#I am forcing myself to just post this because it would never get done anyway

[crownofjuniper]

Gala & Astarion upon first meeting Gandrel...

[nicoleshifting]

what has helped me recently with shifting

I was reflecting some today while talking to my best friend about shifting and all the downloads I have gotten recently, wondering what exactly has changed for me to suddenly getting all these downloads and having so much more success in shifting than I probably have ever in the last four-ish years of me being on this shifting journey. and it all boils down to this: my intent, my focus, and my renewed motivation for actually, truly shifting.

I had made a post on january 1st on tiktok talking about how I am absolutely and completely locking in with shifting this year, and how I had recently come to the realization that I have been nonstop resisting shifting since the beginning and have probably never once been actually consistent with it, as well.

I realized all of this, and learning from my past misguided steps, I shifted to my waiting room within three days and have also received six separate memory downloads from my twd dr (all received during a meditative state while intending to shift to my dr). truly never in the time I have spent wanting and trying to shift have I had so much happen. and why now? well.. because I am actually for once being consistent, actually putting in effort, and not treating shifting like a chore, or simultaneously, something I am deep down resisting.

at the core, this is what I have changed/done recently that I think is really helping me finally get this shit done!!

1. focusing on my dr/myself in my dr and NOT the act of shifting. gone are the days of me robotically affirming "I am shifting, I am in my DR, I have shifted." girl okay??? why are we doing all that.

2. again, focus. I have been making it an active goal of every shifting attempt to keep my focus on my dr and thinking about myself there, memories, scenarios, etc, and not letting my thoughts wander. if they do wander, which is completely natural especially if your brain is not used to keeping a sharp, single minded focus on something, I instantly reel it back. this has helped me TREMENDOUSLY.

3. letting myself get as relaxed as possible using meditations prior to doing anything shifting related. (I truly believe allowing myself to get into a deep meditative state is what has allowed me to have so many downloads recently). I am not focused on if I am in a good mood or not, as that does not determine if I shift or not. forced positivity does nobody any good, and truly idgaf if I feel miserable and depressed, how would that prevent me from shifting... it won't!

anyways, just thought I would share what has been helping me personally! go shift <3

[lukolathoughts]

The art of bullying

I have thought a lot about the great literary heroes and heroines I could mention for this blog post. There is Harry Potter, who was so mercilessly bullied by his cousin Dursley and his aunt and uncle that he was forced to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs and even when released from that torment, he was still bullied by his adoptive family until the day they fled Privet Drive. There is also the courageous Jane Eyre who receives similar cruel treatment at the hands of her aunt and cousins and endures so much torment, she cannot bear her own reflection. She is a ghost of her former self. Who could forget Stephen King's Carrie. I think we all remember what happened with the infamous pig's blood scene and lets just say, that didn't end well. There is also our beloved Penelope Featherington who again is bullied by her sisters and mother right up until the end of season three. The bullying of Pen by Cressida Cowper was also agonising for me to watch, especially when she rips Pen's dress in episode one of season three and Eloise does nothing to stop it. It's an arrow to my heart that scene.

I also often return to my girl Elpheba from Wicked. A misunderstood figure simply because she was green and had magical powers. She was not afraid to stand up for the animal community when no one else would. She knew she was different and she embraced those differences to stand against a powerful force who had an army behind him. An army with minions and flying monkeys screeching overhead like locusts waiting to dive down and attack.

I do not pretend to compare myself to Elpheba, I mean I'm no soprano, and I do not think I have magical powers either. I have said consistently that my readings are purely for fun and entertainment purposes only. I do NOT know Nicola and Luke personally. I have never met them. They have no idea who I am. I simply read tarot and give my OPINION. Opinion is NOT fact. I can only read the energy of the cards as they come out. I could be wrong, I am not afraid to say that publicly. I am obviously also a Lukola, so I will admit I probably have some biases. I do try and separate myself from those though and read the cards objectively as I can. If you don't like my posts or content, block me or scroll on past. How are my humble opinions affecting you in your life? I have a small proportion of followers and people who like my readings and that is enough for me.

I have dealt with bullies my entire life. I remember some boys pulling my glasses off when I was five and snapping them in front of me. I have been called the most horrendous names and I'll be honest, high school was tough. But I'm also a strong person as I have endured a lot of crap. I am a mother also and nowadays I don't take much crap. What has always made me different in the views of others is my tenacity and spirit and the fact I will not give up even when the going gets tough. During my teacher training practice, I was paired with the most dreadful person. Lets call her Karen. Very dark energy, but I was also pleasant with her and I tried my best. She was often passive aggressive and made derogatory comments for no reason. Things like this leave me perplexed because I just don't have it in me to be mean to others, especially in real life. I am an empath and whatever energy I give out, I receive it too. It literally hurts me to hurt others.

Anyway, the one day I received a high grade on a teaching observation I had done and Karen said to me that the assessor who had observed me teach must have been having an off day and felt sorry for me. You know sometimes when people say awful things to you and you can't process them properly? This was a moment like that. Until, a while later I realised why she said it. Oh, yes my friends the J word. Karen was as green as Elpheba's face.

Now I'm not saying that the troll who had me mass reported and subsequently had my X account suspended is jealous of me. Not at all, I'm not that big headed. But I did get under her skin somehow, didn't I? So what is it 'matty bee Nicola's wh**e', (I'm sure Nic would love that name by the way - not) what did I do that was so egregious that you set your flying monkeys on me? What seven deadly sin are you conjuring if not envy, is it wrath? Did the call come from higher than you? Or is it hurt pride that that I might be right? Is that what scares you? I mean if I'm sprouting lies and nonsense, what is there to fear from me right? I'm just some nutcase tarot reader on the internet. No threat at all.

Or is it your lust for Nicola that has made you so hateful? In my last blog I wrote about the split within in the fandom. I failed to mention the solo Nicola fans who would hate to see her with either Luke or Jake and it's not because they think she is better off without a man and we should celebrate Nicola's achievements solo, it's because they want Nicola for themselves. It is some messed up stuff in my opinion. Luke being in the background these last few days must be incredibly triggering for both the Jakeholes and the Solo Nic stans. So they come for me and come for me they did indeed. In droves and not only that, they admitted it gleefully all over the X timeline and in their little group chats. How stupid have you got to be to admit this publicly? I also know that if I have received bullying then Nicola and Luke have received it tenfold. is it any wonder they are barely active on social media these days. Keyboard warriors think they are clever hiding behind their screen, but it's just pure cowardice.

There have been others bullied off their social media platforms by these trolls and they know who they are. They went one step further with me and forced me off. It is actually quite funny, because it won't stop me talking. On the contrary, dear Watson. Nothing short of a kamikaze missile is taking me down. I am here to see this through come hell or high water.

What happens to Cressida Cowper at the end of season three of Bridgerton? Spoiler, but she is penniless, unmarried and being shipped off to the country with her aunt while simultaneously Colin and Pen christen their marriage bed. The Wizard is banished from Oz on his hot air balloon. The Dursley's end up losing their home and sanity. What I'm trying to say is, what goes around comes around and small victories can often lead to bigger losses.

[hidden-by-a-trench-coat]

Collecting my angsty thoughts about Tarquin from Lost In Your Eyes and his guilt about everything and putting them here because I NEED to talk about them

SUUUUPER long post after the read more just so you know (oh, and mentions of death, guilt, hallucinations, and angst and all that fun stuff - so keep that in mind before you continue)

Anyway, I love Lost In Your Eyes and have so many thoughts, so here they are transcribed from the discussion on the Discord (practically just me talking to myself but hey. Also, wow, hi, I realize if you're on the Discord you might have no idea who I am because this is the one social I have that's not the same username so I can hide from my IRL friends just in case - anyway, I'm Shadow. Continue forth with this knowledge my friends):

I wrote about it a bit in my fix-it fic, but I love considering how guilty Tarquin must feel about losing his entire crew. That’s 53 people he lost. People he cared about and knew by name - and I imagine him to have cared about every single one of them. Imagining how it would slowly break his spirits over time watching them pass one by one and not being able to do anything about it. And yet he has to ignore his emotions because he has the remaining crew members to care about and to keep alive - he can’t fail them, too (though he soon proves to himself that he very much can over and over and over again, no matter how hard he tries. He can’t understand why he can’t just keep them alive)

By the time there’s only 3 of them, he’s barely keeping himself together. The dread he feels as the number ticks down to 2 remaining isn’t comparable to anything in the world (Imagine him by that crew member's side, desperately trying to hold himself together and stop himself from crying as he silently begs for him to stay with them. Because they're so close to land. And after it doesn't work - because of course it doesn't - he sits there on the floor holding the hand of his second to last remaining crew member, which is already becoming colder by the second - and cries) - they’d been so close to getting even 3 of them to safety, and yet he couldn’t even do that.

And then the last one dies (and to make it worse, he dies right after an act of pure betrayal, taking down his beloved Amanda in the process, which could not have been easy for him to process. They'd been traveling together for 3 years, he probably trusted him the most, and then he does that? Without explanation? It must have hurt so bad) and it’s just him and he hates it. He doesn’t think he deserved to survive as opposed to everyone else. He could have taken someone’s place. He was the captain, he should have put his crew first.

He has nightmares for the rest of his life about every member of his crew at least once. He remembers all of their faces so vividly. They’re begging for help, for him to do something. To save them. And he never can. He's just forced to watch.

It doesn’t help that the same thing happened to Amanda. He finally gets to her and yet, she dies, too. He couldn’t save his crew and he couldn’t save Amanda - the one person in the world that he should be able to save, even if he couldn’t save everyone else. He feels like everyone he grows to care about will befall the terrible fate of death and there’s nothing he can do about it. He blames himself endlessly for her death, wondering if he could have saved her (and the rest of his crew) if he’d just done something differently. He regrets ever even leaving when he could have just stayed with Amanda and nothing would have gone this way

And I feel like he'd be terrified to make any future friendships or connections because he thinks that he's going to end up getting them killed in one way or another - and so he ends up isolating himself. Maybe he deliberately spends another 3 or more years at sea on his own. Maybe it's a way for him to feel like he's making up for their deaths or asking for forgiveness or whatever but it just makes him feel worse in the end

Oh and I imagine he hates sailing now, too but he does it anyway because he feels like he has to. Because if he stops he has to find something else to do and he doesn't know what else he could do (though he's starting to doubt he can even sail, either). Any joy he used to feel from having the wind in his face and the smell of the ocean is gone. Maybe the smell of salt makes him feel sick now

Thinking about Tarquin watching the waves for those 3 other years he goes back out on his own wondering why they haven't consumed him yet. Why they decide to spare him even after everything he's done and how he doesn't deserve their mercy. How he would almost rather the waves be harsh and unforgiving. Maybe the challenge would distract him. Maybe it would make it easier to pretend that surviving the tough storms would be like his crew was forgiving him, even a little bit

(I had a whole thing in my fic about how he feels like he doesn't deserve to sail anymore and that Amanda would be so much better at it because she managed to do his 3 year journey in so much less time. And on her own - and yet he could barely even get 3 people across the ocean alive even after his years of experience. I think if she did somehow survive and they needed to return, he would have stepped down from his position as captain and made her do all of the sailing of the ship feeling as though he wasn't worthy of the position and that she was just so much better at it)

Imagining Tarquin during his time alone at sea hallucinating members of his crew or Amanda - especially Amanda. How much it would hurt him to realize that they were fake. Maybe at some point he's so disoriented for one reason or another he mistakes the hallucination as real and breaks when he realizes it's not. The amount of hope he would feel - however futile or impossible - thinking that someone of his crew managed to survive despite everything. And then it disappears and suddenly he's so terribly alone again

Imagining him in front of the hallucination of Amanda begging for forgiveness. Maybe the hallucination accepts (Amanda would) but maybe it’s more Tarquin’s perception of how he thinks she’d react and so she doesn’t accept and he understands why she wouldn’t. Maybe he even thinks he deserves it. Maybe it even convinces him that Amanda hates him now. Whatever happens I think it would break his spirits even more

Meanwhile, Amanda watching from the afterlife with sadness watching Tarquin’s mental state decline over time and being unable to do anything about it

Actually, imagining her actually being on the boat with him as a ghost. She can’t do anything to support him physically, of course, but she’s trying her best to protect him, hoping that somehow he can sense her there - maybe that’s why his boat is so safe despite everything

Maybe Tarquin actually sees her ghost one time but he doesn’t believe it’s real - because it can’t be - but he talks to her anyways because that’s what he’s done every other time he’s seen her. And she tries so hard to be there for him, trying to comfort him. He can’t feel her touch, but he imagines it anyways. And for the briefest of moments it’s like she’s there again. For that brief moment - nothing more than a second - everything is okay again. And then it’s not. Because she’s not really there.

He can’t hear her desperate attempts to try and get him to just take care of himself

An in a different universe, imagining Tarquin eventually deciding to head home after the events of the play. He realizes he needs to tell all of the families of his crew about how their family members are dead. They probably knew the risks but he still feels terrible thinking about telling them (even if they don’t know his entire crew died). But he feels obligated to tell them, because that was their family member.

Thinking about him realizing he’ll need to tell Amanda’s mother that she’s dead. He knows he can’t wait to do that because that’s her mother. So one of the first things he does when he gets back is goes to Amanda’s house (what was Amanda’s house, he supposes) and knocks on the door. She is not excited to see him and probably asks about Amanda, but he asks to be let in so they can talk because he can’t do this outside and it feels more respectful if they’re both sitting. He’s not very good at hiding his grief - he almost certainly hasn’t been sleeping well - and so she lets him in.

And then he has to tell her. He probably has to force the words out because he doesn’t want to say them. Maybe he’s still in denial, but either way saying them aloud hurts him even more. Amanda’s mother is almost certainly angry at him (because of course she is. She always had this negative impression of him in the first place and this just proves all of her worries - how Amanda should have never been with Tarquin in the first place. Hell, maybe Tarquin even agrees with her now. Because if he hadn’t fallen in love with her, then maybe she would have still been alive. And even if they weren’t together, at least Amanda would have been happy and alive doing something different and with someone else), and he certainly doesn’t make himself sound much better, after all, he’s been blaming himself for her death this entire time. And so he sits there and just takes it as she yells at him, and he probably thinks he deserves it.

That was a lot, but I just have so many thoughts and I need to put them somewhere - thank you so much for reading my crazy collection of thoughts, I hope it didn't hurt too much

[bardic-inspo]

2024 Writing Retrospection

Tagged by the lovely @amoremagnificentbastard 💜

What's been your biggest learning point this past year?

Don't wait until you're done with X to write the Y thing you've been dying to get to. Don't kill your own joy by forcing yourself to earn the fun parts. Write the fun parts now. Write them whenever and however you want to. Start as many things as you want. You don't have to finish everything you write for it to be worthwhile. Some stories are stepping stones for you to find your footing to the things you've wanted to work on, deep down.

How has your writing developed this past year?

I've been steadily working on becoming more concise and building my dialogue skills. I do still like to wax poetic on the tangible aspects (and I often have a lot to say, case in point hehe), but I'm proud with my progress. I think Aeterna Nostalgia in particular is a good example of this, especially compared to other longfics I've written. I think it gives my writing a better balance than it had in the past. I plan to keep working on this!

Good writing habits?

I think I've gotten better at gauging when to hunker down and when to take a break! And about taking time between when I stop editing and when I do my final, pre-posting read-through.

Bad writing habits?

My inner editor never shuts up. I have a love-hate relationship with it, because I do think it makes me write at a painstakingly slow pace, but in some respects, it saves editing later. I do wish I could shush that instinct a bit more.

Favorite thing you wrote?

Both of my Ascended Astarion fics, Aeterna Nostalgia and Blood in the Mortar. I don't see many portrayals of Ascended Astarion in the vein I depicted him (and I pretty much instantly devour those fics anytime I do), and so with these fics, I felt sort of like a kid in a candy shop getting to write the exact sort of thing I wanted to read myself.

Favorite reads?

Oh god, so many! Too many to count!

Since I mentioned not seeing too many Ascended Astarion fics in the flavor of him I typically like to read, I thought I'd call out some amazing writers who've written a dark and devilish A!A who still loves Tav/Durge/his consort. These are fics that, in my opinion, handle the complexity of A!A very well, and don't shy away from his darkness while still honoring all of the elements that make Ascended Astarion very much still Astarion. Many also feature a consort/Tav/durge/main character who can go toe-to-toe with a power-tripping Ascendant.

Sonnet of the Lone Cardinal by @brain-rot-central

Death & His Maiden by @pinkberrytea

Hell & You by @ladymdc

How Far You've Come & No Good Deeds & Magic, Music, and Mazes by Garnett Gibson

By Proxy and Oblivion & Obsession by @alcetryx

(*This is no shade whatsoever to those who write a more corrupted A!A whose affection for Tav is twisted, I just personally prefer the flavor I described. This list is, of course, non-exhaustive, and just features some of the fics I happened to read that I wanna throw more love on!!)

Biggest win?

About a year ago, I was brand new to a new fandom. I hadn't written in ~6 months or so. I'd never written anything besides Fallout fanfic. I had a lot of self-doubt, and felt like probably no one would read anything of mine, anyway. I felt like I was already late to a party where everyone had already made friends/servers/connections and fanon had some well-rooted opinions.

But now here I am, a year later, having made some amazing friends and met so many kind people who inspired me and encouraged me personally and creatively. I'm not self-doubt free, but I feel like I've found a space where I can write what brings me joy, and I get to be giddy about that with others. That's huge to me. That's everything.

Goals for the new year?

To keep working on the things I strove for last year: write what brings me joy, write semi-regularly (3-5 days a week), work towards being concise, and to write lots more Aeterna Nostalgia!

Your favorite words of the year, aka the words you check each chapter for, making sure you didn't repeat them 788 times?

OOOF I have a lot of these hehe. Off the top of my head, some common offenders include breath (like stealing/holding/catching a breath), jaw clenching, and the words 'fleeting', 'briefly', and 'tender'.

What are you excited for in the new year?

Reading more good fic, writing more fic, and getting to be giddy with friends about it!!

Tagging in turn: @electricshoebox, @brain-rot-central, @ladymdc, @dismalzelenka, @wilteddreamsofbaldursgate,

@elinorbard, and @marlowethebard if you wanna do this, no worries if not! 💜

[solar-tl-27]

OH HEY WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT I’M BACK

Yall never get regular posts from me omg you guys I’M SO SORRYYYY

but but but but but ya’ll wont believe it

I have been… DOING ART?! youuuuu heard that right folks i me MYSELF AM d-doing art.

Ok soooo i got a few updates

Life is still incredibly hectic i swear i feel like one of those fanfic writers tha5 post like

Hey sorry it took 8 years i was in a coma! But thankfully that’s not… entirely the case?

I’m on the list for an appointment to see if i have adhd because hearing my friends who are diagnosed and medicated talk about literally MY EXACT ISSUES AND IT HELPING i was like… damm maybe it is the good ol case of audhd … so hopefully hopefully i can get something to help with that!

Uhhh in other news I’m saving for a laptop so i can get into video editing and idk make some animation memes and animatics!

But ofcourse

Ofcourse

I promised art let’s not dwindle any more!

First of all we have some art i did for my story quest for the moon (i did blur out a bit just cuz well idk my audience that well so i’ll be bluring it even though it takes away a bit of context)

Then another piece for that series and then… omg.. no way is that?! Is it?!

Hehe surprise let’s get into the first art!

3 GOT ANOTHER REDESIGN AND MIGUELS’S FIRST FULL ART

Welcome welcome to my sweet sweet sweet baby angel boy Three that’s right he’s been on my mind again so i drew him… kinda like a splash art? If he was in a gacha game very cute very demure (if that meme’s old already… no it’s not)

And then we have THE VILLAIN of quest for the moon

Miguel also our main character ash in the corner hiiii ash

Miguel is basically like the mentor that’s secretly just try to steal your powers type he’s very much an opportunist and i love to draw him and loooove to hate him! This piece is basically foreshadowing extravaganza that will… eventually be clear i swear I promise I PROMISE but for now enjoy the piece it took sooo long

Next art!

This is still a work in progress it’s not done yet but I’m incredibly proud of it soooooo I’m showing it anyway and then we’ll get into the surprise

MEET MY SON ALEXANDER

ohhh my goodness after being in art block for so long it feels so nice to just get a solid redes out i’m soooo happy with how he’s turning out AA that’s my son MY BOY one of my oldest oc’s from so so so so long ago and fun fact i drew both pieces with the exact same brush heheheh the headshot next to him is his brother phoenix

Ok NOW FOR THE SURPRISE

Guess what! That’s right i have actually ACTUALLY started finding my way into the new project reignited

That’s right we got a MAIN CAST now

Now obviously some are.. easy to find the original inspiration for but they won’t be that similar to the redesigns they used to be no no no

Welcome the new crew of project reignited!

Muse, Plume, Thea, Orianne & caelusss

Muse is the main character a human boy who is just trying his best who gets swooped up into helping a dragon girl save her kingdom and the magical dimension while also fighting to preserve his home town!

Plume a dragon girl (plume, bloom you get the gist) who somehow ended up on earth is now tasked to find help to save her people and mother while also discovering the beauty of earth

Thea the daughter of an urban development company ceo and the love interest of muse (did i get myself this invested into a ship that i made it canon here… yes.) she’s a frail girl but is forced to step in as her fathers ideas turn from helpful to greedy and destructive

Orianne Thea and Muse’s friend and the more motherly of the group but faced with difficult circumstances and changes in her life can cause her to lash out as her life is completely steered of its course by magic and her dad remarrying.

Caelus! Muse’s closest friend a pretty chill guy that works at an icecream parlour during the week and helps his family with their market food stand in the weekend, he really wants to be a culinary chef but doesn’t know if he can truly achieve his goals in his hometown.

That’s the gang this will from now on be an original concept and no longer a winx rewrite yes winx will be an inspiration for this work but i do not intend to go the fairy route nor make the world building as big as i had made it in my rewrite… what you will see is me taking my rewritten work as a basis for this story considering i have basically rewritten my version of domino, zenith and solaria from scratch sooooo SWEET BABY BOY CRYOS MY BABY will be making a return later on in this story he’s mine he’s my son my boy i can do with his character whatever i pleaseeee ok ty

That’s the update that’s the post thank you all for enjoying my content and my terrible upload schedule life had beeeeeen hectic ty ty hope ya’ll stay for more and if this was your first post of mine you saw…. Check out my other work pls and thank u

Oki

BYEEEEE

[overwatch]

I never really understood eating disorders. I thought skinny people could just *eat*.

When I was hospitalized in Decemember I went 2 months without eating. Had to get those fun feeding tubes on my neck (jk, I had to get them re-done 3 times and it was one of the worst experiences in the whole finding out I had cancer business).

After I got the whipple surgery I had to re-learn how to eat. And even then, my body would just throw up everything. It was so painful to vomit, but my body always felt relieved of not having to eat.

I am glad to say that right now, not only am I eating again, but I am eating lots! And I love food again! But it was so hard to get here.

Anyway, the point of my post is that I wanted to share what helped me overcome my ED:

Dungeon Meshi / Delicious in Dungeon

I remember forcing myself to watch it and getting slightly nauseoted by the sight of food, even in anime, on the first episode. But I kept on watching and the way Laios and Senshi love food/cooking made me value and admire food again. I think by episode 2 I missed being able to cook myself.

2. Tzuyang

I am going to be honest, I was also ignorant about Mukbang. I thought it was just people forcing themselves to eat large quantities under a timer (there was a famous white youtuber who wasn't very healthy and was doing this for views, which was, regrettably, my introduction to the concept).

After many 'not interested' clicks on tiktoks about food content, somehow the Al Gore Rythm suggested Tzuyang. She's a very sweet person who genuinely loves food and eats because she loves to (so not forcing herself to eat large quantities).

So many times I found myself watching her eat to 'get' hungry and it worked. Even now, on my chemo days when I am not very hungry, I usually play her videos and it helps a ton.

So idk I hope these recommendations can help someone else going through something similar too!

[recurring-polynya]

Writing/Art Update 2.5.2025

So, where we left this last week was that I felt like shit and had decided I needed force myself back into writing. The thing I would like to get done the most is a little in love, because I feel extremely guilty about it not being done. I did a thing I hate doing, which is to read some writing advice. I think it might be a tension issue, so I started there and something I read brought up the five-act play. I have one of those! I said to myself, and then read up on the theory of the five-act play. Unfortunately, my outline, as it stands and is not working, is the very model of a five-act play. I am supposed to be doing falling action at this point. Right now, it's so boring and draggy I want to puke, and I had been trying to think up ways to jazz it up, but, uh. I guess. not. I think maybe my only choice is to trim it down, so at least it's shorter. Intellectually, I do not think this is true, but I feel like I need to throw out the 20k words of act iv I have already written and start again from scratch. The real thing I think I need to do is write a few of the scenes from Act V, and then hopefully it will be easier to get from here to there. I've been planning to do this since Christmas, and I still haven't gotten around to doing it.

What I did instead was to read As You Like It, which is a five-act play and a romantic comedy. I hadn't read a Shakespeare in a long time and it seemed like a fun and inspirational thing to do. Reader, it was not. I mean, it was fine. It's just that, uh, sorry Bill, but it's just not the most inspirational of your works. It was 75% cuckold jokes, and then the main plot got solved by some guy changing his mind off-screen.

That's great, Poly, you say. Did you get back to the fanfic? No. What happened somewhere in the middle of that, while I was being bored of Touchstone's clowning was that I decided I wanted to re-read the two scraps of Academy fic I wrote two summers ago. The first scrap is based on the filler parts of Episode 46. Namely, we see how Renji and Kira meet, but I wanted to write about how Renji and Hinamori meet. Halfway through writing that, though, I got another really weird Academy story idea, so I wrote that up. I had the idea at the time that maybe I would write a number of loosely-related Academy vignettes and publish them together. I was working on something else at the time, though, (the tattoo artist AU maybe?? I don't feel like looking it up) and I decided it was more important to work on that. Anyway, this week, because I felt like it, I started on the b-part of the second Academy vignette. It's 1500 words of Rukia and Renji being insane about each other in a way. I do not foresee publishing it anytime soon, or perhaps, even ever. I would have to finish and post the first vignette first, and then come up with some more, which seems unlikely to happen (but who knows??) In theory, I could post this on its own, but it really hinges on the Kira->Hinamori->Renji->Rukia non-situationship being incredibly messy and yet simultaneously extremely repressed (there should be more arrows in there, but I don't feel like making a whole-ass diagram). Perhaps there is an audience for this beyond myself, but I just...I don't know, I feel like someone is going to be like "this is so weird they would not do this" and I don't have the energy in me to face that.

Anyway. It's fine. I can noodle around on stuff that's just for me and never finish it. It's good enough to keep my brain from capsizing.

I've also still be drawing nearly every day, so good job to me for that. I will try to do something that passes for an actual piece of art in February, I promise.

[kerubimcrepin]

An Afterword: talking about Welsh and Shedar

While we are done with the movie and the show, it cannot be understated, just how much we still have to cover. Both in terms of canon, and things out of the realm of canon.

And this includes interviews, and things that never got made.

[source]

The thing that often bothers me, is that the creator of the franchise that my most favorite cartoon of all time is a part of, probably despises said cartoon.

I can't not think about that, when I see Simone and other Aux Tresors characters reused in Wakfu season 4 as background character assets, or when I think about how every show except Aux Tresors has had an OST released, or how the only Aux Tresors companion in Waven is Lou. Though I know, logically speaking, that it's more likely because it's just not very popular.

Funnily enough, I personally, and rather selfishly, think that Welsh & Shedar's demise is probably the greatest fortune to happen to this franchise. What was one of the worst things to ever happen to Tot was one of my greatest fortunes. (I would not care about Joris as a character, had Kerubim never existed. The cartoon, and their relationship, mean a lot to me, for personal reasons.)

To Tot, the thing that I love the very most has cannibalized one of his life's dreams. Starting with the resources, and ending with character designs themselves. Even the character design of a fucking cat??

As an artist myself, I can't even begin to imagine the horror of that, and yet... I feel nothing but joy. It's quite weird, how life works.

The good news is that Welsh and Shedar has been resurrected by Ankama (watch as it gets a full artbook and an OST release before Aux Tresors, an 11 year show that still doesn't have those, yes I am bitter), so, it is mostly water under the bridge. We will hopefully get to enjoy both, in a couple of years.

[source]

But I feel like it's very likely, that a lot of Aux Tresors and the way Tot may feel about it, was influenced by this disaster, and I couldn't begin this post without addressing that.

So, what was, or could be in the future, Welsh and Shedar?

A plot summary from the youtube trailer's description, just as filled with Tot's overwhelming sadness as everything else relating to W&S's cancellation, man, goes as follows: "Here is the trailer for an animated series project launched in 2012 which has very little chance of arriving on your screens. The story is that of Welsh, a young boy forced to fight for an inheritance he never knew existed: that of the throne of the Kingdom of Bonta. Ankama’s “animation” department has plenty of ideas behind its graphics tablets: series, special episodes, films, our brains are always buzzing! However, not all projects are lucky enough to reach you…"

So basically, it was/is/will be a story about a young man, or boy, who finds out he is the next in line for Bonta's throne, and is taken there by Joris. How all of this happens is rather murky, AKA:

Anyway,

Tot has reported that his idea for this series was quite similar to the anime "Ranking of Kings", which I had sadly not watched. Make of that what you will.

When does Welsh & Shedar take place?

Firstly, I will say that, because of how much Tot loves this series, for years it was in a state of vague canonicity. AKA "it did likely happen, but it has never been produced so we don't know WHAT it is, that happened there. There sure was a guy named Welsh at some point."

What points to this is 1. Khan's old man design still being canon,

And 2. This usage of Welsh & Shedar-era Joris in an official timeline. It says that Joris would have been 60 years old, in this series.

Obviously, this timeline is subject to change, if/when Welsh & Shedar becomes real, and there are a lot of things we don't know!

Some curiosities...

Funnily enough, there exists this image, which was leaked by a French site when Aux Tresors began airing, — mistakenly used as promo for the series.

It could be depicting some other draft of W&S where Joris is a kid. Or, it could be depicting something between Aux Tresors and W&S, from when Ankama had to make something new up to take W&S's place.

It yet again makes me yearn for an Aux Tresors art book. Because seriously. What does this even mean.

Anyway thank you france for killing W&S, making Aux Tresors (the PEAK.... the SLAY.....) real, and now resurrecting W&S. We truly do live in the kindest timeline 🙏

[lucystark12]

GUYS holy shit i am literally obsessed with this app good god because your theories have given me faith in good writing again AHH just like AHH hello!?!

here’s what is cannon to me about stranger things season five as of three days ago when i made my tumblr account (this is some stuff i riffed on from other theories and some things i came up with by myself):

- vecna has been singling out will from the beginning because of his connection to joyce when he was still henry creel as seen in the stranger things play

- vecna won’t be using will for the same purpose he did max and chrissy and others, he’ll be using him to turn into a second version of him, because it was henry who got sent into the upside down randomly as a little kid and got powers. will was kidnapped by henry and will be getting powers.

- vecna is going to drive will fucking insane. SO many reasons to believe this. he isn’t even going to be remotely like himself anymore, he will be so far gone. he’s not going to be evil, just like a shell of what he once was

- some of this insane driving will be done during episode four when we get the little will flashbacks.

- the reason will wont succumb to vecna is because he’s got a community of love and support. however, joyce and jonathan and el and the party won’t be quite enough to do it- it’s going to be byler that really gets will out of his trance. it’s going to be essentially a true love’s kiss situation because that’s another thing henry never had

- said kiss or confession will be done “on the other side” (a.k.a the upside down) per what was said in the bowie lyric in heroes. heroes acoustic always plays when mike loses will, and i have serious reason to believe that the actual bowie version of the song will play when we get the confession

- the painting is literally the most important part of mike and will’s entire season because the truth about it is going force mike to confront the situation in a deliberate, intentional way that he’s never had to before because before this point he’s never had will say to him specifically anything about his feelings

- as far as stancy vs jancy goes, i’d prefer jancy of course because i adore my girl nancy (look at my pfp for goodness sake), but i’m starting to think stancy is more likely. jonathan spent most of season four a little bit dumbed down by the writers unfortunately. i think they’re doing this to try and get our heads as the viewers around him not being there. i can see jonathan’s death as another way for vecna to fuck with will, and then there maybe being some kind of reconciliation plot between nancy and steve at the end of the season. i don’t know nearly as much about stancy/jancy as i do byler/mileven, so if anybody has a different perspective lmk!

- i saw a post saying alone by heart and listen to your heart by roxette will play in in this season and i kid you not both of those have been two of my favorite songs since i was like nine (emphasis on alone by heart) so like i would literally die

anyways these theories have just made me more excited for season five so it’s like omg

[swanimagines]

Hi :)

I just want to say that I love your work and am so sorry about your mental health (I can sympathise❤️). I know it is much, much easier said than done, but please try and give yourself as much grace as you can - with both writing and life.

With writing, it is ok to fail with it, and I know you want to beat yourself up with it - but experimentation is where you can find things about your style you'd never know.

I'm sorry if I come across as preachy at all, but I wish you well and, once again, adore your work ❤️❤️

I'm so sorry it took this long to reply, I was at my mum's and didn't really check Tumblr during staying there.

But thank you for your comforting words, I'm trying not to beat myself up over not being able to write right now. I have a lot going on irl*, so I guess that also affects my mood and why I feel so stressed about this. Usually, writing is my outlet for these situations, when I'm stressed and have my head full of thoughts, writing makes me calm down. But now I just can't get anything out, no matter what or how I try. I got a suggestion to clear out my inbox a while ago when I last made a post about this, but the problem isn't my requests, I have LOADS of ideas for my requests, and I'm excited to write them, but I just can't get it written the way I wanna get it written. I'm advised to write my own ideas. They have the same problem as my requests. I'm advised to write whatever I can think of. The moment I try, my head just empties itself.

"Hmm what to write, can't think of anything, well if I force myself to write: Horses are green and they eat marshmallows. Uh. I don't know, I just can't think of anything sensible. Even writing this is kinda a struggle because I just? Can't write the way I'd want to, these aren't the thoughts I'd want to write but I already forgot what I was going to write, I thought of that like 10 seconds ago and already forgot. And not to mention that writing this is boring af. I'd much rather to clean a bathroom, bleh."

And it goes on and on and on like that.

*Looooong story and I don't have patience to write it all especially when most of it irritates me a lot anyway, let's just say I was promised something a year ago to happen soon after London but I've had to wait til now because of stuff not dependant on me (the person who would grant me a permission was on a sick leave til July and insists on seeing me on 5th of November before giving the permission and I want to strangle her for that, because I've been forced to wait for 6 extra months because of her sick leave), now it's finally happening next week but I'm still kinda furious about it because a lot of things have been ruined/delayed/cancelled because of it being so late, and I'm terrified this will negatively affect next March. It wouldn't affect it if it happened when I was promised it will happen, but unless some stuff will happen instead attached to this thing that's happening, I'm forced to change my plans for March a quite a bit (mainly meaning I wouldn't be able to get many photo OPs and would have to choose the most important people I want to get a photo OP with, and whose autographs I want) and it would crush me because it's my last convention ever with Shadow and Bone cast and I'll be mopey after that anyway, so a possibility that I may not be able to gather as many memories as I intended at first, and it's because THINGS DON'T WORK like they should and I'm forced to pay for shit service like this... yeah. I'm sure you understand why it's extremely annoying and unfair.

About the "some stuff", I'm HIGHLY doubtful about it because basically it'd mean a bunch of extra money for me to spend every month and I just can't believe that's possible before the institute who's paying confirms it. Everyone around me says it's true and my calculations are 100% correct etc, but like? I just can't believe that before they themselves confirm it. If that's indeed true, then everything is fine and I'll forgive them all their sins because I'd be able to buy more than what my initial plans included. But again, I highly HIGHLY doubt that because that just can't be true unless I'm living in some kind of fever dream, not with this government 😅

[rocketrouquine]

So I watched the 2 last episodes of Loki (including the finale) and well I have thoughts.

All in all, except for the beginning and the last two episodes, I really thought it was not as good as the first one. (Probably because Majors as Timely was excruciating, I hate when actors are trying stuff like this, it feels forced, it doesn’t work, I wanted to punch him every time he was opening his mouth) BUT …lokius. Yeah let’s talk about it.

It’s crazy to me how in the first season I was all for sylki because I thought their relationship and feelings were really well done and realised (whereas I saw what the mobius shippers saw but thought that it wasn’t really there there) BUT in the second season, I felt absolutely nothing between Loki and Sylvie. There was no more chemistry at all (it was like it never existed in the first place, it was bizarre) and even the actress playing Sylvie played it like a sibling or a good friend kind of fed up, just want to be left alone, not missing him for a second. And Loki pining for her but like a nerd is pining for a cheerleader in a bad teen movie (like boy, you’re not obligated to love her, you know), like you don’t even understand why except for the fact that it was here (emphasis on the was)

NOW Mobius and Loki in the second season ??? BAM 💥 Like sheesh everything : chemistry, banter, touch, exchanged looks,protectiveness, an ease like they are really soulmates. You could feel it all in every single one of their exchanges, it really was like watching a romcom where the protagonist fails to see what is in front of him and I was getting frustrated each time he was going all misty eyes for her, I was like « come on man let her go, we don’t fucking care about her anymore !! » Then, the finale…. The scene with Loki coming to see Don at his place with all the tension of a « is he here for this or ? What should I do? » gay panic, with Loki fucking putting his hair back and taking a breath before going to see him, like WHAT ?! That’s not what a friend does before seeing one other !!! You know what you are doing, so commit for fuck’s sake. But well… then they did (sort of) with the end of the finale. And it gutted me.

The moment with Sylvie and Mobius looking at him through the window… we know you put her there because it would have been impossible to brush it off if it was just Mobius juxtaposed with Loki’s « for you » but we know. I mean the last exchange with Sylvie at Don’s place before Mobius is saying « let time pass » (gu-tted I tell you). You can see that Sylvie is like « whatever » and Mobius is devastated. Also the shot of him in the dialogue was just all Loki’s colors green and yellow (hers was in a normal sunlight, his backlit) That is not an accident, to have these colors you have to plan it the day of the shoot and enhance it in color grading during post. This was a choice.

Anyway, I am not a sylki shipper anymore (and I even question why I ever was, after seeing the second season : I’ll probably cut myself some slack if I do a rewatch of season 1 because it was well executed at the time) and I’m diving in the pits of despair of Lokius. These fuckers.

[pfffsfic]

Post-Fall Falls False Starts- Chapter 6: Wish Upon a Triangle

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

"Cosplaying him didn't work, or at least it hasn't yet," Sarah mused. "I was gonna go and try to fall asleep by the instructions for summoning him, but it turns out I've only ever seen here and never actually been here and I don't know my way around at all. Embarrassing, right? I just fell asleep in a random cave and hoped that would work."

Rob blinked absently.

"Thing is, I dunno when we are. Like, has he already been summoned? If I did it first, would that lead to some kind of freaky paradox? Would I be on the wrong side of time law? I guess I also want him to come to me because that's more satisfying than just brute-forcing it and making him show up, but is that too selfish of me, or is it just the right level of selfish?"

"Uh-"

"Besides! Imagine I summon him and he asks why, and I say, oh! I dunno. I just wanted to talk! That would make me seem so desperate! Ugh, but maybe desperation can be cool in sort of a yandere type of way? Is that how I want him to see me? As some- some- fangirl? Well, maybe I am, but not for him! This is purely a narrative thing! Ugh! How the heck do I get him to notice me without making it seem like I want him to notice me? Rob, any ideas?"

Rob scrunched his eye closed. He felt like a web browser with 52 tabs open. Minutes earlier, Sarah had led him back to camp, sat him down, and promised to explain everything. She had asked him where to start, he had said, 'wherever you think is best', and she had replied, 'okay, I'll start in the middle'.

"Uh, you want me to tell you how to meet a demon?"

"Not just any demon. We're talking about-"

"I know, you've said Bill like fifteen times! I have no clue who he even is or why you wanna meet him so bad. We're done with the middle and the end- start at the beginning. Can you do that?"

"The beginning. Okay, okay, sure, I can do that. I'm more of an in medias res type of girl, myself, but linear storytelling has its benefits-"

"Get to the point."

"Chill out! I'm getting there! Okay, okay, so! Our story begins in 2012."

"Maybe start a little closer to the present."

"No can do. You want the whole story, right? Besides, 2012 is the present right now, at least probably. The timeline hasn't been confirmed- whatever."

Rob almost scoffed, but found himself nodding and burying his chin in his palm.

"Okay, so, the year is 2012, and the media landscape is a pretty great place for a company called- wait. No, no, let me start from the veeeeery beginning. The year is 1901. Flora and Elias Disney are in Chicago, Illinois, about to bring their fourth child into the world..."

The shadows grew longer, and Sarah's story meandered every which way, and at one point she retrieved a flashlight from who-knows-where and held it under her chin despite the lack of anything spooky in her ramblings. When she finished, the first stars of the night had appeared in the evening sky above the clearing. Rob found himself staring at them instead of paying attention.

"Anyways," said Sarah, taking a breath so deep she momentarily turned inside out (had she not been breathing for the hours it took her to tell the story?) "Gravity Falls. That's where we are."

He sat up, rubbed his eye, and thought for a moment, 'what a waste of time'. And then, as if by a truck, he felt the weight all of the information his subconscious brain had picked up on while he zoned out.

"Wait," he said, holding his hands up. "You're telling me this place where we are exists in the form of a fictional cartoon back home? We are inside a story you've already seen? Right now?"

He knew this place was also a work of fiction to the real world, but he had never once considered that it might be fiction to his world as well. What did that mean? Surely that had really huge implications hovering just outside of his cognitive reach! Hindsight was 20/20! And now, for better or worse, he was no longer the capable one. Upstaged. By a fangirl, no less. Typical. Hold on, he wondered, what if this went both ways? What if somebody recognized him as a fictional character? That would be bad for his whole monster shtick that he had been fantasizing about on the down-low since his encounter with that human guy. He'd need to know for sure! Sarah was nodding.

"Do you know if there's an internet in this universe?" Rob asked. His phone had been dead since long before he left Elmore, what with the lack of a usable power grid.

"Sure there is! After all, in season 2, episode 2-" Sarah paused, noticing Rob's dead, empty gaze, and got to the point quickly. "Yes, the internet exists here. Why? Oh, don't tell me..."

Sarah was blushing and squishing her cheeks now and Rob felt it was best for his peace of mind to not think about why. He had in his grasp a chance at thriving in this new world, armed with someone knowledgable about it, and he could not jeopardize that by giving the poor girl an existential crisis over her own nonexistence. He had come to think of himself as the solemn guardian of forbidden knowledge- a man (or, when it counted, kid) burdened with the truth and the responsibility associated with that truth. That had been the ethos behind his convoluted rescue plan for the people of Elmore Junior High. Well, that and it seemed like the kind of plan a professional supervillain ought to make, and, provided there were a lack of supervillains in the real world, he wanted his rather spotted career to go out with a real bang.

"Sarah, I just wanted to ask- no hard feelings, right?"

"Hard feelings? About you not listening to me? Oh, trust me, I get that all the time."

"No! I meant about the whole Superintendent Evil thing!"

"That? That was a long time ago."

"It was two weeks ago."

"Two weeks is a long time in the apocalypse. Look, don't worry about it, okay? Human AUs are totally classic! I was just thinking, hmmm- if this Evil guy is actually evil, Gumball and Darwin will take care of him in about 11 minutes."

That comment might as well have been an arrow through Rob's nonexistent heart.

"Would it cheer you up if you got to say, 'I told you so'?"

He had wanted to say that before, but now there was very little fight left in him.

"I told you so," Rob replied in a weak little voice...

...That grew stronger as something bubbled up inside of him.

"I told you so! I TOLD YOU SO!" He got to his feet, gesturing wildly, as his pent-up rage came to the surface. "Nobody listened, and we could be in the real world, but instead I'm stuck here with a crazy weirdo girl who's trying to summon a demon! On purpose! And we have no food, no internet, no way home, heck, no home to return to. It's your fault. It's all of your faults! The one time I try and do something good, fate comes along and slaps me in the face for it! UUUGH!"

He smacked his head on a nearby tree and fell backwards into the dirt, clutching it in pain and glitching out for a second. Why was it that every time he tried to lash out in anger he ended up hurting himself? ...Well, in this specific instance, he wasn't sure what he thought would happen.

"What did you think would happen?" Sarah asked, peering over him.

"Shut up," he mumbled, rolling over to lay face-down in the dirt.

"Do you need ice?"

"I know that if I say yes, you're gonna-"

She flopped down next to him on her back so that they were cheek-to-cheek, her iciness soothing his headache a little. He reluctantly let it happen. He hadn't meant to fall asleep, but something about the whole situation lulled him away from the waking world and into an uneasy dream.

It was the forest, yes, just as it had been before he fell asleep, only Sarah was absent and so were the stars above. He noticed moments later that the floor underfoot was the familiar- if heavily cracked- tile floor of Elmore Junior High, covered in the dirt that lined the forest floor in the waking world, with a familiar hole several feet from him leading down into the void. It wasn't growing. A moment from his memory forever frozen in time. Something drew him towards the hole and he discovered first that its surface rippled like water and second that he could see his reflection in it.

The reflection shifted and changed with the surface of the liquid static. It melted into his cute (he liked to think so) look from long before he had been chewed up and spit out, and then into how he'd looked right before hitching a ride out of the void the first time, and then into Superintendent Evil's visage, and then into an odd human form he didn't recognize- and then into a yellow, strangely-shaped form he definitely didn't recognize.

It blinked.

Five seconds later, Rob processed what exactly was wrong with that, and six seconds later, one of the reflection's black hands reached past the static surface and latched onto the edge of the hole, pulling its entire triangular body out and into the air right in front of Rob's face. The thing put its hands on what passed for its hips, ascended further into the sky, and turned a gaze with an undercurrent of frustration to Rob, who blinked and suddenly righted himself in confusion. Something stirred in the back of his mind, something that would have helped clarify the situation had he been more lucid.

"Hey, kid! Want a once-in-ten-billion-lifetimes opportunity?" came a shrill voice from everywhere, though Rob gathered the thing was the one speaking by how its body flashed. "You're about to hear me say something I have never said before! Listen up- I'll only say it once- this is the kind of thing you're gonna remember for the rest of your life, whether you want to or not!"

Happiness, maybe? Annoyance? Anger? It was hard to tell. Either way, Rob found his words at the exact same time that the yellow thing did, and as it turned out, they were the exact same words.

"Who the heck are you?"

[tirfpikachu]

you don't have to post this or reply to this but i just want to say that i am saddened by this whole gold star discourse right now. nothing about being a lesbian is easy, and its not easy at all when you also don't have an ex-bf to point it out to whenever people get suspicious about you. i get it and i would never call that life experience a privilege, because homosexuality is not a privilege to have even in today's world. i am not a gold star and i have made peace with the fact that i have done so many bad things against myself, because i refused to believe that i wasn't sexually attracted to males at all, and thought i was being a stuck up bitch or didn't tried hard enough. i only have myself to blame for all the trauma i put myself through, but that doesn't mean lesbians with a different life than me had it any easier or are "luckier" than me. anyway hope you have a good rest of your week and please don't let this online drama get to you too much!

thank you so much!! i think lesbian experiences can be so radically different and it's batshit insane to see ppl say gold stars, aka lesbians who have never been with boys/men, are privileged. usually we're a super easier target for lesbophobes from an early age and are shunned, like i was. it's not any easier, it's difficult in a different way. all lesbians have their unique struggles and lack of specific struggles. we shouldn't place one experience above the other!

i hope in the future with growing lesbian acceptance ALL or at least most future lesbians someday will be gold stars, none of us will force ourselves to be with men or waste time on them bc ppl tell us to "just give it a try" or bc we're scared of being lesbians. gold stardom should be an activism goal, we should tell young folks they do NOT need to give the opposite gender a try if they feel any discomfort or do it solely to please cishet society or feel more "valid" as lesbians. it's okay to not be with a boy/man ever!!!

[loth-creatures]

Knowing how much Ahsoka struggled to be Sabine's master --- would she get advice from Kanan when she visits Lothal? Most likely giant wolf to giant wolf??

Wellll see I kinda ditched the entire Jedi!Sabine narrative. Listen if they HAD to go that direction, I believe they could have done it well but they really did not (to put it generously), and while I've considered trying to do it better myself, at the end of the day I wish they just hadn't done that at all.

Tldr: Ahsoka and Kanan probably will have a giant wolf to giant wolf conversation but idk if it'll be about looking out for Sabine or searching for Ezra or what

So this is my tentative and unrefined interpretation of Ahsoka and Sabine's relationship for SWW Ahsoka, aka roughly how I imagined it would be like before that damn show ever came out (sorry in advance this spiraled all over the place. I meant to elaborate a little bit and then I couldn't stop. I tried to keep it concise but. There's a lot to unpack that I didn't expect to have to unpack in order to get to the point lol)

First and foremost Sabine isn't fucking Force-sensitive. Ahsoka teaches her a lot about the Jedi, and continues her lightsaber training, and I think Jedi teachings and excercises can have a lot of value to ordinary people! But she's not trying to be a Jedi. Ahsoka does feel mentorly instincts towards Sabine, partly bc she knows what she's going through as a very young veteren and genocide survivor. Partly bc she does feel the need to pass her knowledge on to someone. Partly bc deep down Ahsoka is pretty damn lonely too, and Sabine is very family-shaped. And also because wolfwalkers stick together.

They call her Ahsoka's 'practice padawan' as a joke. Huyang is like. You really ought to find a Padawan one of these days. And Ahsoka's like. Why would I need a Padawan I have Sabine. And Huyang is like. Listen I'm very happy to have Sabine with us but you ought to get a real Padawan.

But how could Ahsoka ever take on a student while she's still wrangling with whether or not she wants to be a Jedi? Which, they never actually show her making a decision on that. Or rather there's really no transition between "I am no Jedi" and whatever she's got going on in the show which. Long story short, I hated it. Ass writing. In my personal opinion.

I think I’m just gonna lean into the idea that she feels like she can't truly be a Jedi whether she wants to or not bc she was trained to be a soldier instead, combined with the fear of Anakin's darkness manifesting in herself, distrust of his training, etc. Up until the point where she decides to put Anakin behind her for good and trust in her own experiences, during her WBW adventure (which goes way differently in my head but I will elaborate on that later. Maybe.) But for the purposes of this au, she doesn't even commit to being a Jedi again until dying for the 3rd(?) time and honestly maybe she still doesn't. Maybe it takes all the way to wet puppy Shin dropping in her lap that she sees her path as a Jedi path. Idk.

Ahsoka's arc is not an aspect of the story I expected to address in depth myself so idk how much I'm gonna get into it within the comic itself. It's hard to go over every issue bc lothwolfwalkers is just an anthology series adapting small chunks of the timeline that I find work well with the wolfwalking, and I'm trying not to make more work for myself than I have to, bc I already have plenty. Rewrite is maybe a strong word, when I'm just cherry picking what I liked from the ahsoka show and adjusting what I didn't like in a way that keeps the overall plot intact for simplicity sake. I will eventually write an official detailed ahsoka-from-my-head post, but the comics will just be little scenes based on that.

Anyway,

Regarding Sabine and Ahsoka's falling out. It doesn’t happen. In fact I think Ahsoka will take Sabine under her wing after the fall of Mandalore and they just immediately start looking for Ezra in the unknown regions, bc Sabine is like hey I have nothing left here can we go look for my brother now. They don't find anything. Eventually Ahsoka gets wrapped up in other business and Sabine ends up back on Lothal depressed as fuck (despite Kanan, Hera, and Zeb's best efforts to be there for her, infinitely more than what is depicted in the show) until Ahsoka finds the map and shows up for round 2. Or smth like that.

Side note: I am going to declare the Wrens MIA not dead. Because I hate hate hate that they were unceremoniously killed off screen and wasted the way they were. I guess I could just unkill them completely but well I am a sucker for that angst and something about the devastation of that reveal seared it so deep in my head that I can't imagine the story without it now (thanks for that Dave. Fuck you Dave.) So uh, they're trapped on Mandalore with those other survivors from Mando S3. After Sabine's already left for Peridea they manage to finally get off Mandalore due to S3 events and track down Hera and are like WHERE IS SABINE. Cue Clan Wren Ghost Crew team up to get their fucking kids back. Though everyone will probably make it back on their own before they figure out a way to hop galaxies.

[bonesandthebees]

You don’t have to answer this but I’ve always been hugely inspired by your writing and I’ve always wondered how you keep yourself motivated?

Not just on the bigger fics but even the one-shots. What keeps you going? My biggest struggle lately has been motivation after going through a bit of a mental health struggle and as I’ve been trying to come out of it, I feel like my writing is no longer as good as it used to be. I used to write all the time and it felt like I could turn anything into content but now it just feels like everything I write goes nowhere.

I feel like maybe I’m just putting too much pressure on myself to put out content rather than just enjoying it like I used to but I’ve felt a lot of guilt from not putting anything out in so long.

Anyways like I said, you absolutely don’t have to answer this but I thought I’d throw it out there to see if you had any advice you’d want to share, it would be hugely appreciated.

this is a really good question! unfortunately my answer I think only really works for me and not most people. part of the reason I write so much is because writing is my escape from whatever is going on in my life that's stressing me out. the busier I am, the more I want to write. and when I don't have the inspiration/energy to write for too long, my mental health gets worse as a result.

truthfully, a lot of the time it's easier for me to process a fictional character's emotions than my own. so when my mental health is bad or I'm getting too sucked into my own head, writing isn't just something I do for the hell of it. I need it to keep me from spiraling too deeply into my own head. (of course this doesn't always work and it depends on what I'm writing about, but this is true for the most part)

so for me, the way I keep my motivation up is that I know I'm going to feel like shit if I don't write. I find joy in plunging myself into fictional worlds and characters and, as I said, I use it as my escape. while I know not everyone uses writing as an escape like I do, the one bit of advice I think you might be able to take from me is to try and find the joy in it. don't force yourself to write something you don't want to. don't write something just because you think it's what other people want to see.

I completely understand the pressure to write for content rather than your own enjoyment, especially when you have unfinished works. but you have to remind yourself you're not obligated to update anything. you're writing fanfiction for free. you don't owe it to anyone.

and I also totally get feeling like your writing is worse now, and while I doubt that's true, even if it is, you gotta push through. the only way you're going to get back in the groove of writing is by doing it.

honestly if I have any recommendation for you, write something to post anonymously. sure, you're not updating whatever you have ongoing, but again you don't owe it to anyone. sometimes you just need to get back in the saddle. maybe you can use this as an opportunity to write an idea you weren't sure your audience would react well to. or maybe you can just use this to start a project you feel like you won't finish, but want to put out in the world anyway. I've done this before and it definitely helps to get me back in the writing mindset. you don't have to feel embarrassed for posting this other thing instead of your ongoing wips on main, because no one will know it's you.

I hope this helps! I know it's not easy letting go of the pressure and tbh it never leaves entirely, but just try to find joy in writing for writing's sake rather than content.