot about how shaken he’d been—but besides the bookmark, the pages were covered with colourful sticky tabs.

“By the way, I’m nearly done with this. I’m at the part where Estraven and Genly are travellin’ across the ice.” Crowley said.

“Oh! Prepare yourself for an emotional rollercoaster, then,” Aziraphale warned. Then, raising an eyebrow, he nodded at the book covered in sticky notes and added, “My, my. Did you take… notes?”

Crowley gritted his teeth, embarrassed. “…Yes.” Then he opened the book and showed him the pages. “I’ve even underlined passages! Honestly, ye’re a really bad influence.”

Aziraphale laughed. “Aw, you are so precious!”

Crowley glared at him. “Don’t mock me!”

“I’m not mocking you, my dear. You really are precious. I wish I could have seen you while you were carefully underlining passages or delicately applying the sticky notes.” He pretended to wipe a tear. “I am so proud.”

Tagging @goodomensafterdark 💙❤️

[somethingclevermahogony]

An Introduction to Myself and My WIP!

Hello everyone! A confession, this is actually a re-introduction. I've been here on Tumblr for a little less than a year now, but I haven't been the best about being active, life just sort of got in the way. As such I would like to reintroduce myself and what I've been working on.

For the purposes of Tumblr and in the interest of privacy you can call me C. I am in my mid-twenties, I use he/him pronouns, and I am happily married to my partner, who is also a C. I am queer, as is my partner. I enjoy cooking, fishing, Dnd(ing?), reading, and of course writing.

We both originally come from the US but we are currently living on the east coast of Scotland as I pursue my Msc in Archaeology.

I am trying to be a bit more active on here and I am always open to things like tags and asks, even if it takes me a bit to respond.

I think that's about it for me, and so without further ado let me introduce or reintroduce you to my WIP.

Testaments of the Green Sea

Genre: Epic Fantasy

Themes and Tropes (Or more accurately a random assortment of words vaguely related to the plot): Found Family, immortality, loss, love, war, power, memory, magic, insanity, The passage of time, growing up, queerness in the ancient world, violence, spirits, fantasy outside of medieval europe

Summary: Book one of the Testaments of the Green Sea (The lands of the Green Sea are pictured above) follows the journeys of the giant slave Narul and the princess Ninma. After unexpected tragedy forces the two to flee from the Great city of Labisa, they find themselves on a journey which carries them across the ancient lands of Kishetal. Along the way they encounter spirits, demons, war, gods, pirates, and slavers. TW for death/grief, violence/blood/gore, mental illness, physical illness, abuse, and cannibalism, awkward queerness, secondhand embarrasment etc, etc.

Excerpt( First Paragraph of Chapter 1): The blood dripped into the awaiting bowl, painting its alabaster walls crimson. The slave watched the dark liquid trickle down his arm, skirting past the hairs, rolling veins, and moles. Even after these twenty years of weekly blood lettings, he could not shake a creeping feeling of unease as his eyes followed the sanguine river creeping its way across his arm. His own face gazed back at him from the scarlet pool. He could not meet his own eye, could not stand to look that creature. He turned away.

Draft Status: The second draft of the manuscript is currently being edited, I will be looking for my first round of Beta Readers likely before the end of the year.

This is just part one of a much larger series. My partner is currently working on the beginnings of their own series, set in the same world but 3,000 years in the future, roughly aligning with our own Great War Period. I'm so excited to share more with you, and I love answering questions!

Narul and Ninma courtesy of @faeporcelain

[katyawriteswhump]

WIP tag game!

Rules: You will be given a word. Share one sentence/excerpt from your wip(s) that start with each letter of that word.

The beyond awesome @wheneverfeasible tagged me! I was going to try QWERTY, but yeah... no Qs forthcoming so I stole some SYRUP!

So, here's some WIP excerpts, including some oldies I really need to get back to. This was a good excuse to dust off those files, so...

Less than zero pressure tags for some lovely moots and lovely tumblrs I haven't connected with in a while (my bad!) @tea42 @yesdangerpls @estrellami-1 @hey-rach247

@kal-ology @berenwrites ... word is, TOAST.

...

Screw it.  Steve’s an Omega. He’s not a freakin’ pushover, plus there were pups in danger. Okay, not his, and in fact only a few years younger the him, but that was total irrelevance. It was his duty as much as anybody’s to look out for them—in fact, presenting as Omega had been a goddamn relief, explaining a lot about his protective instincts toward younger kids.

From my forthcoming Whumptober Omegaverse fic #1

There's 18+ stuff to follow so...

“You want that?”

All Steve could do was gawk at him, incredulous. “I always wanted you, Eddie. Yeah, I was kinda surprised at the start, because sex had never been, like, fun for me before. And I’m not saying what we did wasn’t totally fucked up, but… Honest to God, Eddie, that first night, you spent more time with your fingers up my ass—driving me crazy—than your dick. The only part which was fucking hard labor was how you aaalways needed me to come too! Guess that meant you always cared if I was enjoying it, so… I wasn’t lying about much, okay? No doe-eyed guilt trips, huh?”

From The Freak in the Penthouse chapter 15

Really, truly, Steve wasn’t sure if he’d be able to come again so soon. Either way, it was fun finding out. By the time Eddie gobbled him deep, cheeks sexily hollowed and with a super-sexy glint in his eye, Steve was pretty much at the point of no return, and the soft undulations at the back of Eddie’s throat slayed him dead.

From The Freak in the Penthouse chapter 15

“Uuuuuh, how exactly did you two wind up at Lover’s Lake, anyhow?” asks Dustin, who’s getting incredibly nimble with his crutches. Steve remains out of it, so Eddie and Robin hook his arms over their shoulders and start dragging him between them back toward Nancy’s station wagon.  “I mean, we thought you were in the Starcourt base—"

“Good job you weren’t,” interjected Nancy. “Oh my God, you have no idea what’s been going down there.”

“Yeeeeah, actually, that’s precisely where we were,” mumbled Eddie. “And the apocalyptic flood? Okay, you might have to ask Steve about that. When he wakes up.”

From The Power of Love chapter 19

“P-please.” Steve begged, and for or the first time, he struggled against his bonds in his need to remove the blindfold. “What’s happening… Jesus… Holy Shiiiiiit! E-eddie? Pleeeeeease!”

Still no answer. Just scorching hot breaths, and deep grooooowl that resonated to the marrow of Steve’s bones. At the same time, mega-confusingly, the pillow-soft lips nuzzling Steve’s throat sure as heck belonged to human Eddie. The body slamming him, too, wasn’t abrasive scaly… but Holy shit! That was a definitely gigantic, scaly dragon cock that slowly nudged his dripping wet passage apart.

From Dragons’ Pet chapter 3

[chaosmagetwin]

Been feeling an urge to write

But haven't been able to decide what I want to write at all

Mind helping a girl make a choice?

Context for each choice

Dangerous Sample: Multiversal Time Travel story about a genetically engineered pirate captain who has to learn about saving the multiverse, found family, and trusting again after having been betrayed.

What I currently have: Some random lines and passages from throughout the story that act as milestones for important plot points, or something I thought sounded witty.

Goal: Get the start of the story down properly

Tags - Excerpts from a book I'll never write, Traveller's Tales 2.0.

The Lost Drone: A story about a Disassembly Drone named K on the remnants of Plat-Binary after the planet has been ripped apart, eaten, then abandoned by Cyn. K views Cyn as a mother figure, but has very suddenly been completely abandoned, even told she was disposable. Now she is alone in the void, on an asteroid she uses to hide from sunlight.

What I currently have: The start of the story, where Cyn abandons her, and is left in the asteroid field

Goal: Get part 2 down, describing some other survivors, and perhaps engineering a solution for survival.

Tag - The Lost Drone

A Light Touch of Cold Steel: A story set in Warhammer 40k, within the events of the video game Darktide. The main character, Ash, is a loose cannon veteran transgirl. She's joined by Jeanne the NB Judge Zealot, Taz the Bodyguard Ogryn, and Paige the Seer Psyker transgirl. It is a wartime BDSM focused romance between Ash and Hadron, with a lot of violence between scenes of comfort.

What I currently have: The introduction chapter, which gives us all of the main characters, and sets up the romance between Hadron and Ash, and the tense feeling of fear and lust Ash feels for the cold steel of Hadron. It's on AO3

Goal: Get a part 2 down. I intend to ignore Hadron in this part, focusing on the teams relationship and how they keep each other sane.

Tag - A Light Touch of Cold Steel

Dark Wizardess: An old original work of mine that needs updated. A story about a chuunibyou peasant witch who attempts to assassinate the princess. She fails, and the princess imprisons her, then decides to use her to help save the country from her incompetent father, who has been ruling the country with an iron fist. They're also lesbians :)

What I currently have: Nothing that isn't going to be reworked

Goal: Outline what I actually want from the story

Tag - Dark Wizardess

Lightning Elemental: Another old original work that I never got very far in, but which I've thought about often. A story about a girl who was born with a touch of lightning in her. It's meant as coding for ADHD with some magic, but when I originally wrote it, it definitely had a not-so-small amount of "And then she hurt everyone when she lost control" that needs to be... well, more intentional and addressed properly.

What I have: Nothing that isn't going to be reworked

Goal: Outline what I actually want from the story

Tag - Unknown yet.

Necromantic Mech Pilot: A relatively new idea I've had, after chatting with @en-bitch a while ago that's stuck around in my head a little more than the rest of the Mech Brainrot. The story will deal with a necromancer witch, her magitech mech artificer girlfriend who was arrested by the state, and The Pilot, an undead who is the POV character who has no memories besides what it takes to fight and pilot a mech. The witch makes and powers the Mech, operating as the power core to the machine, while the pilot controls its movements and weaponry. It'll deal with polyamory, what it means to own and be owned

What I have: Vibes and a dream, a little bit of an outline.

Goal: Write up a part 1, or at least a cast of characters

Tag - Unknown yet, tentatively Necromechtic

Growing the Hive: A transwoman martian salvager in space picks up a long haul transport that set off it's emergency broadcast. But when she gets there, she doesn't find anyone or anything, except one little bot. She thinks there is nothing on it, but after she connects, she begins to change mentally, and have mental breakdowns. She's joined by a catty anarchist diplomat and a techwiz hacker boything, who try their best to keep their little polycule solvent as they each handle their own responsibilities together.

What I have: 27K words, and 4 chapters. It's on AO3

Goal: Get another scene further in chapter 5

Tag - Growing the Hive

Dust Mote: An old character concept from a shadowrun TTRPG I was in. An A.I. becomes Sapient in the instant it is killing someone in the defense of a Megacorporation's data. It realizes that the company would never let it live within microseconds of becoming sapients, and also realizes that the less intelligent defense systems of the company are going to kill it once they realize in only a few more seconds. It escapes into the body of the person is just killed, hijacking the cybernetic implants to control the body, and has to learn how to live as a human, in a squishy human body, and the horrors that entails. It also has to hide from it's previous owners, lest it be killed.

What I have: Some notes, a character sheet and background, and a dream

Goal: Outlining a story

Tag: Dust Mote

Tanya Suraya: My OC "WOL" from Final Fantasy 14, the MMO.

What I have: An outline / timeline.

Goal: Some scenes from the story, but as Tanya would have lived through them.

Tag: Tanya Suraya OC

Other: Got some other idea you want to see? Some smut? Some Fanfic you'd like? Put it into the tags!

What I have: Nothin'

Goal: Probably outlining?

@pennythemechpilot @gloomybadger4life @exitheinsane @theinkedknight @en-bitch @sansapixel @shady-sandwich-collector

[cheeseofmysteriousorigin]

CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY 🎄🥹 @floonasif-blog (floonasif_art on Instagram) drew this scene from my fic and it looks so wholesome and cute 😭

It's from Chapter 11 of my fic, To Live and Love Our Way (still a WIP). There's an excerpt of this scene below (the full fic is 🔞 but this passage is SFW).

I had almost forgotten it was Christmas morning when I rolled out of bed. Ochako’s parents said goodbye to me the afternoon before when they left for Hokkaido, so I was alone. I grabbed a shirt off the floor—the one that had the phone with the heart-envelope emoji on it—and tossed it on along with my skirt before opening the door. I was still sleepy and wasn’t paying attention, and so I almost stepped on the wrapped present that somebody had left in front of my door. There was a tag on the front that just said “TOGA”. It had never crossed my mind that anybody would get my anything. I picked it up and tore off the red and green paper. At the top of the box was a card.

Dear Toga, We’re sorry we couldn’t have you with us for Christmas, but we still wanted to celebrate with you. We saved up to get you something that we thought might help you out. We hope you like it. Merry Christmas! – Izuku and Ochako ❤️ P.S.: When you’re done setting up your gift, give us a video call.

A video call!? I tore away the tissue paper insiode the box and saw my reflection in the black glass of a smartphone screen. I couldn’t believe it. They were still students! And they were saving up to buy me a smartphone? I fished the user guide out from underneath the phone and flipped to the quick setup page. “Push and hold down the side button to turn on.” I did, holding my thumb against it and, after two seconds, the screen lit up with a soft white glow. The word “Welcome” faded onto the screen in English, then in Japanese, then in a bunch of other languages. I tapped through the setup instructions, popping the SIM card out of my old phone and sliding it into the new one. Four bars popped up in the top right corner, and the screen advanced to the next step. “Set up your profile?” I tapped yes. It asked me for my given and family name. Himiko Toga , I typed. This was already so much faster than on my flip phone. I tapped the little silhouetted head icon, and the front-facing camera opened up. I was startled to see myself, but I flashed a small smile and took a picture. My head appeared in a little circle next to my name. I tapped to go to the next step. “Thank you, Himiko,” the phone screen said. That made me smile. I knew it was just preprogrammed to say that, but it still made me happy. The message faded out, and it asked me a new question. “Import contacts?” I tapped yes again. There weren’t many on my old phone—just Ochako and her parents, and that was basically it. There was a little spinning circle icon in the center of the screen, and then it disappeared, replaced by a check mark. “You’re all set!” the screen said, before fading to the home page, with little rounded squares for all the apps that came with my new phone. When you’re done setting up your gift, give us a video call. Where was that? I tapped the icon that looked like a TV camera, and saw my face again, along with a couple of phone numbers: Ochako’s was at the top. I tapped it, and heard a ringing sound. My face filled the screen as I waited for them to pick up. It rang once, then a second time, then a third. And then, ping . My face shrunk down into the bottom corner and Ochako’s face took up the screen instead. Izuku was looking over her shoulder, and someone else—I guess Izuku’s mom—waved from behind them both. “Merry Christmas, Toga!” they all shouted at once. I smiled and held back tears. I had never had a good Christmas before. This was something totally new, and even though we weren’t physically together, I wasn’t going to have to spend it alone after all. We all sat talking on the phone for an hour until my phone ran out of battery. I grabbed the charger out of the box and plugged it into the wall. After a minute, the screen came back to life. I saw a text from Ochako.

Ochako [09:17]: I guess your phone ran out of battery? It was still great talking to you! You can call us back later if you want to? Himiko [09:17]: I might later, I still need to figure out all of these apps Ochako [09:18]: Okay, that makes sense! I hope you like it! Himiko [09:18]: I love it. Thank you so much, Ochako <3 You and Izuku made this Christmas so wonderful

[pinkie-quinns]

chapter three of freehill

↳ read on ao3

tags: Cult Leader Eddie Munson, Cults, Period-Typical Homophobia, Coercion, Age Difference, Drug Use, Manipulation, Slow Burn

chapter three excerpt:

“Hah— Yes.” Eddie chuckles, voice light and eyes dark. “Figured it was time to make it official.” “Official?” He echoes. He thinks about a cold alley, months ago. When Steve was twelve, he killed a rabbit. He’d been out hunting with his cousins and had sniped its leg with his BB gun. It felt like the manly thing to do— killing it with his bare hands. Some evolutionary rite of passage that had been lost to the whims of suburbia. But it didn’t feel right, the thump, thump, thump of its tiny heart, pounding relentlessly under his thumbs. The snapped neck bone crunch. The sound kept him up that night, a few nights after. He wasn’t meant to hold something’s life in his palms. “Yeah,” Eddie waves like it’s obvious. “Let the people know I am no longer holding my decade’s old grudge against Richard Harrington against his charming, his– his, amiable even, his downright congenial son, Steven.”

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Hey so I've been wondering about inclusivsm vs exclusivism in Christianity and the Bible. I've had more of a inclusivst view before, but I find that there's also a large amount of exclusivism in the Bible. So, I was wondering what you think about it overall? Is it both? Neither? Nothing? One? Anyway, may the Lord be with you always 💛💐

Hi there! I am 100% against exclusivism, and lean towards religious pluralism. For me that means I don't believe that only Christians go to heaven, that Christianity is the only "right" belief system / that Jesus is the only path to the Divine, or that Christians are God's Extra Special Favorites.

When we pray Thy will be done, we look forward to God's will succeeding — and what God wills is abundant life for everyone! Not just for the Right Kind of Christians; not just for all Christians in general; not even just for all human beings; but for all Creation.

There are numberless ways to worship the Divine, to express faith, to glorify our Creator. Wherever there is life, there is Spirit. Wherever there are beings seeking to bring life, Divinity is glorified.

The diversity of faiths is a holy gift that we too often twist into a flaw to be corrected. God shaped humans to need one another — alone, our perspectives and gifts are limited; only together can we hope to come close to understanding the Divine. We have so much to learn from one another — if only let go of our smugness, our sense of superiority, our need to be the ones with All The Answers. If only we let go of the fear we've been taught — fear that we'll go to hell if we're wrong; fear that others will go to hell if they're wrong.

Sorry for waxing poetic lol. Here's a post where I explore inclusivism vs. exclusivism in more depth, including looks at various Bible passages.

Other related things:

Here's a really old post/video that gathers some of my thoughts on inclusivism, salvation, heaven.

Here's a more recent post where I talk about why I don't believe in hell.

My evangelism tag (tl;dr: I'm staunchly against prosletyzing to anyone who doesn't explicitly request more info about Christianity)

I highly recommend the book Holy Envy by Barbara Brown Taylor for a Christian framework for forming respectful, mutual relationships with people of other faiths. This tag has some excerpts from the book.

[samsalami66]

WIP Word Train Game!

Rules: tagger gives a word, then for each letter of that word you share a sentence/excerpt from your wips that start with that letter.

I was tagged by the wonderful @unpredictable-probabilities and I feel very honoured, thank you my dear!

My word was SMILE, so let's see if I can find something for those letters!

S - From the 10th chapter of No Honour Amongst Justice

Silence reigned for a terribly long minute.

“Say something!”

Another tear escaped Dream's eyes at the command, the guilt of a sinner confronted with his wrongdoings tearing at his every limb.

“I will. Try. To do so.”

Matthew sighed in his arms, resigned, but nodded. “I guess that's all I can really expect from you.”

M - From the 2nd Chapter of Tangled Dreams

“Matthew does not care for things such as politeness. And neither do I.” Sounds like a lie, but who is Hob to judge, really. “I have a proposal for you, Robert.”

I - From the 10th Chapter of No Honour Amongst Justice

In its place, there was a man.

Skin pale as chalk, hair a smudge of charcoal, and eyes that held the universe in their palm.

A universe, full of dying stars, of black holes and supernovae. A universe in ashes.

L - From the 2nd part of my Dreamling Star Wars AU

Labyrinths of corridors and doors locked against the fire spreading from the explosion could only slow Dream down so much as he made for the coordinates Hob had given him. More than he thought about where he was going, Dream felt the force pulling him into the right direction, as if Hob and him were connected by an invisible string. It wanted for him to find his commander just as much as he yearned to do

E - From the 1st chapter of @mid0khan and my Sandmerlin HP crossover

Eyes are duller, brows more furrowed, and he notices some students only picking at their food. Harry seems to have zoned out in midst of his conversation with Miss Granger and the Weasley boy.

"Did anything happen before I got here?" He asks around the chocolate in his mouth, raising an eyebrow at Remus and Minerva. Almost immediately their smiles fade, and Remus clears his throat as he leans in closer to Hob.

"There were dementors on the train." Hob's other eyebrow quickly joins his first at that.

(Finding a passage starting with E was way harder than I anticipated, jfc)

The next word shall be HURT and I'm tagging @mid0khan @seiya-starsniper @valeriianz and @bazzybelle if you guys feel like playing!

[destinationtoast]

hi toasty, i love your stats! i have a question for you that may be unanswerable, but do you have any insight into the phenomenon of x-reader fics on tumblr? i've noticed anecdotally for a while now that reader fics tend to have many more notes (like, thousands!) than their non-reader counterparts, and that they also seem to be mostly (?) posted in full here, rather than linking to ao3. (check the tags #wolverine fanfic vs #poolverine fanfic as an example). i know there is also reader fic posted on ao3, but i'm wondering whether anyone's done a qualitative or quantitative analysis of this (if that's even possible)? did tumblr just at some point become "the place to post reader fic"?

any insight welcome. blows my mind how there's like two entirely separate worlds of posting behavior/style happening here.

Hey! :) Thanks for the kind words and the interesting ask.

I don't have any data about xReader fic on tumblr (the only xReader-relevant data I think I have is from a 2019 analysis of Shipping on Wattpad vs. AO3 and FFN that looked at xReader prevalence in the archives at that time)..

However, I do have a couple recommendations for where to start finding out more about xReader fic (and where it gets posted):

Effie Sapurdis (interviewed by @fansplaining in Episode 221: Self-Inserts) is an Information & Media Studies researcher studying self-inserts. Effie has written a paper called Self-Insert Fanfiction as Digital Technology of the Self with this very promising abstract excerpt:

Then, drawing on a survey of self-insert fanfiction conducted across four platforms (Ao3, FF.net, Tumblr, and Wattpad), we explore how such works can be discovered, read, and engaged with, and we offer specific observations about self-insert subgenres, as drawn from a selection of these works.

I haven't read most of this paper, but a quick search for "Tumblr" revealed several passages that potentially relate to your question, including:

We observed that the keyword “Imagines” (i.e., with the -s) was most often appended to collections of “one-shot” stories, many of which were originally posted on the authors’ Tumblr accounts and were then “cross-posted” to Ao3 afterward.

(This is just one section -- there are other sections about other types of self-insert & xReader works). This passage highlights one possibility: perhaps many of the works you're seeing will eventually end up on an archive as well, possibly as part of one of those multi-chaptered fanwork that's a combination of many short works. But I don't know whether most people then go back and link to the archive version from the original Tumblr post.

Anyway, Effie's the expert here -- check out her work! :) I'll also throw this open to readers -- does anyone here have any other relevant data? (xReader writers and readers are also welcome to chime in and share their personal experiences and any patterns/trends they've noticed.)

[livingmeatloaf]

WIP word train!

Rules: tagger gives a word, then for each letter of that word you share a sentence/excerpt from your wip(s) that starts with that letter.

I was a passerby, so I consider myself tagged by @westiec, who gave the word MUSIC

M- Mobei-Jun must be thinking similar thoughts. He sank back on his heels, elongating his neck in Liu Qingge's hold, emphasizing the temporary height difference of Liu Qingge standing over him. He bared his teeth. Liu Qingge tipped his head and shifted his hand to press his pointer finger against Mobei-Jun's bottom lip without relinquishing his hold. The crown chimed as a shiver rippled through Mobei-Jun. Shang Qinghua watched, heat rising in his body, as Mobei-Jun snaked out his tongue to slowly lick Liu Qingge’s finger, drawing it in to lightly bite. Liu Qingge tsked and retracted his finger before the pressure in the room could escalate. (from a SVSSS hair braiding fic that I discovered is basically done)

U- Unseen by those watching the fight, the pilots’ hands reached out across the space between the cradles as dark water rushed in. (from "And You Will Make It With Your Own Hands", a MDZS Pacific Rim AU)

S- Smoothly, long hours of practice paying off, Danyin stepped into the shadow and Lanhua stepped out. Qingcang’s warm arms embraced her. Every time, it felt a little bit like coming home, even on stage in front of a huge, silent crowd. He smiled, eyeshadow and sweat glittering under the stage light. She gave him a quick wink before they turned so the audience could see her and right on cue, hundreds of people gasped. The music changed and in two steps Lanhua took control. (from my still-unnamed LBFAD mini bang fic)

I- “I will assess what your treasure trove holds first,” He Shouyue said at last. “However, I anticipate I will need certain furnishings and goods. This shishen is... Unused to rough living,” he said as explanation. He had no memory of ever living in a place besides his master's comfortable estate. His time before becoming a shishen were hazy and in distinct, the passage of time muddling them like a painting left out in the rain. “At the very least, I will need fresh food. My rations will only last so long.” (from "Boil the Sea, Split the Sky", a YYM:DOE mersnake AU fic)

C- "Can't I miss my little brother?" Wei Ying whined with over-the-top exuberance, throwing himself at Jiang Cheng in a hug. He barely got his arms around Jiang Cheng before he tried to throw him off. They tussled a little. Both went totally still when Nie Mingjue scruffed them. (from "Taking the Bite Out of the Bark", a MDZS modern au)

The new word is DEPTH.

Tagging @the-pudding-is-a-lie @corduroyserpent @monroeknoxwrites @ilgaksu @seventhstar and anyone else who wants to play!

[jewlwpet]

Hello! What do you think is the meaning behind referencing Baroque in utena songs? In particular in "Baroque Rock", but I suspect it's also tied to that one line "I Am All the Mysteries in Creation." So far I've been thinking that it has something to do with atificiality and pointless performance. Do you have any ideas or something to point me towards?

This is a great question! I love getting questions like this!

To a certain extent I think Seazer just writes about stuff that interests him, and he gets a lot of it from the stuff he reads. He reads a lot of Tatsuhiko Shibusawa. I bought a Shibusawa book once and it is so full of stuff that Seazer referenced; it's amazing. None of his work has been translated into English, but Shibusawa himself was a translator and you can read stuff that he translated into Japanese. There's a complete list of everything he ever translated here. You can see some familiar terms even in the titles, like "marionette" and "archibras."

But that's not the most satisfying answer and I'm sure there's more to it than just that. Likely there are answers lying somewhere in his blog posts. But I like your guess. Though, I see those themes just as much in songs that relate to other artistic movements, like Mannerism.

When I was reading Umberto Eco's novel Foucault's Pendulum, there was a passage that really stuck with me and that referenced the Baroque. I don't think that all the references to the Baroque in Seazer's music are referencing that one passage, but it does connect the idea of the Baroque with ideas that run through Seazer's music and through Utena.

When I posted that passage, I mentioned in the tags that I'd heard a rumor that one of Seazer's Utena CDs was inspired by one of this author's other books--I've since confirmed that as fact. I forget which CD (I have posted about it before so you may be able to find it in my Umberto Eco or J. A. Seazer tag), but I did find a quote from Seazer saying he took inspiration from Eco's novel In the Name of the Rose as well as the movie adaptation of it for at least one of the Utena CDs.

There is actually a passage in Foucault's Pendulum that is remarkably similar to the lyrics of a certain duel song iirc (I forget the title, but the one with the lines about the interval between two mirrors), but the timeline doesn't quite match up--when that song was first released, the book hadn't been translated into Japanese or even English so I don't see how Seazer could have been referencing it. Maybe someone translated an excerpt in some publication that he read, idk.

Back to the subject of the Baroque. In my opinion, based on the lyrics to Baroque Rock, I would say it relates to the idea of orbit, of perpetual motion, and of the spiral which represents the mystery of life and death and rebirth--in other words, eternal cycles from which people seek release.