#BECAUSE AT THE END OF THE DAY

[lucidloving]

Jenny Slate, Little Weirds // Melissa Broder, The Pisces // Richard Siken, "Detail of the Woods" // @minuty // Natalie Wee

[redwiccanrobin]

Sorry, I’m still hung up on it.

It is WILD how James Somerton praised straight men for their depiction of queer people but then acted like Becky Albertalli (a QUEER woman) was committing the greatest sin for the same exact thing. Then, when she POLITELY called him out for calling her a straight with kawaii ideas of the queer experience, he bitched about it and then spread lies that she harassed him on Twitter.

[made-my-peace-with-all-the-bad]

begging you to elaborate because now i’m thinking about cherry originally being raised with cleaning out his room but breaking down as soon as she goes in there so the other socs have to come help

(alternatively i’m thinking about his parents not wanting to change anything about his room because that was their baby who could do no wrong and they don’t want cherry or anybody going in his room and changing things around without his permission)

Ok so in my mind, his parents just don’t care enough to bother cleaning it out. And I’m thinking about Cherry going to do it, or alternatively, her not wanting to because she’s grieving too much to, so Paul drags Trip, Chet, and Brill to do it.

And in that latter case scenario, I think it wouldn’t really hit them until they’re cleaning it out that Bob really is gone. Because in his room, they found so many things, big and small, that make it hurtfully clear that he’s gone. Because one of his drawers, they find a collection of photos taken over the years. And as the years go one, the photos grow from being just him and Paul, to later including Trip, then Brill, then Chet, then Bev, then Cherry and Marcia. And there are some photos that were clearly taken without someone noticing. There’s one picture of Chet staring with a super concentrated look at a statue, trying to figure out what it is. There’s another of Bev and Brill laughing while holding onto each other. There’s one of Bob kissing Cherry’s forehead, the two clearly in their own little world. There were piles of papers from his childhood. Everything from unsigned tests and permission slips, to doodles Paul had given him when they were little. Tiny, unnecessary things that were shoved into piles in the corner. Things that most people probably would’ve trashed, but Bob, for whatever reason, had kept.

But there’s bigger things too. Harsh reminders that Bob will never get to grow up. Like the letter they find, open on his desk. An offer for him to play football at a big university. The same one Paul currently played for. Something he’d always been looking forward to. Something that is now impossible. It was Bob’s ticket out, and now he’s going to be buried and stuck in Tulsa forever. Then, when they’re sorting through his clothes, Brill finds a small box tucked in the corner of his bottom drawer. And it takes everything in him to hold himself together when he opens it. Because inside of it was a ring. And under the ring was a note for Cherry. And that made Paul‘a vision go blurry with burning hot tears that he couldn’t let fall. Bob had a future planned out. He had wanted more than this town had to offer. He wanted to get away, go play football at college, take Cherry with him, and then they’d settle down and have a family. And now none of that will happen. Now Paul, Chet, Trip, and Brill need to face the harsh reality. Their friend is gone. He doesn’t get to dream of a life beyond Tulsa anymore. And he was so god damn close to it. He was less than a year away from getting out for good. Because if there’s anything Paul knew, it’s that Bob wouldn’t make his mistakes. If Bob got out, no way in hell was he ever coming back. But in an almost laughably ironic way, Bob, despite his money and status, was also damned from the beginning. Defined by his weaknesses and struggles, Bob was never going to get another barbecue or get even one graduation day.

And it’s not really until they need to clean out the room he spent seventeen years in, that the truth of their situation sets in for the soc boys. Bob is gone. Truly dead and gone.

[weirdgrrlgerard]

i have nothing to say for this. i just couldn't stop thinking about it

[youngchronicpain]

I used to say that a relationship doesn't have to last forever to be worthwhile. I would take all the good this world was willing to grant me and accept it when things ended. But in all my imaginings, I never once thought that could mean you.

[toaarcan]

I think Fiona's betrayal makes way more sense and fits into the narrative better if you simply bump it to after the destruction of Knothole.

Like, in the actual comic it kinda comes out of nowhere, and it's heavily tied into the romance plot tumours and Issue 150. Fiona's actual character is barely important, she just disappears for five issues and comes back with a new personality, her old trauma in high gear again (but girl, if you're mad at Sonic for abandoning you, why the feck are you running off with Second Sonic Who Is Worse?), and an ideology that makes zero sense with her history ("You can't count on anybody" says character who has literally never been independent and will never become independent).

And the fallout is incredibly understated and after literally two issues nobody cares any more except Tails. And he's done caring after 179 closes.

Betrayal is supposed to be impactful.

But if you shuffle the order of the stories around, don't even change the actual content, then the whole thing becomes a buttery-smooth consistent arc and Fiona's character development, while not a good thing in the long run (Scourge literally would've killed her in 196 if his plan had succeeded, she traded the stunningly mediocre partner that was Sonic for a literal monster), actually makes sense and is front and centre in her story, instead of what we got, which is "Fiona ascends from background character to weird love interest to an accessory for Scourge who is defined entirely by Scourge."

Fiona being driven by her trauma to hate Sonic for leaving her behind is a reasonable angle, it's where she started in the Knuckles comic, but it's been so long since that was relevant to her character that dredging it up years after the fact in a different book would only ever be jarring. Unless, say, history repeated itself and all those wounds got opened up again.

Eggman drops out of the sky, razes her home to the ground, and shoves her in a prison to be used as fodder for one of his sick creations, just like Robotnik did all those years ago. Only this time, the prison is so small that she can barely even move, and the machine she's going to be fed into is much worse. It'll kill her, twice over, draining her life-force to power Eggman's machinery and wiping her mind for no reason other than "Eggman's a sadistic asshole."

She gets to see the effects up-close too, via Charmy's brain damage.

And while it's unnecessary, as I think the actual plot of the issues needs no alterations to make sense, you could nonetheless add a small scene during the rescue where Sonic saves Fiona from the Egg Grapes and says he won't make that mistake again. A small hope spot before it all comes crashing down.

Because it does! The arc ends with the Freedom Fighters standing triumphant over a wrecked Egg Beater. They could easily grab Eggman and drag him into the brand-new prison that Nicole put Mogul, Naugus, and the Hooligans in. They have turned their darkest hour into an opportunity to win the war... and they don't take it.

Eggman flies off, clinging to an Egg Flapper and doing the "I'll get you next time, Gadget! Next tiiiiiime!" bit, and the heroes just... stand there.

And that's where the (hypothetical) hope spot gets dashed. Fiona, already uncertain of her place in the team after 160-1, loses faith in them completely. She just lived through the worst experience of her life again and the heroes of this world are doing nothing to prevent another repeat.

It even makes her "You can't count on anybody" line actually have some weight. She genuinely feels like she's been failed by them, that she put her trust in these people and they still turned on her at a moment's notice, and they're not doing enough to actually save the world. It's like Scourge says in 172- she "wishes [Sonic] had a backbone."

And then, after all that, there's the big Fiona Betrayal Issue except now it's actually about Fiona and not just about giving Scourge a girlfriend, and that's followed immediately by the Sonic vs. Tails issues. There's no time to process what just happened, everyone's emotions are still extremely raw, and it boils over into a fight between brothers that's more about venting all those nasty emotions they've been holding in for a while now. Sonic has been through a lot lately, he just lost his home and repeated one of his few failures, and he's not long lost Tommy too. Tails is dealing with emotions that he's not mature enough to process properly and healthily, he grew up too fast, but not evenly. And at the end of the day, they're both still just kids.

I still think 179's ending is an overall horrible way to to resolve that plot thread, and further reduces Fiona to an object to be fought over, but I'm not heavily changing the content of the issues, only the context.

I've never been a fan of villain!Fiona, I've made that clear in the past. I like it as a step on a journey that results in her healing, but I found its start confusing and messy and the rest of the arc lacklustre and far too focused on Scourge, rather than Fiona herself. But I think putting it in this order makes it flow a lot better for me.

If I write Sonic stuff again, I'll probably do it with this as a headcanon of what went down in the 170s.

[heartz4shauna]

people on tiktok: chappell roan to lesbianism is what olive garden is to italian cuisine

people in real life: hey man how’s it going

[duskyrobbyn42]

Btw Hamlet isn’t about action vs inaction. It’s about justice and mortality and equating vengeance with love. In case anyone was wondering.

[therealarrogantbastard]

Thursday morning PSA: you do not owe anyone androgyny. Gender expression =/= gender identity

[karaspal]

okay, arcane s2 spoilers, but do you guys think the reason why jinx wanted vi to be the one to kill her is because even after everything, she was still her big sister and her sister could never really hurt her? like, death doesn’t seem as scary when it’s by the one you love the most, the one who has always held you tenderly.

[bforbetterthanyou]

Historians & writers: I’m doing a feminist retelling of the wives, I want to seperate them from Henry VIII and show them as individuals!

Me: oh so you’re gonna give each of them their own separate book/show/etc

Historians & writers: …no obviously I’m still gonna group them together as “six wives”

[jewishbarbies]

Keep Taylor's name outta your mouthmanifesting u getting violently raped and slaughtered in front of ur loved ones so they have to live w that trauma for the rest of their lives

meanwhile, taylor:

[catboyglover]

i could talk about how abed’s character pretty accurately describes being autistic and having an intense fear of abandonment because of it for ages

[not-poignant]

Jesus H Christopher, Pia. Your writing load is insane.

Maybe you should cut back on how many chapters you release for certain stories? Like Stain and Palma (since these stories dont equal income) until UtB the other Underline stories are almost done. Just a thought

Because I feel burnt out just by thinking of writing that much, so I can only imagine how you feel. Please take care of yourself

Hi anon,

TL;DR: My brain is stupid, which is why I can't do this, even though it makes sense and is logical.

Unfortunately the fanfiction is what often makes the original fiction possible, or more enjoyable.

If I lock myself down into too much schedule and rigidity, or if I only focus on writing for money, I actually start to hate writing, even if I love the stories. There is nothing like 'will this earn money, do people like this, would people pay, what if they all decide to stop paying for this, why would they pay for this, would I pay for this, how much would people pay for this, is there any incentive for them to pay for this, actually if I wrote a ton of different tropes maybe I'd make more for this, but that's depressing, but I need the money, shit what do I do, what if I lose my income, what if it all stops tomorrow, I need to write more, I need to write more, I need to write more' that is actually very exhausting and makes writing not much fun at all.

And to deliberately break out of that headspace as much as possible, I write fanfiction. Because that headspace (the one I wrote about above), on its own, even if I'm only writing two stories, can and has led to burnout and depressive episodes. I don't recommend it.

In a way, one of the reasons I can write so many stories right now (ADHD meds aside) is that I am letting myself break out and just have fun with fanfiction, and remember that my original writing is meant to be fun too. But without fanfiction, I lose sight of that very quickly.

Fanfiction means that when an original story chapter does super badly, generally there are still excited comments elsewhere that keep me going. That's how I survived The Ice Plague, and that story would never have been completed without fanfiction, because that was my worst performer of any story I've ever written. It also means if a lot of subscribers leave at once, I don't feel like The Worst Writer In The World. So having fanfiction behind me was like...a literal safety net or my security blanket.

If I have to discard my security blankets or use them less often in order to keep writing the original stuff, I might as well just stop entirely, because my longest hiatuses from Patreon (i.e. one lasted 1.5 years, many have lasted 4-6 months) have been when I'm mostly just writing original fiction, and am not writing much fanfiction, or not deliberately finding time for it, and finally get so stressed out re: money I literally have to stop. I'm on a (partial) Disability Pension.

A long time ago some professional people told me I probably shouldn't be working at all because of my mental illnesses and then paid me money because of the severity of those mental illnesses. My dumbass brain be pretty fragile, actually, and keeps chugging away because I make bad business decisions and write stuff I enjoy instead of writing to market, or doing rapid release, or releasing more novels (or novels). Writing does ironically help when I'm stressed, but not when I'm stressed about making money because of writing.

I will cut at my income before I cut at my love of this job, and unfortunately fanfiction keeps me going in this job, which means I can't really cut at that first.

(Also from a business perspective, it's actually a very good funnel to the original stuff and then subscription. Most of you wouldn't be here if you hadn't read one of my fanfics first and then gave the original stuff a try - I try not to think about that too much because I need fanfic to not be about money, but the fact is, I would not have this career without fanfic).

I do have plans to take two weeks off in January from posting chapters (I can still post rewards in the second half of January) and that's not too far away.

And the reality is that I probably would have kept going okay if real life hadn't imploded on top of everything like the world's worst bukkake party.

[keischreiber]

I am here once again to say that if you love Reiner Braun, chances are, I also love you. And I will support your ships regardless of if it's canon x canon, canon x oc, canon x you, canon x self-insert. I dont care. You love him, I love you.

[onlyfangz]

why are all of my based on your likes! posts speculating about famous lesbians not really being lesbians? i checked my likes, theres nothing in there. you all need to stop being fucking weird about lesbians tho. especially lesbians who have dated/fucked men in the past. you look like a toddler with your gold stars.