#And I'll keep writing out my feelings to process them

[tyrantisterror]

You're welcome! Thank you for being such a willing participant in the interactive side of this story!

And yeah I'll gladly answer some more questions.

So, as I said above, I realized in the process of writing the story that, from a narrative and thematic perspective, this story could not give Sailor a clear and definitive answer to what they are. Even in the ending where they chose to go back to the normal world, we get an answer that convinces Sailor, but still clearly has some holes to the audience. I think there are ways we could have skewed certain conversations to learn more about the hypothetical answers in-story, but it would have come at the cost of key moments of character development for Sailor and Calibani. And I also think it's possible we could have skewed the story in such a direction where giving a definitive answer to the question wouldn't have necessarily hurt the theme of the story, by dint of turning the story into a different theme entirely - a South-heavy story might have focused on Sailor confronting their own inherent selfishness and short-sightedness rather than questions of their identity, for example, while a West-heavy story might have been a more dense and wacky adventure full of foolhardiness where learning who/what Sailor is could happen quickly and definitively without fanfare in order to be pushed aside for more shenanigans. 58 choices - there's a lot of potential what-ifs here.

There would be no way to contact Earth in the story as told, no, just as there wouldn't be a map till the very end. But, like, Sailor is canonically living longer than just the nine or so days the story covers, the Sea of Monsters is big, and Sailor knows a mad scientist. It's possible Sailor finds a way to get a message back to earth at some point - but I guess we'll have to save that for a hypothetical At Sea Without a Map 2: Now With Map!

I generally tried to vote either for the answer I thought would get the most votes, or the one that would get the least, in hopes of not actually affecting the result too much (unfortunately tumblr doesn't let you see the results before the poll ends unless you vote, and for the sake of keeping to a more-or-less daily schedule, I kinda needed to keep an eye on it to know what I'd need to draw during my downtime moments). I think the TT-only version of At Sea Without a Map would have been pretty similar to what we got. We might have spent a bit less time with Calibani and bit more time getting into monster hijinks and drawing exposition about the setting from characters like Dr. Neptune, but otherwise it would have been pretty similar. I had more fun with the player-choices that contradicted my own instincts, though - it was fun being given free reign to just shoot the shit with love interest while ignoring the plot. Very indulgent I do wonder if Sailor might have turned out differently, though - I was very conscious of trying not to flavor things too heavily when Sailor was in my control in the narrative, i.e. when they had to make choices without a compass to set them in a direction. I didn't really start giving Sailor personality in-text until I got a feel for what we were turning them into together, and even then I always felt nervous about it - I never wanted it to feel like I was forcing you all to play a character that wasn't authentic to what you were choosing. This wouldn't be a problem if Sailor was just written by me and me alone, so they might have become something different by dint of me not having to worry about alienating voters with their actions.

At Sea Without a Map Post-Script

After two months of so, my little writing experiment At Sea Without a Map has come to an end. And because I'm vain, I not only felt compelled to share it, but to talk about it in depth after the fact, so here we are. This is going to be long, though, so I'm not only going to break it into sections, but put it all under the cut for the sake of your dashboard. So go ahead and dive into the depths of the Sea of Monsters with me one more time!

Part 1: Never Stop Blowing Up

The writing process of Wizard School Mysteries Book 3 was really strained - not because of the book itself, mind you. When I was actually able to work on it, Book 3 came together really well - I think it required the least substantial rewrites of any my novels thus far. It's just that real life was kind of beating the shit out of me while I was trying to get it done - or maybe the better metaphor was that it was just slowly but steadily draining me of energy all the time. I'm honestly surprised I got the book out in roughly the same amount of time as the first two - by the way life had been treating me, it should have taken longer.

But when I got done with it I was accutely aware of how tired I was. I still had the creative drive, but fuck I needed something simple as a palette cleanser - something easy, and more importantly, something that was allowed to be bad. I needed something creative to do that was surplus to requirements and fully within its rights to suck ass so long as I had fun making it.

Around this time, I decided to rewatch Dimension 20's Never Stop Blowing Up. Brief explanation of what that is: Dimension 20 is an actual play show, i.e. a recording of people playing D&D and other TTRPGs. I'd say its reputation is built on the contrast of its main DM, Brennan Lee Mulligan, who makes these meticulously crafted campaign plans, and his chaotic band of improv comedian players who promptly derail those plans spectacularly. Like, a good deal of the show's humor comes from Emily Ashford or Ally Beardsly doing something so off-the-wall that it shatters whatever the scene was going to be and creates a far more absurd and zany spectacle in its place. Which is why Never Stop Blowing Up is pretty notable, because it's the one campaign where Brennan himself is the agent of chaos, fully unleashing his own brand of madness that the players struggle to keep up with. And fuck does he seem to have fun with it.

Of course, all of the analysis above is purely from the outside looking in - it's likely that a lot of the "chaos" is played up for the audience. But still... there is something to the idea of a person who's been working on meticulously structured stories letting loose and just doing something extremely stupid.

So I decided to give myself a Never Stop Blowing Up moment - a short story that would be simple by design, with no standards to live up to or goal beyond "have fun telling a silly little story." I then came up with a few key criteria:

It can't be set in the Midgaheim/ATOM universe. I don't want the burden of figuring out where this story would fit among others.

It's gotta be a romance. People who've read my books might have picked up on the fact that I like to write about people falling in love, for the same reason I like to write about fire-breathing reptiles and friendly monsters (i.e. I use writing to indulge in things I'll never experience in real life). I've only used romance as subplots in my fiction before, and tend to feel a bit guilty if I focus on it too long - like I'm being self indulgent. Well, this is all about self indulgence, so the romance should be front and center.

It's gotta be SIMPLE, episodic even. Not complex plotting required.

I almost chose my xenomorph romance for this, but I had developed its outline to the point where it would be too complex to fit. I then considered a sort of superhero story that could be pitched as "what if Bringing Up Baby but Katherine Hepburn's character is a Harley Quinn-esque supervillain and Cary Grant's character gets turned into some sort of horrifying genetic mutant in the first ten minutes." That one hit a weird roadblock when I got to the character brainstorming phase (the first phase of any writing project I do) - I was trying to figure out what the mad scientist who turns out Cary Grant-figure into a mutant would be named, came up with the name "Dr. Skullfuck," immediately realized that having a character named "Dr. Skullfuck" is a Mark Millar-ass writing move that I could not allow myself to do, but then couldn't stop thinking of the name "Dr. Skullfuck" and giggling, which just brought all thinking to a grinding halt on that project.

(I'll still probably do it someday, though - just, you know, without Dr. Skullfuck)

Inspiration struck again, though. I'd been getting into Epic: The Musical, a musical retelling of The Odyssey, and it put me in the mood for a sea monster story. But, more than that, it got me thinking about one particular archetype from sea monster stories - but that brings us to the next part of this Post Script...

Part 2: It Was Always About Calibani

Ok, so, one of the big changes Epic: The Musical made involved Odysseus's encounter with the sirens, and before you read more of my rambling, I'd like you to watch two animatics for the two songs in question here:

A summary: one of the sirens takes the form of Odysseus's wife to try and tempt him into getting in the water, Odysseus tricks her into giving him directions, captures her and the rest of her kind, and proceeds to have his men slaughter them horribly. In the OG story the sirens don't die - nor does their song involve imitating a man's wife, for that matter, it's just a really pretty song.

This is done for an important narrative purpose - Epic: The Musical is focused on analyzing the moral ambiguity of Odysseus, and how it is constantly challenged by the impossible choices he is forced to make in his attempt to get home. At this point in the musical, Odysseus has decided to stop trying to be a compassionate man, shirking all mercy in favor of utter ruthless pursuit of his goals. These two songs are meant to be unsettling as hell - this is the beginning of a series of heartless choices by both Odysseus and his men that will culminate in the mutiny and complete annihilation of Odysseus's crew, as well as Odysseus himself being so hopelessly stranded that nothing short of divine intervention will save him.

I bring this up because when I first heard these two songs - specifically while watching these two animatics - it, like... it devastated me. I was so horrified and sad, so shaken by it. And part of it was for the reasons outlined above, but admittedly that wasn't the gut reaction I had. No, my immediate reaction was, and I quoute my own broken brain verbatim here: "You can't kill the sirens! They're not for killing, they're for loving!"

...now, those of you who know me are probably not surprised by this very stupid sentiment coming from me. One of my more popular posts is just me talking about how down bad I would be for various folkloric monsters whose whole shtick is "looks like a pretty lady but Watch Out." But as a person filled with immense self loathing and doubt, my brain immediately looked at that very stupid sentiment I expressed and said, "Wait, no, that's fucking dumb, I'm fucking dumb. The sirens are remorseless murderers. These sirens in particular preyed upon a man's love for his wife, who he has not seen in twelve years, to convince him to let them kill him. They are, by all standards of morality, Very Fucking Evil, and if they were not women you would not feel bad about them getting killed."

And as my brain argued with itself over this topic, I got to thinking about the various monstrous/othered sea women of The Odyssey - not just the sirens, but the witch Circe, the nymph Calypso, the monsters Scylla and Charybdis. And I thought about the others of their kind in other myths and folktales - selkies, mermaids, etc.

There's an archetype of sea monster that focuses entirely on one specific anxiety sailors are prone to, namely the fact that (for a good deal of human history) being on a boat meant spending a lot of time away from women. The horror of this monster is how it uses that desire for female company to tempt people into danger - like a mirage, it leads you to expose yourself to danger in pursuit of an illusory comfort.

But, unlike real world mirages, these monstrous sea women DO exist in their stories. More than that, they're often, like, sad and lonely. Their narrative purpose is just to be a temptation, but that doesn't change the fact that they do have lives of their own in these worlds. And, softie that I am, I can't help feeling sad for them, especially the ones who actually seem to want the same companionship the sailors they tempt want. Sailors don't stay with their Circes, they don't marry their Calypsos. The sirens live on a barren rock, alone, Scylla is left to wallow in misery at her monstrous form, and the selkie always has to leave for fear of being trapped by a person who won't love her on her terms.

I realized I had my hook for this simple, easy, silly little sea monster romance story: I was going to give a sea woman the happy ending she'd never get from anyone else.

Sailor may be the protagonist, but make no mistake: At Sea Without a Map was always, always, ALWAYS about Calibani.

The goal with Calibani was simple: I was going to set up a fairly standard Monstrous Sea Woman, but where other stories would let her be in one episode of the travel narrative and move on, this one would stick around. She'd be an unambiguous predator of human beings - an open and admitted maneater - but she would have no true malice to her. She, like all predators, eats what she can get to survive, and it just so happens that she's adapted to eat humans. And the story would pose the same question to the reader that my brain posed to me during Different Beast: is there any way you could make a siren-style sea monster sympathetic? Can you make a normal person who doesn't have my particular brain rot look at a maneating siren and think, "You're not supposed to kill her, you're supposed to love her!"

One of the few unavoidable plot points of At Sea Without a Map was that Calibani and Sailor's relationship would become romantic. What kind of romance it was could have varied substantially - it could have been one-sided, it could have been toxic, it could have been far more tragic OR far more comedic. But it was always, always going to be a romance of some sort - the goal of this experiment was to make you, the reader, love Calibani. All else was icing on the cake.

I decided to base Calibani's personality on Miranda from The Tempest - i.e. a sweet girl who is both wordly and naive, who understands the strange setting of our "lost at sea" story far better than the audience viewpoint character does, but views the mundane world of the audience viewpoint character with wonder and naiveté. In fact I almost named her Miranda outright... except I already had a character in the setting I chose for this story who had that name, and as an allusion to the same Shakespearean character no less. So I settled on naming her after Miranda's adoptive sibling (of sorts), Caliban - more fitting in some ways, as Caliban is a fish-human hybrid who is arguable more native to the magic island in The Tempest than Miranda herself.

(Calibani isn't the only Tempest name homage, either - her mother, Sycorax, takes her name directly from Caliban's unseen but oft-spoken of witch mother. Dr. Antonia Warefore takes her first name from Antonio, one of the human villains in The Tempest who hopes to use being lost at sea as a way to perform a coup. And the mothman Iriel takes her name from Ariel, the wind spirit in The Tempest who aids the wizard Prospero in controlling the magic island. If Sailor has a "real" name, it's probably either Ferdinand or Miranda, the two lovers who manage to blend civilization and the wilderness together with their romance.)

Visually, I wanted Calibani to not be any common archetype of sea monster woman, but rather something that evokes the popular images while still being her own thing. She's not a mermaid or a siren or a selkie - she's basically "what if a sea serpent was also a girl." In-universe, she's chubby because she, like all marine megafauna, needs blubber to survive. Out-of-universe, she's chubby because I've found that routinely drawing cute chubby girls is good for my mental health.

Part 3: CYOA

Now, while we live in a post-Muncher society where shame and cringe are emotions only the cowardly should experience, I am nonetheless Very Catholic about expressing my own feelings of, like, liking girls and shit. I cannot help feeling guilty when publicly expressing adoration of women without, like, an excuse - it's gotta be a joke or something, you know? I can't be genuine about it, or else Jesus will beat me with a cane for disrespecting women with my lecherous gaze.

But luckily I've cultivated a loyal audience of fellow monsterfuckers, which meant I had an excuse lined up: if I made this a choose your own adventure type deal, a story with audience participation, then you all would be my accomplices. And Jesus can't cane all of us! He doesn't have enough hands! I found a loophole bigger than his stigmata!

Plus I love collaborative story-telling - there's a thrill in not having total control of where the narrative is going. As Brennan Lee Mulligan must know, there's a joy in having to deal with the chaos thrown your way by letting others grab the figurative ball, even if just for a moment.

Part 4: Offbeat Melody

Since I did not want to set this story in Midgaheim, I decided to steer myself away from a vaguely medieval setting altogether. But I also didn't want to limit myself with the need for "realism" that putting it in a normal sea would require, and making a new setting whole cloth would start pushing this project into "not easy" territory.

Luckily, I had a setting lying around that I hadn't played with in a while, which just so happened to have a location that was PERFECT for the sort of Never Stop Blowing Up style madness I was aiming for. For a few years I ran a Monster of the Week TTRPG campaign called Offbeat Melody, and one of its core setting elements was taking the goblin universe hypothesis in paranormal science (yeah it's a real hypothesis) to an illogical extreme. We had specifically seen glimpses of the Sea of Monsters in Offbeat Melody, i.e. the parallel universe where monsters like Nessie, Ogopogo, Champ, and the like all hail from. Well, why not have a whole story set there? It's literally a universe devoted solely to creating sea monsters - what better place to strand our modern Odysseus?

Offbeat Melody was always sort of a Never Stop Blowing Up project, or at least NSBU adjacent. Some of my most unhinged story-telling moments are in that campaign - you could make a supercut of just the "commercial breaks" in the various sessions and it'd basically be an I Think You Should Leave episode. Taking one obscure corner of its multiversal world and exploring it in detail was perfect for this project.

Part 5: Monster by Monster

With our main romance as sorted out as could be for a CYOA story, it was time to figure out the "episodes" of this sea voyage. I settled on there being ten to roughly align with The Odyssey - just in terms of number, mind you, not in a one-to-one comparison. The first was, obviously, Calibani herself, which left nine more slots for me to fill with monsters. Let's go through them together in brief:

Tree Storks - any lost at sea story eventually has to get its protagonist into an island at some point, but this immediately begs the question, "Why don't they just stay on the island where it's safe?" The answer to that question has to be, "it's not safe there, actually." The Odyssey does this quickly and cleverly with a one two punch: the first island seems safe until you realize the food on it brainwashes you into forgetting everything except your desire to eat it, and the second island is full of delicious sheep but also giants who will eat you just as easily as they eat the sheep. When other islands show up in the story later, you immediately regard them with suspicion, because you don't know HOW they're going to be fucked up, but they definitely will be. My goal with the second episode was to establish the same sort of danger - that land is NOT safe, that islands WILL be fucked up and dangerous in ways you might not expect.

I also wanted to establish that this is not just a sea of monsters, but a very WEIRD sea of WEIRD monsters. It couldn't be any old monster on this island - it had to be one that was unique, unexpected, and maybe just a bit silly while still being menacing.

I've always felt that there's a lot of un-mined horror potential in storks, cranes, and herons - any bird with a long neck and spear-like beak it uses to stab smaller creatures from above. Just imagine yourself in a frog's place in the world - tiny, going about your business, when suddenly something shoots down at you from above and impales you before you even feel the shadow fall over your face. Or perhaps you did see the shadow - some of these birds spread their wings to create shade specifically to attract fish, and then spear the poor little bastards.

Well, what do people often look to islands for when out at sea? Shade - the shade of a palm tree. And palm fronds kinda resemble feathers, don't they? Wouldn't it be both ludicrous and terrifying is there was a stork big enough to mimic a palm tree - and wouldn't that be a DEVIOUS trap for a sun-drenched sailor to fall for? So the Tree Storks were born.

The Globster - I made a list of sea monster archetypes in the early planning for this project, and one I wanted to include was a kraken, i.e. some sort of tentacled sea beast. But I didn't want to do JUST a big squid or octopus, or even a riff on them. I wanted to take the idea of "big sea monster with lots of tentacles" into a stranger direction.

Since the Sea of Monsters is explicitly the home universe of lake and sea monster cryptids, I thought it might be fun if ASWaM's kraken equivalent was a globster - just a big ball of rotten meat. I love drawing monstrous faces, so I decided it'd just be, like, MADE of hideous rotten faces, all melting and congealing together, with its tentacles doubling as the tongues of its many mouths. A perfectly wretched image that, like the Tree Storks, would do well to establish how Fucked things could get in this setting. Plus similar monsters had appeared in Offbeat Melody, which would make for a fun sense of familiarity for the, like, five or so readers of mine who had listened to that campaign before.

Captain Peter & the Dolphin - Another thing I did in the early planning stages of this project was make a list of the different sea voyage stories I know and love, the most contentious of which is The Life of Pi. That's a story that I love on a literal level but kind of hate on a figurative level - its whole theme/message is that doubt is the worst thing you can have, that if you don't commit to believing something with zealous conviction you are a coward. As a person who thinks doubt is valid, that "I don't know" is sometimes the ONLY truly valid answer to a question, I have issues with that message.

But I can't help loving the beautifully ludicrous idea of a non-anthropomorphic tiger sailing the ocean on a big Odyssey of its own. Like, if that story didn't actively hate me for being agnostic, it would be one of my favorites.

So I decided to, you know, just steal the idea of a tiger Odysseus. The tiger in The Life of Pi is named Richard Parker. Richard Parker also happens to be the name of Peter Parker's dad. Hence we get Captain Peter - the figurative son of Richard Parker, if you will. And to ratchet up the absurdity of a tiger Odysseus, I made him a pirate and the sole sailor of his voyage. Somehow, this tiger has manned a boat on his own.

Captain Peter was intended to be the hero of another story - a sign for the readers that it IS possible for a stranded person (or, in this case, tiger) to survive out here. To that end, he had to rescue our heroes from another threat, but not one that would be interesting enough to take the focus off of the tiger pirate. Originally I planned for that threat to just be a big shark, but I ended up liking my shark design too much to put it in a role that small, so I quickly designed a nasty dolphin for the role instead. I think that worked out well, honestly.

Dr. Neptune - Episodes 5 and 6 were the mid-point of this journey, so I wanted the two monsters of those to escalate things significantly. I figured episode 5 was probably a good place to FINALLY give some meaningful exposition on what was going on, and there are a lot of stories about mad scientists doing weird shit on islands in my big list of sea voyage stories I love. So we get Dr. Neptune, a classical brain-in-a-jar mad scientist who's affable enough to give more-or-less accurate exposition but loony enough to be a problem. This also felt like a good spot to remind the reader that Calibani is not just a girl with a tail but rather a Sea Monster herself, and one that we'd been making stronger by allying with.

With his human-but-not-quite nature and cyclops eye, Dr. Neptune could sort of be seen as the Polyphemus of this story, couldn't he?

The Crocodisle - One of the sea monster archetypes on my list was "the island that's actually a sleeping monster," of which there are many in mythology and folklore. My favorite is the Jasconius from the voyage of St. Brendan, mainly because it's more or less benign and actually comes back to help St. Brendan and his crew at the end of the story. I always love when I can find an old story with a friendly monster in it.

When thinking of my own spin on the island monster concept, I remembered the only Magic the Gathering card I had as a kid, which I still have and love to this day: The Sandbar Crocodile. This card already inspired Crocogon's color scheme in The Atomic time of Monsters, but I felt I could go to that well again one more time, and so made a crocodile that wasn't just a sandbar, but a whole damn island to itself. And, like Jasconius, it turns out he's pretty chill.

I did not think of the pun name "Crocodisle" until I was actually writing the chapter in question.

The Femdom Mermaids - These three were a late addition to the roster. When I had Calibani bring up mermaids early in the story, I realized as soon as I wrote her rant about them that we'd HAVE to meet some later on in the story.

The readers had significantly shaped Calibani and Sailor's romance by this point, and I decided that it could be useful to have a chapter that was devoted to showing definitively how these two were good for each other. I thought the mermaids could provide a good contrast: have them act out a seemingly more benign take on the monstrous sea women trope (they abduct our hero to protect and care for them!) only for it to quickly feel MORE deranged than Calibani's comparatively simple desire just to eat him.

The spirit of Calibani's rant about mermaids was taken from weird* girls I knew in high school complaining about cheerleaders, so I wanted the mermaids to look like the sea monster equivalent of popular kids to Calibani's chubby weird girl. Two of them got the names of famous beauties - Helyne = Helen of Troy, Clio = Cleopatra.

(*when I say "weird" I mean it in a complimentary and affectionate sense)

Bob, meanwhile, kinda... rebelled, I guess? Before I had names for them, I listed "bob" by her as just, like, a descriptor for her hair cut, but then I liked it as her name, and once she was named Bob she became more than just a mean popular girl. She was a weirdo too, the little punching bag of the two mean popular girls who did their dirty work and smiled through their abuse because hey, at least they included her. It gave the trio an easily defined dynamic, helped make two of the three more visibly nasty, and gave us comic relief in an arc that could very well have gotten too uncomfortable otherwise.

And I guess it worked - readers REALLY loved Bob, and were very vocal about it, and I realized mid-arc that I had accidentally made her too likable to just leave in this arc. So Bob got to be rescued from her awful friend group thanks to readers like YOU.

Lord Ironteeth - yeah, this was the shark that was too cool to be a minor threat. When I drew his noggin, I realized he would need a chapter of his own, one with gravitas. I decided he'd specifically be the threshold guardian -once we beat him, we'd know for sure how to get home, even if there were a few more threats in store.

Spindle Inc and Sycorax - when I was a kid I used to have this recurring nightmare about being on some sort of underwater sea station that had this huge sea serpent trapped inside it. I'd look at the sea serpent from a window within the station and see it coiling in its tank, only for it to look at me with fury. In that glance I would suddenly realize two things with absolute clarity: first, it was going to break free and kill everyone, and second, we deserved that destruction for what we had done to it. The terror of the dream was less that the sea serpent was going to break free, and more the guilt of knowing that all the mayhem that was about to unfold was our fault to begin with.

I thought that would be fun to homage with the penultimate chapter of this story. OBVIOUSLY the sea serpent was Calibani's mom, obviously the trauma of its capture was why Calibani grew into a predator that specializes in hunting humans, obviously we would have to free the sea serpent despite that running counter to Sailor's goal of getting home. Easy, easy, easy plot point to include.

Spindle, Inc. is the primary antagonistic force in Offbeat Melody, so they easily slotted into the role of the arrogant humans who captured this monster for nefarious and selfish motives. They could tie a lot of other plot threads together too - Dr. Neptune was a scientist who worked for them as a contractor only to get screwed over (i.e. they stranded him in the Sea of Monsters, expecting him to die, and then used his research to make their own base of operations in it), we'd learn of him through a spindle briefcase left behind by some unfortunate rogue agent who got eaten by the Globster while he was trying to escape, hell they could even be one of the possible origins of Sailor themself (more on that later). Very useful villains, Spindle.

The Abyssal Mother - I knew the last sea monster would need a lot of punch to it. I briefly considered just a big whale - the Moby Dick to Spindle's corporate Ahab - but it felt underwhelming after all that came before. So I went for arguably the most dramatic possible sea monster, a full on Cthulhu-style elder god. If you're a frequent follower of this blog, you might know I have particularly high standards for Eldritch Abominations, so I realized this was going to be a pretty big challenge for me to live up to, and decided to keep the cthulhu in question reserved to the last few entries as a result - the less it appears, the less it has to live up to.

I realized I had a good angle when my experiments with the Cthulhu "squid for a head" concept ended up having a face framed in shadow - you know, the same visual that our protagonist has in most appearances. That provided some very juicy parallels between the two that made this final monster feel particularly noteworthy to me, ones that I'll leave you to ponder, since they tie into...

Part 6: Themes

I did not set out to have a theme in this story. I just wanted to make a sailor and a sea monster kiss. That was my only goal.

But I really don't begin with theme in ANY of my writing. I figure out topics I want to address, but for all my novels I feel like the themes didn't start coming together until about halfway through the first draft, when enough of the elements of the story had been set down and interacted with each other enough for me to realize what I was saying with them. A huge part of my second and third drafts for my novels have focused on making the themes of my stories more concrete and unified.

Well, ASWaM is very much a first draft of a story, but it's a simple enough story that I think the theme found itself pretty well despite lacking subsequent drafts to refine it.

ASWaM is about doubt and direction. It's about being adrift in a world that is in many ways hostile by nature, about not feeling like you're where you're supposed to be or even WHO you're supposed to be, and about setting off aimlessly in the hope that maybe you'll find your way to that mythical land of "what my life is supposed to be."

When I began the story, Sailor had amnesia and wore clothes that obscured their identity as a way to make it easier for anyone to step into Sailor's role. Sailor had to feel like You, the Reader, and so we don't know their name, their gender, their eye color, their hair color, even their skin color (note that their hands are always wearing gloves, and their face is always in shadow).

But it also meant Sailor is, well, undefined, at least at the start of the story. Sailor doesn't know who they are, what they are, how they came to be. Sailor feels distinctly that they should be Something Else, should be Somewhere Else, should be Someone Else, should not be who/what/where they are. Sailor is plagued by doubt, by a need to go in a different direction, by a need to be other than they are.

This initially contrasts with Calibani, who begins the story very confident that she is doing exactly what she was designed to be doing and acting exactly like she should be. As they interact, they begin to shift each other in opposite directions - Calibani questions her existence and nature, sometimes to a self destructive degree, and Sailor begins to find something about who and where they are that they like. They find a healthy middle ground together - doubtful enough to want to be better people, but with love for themselves that allows them to not feel the need to up-heave their lives entirely.

I knew at the start that I would build an expectation for there to be some answer to the question of who Sailor is and where they came from, because those are the questions that begin the whole narrative. I brainstormed a number of answers to those questions, but once I got a few chapters into writing the story and saw this theme of doubt developing, I realized I couldn't answer them. From a thematic standpoint, the doubt HAD to remain. So I gave hints to possible answers, bits of evidence to support the possibility of them being true, but never planted a smoking gun that answered it for sure.

Sailor can't know the answer because NONE of us know the answer. Outside of blind Life of Pi style faith, you cannot know for sure that you are living the life you're supposed to live. All you can do is figure out whether you're happy with the life you've got, or if you need a change. Sailor will never know who they are supposed to be, but they did learn who they are, and they love that person now.

For those curious, the possible Sailor origins are:

Occam's Razor: they're exactly what Dr. Neptune theorized, i.e. a human who got stranded in the Bermuda Triangle (or the Devil's Triangle or any other number of paranormal triangles) and fell into the Sea of Monsters. The trauma of that experience gave them amnesia. It's just brain damage and bad luck.

A Spindle Experiment: Dr. Warefore mentions that Spindle has been trying to find a way to make a human who can evolve like the denizens of the Sea of Monsters. Sailor may well be an attempt to do just that, perhaps one they wrote off as a failure and abandoned (they do that a lot)

A Deep One: Sailor is the offspring of one of the denizens of the Sea of Monsters (most likely the Abyssal Mother herself) who has somehow been tricked into believing they are human, to the point where they seem to be human to everyone else, even other monsters. Maybe a human summoned a sea monster to breed with on earth, and Sailor ended up being subconsciously drawn back to the Sea by their blood. Maybe Sailor never actually lived on earth at all, but was only made to THINK they had as part of the transformation into a human.

The Platonic Ideal of a Sailor: the Sea of Monsters is full of archetypal concepts, and arguably a sailor trying to find their way home is just as archetypal as any sea serpent, mermaid, or kraken. Our only proof that humans aren't native to the Sea of Monsters is Dr. Neptune, and he's not as reliable an expert as he claims to be.

This theme of doubt and direction also made the compass more important to the narrative than a simply mechanic for audience participation - a compass, after all, gives direction, and the feeling that Sailor is not where they're supposed to be, that they need to head in a different direction, is ultimately the catalyst of the plot. The compass is, in many ways, the antagonist of the story - the force that keeps Sailor from accepting themself. I realized this a little after I started making the different directions have personalities - initially they just represented broad concepts (North = follow conventional wisdom ala the North Star, South = preserve your short-term self interest at all costs, East = act with curiosity and be willing to take calculated risks, and West = throw caution to the wind and do anything that seems novel and exciting), but over time they became little characters themselves.

Since it was our thematic antagonist, I decided to pepper in some ideas about what the compass might be in-universe - and, in a move that would no doubt frustrate the compass, we also don't know for sure which of those is "correct." Is the compass a poltergeist, some amalgamation of dead sailors who try to steer other lost souls home? Is it a malign entity that leeches off of those desperate enough to seek its aid, living through them while pretending to aid them? Is it a device Spindle made to lure sailors to their clutches, OR to guide their experiments in human/monster hybrids? Was it a cursed item that forced a sea monster to assume a human shape? Who can say - the compass sure can't, it can only tell you a direction to go in.

Part 7: Q&A

Since this was an interactive story, I felt it was only fitting to add one last interactive element to this post-script write up, and some of your happily obliged me by sending in questions.

When I noticed how fast readers were falling for Calibani, I figured there was a good chance we'd end up staying in the Sea of Monsters. By chapter 7, I figured it was more or less a given, and by the end of the Lord Ironteeth encounter I was almost 100% sure Sailor would remain at sea. There was always a chance, though - while a look at the polls shows that the audience got more and more on the same page towards the end, there were always dissenting voices, and the desire to get an answer to the question of Who Sailor Was remained strong, as a number of people kept trying to find angles where they could get that AND stay with Calibani.

I was surprised early on by how easily the audience fell in love with Calibani, to the point where I made a few posts commenting on it. I mean, I shouldn't have been - as I said earlier, I have cultivated an audience of fellow monsterfuckers on here, and I know at least a few of them saw my bait and knew they could get me to be freaky in a way we found mutually agreeable (thank you all again for helping me escape being caned by Jesus for being horny).

Like, we REPEATEDLY ignored developing the plot in the Tree Storks chapter for several days just to spend more time with Calibani - something that I enjoyed immensely (this whole thing was an excuse for me to write and draw a cute chubby sea monster girl as much as possible aftter all) but also knew as a storyteller was not what most would consider a good story call. I like how it turned out, but it defied conventional narrative wisdom, you know? I was surprised.

On the other side of the coin, I was also surprised by how the audience NEVER chose an option that was humorously disastrous. I gave plenty of them, and, like, generally in collaborative storytelling there will be at least one moment where your collaborators decide to do the really, REALLY stupid thing that makes everything spiral out of control really quickly. I figured at least once the audience would choose the troll response, but no, you guys worked hard to keep Sailor and Calibani alive. You refused to let them hurt each other, refused to let them throw themselves into danger, refused to imperil them for your own chuckles. It was very sweet and unexpected.

I say "you refused" but to be fair it's not like NO ONE voted for the troll options - they generally got a handful of votes, just one that was beaten by a landslide of more reasonable options. Hopefully those of you who voted for the troll options enjoyed Bob throwing you a bone by disintegrating Dr. Warefore - that was my consolation prize to you.

Yes. I knew at the beginning that there would be two endings for this story: either Sailor leaves the Sea and goes home, or Sailor stays there forever. Or, you know, Sailor dies as a result of you guys choosing several stupid options in a row, but as stated above you guys avoided those scenarios pretty decisively.

Had Sailor gone home, the following would have occurred: first, they would forget everything that happened in the Sea of Monsters. Second, they would wake up in a hospital, having been found in the Atlantic Ocean by a human-recovery charity run by... oh, isn't that funny, some tech company named Spindle Inc! Spindle would foot the medical bills and even offer Sailor a job, but Sailor would decline because even now they're still not sure what Spindle even does. Sailor would go back to their life and find it familiar and utterly mundane, but not particularly happy. Their father died when they were 18, their mother was never in the picture, they have no siblings. They worked an office job and were sort of a nonentity - that position has long since been filled, but Sailor gets a new job and lives out much the same life: simple, mundane, dreary. Every now and then they get a pang of desire to leave, to go to sea, but they push it out of mind. They never even see the ocean again as long as they live.

Sailor would have gotten the normal life they thought they were supposed to have, the normal memories and name and identity, the mundane life of a normal person. And they just had to trade everything they found in the Sea of Monsters to get it. A question is answered, a direction is followed, but is it the right answer, the right direction?

Well, I think doubt would have remained.

I had a very vague idea for there to be some sort of man-eating giant in, like, a crystal castle. He got cut to make way for the mermaids.

I wanted to fit in a big whale and a giant crustacean, but there wasn't room or an interesting angle for me to want to make room for them. Saved for a possible sequel, I suppose.

I also wanted to have a scene with, like, DOZENS of sea monsters, including some of the ones from Offbeat Melody, but the goal of "this should be EASY you dumbass" made me kill that idea pretty quick.

Thank you!

The primary inspirations were:

The Odyssey and Epic: the Musical

The voyage of St. Brendan

The many "weird shit happens on an island" movies in Toho's filmography, i.e. Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster, Son of Godzilla, Yog Monster of the Deep, Matango, etc.

The Island of Dr. Moreau

The Boy and the Heron

Ponyo (specifically Ponyo's parents - I wanted Sailor to have the same desperate energy as that wizard who fucks the giant sea goddess)

The Life of Pi

Slay the Princess (perhaps most obvious in the use of second person narration, multiple voices in the protagonist's head, and falling in love with a creature that has tried to kill you at least once)

I'm going to use this to springboard to a related point in a second, but first a genuine yet humorous answer: Yes, absolutely yes, I am enough of a big romantic sap that I would give everything about my life away to be with a person who loves me and explore a world of monsters in a heartbeat. Hell, I would have jumped in the water the minute Calibani asked and died with her fangs in my neck and a smile on my face. I am dumb this way. Do not follow my example.

On that related point, though... Most stories like this, I daresay ALL stories like this that I know of, end with the hero abandoning the fantasy world in favor of reality, never to return. And that seems like the proper choice and lesson on the surface - we don't want to tell audiences to give up their real life in favor of a fantasy, after all. That's encouraging escapism, and that's not healthy!

But, like... textually speaking, the fantastical world IS real to the characters in these stories. And it's often not really an escape - was Sailor's life devoid of conflict and suffering in the Sea of Monsters? Fuck no! It's just that they figured out how to deal with that conflict and suffering - they built skills and a support system, they adapted, they learned how to overcome what was there.

I think it can be argued that sometimes the return to a "normal" world is, in itself, an escape - the idea that your life can spiral into chaos but that's ok, you can just reset everything and go back to The Way It Was and Should Be is just as unrealistic and unhealthy an idea as You Should Escape to A Better World. Sometimes your plans for your life fall apart, sometimes you're thrown into a place you never intended to go, sometimes you have to learn skills you never anticipated needing and ally with people you never thought you'd befriend to deal with problems you never dreamed you'd have to overcome. And sometimes it's ok to look at your derailed life, your Not Where You Should Be life, and say, "Well, I've learned how to live here... maybe I can stay."

Especially if there's a cute chubby sea monster girl who loves you.

Bob was never supposed to appear past chapter 7, but about halfway through that chapter I realized the audience and I myself would be heartbroken if we didn't rescue her. Definitely for the best - she provided some well-needed comic relief in the final chapters.

This is gonna sound snarky, but, yeah - there were 58 choices with four options a piece, and we only chose one of the four. While some of the options would have similar results, almost none would have had identical outcomes. And some would have been VERY different.

Like, to go back to the beginning: when Calibani attacked, we could either throw a net on her, harpoon her, try to drive around her, or hide below deck. We picked the net, but for the other three options:

Harpooning would result in us hitting her in the thigh, causing her enough pain that she collapses on our deck and we, horrified at the violence we committed, just sort of push on. Calibani would be wounded for at least the next chapter, perhaps longer, and significantly weaker (and probably harboring a great deal of hidden resentment while also being genuinely scared of Sailor). She would be vulnerable during the stork attack, forcing Sailor to take a more active role in that chapter.

Trying to steer around her would result in us essentially fighting her with our boat, resulting in the boat capsizing and Calibani getting tangled up in it. We'd wake up alone on Stork Island and have to travel in search of our boat, alone and vulnerable among man-eating trees. We'd run into Calibani again, also beached and in trouble, end up recruiting her to help us get our boat out of the sand.

Hiding below deck would end in a sea storm that leaves us inside our boat as it's beached on Stork Island. We'd fend off the storks alone, and run into Calibani once we get our boat out to sea, as she got away more or less unscathed.

All of these would have majorly changed the trajectory of our relationship with Calibani and our identity as Sailor, despite seeming to have the same component parts on the surface. Now account for how similarly slight changes in the other options could have gone, and we could have had a very different story indeed.

Part 8: Our Girl

I just think she's neat!

[partyinthemysterymachine]

me @ me "you're supposed to be editing and making it shorter and more concise and not adding a bunch of new paragraphs and words to the damn thing so shut the fuck UUUUUUPPPPPPP" while working on writing the next chapter of goomt challenge

[fdragon-art]

Day 272 - Broken Apart

I'm falling apart.

I see the horizon ahead of me and see it broken into parts. The atmosphere, though it seems always there, will fade in time. It will fade, and leave behind nothing.

I see the stars floating above me, speckling the skies with its glitter. They consume their fuel, eventually expanding and imploding on itself, empty from its process. It may produce more behind it, but they, too, will stop existing.

I see my sense of self, a myriad of physical and mental networks. Combining and recombining, breaking apart and reorganising. Where does it lead? It's a clump of cells that will leave nothing behind.

I'll leave nothing behind.

Not because my ceasing to be "me" - and that is what death is here - won't affect those lives which are intertwined with mine. It's simply because those effects will fade, even as it creates its own chain of events.

It ripples outwards, energy decreasing as it spreads, until...nothing.

It all becomes nothing.

It all fades away.

...what do I do, when even the idea of dying seems pointless?

When nothing is meaningful...?

When nothing is meaningful to me anymore?

When nothing could be meaningful, knowing it all disappears?

...

The part of my mind that clings on to what the rest of us believe is important - being alive - tells me that I should still find my own meaning, even if - or perhaps, especially because of - nothing truly matters.

...but how do I fight the rest of me that finds no solace in that idea? How do I reconcile being "me" when, ultimately, it just doesn't matter...? Nothing is for any reason. Nothing can last forever, so nothing will remain in the end.

If all I can do is just take the next step and bear what comes next, then...

...why take that step anymore?

[flwrstqr]

( 好き) : ENHYPEN WHEN YOU CALL THEM "HUSBAND" ────𝗆𝖾 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗆𝗒 𝗁𝗎𝗌𝖻𝖺𝗇𝖽, 𝗐𝖾'𝗋𝖾 𝗌𝗍𝗂𝖼𝗄𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗍𝗈𝗀𝖾𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗋

( ✶ 𝓢) ⦂ 엔하이픈 + f ! r. 1OOOwc. ──kissing, skinship, petnames && reactions ⠀ ｡｡ ⠀fluff, oneshot 𖥔 ⠀ARCHiVE ૮ ♡◞ ◟ ა

danielle msgs：i've been stocking up on my writing.. ㅠㅠ

𝐋𝐄𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐔𝐍𝐆

you’re sprawled across the couch, head resting on heeseung’s chest, his arm draped lazily around your waist. “hey, husband, can you grab me some water?” you murmur, half-teasing, half-testing the word on your tongue. heeseung stiffens beneath you, then lets out a breathy laugh, his fingers tracing little circles on your side. “husband, huh?” he repeats, his tone playful but his voice a little lower than usual. “getting ahead of yourself, baby?” you tilt your head up to meet his gaze, a cheeky grin tugging at your lips. “what, don’t like it?” his smile softens, the teasing edge giving way to something warmer. “nah,” he whispers, leaning down to press a kiss to your forehead, “i kinda love it.”

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐉𝐀𝐘

jay’s fingers are gently threading through your hair as you sit between his legs on the bed, your back resting against his chest. the soft scent of his cologne lingers in the air, and the world feels quiet, wrapped in the warmth of his presence. “my sweet husband, can you braid my hair?” you ask absentmindedly, the word slipping out so naturally as if it was the most normal thing you said to jay. his hands still for a moment, and then you feel him chuckle softly against your neck. “what did you just call me, princess?” he teases, his voice dripping with that mix of amusement and affection he saves just for you. you blink, realizing what you said, and glance back at him, cheeks warming. “oh… well, you act like one,” you mumble, looking away shyly. jay laughs, tilting your chin back toward him. “if you want to call me husband, i’m not complaining or maybe i'll get down on one knee,” he grins, pressing a kiss to your temple. “anything my pretty princess wants.”

𝐒𝐈𝐌 𝐉𝐀𝐊𝐄

“jake, can you hand me that—thanks, my husband,” you say casually, not even looking up as you grab the remote. he freezes, eyes widening as a slow grin spreads across his face. “what did you just call me?” he asks, voice teasing but with that little edge of disbelief. you glance at him, all innocent. “husband. why, does it bother you, husband?” you stretch out the word on purpose, your lips twitching as his cheeks flush. “oh, you’re bold today,” he mutters, pulling you closer by the waist, his hand warm against your back. “you keep saying that, baby, and i might just make it permanent.” your heart skips, but you don’t let him win. “big talk, husband,” you whisper. he smirks, leaning in. “don’t start something you can’t finish, wife.”

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐍

you’re lounging on the couch, your head resting comfortably on sunghoon’s shoulder as he scrolls through his phone. absentmindedly, you murmur, “husband, pass me the remote?” the word slips out so naturally that you don’t even realize it until he freezes mid-scroll. slowly, he turns to you, eyebrows furrowed and eyes wide. “husband? since when were we married?” he asks, blinking in confusion, his voice slightly higher than usual. you bite back a grin, shrugging casually. “since now,” you reply, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. sunghoon’s ears turn pink, and he looks away, lips parting like he wants to say something but can’t quite process it. after a moment, he clears his throat. “well… you should’ve told me earlier. i would’ve planned a honeymoon,” he mumbles, slipping an arm around your waist to pull you close.

𝐊𝐈𝐌 𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐎𝐎

“yeah, my husband and i would love to go!” you chirp into the phone, casually leaning into sunoo’s side as your fingers absentmindedly play with his. the conversation wraps up, and the moment you hang up, he’s staring at you, eyes wide and cheeks glowing. “husband?” he blurts, his voice an octave higher than usual. you shrug, barely sparing him a glance as you unlock your phone. “yeah, what about it? husband has a nice ring to it,” you tease, glancing up at him with a knowing smirk. “plus, you’re going to be my future husband anyway, right?” sunoo blinks, his lips twitching before he hides his face in your neck. “you can’t just say stuff like that!” he mutters. you nudge him lightly. “oh, come on. admit it—you like the sound of it.” he mumbles in the crook of your neck, “…maybe.”

𝐘𝐀𝐍𝐆 𝐉𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐖𝐎𝐍

you’re curled up on the couch with jungwon, his arm around your shoulders as some random drama plays on the tv. your head rests on his chest, your hand fiddling with the string of his hoodie . “husband, can you get me the popcorn over there?” you say absentmindedly, your voice soft and casual like it’s the most natural thing in the world. jungwon doesn’t even flinch, just leans over to grab the popcorn from the side and hands it to you with a small, amused smile. “here you go, my pretty girl,” he murmurs teasingly, pressing a kiss to your temple. his fingers start tracing lazy circles on your arm as if to remind you just how much he loves being close to you. “what? you’re not gonna freak out or blush?” you tease, glancing up at him. he grins, leaning down to kiss the tip of your nose. “why would i? i know it’s only a matter of time before it’s true.”

𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐌𝐔𝐑𝐀 𝐑𝐈𝐊𝐈

“husband, can you grab my water?” you call out casually from your spot on the bed, scrolling through your phone. riki freezes mid-step, turning to you with the most exaggerated grin. “what did you just call me?” he asks, already knowing full well what he heard. you roll your eyes. “you heard me. water, please.” instead of complying, he smirks, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed. “wow, you’re already dreaming about marrying me, huh? didn’t know you were that obsessed.” you toss a pillow at him, groaning. “don’t flatter yourself! it slipped out!” he catches the pillow with ease, laughing as he saunters over to sit beside you. “nah, admit it. you’re practicing for the future.” “riki, just get the water,” you huff, your cheeks heating up. he finally relents, but not before pinching your cheek. “fine, wife, anything for you.”d, can you grab my water?”

[what-is-this-bakwaas]

.

[fromgoy2joy]

Let's write about Jewish characters in dynamic ways- that make it clear "Yes this is us. Yes, we are living our lives with this happiness and ritual, and we love it. "

Like it's so easy to write about, to have casual observances of Judaism and cultural practices be in the background of stories. I'll write of the few examples I can think of in my frame of reference as a college student-

there's a mezuza in the doorway of a college kid's apartment. Whenever his friends come over, it's a reach for some of them to touch it because both he and the rabbi who installed it are 6 foot three. The others feel like a middle school boy slapping the ceiling as they try and reach for the damn thing.

Characters rush on public transport to get to a rabbi's house on shabbat. The train is due. There's a flurry of regrouping, then trying to call a missing friend to get there, and then the process of methodically hiding Magen davids and jewish objects because getting to shabbat dinner without a situation was an order from college Hillel staff.

A character is half-drunk at 2 AM at the convenience store but has to scan the list of ingredients on their chemically disgusting snack for gelatin.

Said character is prevented by her friends from only sustaining herself on 7/11 slushees "even though it's all kosher!"

There are references to the Purim incident constantly- it is never clarified what happened on Purim.

the hypothetical gang of characters are in the middle of nowhere on a grand magical adventure. The main character notices a mezuza on a door of a cabin, knocks on it, and has an in-depth conversation with the resident. Then, he waves his friends over. "Hey, guys! We have a place to stay tonight!" Because through the magic of Jewish geography, it was discovered that the grumpy old Jewish man in the woods is the grand uncle of one of his Jewish Day school teachers

A character who eats cheesy bacon bagels regularly on passover has a deep respect for jewish ritual items. He kisses the siddurim as they're handed back into a pile, he always kisses his kippah that he wears for ritual purposes of shabbats and minions. He's very careful with these objects and keeps on claiming dropping something He is observant, and he cares so much, but not in the "typical" way. Just... please show the nuance in practice.

The big "going out night" for our fearless college student isn't Friday but saturday night because of shabbat.

The stain on the rabbi's couch is not to be mentioned

A character keeps on mentioning the stain anyway.

Jewish goodbyes after any event take a minimum of two hours and that's why the gang is delayed on their journey to save the world .

I want more representation than characters in novels saying "haha I'm jewish but eat bacon and love Christmas!" in such flat ways. Please feel free to add more hypothetical ways of representation in the comments !!! About or inspired by your own life and experiences ! Let's make this post vibrant!

[multimilfs]

Lilia Calderu x Fem!Reader: In Omnibus Aequitas

Summary: Agatha isn't the only witch with a force of nature trailing after her.

AO3

A/N: oh my god i can't explain how excited i am to post this! so much thought and careful crafting went into this!! actually begging someone to ask for the TED talk on my planning process for this because hooooo boy

this is my first time writing Lilia, so apologies if the characterization is shaky at all!

also to give credit where credit is due, the idea for this Reader was prompted by a post from the brilliant trickofthelights, whom i admire greatly. i'll attach the post here

Tag List: @emiliaisdead @kenzie-floops @nightmare-of-homophobes @thepotatoislost @mckiejames @women-are-so-ethereal @galaxydreamer468 @angeliccss @goldenautomaton @asolitaryrose3 @multifandomfix @ghostsunderstoodmysoul @escapetodreamworld

Warning(s): None

Shadows often linger in the periphery of Lilia’s vision; this she has grown to accept, on the basis that they are gone when she turns to face them. And she is glad of it each time. The twisted shapes and figures of the primordial horrors that linger are not made to be witnessed, even by her eyes.

So when a figure lingers, she turns with the expectation of seeing the silhouette vanish, but she’s not the only one who turns.

It strikes her as odd that Rio should see whatever she does. This thought occurs to her mid-ballad, fire licking at the back of her neck. When she looks, though, the figure does not vanish, but neither is it a horror to behold.

You are as beautiful as she remembers. The memory, coupled with your eyes on her, nearly trips her up. But Lilia holds strong through the rest of Lorna’s ballad—even as the burns on her shoulders ache, even as your eyes dart away and meet the curious gaze belonging to Rio, even, even as you watch her with that unerring devotion she had once craved.

When Alice tilts her head back, singing with the full force of her soul, Lilia’s eyes leave you. She watches the curse burn to ash above Alice.

You’re gone when Lilia glances back.

---

Sharon, human she may have been, was right about one thing—no witch can be expected to traverse the road without rest. So, the coven opts to take turns keeping watch around the little fire they’ve built.

Lilia volunteers for the first watch, restless, feeling the weight of eyes on her still. She should’ve known you wouldn’t stay away long.

Your entrance comes when the rest of the coven has fallen asleep; Jen and Alice on one side of the fire, propped up against the rock they sat upon, Agatha furthest from the fire, back to it, while Rio—if that is her true name—sleeps near enough to lay a hand on her waist. Teen, she assumes, remains in the makeshift bed they made for him.

She sees your shadow at the edge of the clearing, hesitant. Looking over her coven one last time, she stands, and walks to where you wait outside the light.

“What do you want?”

You reach out, a hand on either side of Lilia’s face. She doesn’t shake you off. Yet.

“You’re as beautiful as the day I left.” You murmur.

Lilia’s lip curls, “Are your brutal truths meant to be endearing?”

“No. They’re meant to be nothing more than what they are.”

Against all odds, Lilia has yet to throw off your hold. You run your thumb gently over the curve of her jaw. Everything in you wants to kiss her—has dreamt of it for over a century—but you know it won’t be welcome.

Her curls are frayed and wild around her face in an endearing picture. Mess suits her just as well as refinement; though that could be your bias talking.

“Why are you here?” Lilia asks.

“Because you’re here.” And because your job brought you here, but that’s less romantic.

She seems to sense the omission. Any warmth drains from her expression, her hands removing yours from her person. You miss the closeness immediately.

“A truth and a lie. Which will come next?”

“It wasn’t a lie. I could’ve been anywhere.”

“Then go there. But leave the coven out of this.”

“I have no choice, Lilia.”

Lilia scoffs, “You had a choice when you vanished for a century!”

You close your eyes against the reminder. Hurt flares through you. The ache from years of longing, feeling that veil between you exist so thin, yet being unable to reach through. You hadn’t even been allowed a glimpse.

It was torment. A century should have been easy, but a life without Lilia felt like clawing your way through. If you tell her, will she believe you?

“Please.” You whisper. You’re not sure what you’re asking for.

“Goodnight.”

You hear her walk away, can’t stop yourself from blurting, despite the consequences, “Please, don’t put yourself in harm's way.”

Her jaw is tight, eyes wary. She looks you over as if something about you will give away what you know.

She crosses her arms over her chest. You recognize it as both a way to keep you out and support herself. You ache to be let back in.

“This whole Road is a death wish.”

“Don’t put yourself in more danger than normal.” You say, then, smaller, “I can’t protect you.”

“Are you asking for my sake or your own?”

“Whichever you’ll listen to.”

“Why ask at all?”

You step forward, hands outstretched to take hers, but you stop short, “Because I love you, Lilia.”

The admission makes her flinch. Her eyes water and she swallows hard. For a fleeting moment you see the startling vulnerability behind her eyes—the loneliness you should have quelled—before she locks it away.

“You can’t love.” Lilia sneers, “It would tip the scales too much.”

“That’s not true.” You defend.

“Oh? Then who, in this wretched universe, have you decided to hate?”

You bite your tongue. Lilia takes your silence for its own—incorrect—answer. Bitterness creeps into her smile.

“Goodnight.”

---

“Here to watch the big show?” Rio asks, lagging behind while the others move forward.

“Just doing my job.”

“Really? I’d say things were pretty square when you showed up.”

You eye her, despising her knowing smile, “Why are you here?”

“My job.”

“Hm. And how many bodies have you collected, again?”

Her smile is wide, but her eyes are cold. She’s always despised that the two of you are equals; that she can’t add you to her menagerie of bodies. Just the same, you’ve despised that you can’t write her name down.

Agatha looks back and tilts her head. You know she can’t see you. Like nothing has happened, Rio turns that grin on Agatha, skipping back to her side.

You catch Lilia’s eyes on you and ignore the question in them.

---

Lilia watches. She follows you in her periphery, makes note of where you are at all times. Her eyes always dart to your hands. Every time she finds them empty, she relaxes.

She’s taken watch, again. You read the weariness in her posture.

Against your better judgment, you lay your hands on her shoulders. She doesn’t shrug them off.

“You need rest as much as they do, beloved.” You murmur.

She stiffens at the old endearment, “We’re splitting the time. I’ll manage.”

You run a hand through her hair. The curls are still loose, wild. You untangle a few of them. Squeezing her shoulder, you place a kiss to the top of her head, savoring the closeness.

For a moment, your hand quivers. You still it. Your punishment was endured with grace, you must endure the distance with the same.

“Sleep. I’ll watch over you.”

Lilia scoffs, “Right.”

The weight of her mistrust is like a knife in your chest. You do not endure the pain with grace; you flinch, tears springing unbidden to your eyes. Lilia’s eyes close in regret.

You wonder if your presence is more of a burden than blessing. Had you mistaken her intent all those years ago? Love is not an emotion that’d come to you naturally. Perhaps, in your learning, you misunderstood, and Lilia’s kind heart wouldn’t allow her to break your illusion.

She had loved you once, hadn’t she? You could swear she had.

“You have to know I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Unless the greater universe calls for it.”

Her tone is honest, but sadness lingers within it. All you want is to see her face.

“If I thought it would do you any favors, I’d throw it all away.” You admit in a whisper.

Lilia turns, then. Her brows are furrowed as her eyes search your own, frantic, swimming with fear. In another time and place, you’d follow the statement with a smirk; but you cannot bring yourself to summon the facade now, not with her.

It isn’t a lie—your admission. If not for the overturning of the world without you, you’d forsake the job on your shoulders. You’d unmake yourself in a moment for her. For the younger witch who sang freely and lamented her gifts. For the wizened witch who eyes you with trepidation, mind rife with your betrayals and shortcomings.

“Where are your lies?” She asks.

“I tell them to myself, so you can have all my truths.”

Lilia smiles then, but it’s bittersweet. A warm hand settles on your cheek. You can’t help it—grace be damned—when you press yourself into the contact. They’re still there—the callouses you remember, rough against your flesh. She still smells of smoke.

There’s a rustling of fabric across the space. Alice shifts, sitting up and rubbing at her eyes. Lilia’s touch is gone from you. You settle next to her as she rests, not brave enough to lay another hand upon her.

---

You watch the knife fall as if time has slowed; absently, you think it might be, Time always did love her cruel jokes. It falls with Teen in the direct path. You feel the pen heavy in your hand, the paper near-weightless and yet the heaviest thing you’ve come to bear.

But then Lilia moves. The one moment you need time to slow for you, it’s returned to normal. Lilia shoves Teen out of the way and takes his place in the dagger’s path.

You fall to your knees, “No!”

Throwing your arms out, you aim a burst of magic for the dagger. Consequences be damned. Alice is faster, though, and moves Lilia from the dagger’s path before your magic can make contact.

Rio’s eyes are heavy on you. She can’t do anything—you didn’t technically break any rules, but the intent is damning enough.

“Now this is going to be fun.” Rio purrs.

You stare at the pen and blank paper you dropped in your haste to save Lilia. Your purpose. How close you’d come to unmaking yourself and yet… yet, a part of you is ambivalent to this. The larger part is freaking out, though.

Everyone’s eyes are on you. You flinch. They shouldn’t be able to see you.

Checking your mental list of active charms, you realize you’ve made an error; in your grief-induced act of heroism, you dropped every single charm on your person and directed the energy toward Lilia. The cat’s out of the bag, it would seem.

Lilia is the first to recover, moving out of Alice’s protective hold, “Do you ever think?”

You bristle, yet to stand from your kneeling position. It gives her an advantage over you this once.

“Well and often.” You defend.

“Well?” She questions, beautiful in her terror and rage, “You call that thinking well? You could’ve been killed!”

“You were in danger, Lilia.”

“And you’re not allowed to interfere.”

Ignoring all the eyes on the two of you, Lilia turns and storms through the exit that opened. You watch the road-conjured costume melt back into her normal visage as she gets further away.

It’s then that you recognize the silence.

All of them are staring at you save for Agatha, who eyes Rio with a mixture of trepidation and understanding. You stand as gracefully as you can manage. Smoothing down your clothes, you try to smile, but the action feels slippery on your features. How long has it been?

“What is it with you witches and beautiful mysteries?” Jen asks, “And where can I get one?”

You flush and fidget. The weight of their attention is so much less pleasant than your beloved’s.

Alice tilts her head, “Who are you?”

Holding out your hand, you speak your name. Rio laughs. You blush, remembering that mortal creatures don’t comprehend the original language, not like the two of you. Lilia once said it sounded like botched latin. The coven exchanges various looks of confusion.

“Lilia just calls me—”

“A pain.” Lilia’s voice cuts in, “A very severe, persistent pain. Are you all coming?”

You’re the first to follow, which prompts no shortage of grumbling. You find yourself grinning.

---

“Well, at least we have extra help on The Road.” Jen shrugs, later.

“She can’t help.” Lilia and Rio say in unison.

The two share a look. You can read the distaste in Lilia’s eyes. She doesn’t seem to think much of Rio, not that you do either—and you actually know her.

“Seemed pretty eager to help you, Lilia.”

“A foolish, misguided mistake on her part.”

You flinch at the statement, staring down at your hands. With the charms gone, you witness their true appearance; one completely dark, as if left to char in ember, the other so pale-white it is near translucent.

The beauty of a mortal body with a mortal heart is a range of emotion you’d have never felt before. Though lately, the gift feels more like a burden. Pain is your ever-present companion these days. Even when you look at your beloved, the love that overtakes you is laced with poison; with the reminder of what you had to do.

You can’t bring yourself to wish away the heart in your chest. But you do wish Lilia would be a bit more gentle with it. You’re hardly in the position to make requests, though.

“I can assist in small ways. Taking a watch at night, tending the fire.”

“No.” Lilia shuts you down. You freeze, “You are to do nothing but observe. Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes, beloved.”

You ignore the look between Alice and Jen.

---

The end of The Road is so near you can practically taste it. It tastes of rot and chaos, but you put that down as a symptom of your disposition. You watch Lilia and the rest of the coven relax, inhaling deeply.

A smile teases at Lilia’s lips.

“What do you smell?” You whisper.

The smile doesn’t vanish as you expect. Rather, it extends to her eyes as she regards you.

“Your perfume.”

You melt. Knees like jelly, you take her hand in your own, and press a kiss to the back of it, ignoring the eyes on the two of you. The Witches Road will give you what you most desire at the end. And before the last trial, it gives the traveler a taste of what their prize is. She can’t reach the end without knowing the truth.

“This body wasn’t mine, did you know that?” You ask. Her expression shifts as she grows a bit more tense in your hold. You hold tighter, “The witch before me had a little over a century left in her when I came. As payment, I had to serve out the rest of her years without the one thing that made it feel like living.”

The words are tumbling from you faster than you can comprehend them. You watch her face, hoping that what you’re stringing together makes enough sense for her to see. Even if it takes some other force whispering the facts into her ear for her to understand, you’ll just be happy that she knows.

Lilia’s the brightest witch you’ve ever known. She’ll figure out what you’re saying, but you just can’t stop; you need to say the words you’ve been dying to say for all these years.

“I never wanted to leave you, beloved.”

There’s no privacy on this cursed road, but you don’t care. If she asked it of you, you’d tell every soul you met how you love her. Lilia Calderu owns your heart, but even more than that, she owns your soul, and you have no desire to take it from her hands—even if she decides to rip it to pieces as repayment.

Let the coven know how you lived a century-long prison sentence to be with her. Let Rio and the greater powers know. You have no shame.

Lilia sneers, “You foolish woman.”

Her hands fist in the front of your shirt and pull your lips to hers. It’s messy; a clash of teeth and lips and noses, a poor imitation of the world-tipping kisses the two of you have found in one another. You’re both horribly out of practice. Never let it be said, however, that passion does not make up for tact. The near-quivering of Lilia’s grip and the force of intent behind her kiss makes up for any clumsiness.

The time on The Road has left her lips chapped, bitter with the remnants of lipstick, and never before have you known something so utterly perfect. You wrap your arms around her waist and pull her close enough that not a breath can exist between you. She sighs against your lips.

A curse of a mortal body is the functions that a higher being like yourself wouldn’t deem necessary; in this case, the need your lungs have for oxygen. Your heart is beating out of your chest and not from desire.

You pull back, panting, forehead resting against Lilia’s.

Breath successfully acquired, you tilt your head and press your lips to Lilia’s cheek, her temple, her forehead—anywhere you can reach, murmuring, reverent, “Lilia. My Lilia.”

“Darling.” She whispers with every kiss, voice hushed with devotion.

A lifetime apart seen to its end. Your fingers still itch with the pent up desire to hold her despite doing so. You were shameless before, but now… Gods help her.

Rio watches the entire display with shameless interest. Her eyebrows are high, a small, curious smile on her lips. Teen had been the first to turn away and busy himself with watching The Road. Somewhere mid-kiss, the remaining three found something more pressing to devote their attention to.

The lack of seeing, however, does not stop Jen from sighing, “When will it be my turn?”

Alice laughs at her side.

---

“Did you know all along?”

Lilia looks up at Agatha’s hushed question. She takes in the messy, haggard, but satisfied look of her fellow witch. She also catches the look Agatha throws your way. You sit across the clearing, Teen at your side, listening with rapt attention as you explain something about the moon.

“I had a suspicion when you mentioned my fortune.” Lilia admits.

A suspicion. A burgeoning hope she hadn’t let herself acknowledge.

“Oh?”

“What is fortune if not a lack of balance?” She shrugs, unable to look away from you, “To change it meant the end of my pain.”

“Enter, your solution.”

“Solution and problem.”

The two share a wry laugh. Lilia’s careful not to ask any pointed questions about Rio, though curiosity does eat away at her. Is anyone better suited to appreciate her experience?

Rio, while polarizing, is beautiful—and seems to have attached herself to Agatha in a way best suited to the witch. There is a beauty in it. Though she admits she’ll always prefer your well-meaning brutality over that which Agatha receives. To each their own.

“The Road seems to play favorites, giving you your prize early.” Agatha muses.

“Having her isn’t the prize,” Lilia corrects, “keeping her is.”

Agatha hums, eyes contemplative.

You’re aware of the eyes on you from across the clearing, but pay it little attention, instead devoting yourself fully to the question Teen has asked you. Gesturing with your hands, you weave similarities between the First Coven and their own. He watches you with a starstruck expression.

Something in your conversation prompts him to tilt his head. He fiddles with the little spellbook attached to his hip. Your musings come to a natural close and he speaks up.

“Can I ask—why Lilia? I mean, she’s great, but I guess I don’t understand.” Teen changes the subject.

You smile.

“Do you know the average person’s response to upsetting the state of the world?” You ask. Teen thinks, then shakes his head, “There isn’t one. It doesn’t matter what they’ve undone in the grand scheme, they’re painfully ignorant of what they’ve done. And what’s worse, most don’t care.”

It’s an old grievance you have with the greater universe. You recognize the necessity of it, but will never deny how it grates on you.

“Lilia… Lilia spent a large part of her life as a harbinger of tragedy. She’d travel through villages and upturn their worlds with a prediction.” You sigh, chest aching with the pain you know she suffered, “But when she did, she always sought to fix it. There were times she leveled the scales so completely that I didn’t have to do a thing. Few had ever considered me in such a way before.”

You look up from your fidgeting hands to Lilia. Her eyes are already on you. The warm, steady weight of her gaze makes you melt.

“And the others, well, none of them were her.”

Teen nods, “That’s sweet. I think.”

You chuckle. In a moment of fondness, you ruffle the curls on his head. He rolls his eyes but allows the contact; how do you tell a force of nature no?

---

You stare back down The Road with the coven. Though the return journey will be without any of the usual hassles, you curse the greater powers for not just providing an exit door. Your feet are killing you.

Lilia looks weary despite having rested. You rub a hand over her back, working out the knots you find with a skilled hand. She sighs.

“Where do we go from here?” She asks.

You raise a brow, “Back to the start of The Road.”

Lilia glares, though it lacks significant heat, “Us, darling.”

Ah.

“Wherever you lead, beloved.”

“That’s a lot of control.”

“Give me a century or so and I’ll start making decisions again.”

Her fingers lace through your own. Lilia stares down the length of The Road she has traversed and conquered, yet the greatest battle lies beyond. The world will never again be the same for her.

You raise her hand to your lips. You press gentle kisses to the knuckles.

“To the return of your glory.” You murmur.

Lilia looks at you for a long moment. Using your hold, she pulls you down, into a short but mind-numbing kiss. You hold tight and sigh, content.

She corrects, “To the return of balance.”

[jonnywaistcoat]

Hey, Horrormaster Sims. I have a wildly different question that barely relates to TMA (Sorry about that) but its about your own process. Please, if you could, can you tell me how your first drafts made you feel? I'm on the fence about writing my own thing (not a podcast, and again, not Magnus related, though I have a million little aus for that delightful tragedy you wrote, thank you for that!) But I'm discouraged by the collective notion that first drafts are always terrible, because there's no ... examples I can solidly use to help the dumb anxiety beast in my brain that tells me everyone who is in any way popular popped out a golden turd and not, well, you know. One of my friends said 'Oh I bet Jonathan Sims's first draft was nothing like what he wanted' and I got the bright idea to just. Send you an ask, since you're trapped on this hellsite like I am. Anyway, thanks for reading this (if you do) and if you'd rather ask it privately, I am cool with that. Alternatively, you're a hella busy man with Protocol (you and Alex are making me rabid, i hope you know) and you can just ignore this! Cheers, man, and good words.

To my mind all writing advice, especially stuff that's dispensed as truisms (like "first drafts are always garbage") are only useful inasmuch as such advice prompts you to pay attention to how you write best: what helps your workflow, what inspires you, what keeps you going through the rough bits. There are as many different ways to write (and write well) as there are people who write and so always consider this sort of thing a jumping off point to try out or keep in mind as you gradually figure out your own ways of writing.

On first drafts specifically, I think the wisdom "all first drafts are bad" is a bit of unhelpful oversimplification of the fact that, deadlines notwithstanding, no piece of writing goes out until you decide its ready, so don't get too hung up on your first draft of a thing, because a lot of writers find it much easier to edit a complete work than to try and redraft as they go. It's also important to not let perfectionism or the fact your initial draft isn't coming out exactly how you want stop you from actually finishing the thing, as it's always better to have something decent and done than to have something perfect and abandoned.

But the idea of a "first draft" is also kind of a fluid one. The "first draft" you submit to someone who's commissioned you will probably be one you've already done a bunch of tweaks and edits to, as opposed to the "first draft" you pump out in a frenzy in an over-caffeinated weekend. For my part, my first drafts tend to end up a bit more polished than most, because I'm in the habit of reading my sentences out loud as I write them (a habit picked up from years of audio writing) so I'll often write and re-write a particular sentence or paragraph a few times to get the rhythm right before moving to the next one. This means my first drafts tend to take longer, but are a bit less messy. I'm also a big-time planner and pretty good at sticking to the structures I lay out so, again, tend to front load a lot of stuff so I get a better but slower first draft.

At the end of the day, though, the important thing is to get in your head about it in a good way (How do I write best? what helps me make writing I enjoy and value? What keeps me motivated?) and not in a bad way (What if it's not good enough? What if everyone hates it? What if it doesn't make sense?) so that you actually get it done.

As for how my first drafts made me feel? Terrible, every one of 'em No idea if that's reflective of their quality, though, tbh - I hate reading my own writing until I've had a chance to forget it's mine (I can only ever see the flaws). I suppose there's theoretically a none-zero chance they were pure fragments of True Art and creative perfection, but Alex's editing notes make that seem unlikely.

[astralibrary]

hi @marykedoesart, this is my gift to you for @natsume-ss' spring exchange!

you said you like tanuma/natsume and heartfelt, emotional themes so i went very symbolic with this, haha. i really love the idea of using imagery from the fish pond in tanuma's backyard to represent these two and their dynamic, so that became the concept i ran with. i'll explain my whole thought process below, but in the meantime i hope you like it! 💖

pls bear with me here bc this is going to be very long and wordy lol

so there's a definite theme of separate worlds here; while the environments are both pretty abstract, the idea was that tanuma is sitting in his house looking out towards his backyard where the pond is, representing the "real world," whereas natsume is in a more fantastical underwater setting, representing the world of youkai. also there's the implication that he's sitting at the bottom of the pond, aka completely immersed in that other world, while tanuma can only perceive hints of it in the reflected light & shadow on the wall.

tanuma's side is lit by the glow of the setting sun, and natsume's by an otherworldly blue light. also, there's their clothes: tanuma is in his regular school uniform while natsume is in a yukata, something that pretty much all humanoid youkai wear.

next, their poses; they're both sitting exactly the same way as a reflection of each other but natsume has his head bowed while tanuma is looking up; this is meant to represent their different approaches to their relationship. natsume is definitely more closed off, both as a defense mechanism and because he wants to protect tanuma & keep him away from the dangers of youkai. tanuma, though, is open and contemplative, maybe even hopeful; he wants to be let in and he wants to help, even if it is dangerous.

the lighting reinforces these conflicting attitudes, with tanuma's side being brighter and warmer while natsume's is darker and colder, representing this sort of "optimism vs pessimism" dynamic.

so now, the fish. the bridge between their different worlds, basically. on natsume's side it's a real fish while on tanuma's it's a shadow cast on the wall, which is obviously the original conceit of the scene in the source material: natsume can literally see the fish, while tanuma can only see its shadow. still, even if it manifests differently, it still exists to both of them, so it's a connection between them concerning youkai.

so they're both in their separate worlds, but because of this connection they affect each other, maybe in small ways at first; as the fish crosses over the barrier it leaves little effects, little disturbances behind. on natsume's side, bubbles drift up towards the surface, little pockets of air like little lifelines showing the way, and on tanuma's side little droplets fall and create ripples in the reflected water, these small things that grow and grow outward until they're not so small anymore. little feelings that bubble up and ripple out, hoping to reach the other in their own way.

the fish brings these feelings across the barrier, endlessly looping around them as they endlessly call out to each other, trying to navigate this relationship they have; it's possible to bridge the gap between them as long as they look and listen and learn to embrace the things that make them different just as much as those that bring them together.

and that's about it! my goal was to make a symbolic piece about their struggle to understand each other but with a hopeful note, so hopefully that comes across! i hope my explanation at least sort of made sense and wasn't too confusing! (to be completely transparent i only had about half of that in mind while i was drawing it, the rest sort of came together as i was writing this. neat!)

and finally, here's a still frame in the original higher resolution so you can see it a bit nicer! 💖

[nowoyas]

Trying to make sense of the Nanowrimo statement to the best of my abilities and fuck, man. It's hard.

It's hard because it seems to me that, first and foremost, the organization itself has forgotten the fucking point.

Nanowrimo was never about the words themselves. It was never about having fifty thousand marketable words to sell to publishing companies and then to the masses. It was a challenge, and it was hard, and it is hard, and it's supposed to be. The point is that it's hard. It's hard to sit down and carve out time and create a world and create characters and turn these things into a coherent plot with themes and emotional impact and an ending that's satisfying. It's hard to go back and make changes and edit those into something likable, something that feels worth reading. It's hard to find a beautifully-written scene in your document and have to make the decision that it's beautiful but it doesn't work in the broader context. It's fucking hard.

Writing and editing are skills. You build them and you hone them. Writing the way the challenge initially encouraged--don't listen to that voice in your head that's nitpicking every word on the page, put off the criticism for a later date, for now just let go and get your thoughts out--is even a different skill from writing in general. Some people don't particularly care about refining that skill to some end goal or another, and simply want to play. Some people sit down and try to improve and improve and improve because that is meaningful to them. Some are in a weird in-between where they don't really know what they want, and some have always liked the idea of writing and wanted a place to start. The challenge was a good place for this--sit down, put your butt in a chair, open a blank document, and by the end of the month, try to put fifty thousand words in that document.

How does it make you feel to try? Your wrists ache and you don't feel like any of the words were any good, but didn't you learn something about the process? Re-reading it, don't you think it sounds better if you swap these two sentences, if you replace this word, if you take out this comma? Maybe you didn't hit 50k words. Maybe you only wrote 10k. But isn't it cool, that you wrote ten thousand words? Doesn't it feel nice that you did something? We can try again. We can keep getting better, or just throwing ourselves into it for fun or whatever, and we can do it again and again.

I guess I don't completely know where I'm going with this post. If you've followed me or many tumblr users for any amount of time, you've probably already heard a thousand times about how generative AI hurts the environment so many of us have been so desperately trying to save, about how generative AI is again and again used to exploit big authors, little authors, up-and-coming authors, first time authors, people posting on Ao3 as a hobby, people self-publishing e-books on Amazon, traditionally published authors, and everyone in between. You've probably seen the statements from developers of these "tools", things like how being required to obtain permission for everything in the database used to train the language model would destroy the tool entirely. You've seen posts about new AI tools scraping Ao3 so they can make money off someone else's hobby and putting the legality of the site itself at risk. For an organization that used to dedicate itself to making writing more accessible for people and for creating a community of writers, Nanowrimo has spent the past several years systematically cracking that community to bits, and now, it's made an official statement claiming that the exploitation of writers in its community is okay, because otherwise, someone might find it too hard to complete a challenge that's meant to be hard to begin with.

I couldn't thank Nanowrimo enough for what it did for me when I started out. I don't know how to find community in the same way. But you can bet that I've deleted my account, and I'll be finding my own path forward without it. Thanks for the fucking memories, I guess.

[vhaos-chaotic-writing]

HIII HELLO1!!1 (I'm 19 btw just too shy cause this is like. My first time requesting. So sorry if this is kinda weird!)

Could I request Optimus (your choice of incarnation) x a reader who's an outlaw and commits crime 24 hours??(bonus if reader is a deception hehe), like when they first met, they were both at each other throat, but now? THEY'RE KISSING IN SLOPPY MODE-

Sorry if this request is too hard, i don't mind if it short! Thanks and love your writing!!

Finally got to your ask!! (It's okay, bestie!!) - oh Primus, a chaotic reader with an Optimus Prime to deal (and love) with it!! - Vhaos likes it! ( •̀ ω •́ )✧ Hehe... I think I know the perfect incarnation of Optimus to use here!

TFP Optimus Prime w/ a Cybertronian!Reader who is a Decepticon... and a danger to society.

WARNINGS: Kind of suggestive (heavy sloppy make out session), I'll even categorize this as crack, somehow. Reader is a cybertronian, a decepticon and gender neutral. Megastar implied (you'll understand).

A pain in the aft and a danger to any kind of society - that's how the Autobots described you.

... Well, nearly aaall of them, since one of them had an extra title for you.

A pain in the aft, a danger to any kind of society and the bot that makes Optimus fragging Prime actually NOT think before acting.

Oh my Primus - said deity and the past Primes are definitely disappointed in him. And he wants to kick his own aft!

You were one of the most crazy Decepticon any of the Autobots have ever seen - and they've dealt with Megatron and Starscream before!

You were a constant 'keep-an-optic-on' for the Autobots, as you would be sent to cause a couple of problems here and there, the typical tactic about having your enemy doing multitasking between the main problem (aka. The war and Megatron) and other problems to deal with (Aka. You).

Last week you got a whole factory on fire (thanks to Primus no human got hurt in the process), a couple of days ago you managed to get Arcee, Bee and Bulkhead lost inside of a cave system after having chased you. And so on.

And lately, Optimus has been dealing with you, trying to stop you from whatever and such.

And by Primus, you knew how to put a fight, make a disaster and even have Optimus give his everything to keep up with you. Even when he got to land a hit or such on you, you would cackle and stand up back, and the cycle continues.

Although... And Primus, it was so wrong to admit it. He found you... optic-catching. Yes, you were a serious problem and a crazy-aft Decepticon.

Still... that didn't stop Optimus Prime from feeling his spark twirl and beat loudly against his chestplate.

Somehow in this battle, Optimus and Megatron weren't fighting faceplate to faceplate - instead, Arcee, Smokescreen and BumbleBee were doing such a good job at dealing with the Warlord while Optimus had to deal with you.

"C'mon, Prime! Land a hit already!" You shout, wide smile on your faceplate as you shoot with your firing weapon at the taller mech.

And Optimus did fire at your pedes, which got to make you trip back - alas, when you fell backwards you fired and it got to his kneeplate, making him fall foward. In the end, the Prime had you caged on the floor.

Blue optics meet (color) optics with astonishment expressions. Suddenly the sound of his teammates fighting Megatron in the background became such a far, far away sound. Were you always this pretty this close? Well, you always kept moving, this may be the first time Optimus got to see you still! And well, he wasn't thaaat bad looking, right? You think, a small sly smirk forming on your faceplate.

Maybe that's why your cheekplates got a soft blue hue on them. And Optimus' cheekplates, too.

"Bee-wee-beep?"

Arcee and Smokescreen, with Megatron doing the same, turn their helms at you and Optimus were... to then feel like frozen in place.

Optics closed and holding each other closer as if long lost lovers (or two young bots with too many hormonal systems doing their jobs), you and the Prime were... making out. Primus, it was too much! (Bee swears, feeling his spark leaving his frame, he saw your glossa all tangled with Optimus'). It was sloppy, loud. Frag, you were even holding Optimus' helm from the back with your servos, preventing him from pulling back. Not like he was actually planning on doing it, with how he was holding your frame with his own servos.

While Arcee, Smokescreen and Bee were frozen in place, feeling like their softwares just fried up, in the blink of an optic, Megatron punched Optimus on his back, managing to sent him flying and separate him from you.

"YOUNG BOT, WHAT THE FRAG ARE YOU DOING?!" Megatron yells. angrily as he picks you from the back of your neck like a cat.

"That fine mech is a wiiild ride!" You answer back, giggling and cackling, all limp in Megatron's hold.

"WAIT UNTIL YOUR CARRI- I MEAN, STARSCREAM KNOWS ABOUT THIS - YOU'LL BE IN SERIOUS TROUBLE!" Megatron warns, throwing you over his right shoulderplate, turning around and starting to walk away.

"You two are not even my two creators - babe-Prime! I'll be back, I promise!" You shout your promise at the Prime, wide smiling and waving your servo at him, and then at his teammates before you and your leader enter an opened ground bridge.

Optimus stands up from the ground, dusting off his lap to then turn towards his three teammates, who still have shocked expressions on their faceplates.

"Heh... well..." He starts.

"Nah, Optimus - are you serious?" Smokescreen interrupted, wincing.

"Down bad." Arcee groaned, trying to forget the whole making out session she saw as Bee gave a few pats to her back, understanding her pain.

Well - this was going to be a funny story to tell back at the base!

Hehehehehehe (≧∀≦)ゞ Vhaos out!

[stylesispunk]

'You gave me something to lose'

Joel Miller x f!reader

summary: Joel is afraid of losing you.

wc: 4k>

warnings: angst, mentions of panic attacks, fluff. Messy writing cause this is an old draft.

a/n: this was on my drafts for so long so I'm posting this as a gift because I'm going to London for the next two weeks and I won't be very active on here. So once I return, I promise I'll write the pendant things and requests I have. I hope you like this one. Happy reading 💌

dividerers by @/saradika-graphics

Joel didn’t fear anything, not dying nor being alone or even broke.

Not the clickers, not darkness, but you.

when his mission to take Ellie to the fireflies became into caring for the teen, he felt panicked.

And when he learned he had fallen deeply in love with you, you gave him something to lose.

And he was frightened.

Joel had always been a fortress, walls built high and strong to keep out the pain and loss he had endured. But now, those walls were crumbling. Each moment he spent with you, each secret you both had shared, each tender touch, chipped away at the defenses he had so meticulously constructed.

Since the day Joel met you at the QZ in Boston, you had stolen something from him. He didn’t decipher what back then, but every time you weren’t on his sight, a knot formed on his stomach. Every time he caught a glimpse of you, his blood rushed into his cheeks.

And God, every single time you smiled at him, he could find a reason to keep surviving in this world, again.

And that’s why when you had decided to go after him, when he and Tess took Ellie with them to the fireflies. He had made up his mind, between the anger and tinted loved was feeling for you right at that moment, he had decided he was going to protect you more than anything or anyone. Even when you got on his nerves.

The journey to the fireflies was grueling. The roads were treacherous, infested with clickers and hunters. Every step was a battle, every night a gamble. But Joel was relentless. He led the way with a grim determination, always keeping you and Ellie close. The tension was palpable, a silent acknowledgment of the danger that lurked in every shadow.

One evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, casting a warm orange glow over the desolate landscape, you found a moment of respite. The group set up camp in an abandoned building, its crumbling walls offering a semblance of shelter. Joel, ever vigilant, took the first watch.

You approached him, the flickering firelight casting dancing shadows across his weathered face. He looked up as you neared, his eyes softening slightly. “You should get some rest,” he said, his voice a low rumble.

You shook your head, sitting down beside him. “I can’t sleep. Too much on my mind.”

Joel glanced at you, the hint of a smile playing on his lips. “Yeah, I get that.” There was a pause, a comfortable silence settling between you. “You know,” he began, his voice barely above a whisper, “I never thought I’d feel this way again. Not after everything.”

You looked at him, searching his eyes. “What do you mean?”

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I’ve…” he paused, “Never mind.”

You furrowed your brow, sensing the weight of his unspoken words. “Joel, you can talk to me. Whatever it is, I’m here.”

He looked away, his jaw tightening. “It’s just… it’s hard to explain.” He paused again, just a few seconds, lifting his gaze up to yours “Why did you followed us three?” he asked.

The question caught you off guard, but you didn’t hesitate in your response. “I didn’t follow all of you. I followed you.”

“Why?”

“Because back in the QZ there wasn’t a life after you” you confessed, “Life sucks in there, but without you it would be worse.”

Joel’s eyes widened slightly, the vulnerability of your words hitting him harder than he expected. He stared at you, trying to process the depth of your feelings. “I never knew…”

“Of course you didn’t,” you interrupted softly. “You’ve always been so focused on surviving, on protecting Tess and yourself, that you’ve never stopped to see how much you mean to people. How much you mean to me.”

He shook his head, struggling to find the right words. “Good to know it because I feel the same about you.”

Your heart skipped a beat, his admission filling you with warmth. "Joel..."

He took a deep breath, his eyes locking onto yours with an intensity that made your heart race. “When I met you, I didn’t think I could care for anyone again. But you... you changed that.”

You felt tears welling up in your eyes, but you held them back, not wanting to break the cosmic moment “I’m glad. Because I can’t imagine going through this without you.”

Joel reached out, his hand cupping your cheek, his thumb gently brushing away a stray tear that had escaped. “Now can you, please go to sleep?”

“Can I sleep here?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

Joel’s expression softened, and without hesitation, he nodded. “Yeah, you can.”

He shifted, making room for you to lie down beside him. As you settled in, the warmth of his body next to yours was both comforting and grounding. You felt his arm wrap around you, pulling you closer, and you snuggled into his embrace, feeling safe and protected.

“Thank you,” you murmured, your voice muffled against his chest.

“For what?” he asked softly, his breath warm against your hair.

“For letting me in. For trusting me.”

Joel pressed a gentle kiss to the top of your head. “I trust you more than anyone. And I’m glad you’re here. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

You smiled, the weight of the world feeling just a little bit lighter in his arms. “We’ll figure it out together. “As the night deepened, the sounds of the wilderness outside seemed distant, the crackling fire casting a gentle glow around you. Joel’s steady heartbeat and the rise and fall of his chest were the lullaby that finally coaxed you into sleep. In his arms, you found a peace you hadn’t known in a long time.

He felt his heart giving up for you.

That had happened a few months ago.

And Joel had become afraid. He found himself lying awake almost every night, staring at the sky and the stars, a storm of thoughts raging in his mind. What if something happened to you? What if he couldn't protect you? The thought of losing you, of seeing the light fade from your eyes, was a nightmare he couldn't bear. It was a fear far greater than anything he had ever faced; greater than the harsh realities of the post-apocalyptic world he had navigated for so long.

During the day, he tried to push these fears aside, trying to focus on the present. But it was impossible. Every smile you gave him reminded him of what he stood to lose. Every time you reached for his hand, his heart ached with the weight of his love for you and the dread of its potential loss.

He watched you with Ellie, how you cared for her, and how you brought joy and laughter into her bleak world. He saw how you made her feel safe and loved, and it only made his feelings for you deepen. Ellie, too, had become a part of this fragile, makeshift family, and his love for both of you intertwined, creating a web of vulnerability he couldn't escape.

The wind howled outside, carrying with it the bitter cold of the frozen winter night. Inside the small, dilapidated cabin, a fire crackled in the hearth, casting a warm glow across the room. You, Joel, and Ellie huddled close to the fire, trying to fend off the chill that seemed to seep through the very walls.

Ellie poked at the fire with a stick, her eyes reflecting the dancing flames. "What do you think it’ll be like, Joel?" she asked, her voice filled with a mix of hope and uncertainty.

Joel looked up from the map he was studying, his eyes softening as he met Ellie’s gaze. "What do you mean?"

"After the cure," she said. "When this is all over. What do you think it’ll be like?"

Joel leaned back against the rough wooden wall, his mind drifting to a time long past. "I reckon things will be...different. Better, maybe. People could rebuild, start over. There might be schools again, towns with shops, places where kids can just be kids."

Ellie smiled at the thought, her imagination running wild with possibilities. "I want to learn to play guitar," she said. "Like you, Joel. You promised to teach me, remember?"

Joel chuckled softly, a rare sound in these harsh times. "Yeah, I remember. We'll find one, and I'll teach you. Maybe we can even have a little concert, you and me."

You watched the exchange, a warm feeling spreading through your chest. "What about you, Joel? What's something you’d want to do?"

Joel hesitated, his eyes flicking to you. "I... I’d like to have a place of our own. Somewhere safe. Maybe a little house with a garden. We could grow our own food, live a quiet life. Just...be together."

You smiled, your heart swelling with affection. "That sounds nice," you said softly. "Really nice."

The conversation drifted into a comfortable silence, each of you lost in thoughts of a hopeful future. You leaned against Joel, the warmth of his body a comforting presence. His arm wrapped around you instinctively, pulling you closer.

Ellie yawned and stretched out on the floor next to the fire. "I think I'm going to get some sleep," she said, her voice already heavy with exhaustion.

"Good idea," Joel replied. "I’ll keep the watch."

Ellie nodded and pulled her blanket tightly around herself, quickly drifting off to sleep. You and Joel stayed by the fire, the quiet crackling of the flames the only sound in the room.

"Do you really think there’s hope for a cure?" you asked quietly, your head resting on his shoulder.

Joel sighed, his fingers gently stroking your arm. "I don't know," he admitted. "But I have to believe there is. For Ellie. For you."

You tilted your head up to look at him, your eyes searching his. "You’ve been through so much, Joel. Yet you still find it in you to hope. That’s incredible."

He shook his head slightly. "It's not hope," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "It's you.”

Joel’s panic attacks had become more frequent as the days passed. Every quiet moment seemed to stretch into an eternity of worry and fear. He could feel the weight of his responsibilities pressing down on him, and the constant fear that he wouldn’t be able to protect you or Ellie gnawed at him relentlessly.

When the three of you had finally arrived at Jackson, Joel’s thoughts were a whirlwind of conflicting emotions. Jackson was a sanctuary, a place where you could all be safe, but his fears didn’t dissipate. If anything, they grew stronger. The more secure the surroundings, the more he worried about what could go wrong.

Jackson was bustling with life, a stark contrast to the desolate landscapes they had traversed. Children played in the streets, people worked in gardens, and there was a sense of community and hope that was almost overwhelming. Joel watched it all with a heavy heart, his mind racing.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was going to die, that some unseen danger would take him away from you and Ellie. The thought of leaving you unprotected was unbearable. That’s when the idea started to form: maybe the best way to protect you was to leave you in Jackson, where you’d be safe. Where you could even find someone younger than him to kept you alive.

Joel sought out his brother. He found Tommy in the community hall, finishing up some late-night paperwork. The room was quiet, the only sound the scratch of Tommy’s pen against the paper.

"Tommy," Joel said, his voice low and strained.

Tommy looked up, immediately sensing the urgency in his brother’s tone. "Joel, what’s going on? You look like you’ve seen a ghost."

Joel took a deep breath, his hands trembling. He sat down across from Tommy, his eyes filled with anguish. "I need to talk to you. It’s about Ellie and... and my….my " He couldn’t find the words to describe you. Calling you his lover wasn’t a proper word to use, it felt so weak. There was not nickname that could make justice to what you meant to him.

“Your girlfriend?” Tommy asked.

Joel nodded.

Tommy set his pen down, giving Joel his full attention. "Alright, tell me what’s on your mind."

Joel’s voice cracked as he spoke. "I don’t know how much longer I can do this. The fear... it’s eating me alive. I’m so scared something’s going to happen to them, and I won’t be able to protect them."

Tommy’s expression softened. "Joel, you’re in Jackson now. It’s safe here. We’ve got walls, people who care about each other. You don’t have to do this alone."

Joel shook his head, tears welling up in his eyes. "You don’t understand. I feel like I’m going to die, like something’s going to take me away from them. And then what? What happens to them if I’m gone?"

Tommy reached out, placing a reassuring hand on Joel’s shoulder. "We’ll take care of them, Joel. You’re not alone in this."

Joel’s tears began to fall, his voice choked with emotion. "I’m asking you to take Ellie with you. Keep her safe. And let my baby stay here in Jackson. She deserves a life that’s not filled with running and fear."

Tommy’s eyes widened in shock. "Joel, are you sure about this? You’re talking about leaving them behind."

"I’m not leaving them," Joel said, his voice trembling. "I’m trying to protect them. They’ll be safer without me."

Tommy sighed, his heart breaking for his brother. "And what about you, Joel? What happens to you if you leave?"

Joel wiped his tears, trying to steady himself. "I’ll find a way to keep going. I just need to know they’re safe. That’s all that matters."

Tommy nodded slowly, understanding the depth of Joel’s fear and love. "Alright, Joel. If this is what you think is best, I’ll take care of them. But you need to talk to them first. They deserve to know why you’re doing this."

Joel nodded, his heart heavy with the weight of his decision. "I will. Thank you, Tommy."

Tommy pulled Joel into a tight embrace; his voice filled with emotion. "We’re family, Joel. We take care of each other."

Joel clung to his brother, the tears flowing freely now. He knew the conversation with you and Ellie would be one of the hardest things he’d ever have to do, but he also knew it was necessary. The fear of losing you both was too great to ignore, and he hoped that, in time, you would understand why he had to make this choice.

Joel walked slowly to Ellie’s room, his heart heavy with the burden of what he was about to do. He knew this conversation would be one of the hardest of his life, but he also believed it was necessary. He took a deep breath and knocked softly on her door.

“Come in,” Ellie’s voice called from inside.

He opened the door and stepped into the room. Ellie was sitting on her bed, reading one of the books she had found in Jackson’s library. She looked up and smiled when she saw him, but her smile faded when she noticed the serious expression on his face.

“Joel, what’s wrong?” she asked, her brows furrowing with concern.

Joel closed the door behind him and sat down on the edge of the bed. He looked at Ellie, her young face full of life and determination, and it made his heart ache.

“Ellie, we need to talk,” he said softly, struggling to find the right words.

Ellie set her book aside and gave him her full attention. “What’s going on?”

Joel took a deep breath, his hands trembling slightly. “Ellie, I’ve been thinking a lot about our journey, about everything we’ve been through. And... about what comes next.”

Ellie shook her head, her voice rising with emotion. “Joel, no. We’re supposed to stick together. We’re a team.”

Joel looked down, unable to meet her eyes. “Ellie, I’m not sure I can keep doing this. The fear... it’s too much. I’m scared something’s going to happen to you, and I won’t be able to protect you.”

Ellie reached out, placing a hand on his arm. “We protect each other, Joel. That’s how we’ve always done it.”

Joel swallowed hard, his voice breaking. “I’m asking Tommy to take you to the fireflies. He’ll keep you safe until you arrive to the hospital.”

Ellie’s eyes filled with tears, and she shook her head fiercely. “No, Joel. I’m not going without you. We’ve come this far together, and I’m not leaving you.”

Joel’s heart ached at her words, but he forced himself to continue. “Ellie, you need to understand. I’m not... I’m not your father. I can’t be the one to keep you safe forever.”

The words hung heavy in the air, and Ellie’s tears began to fall. “You’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to a father, Joel. Don’t you get that? Fuck”

Joel’s own tears threatened to spill over, but he steeled himself. “But you’re not my daughter and I’m not your father.”

Ellie shook her head, her voice filled with desperation. “No, Joel. Please. Don’t do this. We need you.”

Joel reached out, cupping her face in his hands. “I need you to trust me, Ellie. This is the best way to keep you safe.”

Ellie pulled away from his touch, her face a mix of anger and heartbreak. “I don’t want to be safe if it means losing you. You and her are all I have, Joel.”

Joel stood up, his heart shattering at her words. “I’m sorry, Ellie. But this is how it has to be.”

He turned and walked toward the door, each step feeling like a lead weight. He paused at the doorway, looking back at Ellie one last time.

With that, he walked out of the room, closing the door softly behind him. He leaned against the wall, his heart breaking at the sound of Ellie’s muffled sobs. He knew this was one of the hardest decisions he had ever made, but he believed it was the right one.

As he stood there, trying to compose himself, he heard footsteps approaching. You appeared at the end of the hallway, having heard the conversation. Your eyes met his, and in that moment, he saw the same mix of anger, hurt, and confusion that Ellie had shown.

You approached Joel slowly, your face a mix of anger and hurt. He could see the questions in your eyes, the need for an explanation that would make sense of the pain he had caused.

"Joel," you said, your voice trembling. "What are you doing?"

Joel looked down, unable to meet your gaze. "I'm trying to keep you both safe. You and Ellie. This place, Jackson... it's where you can have a real life."

Your eyes narrowed, and you took a step closer. "And you think abandoning us is the way to do that? How could you even consider leaving us behind?"

Joel sighed, his shoulders slumping. "It's not abandoning you. It's making sure you're protected. If something happens to me—"

You cut him off, your voice rising with emotion. "Don't you get it, Joel? We need you. Ellie needs you. I need you. You're the reason we've made it this far. You can't just walk away."

Joel's eyes were filled with pain as he looked up at you. "I can't shake the fear that I'm going to die, that I won't be there when you need me most. I thought if I left, you'd be safer."

You stepped even closer, your anger giving way to desperation. "Safer? Joel, we've faced everything together. We protect each other. How can you think we'd be better off without you? How can you think I would be better off without you?""

Joel's voice was barely a whisper. "Because I can't bear the thought of losing you.”

Your heart ached at his words, but you knew you had to make him understand. You reached out, taking his hands in yours. "Joel, I love you. I need you with me, not just for protection, but because you're my love. Leaving me won't keep me safe; it'll break me."

Joel looked at you, tears welling in his eyes. "I don't know if I can do this. The fear is... it's too much."

You squeezed his hands, your voice gentle but firm. "We'll face it together, Joel. Just like we always have. You're not alone in this. Please, don't leave me."

Joel pulled you into a tight embrace, his tears finally spilling over. "I'm so scared," he admitted, his voice choked with emotion.

You held him close, your own tears falling. "I know, Joel. But we're stronger together. I need you. Ellie and I need you"

As you stood there, holding each other in the quiet of the hallway, Joel felt the weight of his fear begin to lift. The love and determination in your voice gave him the strength he needed to keep going. At least for a bit.

After a long moment, Joel pulled back slightly, looking into your eyes. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice filled with sincerity. "I was trying to do the right thing.”

You nodded; your heart full of relief. "We'll figure it out, Joel. Together."

Joel took a deep breath, cupping your face in his hands. “I love you so much,” he said, pecking your lips.

Your heart swelled with emotion as you returned his kiss, a soft, reassuring touch. “I love you too, Joel,” you whispered, your voice steady with conviction.

Joel rested his forehead against yours, closing his eyes as if trying to etch this moment into his memory. “I just don’t want to lose you or Ellie. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to either of you.”

You stroked his cheek, your thumb brushing away a stray tear. “We’re not going anywhere, Joel. We’ve made it through so much already, and we’ll keep making it through. Together.”

He nodded, pulling you into a tighter embrace, the warmth of his body a comforting reminder of his presence. “Together,” he repeated, his voice more confident now.

You pulled back slightly from the embrace, looking up into Joel’s eyes. "Come on," you said softly, taking his hand. "Let’s get cleaned up. It’s been a long day."

He nodded, allowing you to lead him down the hall to the bathroom. The room was small, but it had a functioning shower—one of the many luxuries you had come to appreciate in this place. You turned on the water, adjusting the temperature until it was just right.

Joel stood there, watching you with an exhaustion and adoration. He started to undress, his movements were slow You did the same, your eyes meeting his with every piece of clothing that fell to the floor. There was an unspoken understanding between you. Both of you bared int front of each other, stealing glances of your bodies in display.

Once you were both undressed, you stepped into the shower together. The warm water cascaded over your bodies, washing away the grime and tension of the day. You reached for the soap, lathering it between your hands before gently running them over Joel’s shoulders and back.

He sighed, leaning into your touch. "You don’t have to do this," he murmured.

"I want to," you replied, your voice tender. "Let me take care of you." You said, pressing a kiss on his wet shoulder.

You continued to wash him, your hands moving in soothing, circular motions. The warmth of the water and the intimacy of the moment began to ease the tension in his muscles. When you reached his hair, you took the shampoo and began to work it into a lather, your fingers massaging his scalp.

Joel closed his eyes, a soft groan escaping his lips. "That feels nice," he admitted.

You smiled, continuing to wash his hair with gentle care. "Good. You deserve to relax."

After rinsing the shampoo from his hair, you handed him the soap. "Your turn," you said with a playful smile.

He took the soap, his hands surprisingly gentle as he began to wash your shoulders and back. The feel of his strong, calloused hands against your skin was comforting, a reminder of how much you meant to each other. He took his time, his touch tender and affectionate, showing the love he felt for you.

When he reached your hair, he repeated the process, his fingers working the shampoo through your locks with the same care you had shown him. You closed your eyes, savoring the sensation of his hands in your hair and the warmth of the water cascading over you.

For a while, the two of you stood there, simply enjoying the closeness and the rare moment of peace. The world outside might be filled with danger and uncertainty, but here, in this small bathroom, there was only love.

When you were both clean, you turned off the water and reached for a towel, wrapping it around Joel’s shoulders before taking another for yourself. You helped each other dry off, the intimacy of the moment deepening the existent bond between you.

Joel looked at you, his eyes filled with gratitude and love. "Thank you," he said softly.

You cupped his face in your hands, pressing a gentle kiss to his lips. "We’re in this together, Joel. Always."

He nodded, pulling you into a tight embrace. "Together," he echoed.

As you both stood there in the warmth of the bathroom, wrapped in towels and each other's embrace, the bond between you felt stronger than ever. The fear and uncertainty of the world outside seemed to fade away, leaving only the love and trust you had for each other.

Joel kissed the top of your head and took your hand, leading you back to the bedroom. The soft glow of the lamp illuminated the bedroom, casting a warm, golden hue over the room. You both moved slowly, savoring the peaceful moment.

You helped Joel into bed, making sure he was comfortable before slipping in beside him. He pulled you close, his arms wrapped protectively around you. The simple act of being in his arms felt like the safest place in the world.

Joel tilted his head slightly, his lips brushing against your forehead as he spoke. "I love you so much," he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. "More than I can ever put into words."

You looked up at him, your heart swelling at the raw honesty in his eyes. "I love you too, Joel. So much."

He took a deep breath, his eyes never leaving yours. "I don't think I've ever felt this way before. I mean, caring this much for someone. Not since Sarah. And it's... it's scary. But it's also the most wonderful thing I’ve ever felt."

Your heart ached for him at the mention of Sarah, but you knew how important it was for Joel to express his feelings. You placed a gentle hand on his cheek, your thumb brushing against his stubble. "It's okay to be scared, Joel. But you're not alone in this. We’re in it together."

Joel nodded, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. "You've given me something I thought I’d lost forever. Hope. A reason to keep fighting. And I want you to know that I’ll do everything I can to protect you, to make sure we have a future together."

You leaned in, pressing a tender kiss to his lips. "We’ll protect each other. And we’ll build that future, one day at a time."

He wrapped his arms around you tighter, holding you close as if trying to memorize the feeling of having you in his arms. "I promise you, I'll never let anything happen to you. You and Ellie mean everything to me."

You snuggled closer, your head resting on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. "And you mean everything to us, Joel. We're stronger together."

Joel sighed contentedly, his fingers gently tracing patterns on your back. "Thank you for standing by me, for believing in me. I don't know what I’d do without you."

You smiled against his chest, feeling the warmth of his love envelop you. "You'll never have to find out, because I'm not going anywhere."

With that, you both drifted into a peaceful sleep, the worries of the world outside momentarily forgotten. In each other's arms, you found solace and strength, ready to face whatever challenges lay ahead together.

Hours later, Joel woke up in the middle of the night, the room shrouded in darkness. He instinctively reached out for you, but his hand found only empty space. Panic surged through him, his heart pounding as he sat up, his eyes scanning the room.

"Baby, where are you?" he muttered, throwing the blankets aside as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He quickly pulled on his pants and a shirt, his movements hurried and frantic. The fear of losing you, so deeply ingrained in his mind, took hold as he rushed out of the bedroom.

He moved swiftly down the hallway, his mind racing with worst-case scenarios. Had something happened? Had someone taken you? The thoughts were unbearable. He reached the top of the stairs and bolted down them, nearly stumbling in his haste.

When he reached the bottom, he paused, his eyes darting around the living room. Relief washed over him as he saw you sitting on the couch, a cup of tea cradled in your hands. You looked up, startled by his sudden appearance.

"Joel, what’s wrong?" you asked, concern etching your features.

He let out a shaky breath, his heart still racing. "I woke up and you weren’t there," he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. "I thought something had happened to you."

You set your tea down on the table and stood up, crossing the room to him. "I’m sorry," you said softly, reaching out to touch his arm. "I couldn’t sleep, so I came down to make some tea. I didn’t mean to scare you."

He pulled you into a tight embrace, his arms wrapping around you as if to reassure himself that you were really there. "It’s okay," he murmured into your hair. "I just...I can’t bear the thought of losing you."

You held him just as tightly, feeling the intensity of his emotions. "You won’t lose me, Joel. I promise."

He nodded, pulling back slightly to look into your eyes. "I know. It’s just...sometimes the fear gets the better of me."

You cupped his face in your hands, your thumbs brushing over his cheeks. "I understand," you said gently. "But we’re safe here. We have each other."

He sighed, the tension slowly easing from his body. "Yeah, we do."

"Come on," you said, taking his hand and leading him to the couch. "Sit with me for a while. The tea is still warm."

He followed you, sitting down beside you on the couch. You picked up your cup and handed it to him. "Here, takes a sip. It’ll help you relax."

He took the cup, his hands still slightly trembling. He sipped the tea, the warmth spreading through him, helping to calm his nerves. "Thanks," he said, his voice steadier.

You leaned against him, your head resting on his shoulder. "We’ll get through this, Joel. Together."

He wrapped an arm around you, pulling you closer. "Yeah, we will."

The two of you sat there in the quiet of the night, the warmth of the tea and the comfort of each other’s presence soothing the fears that had momentarily overwhelmed him. In that moment, Joel felt a renewed sense of peace, knowing that as long as you were by his side, he could face anything the future held.

As the minutes passed, the tension in Joel's body melted away. He looked down at you, your eyes closed, content and calm. He pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead. "I love you," he whispered, the words carrying all the weight of his heart.

"I love you too," you replied softly, without opening your eyes.

Joel took another sip of the tea, its warmth soothing him from the inside out. The night was still and quiet, a rare tranquility enveloping your home. He gazed around the room, taking in the modest, yet comforting surroundings. This place, this sanctuary in Jackson, could become more than just a shelter. A home.

You snuggled closer to him, and Joel felt a profound sense of gratitude. For the first time in a long time, he allowed himself to truly believe in the possibility of a future filled with hope and love. The horrors of the past, the constant threats of the present, they all seemed a little more bearable with you by his side.

"We’ve been through so much," he said quietly, his fingers gently stroking your hair. "But sitting here with you, it makes it all worth it."

You opened your eyes and looked up at him, a soft smile playing on your lips. "We’ve found something real, Joel. Something worth fighting for. And no matter what comes our way, we’ll face it together."

Joel nodded, feeling the truth of your words settle deep within him. "Together," he echoed, his voice filled with conviction. "Always."

The two of you sat there in the stillness, the warmth of each other's presence a balm for your souls. Joel felt a sense of peace he hadn't known in years. With you, he had found a reason to hope, to believe in a better tomorrow.

As the night wore on, the exhaustion of the day began to catch up with him. You noticed his eyelids growing heavy and gently took the cup from his hands, setting it on the table. "Come on," you whispered, standing up and offering your hand. "Let’s get some rest."

Joel took your hand and allowed you to lead him back to the bedroom. The room was still bathed in the soft glow of the lamp, casting a warm light over the bed. You both slipped under the covers, and Joel pulled you close, your bodies fitting together perfectly.

With you in his arms, the fear and anxiety that had plagued him earlier faded away. The rhythm of your breathing, the steady beat of your heart against his chest, all served as a reminder of the love and strength you shared.

"Goodnight, Joel," you murmured, your voice filled with tenderness. "Goodnight," he replied, pressing a final kiss to your forehead.

As he closed his eyes, Joel felt a deep sense of contentment. No matter what the future held, he knew that with you by his side, he could face it all. Together, you had built something beautiful amidst the chaos, and that was something worth holding on to.

In the quiet darkness, with you in his arms, Joel finally allowed himself to drift into a peaceful sleep, dreaming of the life you would continue to build together, one filled with love, hope, and endless possibilities.

[hannieehaee]

18+ / mdi

content: fratboy!mingyu, same couple as this fic (can be read as a standalone tho), established relationship, mingyu is whipped as per usual, wonwoo's mentioned to be reader's brother, afab reader, smut, soft sex, riding, penetrative sex, etc.

wc: 1459

a/n: was so happy to hear ppl liked this couple :D here's a link to the main fic! i'll periodically write more lil drabbles for them so if u have any ideas my asks are open <3

masterlist

"g-gyu! i have to go. i cant keep being late!", you whined at him as he nuzzled his head into your neck, kissing and nibbling at the sensitive skin there.

it was yet another night you'd spent over at mingyu's frat. you were currently in bed with the man, pinned down by his strong arms.

despite having shared rooms with wonwoo before, mingyu had made a case to allow for him and wonwoo to have separate rooms, arguing that they'd been members of the frat for over a year by now and deserved some privileges due to seniority. fortunately for mingyu, his insistence was not met with much pushback, leading to wonwoo moving his things out and into one of the empty rooms in the frat about a week later. what the rest of frat members hadn't known however, was that mingyu's insistence was born purely out of his need to sneak you into his room night after night without having your brother get in the way.

he continued kissing at your neck without a single care in the world, still holding you against him, "baby, it's fine. i used to skip my freshman year all the time. they won't miss you."

"gyu! i wanna keep my gpa, ive been late three times this week. i'll be back in an hour, just be patient," you managed to unwrap yourself from him and wobble your way up, legs still weak from last night.

he dramatically groaned, allowing his back to flop onto the bed, "why do you hate me?"

jesus, he was so dramatic.

you sighed to yourself and approached him again, pulling at his hands to get him to sit up again. he let his body be limp, causing him to end up leaning against you once you'd pulled him all the way up. he took advantage of the angle and wrapped his arms against you once more, not pulling you against him this time but still keeping a light hold on you.

"stop being dramatic! we had sex last night! we'll have sex again today! just wait for me to get back, okay, baby?"

he chuckled at this, leaning up once more to try and kiss at you, "is it bad that i want you, baby?", he was teasing you, you could tell, "i've only had you to myself for a month. can you blame me for wanting you every day? i waited for years to have you, remember?", with this, he began to pull you towards him, easily getting you to straddle his legs on the bed.

"of ... of course not," you sighed out as his kisses became more and more sensual, now running his hands up and down your bare back.

you were too weak for him. you'd only managed to get off the bed for a few seconds, not even getting a single article of clothing on before he got you right back on his bed.

"so you'll let me take care of you, right baby?", he breathed against your ear, placing a playful bite on it as his hands lowered and lowered until landing on your ass, groping and toying with it. he instigated you, encouraging you to begin grinding against him at a slow and sensual tempo. everything felt slower in the early hours of the morning.

this was a common occurrence for you two ever since you'd first confessed your feelings for one another a little over a month ago. he'd expressed to you how badly he'd wanted you for years, knowing you'd only recently began to like him and wanting to give you time to process your feelings before confessing. but once you'd confessed, it led to endless time together. you were even more attached to the hip than you'd been as best friends, if that was even possible. with full support from both wonwoo and all your friends, you and mingyu had become inseparable, leading you to spend most of your nights being snuck into mingyu's frat.

you'd grown thirsty for each other, having had to hold back on your desires for each other for too long before growing to desperate and resulting in the night mingyu finally had you in his room a month ago. ever since then, mingyu had insisted on keeping you to himself day after day, just like last night, when he'd insisted you stay over (again) after having fucked you into the mattress late into the night.

the issue was, mingyu was a bit insatiable. even after that first night, even after being caught by wonwoo immediately after, he had insisted on fucking you again in the morning. just like now, as he managed to get you on your back again, legs spread as he laid his weight on top of you and ground his bare length against your folds.

you whined at him, wanting more than just friction. if he was gonna keep you from going to class, the least he could do was actually fuck you. you somehow managed to flip the gigantic man over (ok, he mightve let you do it ..), positioning yourself on top of him before lowering yourself on him.

"fuck! yeah, baby, that's it. such a good girl ..." he groaned upon feeling your walls close up around him. "gonna imprint my dick in you, baby. keep you all to myself," one thing about mingyu was his constant need to whisper filthy things in your ear as he made your eyes roll back.

he quickly took control of your hips, holding them down whenever he wanted to cant his hips upwards against yours, or sometimes simply guiding your hips to allow you to grind your clit against him at a speed that made your toes curl.

"g-gyu! shit! just like that!"

"right there, pretty? shit, is that the spot?", he took your whines as confirmation, beginning to ram his hips into yours even faster, lowering his hand between both of you in order to toy with your clit.

you threw your head back, feeling lightheaded at the way in he covered all bases of your pleasure, not only hitting your g spot consistently but also rubbing your clit at a tempo that had all air leaving your head. he was even at some points alternating between sucking your tongue into his mouth and lowering his head to lick and bite your boobs. in the very short period of time you'd been dating, mingyu had figured out everything you liked. every weak spot, he had dominated, knowing what brought you pleasure even better than yourself.

"'m gonna cum, fuck! don't stop!", you knew he didn't need any warning with how familiar he was with your body, but you just couldn't help but be vocal when around him.

"i know, pretty. cum for me, yeah? want you gushing all around me- shit! then ... then im gonna fill you up like a cute lil creampie. okay, baby?" he said this as he felt you tighten around him, a clear tell that you were seconds away from reaching ultimate bliss.

your orgasm triggered his, making him bury his head in your chest as you rode your high still tightly wrapped around him. even when you tried to unglue yourself from him, he kept you shoved against him for a few more seconds, lightly grinding against you for some extra stimulation despite how sensitive you both were after yet another intense orgasm shared between the two of you.

"shit .. it was worth it, wasn't it?", was his immediate response to you finally catching your breath.

"you're gonna make me flunk out of college," you deadpanned, not serious at all.

"good. that way i can keep you he-"

"can you guys shut the fuck up? i'm still sharing a wall with you, jesus christ," the sound of banging against the wall had interrupted you, wonwoo's voice cutting through.

the both of you remained silent for a minute, staring at each other with wide eyes.

"dude! you didn't tell me wonwoo was staying right next door!", you whisper-shouted, embarrassed your brother might've heard you.

"i didnt know he could hear us!", he whispered back. he got up and stuck his ear to the wall before speaking up again, at full volume this time, "how much did you hear?"

wonwoo waited a beat or two before you could hear his response through the wall.

"i put on my headphones every time i see you sneak her in. just go to her dorm, for fuck's sakes."

well, so much for not getting caught sneaking into the dorm past the allowed visitation hours.

mingyu hummed at this, turning to speak to you now.

"he kinda has a point, baby. how come i haven't fucked you in your dorm?"

[comicaurora]

I'm not a writer whatsoever and am currently listening to the OSPod Publishing special, and was really intruiged by your description of your character-driven stories as being similar to a DnD campaign. Could you please elaborate a bit on what you mean by "it's good when the characters surprise you"? It's likely an obvious writer thing, but I would've thought that an author wouldn't be surprised by where their story or characters go since, well, they're the one writing it. Regardless the comic is amazing so however confusing your process may be to me personally it's clearly effective

It's a little bit difficult to explain!

A lot of the writing process is just sitting down and writing it - laying out the setpieces, describing what the characters do, writing and tweaking the dialogue for impact. But in my experience, the vast majority of the REAL writing process happens internally, and large chunks of it are out of conscious reach of the writer. This unreachable space is where new ideas form, and why no writer has ever been able to answer the question "where do you get your ideas from?"

This is why a writer can beat their head against writers block for weeks at a time, then wake up one day with a solution and the entire next chunk of storyline fully formed. My dad calls this phenomenon "the better writer in the back of your head." A lot of the creative process doesn't happen in the front of your mind, where your ego and your inner voice live. Most of it is deeper down. This is how your mind is capable of surprising you in any context, including dreams or unexpected emotional reactions - your mind is a lot larger than just the parts you can consciously feel.

When I put a character in a situation, I can make a conscious decision for what they'll do and then execute it, but I can also listen for ideas bubbling out of that inaccessible region of my mind. Most character ideas start out as a small set of conscious decisions on the part of the writer - "I'll make him a classical hero with a strong sense of justice" or "she'll be a strong but weary leader putting on a brave face" or "I'm playing an edgy rogue with a dark past" etc etc, quick and basic elevator pitches. But the characters come alive when they're allowed to grow down into the inaccessible parts of the mind, where consciousness gives way to emotions bubbling up from even deeper processes. Once the characters are allowed to start feeling things about their story - like "maybe that classical hero doesn't actually feel great about the lord they serve" or "the weary leader has an endless wellspring of vengeful rage to keep her going when she falters," more creative ideas for their next move start bubbling up. Things that don't flow logically from their elevator pitch, but make sense for the character that grows out of that pitch as they're allowed to engage with the world and story around them.

The way I build characters puts a focus on how they're feeling in any given situation, which is completely separate from what I, the writer of the plot, need them to do to move the plot in the direction I was planning. So sometimes I'll be writing something, and a little bubble of inspiration will pop up and let me know that, unexpectedly, this situation is really getting to one of the characters. And I can choose to keep them on track, or I can let their internal compass take over and see what makes the most sense to them at that moment of the story.

Characters are not real people, and they aren't as large or complex as a human mind, but in my experience, if you build a character solidly enough and give yourself room to play, they will grow down into your subconscious wellspring of creativity, and your mind will volunteer ideas to you using their voice. You don't need to use them, but it's very useful to cultivate them, because sometimes those ideas are better than anything you could consciously stick together in the public-spacing front of your mind.

[afawnable]

★ . . . god I'm newly eighteen and I'm so fucking horny. so to try and fix it I'm being the worst student known to man. turning up late. wearing the shortest skirts to show off my bare pussy. the thinnest tops with no bra so people will stare at my boobs. all so that I'll piss off my teachers so much. that they'll drag me to the staff room and lock the door.

★ . . . tell me to strip naked. and when i refuse they force me down. ripping and cutting the clothes off my body. not caring that they are literal scraps on the floor. a slut like me doesn't deserve clothes. especially when I've been such a bad girl. they'll take turns punishing me.

★ . . . spanking my ass till it's redder than the apple I stole from my math teacher that one time. then shoving my holes full of sex toys. forcing me to take orgasm after orgasm. all of them laughing at me while abusing my poor swollen cunt.

★ . . . writing words all over my body in permanent marker. like 'free use slut' 'cum dump' 'brain dead fuck toy' 'rape toy' 'breeding bitch' and more. and just as I'm about to pass out they slap me awake and drug me with asphoradic.

★ . . . telling me the main event is about to begin. forcing me to suck off and eat out all of my teachers while apologising for being such a bad girl. before forcing me to take multiple dicks at a time. stuffing me full of cum. taking me in multiple positions. recording me in the process so they can jake off to the video's later.

★ . . . they make sure all my holes get bred. to the the point where I'm covered in so much cum it's disgusting. but don't worry any cum that doesn't find it's way into my holes they'll make me lick myself self clean. a bitch like me shouldn't waste perfectly good cum.

★ . . . at one point the female teachers start feeling neglected and a bit left out while the male teacher rape all my holes. so they get out there straps and have there way with me. suffocating me while making me suckle on there massive tits forcing me to drink their milk like a good girl.

★ . . . and when my mouth isn't busy sucking on big fat heavy breasts it's it's busy chocking on nine inch straps and sucking on fat juicy pussy lips. the are loaded with my cum so I'm forced to taste myself over and over again.

★ . . . suddenly the door opens and in walks the principal vice principal and the school parent committee. the moment I see them I beg for them to help me to save me from his mess. but they just join in stripping down to nothing and joining in on the fun.

★ . . . I don't know at what point I stopped fighting them. maybe when they tied me down to the coffee table and started pouring hot wax over me. or maybe it was when I felt all of those hands touch and grope me. twisting my nipples leaving angry red bites and hickeys all over my body and shoving stuff in my holes to keep me nice and plugged. wouldn't want any of that spilling out now would we?

★ . . . or maybe it was when my best friends mom was riding my face. while she smacked my tits red with a flog. smacking harder when she noticed I slowed down telling me to put more effort in saying it was the reason I was such a bad student. and scolded me for being a bad influence on her daughter

★ . . . "thank god my sweet jessie is nothing like this, your enjoying this aren't you getting fucked like some cheap whore god but god do you have a talent with that tongue of yours. if I had it my way i'd lock you in my basement and keep you as my pet how does that sound? I'd buy you a nice shiny collar keep you in tight skimpy outfits or better yet nothing at all, turn you into mine and my husbands favorite bitch. what was that? no? I can't hear you guess your mouth is so full of pussy it's left you speachless not like i'd give a whore like you a say anyway."

★ . . . while my or three other friends dads filled me up with there dicks. two in my pussy and one in my ass. the three of them casually talking about work and fishing. and all discussing how my parents should take advantage of having such a slut daughter.

★ . . . "if I had one like her I wouldn't stop raping her no matter how many time I would get her pregnant, not to mention she would make a fortune if I rented her out. not that a slut like you would mind isn't that right sweetie. oh my wife would love you, young dumb and so willing to spread your legs. I can't blame for jason wanting to be friends with you"

★ . . . all of them agreeing to inquire if they could 'borrow' me a couple times a week. and continued to fuck me while my teachers graded my tests from final week. all naked and now nursing glasses of wine as they enjoyed watching me get fucked to death.

★ . . . eventually the principal vice principal and the school parent committee all had to leave. but not after taking there fare share of photo's and video's of my messy fucked out form. while also covering me in one final orgasm. before stepping over my limp abused body. leaving without another look.

★ . . . leaving me with my teacher once again. who first scolded me for failing all my test. before beginning my punishment. but stopped for a second when I cried saying my parents are waiting for me. see I had been trapped in the staff room all day and the sun was minutes away from setting. but they all told me not to worry as they had called my parents to let them know I will be taking private tutoring sessions which require me to stay in school full time. and they shouldn't expect me home for the foreseeable future. and to my horror they agreed signing the legal paper work with out batting an eye.

★ . . . "your folks were rather eager to sign you over to us, though I can blame them a stupid fucking whore like you could test even a saints patience. oh don't cry love we've found something your actually good at, being a brain dead slut! isn't that amazing?"

★ . . . and with that my punishment began. rape me till I was pregnant. which I didn't even have the energy to fight. as I was too tired and not on birth control. so I was definitely getting knocked up. and there was nothing I could do to stop it. while they all whisper filthy words in my ear. about how I'll definitely get pregnant with there rape baby. so I'll be forced to drop out and have to rely on them. but I shouldn't worry they'll all take turns looking after me. locking me up in there homes. keeping me naked well fucked and full of cum. letting them and there partners heck even there parents have there way with me. like the true whore that I am. but that was for later !!

[milksockets]

why scan?

scanning is something i've done for probably about 12 years now (i'm ancient, for this site), with varying degrees of regularity, intensity, etc. it has ratcheted up since the dawn of 2023, though, which begs the question: why? why put so much time into what could not-wrongly be considered a passive activity, hunched over a piece of clunky machinery with the express purpose of preserving others' creations? the answers are several, and fascinating (not really).

i am a [sober] drug addict. anything i pursue, consume, create--more often than not--ends up taking on addictive qualities. i'll eat the same specific food item for a month, then never want to see, let alone taste it, again. i'll listen to one song on repeat for days until i'd rather hear nails on a chalkboard than have it shuffle on and assault my ears. one of the reasons that my scanning has increased in volume recently is that i acquired library cards to the 3 nyc library systems: nypl, brooklyn, and queens. as soon as i was able to, i pillaged + plundered those fine centers of learning, leaving any given library with as many hefty scan-worthy books as i could [barely] carry. here, finally, was a *free* way of obtaining more + more + more visual media to consume.

2023 saw me get my first legal, full-time job. as such, my adjusting to that hellish reality resulted in a steep decline in my own personal creative output. collaging, writing, and rapping all fell to the wayside as i slowly acclimated to a life of work that almost everyone else my age has known for over a decade is generally unbearable + detrimental to the maintenance of outside pursuits. in times of famine within my own artistic harvest, scanning, archiving, and sharing others' work is a means of feeling as though i am still contributing to the global oeuvre.

there’s an element of losing my mental self in a series of physical motions that becomes almost automatic after some time. “zoning out” is not something endemic to my daily life; if anything, i’m almost always too zoned in. relief is necessary.  especially considering the shitshow this past year has been in terms of my personal life.

i am a product of capitalism’s cultivating a craving for constant consumption. 

it seems that visual content is only going to continue to get more + more uninspired. has everything been done? did social media ruin it all? in any case, i feel a need to document the past. to a degree, it’s my version of doomsday prepping. (god forbid books go extinct altogether.) 

i have always gravitated towards solitary activities. this topic could be a thesis in its own right.

i thrive on external validation. this reliance is something i’ve improved upon over the past several years, but it hasn’t been altogether extinguished. even though the materials i scan are not of my own creation, i nevertheless feel a vague pride in showcasing them. occasional appreciation thereof satisfies this fixation on others’ attention, albeit in a diluted form. 

i am fortunate to live in a city bursting to the gills with cultural institutions. i am also lucky enough to have some disposable income that can be directed toward fulfilling my ravenous desire for visual media. 

((i keep getting messages about the specifics of my scanner + "process":

i have a cheap ass hp envy 6055e and i just use the software it comes with.

there's nothing special or fancy happening here, and i could definitely invest in a better and/or a large format scanner, etc. but i really just don't care enough and it's not like i'm getting paid for this lmao))