#I SEE WHY DALLON LOVES IT SO MUCH

[snekthedemonnoodle]

i have a song stuck in my head on repeat and it hasnt even been out for 24hrs

[maxwell-grant]

So is Worm good from what you have read

"Yes" doesn't begin to cover it but yes. Worm is a brain-rewiring mobius strip disguised as a bible disguised as a superhero web serial that either cured your cancer or shot your dog or both depending on who you ask, and it has many extremely dedicated, brilliant scholar priest surgeons publicly dissecting it on this platform on the regular to the point I don't think I have much to add to the conversations surrounding it, even if I do have some The Thoughts about it. I had never even really seriously thought about superhero prose before and Worm isn't a thing I go back and reread frequently but it did a complete and total 180 on the way I think about superheroes and even fiction, and I've never stopped thinking about it since I've read it.

It is a monumentally impressive story with completely absolutely incredible characters that I cannot stop thinking about. No matter where it was going, even past stretches that were less interesting or more of a slog to read or worse, I could not put the story of Taylor Hebert down for one minute. Tattletale fascinated me every step of the way, I had to keep up with her. Rachel Lindt was a character I feel like I'd been waiting my whole life for. What was I gonna do, not see them through? I feel like Worm easily loses you if you don't particularly connect with the characters enough to justify to yourself the amount of time you'll spend with them, but man, I could not unglue my eyeballs from these people enough (I love all the core Undersiders, to be clear, I'd say it's Rachel > Taylor > Tattletale > Aisha and Alec and Brian, there are very small gaps between these, I just don't go berserk for the last three like I do for the first three, I'm taking Bitch and Skitter to the grave I'm dead serious)

Everybody who read it has one or several gripes with it with some major dealbreakers in the mix. Tumblr's kinda the only place online where you can really talk about them at length without the spectre of John Wildbow hanging over the discussion, which enables discussion to the point where yes, maybe it does look like to outsiders that nobody can agree on whether Worm is good or what is it even about or whether it even has worms in it (it has at least one, although it's a very big one).

And it is good, it has the Undersiders in it and the Undersiders are one of the greatest groups of characters ever put together, but everyone has at least one major point of contention with Worm whether it's the timeskip or the length or the racism or the gross fatphobia or aspects surrounding the Dallon-Pelham Torment Nexus and etc. I'd say it has maybe the most racist vision of Latin America I've ever seen in a superhero text a hair short of pro-colonial tracts in Golden Age comics and that is a tall fucking order by any metric (part of why I started WEON4 as a project was motivated by spite, to try and make my own stories about non-American superheroes even if just as practice). It is Complicated, and that winds up making it so fascinating to talk about.

Worm has self-sustaining ecological systems of posts up here, far away from the Spacebattles and Reddit battlegrounds where it has different ones and that's not getting into Weaverdice or the sequel or Wildbow's larger body of work, which I haven't gotten to and probably will not any time soon because Worm was enough of a commitment as is. Do I recommend Worm to everyone? It is certainly not to everyone's tastes and I personally find it difficult to describe it simply enough to make it sound appealing or not like a pyramid scheme. But yes I do think it's good, in fact great, in fact, amazing, except when it isn't, and except it Plainly Sucks, but then something like Taylor vs Mannequin or Kevin Norton's interlude or "You needed worthy opponents" happens and it fucks harder than anything has ever fucked before and you don't walk away from it the same, so yes I guess "good" will have to do now.

It's certainly a lot but I definitely found it worth my time to read and then read the texts written about it here. You'll have to take my endorsement of Worm as proof of it's quality and proof of how deranged it makes it's readerbase, they're not mutually exclusive. If you can make it, Worm and the wormosphere has layers and layers to wade through and talk about and enjoy, despite how we're all so very small in the end *gunshot*.

[allwormdiet]

Sentinel 9.3

Y'know, the irony here is that as I'm writing this post I've just started an online course with video lectures.

Solid bit of establishing characterization, an easy display of people's emotional ties and states.

Parahuman science must be so fucking hard to work with, honestly. Your subject matter is made up of a bunch of people with trauma-activated abilities that actively defy physics or other laws of reality, combination of psychology and whatever the hell you call studying outliers in how the fucking universe works.

Also glad people aren't just content to let the matter of parahuman origins end at "they just started happening." I know they haven't cracked the how or why of it in thirty years but I also know they crack it some time in the next two-ish years of canon, which should be interesting.

Also also, the inclination towards combat and conflict is... I know it's not going to be a long time until we talk about the "why" of that one either, but when we do I have notes for the designer(s) on these things

Oh, okay, so trigger events are talked about in a 100-level course, and Taylor straight up didn't know about them. Interesting? She really didn't give that much of a shit about cape stuff before stumbling into the life of a supervillain, huh.

Correlation between physical trauma -> physical powers and psychological trauma -> mental powers is interesting as well, although that leaves plenty of room for the edge cases. Glory Girl is actually the prime example there, too, brute and mover seem like the obvious tags but that doesn't cover the aura, which is I guess master? I'm less and less convinced that it was really just a foul in basketball that made her trigger tbh.

Also: I cannot even fucking imagine what the studies must be like about the New Wave families. Imagine writing your fucking thesis on the Dallon-Pelham Torment Nexus. Imagine being Victoria, Amy, Crystal, or Eric, and your family is being taught about in classes because of how "good" it is at inflicting superpowers on you. No I will not entertain the idea that either family is normal, parahuman psychology has so far shown zero signs of being healthy for anybody and it's not going to start holding back when it comes to child-rearing.

I'm not unsympathetic to what Clockblocker is stewing over, but the PRT can't let these kids dedicate every waking hour to crisis management; there will be a day where they're not dealing with a drowned city, and they might as well get ready for it now, and take time off from trudging through muck and mayhem as they do it.

Narrowing my eyes at the witch burning thing but I'm not going to harp on whatever the hell's going on there.

I think the gender divide makes sense but I don't know if it holds totally consistent in-story; the pre-Leviathan Wards and Protectorate ENE definitely leaned more male than female in its numbers, Merchants and ABB are two men to one woman, Empire is... eight men to seven women I think? I think as of right now the only teams we have that even have more women than men are Undersiders, Travelers, Faultline, and New Wave.

This is probably more math than I should be doing but whatever, don't use math in your story if you don't want someone checking it.

That's the same thing as Circus, right? Interesting that it's a known phenomenon.

He's doing his best, be nice.

Bunch of people are gonna be really annoyed when it turns out where powers come from because there's no way they could predict it from where they're standing.

Hwoof.

Oh, so that's Clockblocker's trigger event and power explained all at once, isn't it? I don't know if it's stated explicitly but "buying time in every way except for the one that matters the most to you" sounds like the kind of monkey's paw shit that powers love to do.

Now see, there's an interesting dilemma, isn't it. Family teams are all well and good (allegedly, given how parahumans work) but the moment one or more members die all of a sudden it's that much more fucked up for everybody. Even if the team persists past losing Manpower and Shielder there's no way they're gonna hold together after Amy & Vicky's Nightmare Extravaganza. One of the most notable independent teams in the setting with over a decade of experience, and in the span of a few months they're going from apex to nonexistence. I don't really have it in me to weep for the adults, see above suspicions about Torment Nexus, but I feel awful for the kids. Crystal is gonna be the last one standing until, what, Ward? That's gotta fuck you up good. Poor fucking girl.

And then the portraits. Hoo boy.

The portraits thing feels. I dunno. Do you have to put them right next to the other members? That feels like a really good way to get your underage parahumans even more fucked up about mortality if I'm being honest.

This is touching. Also fuck cancer.

Exactly what the Wards need, less open communication.

This is a hard conversation to have in a lot of ways. Weld is fumbling but he's trying, and the rest of the team needs to meet him in the middle for things to work out.

And. Ugh. I see an unfortunate side of myself in Clockblocker here. I've got an awful habit of going for low blows in an argument if I'm feeling low enough. I get mean, I say things just to make it hurt. I haven't done it in a long time, but it's still a thing I have done and can do if I don't watch it. With this at least it's an accident, or at least the extent of harm Clockblocker is doing is way beyond what he intended.

Clockblocker has the sense to fear Glory Girl in this moment, and she has the grace to forgive him.

And that's proof of who Clockblocker is when he's not at his worst. When he's not lashing out because of the active fucking wringer he's being shoved through, he's obviously thoughtful and kind; the lashing out is, uhh, understandable, but still a problem.

She's just a kid...

I talked about this with some folks on Discord, it's kind of remarkable to me that a guy with literal empathy powers couldn't hold a steady relationship with a single girl. I'm sure parahuman romance is its own special kind of fraught, but that's a little silly.

That said, it sounds like Gallant was good people.

This is very funny though

Oh hey, we have anger and futility coming back together again, haven't seen that for a minute.

Honestly I feel like the ones who try to be funny are usually the ones who've got so much shit going on in the background, anger is the least surprising thing to come from the team's designated funny one.

Good on Dennis for realizing how easy it is to use anger and how hard it can be to let go of it. Shit sucks.

Wuh oh.

This is gruesome, and a harbinger of things to come. Oh boy.

Fuck were the Travelers even doing here, anyhow?

Also crazy bold of the Wards to try and pick this fight. The Travelers have such outrageous firepower, I don't think there'd be much sense in picking this fight.

Skimming back through the fight, not a whole lot for me to say? I'm not super invested in it, I guess, it feels like there's exceptionally little actually riding on this fight. The Travelers want to fuck off and the Wards want to stop them from fucking off, the gallery fight had more meat than this.

"Oh thank god, a conflict I can throw myself into to feel useful and offset all the negative feelings that not fighting has left me stricken with."

That's not a criticism of Clockblocker by the way, if anything I'm just staring at the thing brought up earlier this chapter where most parahumans are driven into fighting each other and suspecting something of a connection.

Current Thoughts

I see some of my younger self in Clockblocker, which is ironic bc I actually had a superhero OC back in high school named Clockblock (his powers were a lot broader and his thing was more about struggling with overwhelming ennui in the face of his own significance in the grand scale of Time Itself). I hope he manages to get over that anger and hurt, but he's a parahuman, so I kinda doubt it.

Kid Win next, plus further plot developments.

[idkbecks]

have you seen the whole thing with breezy's mom saying ryan was fired for stealing?? i don't want to be sure of anything without confirmation from the boys themselves but uhh it's kind of upsetting combined with everything else going on. if you're comfortable putting this on your blog especially with these being all we have for now, can i ask for your thoughts?

actually i lied, i'll talk about it bc this brings up a good point. i know some people aren't really seeing the original screenshot and are just seeing people talk about the original.

so we don't know anything except three things breezys mom said (first one is from "The iDKHOW Search Party - Fan Group" on Facebook, then the second two are just from her Twitter) which are here:

and then that's kind of it. i mean it seems like it would be weird if this was inaccurate since it's coming from breezy's mom and considering it wouldn't be helpful to idkhow at all.

i definitely felt like something was going on and nobody was saying anything so while breezys mom wasn't the one i'd want to hear about this from, it does give a little insight. some people are saying that breezys mom spread lies about panic stuff so they're hesitant to believe her. i don't know the details of that and i don't even know if that's true, so i'll just say it seems fair to approach it with caution.

so that's all we have been told but this is just my thoughts: love to hear more about it from dallon, breezy or ryan himself but i also understand if it's not something they want to talk about. it wouldnt be dallon's first time getting money stolen from him! so if it is true that's really fucked up and makes me really sad, for dallon AND for ryan because idk why he's need to or want to do that to somebody who has done so much for him (there's been debate over if his contract with idkhow was fair to him financially or not, so i guess that could be part of it hypothetically). if true, i would imagine it could ruin a lot for him. not just with idkhow but with other people and other parts of his life. he's talked about having problems with alcoholism and other bad habits/addictions in the past, and stealing like this would line up with those kinds of things. definitely makes me sad to think about but it doesn't seem overly unrealistic or anything. if it is all true, it makes me sad that ryan has been pretty much just acting normal. like he's been posting on his story and tweeting and just being very normal about everything. >:{

all in all i guess i would say i'm inclined to believe it but definitely want more confirmation to know for sure. i'll add more to this if we find anything else out.

[le-velo-pour-dru]

I have a slideshow to share with you all. Ahem.

Thank you for your consideration. ❤️

[ID 1: A title slide that reads, "Why Dallon Weekes is Really A VAMPIRE, By Dru". The word "vampire" is written in red in a harsher font and in all caps. To the left of the title is a photo of Dallon Weekes under purplish lighting during an iDKHOW concert. To the right of the title is clip art of a stereotypical vampire sitting up inside of a coffin, a glass of wine in his hand.

ID 2: A slide titled, "Introduction". The body of the slide states, "Dallon James Weekes. You know him. You love him. ...Or at least, you think you do. But what if he was hiding a more sinister secret below his floral print shirts and immense musical talent? In this presentation, I will prove that the Dallon Weekes you think you know is actually a bloodsucking creature of the night." An image is below this of Dallon with red eyes, smiling and giving a thumbs up. The caption says, "Ignore the h8rs and keep being a demon, guys. That's what really matters."

ID 3: A slide titled, "Reason #1: His Lyrics". The body of the slide states, "To start, let's take a look at his lyrics, specifically the lyrics of his song Kiss Goodnight." Below this is a screenshot of some lyrics from Kiss Goodnight, which read, "Should you invite me in / To spend the night on the floor / Oh please believe I'll believe I'll be a gentlemen / Or you can show me the door". There's more text below this, which states, "Pay special attention to that first line. He says, 'Should you invite me in', suggesting to his wife-to-be to invite him to her place. Now, why am I pointing this out? Because who is it that needs to be specifically invited to places before entering? That's right. VAMPIRES." The word "vampires" is bolded, red, and in all caps.

ID 4: A slide titled, "Reason #2: His Youthfulness". The body of the slide states, "Look at Dallon in the 2000s." Below this is a photo of Dallon from when he was in The Brobecks. He's looking to the camera with a smile. The slide then says, "Now look at him today." Below this is a photo of Dallon during an iDKHOW concert. He's speaking into a microphone and holding up a water bottle. At the bottom of the slide, it says, "Not much difference, right? Twenty years have passed, and he still looks as young as ever. Now, who else are known to stay looking the same age across long stretches of time? That's right. VAMPIRES." Once again, the word "vampires" is bolded, red, and in all caps.

ID 5: A slide titled, "Reason #3: His Hint Hiding In Plain Sight". The body of the slide states, "Now, the final reason. I've saved the best for last. For our final piece of evidence hinting towards Dallon's vile vampirism, let's look at Le Velo Pour Deux, shall we?" Below this is a screenshot of some lyrics from Le Velo Pour Deux, which say, "Vampires never have to complain, / Of living a dull circumstance / So let's all pretend that we are undead, / In turn of the century France." Below this, it says, "Again, pay special attention to the first line. Or even just the first word! Because what is it that he refers to? VAMPIRES. This begs the question: how would Dallon know anything about the way vampires live? Well, if you take all the previously discussed evidence into account, it becomes clear that the only possible reason for this is that he himself IS a VAMPIRE." Both instances of the word "vampire" are bolded, red, and in all caps.

ID 6: A slide titled, "In Conclusion...". The body of the slide states, "After viewing this slideshow, it must become clear to you that Dallon Weekes is, in fact, a vampire. This just goes to show you that you can't always trust your first impressions. Where you may see a kind, funny, charismatic father of two with outrageous musical talent, there may actually be a bloodthirsty, fanged monster lingering just beneath the surface..." Below this is clipart of Dracula edited to have Dallon's head over the normal head. /end ID]

[garnetsandroses]

my vic and amy powerswap au concepts! they make guest appearances in a fic of mine that's still in the plotting stage. power/design/alt-trigger details below :>

(warning for talk about canon-typical violence and the dallon-pelham torment nexus)

amy/fusillade: flight, forcefield, projectile mini bombs that look like sparks (bud from mark). when her forcefield blocks hits, it lights up, emulating carol's breaker state. she isn't immune to her own bombs; they can disrupt her forcefield if she's not careful.

-i wanted her to have a kinda boring costume that fit new wave's aesthetics without going outside of the box too much -she triggered pretty young at ~12, so her style hadn't developed and she's not confident enough to ask for a redesign now -white; accent color is a muted red -cape is asymmetrical to reference glory girl's -name starts with f to match w/ flashbang

she triggered when she was hiding in the other room while her parents had an argument. both were worried about the future of new wave, and carol in particular said some nasty things about amy not belonging in the family. mark got angry enough to use his power unconsciously, the blast from the grenade scaring amy on the other side of the wall. it knocked over a photo of the dallons (taken before they had adopted amy), and seeing that last image of the perfect family she was never going to fit into finally pushed her over the edge.

straightforwardly, this contributes to her powers being a mash of her parents with flight thrown in bc i love me a good mover aspect to a trigger. just wants to belong -> emulates the best and brightest aspects of her family. additionally, i think that mark was most parental and present when amy and vic were at this preteen age (based on what he's mentioned doing for them like cooking breakfast), so that contributes to his larger influence on amy's powers.

---

victoria/salva: touch-based biokinetic powers w/ focus on enhancing people’s abilities and creating augments for self (aegis+hookwolf ping). minor brute abilities like enhanced strength, stamina but not notably above that of a very fit, trained young adult.

-cute nurse's outfit that allows for lots of movement. someone said it looks magical girlesque and i think that's just bc i've designed magical girls since 6th grade

-simple white and bright red w/ same half-circles on coat (as seen on my panacea design) to mimic the coils of a caduceus

-utility details: hat has elastic band to stay on head, satchel is insulated so she can theoretically keep biomass in there, jacket is easily removable so her sleeves won't get nasty

-really hard to see but her bag has keychains: a pom-pom, official prt merch of gallant, new wave merch of fusillade's red star emblem

-salva is my attempt to be punny by combining "salve" + "salvo" (the rapid attack/round of applause meanings) + a feminine ending to mimic the "girl" in "glory girl"

triggered around a year after amy (reversing the canon situation) when the latter went on a patrol with the wards, vic tagging along just to see what crimefighting was like. vic had been stewing over being left behind due to not getting powers, but that subliminal jealousy was resolved in the worst way. hookwolf tore into the wards patrol, aegis and amy being the worst off. vic ran forward into the fray to try and save amy while the others retreated, asking herself questions like "why can't i do anything to help," "why can't i be strong enough to do something," etc. it was finally when she laid her hands on amy, red connecting the two of them, that she asked the real question "why can't i have powers too?" and triggered.

active-combat aspect with self-buffing brutes wandering around -> power has limited effect on herself. not only could she heal amy and pump her full of enhancements like adrenaline and natural-brewed steroids, but vic could take the biomass strewn around and graft it to herself, augmenting her abilities slightly. just like in canon where both sisters have yet to realize full control of their powers, salva hasn't started walking around in a biomecha meatsuit yet, but that could theoretically work for her. if she didn't care about not getting put on a watchlist, ofc

[srchprty]

Honestly, there's a reason why I say iDKHOW is one of the best bands ever. It's not just because I'm severely neurodivergent about them, it's because I genuinely believe so.

Almost every single one of their songs manages to sound extremely different from the last, while still maintaining that essence that we all know and love. The variety of songs he has are amazing too, and the meanings behind them are even better. He has sad songs that could make you cry, and songs that could make you jam the fuck out.

So many of his songs have double meaning, too. Clusterhug is such a beautiful song, and I could totally see it being a very, very romantic song if you don't read between the lines too much. But when you dig deep into the meaning of the song you learn that it's a critique on hedonistic teenage relationships, and it honestly makes the song so much better.

One of the best things about iDKHOW, too, is just Dallon. He has such a personality, a beautiful voice, and an amazing performance on stage, and he honestly seems like a really nice guy. You can feel it in his music, too, it gives the band a sense of soul that not a lot of music has nowadays, it feels so much more genuine that modern mainstream music does.

And then there's ✨the lore✨ which I only really discovered as of recently (a week or two before I got this url), which is so mysterious and juicy that it's pretty hard not to get addicted to it almost immediately. The lore just feels so mysterious, especially since Dallon has involved himself in it.

iDKHOW is genuinely the only band I listen to (crazy, I know), but for all these I stated above, I'm not complaining ♥️

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

Agitation 3.11 Live Reactions

(This is me, writing reactions as I read, because why the fuck not. They're not complete, mature thoughts taken after I sit back and evaluate what I've read. Consider them as such)

Amy Dallon Worst Day Ever (For Now) Speedrun! Let's GO!

The girl glowered at me from behind her mop of frizzy brown hair.  In her hands she was gripping a fire extinguisher.  Behind her, past the lights that were flickering across my field of vision, I could see the hostages streaming upstairs.  It was disorienting, because the bugs I’d left on them were telling me they were still in the corner of the lobby, staying still.  I could feel one spider shift slightly as the person it was riding exhaled, then shuddered a little, even as I saw that same person stumbling and nearly falling on the stairs in their haste to get away.

That has to be disorienting. So she like... did the bug equivalent of that thing they do in movies where they put the cameras into a loop of an empty hallway or whatever?

 There were no words the words to describe it, exactly.  It was like feedback.  If my brain had been a computer, I got the feeling I’d only be getting hundreds or thousands of error messages popping up across the screen.  It was painful, too, just compounding until it felt like my brain was being used as a punching bag.

That explains the earlier headaches then. Amy really is perfectly designed to either complement or completely fuck with Skitter, isn't she?

Love it.

“You don’t need to know that.”  She swung the fire extinguisher over her head at me, and I scrambled out of the way, grabbing the edge of a table to haul myself to my feet as I did it.

I'm so glad there's no one here at work but me right now because I'm cackling like a loon at this. Not sure why. it's funny, but -

Like, Amy isn't a Woobie, but she comes by that portrayal fairly, but this - this is not the Woobie Amy of a fun fanfic, this is 'Fuck you, I'm smashing you in the face with an extinguisher' Amy :rofl:

She didn’t chase me.  Instead, she reached into her jacket pocket and retrieved a cell phone.

Ah yes "Call Vicky", the most dangerous move in Amy's arsenal. :rofl:

“Shit.  I liked that phone,” she muttered.

And that's her priority.

I don't know if this scene is meant to be funny, but holy shit it is.

“Who the fuck are you, and who were you trying to call?” “Actually, it was a text, not a call, and it went through,” she said.  Then she smiled at me. At the same moment I uttered the word ‘Who’, one of the windows at the side of the bank shattered.  A blur of white and gold slammed into the center of the lobby hard enough to send fragments of marble tile skittering over the floor to my feet, halfway across the room.

Is that the first use of the word 'skitter' in the text of the story? I think it is.

Also, if Worm ever did get a TV adaptation, this dialogue would need to be kept exactly, right? Just the mental image of watching this scene - *cackle*

The figure straightened, dusted herself off and turned to glare at me.  Almost casually, she backhanded the marble and oak table to her left that held all of the withdrawal and deposit slips.  With that lazy swing of her arm, she annihilated the table, doing so much damage to it that nobody would ever be putting it together again.

Seriously, Vicky, did you actually need to do that? Like, what does that accomplish?

Had I done something heinous in a past life, to deserve going up against Lung on my first time out in costume, and Glory Girl on my second?

Being Taylor Hebert Is Suffering. It's the Cosmic Law.

“Hey sis,” Glory Girl tilted her head to one side, to look at the brown haired girl, “You okay?” The girl, who could be none other than Amy Dallon, Panacea when she was in costume, offered Glory Girl a beaming smile, “I am now.”

Major 'oh shit' moment. And yet, isn't Taylor about to hold Amy at knifepoint? :rofl:

even if Panacea had generally avoided the spotlight as of late. 

That would imply she ever didn't avoid the spotlight? That just doesn't sound like Amy. Even just going from Interlude 2?

Glory Girl stepped towards me, and I scrambled for Panacea.  She scrabbled for a grip at my costume, trying to grab at my glove, then at my mask,  but the moment I drew my knife, both she and Glory Girl went absolutely still.  I grabbed Panacea’s chin and maneuvered so I was standing behind her, my knife pressed to her throat.

There we go.

“Count yourself lucky, bug bitch, that your costume covers your entire body,” Panacea murmured to me, “Or I’d maybe give you a heart attack.  Or cancer.”

I mean, I've seen Amy get some critique for this, but Taylor did just terrorize a whole bank with Black Widow Spiders and is holding Amy at knife point.

I mean, I'd be too afraid to backtalk the villain holding me at knifepoint, but I think it's fair to do so, no?

“It is good, isn’t it?” then in a lower voice, she whispered to me, “What if I fucked up your taste buds, you little terrorist?  You threaten the lives of innocents, I can go that far.  I can do anything with your biology.  Make everything you eat taste like bile.  Or maybe I’ll just make you fat.  Morbidly, disgustingly fat.”

A little more deserving of 'wtf Amy', but like, again, the girl has a knife to her throat? Fatphobia is bad and all, but still.

There’s a pretty damn good chance my mom, dad, aunt, uncle and cousins will be showing up, too.  Brandish, Flashbang, Lady Photon, Manpower, Laserdream, Shielder… how are you going to manage, then?”

You have a high opinion of how much Carol cares about Amy and how easily Mark will be able to get himself out of bed than I do, Vicky.

“Ames, the guy I’m setting you up with is a sixteen year old millionaire."

...the fuck Vicky?

(Okay, I have no reason why this line sets my teeth on edge, but it does.)

“Hey, Tattletale,” I called out, my voice a touch strained, “Not that I’m not glad to see you, but could you avoid antagonizing Alexandria Junior?”

I'm not sure Tattletale is capable of not poking at and antagonizing people. Like, I don't mean that as an attack, I'm just guessing it's really fucking hard for her to not.

“Can she?  Sure.  Will she?  Definitely not.  She’s all bark, no bite.” “Try me,” Panacea taunted.  I reasserted my grip and reminded her of the knife against her throat. “I’d really prefer to avoid tempting fate,” I said, carefully.

Smart thinking Taylor *sideeyes Lisa*

“Come on,” Tattletale smiled, folding her arms, “Villain 101.  You don’t give info to the hero in a gloating monologue.”

I'm pretty sure that's Villain 201, actually. 101 is that you do need to monologue. You can't be a villain without a good monologue now and then. Union rules.

“Bullshit,” Glory Girl said, “The brainpower you’d need to interpret and decode someone’s unique neural patterns would need a head five times the usual size to contain it all.  True psychics can’t exist.”

Like, I get that Vicky has studied this, but POWERS ARE BULLSHIT

She seems way too confident about this

“Why is it so hard to believe?  Legend can shoot lasers from his hands, lasers that turn corners.  Clockblocker and Vista can mess with the fundamental forces of space and time.  Kaiser can create metal from thin air.  Conservation of mass, conservation of energy, basic laws of our universe get broken by capes all the time.  All of that is possible, but I can’t peek into your brain?”

I mean, this is a good point. like, skepticism about telepathy even in a normal sci-fi story is fair, but in Parahumans, everything is absolutely nuts, sooo...

  A continuous loop of the wrong information, like when thieves in the movies spliced a video camera feed to repeat the same segment over and over. 

Called it!

Not that that was that hard, but still.

“Which is why you call yourself Tattletale, I see,” Glory Girl was saying, “But you’re a retard.  We’re part of New Wave.  We have no secrets.  That’s the whole fucking point of our team.  Heroes with no secret identities, no secrets, full disclosure, total accountability.”

Vicky, I get the need for bluster here, but fucking everyone has secrets. You do too.

“For the record,” Tattletale said, her voice very smooth and calm, “I fucking hate it when people call me stupid.”

You do sometimes earn it. But then, here's vicky pushing Tattletale's buttons and then so, next chapter, Lisa is gonna push Amy's biggest buttons because she's pissy and well, fun. Fun stuff!

Loved the chapter.

[kyliafanfiction]

Love that two of your all time favorite characters both happen to be named Amy! How do you think they'd get along if they met?!

Not only do they have the same first name, they also have deeply, deeply complicated issues with their mothers that are at the root of a large chunk of their issues, have powers that scare them at least at one point (or so is my hc for Amy Madison, which predates reading Worm by years) and are pretty problematic, albeit Amy Dallon has Amy Madison beat in that regard, to say the least.

Also, if you count Ward and the Season 8 comics, both Amys date villains and teamup with them to go after the heroes and outlive their villainous partners.

But yes, I have considered the... I don't know if it counts as irony, but it sure is something.

Anyway, as to your question, I think it depends on the context so much. Like, as much as I don't like Lisa, in another world, had Amy and Lisa met under very different circumstances, I could see them getting along (The Girls who Can't Unplug is a great fic exploring this, as is the mildly developed friendship of sorts between Amy and Lisa in Here Comes the New Boss. And while I'm hesitant to say it's really well done, there's also Amy/Lisa in Inheritance, which has it's merits as written too.)

So do Amy M. and Amy D. meet on the same side? Opposite sides? Amy M. is much older than Amy D. if we go by mere birthdates, so do we change that for the AU where they meet? are they meeting in the Buffyverse? (If so, is Amy Dallon a witch too?) Or Wormverse? if Wormverse, what are Amy M's powers exactly? (Catherin Madison, Amy Madison's mother is obviously some sort of body-stealing Stranger or something, but what is Amy Madison's power? Rat-based changer? :rofl:)

I think there's some things they could bond over, and if nothing else, Catherine Madison would put Carol Dallon into some perspective for Amy Dallon (This is a Carol Dallon Hate Blog, but she's at least got like, an excuse for the way she is and has some mildly almost redeeming features. Catherine Madison? She's just a terrible mother all the way down)

On the other hand, while I don't think Amy Madison in Season 7 or 8 is actually *happy*, I don't think she enjoys being evil/etc (maybe wishful thinking, but I do have a whole series of headcanons built out about this girl, though I haven't revisted them in years by this point), she's also much more comfortable about the idea of not being heroic. As a parahuman, she'd probably be perfectly fine being a rogue, or even a minor villain like the Undersiders were before the Fossberg Gallery.

Amy Dallon on the other hand, at least in canon, just wouldn't be happy being a villain, or doing evil. Not with her shame and guilt and all that shit. Girl nearly completely snaps and still doesn't go full hog on evil. Also, Amy Dallon is intensely judgy about other people's moral status (she's not projecting her own self-loathing and fears of becoming a villain, why would you say that!) so if Amy Madison wasn't being a hero or whatever, Amy Dallon would probably give her shit about that.

I think under some circumstances, they could get along. Amy Madison, if she's older, could maybe give Amy Dallon some advice about developing better coping mechanisms. Or, failing that, suggest that Amy Dallon get addicted to something (because honestly, an addiction to something - depending on the something - might actually help Amy out :rofl: /s). I don't know if Amy Dallon would actually take the advice though, lbr. If they met in like, a group for people with Mother issues, I could see them getting along, but an Amy that goes to some sort of 'Mother Issues Support Group' is presumably an adult and also like, already making strides to improve.

It's very contingent on the circumstances. Amy Madison is very defensive minded, but in a 'lash out at the threat before they hurt me' sort of way (which is arguably reminiscent of Taylor's whole schtick). Amy Dallon's problem (well, one of many) is that she's intensely passive about her problems until it's too late. Personality-wise, they don't necessarily have a ton in common, or common approaches to things. For instance, I have a deeply rooted hc that Amy Madison loves Cinderella and Disney Princess movies in general due to her childhood with Catherine. I don't think Amy Dallon likes Disney Princesses at all - probably unconsciously reminds her too much of her time with Marquis, when she probably did dress up as a princess and stuff.

Tl;dr - they probably would never be buddies. But they might get along under some circumstances. Under others, Amy Dallon would probably dislike Amy Madison quite a bit.

[strink-family]

At long last I've listened to the entirety of GLOOM DIVISION (about time, and just in time, seeing as I'm gonna see him live soon) and I wanted to share my thoughts on the tracklist.

DOWNSIDE - Amazing!! The hook is always stuck in my head and I find myself wandering around singing it to myself. Very very good and very catchy! I love it!

GLOOMTOWN BRATS - My favorite on the album. It was my favorite when it was released as a single, and that did not change. It's so so so so so good. It's so catchy and groovy. I can't resist it. I listen to it all the time. Amazing amazing AMAZING!

INFATUATION - Very good! Upon my first listen I wasn't too into it, but as I listened to it a couple more times I fell in love with it! Another one that's stuck in my head and I find myself singing a lot. So groovy! I love to listen to it while getting ready in the morning.

WHAT LOVE? - Amazing! I can't not dance to it when it plays. The vocals in this are absolutely amazing, they have me utterly bewitched. Dallon's vocal range exhibited in it is insane and I love it.

SPKOTHDVL - Instant love. This may be my second favorite on the album. As soon as I started listening I was into it and I LOVE it. I'm also a huge sucker for swing rhythms and this just scratched that swing itch for me.

SIXFT - Very good! Not my favorite but I can see why it's the favorite of so many people. Great lyrics (gotta love that monumental f bomb), and very groovy! Excellent song. I also really like how the word he chooses to use so much to refer to his love is "darling" (that counts for other songs too, such as DOWNSIDE). Such a good word.

FIND ME - Excellent!!! I loved this one. Such a nice, dramatic groove, and I really like the words (especially, "The stains are black, just like your soul"). Maybe my third favorite if I had to pick. While listening I just quite liked it, but looking back on it I LOVE it. Very very good.

KISS & TELL - Very good! I liked the lyrics a lot, and it had a good groove. The rhymes in particular were very cool. I thought the particular key signature was an interesting choice and I quite liked how it went with the song. I liked this song quite a bit.

A LETTER - I liked the music, but the choice of what was done with the vocals wasn't really my thing. When it first started, I was like, "That doesn't sound like Dallon," but that's because it wasn't Dallon, to be fair. I think I know why the song was chosen to have been delivered that way, seeing as what it's about, it just wasn't quite my thing.

SATANIC PANIC - Very good. Even more catchy. It's still stuck in my head as I'm writing this. Great lyrics, too. I liked this one a lot.

SUNNYSIDE - I liked the music, but wasn't really fond of the way the chorus was done. That part kinda sounded like how a lot of alternative music sounds these days, which is surprising for IDKHOW. Maybe that's the part the person featured on this did, I dunno. Definitely not a bad song, it just didn't really call out to me.

iDIOTS OF Oz - Awesome! I really liked this one. It was so groovy and its flow was so good! Definitely one I would recommend others listen to. Unsure if I would pick this as the closer to the album, but then again, I don't know the full picture Dallon was trying to paint. My immersion also potentially could've been spoiled because 1) I was interrupted while listening to this and 2) I didn't really get to process it ending, because Razzmatazz immediately started playing as soon as it ended. But yeah very good. I liked it a lot.

All in all an AMAZING album. I definitely recommend listening to it. Even better than RAZZMATAZZ, which is saying something, because I LOVE that album.

I'm very excited to see him live and hear several of these live~

[fatestayyuri]

Finished Ward Arc 3

TL;DR: taking an indefinite hiatus you can all unfollow me now

okay so like. first things first; probably gonna take a break for my own sanity’s sake! not the Biggest fan of his writing and the fact that from everything i’ve heard it only gets worse from here Does Not Assure me. anyway,

tattletale is so fucking funny Victoria just shows up and goes “fuck youuuuuu” and blames her for the [????] that amy did (i still have no idea what amy did) and lisa’s just like. “yeah. whatever. stop being a cop idiot.” then fucks off and leaves. the thing about wildbow’s writing is that while lisa comes off as like. kind of an annoying (endearing) loser who feels the need to overexplain to literally everyone i’m pretty sure wildbow intended her as his take on a Holmes-like all-knowing smart person? that’s honestly way funnier than any of his jokes tbh

the thing about arc 3 is that it’s not particularly objectionable enough to be a fun hateread and the annoying bits are subtle enough and caked in enough to the character moments that it just kind of blends into a big slog. Tristan and the other one’s dynamic reads INCREDIBLY gauche and all of the other stuff i’ve seen as part of the book club don’t lead me to read it kindly. i think that’s the problem actually by reading it all at once as a group we’ve been inundated with so much Wildbow moments so quickly that i kind of stopped reading it “with love” as it were; I kind of just see the artifice of a deeply copbrained liberal sockpuppeting characters and getting them to compliment his writing.

I think a large part of this is that i don’t actually particularly like superhero settings wait no actually i just remember that like my #2 favourite web serial is a superhero one i think i just hate wildbow’s writing i think

yeah it’s like, i don’t think wildbow should write fight scenes they kind of suck. Victoria “flying brick / cop Dallon doesn’t really have an interesting enough skillset to carry 2 million words of fights around. sorry. all of it tends to boil down to “punch really hard physically or emotionally” and i’m Bored. even the fight scenes as metaphor for emotional moments is Boring. it doesn’t do enough.

and like, i can’t actually take the [whatever untitled group] thing seriously since i got spoiled that Tristan is gay and the other one is straight so like. this just comes off as blaringly homophobic in the “what if the world was made out of pudding” sense. fuck off

yeah it’s really really hard to justify continuing to read this, when i am told that it only gets worse from here. like, genuinely wondering why i should spend that time when instead i could finish reading good serials, or the VNs on my backlog, or do literally anything else

sorry Certified Wardheads (all three of you) but like. indefinite hiatus for my mental health this shit sands away at my brain. i could probably say more but like, unlike the other stuff i’ve subjected myself to (Tsukihime) i’m not even promised something like, Good good in spite of all the forks. there’s other stories where you just have to do jury duty for 40 hours instead of eating forks for the sphagetti. i have a newfound appreciation for VNs that are just boring before they get good now

[throamguide]

hi!! do u know why anna decided not to rewrite and publish throam as an original work?

Hi! First off, some background: even in 2017-2018, when Anna was posting about the rewrite and talking about publishing it, she was open about the fact that it might never happen: "A rewritten version might never get published, anyway, so don't freak out." (X)

It also wouldn't be easy to rid it of its fanfiction past, as with something like 50 Shades of Gray (Twilight AU fic) because of THROAM's relative internet fame.

Anna also disliked when bandom people IRL (people she wrote about) would find out about THROAM because of fans bringing it up to them. Which is completely understandable. Because it happened quite a bit. She sums it up well in a heated post from 2019: Choice. And it had to be said because a lot of people ended up referencing, asking about, or even reading THROAM, presumably because of fans: Dallon, Jon, Vicky, Keltie, Z Berg...

Anna also moved away from bandom in general and started writing about K-pop groups (she's still at it!) and hinted at some original fiction. Finleighsaid, her URL towards the end of her Tumblr days, was some sort of reference to an original character of her's (I think?).

While writing this I had a look at the THROAM Fanlore page (which I helped write because my teenage self had no life) and found Anna's explanation as to why she stopped rewriting it:

March 25, 2019

Monday confessionals - I haven’t even had wine or anything. Some juice, though. Is sugar a drug?

Anyway, it is yet again that I have not posted anything here for a good while, and in the interest of Managing Expectations (whose? idk) I thought I’d give an update. Or, nay, a nopedate. (I’m sorry, I’m trying.) When last summer I decided that perhaps I ought to work the trilogy towards publication, I was working part-time and was kind of weighing my options as to what to do in life. (I still am. Is anyone out there a career counsellor? Please send me some help, thanks.) Anyway, I had time to work on the rewrite in cafés after or before work, and I was quite into it! Then I swapped for a full-time job and all of my rewrite efforts, essentially, ceased. I realise now why I wrote the story when I was a student: I had sooooo much time. From 2009 to 2019, I suddenly don’t have that luxury anymore.

So what I am saying is that, from my end, and for now, the project is definitely on hiatus. You know, like one of your favourite emo bands. I don’t want to mislead people into thinking I am actively working on the project when I haven’t touched it in weeks or even months. I don’t know if my situation will change in the future, or if this is the universe telling me to let it go. I know some people definitely want me to just let the story be! And I know some really want to see it published, too. And you know what, if I ever did publish it, people would always just shrug it off as bandom fic, and it’s hard for me to deal with the reality of people constantly looking down at something I love very dearly. So I have my hesitations and reservations, and I have Dean stood at Venice Beach in 1969, staring at the waves and a decade of stardom.

I have always been my most successful in producing and finishing stories when I have selfishly written whatever makes me happy. I suppose the rewrite is not that for me right now.

Thank you for your patience. Soul searching is hard. xx

[hermitloveletters]

i have so much to say about the developing nature of ryan’s love throughout the series. it just means so much to me.

like in over the tracks, he feels so alone and so unloved by everything and everyone. he’s a true cynic. so when he unknowingly loves brendon, it’s incredibly careless and innocent (and ends up being self centered which is their downfall but anyway). he’s able to be careless because he doesn’t see himself as lovable so he doesn’t know the consequences of love. naturally when you don’t think, that’s when you really fall. so, ryan falls in love with the only person who has ever figured him out. he’d never admit it because of his growing fears of failure and status but his carelessness is ultimately what allows him to fall. and by the end of the first volume, when he’s stripped of his carelessness and shoved violently into reality, he must take responsibility for all he has done, and thus when reality hits him, he knows he has fallen in love.

in wolves versus hearts, ryan’s love is demanding and intense and - true to the first volume - selfish. in this book ryan is learning how to love, and he’s definitely got the bruises to prove it. it’s almost like he’s a child, which in the game of love he is. versus brendon who is more experienced, he has truly loved for two years and has truly loved his family in the past. he’s not willing to give up his love for something as childish and ever changing as ryan. i understand why brendon couldn’t be with ryan in this book (however much it may make me want to scream). my point is tho, ryan’s love has grown. it has matured but it has not reached true maturity yet. at least he was willing to call it what it is at this point. but in bypassing carelessness, he found himself at caring too much and being overly demanding with his love. he doesn't understand that he still doesn't fully get love and that you can’t force someone to love you. but he learns that.

but then, we get to a kingdom by the sea. and it’s like all of the pieces fall into place. ryan has had time to reflect and know what is and is not necessary with love. as he says, he’ll love even if he loves alone. he knows that love cannot be careless and it can’t be selfish and it can’t be forced upon. still he loves. this is ryan's maturity in love. you can especially see this when ryan gives his love away to dallon. ryan is an incredible romantic in the third book, and it seems that all you need to be incredible romantic is to be hopeless (which he has never been before, self-centered asshole has always thought he deserved love one way or another). in stepping out of the light of fame and relationships and constantly being loved, ryan was finally able to find what is truly important in life and he could finally appreciate that he can love even if it can not be his. so, in his loss, he finds the meaning of what it truly is to love selflessly.

tldr anyway ryan’s character development means a lot to me

[dallonwrites]

[image description: a photograph of a wave crashing against the ocean. to the right, in a bold serif font, reads “2023 writing update” /end id]

dallon’s 2022 year in review + 2023 plans 🧍

Hehe so. I went back and forth on whether or not I’d make a “year in review” writing update because whilst I’m proud of what I achieved, this year SUCKED for my personal life and I had to sacrifice a lot of writing goals because of that (which also like, doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. But it still bummed me out lol). Writing did help me cope though. It’s funny because on paper this would be one of my more “successful” writing years, but really all my writing had to do this year was help keep me going lol, the rest feels like a bonus. I did want to honour what I did achieve though, because writing is one of the few positives of this year and I’m trying to be positive!

Learnt to prioritise my personal projects. Finding joy in WIPs that I write  that nobody will see, or WIPs that I’ll never publish but find joy in sharing my journey with it, has really been the most valuable part of this year. Made dealing with submissions and rejections and self doubt much easier and reminded me why I write in the first place

Got my first publication! I had two short stories and one flash piece published. Getting to walk into a store and pick up a magazine that had my work in was so surreal and cool. I also got my first writing grant (love The White Pube x) and my first award nomination (the Pushcart??), two things I did not expect to happen in my first year of submitting lol! And, more importantly, I put myself out there in the first place, and let myself be rejected 

I won NaNoWriMo, something I thought was totally inaccessible to me before. I’ll probably never write 50k in a month again, but it was a super fun experience and I learnt a lot from it! 

I think 2020-21 was my “growing pains era” with writing and in 2022 I finally solidified what I want to write, figured out how to fix WIPs I was struggling with. 

If you’re curious about the projects I’m working on in 2023, there’s a very long ramble about all of them under the cut!

[image description: a shot of two hands against a dull purple background, reaching for one another from either ends of the image. their index fingers are almost touching. in the top left corner, in a bold serif font, reads “revelations, revelations” /end id]

SHE’S BACKKKKKKK

Love of my life, bane of my existence for so long, I spent basically all of 2021 fighting with this project. In 2022 all I did was brainstorm and oh, oh I brainstormed. 

The most important parts of saving this project was realising that 1) I will never publish any RR novel (That being said I did publish two short stories inspired by the RR verse LOL. But that’s all the world is getting unless I write a secret Beaulix or Dorothy/Jolie short story) and 2) This is not one novel, this is just a whole universe that lives in my head rent free and sometimes I feel less like the author and more like I am merely observing it like a medieval scribe. I call it the RR Verse because RR is still what started it all, but I’ve had so much fun writing stories beyond this novel. I have like, five novel ideas within this universe LOL! Help! This is intentional because, for now, I can’t imagine ever being done with this world 

I really do think that RR and the RR verse is like My Special Project. It’s my baby even though it caused me so, so much trouble for so long lol. I just can’t let go of it and whilst I love all my projects, I have a special love for this one. Like it just enamours me in a certain way and the characters and world feel so real to me. Love having your own work be part of your special interest! I can hyperfixate on all my projects and feel that deep, probably-autism-fuelled loved for them, but I need have projects that purely exist to indulge in that, which for me is the RR Verse and Winter’s Slaughter. This is not a project I’m trying to finish any time quickly or get “perfect”. In fact, I’d happily start the novel over and over again, I love Felix and Dorothy LOL 

I also think writing The Rabbit Knows How To Bury Itself, a short story about Felix and Dorothy, helped with RR because that short story is very much the darker pushed-to-their-limits imagining of both of them. Felix at his lowest, doing drugs in the bathtub, and Dorothy wanting to be the only one capable of hurting him but only hurting herself when she realises she can’t not love him. I almost feel like that short story is like, Dorothy’s worst nightmare scenario of what would happen to her brother so writing it was like a psychoanalysis project which I seriously recommend! I don’t think you have to push a character to their deepest, darkest limits for their arc to be compelling, but knowing how far you could push a character, how dark their story could get and what it could look like, imo informs how you write them in their actual story. 

2023 plan for RR the novel is to just. Write it! See what I get out of it! I’m in my RR hyperfixation era so this is what I’ll start the year with, especially since my priority right now is writing short fiction to submit, so it’d be nice to have a fun little hyperfixation moment on the side. And I’ll definitely share a lot about it! It’s so fun now! Dorothy and Felix are more weird and off-putting than ever!  Dorothy likes to break into rich people’s houses just to look around! Felix ruins her vibe by actually stealing shit! Normal sibling behaviour. NGL I still don’t know how to explain what this story is “about” plot wise, but this is part of a basic summary I wrote:

About trying to process and heal from trauma but being terrified of it because you don’t know who you are without your trauma and coping mechanisms. About realising that you can’t truly detach yourself from those things. About being terrified of the theoretical violence you perceive yourself to be capable of. About re-understanding what love can look like. Also about the moon, space travel, cold coffee, parties, blue hour, piano music, blurry film photos and birthday cake.

I love these two. Their love for each other endures everything, even the times they want to kill one another. Nobody is doing it like them. Also their birthday is on Jan 11th so happy early birthday <3

[image description: a cropped image of two arcade machines. in the top right corner, in a bold serif font, reads “lover boy” /end id]

AND WE ARE NOT DONE TALKING ABOUT THE RR VERSE! Lover Boy is technically Book #2 if you consider Revelations, Revelations Book #1. It’s set just under a year later and is technically the Beaulix Novel (who break up at the end of RR, surprise! But it’s because they both are like “I’ve realised I love you and that is terrifying me because I don’t think I’m in a place where I can love like this”), but sometimes it just feels like the Beau Novel! Beau is like a best friend to me and I love him so much, I had so much fun writing in his POV in Winter’s Slaughter that it just solidified my need to let him have His Moment. He’s sweet, funny, stubborn, emotional, confused, anxious, sleepy, he’s everything to me. I’m so obsessed with his narrative that I have barely figured out how he and Felix actually get back together LOL. We do get Felix’s POV too, but I won’t know exactly how that’ll look like until I’ve written more of RR. All I can say is he’s a bit more Normal in this one lol! He’s experienced growth <3 He finds himself <3

A big part of Beau’s narrative is reconciling with his need and yearning for romantic love. That yes, he doesn’t need romance, he can find love and fulfilment in other parts of his life, and he does! But that doesn’t take away from his yearning for this specific type of love. And it’s important to remember that Beau is a character who grew up gay in the 60s-80s. For him to yearn for, to reach out for romantic love in spite of everything is super important! He’s the type of person whose biggest dream as a kid was being prom king and his first heartbreak was realising that he couldn’t be prom king in the way he truly wants to be. Personally I think he deserves the world and more. He also has a little brother with a 15 year age gap, and their relationship warms my heart and tears it in two at the same time. 

Revelations, Revelations feels like a night time novel and Lover Boy feels like a daytime novel. This novel feels like a hug, but like a hug after crying. Part of the summary:

1987-1988. Follows Beau and Felix when they decide to rekindle their friendship after time away, and the ways they’re too scared to rekindle the relationship part. Also follows Beau as he tries to navigate moving away from home, tries understand why sometimes colours are too loud and sounds are too bright, tries to get some sleep and get better at breathing techniques, tries to spend as much time with his little brother, and tries to maintain his Donkey Kong high score. Also Felix has a “mild” gender crisis. About healing but we jump right into the middle of it. About how it feels to reach out for romantic love when it’s almost always felt unreachable. Also about karaoke, arcade games, bowling alleys, home videos, golden hour, glitter, the ocean and blue raspberry slushies.

My 2023 plan for this one is that I am not waiting to finish Revelations, Revelations to start Lover Boy. I wanna work both on them at the same time depending on which one compels me the most in that moment. Will I finish either of them? No! Am I gonna have fun? Hell yeah 

[image description: shot of a clear, starry night sky, with silhouettes of trees on either side. on the left hand side, in a bold serif font, reads “winter’s slaughter” /end id]

AND WE ARE NOT DONE TALKING ABOUT THE RR CHARACTERS, JUST IN A DIFFERENT UNIVERSE THIS TIME! 

Not gonna lie I still haven’t read most of the 50k I wrote in November and I’m undecided on if I want to return to it via editing first or just pushing through with the draft. I’m conflicted! But I have lots of fun plot ideas and oh, this book is gonna be a giant and there’ll probably be a book #2 oops! The 2023 plan for this one is just “whenever the apocalypse hyperfixation hits”. Which I don’t know when that’ll happen, but it more than likely will! Once I actually look at the manuscript again I’ll do a proper update because oh there is plot to update on! Mainly using this section to highlight what is one of my favourite passages I wrote not just in Nano, but the whole year? 

When Valentine found the collection of half-empty perfume bottles he had to take them. He likes to look at the empty space in the glass and wonder what stories could fill it up, maybe dinner dates or graduations or weddings or funerals or high-effort grocery store trips. What drew him to the train station were the ticket stubs scattered under the benches, on the ground of the decayed platform. He tried to explain this to Klaus, once, who looked at him, that glint of childhood wonder in his eye. Well, he’d said, nobody got rid of dinosaur bones just because there were no dinosaurs left to grieve them. And for Valentine, exploring the skeleton buildings that dot the world, specifically for what was left behind, is an act of deviance against the Devouring. This is how he remembers people, even if he never knew them. He once found the rib cage of a girl in the violet roller skates she left under her bed. Found the lungs of her mother in the attic, the box of forgotten goggles and swim meet trophies from 1986. So many people want to forget what the Devouring left behind; too many people want to forget the parts of themselves they let be devoured.

Also going to take the chance to soft launch one of my favourite characters I created this year: Cal, my emotionally volatile, traumatised, slutty transmasc king. He is everything to me to the point where I had planned for him to die and now I don’t know if I can bring myself to do it. He also has a ~messy emotionally intimate friends with benefits thing~ with Felix (this does not conflict Beaulix at all. We are not about that over here!), which is unsurprising considering their first meeting is literally them fighting in a Church but then it gets kinda homoerotic? And then kinda tender? Like look at this shit

“Felix.”

“Sorry about the cheek, Felix.” It doesn’t sound genuine. Cal says sorry like it’s a stalemate. But they also reach out, wipe the blood off with their thumb. And the scariest part is how gentle it feels, against all his sharpness.

[image description: a photo of ocean waves against a cliffside. in the bottom left corner, in a bold serif font, reads “ammonites for eyes” /end id]

OKAY WE ARE DONE TALKING ABOUT RR! 

Ammonites For Eyes is a novel I introduced on here earlier in the year under the title I Am Made Of Indigo, about a trans man who moves back to his coastal hometown and has to reckon with his closeted identity when he becomes a new maternal figure for his younger sister. I actually started it in the summer and was super excited by it! But you see, this is where all we can do is laugh, because this novel is about the protagonists grief after the death of his mother, and guess what happened to me three months after starting this book! I had planned my whole second half of the year around writing this and had to immediately stop because, oh my god is this novel Apollo’s curse of prophecy?? I considered shelving it for a while which was a massive bummer because I am enamoured with the story, the world, the characters, and want this to be my debut. But I’ve gotten to a point where writing this feels like a necessity and I can’t see anything else being my debut. This is absolutely going to be the one project where I let myself claw out the deepest parts of grief and yeah, absolutely wish I wasn’t able to do that but I know that the final project that comes from it is gonna be something special. This will probably be my main project for most of the year, but also the one I talk least about because 1) planning to publish it and 2) those writing updates would not be fun to read lmaooooo. But super excited to write this! Definitely won’t be able to write it for long periods of time, but I hope to get a good chunk of it drafted, and if I end up doing my MA this year I’d like to work on this for it. 

I don’t have a lot to say about the story itself, but my favourite little detail is that the protagonist works at a fossil shop that has a T-Rex skull displayed in the window who ends up becoming? A whole character? The protagonist talks to the skull and low key treats it like his therapist. So maybe this book IS about the horrors, but it’s also about the T-Rex skull. There’s a balance here 

[image description: a close up image of the top of a persons back, with their hand holding their left shoulder. the image is tinted blue and green. in the left corner, in a bold serif font, reads “eulogy for the burnings” /end id]

What’s this!! I’ve only talked about this novel once, on my old blog, at the end of a writing update, but this is an idea that’s been slowly marinating in my brain for a while and in 2023 I’d like for it to marinate more, maybe even write some of it. This follows a man who tracks down his distant half-brother and becomes obsessed with him, whilst said brother is a pyromaniac who “hires” him to photograph the buildings and things he burns. Messy! Definitely one of my darker projects. It’s compelling me.

Other projects that I have less to say about but hope to work on in some way: 

I have a novel reimagining of my short story How Does An Orca Pray, which I’m obsessed with conceptually but have no idea what to actually do with it as a narrative. I call it a reimagining because it’s conceptually the same but the details are different, like the characters are much older in the novel than they are in the short story. But fun fact! The novel is in the RR Verse! The religious commune in HDAOP is the same on in RR and in the RR Verse, the narrator and Josiah running away is a massive #scandal in Felix and Dorothy’s childhood. So I think it’d be fun to write that scandal from their POV and have it be like a little prequel. It’s fun! It has summer road trip vibes with dark undertones and the playlist is full of 70s bangers 

I really would like my novel Life Cycle of Massive Stars to have a similar reboot to RR. I love that novel and it’s like a love letter to transness, autism, and my University city. Also a contender for what I write during my MA, so I’d like to start both this and Ammonites For Eyes and if I do my MA, I can present both of them and be like “help” 

Also continuously going to be working on short stories. I’d like to grow my collection since I have a title that I love now, Swimming Pool Prayers, but also I don’t want to force myself to only write stories I think could fit into the collection. I struggle with collections because the minute I write a story I don’t think fits the collection or develops the collection, I’m like oh well that was a waste! So trying to unlearn that. Also want to write more flash fiction and more poetry. I don’t consider myself a great poet, but I’m attracted to the abstractness I find in it atm. Also I keep impulse submitting messy first drafts of poems to litmags OOPS! 

[barringtonishigh]

hi!!! i am requesting any dallon content pleasee

preferably gender neutral or ftm reader :)

Hi!! Kinda been wanting to cross post my old wattpad stuff and I am taking this one to post an old Dallon oneshot!! I also have a vamp!dallon one if anyone wants it!! This one's short though, and kinda bad, since it's old.

Starry Skies || Dallon Weekes x Reader

tw// none!

"Darling, would you mind going out to the porch with me for a moment?" Dallon asked, running his hand through his hair.

"Oh, uh, sure, why?" (Y/N) questioned.

"It's lovely out there tonight."

"Not as lovely as you." (Y/N) smirked, grabbing Dallon's hand as they walked out to the porch.

The couple took a moment to stare up to the sky above, admiring the bright starry sky.

"I bet you couldn't see this in the city!" (Y/N) cheered, hugging Dallon tightly.

Dallon hugged back. "I didn't mind so much in the moment. Y'know, (Y/N), it's been six years since we got together."

"It has? Jeez, hasn't felt that long." Giggled (Y/N), still clinging to Dallon.

"It has, but I need to ask you a question..." He pushed them off of him, and dropped down on one knee, pulling out a ring. "(Y/N) (Y/M/N) (Y/L/N), would you do me the honor of becoming (Y/N) (Y/M/N) Weekes?" He looked up, hopefully.

"Oh my goodness, Dal. Of course I will." They gasped.

Dallon grinned and stood up before slipping the ring on (Y/N)'s finger. He kissed them gently. "To many more years."

[le-velo-pour-dru]

♧ :3

You’re my: best friend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🫶💖

How I met you: I found your blog back when I only browsed Tumblr, if that counts :3 🩷

Why I follow you: Cause you're my best friend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3 I love seeing your posts sooooooooooooooooo much, and I love seeing the tags you leave on Dallon posts, and. I just love you!! 🫶 You're such a cool person :3

Your blog is: INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You have such great taste in posts, I love seeing what you reblog, and I love seeing your tags on Dallon posts, and just. waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. it's awesome :3 🫶

Your URL is: ICONIC 🫡 iDIOTS OF Oz is the best GLOOM DIVISION song so I think it is so awesome <33

Your icon is: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH. DALLON BEING PRETTY 🥺🫶🩷

A random fact I know about you: You love the Mario games (and seeing Mario-related things always makes me think about you!! ^^ 🫶❤️)

General opinion: You're one of my favorite people ever <3 I love you so so so much Milo, you're so cool, and caring, and funny, and I just like you so much 🫶 You're one of the closest friends I've ever had in my life and you make me so happy :3 🩷

A random thought I have: I miss talking to you so much 🫶 I love youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu I love you I love you <3