#I also have really good hearing (a point in enough posts of mine‚ lol) so these issues are bad‚ but then i live with a sister with-

[squid--inc]

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[seaofreverie]

Sparkstember Day 12: In Outer Space (Cool Places)

Oh boy, it's finally here!! Having been a Sparks fan for nearly a year by that point, I finally got to an album I just straight up don't like! I honestly forgot by then that this was even a possibility. But a world where I can enjoy everything in such a vast catalogue of a favourite band of mine would be too perfect. It would be pretty strange and unsettling even. Not to always make it about my other favourite band whenever I'm talking about the first, but with TMBG also I eventually got to that one studio album release that I just couldn't bring myself to like, no matter what. So I think I discovered a bit of a personal repeating pattern here.

Alright then. My verdict on this album, which already got a pretty mixed response from fans as far as I know, is that it's not very good, or at the very least, it's not for me. Even the songs I like here I mostly like in the sense of, well, this one I could listen to again outside of the album every once in a while, but they're nowhere near being an actual favourite (besides one song, or two, mayyyybe four if I'm feeling particularly generous).

So I think that my main problem here comes down to how the arrangements / instrumentals seem rather empty to me but not in a cool minimalistic way. And, dare I say, they're pretty damn uninteresting - very few elements of suprise or anticipation to be found here. This is the only Sparks album that just... doesn't feel Sparks to me. (And that's coming right after Angst, which might really just be one of the most Sparks-like of Sparks albums in a way). Something is TERRIBLY missing here and a couple catchy melodies and fun synth lines aren't enough to make up for that. It drags on quite a bit and is underwhelming to listen to as a whole. With only a couple moments of change and something more interesting and engaging. It's this sort of situation where I feel like the whole time I'm waiting for some kind of resolution that never happens ultimately. First instance of me putting on a new Sparks album and forcing myself to sit through the whole thing. And last one I hope! (and expect...? well, better not jinx it)

Ok, having said all that... This will be a historical event because I can't finish this post before I have my obligatory listen to the album of the day on its day. So, time for some real time documentation of my changing opinion, or lack thereof. Time to hear IOS in it's entirety for the first time since april!

...Ok, I'm glad that I didn't say all this in vain at least, LOL! Because I'm still underwhelmed! No major change here. Definitely still not something I'm going to return to more often than very occasionally and the "waiting for nothing" effect was very present and real once again. And it just dawned on be, but do most of these songs not have a bridge?? Maybe that could be part of why it all feels pretty predictable! But alright, as per tradition, let's look at some highlights anyway.

Favourite songs (and other highlights):

Cool Places: never felt in any strong way about it but repeated listens made it an enjoyable little ditty over time, lol. One of my first impressions here was how LOW Russell's voice is, this must be the lowest he's ever sung, right?? And oh, quick shoutout to the 21×21 version of it too

All You Ever Think About Is Sex: ok, this one's really cool and exactly what convinced me that the rest of the album would be enjoyable in the same way. Not for me unfortunately!!

Please, Baby, Please: my definitive fav here that I like a whole lot and that for whatever reason doesn't seem to have any of this album's problems that I described earlier. And I'll always be partial towards songs that I can interpret as being aspec-coded, thanks to my predisposition to do that as often as possible

I Wish I Looked A Little Better: very similar case to All You Ever Think About Is Sex

Dance Godammit: it's funny. It's fun to listen to sometimes

[oh-my-damn]

So sorry about the long ask im about to submit! I know you may not post because your asks are getting repetitive but i just need to rant. I just want to thank you so much for unpacking how unhealthy all of this bullshit is, hopefully it opens some eyes to how problematic every aspect of this situation has been thus far! I sent in a long ask to Maddy earlier this morning (more like a novel ranting about this lol) but it sounds like assholes are harassing and bullying her again so asks are understandably off right now and mine may have been lost in what sounds like a mountain of hate that is wrongfully being sent her way.

I'm just so soured on Chris at the moment it's even ruined his characters for me unfortunately (hopefully that's not permanent lol). This all just has such predatory undertones in my opinion. Especially the video from yesterday, and the seemingly very intentional power imbalance, it's all very questionable to me. In that chin video in particular he seemed very mean spirited and almost malicious if that makes sense, almost like he wanted to humiliate her. And like you said in a previous post and I touched on I'm my ask to Maddy, everything we've been told has been a lie to sell a narrative, it's all so disingenuous now. The whole I grew up around women, I'm a feminist, looking back it's such bullshit. The whole copy and paste milestones and moments from woman to woman proves that too. To my mind, there's only two conclusions to draw from that, either you think women are all the same and are not in fact complex human beings with their own desires and interests and so you copy and paste! Or you don't like or care enough about women as people to even consider their interests and all that matters is what you want to do and so you copy and paste. Either way its gross to me. Real or pr doesn't matter to me anymore, I'm staying for the implosion because I've sunk enough time into this for it to feel like a waste to bow out now. Either way I don't think I'll ever look at him the same way again.

The chin video - I can't watch that video with grimacing. The way he pans off and bursts out laughing at the end really does it for me. She is unaware of what exactly is going on, seemingly, and doesn't know what it looks like. To me, her laugh sounds more awkward and hesitant but she's going along with it because he's laughing and thinks it's funny. But then when she says "I don't know what to say" and he pans off, his laugh sounds almost mocking, more like he's laughing at her than with her.

And I think that's the point for me with those two videos. He's not posting her saying or doing something funny on purpose. He's not posting a video of her in a cute moment, for example, getting ready for her movie premiere and he captures her humming along and he thinks it's adorable, he's not capturing a genuine sweet moment that happened organically between them. All of the videos he posts are things done to capture a video (scare, chin, mario), almost setting her up like a little fucking doll to make content on her expense, BUT those last two, they were not filmed because she's funny.

They were because she was doing something not purposely funny that he finds funny at her expense. Even the end of the mario video, if you watch it back, you can tell he actually isn't the one filming. Someone else is.

At the end of it, there's a another mans chuckle, and if you listen carefully (I was wearing headphones) when she loses the game and covers her face, you can HEAR Chris turning in the direction of the person filming and laughing at her, to him, where this third person then chuckles in response before ending the video.

To the naked eye, the videos may seem endearing and them "having a good time" but a lot of it is also him laughing at her for looking stupid or making a mistake, like not being able to play mario, a video we know she doesn't like (probably because she thinks its embarrassing, in some way. We all know how it can feel when people are watching you do something and you fail at it. If you feel completely safe, it's not scary, but if some part of you wants to impress said individual, it can be terribly embarrassing).

That's not endearing, it is not cute, and especially not with everything else taken into account, like the fact that he holds all the power in their relationship, and right now, he also holds all the power in how she is portrayed to the world, because she doesn't have any social media herself. So all the GP knows about this girl is what he's putting out there.

The feminism point is spot on. I remember in Jenny's book, she mentioned how her "head exploded" because he wouldn't stop talking and that he would care so much about the issues he couldn't accept any situation where he wasn't right about it. So in translation: if she told him something about what it's like to be a woman, he would argue with that and try to mansplain what it's like to be a woman and why all men should be feminists. It's talking about feminism in a healthy way turned on it's head because the conversation still ends up being about the man and what a great man he is, for being a feminist. I've experienced it before and her words rang so true to me, I could picture it immediately.

I'm the same regarding bowing out. Right now I also just want to be able to offer a space for all of you who send me asks (more than I can keep up with) while still trying to keep some semblance of the fandom I used to love. So I still adore his characters, I don't want to cut ties with them, and in some parts I still like the Chris we used to know because a small part of me still hopes it wasn't all a ruse, that some parts of that were the real him, and that right now he's having a meltdown because of turning 40 and not being at the point in his career and life he had hoped he'd be. Desperate men do desperate things.

It's not an excuse though, and I hope people remember that regarding this whole con thing; it's another desperate move on his end. He's losing control and he absolutely hates it.

[sleeptowns]

a year (or so) of fics, in retrospect

once every handful of years i remember to look back at the collection of projects i’ve finished recently and to simulate a critique as if i’m an art school student — and also as if i’m the haunted teacher’s assistant who wants to be gentle on the prof’s behalf but actually hates your work and also i am the other students who have been sitting there for seven hours straight and can’t offer much more except say, “it’s fine.” a one-man critique day, all parts played by me. 

sometimes i do this and the last period of writing has been drier than a pizza slice left in the winter sun, but this time i’m lucky that these last couple of years have been the closest i’ve had to a writing pax romana.

with that said, i’m not entirely sure how valid i am whenever i think these days that my writing has gone through some drastic changes in the last year; i’m not even sure if it’s accurate to call any of it growth, though i’m aware it’s the sort of thing i won’t have a clear perspective on until a few years after the fact. but i do know that i’m lucky to have so many works to act as markers for different periods of my writing, and while it’s far from a sure method of evaluation, there are parts there that i’m able to at least assess, if not outright measure. in the last year or so, my fics have started mutating towards — not really a separate sort of output than my previous ones, but definitely older somehow. older and quite different because of it: stylistic choices i would have steered clear of before, failed and/or lacklustre genre explorations, even relationship dynamics that were previously unfamiliar territory. my most recent fic feels like a culmination of all my attempts at wrestling with my writing in the ring, and now that it’s a few weeks behind me and i get to look at it with fresh(er) eyes and accept that it’s my favourite child (i’m sorry flls... you’re not too far behind), it’s also reminded me that i have a now overdue fic roundup to write. 

tangentially speaking, it’s interesting that you never really hear about self-taught writers. self-taught artists, yes, and self-taught musicians, but never quite self-taught writers. i don’t exactly purport to have taught myself everything i know about writing, and i know you can’t really be self-anything as a writer; what i lack in technique and finesse learned from proper writing classes, teachers, and/or workshops, i owe to the media i’ve consumed, good and bad, as well as to the creators i love and to all the thoughtful readers i’ve had over the years. if i’m self-taught in any way, then the self as a teacher was reared by countless others who have honed in me a limitless capacity to be an observer to stories, mine and all else. 

this post is just a roundup of all my fics from december 2020 to january 2023, including only the ones with enough substantial content to write about, which disqualifies a lot of the fics i left at one or five scenes max but qualifies the ones i abandoned at one chapter. just a little something for me to reference as i figure out where to take my writing next and hopefully move towards some kind of ✨ growth ✨ lol 

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FIRST LOVE, LATE SPRING december 2020 to march 2021, jujutsu kaisen trial element | dual pov romance, multimedia (?)

i covered a bit of the early chapters and conceptualization for flls in a separate post, but as i was reflecting on how to write a continuation, it occurred to me that if there’s a clear before and after to the current state of my writing, then the first portion of flls chapter five is where i’ll find it. 

when i was drafting my 58393th version of that chapter — nothing was working, none of it was the right vibe i needed, most of them too detached or too on-the-nose but never the perfect middle — i happened upon trying second person pov by accident. i’m not the biggest fan of second person (though to be fair, i don’t think anyone is) but by that point i was so sick of writing and rewriting this one section and not getting anywhere that i wondered if i should just lean all the way into that disgust. why not do something i hated entirely? and act of desperation as that was, the moment i started writing in curt, nauseating second person, i knew it was the right choice. 

the thing about writing flls!yuuji is that he felt both alive and unfamiliar. flls!megumi was easier to understand, even if he was trickier to write — but yuuji, i had to really work to get to know. one thing about him that i knew to be careful about from the very beginning of jjk is that it would be too surface level to think this boy is an extrovert. yuuji is usually painted as an energetic, sunny person, and i don’t think he’s not that, but there’s something about yuuji that’s also very internal and almost innately… isolated? i don’t know if that’s necessarily the right word, but there’s a lot about him as a character that’s out of view or grasp, which ironically i find people taking at face value. in flls, he required a lot more balance than megumi, who was a dam waiting to be relieved of its duties. flls!yuuji knows who or what he is — how could he not, when he’s never had a choice but to be this person, this kid who lost his grandpa, this kid who needs love but doesn’t know how to ask for it because he doesn’t even know there are forms of it he can ask for? 

how to write a character like that? how to nudge someone who doesn’t reveal even at his most revealing towards the christmas eve fight i had set up in the beginning of flls chapter one? back before chapter six of flls came out, i saw a lot of people argue that megumi and yuuji just needed to communicate, and yes, of course they do, but i was also very adamant as i started chapter five that the real tragedy about them is that communication will do nothing in the end. even if they magically became master communicators about their needs and wants and insecurities, none of it will change the fact that neither of them are ready to love and be loved by the other person. at least not in any way that constitutes a relationship that feels like love. 

i think that’s the key to writing the relationship in flls. it was never a question that they loved each other, and how much. never. this is probably the first piece of ~growth i appreciated about flls. it would be easy to write a romance where the main conflict is them not knowing the other loved them back, but flls got rid of that quite early. i left no room for doubt — or at least this is the hope — that flls!itfs loved each other in a way no one else would be able to compare to. they’re it for each other. but if it had been as simple as portraying that, then i never would have finished flls at all, and it definitely wouldn’t have been my longest fic at the time. 

instead — what if it was a given that they loved each other, and it still wasn’t enough? what kind of story can we spin about that? what kind of questions and answers can we find?

that’s actually such a pretentious way to frame that, but the fact of the matter is that i needed to not waste space now that we’re five chapters in. this is the beginning of the end. how do we shift gears and take the tone of the entire story along with it? i don’t know if there’s something about second person pov that’s just inherently full of dread, but it did quite a bit of work in chapter five. it felt disembodying for me as a writer, and i could only hope the same for readers. i was really, really worried some people will give up reading altogether thinking all of chapter five will be in second person, but i didn’t want to compromise. it was going to be second person for most of their real relationship or nothing: vaguely dissociative, intensely drained, with no room to actually enjoy being each other’s boyfriend. the main challenge was to not go from zero to a hundred in a snap. i had the room to do so in only one chapter, but i had to find a way to keep a tight rein on the pace or else the whole fic will fail. 

there also had to be love. and longing. and a desperation to make it work. i think that was yuuji in a nutshell — someone desperate to make it work, whatever this thing is. that’s what constitutes his strengths and his weaknesses, in canon and in flls. i wanted to find a way to make that palpable to a reader the way it was palpable to me while writing yuuji in second person. somewhere along making sure to tether myself to him by knowing what pieces of media he’d reference (high school musical and fullmetal alchemist) and his life outside of megumi (work, basketball, tea with nanami, skateboarding), i had to also drown with yuuji in the hope that the reader would follow. chapter three afforded me the luxury of only examining yuuji from the omniscience of a writer writing in third person — i could dismantle him through the therapy scene, could show myself and the reader a way to understand him, but i could not take us there to where he is. 

i don’t know how successful the second person pov was, ultimately, though i’d be lying if i said it wasn’t what i thought was truly best at the time. it probably wasn’t that creative to anyone but me, but it gave me a nudge towards different ways to explore… vibes. atmosphere, maybe, is the more formal word for it. if not for the second person pov choice in flls, i wouldn’t have been nudged towards kamo’s newsletter to act as the midway point of the story, the last palate cleanser i’ll allow myself and the reader, and i never would have written please let me love you forever and days of brutalism and hairpin turns the way i did. i owe a lot to that tiny but crucial choice, as does flls as a whole. everything that followed that section — the fight, the aftermath of the fight, the breakup — relied on it to make themselves work, and it’s funny (and valuable to note) how it’s something as seemingly inconsequential as a pov choice that set the tone. 

especially because there’s nothing special, really, about those following scenes. the christmas eve fight, megumi’s conversation in the car with geto, the break-up itself — all of it followed my standard flow of dialogue. sure, there’s more tension when you’re writing an argument, let alone when writing scenes that will inevitably lead to a break-up, but all scenes, particularly dialogue, have to feel fraught with some kind of energy and inevitable anyway. for the remainder of chapter five and six, i just coasted on the tone set up by the beginning of chapter five, and that’s knowledge that has served me quite well since. atmosphere goes a long, long way, and with my writing style, a healthy balance between dialogue and introspection will take me the rest of the way to the finish line. the part of flls that i’ve heard people find the most heartbreaking were also its simplest. all of chapter six is dedicated to one wedding, and chapter seven to one evening. i wish i could say there was a trick there, that i agonized over how to write such important scenes, but my personal takeaway is that there is no trick. the point is that you get the story to a point where those scenes write themselves; there’s nowhere else for the flow to go, and geto’s gentle unpacking of megumi, the last few scenes before megumi and yuuji break up, and the bittersweet reunion after two necessary years — i can only hope they carried a sense of “this is the only way it could have gone” the way they did for me. geto doesn’t tell megumi anything we don’t already know from earlier chapters, if only just now put into words. megumi and yuuji also don’t tell each other anything, in the breakup scene and the getting back together sections, that we haven’t already gleaned from them. from the moment kamo’s newsletter ended and we headed into act two — everything was just wrapping up what i left for myself.  

it’s worth noting that i did try to complicate the final chapter a bit. i tried a split pov between yuuji and megumi at first, as a way to finally reconcile their two perspectives, but that felt too cheesy. i tried an outing to nagoya for nobara’s birthday, tried to divide the pov amongst the people in their lives (junpei, nanami, nobara, etc), and even to do my usual cyclical structure of starting with the same image we did in chapter two, this time in yuuji’s funabashi apartment — but those all felt too on the nose. i trusted my flls readers. maybe that’s what all it came down to. i trusted them to know these people, and this story, and i didn’t want to do too much and compromise that trust. and in the end, i would argue, returning to simplicity made the story what it was. 

something i love to think about is how to explain my fics to others. i know it’s been said a lot that the ao3 tagging system has convinced a mini generation of writers that tags and names of tropes are all you need to pitch/be pitched a story, and i wholeheartedly agree. or i might just be terrible at advertising my work, with an obnoxious aversion to learning how to do it better to boot, but to be fair, i think my premises are all just as boring as they are ridiculous. flls is a college au with two friends with benefits turned fake boyfriends turned real boyfriends turned exes. that’s it. there’s nothing else in the plot but that. yet it’s a lot more to me than that, and sometimes that’s all you have when you send a story out into the world. the knowledge that it was briefly yours, and now it isn’t, but that doesn’t at all devalue what you’ve taken away from spending time with it. 

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US april 2021, jujutsu kaisen trial element | short form, childhood friends

this is one of a handful of attempts at writing a trope i don’t love all that much, inspired largely by the atmosphere in “horatio” by t.j klune. i was very conflicted about this fic when i first published it, primarily because it was so short and written in a sparse style i didn’t know how to evaluate, and partly because it didn’t feel substantial. in a post i’ve put on private since, i’d written: 

what if i repeat the same themes in another context? that doesn’t make the theme carry any less weight as long as i put heart and sincerity and compassion into how i’m writing about it. there’s something that is equally as much self-deprecation as it is borderline vanity in me placing these rules upon myself. i’ve always known i wrote first and foremost out of love, out of what makes me excited to write — and that still applies here. i was thrilled to be able to experiment with a short, snappy fic. and that’s far more important, isn’t it, than whether i’m writing a different dissertation angle on love or friendship or family or career? it doesn’t feel like it, no, but it should, because i know it is. i know that what matters to me is that writing is fun and compassionate, and i know that as long as one person finds comfort in a world i’ve built, it’s enough.

i don’t sound very convinced there, and i wasn’t. i still don’t know what to make about us. i like that it’s short, and i endeavour to write more short fics with nothing specific or significant about them — but it’s hard to stomach its existence, let alone see it as something to love. it just feels so… not empty, but definitely less than what i’m used to asking from myself. it’s short, it’s sweet, it’s snappy. it’s also formulaic in its own sparse way, and i think it works because of the sweetness, but the truth is that if i hadn’t written it for itafushi week, i would never have greenlit it for publishing. i still wrestle nowadays with wanting to delete it, but it matters so little to me that i can’t even justify that much. it’s a weird limbo of a story, though i still hope to explore this kind of writing more in the future. 

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SOME KIND OF WE june 2021, jujutsu kaisen trial element | sequel to existing complete story

broke my own rules here by revisiting a story past its run, but to be very fair, it was less out of sentiment (though there was also that) so much as me startling at my first proper reread of the latter half of flls and realizing there are still unresolved arcs for megumi because the final chapter set two years later only had yuuji’s pov. not many of them, and none especially urgent, but i thought it would be a good opportunity to reorient the story to something quieter and more mature than what the central conflicts in flls left room for. i’m not convinced the back-and-forth between pieces of their recent few months being together and the present evening worked as seamlessly as i wanted it to, but it was still a nice opportunity to use a non-linear narrative to explore the growth and development of a relationship that i left at quite the bittersweet open-endedness. what was only delicately certain by the end of flls was made concretely certain through some kind of we, even if it did run a bit too sentimental and saccharine. but i think it can be forgiven, considering what yuuji and megumi went through in flls proper. 

the main challenge of this fic was figuring out which portions of their life post-flls were worth including, and the first draft had five potential sections:

tokyo, for megumi’s first visit back after moving to chiba, mostly dedicated to him realizing that home — after being rooted for so long to this city, this one apartment with his dad, the same neighborhood and transit lines, to the gojo-geto household — now finally belongs somewhere else, with someone else. 

funabashi, most of which was preserved in the version that was published. 

sendai, to visit grandpa itadori’s grave, which i decided to streamline into a single scene at the end of the final some kind of we draft to cut away the excess and break it down to the core of why i wanted them to make this visit — which is to hammer home for yuuji that he isn’t alone anymore, that he has someone taking care of him and loving him without fail and with care, and to give megumi the agency to solidify, for his own sake, that he’s someone who means the whole universe to yuuji. enough that what place is his will always and solely be his, and enough that megumi will be allowed to love and take care of another person in a way that’s both eternal and an ever-evolving work in progress. 

okinawa, for a trip that was only referenced as a backdrop in the final version but that i still like to think a lot about even now. a cc anon said once that the gojo-geto household must be so lonely with all the kids grown up, but as i talked about in another reply once (it’s too far back for me to have time to dig out at this point), i do love to imagine yuuji and megumi being uncles to the next generation, even if not outright parents themselves. sometimes you don’t know what you’re capable of giving as someone who was denied so much as a kid until you see someone so young, a stranger to the world, and know what to give them precisely because you didn’t have it once. and between yuuji not having much family and megumi’s life being complicated by the fact that he has too much family, i think they’re well-equipped to be uncles to tsumiki’s kids and beyond. and i was tempted for a bit to show this in the annual okinawa trips i mentioned in the final version of skow, but there just isn’t enough space without becoming superfluous. 

kuantan, to visit nanami, mostly to reconsolidate the rather serious interaction megumi and nanami had in flls into something gentler, considering he’s still family to yuuji and while nanami might say yuuji doesn’t need his blessing, yuuji will want it anyway. i never did end up writing this part, so it’s not exactly canon to the au and i’m hesitant to make it so, but the idea was to end with megumi asking for both nanami’s blessing and help to propose to yuuji on that malaysia trip.

the end result for this fic was a little lesson for me in cutting and cutting and keeping my hand light on the source, until i’m left with what i consider necessary. the final version of some kind of we is more a collection of vignettes than a straightforward account of megumi and yuuji’s life together post-flls, which i found much more strangely fitting. i feel like i spent so much of flls trying to get them to a point where they’re ready to be with each other, and i just wanted to dedicate skow to them not just making it work but building love on top of the foundations they secure. it’s one thing to portray that through a whole fic dedicated to each milestone; it’s another to write ordinary moments that are made extraordinary because they have chosen that for and with each other. neither of them say i love you out loud in the entire fic, but i wanted there to be no doubt that they do say it. that they do love each other, and that this part isn’t the obstacle it used to be. they’re just some kind of them, together, and this time it doesn’t feel bittersweet for me to send them off to the world for good knowing there’s love falling out of the spaces between each vignette i wrote. 

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HAND IN UNLOVABLE HAND october 2021, jujutsu kaisen trial element | fantasy au

yikes. one of two fics in this round-up that i abandoned at chapter one. started this because an idea occurred to me while reading the atlas six, wrote until i had to stop, then didn’t look back once even when it would have served me to. 

i flew too eagerly close to the sun with this one, truly, but as far as intentions go, i think both my mind and heart were in the right place. it’s quite clear where this one went wrong: i had neither time nor the energy to dedicate to it; i started it on the same whim i start most other things but this time didn’t have the passion for it — and i confess i just didn’t have the patience required to work on writing the story i wanted to write.

it was also one of those lessons in how often big ideas — or an attempt at them — cannot sustain a story. i had what i thought were clear ideas and intentions about the themes i wanted to cover in this one (the downfall of religious devotion, reconstruction, academic institutions versus personal/individual responsibility, all of which just look like buzzwords now that i’m typing them out, omg), but it just didn’t leave room for the kind of story i like to write. i guess my main takeaway here is that the pitfall of high(er) concept genre stories is that you have to make space for the world at the cost of room for character writing; it’s just the nature of how much space in the narrative you can allot for each individual aspect of the story, and with stuff like fantasy and sci-fi, the worldbuilding takes up a significant amount more than your run-of-the-mill slice of life story where the only world i have to worry about sketching is where someone lives and works. 

i do like some parts? it’s kind of crude, how i tried to reconcile my writing style with genre-specific bits, but it’s not all terrible. this sequence is alright:

Megumi was seven the first time he restored something. 

Every part of it had been an accident, and he remembers it now only in fragments. The wet rag in his hand as he wiped down the dining hall tables, having to climb the chairs to get to each corner. The horrible echo of something shattering in the kitchen, where Tsumiki had been tasked to do all the dishwashing for the evening. The panic on her face when Megumi got to her, both of them crowding around the shards of ceramic left by what was once a plate. The spill of harsh candlelight from above the sink, the harsher shadows it sent dancing around the broken glass. 

But he does remember the remembering. The knowing of what the plate had looked like once, the image behind his eyes anchoring him in place as he latched onto the curl of the shadows on the floor. It would be more intuitive, more rudimentary, than anything he’d learn to do later in life, propelled by the worry on Tsumiki’s face and the footsteps he swore he could hear coming towards them from the other end of the servants’ quarters they called home back then—but it had taken only a single blink for the shadows to cover the plate, tighten around it into darkness, and then retreat to where they were, leaving a clean, untouched plate in the middle of the kitchen floor. 

it could be better, but it still could be worse. and i do like the overall architectural imagery and how i managed to scrounge up some standard fare coziness somewhere in the cold, almost-medieval setting. 

as far as disastrously failed ventures go, this one could be a lot more embarrassing than it is. i’m not mad at it. it’s far from good enough, and if i didn’t write it in such a frenzy, i probably never would have allowed it to be published. but. it’s a useful failure. 

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PLEASE LET ME LOVE YOU FOREVER march to june 2022, blue period trial element | five-character gen dynamic, multimedia

what a... headache of a project. bit off more than i could chew without choking and decided to take even more bites each new chapter because why the hell not, apparently. i do appreciate how un-edited this fic is, despite it all. it feels the most bleeding-heart of all my fics from this past year or so, and it’s nice to look back at this and know exactly when i shifted my approach to it altogether because, again, why not. it’s such a valuable “why not?” to have. it’s nice when i don’t feel quite as… under surveillance? when writing a story. and i get to just go off the rails a bit. a lot, actually, with this one. it’s nothing crazy because i don’t think i can write anything crazy (though i think hairpin turns had blinks of it), but there’s definitely plenty of choices that i’m surprised i decided on with a sober mind. 

to be fair, they weren’t exactly mindblowingly successful. if i were to rate this fic out of five, despite all my fondness for it, i’d maybe give it a 2.75. it’s a well-earned mark, and i have a special soft spot for people who have read it, but i’m not mentally proud of it. emotionally so, maybe, in whatever way i can be, but if this fic didn’t feel so intimate with a much cozier readership and comment section, i’d be a lot crueler to it than i am, i think. as it is, it makes for wonderful conversation and reflection for me, and it’s always fun to consider how a story about a disbanded idol group became a metaphor for childhoods lost to growing up too fast and also involved alternate universes. 

but cycling through five povs really is too much, i think, and if it was exhausting for me to write then i imagine it was just as exhausting to read. a nicer alternative would have been to stick to one pov for each chapter, but even that was a lot to juggle considering there were also smaller dynamics going on in the background with each character. within the core group of five alone, there were thirty-one variations of scenes to write, including individual introspection and pairs — and that’s not to take into consideration trios, or groups of four or the whole five plus a secondary character, for example. i don’t know how i pulled off my usual character study here. i don’t know if i did. 

another thing about this fic is that i’m still not sure why a time loop didn’t work. i wanted it so badly to work. i thought it would be fun, but i guess time loops aren’t necessarily compatible with prose. there’s something about repetition and looping that’s best visually, but even if i had been able to stick to imagery and vibes, it would have gotten tedious at some point for me and a reader considering the quantity/length i tend to need. just something to keep in mind if i get the urge to keep trying time loops in future works and wonder why it’s not sticking seamlessly. as with a lot of things in life, if you have to force it then maybe it’s not meant to be there. or maybe you have to go shortform, narrow down the playing field?

one thing i’d commend this fic for is how it managed to unpack so much between dynamics that barely exist in canon. that, and how it managed to pack so many formats into one story — song lyrics, album reviews, tweets, a play, nonfiction, a profile, wikipedia pages, messages, i don’t even know how many more — while maintaining a semi-cohesive tone throughout. there was a lot of fun there, in figuring out how to adapt your typical characterizing to a format you haven’t tried before: how would kuwana write a preface to hashida’s book? would this particular character include rhymes in their song lyrics, or are they more of a diaristic stream of consciousness kind of lyricist? what medium best translates this character’s personality? what medium best conveys this dynamic’s under-the-skin knowing of each other? who sees more than the others, and how can i show that without using the same structure of two or three characters talking in a setting that doesn’t change? 

my favourite part is probably the fake album review at the top of chapter four? there’s something giddying about the research-like quality of figuring out how to perfect the tone that music reviewers tend to default to, but also sobering about how easily adapted this fake idol group’s history is from real life. the easiest part of the entire fic was making this group feel real to me, situated in the real life history of j-idols and beyond, even if i admit to shying away from being explicit about the worst things that would still have been grounded in reality. some references to real life idol incidents worked a little too well, but there was also how clean it felt to spin fictional lore for this group in that fake album review. from their individual songwriting styles to tobi’s own background in-story to the kind of themes and concepts a faux pretentious pitchfork reviewer might like to talk about — it was just incredibly fun. i don’t know when else i’d get the chance to write something like that. everything else paled in comparison to it soon after, though i do also tolerate whatever my writing was doing at the end of chapter five, even if some parts of that chapter also feel lacklustre through a hypercritical lens. it doesn’t hold up under extremely rigorous scrutiny, even if i consider the fact that i’d just wanted the fic wrapped up as soon as i could at the time. it could be better, more so than all the other fics in this post could be better. but i don’t mind too much that it isn’t better. i mind it a little. just a little. but its flawedness is also what forced the multimedia format to happen in the first place, and that, i like a lot.

there’s a fair amount that this fic did quite more than alright, i think. if nothing else, it was useful as a playground that i didn’t have to be too finicky about. it will be one of those projects i’ll look back at someday and laugh deliriously over because how did i think that was the only way to make it work, but with the facilities i had at the time, it’s definitely not a shitshow. it has a lot of heart — which doesn’t necessarily redeem awful works, but in passable ones, those parts of the writing meet each other halfway. please let me love you forever holds its own weight, which is plenty more than i can say for most of my other experiments. plus it contains a background relationship that is not at all the focus of the story yet will probably haunt me forever. it’s always the ones you least expect to matter that will ripple further down the line, etc.

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LOSER TAKES ALL july 2022, tomodachi game trial element | soulmates, mystery au

another unpublished little guy left to rot at one complete chapter. i don’t really have any huge problems with this one, just that i tired of its demands very quickly and didn’t have enough attachment to the dynamics in it to muster up any motivation for. but tomodachi game, and especially yuuichi and kei, are so uniquely positioned for a fic like this, and i don’t resent past me for approaching it this way at all. is a soulmate bond that fosters a telepathic link between people who come back from a brush with death kind of an unhinged premise for a mystery au? yes. but so is remodeling a breakfast restaurant with my mom and the guy i didn’t know confessed to me in high school and who is now literally displaced in more ways than one by said remodeling, and even also acting is all i know so here i am trying to find the love of my life by dating anyone for an entire month on a first come first serve basis only to be shocked when that doesn’t work. 

again. boring yet equally ridiculous elevator pitches. if i cemented anything for a fact from this abandoned wip, it’s that my premises have always been questionable, and that time and time again, the only path forward is to lean all the way into it — which i did with hairpin turns, thankfully. hand in unlovable hand and loser takes all are apart by about a year, and there’s palpable change here in my approach to worldbuilding even if i abandoned each for unrelated reasons. granted, i might just be better suited to one side of speculative fiction than the other, but that’s such a copout. when it comes to trying new things in writing, the “if he wanted to, he would” logic applies, even if the he in question ultimately finds that it doesn’t work the way he wants it to (like in hand in unlovable hand). 

loser takes all worked fine for me, and i loved the inherent intimacy in having two incredibly smart and perceptive characters in each other’s minds while trapped in this soulmate bond that isn’t necessarily romantic. not to mention yuuichi is a deeply unwell person, and his ways of showing attachment to kei range from drastically protective, such as offering to fire the receptionist that was rude to kei, to:

Sometimes, watching Kei asleep right against him, Yuuichi wants to press his lips against Kei’s pulse. To feel it warm and alive under his mouth, to hear that little sigh of ticklish laughter Kei does if someone so much as runs a soft cloth against his neck. 

And sometimes—sometimes Yuuichi is also seized by a strong thought, a strong urge, to sink something sharp into that pulse. His teeth, a fork, a shard of broken glass. Sink it in hard, deep enough to leave a bloody bruise, a scar, a puncture. Hard enough to maybe even sever that heartbeat, to tear it, slit it into silence somehow. Hard enough that it feels almost the kinder choice to imagine himself wrapping his hands around Kei’s neck—tightening them without hesitation, itself a mercy of a kind as the blood quickly drains out of Kei’s cheeks. Yuuichi imagines then how Kei will struggle, whether he’ll kick or bite Yuuichi, if he’ll reverse their positions with one twist of a martial arts trained body, or if he’ll just accept it, resign himself to it knowing that not even this, if it’s Yuuichi, could possibly be meaningless.

But it would be. It would be meaningless to kill Kei. Meaningless because Kei is singular in his position within Yuuichi’s life, loyal and intelligent and a force to be reckoned with like no one else is, not even Yuuichi’s sister, not even the only friend he trusts most. Meaningless because every time Yuuichi pictures it, every time he wonders if he’ll have it in him to press two killer’s hands around Kei’s neck, it doesn’t take long for the accompanying sting to come like a splash of boiling water on exposed skin. A kind of scolding, a kind of reminder, that just as much as it would be difficult for anyone to kill Kei—so impervious to physical harm, whose broken bones and bleeding wounds will always heal even if he jumps off a twenty-story building—it would be just as difficult for Yuuichi to do him harm and survive it without any damage done to his own heart at his own hands. 

the temptation to keep writing this is not entirely absent, to be honest. but a mystery takes care and attention, and i just don’t have that in me the way this story deserves. but this fic was delicious to write, and i think it gave me a hunger to write more dynamics that feel just as juicy. dynamics that aren’t necessarily geared towards healthy love, but ones that ooze if poked anyway. 

i definitely want to revisit the telepathy plot device i explored here someday, but for now, this fic, abandoned wip as it is, is kind of the goldilocks midpoint between failed venture (hand in unlovable hand), almost-passable venture (please let me love you forever), and basically there if being there counts taking your literal first baby step into a new frontier (days of brutalism and hairpin turns).

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HONORARY MENTIONS

i don’t mean to ignore the canonverse fics (here and where you are, i’ll give you something so real, detour, and the two manhwa fics, that is) out of favouritism, but i’m afraid there’s nothing much to say…? not that these weren’t lessons in themselves, but canonverse takes a quarter of the energy and brainpower to write, and i’ll be lying if i don’t go about them essentially all no thoughts, head empty. i talked a bit about here and where you are here, while the logic for detour, which i was happy to write for and based on exchanges with a friend, is pretty self-explanatory. i did love getting to write a character like loid (and i’m relieved that the chapters that follow the ones i took into consideration for that fic hold up the characterization i imagined for him) + it was interesting to give sexual content and the philosophy of desire or whatever a shot in i’ll give you something so real. they were effective at what i needed them to do — which is, really, just to check the temperature of the water. i always feel so rusty when any amount of time passes without me writing, and these small, low-maintenance fics work as a burst of ice cold water before jumping in. i don’t value these fics any less for their place in The Process, and i might even be extra happy when someone likes them, but as far as Advancing The Craft 🤢 goes, all of these are simply necessary bridges to get to the next checkpoint. sometimes you gotta scratch the tip of the pen before the ink starts bleeding like it’s supposed to. words are the same. it takes a while each time to get my writing to a place i recognize, and sometimes a while is an entire fic before i can write the next chapter for an ongoing multi-chaptered story.

(that said: shoutout to the particular flavour of introspection in detour, within which my favourite line was written the literal minute before i sent it off, and a big heart emoji for the fact that i’ll give you something so real unfolds in a span of barely half a day. both are very interesting to think about moving forward.)

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DAYS OF BRUTALISM AND HAIRPIN TURNS january 2023, blue lock trial element | a romantic triad, sci-fi, memory loss (finally!) 

my angel. my darling. my love. who is far from being perfect but is the closest i’ve had to at least being sure i won’t just wake up one day loathing the soul out of it. i’ll laugh at it, probably. i’ll think it’s hilarious and cringy someday soon. but it’s a work i can’t not appreciate wholeheartedly. 

my cc tells me that the first time i put it on record that i won’t mind doing a blue lock fic is may 16, 2022, and the fact that i didn’t even make it a year and did so in the most Hard To Pitch If This Was An Actual Novel And Not Just A Fic For Fun way possible is worth at least a salute of disbelief, i think. my journal from my writing hiatus also tells me i’ve been trying to make memory loss work since 2020 and managed to scratch the itch minutely with here and where you are (which is… a pretty janky piece of work, looking back now) — but i’m just really, really content, even proud, of how i managed to weave it into a fic adapted from a story about football battle royale. 

it’s almost kind of unnerving how satisfied i am with the premise of hairpin turns, even if the execution leaves quite a bit to be desired — as it always will, really, and therein is the joy of finding the next writing project. i laughed a lot at myself while writing hairpin turns, and of all the inside jokes that my works started as, this one is by far the fic to feel most like it — a fun little joke that got funnier and funnier the more of it i wrote, and so i wrote more, chasing that laughter until it was time to catch my breath. and i think with how much i require writing to feel urgent and single-minded to be fun, there’s a part of me that’s easily... bored, for lack of a better word, when something doesn’t give me that. without this fast-paced almost-violence, i get bored and restless, the way i was around all the projects i had lined up after please let me love you forever. i’m making a face as i type that but maybe i just mean to say that there were a good few months there where nothing scratched the itch in need of stimulation. i’d write scenes and they wouldn’t be awful, wouldn’t even be bad, but they weren’t exciting to me. they weren’t thrilling. they didn’t feel like i was dissecting anything, just poking at skin with a scalpel and rolling my eyes when i didn’t draw blood from a dead body — you know? 

but projects have an uncanny way of arriving in your life when you most need it, and just when i have peeled and replaced my wallpaper and assembled and reassembled my keyboards and poked at this manuscript i refuse to rewrite until i did a warm-up that felt substantial enough, the blue lock anime started airing. i knew vaguely what dynamics i wanted to write even back when i had only the manga, but i know i could not have tortured this fic out of me then. not before please let me love you forever, not before loser takes all, not even before all my failed attempts at pitching speculative fiction stories to myself at 3 AM and gritting my teeth at my own disgust. the best aus fall into your lap fully formed and fully realized before you even know what you’ll be shaping it into; they’re a little predestined that way, and aus might be why i owe fanfiction my certainty that the author is just as possessed by the narrative if the narrative has its own pace and direction. i think that’s logic that should be applicable to original projects as well. 

i did hesitate in the very beginning of hairpin turns because sci-fi was such a huge deviation from my comfort zone and i have the misfortune of being both a taurus sun and an enneagram type five. i’ve never tried writing proper sci-fi, not even a little, let alone enough to be comfortable with knowing where to start something that wasn’t merely regular slice of life with a slight sprinkling of specfic. i was sure my writing style wouldn’t be a good match for it. i still don’t think it’s a match, necessarily. my prose is a bit too sentimental for some of the demands sci-fi asked of me — and that’s fine. i wouldn’t know the precise nature of that incompatibility if i hadn’t jumped into the pool of sharks and came out of the tank somehow, disbelievingly, friends with them. i began wary of relying too much on technobabble since i’m not exactly the most stem-oriented person around, but even the background of this au wrote itself, half because blue lock was a shockingly perfect match for the world i had in my mind and half because i found that the technology i imagined for the plot was both possible and easy to break down into the narrative. even now i’m still shocked at how scientifically sound the core pitch of the story is, and the fact that it married itself well to both the overarching plot and the character dynamics i wanted to highlight was just icing on a cake i would have tried to politely finish anyway. 

it could very well be that hairpin turns is just a fluke, its parts too seamlessly glued to each other that i’m not sure it could have been anything else except luck doing the work there, but i think there’s also credit to be found in how nothing is sacred in blue lock. these are characters who have done ridiculous things and said ridiculous things, and it was a matter of matching their energy. therein is the same lesson from loser takes all: if i’ve always known that characters decide the pace, tone and atmosphere of the story and everything else in it, then doesn’t it also go to say that in order to write a story far out of my comfort zone, i need only start with characters far outside of my comfort zone?

i think with au fics in particular, a lot of the work begins with justifying why certain things are in character for them in this universe based on what we know from canon. but because those boundaries are expanded by what blue lock innately is, it doesn’t feel as weird to posit something like, what if you and your android bf get tasked with rescuing his older brother’s android bf and find out along the way that you might also both be in love with your childhood best friend? as with most other of my initial ideas, this quickly spiraled into something significantly different — which luckily for me included the memory loss idea that i’ve been wanting to explore for forever now. proper sci-fi was the perfect backdrop for it, and bachira the perfect person to willingly do it, and isagi and rin the perfect people to be left in the aftermath of that loss. stars aligned, truly. i’m incredibly grateful for it. 

whatever challenges i encountered writing this fic had nothing to do with writing it. it was as smooth to write as it was an absolute pain to edit, because the three povs are so vastly different from each other, and with no outline to mentally check each time i add a new scene, i was reliant on going back and forth again and again to make sure the worldbuilding is cohesive and the plot is coherent. at some point i couldn’t look at it anymore, and it might even be a testament to how much i appreciate the fic that i still can’t look at it now yet cannot deny how fond i am of the final result. 

with sci-fi in particular, it really is a case of faking it till you make it, and whatever lies don’t feed into each other, you can always revisit and adjust later. that’s the common sense magic of fiction, i suppose. there’s a degree of patience i held onto writing hairpin turns that i wouldn’t have had with any other previous work, and i think it benefited me more to have all three chapters written in varying increments, out of my usual linear order, than publishing it chapter by chapter. i had all the room to experiment — what does the world look like in 2070? is 2070 even the right year to set this in? is there anything big happening around that time period? how does the lingo change in the time between present and this potential future? when i run into things that feel too out of my depth to write, like isagi’s pov for instance, do i actually have a justification for saying no other than how it will be easier than trying? are there benefits to giving bachira the final chapter that i’m being biased against because i think it would be a challenge? and between all of these choices, how do i adapt existing blue lock canon, from their playstyles to the favourites listed in the egoist bible, to worldbuilding in other forms of media that i’ve always wanted to try a different approach to? 

i used to think it was unnecessary and superfluous to go into writing something while getting bogged down by stray facts about characters, in both fic and original projects, but at the same time, it’s truly the tiny details that will humanize more than knowing a character’s birthday or what traumatic events lie in their backstory. tiny details that breed more tiny details, until it’s about the fact that bachira and isagi are childhood friends in this au yet when we meet bachira again he’s calling isagi by last name, or how rin understandably questions the validity of his own humanness because we can only assume sae had recreated him in grief or defiance against mortality or whatever other emotion that we’ll never know for sure because we only ever see sae in this fic through rin, and that matters a lot more than if i gave sae a pov — and yet rin manages to love through the small things, in how the warehouse is in an eternal sunset waiting for bachira to return to him and isagi. it’s about how first love, late spring was about learning how to love someone else the way they need you to when you weren’t loved the way you needed to be, but hairpin turns is about how spending your whole life never questioning if you were loved can rob you of the facilities to put a name and shape to what you feel for someone who’s always been in your life. the things you don’t take for granted, necessarily, but you do love for granted by not calling it love.

hairpin turns is about the pieces obscured from view and all the more present because of it. it’s about lost memories, the phantom outline of a person like a haunting. it’s about how sae never once appears in a direct scene yet he looms over rin’s existence. it’s about how rin’s chapter represents the past, isagi’s the present and bachira’s the future, but time matters little in the end — how could it weigh any more, in a story about memory? it’s about the uneasy momentary peace that’s the only scene we can count on as a happy ending. it’s about the lengths you’ll go to get the chance to be ordinary about your love, even if all else about it is unconventional. 

and yet above all, what i like best about this fic is that it works towards questions that feel like being given answers. some of my other fics try to provide answers to its characters and the readers they resonate with, to give them a way to be well-equipped to move forward, while a few other fics settle on non-answers because uncertainty is the only ending there is. but hairpin turns moves outward only to ask more questions, questions that are the answers and the thesis, yet in a way that isn’t strictly open-ended. and i have no fucking clue how i managed it, but this feels like the target i’ve been itching to catch sight of this entire time. this is the kind of story and process i would like to aspire to this year, and even though it had taken me 80k to glean what i needed from it, i’m glad i stayed with this fic as a warm-up. 

anyway. this got a bit away from me, and who knows, maybe this level of pretentiousness is only because i’m still riding the high of affection for my most recent brainchild to make it to college — but i’m not totally blind to the flaws in hairpin turns. the execution of the ending itself is clunky, not because it doesn’t resolve anything but because it does, and by then, the post-rescue section has gone on for long enough that even an ending feels like an epilogue. the story overall lacks complete confidence in what it is, with some parts shadowed by a slight hovering hesitation and others weighed down by a heavy hand showing too much kindness to my non-confidence. it’s never too heavy-handed, and definitely not so much that i’ll send it to the bin, but enough that if i want something to pick apart, there are stray choices hiding in places that i’d circle as an editor for feeling too sentimental, or the tone too dissonant with the pacing, or, ironically, not explored enough. in the genre i’m used to writing, the adrenaline rush is in finding the right balance within a new choreography for a dance style i know well, but in my first real foray into speculative fiction, i think i was just trying to find my footing the whole time. i’m still surprised i made it to the other end of the tightrope, honestly. i didn’t expect to applaud myself for the bare minimum, and i still don’t. 

but all of this is a lesson for me, too. what i do know is that it’s interesting to tell a story about what’s missing, about the unsaid and the unseen, and if that’s what it will take for me to rediscover excitement in what i write so that i don’t have to sink back into the ennui of these last couple of months, then that’s a pretty darn fun goal to spend the rest of the year unpacking. 

[kissatoru]

for the FINAL time: indicate your AGE on your blog PLEASE

i know i’ve said this so many times that it feels obnoxious at this point, and trust me, i’m as tired of saying it as (those of) you (who this doesn’t apply to) are of hearing it, but i need to reiterate it one last time. honestly, this is more of a rant than anything, but these thoughts have been on my mind for a while and i’ll just be glad to get them out. maybe this is making a big deal out of something quite small, but it wouldn’t have to be if people would actually listen/care.

i want to start off by saying if you��re someone who doesn’t have an age or an indicator of it on your blog, and the title of this post annoys you, you can go ahead and unfollow me right now.

or don’t, because i’m going to block you sooner or later anyway. which i realise sounds harsh, but apparently being polite about it isn’t getting me, or any of the other 18+ only blogs on here who are constantly repeating themselves, anywhere so i don’t care about being polite anymore.

the cheap price of literally nothing but having some numbers in your bio is still too high for some of you to ‘pay’ to read mine and others’ work. like we’re writing stuff you can read for FREE and all that us nsfw writers ask is that you have an age on your blog — yet some people still refuse to do that much. it’s not only disappointing, but also straight up disrespectful. there’s blogs who’ve been following me for WEEKS who still don’t have an age indicator, despite me posting about it regularly and despite it being clearly stated on my pinned post.

believe it or not, i don’t want to block you. some of you are always in my notifications, interacting with my posts, and especially when you reblog mine/my moots’ works, i recognise you, and seeing you makes me really happy! but when i check your blog and see that you don’t have an age on it, that’s telling me you’re seeing my reminders but you just don’t fucking care.

it’s all well and good interacting with me and my posts, but if you can’t even respect the simplest of boundaries, i don’t care whether you’re actually a minor or not. you are obviously too lazy or don’t care about me as an actual person as much as you care about the content you get to see on your timeline.

maybe you have your reasons, like maybe:

you’re not comfortable sharing your specific age. that’s totally fine! you can tell me in my dms if you’d like to. if not, anything from the year (e.g. 02’ liner) or the decade (e.g. 90s baby) you were born to an appropriate age range (e.g. 19-23) etc. will suffice. if you’re unwilling to do at least that, then i’m sorry but my blog is not for you.

you’re new to tumblr and don’t know where, or how to set up your blog. in that case, you google it. yahoo it. bing it. i don’t care. use the internet you clearly have access to and find out. there’s plenty of tutorials, you just have to look for them. or ask a friend or a mutual. you can dm me your age just so i’m aware until you figure it out.

you don’t have time. in that case, i don’t fucking believe you lol. if you have the time to read a whole fic, you have the time to punch in a two digit number into someplace on your blog — or to find out how, and then do so.

some of you don’t have an excuse though. some of you will list literally everything about yourself but your age on your blog?? you clearly know how to use tumblr, you clearly know where to put info about yourself, you clearly have time so... maybe you clearly just do not care enough to do the bare minimum of reading my byf or my pinned post.

also, it genuinely does not matter, nor do i care, where you actually put your age. whether it’s in your bio, your title or a pinned post, as long as it’s there, in some place i can access, it doesn’t matter.

i think i’ve talked about everything i wanted to, so to end this post on a more positive note, i want to thank the people who actually listen. i, nor anyone else, should be having to thank people for doing the bare minimum, but, at least in my experience, when you’re having to block 9 out of 10 blogs that follow you on a regular basis, you can get pretty used to the constant disappointment, and seeing that 1 blog who actually has an age on their blog can be pretty relieving lol so thank you<3

[writingmeraki]

tag games 🎉

rules : write a favorite among your works, your least favorite work, and one you think deserves more hype. Then, also post a screenshot of your recently saved on Pinterest.

aight let's get this bread!!!!

tagged by : @tranquilpetrichor ( thank u for the tag mwuahhh 🫂)

tagging moots ( no pressure to do this but I'd love to see your responses too hehe ) :

@kpdlvr2 ; @bambikisss ; @misoxhappy ; @enluv ; @weoris ; @redm4ri ; @hsgwrld ; @strxwberry-skiess ; @hqrana ; @invuwrld ; @seungiepup ; @byuqi 💗

also u can join if u want to !!

[ favourite works ]

angel kisses

I don't even think I need to explain this tbh, it's pretty simple but ah just the idea of it is so so cute to me :( I find moles so beautiful and when I learnt they are also called angel kisses, this idea was born lol, gotta be one of my fave drabbles definitely

[ 11 : 37 ]

lol this one was v v random ??? but like it was so fun to write too...yeah I just like the cuteness of it ^^

you're no good for me

now this one was my biggest oneshot so far and man I hit some points of hating it but in the end I was pretty happy with it ^^ I'm glad many liked this as well :)

all my hcs !

lmao I only have like two rn but idk I find hcs fun to write kinda like a mini short stories with the writer inserting their own notes in between dialogues....or at least that's how I write mine 💀

[ least favourite works ]

fools of love

HEAR ME OUT hear me out before you end me for this but BUT this is one of my first works on here, I wrote this in a damn hospital 😭 KDJSKAKKW it was wild ngl. but like the first chapter is alright, I feel like the problem comes in at the second because if I'm being honest my ass did NOT plan it out well, I just...went with the flow?!#?#?? it got random and I felt it could have been done way way better !

worth it ?

dang another guesung one....dont k word me for this pls I beg............it was rushed and um yeah that's probably one of the main reasons its my least fave...but good news I might just re do the whole blind date plot...someday....sometime.

[ works that deserve more hype ]

hey stupid, I love you !

its actually not a problem of people not hyping it but mostly cause the sk nt community/fanbase here is pretty small...no one's fault but I hope more people get into them cause they deserve it !

blood red strings

hear me out I love this oneshot, I love the idea of it but maybe I didn't portray it well enough which I hope to redeem by making it into a proper fic sometime.

[ screenshot of last saved on pinterest]

( u will ignore the fact that they are hyung line enha pics more and not because I need them for something....)

um yeah that's basically about it ! I can't really think of anything more rn, still thank u fro reading all the way till here hehe <3

[queer-adhd]

Just a ramble about last night below the cut.

So a friend of my parents' (and mine at this point, tbh, I've cooked at his house often enough that I think it counts despite the 25+ year age gap lol) was talking to me last night, and he has a daughter who's having what we in the business would call A Bad Fucking Time of being a teenager.

And kudos to him, because he knows I also had a rough time of it, he just asked 'what would have helped you back then?'

And damn, I had to think about it, because at the time it felt like absolutely nothing would ever help, and that the only real issue was who I was fundamentally as a human being, etcetera etcetera. But I eventually managed to give a few more solid options that help me out now.

Being allowed to just pick up and leave any social engagement or activity if she's not handling it, being given a chance to come back afterwards without a big thing being made of it. Setting up smaller opportunities for an apology if there's been an argument. It's excruciating to have to try and do that in front of a massive audience, but a lot of kids really do want to fix stuff they think they've broken. So yeah, all that stuff that just kind of helps to prevent and mitigate arguments and blowups when you have a kid whose response to triggers is to lash out.

Anyway, the more important thing is that he took all that stuff in, and then said something very sweet, which was that I seemed to be doing great these days (which, I guess I am tbh? Definitely in comparison, but it still felt wild to hear) and asked what the timeline was for that. And it took a bit, but I managed to break it down into around three steps plus one bonus level.

Step 1: knowing that something is wrong and it's not just you, as a person. It's something that is happening to you, and might be a part of you, but it's not the whole of you. See: ADHD, depression, anxiety, all that other good stuff.

Step 2: identifying the thought process. Not necessarily CBT, but recognising the point where something like RSD is coming into play and just. Actually seeing what's happening. Spotting the little bastard brain fucker who's making you feel like that and going 'YOU! YOU BASTARD!'

Step 3: now you've got the process down, practicing processing it, recognising it, not letting it control you. Telling it to fuck off sometimes, sometimes just going 'thanks, that's important, but we don't need to react like this'.

Step 4: (ongoing, advanced level) unlearning giving a shit to begin with.

Anyway I wanted to get this one down in words because it was a good conversation. No real point to the post, just glad that this dude is doing his best to support a kid who's struggling, and trying to pull in some inside sources on the whole 'being a mentally ill teenager' thing. It sucked that I couldn't give him a cure-all, or a foolproof method, or even a solid timeline. But I think it's going to be a lot easier for his kid than it was for me, because they're already at step one, moving to step two, and that's great.

[fumifooms]

Comparing Asaden to other ships for comedic potential

Idk about y’all but I’m desperate for asaden content rn and my brain has dug far into my memories until it found an old ship of mine that is a goldmine of asaden energy: sorayla from The Dragon Prince. Oh also, disclaimer: this is about shipping fanon for funsies lol I’m going very off the rails here. This is mostly comedic “enemies with romantic tension” stuff. There’s another ship at the end of the post too. Definitely putting this under a cut bc I am more capable of shame than Denji tbh. Anyways so let’s-a go!

Sorayla!

Soren is like, so Denji. He’s more jock and like, wholesomely stupid? But also he’s mire of a jerk in that he has no morals ngl, and his ego is humongous. Rayla for this is Asa, she’s pretty Yoru-like too but just cringefail and bitchy enough to be pretty Asa lolol. But, where they really shine is their dynamic together:

Their first meeting is him attacking her. He’s about to attack her while she’s asleep, but then a moonbeam falls upon her face and it looks like he thinks she’s pretty?? But the point is she’s too vulnerable for him to kill her without guilt so he’s like “Sis can u wake her up… So it’s like, sporty y’know” which DOES make me feel very Denji about him

 Anyways, they fight on rather equal grounds after that and she of course doesn’t respond well to that whole mess. And though they become reluctant allies because of a mutual friend she keeps glaring at him because she knows he’s up to no good, this is his response: https://www.tumblr.com/sorayla/182939524430/poor-soren

-———-

From the comic: https://raayllum.tumblr.com/post/631343059979976704/soren-and-raylas-relationship-in-through-the

Just… Just watch this Soren compilation… You’ll get it. https://youtu.be/Tjm_S8DwYBM 

2:48 and onward is the best to get the Denji-ness (and Asa-ness). For Asa-Rayla, there’s much less good content 

Here are some extra moments I could find in image format:

And hey, the best part! : Soren’s character arc is all about stopping blindly following orders even if they’re from someone you hold dear and trust, and stepping into your own moral code and beliefs and standing up for yourself. Rayla’s character arc is about facing her problems, her flaws and figuring out her identity and getting over social judgement & being an outcast!!

Anyways. They’re funny, is what I’m getting at. Cringefail yet murder power duo. Somehow matches the level of asaden murderous intent and dead braincells but while being more functional.

OK NEXT SHIP BC I TRIED TO KEEP IT IN AND COULDN’T: 

Maomao & Jinshi from The Apothecary Diaries

This one will be quicker. They’re much different from asaden character wise and dynamic wise too, but a similar thing to sorayla where “she looks at me like she wants my head on a pike, omg I need her to kiss me” happens lolol

Maomao is just wholy uninterested and asocial, which, yeah, Asa much. Jinshi’s cute curiosity in Maomao is pretty Denji. But then it’s kinda like asaden reverse roles because Jinshi is tired af and bitter and childish and petulant, but he acts very elegant and flirty in public & for Maomao (at first), so it’s kinda like Asa & Yoru trying to woo Denji Lmfao. And then Maomao being untinterested and blunt af is very Denji when he isn’t happy with Asa, like when he wanted to avoid her and cuss her out just before she asked him out on a date. Anyways look at this

 Tell me that isn’t Asa looking at Denji & Denji being ecstatic over getting any sort of crumb of attention from a girl. YOU CAN’T THAT GUY IS JINSHI’S FATHER FIGURE. HE HAS HIROFUMI YOSHIDA ENERGY. IMAGINE YOSHIDA WALKING UP TO ASA LIKE “Please stop insulting Denji he rants about you 24/7, he rambles about you being wrong and gives 3 hours long point by point counter-arguments all while blushing and seething. It’s disgusting and I’m not paid enough to be his friend. Please. Do it for my sanity.”

“Please hide your disgust so I don’t have to hear him talk about his kinks” This post really said it best lmfao: https://virovac.tumblr.com/post/680214574839054336/the-apothecary-diaries

Also I think it’d be hilarious if they had some fake-out romantic moments like this: https://lunatic-fatalist.tumblr.com/post/696376478807490560/mao-mao-reaction-to-be-carried-bridal-style-by-the  Them being cute for 1 sec, the other picking up on the romantic ambiance and then them immediately dropping the ball. The post doesn’t have it but the page after that moment Jinshi cusses her out and they end up arguing-bantering lmao

This is a good summary of them lmao: https://wwcrld.tumblr.com/post/642320757689663488/the-apothecary-diaries-by-natsu-hyuuga Anyways go read The Apothecary Diaries. It’s really funny and interesting and cool, it’s a detective sorta story about medicine and politics in ancient China.

I know few people are likely to care about this whole thing but by good god I am obsessed and starved for asaden rn, it’s never enough and I have to start sucking in other fandoms like a black hole or some plague. I hope some poor souls may deride enjoyment from this

[fiercehildr]

Hi! I have 3 things if that’s okay!

Firstly, is it bothersome to ask why you stopped any ACOTAR blogging? Was it just to much toxicity? All good either way, still love you <3 I was just wondering. Pls ignore this if you want.

Secondly, what about ghost do you love? I love the art and such you’ve been posting even though I’ve never consumed any of that media lol

Thirdly, not a question but thanks for all the commissions you’ve posted! I love to see them (and I’m trying to read glow! It’s of course quite in demand at the library) k that’s all. Sorry to bother you!

Hi Nonnie! ♥️ Thanks for the ask! Sorry the answer might be long and trigger warnings: Traumatic events (second question)/A quick reference to s**cide (first question)

1- It’s fine, I can answer that no worries 🤗 What happened is that I realized the ACOTAR toxicity made my depression worse and constantly had me in a haze of anger as I could not really ignore everything going in that fandom, not with how deeply I was involved in it.

I was heavily bullied numerous times for liking a different fictional ship and I guess the last straw for me was when I was falsely accused of racism because of a commission of mine- never mind that the one thing they (-the usual suspects and bullies) complained about was the decision of the PoC artist I worked with and who they silenced or that their complaints actually highlighted how they automatically viewed a WoC serving tea as her being a slave.

I think we pretty much all knew that it was never our (the artist and mine) intent or that this drama was started with something else in mind. I even had numerous PoC in my asks and IG inbox telling me it was all good and that they couldn’t understand the issue at all. BUT… I was at a very low moment of my life, my mental health was extremely bad and I did a massive panic attack which was quickly followed by some pretty bad s**cidal thoughts where I almost did something really bad.

That’s when I decided to stop everything and after a 4 months long break from the internet and social medias, I came back but with not much love for ACOTAR anymore. I do not find joy in anything related to this fandom. My maximum is liking pretty arts from artists I like or friends and sometimes making games with the characters in my Insta stories. But I don’t even care about the characters anymore and I even feel a certain dislike for the author, for allowing us all to suffer this shitwar for the sake of her mental health. I know that, PERHAPS, the issue is more complicated than that from her side but I consider that my anger is justified anyway.

Will I come back at some point and rewrite posts and theories about the characters etc? Hopefully, but I’m fine in my little bubble right now. I’ll let the dogs eat their bones.

I hope I answer that first question for you and I’m sorry, I know it’s quite a long answer. 😅 I do love to hear you enjoyed my commissions! Always glad when I know they brought happiness to someone. ♥️

2- As for Ghost, funnily enough, he is not my favorite CoD character. I’d say he’s actually third on that list behind Soap and Price but he’s so aesthetically pleasing and makes for such beautiful art pieces! ♥️ I do appreciate his character though, mostly because I’m appreciative of his inner strenght. Now as you’re not familiar with the lore, to make it short, Ghost had a pretty horrible childhood, tortured by his father who was a notorious trash (like forced to kiss living snakes when he was terrified of them kind of stuff). Sadly, when he was in the army, he was also captured and tortured for month before finding his freedom again. Only to lose his mother, brother, sister-in-law and nephew to an atrocious murder. His past is basically the worst thing you could be imagining and if you’re interested in it, there is actually a comic about it you can find online. Do beware though, it’s pretty graphic.

So what I like is that even with that, he still remains level headed, tactical, and, to some extend, even kind. Seeing him develop a relationship with Soap and open up, even making jokes when he’s seen as this gigantic grumpy man, was actually a nice insight in who he really is! 🤗

Also watching plenty of tiktoks of him and Soap, even before I played the game (and I had never touched a CoD before!) helped me so much during my hard post acotar time.

There you go, I hope my answers was good enough and I do hope you get glow! If you do and read it, don’t hesitate to share your thoughts with me! 🤗

[violetsareblue-selfships]

The Truth Comes Out

Ship: EiMiko x April | Word Count: 1690 | Warnings/Tags: First person POV, a smidgeon of possessiveness (on Miko's side specifically)

A/N: Ominous title for a very fluffy fic lol - also I'm posting these all out of order (and not in the order I wrote them either lol) But! It'll make sense regardless and that's all that matters! <3 I hope you all enjoy it.

Being summoned to Tenshukaku is starting to become a regular occurrence. Enough so that I already have everything ready to take with me, plus a container of my most recent baked good for Ei.

The townspeople no longer stare as I walk by surrounded by the Shogunate soldiers. There's only so many times it can happen before it's no longer news, especially when I'm the one being accompanied.

I'd complain about it but I know it simply stems from Ei's desire to protect me. If it guarantees her peace of mind, then I'll allow the guard each and every time.

Miko's waiting for me when we arrive and my heart flutters just from seeing her. I dart away from the soldiers and run up to her, hearing her laugh softly as I eagerly pull her into a hug.

"Mm, seems like someone's missed me…" Miko murmurs as she wraps her arms around me as well. "Hmm…" She hums, the tinge of an unfamiliar emotion in her tone.

When I pull back, her expression is barely different, but there's something there that confuses me. Did I do something to upset her just now?

"Come on, let's go to Ei. She's bound to worry if we take too long." Miko murmurs, pulling back further, her hand gently finding mine.

I want to ask if something's wrong, but I know her. She'll just tease me for getting worried to distract me. If she wants to tell me, she will. So, I let her lead me to the room that Ei's in.

As it did when I saw Miko, my heart flutters when I see Ei, but I manage to restrain my urge to run up to her. Miko would only tease me more for my eagerness. Not that it's necessarily a bad thing.

"Hello, April." Ei says warmly and I feel like I could melt at the sound of her voice. Instead, I smile and hand over the container, giggling as her expression brightens. "Thank you. These look delicious."

Miko huffs softly and I expect some kind of tease about me constantly keeping Ei supplied with desserts. But she says nothing. Instead, Ei speaks again. "Miko… Are you jealous?" She asks softly.

Of course, Ei would recognize the emotion in Miko's expression better than I could. Still, the realization that Miko's jealous has me turning towards her, my head tilted in confusion. "Miko?" I ask softly and she sighs.

"It's stupid, honestly…" Miko says and she must see something in my expression as she shakes her head a little. "Fine. The issue is that you smell like another fox."

I blink at her and there's a small pause before Ei starts laughing softly. "Is that all this is, Miko?" She teases and Miko huffs, crossing her arms.

"I told you it was stupid… Why do you smell like a fox?" Miko asks, looking at me accusingly.

"Ah…" I breathe out, looking between the two of them a little unsure. It's not like Miko's likely assuming - that I was out playing with the foxes in a human form.

"It doesn't matter right now. I just need to…" Miko trails off and there's a flash of pink smoke. My heart melts at the sight of the tiny pink fox sitting on the ground in front of me.

Ei's once again giggling while Miko (I'd assume this is her fox form?) scratches at my leg until I kneel down to pick her up. I move to sit down by Ei while Miko keeps rubbing her fur over me - my face, my chest, anywhere she can reach.

"She's scenting you…" Ei breathes out, amused and fond. "I guess that means you really are stuck with us. When her fox claims you…" She trails off but I get the point.

Miko continues to scent me while Ei and I talk. A wet sensation on my cheek cuts off my next sentence and I look down at Miko. Somehow her usual smug expression translates very well onto her vulpine features and I huff softly.

"Did you just lick me?" I ask, a little surprised. She lets out these soft chitters that sound almost like laughter and I roll my eyes. "Silly fox."

With that, there's another flash of pink smoke and Miko's in her usual form again, though she's still sitting in my lap. My face grows red at the sudden closeness and she laughs softly as she loops her arms around me.

"There. You smell much better now." There's a bit of possessiveness in her voice too. I don't mind it. In fact, I like the way it sounds. "Now, talk. You have me very curious, little one.

First off, your house always smells like all sorts of animals, even some that I'm sure do not inhabit Inazuma, and now this? What's going on?"

Ei looks a bit curious as well and I sigh softly. "I suppose it's only fair. You've finally trusted me to see your fox form, so I should open up as well." My words only make them look more curious. "I assume you know of the magical creatures of other nations?"

Both of them nod, looking more intrigued. "Then have you heard of a species of immortal shapeshifters?" I ask.

They're both very smart, so it doesn't take long to put two and two together. I laugh softly at the looks of realization on their faces. "Yes, I am one of those shapeshifters." I say.

"Interesting." Miko says. "Though, I wish I had known sooner. We could have spent time together as foxes…"

That makes me laugh. "That's why I smell like an unfamiliar fox. I was testing out a fox form to spend time with you in whenever you showed me yours." I explain and she looks a little embarrassed. Only a little, though.

"How sweet of you." She murmurs, grinning victoriously when I blush. I look over at Ei, who has an awed expression on her face.

"You're immortal…" She breathes out, sounding on the verge of tears.

Miko laughs softly. "Mm. Seems those worries of ours were unfounded, hmm, Ei?"

Ei laughs as well, the sound much more watery. "It seems so…"

It clicks in what they're talking about and my heart feels like it's breaking a little. They'd been afraid of how short a time we'd have together. If I were mortal, I'd have a normal lifespan and then I'd leave them.

Of course, the realization that this won't be happening has to be a shock to them.

"Ei…" I murmur softly, holding a hand out to her, squeezing her hand softly when she takes it.

She gives me the prettiest smile and squeezes my hand back. "This is the best thing you could have told us." She says and I smile back.

"Though…" Miko breathes out, her mouth near my ear since I've turned to look at Ei. I shiver a little and she laughs softly. "Speaking of fairness… You should show us one of your forms."

I whine softly at how it feels for her to be speaking directly into my ear but I nod nonetheless. "I would ask for an animal preference, but uh… I think I know for right now." I say with a soft laugh.

Miko gets out of my lap and I shift into the fox form I'd been practicing with some slight modifications. I'm a little bigger than Miko had been, but I decided to mimic the pale pink color she had, only in a purple this time.

"How cute." Miko says. "Was the purple intentional?" I chitter softly in a yes and she smiles. She holds her hands out and I let her pick me up. "Hm… You still smell a bit like your normal self…"

I take this moment to sniff her, my whole body relaxing at how good she smells. Scents are always different in an animal form, but I've never smelt someone (or something) that gave me such a sense of home before.

Miko chuckles softly, brushing her fingers over the top of my head. "I think I know what that was…" She says quietly. "Your inner fox understands how important I am to you, hmm?"

I nod and she smiles. "Ei, do you want to hold her?" Miko asks and Ei immediately looks to me.

"Can I?" She asks and my heart flutters at how sweet she is. I chirp that same yes as earlier.

"She said yes. Quite enthusiastically, I might add." Miko says and I tilt my head a little at the fact she can understand me even while in a more human form. Though, I guess her kitsune nature never leaves no matter which form she's in… Plus she still has fox ears so it might not be that strange.

Still, Ei gently takes me from Miko's hands. "Ooh, she's just as silky as you are, Miko." Ei says and I perk up a little. I'd felt how soft Miko was earlier so this is a huge compliment.

Ei starts petting me softly and I absolutely melt into her. It definitely feels like she's used to this as she finds spots that have me going completely boneless in her arms.

Again, I sniff her like I did to Miko and her scent is just as comforting as Miko's had been. I've heard that foxes are monogamous before, which doesn't seem to fit here, but I can also tell that these two are the only ones that would give me that same sense of home.

'Mate' as well, but maybe it's a little too soon for that meaning to this scent.

When Ei has her fill in petting me, she sets me gently back on the floor. "You may change back now." She says and I do.

"Now… we had called you here for a date. If you're still up to it, that is." Ei says and I smile.

"That sounds wonderful." I say. If anything, what just happened solidified my trust in them further. It does seem like I'm with them for good now.

I have never felt so lucky in my life.

[sostrangerous]

Ok, I lied, I'm back, but only because I need to give u compliments.

I have never in my life read a fic that has made me this emotionally distraught. I have read works that have made me relive my grief or maybe make me a little anxious, but never ever have I read something like this. I think the reason why is because, particularly, mark, hits too close to home for a lot of reasons, he reminds me of my sister and me, and his family reminds me of mine. Even if I just think about the story I just feel so hopeless and dreadful because I Know it's not gonna get better lol I think it's one of those 'it gets worse before it gets better' stories and the 'it gets worse' part are gonna be so excruciating.

You are very skilled at writing emotionally constipated characters, also, I'm gonna piggy back off that person that said that the story was easy to read because I think that one of the biggest reasons why is because the vocabulary that you use is precise, understandable, and it gets the point across very quickly with as little fanfare as possible and even when you do jazz it up its very natural and it never feels out of place. The way that you use metaphors, internal monologs, and other literary devices is also very good, obviously, I think that if your use of them was bad then the story wouldn't have as much of an impact as it does.

Also, your characterizations of mark, jaemin, jeno, haechan, and renjun don't feel too out of left field, at least for me. I can see how, in another universe, they could've been this way.

This is such a good story, and I've been telling my sister about it, and she agrees. I remember when chapter 16 was posted, and mark had said, "dont make me think about tomorrow... don't make me think about anything at all. " she said that that is exactly what she felt like when she was going through the worst of it with her ocd.

I hope you take everything I wrote as a compliment because I really do mean it. no story has ever made me want to organize my thoughts into something concise and have the courage to tell the person. You are a marvelous writer, and I hope that writing brings you joy and refuge from whatever your troubles might be because even though as much as much as your writing hurts its comforting to know that there's people out there that think and feel in ways that I thought were just me. Thank you, I hope you have a day or night and be safe.

Also fuck Cameron.

thank you so much for this, i feel like nothing i say will be enough to convey how honored i am by comments like this. seriously, to hear that my work has a profound impact makes me incredibly happy, im so so so happy you like my writing :')

i will make a certified authorial guarantee that mark is making it out of here, no matter what. i would not abandon him to misery. it feels a thousand times heavier for him when hes home, but freedom is there waiting for him. his friends love him too much!!!!

also, thank you so much, im overjoyed to hear my prose is good. i geuinely think ive gotten much more skilled at writing by working on this fic. i purposefully try to pare down my prose to get rid of repetition and saying the obvious too loudly, so im definitely aiming for 'little fanfare' in my writing BUT ALSO im glad you like my metaphors :))))) im so happy to hear they feel natural and fit the rest of the prose.

again tysm for this ask, i owe u my life forever. please keep loving this fic as much as i love writing it <3333

[thebigshotman]

(It’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”, so of course my thoughts got a little long 😅 My review is under the cut if you’re interested! Sorry this is a day late compared to when I usually post my reviews. I’ll be back for threads and asks on Monday!)

I feel like this week went by super fast; I chalk it up to both midterms and being excited to come back here. But nevertheless, it’s once again time to talk about the movie I saw in film class this week! It’s also once again, for the last time, Kubrick time! With the movie he made after “Dr. Strangelove”, the iconic and beloved ��2001: A Space Odyssey”.

…Dear lord. It’s been more than twenty four hours and my mind is still scrambled from everything that I watched. Mostly the last half hour 🤣 Does it deserve to be in everyone’s movie top 10? Hell yeah! Is it in mine? …It’s complicated. How the hell this man jumped from “Cold War satire” to “THE sci-fi film” in 4 years is beyond me lol

The plot jumps all over the place, but there’s four main parts. “The Dawn of Man”, a cool little prologue where apes discover they can use bones as tools due to a giant black monolith, an untitled segment full of cool zero-g stuff where it’s discovered there’s another monolith on the moon sending signals to Jupiter, “The Jupiter Mission” itself eighteen months later where everything gradually goes horribly wrong, and “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite” where…it was colorful, that’s the only thing that happened for certain! There was also a space baby and an evil computer. But this movie is so well known that even just describing the sections of the plot so thinly like that is probably enough to get the gist.

Let’s talk about the good stuff first. This movie is beautiful. Watching it on a giant projector in a conference room for class is probably the closest I’ll get to watching it in 70mm as intended, probably. It really captures the emptiness of space. The set design is also magnificent. The effects, too: The spacecraft miniatures probably provided the inspiration for Star Wars, and the Stargate scene was this beautiful yet creepy wash of color.

The music was also amazing, and not just “Also Spake Zathustra” (aka the timpani and horn fanfare). The disorienting piece that played whenever a monolith showed up started out annoying, to be fair, but it gradually started to creep me out with each successive use. And “The Blue Danube”, which underscores the lighthearted and impressive zero-g scenes in part 2, was a phenomenal choice of music for the two scenes it showed up in. Now it’s one of my favorite pieces of classical music; it makes me feel so bouncy and carefree. The same pieces of music are used throughout, but that allows what they each mean to build up with each use.

And of course, Hal 9000 the evil computer was great. But the characters bring me to the things I didn’t like: The humans were…kinda boring? Not terrible, definitely not, but plain. They served their purposes in the story and that was it. That’s kind of a nitpick though, cause it’s not like I hated any of the characters. However, what I did hate was the pacing. Good lord. I know it’s one of its defining elements but god the pacing.

About twenty minutes of this movie could’ve been cut, like shots and scenes that went on too long, and nothing would’ve been missed. Key scenes like this are when the ships on the moon are docking and Dave is switching out the communication device (which is accompanied exclusively by breathing noises that made me very uncomfortable. Sadly not the only scene this happened in). Not bad, per say, but if you sit down to watch this thing you gotta be aware of that and have patience. I know a lot of people in the classroom didn’t. Still, it was an effective tension builder at times, like when Dave is disabling Hal. But those times were few.

And then there’s the ending, which is so incomprehensible that it’s very well known at this point. I have no idea what it means lol. But I enjoyed hearing other people’s interpretations. And I think that’s what Kubrick and Arthur C Clark were going for! Far be it from me to hate things open to interpretation; Spamton is full of things open to interpretation after all. Like with him seeing what other people think is part of the fun! But I personally have no definite theory yet. I’ll get back to you when I watch this movie again in like…a year. Or longer.

I’m glad I watched this movie, I really am! It had a lot of awesome stuff, even minus the iconic things everyone knows, and I can see why this tops so many people’s movie lists. It would probably even be on mine, but like…real close to the bottom. I loved this movie when I liked it, but the super slow parts left a lot to desire. It gets my stamp of approval though! Anyone who wants to do filmmaking or sci-fi should watch this before undertaking. Watching it on a phone doesn’t do it justice, though, so keep that in mind. I recommend it! But…pace yourself while watching lol.

This coming week is spring break, so no movie review unfortunately. However the week after we’re watching another super iconic movie, “The Godfather”! So stay tuned to hear my thoughts on that. As for replies to the many threads and asks I owe here, they will start coming on Monday (and maybe even tomorrow while watching the Oscars, but no guarantees). So stay tuned for that as well! Thank you for reading this far, and I’ll see you all soon!

One of the “Blue Danube” moments…seriously for a classical waltz that song is fire lol

[starjxsung]

hi angel <3 how are you doing? when are you seeing ateez? i’m so excited for you :’)

i still haven’t heard anything back from my practicum so im stressin (: but trying not to die of anxiety bc idgaf if i keep studying in this uni tbh but we persist. i’m so ready for lolla and forgetting my problems for a sec.

thank you for sending love☹️ she passed away post op because she was too weak, it breaks my heart so much </3 they did do the bloodwork beforehand but it wasn’t included in the receipt bc i got all karen when they called us. the vet was still kinda sketchy and def isn’t really good at talking with ppl. but they were nice enough. i just wish they would’ve communicated the risks a little better </3 but im just glad she isn’t in pain anymore.

i don’t have a record player that works either lol. i just love vinyls bc they’re so pretty. i really really want indigo but everywhere ive seen it it’s so expensive😭 i had never seen any shinee ones so now i need one too😭😭 mine is so pretty tho! i don’t have pics of the disc in itself but it’s white and so cool. but i do have my pulls✨ the poster is huge and so cool too. it’s on sale @ amazon super cheap.

manifesting hello kitty woo & hongjoong forever✨ i love you sm bb! i hope everything is going well! and just in case you see ateez b4 you see this message, i hope you have the best time!! yeosan pics are always welcome and appreciated✨

(also how are u feeling after seeing jisung’s fits this weekend? he looked so good😭)

love,

🐈‍⬛

BAEEEEEEE I see Ateez today I’m so excited !! 👼🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶 Hongjoong my rockstar bf (Hanji is my other one) it’s been over a year since I’ve been to a proper kpop concert that wasn’t a festival or solo show I am so fucking hyped RAHHHHH I promise to get as many Yeosang pics as physically possible 🙂‍↕️

I’m so sorry you haven’t heard from your practicum site yet :((( I can’t believe these places are able to get away with being this disorganized. My sister hasn’t heard from hers either and they still haven’t sent her new laptop she’s supposed to use in her first training next week so she’s also trying not to stress bc there’s literally nothing she can do ☹️ fuckkkkk these places for wasting time the way that they do

I’m so sorry to hear that she passed :((( I’m glad she’s not in pain anymore but I still can’t help but feel like it was partially their fault this happened in the first place :( how is your boyfriend coping with all of it? Sending you guys all my love and healing vibes and I hope your kitties are comforting you guys during this tough time :( it’s just been such a rough month.

AAAAA in better news the Ateez vinyl is SO cute?????? Neeeeeed 😭🫶 indigo was super expensive (I think like $60-70) but I saw it randomly in stock at target and I couldn’t resist 😭 my dad has a working record player I might just steal from him bc I don’t feel like shelling the money out for another but I want to play my vinyl at some point. Ohhh to have parents you can steal from 🫶😋

I love you so so much bby I can’t wait to tell you all about both my Ateez shows !!!!

Also Jisung’s outfits this weekend……. 😦 my sister said if she had one wish in the world it’d be to never hear my horny thoughts about Jisung ever again. And I think that perfectly describes how bad I was thirsting over him all week. I hate children but I would bear a whole CHILD for this man……. 🧎‍♀️‍➡️

ALSO DID YOU HEAR ABOUT TAEMIN TOUR….. genuinely tweaking rn. I can’t ❤️🧍‍♀️

[rielzero]

Why I describe myself as a Person who is Mute

Just random post, because I’ve often come across people using the word ‘’non-verbal’’ to describe situations were fellow autistics cease communicating verbally, and confuse this with mutism.

This is the general meaning for non-verbal: 

It’s not the disability; ‘’Mutism’’ instead its  a word to describe means of communication. In this case as example, non-verbal communication would be sign language. (writing notes is also one.)

A long time ago a friend of mine got complaints from someone who claimed the word mute was a curse word, which is weird because its short for the disability, just as deaf is used to describe someone who is deaf... However I’ve experienced the word non-verbal in infantilizing language and when searching I often find very ableist articles and conversations linking it to Autism. Because of this I experience ‘’non-verbal’’ much more as a belittling bad-word than ‘’mute’’ ‘’hey mute!’’ is not offensive to me? Yeah I’m mute? Okay..? Bit rude tone-wise but it’s not a curse word.

People also tend to use '’non-verbal’’ to view Mutism as a choice.. ‘’Damn autistics refusing to speak!’’ When it’s really not about choice. You don’t choose to be deaf either, like- you don’t choose to lose your arm.

The mis-understanding with this is also.. I can’t speak, but I can make sounds and laugh. There’s fellow people out there who can still grunt and moan as well, or they can speak but sparingly so. That is verbal communication. I can use quick sound ‘’pitches’’ to describe my general mood to folks who refuse to look at me whether I'm shaking my head or not. They sound like growls?

‘‘Going non-verbal’‘ is used to describe autistic folks who freeze up or go into a very distressing situation, being over-stimulated. It’s a way of coping or shutting down, but its also, they lose their voice in the moment or for a while. It’s temporary from my understanding. If you are non-verbal for two years  then you were mute for 2 years. Because you lost the ability to speak, therefore, disability. If it’s 24 hours, I suppose you could say you were mute for 24 hours. But it doesn’t erase my experience, it doesn’t mean every ‘‘non-verbal’‘ person has the ability to just begin talking again.

Mutism doesn’t go away for everyone. Mutism comes in different forms and has different causes, mine is medical. Chronic pain. I trigger migraine if I laugh a little too hard. My throat hurts if I strain my vocal chords to make a noise. I lost my ability to speak three years ago, this was a gradual progress too, it didn’t just happen over night. When I bring this up people try to do the toxic positivity thing and demand I relearn to speak as if my doctor hasn’t already told me that is not a good idea. As if I haven’t tried. ‘’You can train your voice!’’ talking for 20 years in pain made me develop severe chronic pain. You’d be asking me to strain damaged chords more to the point of snapping for your comfort and convenience.

‘‘I can’t picture how you can comfortably live your life like that!’‘ Yeah ok except, that's not my problem? It’s my life, I don’t rely on someone else’s vision to live my life. Society has already put enough limits on me and I don’t just have one disability.

I’m autistic. And I repeat. My disability is because of chronic pain. Aka my doctor told me it’s not going away. I am disabled. I don’t need to justify my disability for anyone. You don’t go out and tell a person with hearing aids to stop being deaf, you don’t go out and tell someone with permanent nerve damage to try and stand on their legs when they can’t do so. 

While I don’t need hearing aids, I use a notebook or a text to speech app. The only thing that really disrupts my life comfort is people telling me I should stop being disabled as if that’s magically going to happen, lol.

You don’t hear from people like me often. There’s usually an overlap with deaf folks who are also mute, but I’ve yet to see a community that openly talks about how stigmatized mutism is, and how infantilized you are when you happen to also be autistic with this wonderful new ‘’non-verbal’’ term or how its being used. I’ve had experiences were people think I’m deaf because I write on my phone to communicate. They either corelate it to deafness or autism.. And in some case.. They assume its a lack of intelligence.... What a joy.

Yes, people go non-verbal sometimes. They can’t speak during that. It’s a dick move to try and get them to speak, that’s traumatizing. Yes, people are mute and may not be able to speak ever. And that’s okay, disability doesn’t mean someone’s broken or needs to be fixed. Disability doesn’t mean you’re incapable of everything. It means that something about you is different than the average ‘’abled’’ society, and makes you less able to live in society’s intended vision. It obstructs you from functioning to the ‘’norm’’ Disabilities are variable, come in a spectrum, and a lot of them are invisible.

Tldr: from experience, ‘’non-verbal’’ is often used in bad context to infantilize folks with autism, I have mutism, can’t speak words but I can be verbal through sounds, which is why I prefer saying I am mute.

Be nice when you meet someone who uses a notebook or a voice app, or sign language, really, that’s all. c: Invisible =/= non-existent

[mosviqu]

IT PISSES ME OFF SO MUCH AND I HATE ALL OF THE THINGS I GOT TO KNOW ABOUT THIS ERA THEIR HARD WORK IS NOT APPRECIATED ENOUGH WAHHH

i didn't even have the motivation to check out the last song from them ngl💔💔very sad about them but maybe i will like it after watching music shows lmao i wont give up (fully) on the 03liners💔 WAITTTT TRUE HOW DID I FORGET ABOUT INTAK WHAT THE HECK I WAS SO HAPPY ABOUT HIM (and same i saw that they are having a cb and i was like:o i forgot about u guys:o) AN AMAZING CREW!!!! also would selfishly add enhypen sunoo he is a lovely 03 liner as well�� (idk know mcnd☹️☹️ i heard like 2-3 of their songs but i never checked them out☹️ BUT IM HAPPY THERE IS AN 03 LINER IN THERE!!!)

IT IS IMPORTANT BUT IM STILL NOT SURE IF ITS 100% TRUE😭 i love keeho so much like that was the point where i was like yeah u are going to be my fav from here!! seeing the screenshots of it still makes me laugh so much

i can imagine that😭 my sister was in the exact same situation as u💀

IT WAS!!!! dino is lovely and i would love to see u being his body guard ngl🤣 I DONT UNDERSTAND WHY THEY DIDNT DO IT💔💔just such a big heartbreak💔💔ALSO TALKING ABOUT TREASURE DID U HEAR THE SNIPPET HE POSTED OF A SONG??? it sounds very great imo

I CAN SO RELATE TO THAT!!! english is so hard without english classes i never realized that till now💔 i only talk in english with my sister but it's a mess i even just struggle to put together sentences now😭 writing my replies takes so much brain cells from me so i always just pray that u will get what i'm trying to say even if it's not correct lmao🥸 RECORDING VLOGS IS SO MUCH FUN!! i did it for a while and it was so amazing so i recommend it only sent them to my bestie but it was actually so funny😭 THE BRITISH PEOPLE GOT US REAL HARD💔

(AHHH THANK U SO MUCH;-; I APPRECIATE IT!!! HANBIN!!! I HOPE U WILL HAVE MORE MOMENTS OVER HIM LMAO HE IS VERY GREAT😌 although be careful with asking me about zbone members cuz idk three of them;-; but working on it🤞 and u can tag me or message me ofc i dont mind🥹💕) (liebestraum anon🥳💕)

LITERALLYYYY i saw a tiktok where it compared all the other dances where its a member x woman (ten or baek) and it said "so this is okay, but this isnt?" showing enha and the comments were like "we are the problem" LMAO so at least they are self-aware.

no because i was really disappointed too >:(( but the title track still slaps i said what i said. watched them perform it too and they have cute bubbly vibes i am heartbroken for the lack of interest from my side. NO BC WHEN I STARTED BIASING INTAK AND REALISED HE WAS A 03 LINER I HAD A MENTAL BREAKDOWN. ((still am a jiung girlie at heart tho). i am really excited for their cb tho it sounds amazing!!! HOW DID I FORGET ABOUT SUNOO WHAT THE FUCK AAAAAAAAAA IM SO SORRY he's my fav 03 liner. ((there are actually 2 03 liners in mcnd but i forgot the other one LMAO i honestly cant remember their names anymore but i had a very short mcnd phase lol. all i know is that i'd die for minjae thats all)

i would honestly be a good bodyguard bc i have a lot of rage in me. like i could fully fight someone if i was mad enough LMAOO. everything for dino baby <3 I DID SEE THE SNIPPET I LOST MY SHIT LOWKEY HIGHKEY I AM SO EXCITED AAAAAAA

i mean english isnt really hard for me if we are talking abt writing and stuff but speaking out loud is more difficult if you don't regularly do it >:( dont worry we are on the same wavelength i always know what u mean w your replies AHAH sometimes i speak in eng w my roommate bc she is an english major (she only picked the major bc of me and then i ended up doing psychology so i owe her this bc her english isnt as good as mine) I USED TO RECORD VLOGS W MY BROTHER but we never posted them thank god. i'm still down to do it honestly its so fun LMAO

hanbin.......i looked up his name on tiktok once and now my fyp is filled with him and im so in love he's so cute and adorable and sweet like i saw clips of ppl giving him letters and how much he loves getting them and even asked if anyone has letters for him please zb1 fans give him letters!!!!!! no bc i only know ricky, hanbin, zhang hao and matthew :,) but the more i see them on my fyp the more i am convinced to stan once they debut like i legit debated on watching boys planet yesterday bc i lowkey like survival shows but when i found out the eps are 2 hours long i decided to just....not...do that...

also a small update on the tbz recs i did some progress and i really liked diamond life and survive the night :p i have like 11 songs left from the ones u recommended LMAO but yeah i loved those two

[luupetitek]

Good news! I have anaemia

Just like in the title... but hear me out! Of course it's not good I have it, but I'm super glad I finally know what's wrong with me and how to fix it.

As you may know from my previous post, I've been struggling with some health problems, together with my excessive hair loss and lack of energy. I've went to some doctors before, but it didn't really help and I stopped as I didn't have a health insurance, thinking it may be just a problem with stress/depression or genetics.

But since I have a health insurance now, I’m taking a full advantage of it, trying to do a full body check-up to see what's going on. To the point I'm already sick of it, as I want all those appointments to stop xP But I'm not giving up until I will go through all of them, to be sure everything's fine 💪 As for now all my exams went well, so that's good news! And the only serious thing that's been found was: anaemia, which explains many things. It's been a month since I'm taking my iron supplements and I definitely noticed a sudden hair growth! My head is full of baby hairs and it does feel fuller now, so I'm super happy! Also, as much as I'm still not full of energy, I feel like it's kind of helping me in that aspect too. Before I couldn't really exercise much, as just after minutes I was getting dizzy, needing to stop not to faint. I always though it's because I have a super bad form, but guess the fact my blood wasn't able to feed my body with the oxygen fast enough wasn't helping either, lol. I'm just starting my treatment, but I hope it will get better and the results of it will be even more noticeable. Soon I'm gonna have another blood check-up to see how much it improved and hopefully I won't have to take the pills for too much longer 😄

Hope you're doing well and remember about your check-ups too! Our health is the most important and it's always better to find out about eventual issues sooner. And if you're straggling with similar problems as mine, maybe you should check your blood too. Take care! 💗