#I just like having sideblogs so much. it's so integral to how I post

[grassbreads]

alright well I've seen some people talking about pillowfort again now that half of the internet is imploding, so here's your reminder that I'm always very happy to share invites with anyone curious about joining

[ashmp3]

closing #heyteo 💌

i want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart who's ever tagged me in their posts! i can't put it into words how grateful i am for having such talented, sweet people around me that wanted to share their beautiful creations with me. i cherish them all and i hope yapping in my tags conveyed that. Honestly i could talk about them in great lengths (and mostly i did...) so this is why i feel like i think its right time to wrap this up - i feel bad when i can't sit down, talk my ass off and give my full attention to each and every single post. Sadly i don't think its possible for me to do it now which is why i am writing all this, with a tear in my eye honestly. I checked and saw i have 925 (and counting!) posts in this tag and first of all - that is CRAZY! I am so grateful you have no idea. I really, really cherished this little corner of the internet that i called my own so this is all bittersweet but i think it's for the best! Lastly, i don't plan on going anywhere just yet so of COURSE feel free to tag me in anything you think i shouldn't miss (especially Jeonghan and your selfies... of course) - you already know a block of tags will be coming your way! And for being my amazingly talented friends i wrote little thank-you notes for everyone that made #heyteo one of the best decisions i made on tumblr 💌 I appreciate you all SO so so so much!

@jeonwonwoo -> my angel and the reason i even made this tag miss zaynab! We would be here for weeks if i started talking about how thankful i am for your existence. My no1 source of Jeonghan gifs, someone who perfectly matches my freak - thank you the MOST! (And ofc you can still expect me to go on tangents under your gifs i mean... that's what this blog is all about!) Love you!🩷🫶🏼

@kimsuyeon -> my talented lili, with the most wonderful gifs that are just so YOU! Always so wonderfully curated and colored, your idol + era collection is for the HERstory books if you ask me. Thank you for sharing them with all of us. i am so happy to have you around and i am thankful that you have been one of Thee contributors to #heyteo 🫶🏼🩷

@pink-vacancy -> i think it wouldn't be wrong to call you my yuna and mina supplier 🤭 cherry yuna is for the history books and you are the biggest contributor to that fact! thank you so much for always tagging me and making my tag a tad bit spicier and sexier with the gorgeous, stunning women you gif! love you and appreciate you SO much 💌🍒🫶🏼

@scouped -> MAX you are such an integral part of #heyteo through your many sideblogs and i am always so so sooo grateful for it! i love everyone but of course i love svt just a tad bit more so seeing your sets always made me so giddy and excited 🫶🏼 again, one of the people that really pushed me to make this tag in the first place so i want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. love you!!! 💖🌟

@vcrnons -> j!!! my dear sweet darling J that wanted to kill me on more than one occasion. thank you so much for tagging me and sorry for all the things i said under your gifs its like they hypnotize me... And ofc i am excited to be annoying under your tags in the future 🫶🏼💖💖💖

@scoupsies -> my naya funniest sweetest most talented darling... You've been thee highlight of my user tag - and i promise i will still be yapping under your gifs like how could i not?! you best believe i will be checking you blog so i don't miss anything because well that would just be devastating for me. thank you so much for tagging me i love you & appreciate you SO much!!! 🫶🏼🩷💌

@neonsbian -> my wayv supplier and source of updates 🤭 thank you so much vinnie, for always tagging me in everything so far & i always enjoyed seeing my twin yangyang in the tag (for better or worse) 💖

@no1boa -> lulu! absolute master of gifs thank you SO much for always tagging me in your dreamy, beautiful creations. honestly i will miss them SO much... so expect me to go through your blog like a morning newspapers and look for new sets 🙂‍↕️🫶🏼🤍

@taeiltual -> i always say this in the tags but every single company would benefit from a BexTM master class on editing! Thank you so much for sharing your works and thank your for tagging me 🤍🫶🏼🌟

@facethesuns -> em your posts always make me feel like ground is shaking... Thank you so much for tagging me in your stuff & of course i am excited to keep yapping in the tags in the future 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️💖

@ningtual -> MY SUNWOO SUPPLIER oh henna this is for the better or worse because my blood pressure rises whenever i see him... thank you for tagging me in your beautiful aespa edits (and nunulino...) love you mwah mwah!!! 🫶🏼🩷

@talksaxy -> even though we haven't been mutuals for a long time, whenever you would tag me in sungchan you best believe i would kick my feet and get giddy... thank you so much for adding a beautiful fawn touch to my tag! & ofc expect me to be in your tags either way, and yeah this kinda reads as a threat but you can't blame me really can't you... thank you sooo much. mwah! 🫶🏼🌟💖

@28reas0ns -> oh wwill first of all i want to say i love your vision and how we both sometimes make similar connections... You have such an eye for the aesthetics and it was such an honor to seen every post you made so thank you SO much for tagging me it truly meant so much to me 🫶🏼💖🤍💖🤍

@isabelleadjani -> first of all thank you for using it for its intended purposes (selfies!!!). and second of all thank you for tagging me in your beautiful, gorgeous gifs. You always go one level up and its so evident in the way you present your sets. I would still love to get tagged in your selfies of course thats a no brainer really 🫶🏼 Thank you so much & i really appreciate your presence on here 🤍🤍🤍

@junmail -> oh its been such a delight to see all the junhui in my tag (along with others of course) so thank you SO much for tagging me and sharing your beautiful gif sets with me (and everyone else)🫶🏼💖

@doyeons -> BELLA!!! first of all. thank you for sungah and seohyun gifs that was kinda legendry don't you agree. Thank you for amplifying frommy gifs in my tag they made me so crazy but also... i am very thankful 🙂‍↕️ And you best believe i will still be under your posts like a pathetic little guy. Kiss!!! 🫶🏼💖

@eightshotamericano -> elly my local jeonghan enthusiast i want to thank you for tagging me in your posts i really enjoyed them always 💖 and i appreciate you for thinking of me, love you!🥹🫶🏼

@seonghwasblr -> I know there wasn't many but i still want to send my virtual thank you card for including me in your beautiful gifs of jeonghan my darling maja i really appreciate it!🫶🏼💖

@jeonwon-wonwoo -> maddie thank you for tagging me in your lessera gifs back in the beginning of the year - it was so sweet of you! 🫶🏼💖 again, a huge thank you to everyone who’s tagged me in their posts. it truly means a lot, and I’m so grateful for each and every one of you who’s taken the time to include me. I appreciate you all more than words can express 🥹🥹🥹🫶🏼🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍

[procrastinatorproject]

(Procrastinated) Home Projects

So, I have been meaning to blog more, but I find it really difficult. I have so many half-finished blog posts, mapping things, a whole new sideblog for Star Trek: La Sirena... So many things that never see the light of day because I'm a perfectionist and want everything to be perfect before putting it out into the world. But because perfection is impossible and I run out of steam before satisfying my exacting standards, I end up never posting anything at all.

I did a little bit of daily blogging in December, with my writing accountability, but then I got Covid and uni got crazy and I couldn't integrate the daily writing into my schedule properly. So that peetered out fairly quickly. But I really want to get better at Just Writing/Blogging Things, so I'm gonna make a conscious effort! And I'm gonna start with something fairly low-stakes (i.e. not my beloved fandom things that I hang so much of my heart on that it's much more difficult to overcome the perfectionist tendencies)

Introducing:

The Procrastinator's Home Improvement Blogging Adventures

For the first time in at least a decade, I have some time ahead of me in which I won't have anything I "should be doing". No term papers to write, no exams to study for, no job I'm behind on work for... I want to dedicate most of that free time to rest, recovery, and fandom stuff, but I also want to tackle a few home improvement projects that have been bouncing around the back of my brain for a good long while.

In the autumn of 2021, I started a Konmari clean of my flat. I got pretty far, actually, but then my health declined dramatically and I had to abandon it. A few days ago, I re-read the first Marie Kondo book and made a plan to take another run at this. It's not going as quickly as I might have hoped, but part of the project of the next few weeks is to not have such high expectations of myself. So this is one place where I can practice that - and chronical the journey a bit.

The second Big Project is that I'm getting a new kitchen. I'll go into detail in a later post, but my flat isn't rented with a kitchen, so if I want new appliances and furniture (which I really do), I have to organize those myself. And this summer/autumn, it's finally happening! After many, many months of thinking and dreaming and saying I'll do it but never actually sitting down and Doing The Thing.

I was at IKEA yesterday and things are finally actually in motion! Lots to do and decide, still, and a lot of stuff will require long wait times for deliveries and things. So we'll see how that goes - and I'll try to blog about it a bit here!

(Blåhaj-san sends his greetings from the IKEA shelf!)

And finally, there are a bunch of smaller things, like repairs to my laptop and Lory, my vespa, some sewing projects... All very good candidates for "just write about it instead of fretting for weeks and months!"

So, that's the idea for the next few weeks. Try to get into a habit of Just Writing Things, even if they're too long and could have been phrased better and should have been proofread and aren't as Coherent and Polished and Perfect as part of me desperately wants them to be.

Maybe this'll go well, or it'll end up being a couple of posts and then nothing else, we'll see. But it's definitely going to be an adventure, and I'm quite excited about that! Here's to a new project - and potentially a little less procrastination :D

[chiclet-go-boom]

i always feel a little weird when the "if you're a ffxiv blog, please let me know, i need somebody to follow!" cries go around.

i mean, technically, yes? ffxiv is one of my favorite things and I do post about it a lot. I have over 29,000 screenshots sitting on my hard drive waiting for me to sort them into some semblance of order and do some pruning. save to CD and nail to a wall? I dunno. there's a lot of them.

i post my takes on shadowbringers and endwalker every now and again, answer and forward a few polls.

but i don't talk or post pictures of my Warrior, i avoid roleplaying for the most part for reasons that are interesting only to me and pretty much accept canon as presented, as what's inside the box fulfills me nicely so i don't have to shop elsewhere.

sideblogs are for those who don't spend their days keeping organized at work so my ACTUAL feed is full of pretty dresses, pretty art, fanfic occasionally and the odd political and/or snarky statement i strongly agree with. and ffxiv now and then.

its a hodge-podge, really. right now i'm on a warframe kick because Meatball tripped into the deep end and the chatter is now full of questions like "chiclet, how come i die so often when i've got more health than the other guy who's ripping up the landscape in great swathes of destruction?" the answer is mods. so. many. mods.

i used to care about blog integrity. that lasted about two months back at the beginning and now i'm on top of my trash pile like everybody else. how do we even FIND each other in all this?

i am at work a half hour early because that's how my week has gone (and next week as well) and tumblr, you at least fill my time. am i a ffxiv blog? or am i just leaning that way because that's how i self identify even if its not truly reflected in reality?

[kendochick-moor]

Hello Moor!

I’m back again with writing questions, any help or thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated - especially because I aspire to reach your level of writing.

I’ve been trying to plan a few different things that are longer in nature (as in multi chapter fics) but I always end up hating my plot points or characterizations or something else integral to the process and it stops me from writing.

What do you do when you encounter this? Do you write and hope you end up liking it? Do you start over completely?? Do you replan until you like it, and if so HOW DO YOU DO THAT?

I’ve got an idea I like and I really want to continue with it, but everything I write planning wise I hate. And I’m ready to pull out my hair. So any suggestions would help.

Also, I just wanted to let you thanks to your help I’ve actually start writing!!! I posted two pieces so far on my sideblog @shethewitchqueen and I’ve gotten some good feedback!

@sakura-magic!!! I'm so happy for you!! (Also, I'm now following your writing blog!)

I sympathise with you on the hating-plot-points, and/or getting-stuck. It 100% happens to me, too, in spite (or perhaps because) of my planning, hahaha :)

With Respect To (WRT) your questions: 1) What do you do when you encounter this? 2) Do you write and hope you end up liking it? 3) Do you start over completely?? 4a) Do you replan until you like it, 4b) and if so HOW DO YOU DO THAT?

Oooof, it SUCKS when we get stuck, eh? I plan heavily for my multi-chaptered fics, and yet still run into walls sometimes. For me, whether I back up/rework, restart, or re-work the outline, it depends on a number of factors.

if I'm less than 5,000 words into a new chapter or new story, more often than not, I'll scrap what I have and start over; keep what I have in a separate doc in case it fits in with something else later, but I cut my losses and move on. "Pop the Top" 's final chapter? Has been re-written about 4-5 times now. Other gift-fics I've written for friends have similarly gone through 3-4, sometimes 5-6 entire re-writes--and that's after I'd usually written about 3,500 - 4,000 words.

if I'm in the middle of a multi-chaptered story and I get 'stuck', I take a look at my outline and figure out why the scene or chapter isn't working. Did I forget something? Did I try to fit too much in? Does it suck/is it boring? Do I need to take another angle or another character's POV? Am I bored/stress? Do I need to up the ante/increase consequences to make it more interesting? Am I burnt out and putting too much stress/pressure on myself to be perfect/amazing and did I stop enjoying what I was writing? Do I feel uninspired and forced to write just to put out an update?

what I will usually do, if re-writing isn't feasible (for a number of reasons), is I go back to my outline and look at what needs to happen between my current 'stuck' scene and the ending I want. I'm at the last chapter: what needs to happen? To get to that pre-ending part, what needs to happen? To get to the pre-pre-ending, what must happen? I work backwards from the end so I know what has to happen in order to get there; and then I look again at my scene and figure out where it fits and what it's missing (whether it's context, background, more information, less information, etc.) and how to make it fit in with the story to get to the point I need it to be.

Working backwards and then forwards again (in your outline, then in your chapters) can be tedious; and I do sometimes still go back and re-write after a beta has looked at a particular chapter and advised that it needs work. But sometimes you just need to figure out how to fit it back in with what you want by putting in those connecting scenes. If it still isn't working, look at your outline, look at what you had written prior to the troublesome scene, and decide what you could change that would work.

Sometimes it's something that isn't connecting between the scenes: Scene X doesn't lead nicely from Scene W to Scene Y. So you need to add another scene (or two, or three) to smoothe it out and bring it back into line again. :)

One thing I will say; don't force chapters unless you absolutely have to. For many of us, it comes out in our writing when we're writing something we don't like/don't want to, hahaha! So, when you do write those in-betweener chapters, or the connecting chapters to bring your troublesome scene back to the rest of the story, take a step back and have a sense of humour and have fun writing something about them. If you decide to cut them later, no worries--but enjoying yourself writing will often help you naturally find ways of weaving everything back together in a nice way. Our creativity does that for us--we just need to let it lead, sometimes. ;)

I do re-plan my outlines from time to time, as I do stray from them; and working from an outline isn't always as fun/freeing as freehanding; but I recommend starting small (doing 3-5 chapter multi-chapter fics) to get used to your writing voice and planning, and get a feel for how close you tend to stick to your outlines. It could be that you use the outline process loosely--which is awesome! That way your story flows with your natural writing instincts. It could be that your outline just needs a second set of eyes to help you find some of those loose ends before you get too deep into it--that's awesome! You can talk the story over with a friend or two, brainstorm, hack at the outline and imagine scenes and make notes and then fill it in with more notes as you go, to help keep you on track!

We all work differently, and that's a good thing--it makes our stories stronger and diverse. If you're a bit stuck with your outline, see if you can bounce a few ideas around with a beta or a friend and see what they think. :) @aijo-inu, @sariasprincy, @onemoreword-writesmore, @airmug and @sarcastic-mommy have been INCREDIBLY wonderful friends and betas for me for my Naruto fics! They help me come up with new ideas, fixes, better paths for the plot, more thoroughly thought-out progressions for conflicts, etc., and my fics have benefited greatly from their advice and input.

Sometimes, though… ya just gotta put it down for a few days and get outside for a walk or a cup of hot tea in the rain, let your mind and imagination wander, and see what jumps it back into gear. :)

If all else fails, do something that scares you. (NOTE: NOT SOMETHING DANGEROUS, NECESSARILY. THERE'S A DIFFERENCE.) The adrenaline and sense of achievement/pride will jog your endorphins and brain and get all the lights sparking.

Finally, I sincerely apologize that it has taken me a bit of time to get back to you. If you have more questions, or would like to talk through any of this, let me know! We can have a Discord call, if that works.

Cheers!

[varietydivision]

Post “Integration,” 3 years later

Almost exactly three years ago, I made a post discussing what we perceived as a moment of being “fully” integrated.  Part of it was healing to the point that our primary fronters seemed to slowly dwindle and mix until we became who I am, and the more internal-support folks became quieter and quieter until it was just me.

Now, that being said, we have had new formations over time, though due to a healthier approach to our mental health, we’ve almost immediately integrated those individuals as I can handle most of the stressors they formed from.  It’s had the additional effect of making it clear that, while I’ve been ultimately trying to function fully on my own, that doesn’t mean others aren’t still there.  The core fronters that formed me?  Those are still “integrated” into who I am.  But support folks, like Jae and Katt, or the younger alters, like Silv (little) and Teddy (teen) are still around, and it’s been a bit like the founding period of the blog again where I’ve started to reacknowledge and understand where our system is at.

I’m posting this to share what one form of healing can look like.  I am not a mental health professional giving advice.  My experiences are not the end-all-be-all, and do not have to reflect every other person with DID/OSDD out there.  But, I hope that, for anyone who is afraid of recovery because you are afraid of integration, I can help y’all see it isn’t as scary.

My system taught me how to have close relationship with trust again, how to love, how to care for myself and others, and they are still with me to remind me of those things while not letting me isolate inwards again.  We’ve managed to get back to college, are pursuing a career we never thought could be possible, and are solidly in the process of our physical gender transition.  NONE of these things would have been possible where it not for my system and the work we’ve put into growing and healing, and we’re so grateful for that.

We may use this site a tiny bit more (most likely sideblogs for folks who don’t otherwise really interact externally), and are open to questions, but as a heads up, we won’t disclose too much personal details.

(Additionally, please know we are over 25, and will not engage with minors other than answering questions publicly.  Also, again, I can’t state enough that YOUR healing does not have to look like mine.  Your healing could be maintaining 2-5 fronters and a whole slew of internal support.  Your healing could make y’all functionally seem to be a singlet.  That’s not for me or the internet to decide.)

[retrogradedreaming]

okay so i went and read your pinned post on your oc blog and i wanna hear more about gingersnap book 👀 what are the characters like? what's the world like? i'm bad at coming up with questions so just share anything you want skjhgsk

sfksdjfld grace this made my morning <3 also don't worry about being bad at questions, I sent the ask about your OCs to you before 6am when my eyes had been open a grand total of five minutes, so you're good 😂

btw before i get into it, if anyone wants to see my wips, characters, thoughts about either, and other original work, i post more of that on my wip sideblog @slippersandsmoke

gingersnap book is the oldest project I have that I'm still (sort of) working on (since...2015? 2016? i can't remember when Liam and Elliott first showed up). it's a little complicated for me because very early on, the characters started as like side OCs in a collab fic sort of thing with my ex, and then these characters developed more completely into their own thing until I took them out of the fandom world where they started and just made them their own story.

the world is just our world and the story is set in the general area of where I live. that might change, though, because one of the characters supposedly lives in his family's vacation house and no one has a vacation house here. then again, maybe he can just move, idk, I've been taking a break from working on the main story this year, so I haven't worked out a lot of the details around the setting/reasons why one of the main characters lives there. which also means that anything I tell you now is subject to change later.

the story follows Liam and Elliott, who had a long-term relationship, broke up, and then come back together through a series of unfortunate coincidences and events. the characters are all in their mid-20s (y'know, to reflect that i was in my mid-20s when I made them), and the whole story is kind of like an exploration of the mid-20s experience of "what the fuck am I doing with my life?"

since this is getting long, I'm putting the specific character info for the four main characters I think about under the cut

Liam: He's a manager at an upscale restaurant in the area, he's from London (I think) and he's...hm. Not very nice? He tries to be, and he's reliable, practical, and gets shit done, but he doesn't do feelings. He moved to [the fictional version of where I live] for school, where he met Elliott. He's really into theatre, and he prefers directing to acting (though he's quite capable at both).

Elliott: Elliott lives in western MA, and he went to school for art. He loves to draw and paint, and he works at a bookstore and as an art teacher. He's very opposite Liam in that he enjoys his alone time, but he'd much rather enjoy time with other people and he has no problem being likable and fitting in with others.

Will: He works with Liam at the restaurant, and he bounces between jobs to pay for his apartment and help his mom support/care for his younger siblings. He has a German shepherd named Milo, and he's kind of a work hard play hard type of person, where he works a LOT but he knows how to have a good time. He's involved with Jasper, but they both have their own commitment issues, so they're mostly friends with benefits who are inextricably connected.

Jasper: He's a bartender, and he's had a rough life. He met Will in high school and spent most of his time at Will's house, so he essentially integrated into their family until Will's dad died when they were in college (Will dropped out after that because he needed to work). And that's when Jasper kind of left the picture for a while, since he thought his struggles would make it worse for them. But Jasper himself is really sweet, super outgoing, and he's the kind of person that people naturally look after because he's such a disaster that everyone's like "should probably watch that guy." But he means well, and he loves Will despite his commitment issues.

[poryphoria]

made a project nexus au where they're all dragons for NO discernable reason, but im having SO MUCH FUN WITH IT

it's gonna have its own lore & plot n shit and maybe ill make a sideblog for it if im feeling spicy??? or just a madcom sideblog in general LOL

BENEATH THE CUT IS ALL THE DESIGNS SO FAR + SOME INFO ABOUT THEIR ROLE IN THE STORY & PARTICULAR SPECIES OF DRAGON!! i added a cut bc there's a lot n i felt itd make the post obnoxiously long otherwise JFHFKRBRJR

phobos' species [nicknamed scorpions] are a sort of parasitoid dragon who's venom is able to rewire and reprogram the minds of others to provide for them- often they're more of a nuisance than anything and are consumed by their thralls once they inevitably break free of the envenomating. but phobos is different, somehow... he's larger, tougher, and carrying things out on a much greater scale than any of his kind have ever managed. Nexus City is a veritable termite mound of kidnapped dragons who would've otherwise lived solitary lives- divided into three sectors governed by his closest aides, every dragon in that mound is working towards... something for him, though what that is remains to be seen. whatever it is can't possibly be good...

dr. hoffnar's species [nicknamed bats] originate from caves deep underground, covered in sensory tendrils that work in place of their now vestigial eyes. they use their tail tips to lure in prey, posing them as a tasty spider and dancing them along the rocks, while the rest of them lurks just out of sight, waiting for their meal to get close enough.... Dr. H doesn't seem to remember where he came from, but he knows at least it was never so bright. his eyes are hopeless as far as vision goes- the tinted glasses he wears are merely to save him the headache from so much light input at a time!

dr. crackpot originates from a volcanic island species [nicknamed vultures]- predominantly scavengers with a nasty toxic bite and long, lanky limbs for scurrying and climbing! the ruff on their chests is made to be plucked from so they have something soft to line their nests with :] the man himself holds the prestigious award for Phobos Suckup Of The Year & couldn't care less where he came from- all he knows is that he gets to do new and exciting work in his district, including a fascinating new project that could potentially make a dragon immortal! how fascinating!!! i'm sure this could have no grave repercussions in the future!!! mind the rumors about his species being cannibalistic and his cap being made of dragonleather- nothing but silly rumors!!!!!

dr. christoff came from a dying species [nicknamed tundras] who grow more and more elusive as the years wear on. they're too heavy to fly- their wings have been repurposed for combat, outfitted with deadly claws at the tips for slashing and swatting! christoff is endlessly puzzled with his origins- why there are gaps in his memories, why no one in the City looks like him, and why no one's able to tell him any of these things- especially the Director!!! he tries his best to concern himself with leading his district, but he can't help but question Phobos' integrity... he's always promising Nexus City works towards the betterment of all dragons, but in what manner? perhaps it's better not to pry- curiosity did kill the cat, after all!

2B, otherwise referred to as doc hails from a grazer species endemic to savannahs and grasslands [nicknamed rhinos]. their thick hides make for excellent protection from the sharpest of fangs, and their sturdy builds ensure they're always the last dragon standing- however, their limbs are far more limited in their range of motion than a typical dragon, so their wings often substitute as hands. 2B leads a ragtag organization of dragons dedicated to putting a stop to Phobos and his antics before he does irreversible damage to their world- as someone who was once under his influence and lived to tell the tale of his escape, he has a rather personal vendetta against the guy.

sanford's species [nicknamed beetles] sport thick, chitinous armor and a deadly chemical weapon in their throats- not quite fire, but a highly volatile chemical irritant that burns just as bad! their elytron protect their wings, which are thin and prone to tearing, and they're some of the more social species! sanford's a fairly easygoing dragon- quick with a joke or a few words of reassurance, for someone who's expertise lay with hand making and rigging explosives, he's got quite a knack for diffusing tension- especially comes in handy working with people like doc and hank!

deimos's species [nicknamed basilisks] hail from tropical rainforests and come in a dazzling array of colors, with prehensile tails and a deadly venom that can be spat or injected. they're not true fliers- they evolved from wyverns like hoffnar and hank(citation needed). their wings became a frontal set of legs to capitalize on clinging and climbing, and the leftover membrane is used for gliding between treetops! deimos is enthusiastic to a fault at times- he'd probably leap directly into an active volcano if sanford weren't around to scruff him back. he's crafty and resourceful, good with locks and pickpocketing, and especially skilled in getting away with it.

and last but not least, Hank. what's a story without a protagonist? Hank is... unlike any documented dragon species, living or extinct. he appears to be adapted for cave dwelling- covered head to toe in fine sensory hairs and heat pits, very few things can stay hidden from him, living or otherwise. 2B found him deep underground, jawless, yet feverishly scraping the meat off the bones of a desiccated dragon carcass with the remaining teeth in his head. he's a force to be reckoned with, and acts entirely of his own agency- though he gets bored easily, and finds taking orders from doc just interesting enough to stick around- mostly because all of his orders involve killin' in some capacity, which he's quite talented in doing. half of why doc keeps him employed is for fear of what might happen were he left entirely to his own devices- a weapon of mass destruction is better off in your hands than anyone else's, no?

thaaaat's a wrap! cogration if you made it this far!!!! hopefully i get to do more things with this au in the future :] maybe even make a fangame for it??? idk dawg!!!!

[thecirculararchive]

hey i personally disagree with that take you made, but i know the context and im not upset or disappointed or going to bitch about it like a lot of others. youre human. youre not infallible. sometimes what you say may come across as bad and thats okay. you dont deserve to be dogpiled and harassed for it. every single person whos been on your ass has probably made mistakes like that before, mistakes that caused someone harm. youre not a bad person for it and im sorry that people are acting like you are.

also, the idea that broad, blanket statements like "some traumagens are endo" isn't fakeclaiming. you arent going up to someone and going "hey, youre not actually traumagenic youre endogenic". youre saying its probably possible for someone to be wrong about what they experience.

i dont share my syscourse takes publically, so im going to go with ones from the rest of the system. non-disordered plurals to us are not systems, system is a term specfically meant for DD plurality. but those experiences are still real even if we dont believe they should be compared. in the same way a singlet could believe they are a system before realising theyre wrong, a non-DD instance of plurality could believe that they have a DD. It could happen.

the only reason that agreeing with that ask was hurtful is because a lot of traumagenic systems will jump at any chance to deny their trauma. like tim, one of our hosts, made an entire sideblog and asked a bunch of people their thoughts on whether or not we seem traumagenic. literally no one else in system agreed with him, but he was having a lot if self doubt. that self doubt came from the idea that "your trauma wasnt traumatic enough to be traumagenic". it actually came from the "stressgenic" label and him going "ok what if-" but the base idea is still the same.

if someone is a system, the trauma they went through was enough to be a system. it was enough to disrupt the integration of their egostates in childhood, that means it was traumatic. that is something we believe in and something that is so comforting to know (and also part of why we feel non-DD plurality should be seperate from systems but thats not the point)

but i still dont think you were wrong for agreeing, not necessarily. just because with the context you were having a really shitty time and you just wanted that asker to not get their satisfaction of "ooh evil ableist person who thinks some endos are actually traumagen doesnt believe in a 2 way street huh". and youre definitely not a bad person.

i hope that you have a good day and that this isn't getting to you too much

I think the last thing I’ll post on this topic. Thank you, Anon. This helped me greatly.

I try not to get TOO personal on this blog anymore (which is sort of messed up, given that this blog was made as a personal blog for me to connect to other systems and just record the things happening to me), but I want to address what this all did to me. The following is gonna be a trauma dump, so feel free to completely ignore this. I just have a lot of thoughts and want to give context and get them out on the blog that was SUPPOSED to be for these things.

Tw for sui ideation, sui bait, trauma dump, anxiety, etc.

I made a hurtful comment to some. I can see now how it could be hurtful, and I’m analyzing how this take and others could be. I’m willing to take the criticism and move on with better actions.

I’ve also almost thrown up due to the anxiety about this. I’ve been having issues opening tumblr without panicking. I’ve been needing to deep breathing each time I post.

Syscourse shouldn’t do that to someone. People shouldn’t do that to people. I understand how it can be hurtful, but every time I so much at glance at system things now, I see another vaguepost about how I’m bad, how I’m hurting everyone, how I’m a disappointment, etc etc. Even posting this ask is already making me cry.

When I posted the original long post, I was suicidal. I regularly am. It’s an issue I deal with daily. This time around, it was the worst I’ve been in a long time. I contemplated hanging myself at work. And that same day, someone reblogged my bait ask (an ask that I was too terrified not to respond to, due to the harassment I was getting, and would continue to get unless I responded.) They reblogged the ask, called the response disgusting (and I couldn’t understand why) and immediately I get anon hate. I was told to kill myself, and god, I wanted to. Why was I such a failure? Why did everything I say hurt people now? I had support on anon messages, but Everytime I look in. The syscourse tags, it’s people talking about how I’m horrible and transphobic and just.

I gotta stop on that topic because my heart is racing again.

And none of this happened with *discord*. I’m in a discord where we discussed my post. And it was a CIVIL DISCUSSION. Nobody insulted me - they just shared why people (including themselves) could be angry. They also heard me out! Some people agreed and some people didn’t. Nobody harassed me, nobody told me I should be dead. It opened my eyes a lot to how it was hurtful WITHOUT making my ideation even worse.

All this is to say… I think I may leave tumblr. Not forever. But when I can’t post a hypothetical ask for a situation that has never come up in my life, with an angry short response, but everyone else can post an enormous long angry response about how I’m a disappointment and a failure? There’s something wrong there. And I need to take a step back from syscourse before it kills me.

Thank you if you read this far. I’ve been doing a lot of introspection since OAS responded to me. I also apologize for the gendered insult - I use bitch interchangeably for anyone, as bitch and bastard are distinctly different connotations to me. I also did not know OAS’s pronouns. I apologize for insulting OAS at all - I let my anger get the best of me again.

I’m stepping away. Not forever. But I need to take care of myself.

[romance-club-daily]

FAQ ~Blog Owner~

~I've added the ones you sent here and others I've added on my own.

About me:

You can call me Fe or Nanda.

21 years old officially but 80 on my back.

I'm from Brazil, so portuguese is my main language (Also if you're Brazilian or speak portuguese, you can send me asks in this language too).

What do I like:

Eat my favorite foods, also I create stories that will never get off the paper, I watch Titans 🙈 (and I draw too, I usually post my drawings on the main blog. It's mostly DC comics fanart).

MBTI type:

This is a funny story. My friend has been obsessed with them for the past few months, so I got curious and read a little about and identified with INTP. So I decided to take the test and I got INFP 🤡 Then my friend said that the site I made the test was unreliable and sent me another one, which I got ISFP 🤡🤡 So the only constancy is that I'm xxFP (but making it clear, I believe this is just for people to understand themselves better and not a definitive answer about personality or anything like that, I think we are subjects able to change).

Favorite candle scent:

Orange! My aunt and I went shopping for Christmas things one year and I found these in the store, I never stopped to think about scented candles before, but these really made an impression on me.

The trait you value most in other people?

I think integrity, patience and being a good listener. There were three, but I think they are a great combo 🤭

Favorite quote:

I don't have a ultimate favorite quote, but sometimes I stumbled in some great ones here on Tumblr like this one: Admit you were wrong. Apologize. Understand that you’re fallible. You make mistakes. You hurt people. Apologize. That’s growth; understanding you did something wrong and working towards making things right".

Did I mention that I don't have a good memory? 🙈

Favorite colours?

Blue, yellow, black and white!

About the sideblog:

How many mods are there on the blog?

Just me 🤗

Why did you create it?

More because there wasn't much English content on tumblr about RC when I started playing. And I rarely log into Reddit so I tried to create content to see if people showed interest about the game.

What do you post exactly?

A little bit of everything, memes, news that come out on Facebook/Twitter about the game, I used to post gifsets (per story and chapters) but I stopped because it was too exhausting for me and the lack of time. And what else comes up ahead, I think.

What kind of ask do you accept?

I generally accept most of them. I just don't accept it when I'm sure what's written isn't true, hate for other blogs, and any disrespect to people. And other bizarre things that might come up out there.

Your blog is NSFW?

Nope, It's mostly SFW. I say mostly because sometimes I reblog the CGs from the game and there's some calientes scenes. But generally is under the cut. And I'll tag some old gifsets I have so you won't see it by mistake or something.

Can I DM you?

Yup!

When did you start playing RC?

In the second half of 2019, I think 🤔

~If you have another question, you can ask me right away, I'll update this post as things come up.

[seashq]

not trying to be rude but how are new members supposed to build connections if everyone is more focused on their already formed plots and ships? makes the whole experience disheartening.

hello !! it's ok, i know you're not being rude. i will say that this is one of the most welcoming and accepting groups i've ever been a part of, and i have been told the same by dozens of members we have had over the last few months. despite being open and super active since very early april, we have never become a cliquey group. many members come and go, also. most of the og members have moved on due to real life, etc. i do genuinely believe that anyone who puts in the effort to plot with others, post starters, and reply to open starters will fit in and develop their muse here. as we always suggest, newbies should always post an open starter once they get in the rp. it really really helps build those early connections for you. i’m not trying to be rude either, but saying “everyone” is focused on existing connections or ships is genuinely an unfair characterization of this rp we have poured so much love and care into, both as members and admins. i see new members join all the time and quickly become an integral part of the group, so i promise you can too ! several of the most active members on our dash right now only joined under 1-2 weeks ago. i also only know of about 3-4 actual ships/couples in this group, and we will never tell people they cant write with their ship parter ! but the ones i've seen, they either continue to write with others or we message them privately and kindly tell them that they are more suited for indie rp, not a group. we have removed members for this very reason before. we really do try to break up any hint of bubble rping here. when new here, it can seem like someone is focusing on a certain connection, but that really usually is just because those people write a lot of back and forth and are more active than some others. also, for me personally, i have two muses that i always offer for new plots to newbies with ! i see many members offer the same in the ooc sideblog any time we get newbies. i think anyone feeling left out should abandon any shyness and message/im people to plot, especially the established connections you have on the student page in your student slot !!!

all that being said, as admins with full time jobs our eyes are not always on the rp, so if you see certain people being cliquey or bubble rping, feel free to im us privately and we will address those members before it becomes a big issue.

EXISTING MEMBERS: please do not get comfortable and just write with the same people over and over. you are required in this rp to branch out and write with new members when they join. know that if you don't, you will be removed after a warning. thanks !

[skamofcolor]

What do you think of SKAM España S4 so far?

Let me start by saying that this is not attacking fans, especially Muslim fans and/or fans of color, who are genuinely enjoying this season. I’m actually really glad that if folks are relating to what’s happening or feel seen by it. No group is a monolith, after all, and I think it’s great if people are really feeling it. That means that, regardless of what opposing opinions might be, that the team has landed on something that has touched some folks positively. That’s always a good thing.

With that being said - personally I’m not really feeling positively about the season overall. I thought it started out pretty strongly but along the way has already reached the same issues that past Sana seasons have had: the season doesn’t really feel like it’s about Amira, but about using her as a lens to focus on the plots of side characters. In episodes 1 & 2, the focus felt split even between Amira and Norandro, which I found frustrating. Especially because, contextually, Eskam is usally better at linking side characters’ arcs to the main plotline. Here, I just don’t think it was explicitly connected enough and I felt many clips should’ve been Extra Content and not in Amira’s POV. 

I have a feeling this ask is specifically about the Kasim storyline as well, so I’ll be brief and just say I actively hate the direction they went with it, and I think presenting his story as they have was unoriginal, cheap, and used for shock value. But it’s more than that. I find myself similarly frustrated that this sideplot is actually not super related to Amira or her story at all. As episode 3 is winding down and we’re going into episode 4, I think it’s safe to presume that a lot of the clips were just about Kasim’s story (and, since he’s getting the extra content clips, Lucas). I find myself feeling resigned that the same things will happen in episodes 5 & 6 and 7 & 8, where I presume primary focus will be on Cris and Joana, Viri and Hugo, and/or Eva and Jorge. 

Because of all this, I feel like Amira���s actual storyline is disjointed and borderline unclear, since so much focus is on everyone around her. Going in, I assumed the theme was really about her being “caught between two worlds.” This seemed to be really front and center in the first episode, which I really raved about on my Skam sideblog and thought was new and refreshing. I could see a lot of different plot threads unfolding and while being inextricable from the main theme. However, it seems like that’s... not actually what’s happening? Instead, the only running plot specifically for Amira seems to be her blossoming relationship with Dani and using her faith as the major “will they/won’t they?” block. In spite of the whitewashing, I did come into the season tentatively hopeful about what might happen and was a fanon Danmira fan (I talked about it on this blog too). However... as the season unfolds I’m not gripped by Danmira either as a ship or as the main plotline. I wish there was more depth to it, and I’m concerned that the show won’t have the time to really get into what it would mean for Amira to either accept and date Dani as he is or carry through with a revert storyline for Dani. I really wish there was more to Amira’s plot than the issue of her dating someone non-Muslim. I def see the value and importance of this storyline! And again, I’m glad for people that see that struggle from their lives and feel represented. But I just don’t see what else there is to the season and that’s disappointing to me. 

There are a lot of clips this season that I’m really enjoying, such as every Las Labass clip and all of the clips with Amira’s parents. I feel like these scenes have really been the heart of the season and would love to see there be more focus on them and the different potential plot points that can come from it. For example, we haven’t really gotten much more in terms of the Las Labass / Girl Squad integration debate. I thought that was a perfect clip to really point out Amira’s own uncomfortableness and the GS’s white fragility/privilege and how they more or less ignore Amira, but that hasn’t really come up yet anymore at all. And to me, it does feel like part of the reason it hasn’t been central now is because the story is taking on too much in terms of wrapping up (or starting) plotlines for the side characters. It feels like all of the strongest clips and the ones I personally am the most interested in ultimately have nothing to do with Amira’s life or how her story will continue to unfold. 

Despite how well (or not) they pulled them off, at least Sana, Imane, and Amira M. felt more full as mains because they had other things happening in their lives and (until the end episodes) the main focus was always on them. This season so far feels less like a Skam season and more of an ensemble cast. It’s disappointing because in past seasons - even in S3 where Viri was a second main character - the focus has solely been on the main. It’s really upsetting to me that Eskam has decided to spend so much time dedicated to everyone but Amira. It may be in her POV, but it really doesn’t feel like her season at all to me.

This is all a summary of my very personal opinion though. If folks want to tag us in their meta, I’d also be happy to reblog posts specifically by PoC and/or Muslim folks with the many, many different opinions people are having on this season. It’s been a polarizing season to say the least. 

- mod Jennifer 

[puppyenergy]

What do you think of resonance within the DID community? For example, a well known system had a major integration and within the same week like twenty+ systems also had a major integration whereas the general consensus on and understanding of integration had been completely different the previous week

Hi anon! This is an awesome question. I have a lot of thoughts on this topic. So much, actually, this ended up being an extremely long post. Sorry for the big chunk of everyone’s dash I just took up here.

I don’t necessarily think looking solely at the DID community is the right answer here. I think to find the answer as to why this sort of phenomenon happens, you have to look at social media influencers. I’m not the most knowledgeable person about this kind of stuff, but lately I’ve been watching a lot of videos about how influencers can impact their audience.

Influencers actually become influencers because they have formed an emotional connection with their fans. They are essentially a celebrity to their audience’s eyes, but as an influencer, there is an emotional connection with the audience so they don’t feel as distant as real celebrities do. The audience might relate to them on a personal level and feel like the influencer understands them even if they haven’t actually met. This all establishes a position of power for the influencer over the audience.

In some videos I watched, I learned how influencers can easily manipulate their own audience; whether they intend for it or not. I watched how some influencers would feel like someone had wronged them, then would outright ask their fans to attack that person. As a result, all the fans would harass this person. However, more often I’d see influencers who didn’t outright ask their fans to attack someone. But they wouldn’t say “I don’t condone harassment, do not attack anyone.” And as a result, their fans still attacked the person who had “wronged” them.

There’s multiple reasons that factor into why stuff like this happens. Things such as the audience member’s age, what the situation itself was, how the influencer presented it, what kind of information they revealed about the other person, etc. People might feel like they love their favorite influencer so much they just want to help them, or they might want to help ‘cancel’ the person who wronged them so the influencer notices them, or they might just be pissed off that someone they care about has been wronged, or they might feel like the influencer was ‘subtly’ telling them to attack the person even if they didn’t outright say it. But either way, the situation was brought to their computer screen.

It really gave a lot of perspective into how some people miss the memo when they go from just a person on the internet to social media influencer, and they end up hurting not only themself but also so many others. Being an influencer is being a role model. To give a bit of personal perspective: Even though I think this is in no way comparable to youtube, I had a sideblog where I put more trauma-related content and vent art on. But suddenly it got 5k+ followers out of nowhere and it no longer felt like a personal diary to me. I suddenly realized that was 5k+ people (presumably also trauma survivors) that I was now effecting, and I did NOT want to put anti-recovery or unhealthy shit on their dash. I was now a role model to them, so I shifted all the content on that blog to pro-recovery and I started posting all my vents to a private blog.

In the long run, it actually felt a lot healthier for myself, as well.

So now what happens if the social media influencer makes their content around DID? Obviously, people with DID are going to be the majority of their fanbase, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. Because the DID/OSDD community is a minority group. We fit under the umbrella of disability, and the even smaller umbrella of mental illness, and the even tinier umbrella of DID/OSDD. Now imagine being an influencer for that tiny tiny umbrella.

In my honest opinion, I feel like the impact influencers have on this community is much stronger in a way where it even effects people who aren’t fans of this influencer. Sometimes, it pretty much effects the entire online DID/OSDD community- which I have seen happen many times before.

To give a non-personal example, I saw when the community took a shift towards obsessively trying to call out “fake systems” within the community, because there was a very popular and well-respected blog at the time who started airing their opinions on why they believed it was okay to doubt the legitimacy of other people’s disorders. They started posting “criteria” for “system faking” and posting things about Imitative DID. Obviously, it caused a huge panic within the community, and a lot of denial. Then, there was an onslaught of witchhunting/callout blogs created after it.

I feel like I’ve even been the result of some changes, myself.

Sometimes posts of mine have gotten popular and have been repeated by more popular influencers. Then, immediately, I had seen a shift in how the online community behaved. Knowing that I could even just make a post and an influencer could see it and decide to make a video based on it is a lot to take in. That’s a lot of responsibility on my shoulders. What if someone decided to make a video on something misinformed or harmful? What if I was misinformed or harmful and I didn’t know it?

But then when I compared it to how I treated my sideblog, I realized that this responsibility was actually essential to how I should’ve been treating my posts about DID/OSDD in the first place. You should be careful about what you say about these incredibly vulnerable and stigmatized disorders, even if you have one of them. It’s something that needs to be treated with the sensitivity that it deserves. People with DID/OSDD need to be treated with the sensitivity that they deserve. And, for some reason, we are just so, so hard on ourselves, our disorder, and on each other.

But I’m talking about social media influencers as if they’re a bad thing. I don’t think they’re a bad thing. Nothing is ever black or white.

There’s so much good that can and has come out of what DID/OSDD influencers have done. For example, awareness and education about DID/OSDD is finally starting to become more accessible and known. People have this space where they can realize that they’re not alone and that their experiences are real and valid. People can be encouraged to known when they need help and how to seek help. Singlets finally can learn what DID/OSDD looks like for one person, and even if it doesn’t look like that for everyone, at least they have a real life example instead of just a horror movie or bad writing as their only knowledge of this disorder. It can also insight professionals to take DID/OSDD more seriously, or even encourage more research and support for their disorders. It can lessen stigma and misconceptions.

So why is it if a DID/OSDD influencer says they’ve had an integration, then so many people in the community start to say they’re having integrations as well? Here’s my personal thoughts on this.

I actually think the people in the online DID/OSDD community are essentially primed to always try to "know” and label what they’re experiencing, even if they’re wrong. I think this happens because of a combination of how denial screws with us, how the internet treats disabled people, and peer pressure within the DID/OSDD community. So, if you take how social media influencers influence their audience, and you also add all of that shit, I think it’s pretty normal for a bunch of people to suddenly say they’re integrating as well after their favorite influencer integrated.

Sometimes they’re wrong and just using a label that makes the most sense to them based on what they’ve seen or learned. Sometimes they’re right and they’ve finally discovered the term for what they’re going through. Sometimes they’re just so attached to what they watched or read that they might actually perceive it to be happening to themself too. Sometimes they were already experiencing this and the influencer gave them the courage to speak out about their own experiences as well. Or maybe it was all just a coincidence.

Imo, none of that is bad. It’s not bad to try and figure out what you’re experiencing. It’s not bad to be wrong about what you’re experiencing. No one is obligated to figure these things out or put words to them, but a lot of people want to try. It’s normal to make mistakes along the way. DID is already so confusing and there’s also so much misinformation about it floating around as well. No one is at fault for being victim to misinformation. What matters is that you educate yourself and you own up to and apologize for any harm you might have done while you were misinformed.

Anyways, sorry this post was so long lol sdkglhskdg. I hope at least some of it made sense. I have a lot more thoughts about this topic but this post is just way too long now, I don’t want to keep you for any longer. If you read all of it: thanks! you’re one cool cucumber!

[shadowsong26fic]

Coming Attractions!

First Monday of the month, which means Coming Attractions Post!

(Especially since I skipped last month, whoops…)

Before we get into it, as I always do in these things, plug for my Discord server--it’s pretty quiet, but basically a slightly more interactive version of this tumblr. Sometimes I talk a little more about origfic or other stuff than I do here, too.

Also, this is not my only hobby! As some of you may know, one of my others is lacework, and I now have a sideblog for that. I have pictures of my completed projects up there, and will probably have more stuff as I start…well…making more stuff.

Anyway. On to the actual writing stuff aka why most of you are here (also a few requests for feedback/Opinions behind the cut).

So, I didn’t get much done over the month until, like…the last few days. In part because work got super bonkers for reasons I’m still Cranky at but that is a vent for my personal blog, lol.

Precipice:

I have threeish scenes left, which I’m probably going to do as one more chapter (unless they end up Super Long, then I might split it into two). That’ll close out Arc Seven, and the first big chunk of this fic. As I’ve said before, I’ll split off into a sequel fic (working title Protectors) at that point, along with doing a sort of…interquel, working title Preludes, that mostly deals with integrating Rebels content. Also probably Maul.

Right now, I’m tentatively planning six installments to Preludes? Mostly because six feels like a nice number to work with, lol. These will be one-shots that aren’t super interconnected, all taking place during the six-year timeskip. These are the ones I’m thinking about doing as of right now (subject to change, and I welcome suggestions!):

one involving Kallus on Coruscant, shortly before he gets reassigned to Lothal;

one involving Hera and whoever her contact is in this AU (since Ahsoka’s doing something different from the Fulcrum stuff);

one where Kanan and Ezra connect with Obi-Wan et al. (probably through Hondo);

one with Luke, probably similar to that one episode where Leia turns up in Rebels canon;

I really do need to figure out what the heck is going on with Maul, don’t I.

…something else????

The only ones I’m 100% sure about including are the one with Kallus and the one where the various Jedi link up because those are necessary and/or plot-relevant, though I’m still working out specifics (especially on the Jedi one). I may also include something with Thrawn, since I’m doing something different with him than canon did. Like I said, I welcome thoughts/suggestions/etc.

Protectors will then pick up six years after the end of Arc Seven, with Arc Eight. And, as a treat, the working titles for Arcs Eight and Nine are Escalation and Watershed. In theory, I’m planning to post Preludes alongside arcs eight and nine, but we’ll see.

…anyway, uh, what I forgot to mention earlier is that my plan is to wrap up arc seven/the first fic in this series this month. Hopefully I will actually pull that off XD. And then we move on to the other stuff.

Other SW Fic Projects:

Big Bang is coming up again! I think signups will be next month? I’m considering three different plotlines as of right now, though that’s assuming I don’t come up with something new and exciting and/or another ObiAniDala plotline, which is what I seem to do every year…which one I end up doing probably depends at least partly on how S2 of the Mandalorian goes, since two of the three ideas heavily feature Bo-Katan. Of course, one of those lacks a plot and the other is pretty episodic/involves a lot of blank space I still need to fill in…

Anyway, we’ll see how that goes after the show airs and I get more event information, especially since it’s going to be structured differently/teaming up writers and betas much earlier in the process, which will be nice and possibly help chronically-undecided me actually pick something so I’m not scrambling to finish at the last minute but given that it’s me I probably will be anyway XD

As for other SW projects…I still owe a few meme fills from, like, April…but otherwise, extant projects are mostly back-burnered for now.

AtLA Projects:

Aka, the reason why SW projects other than Precipice and SWBB (and any one-shots/prompt fills that occur to me) are back-burnered, lol.

I am working on an AU outline, set to come out this month. There’s a couple of fulltext fics I’m playing with. I haven’t gotten any actual text written down yet, but I know where I’m going with them, at least to start.

The AU outline will be a canon-divergent thing set during the Ba Sing Se arc, and will be hopefully out Soon.

Fulltext fic #1 is…basically, the premise is, Lu Ten had a lover during the Siege, the soundtrack to this fic involves a lot of West Side Story, he left her with someone to remember him by, and then there’s some mindbending and complicated politics after his death. I think I talked a little more about this in a previous post? Anyway, one of the things I’m considering is whether to just tell this story linearly, or to start several years later, and go into the whole star-crossed lovers backstory as she regains her memories of what actually happened. The advantage to the first option is that it’s easier to work with shifting POV, which I prefer; and also involves more canon characters more quickly. The advantage to the second is that I think it would work really well for this particular storyline? Assuming I could get people invested in her and/or Ba Sing Se Politics/Worldbuilding that fast …y’know, when I think about it like that, maybe linear is the best option, lol…

Fulltext fic #2 is an Avatar Zuko AU, where he figures it out at age thirteen, and at that point decides he has roughly three and a half years until the comet, aka three and a half years to figure out how to make all this work (not to mention at least starting to learn air, water, and earth), and hopefully by then he’ll know what he should be doing with it? Whether it’s to resurface and Prove His Worth by defending the Fire Nation during the leadup to the comet, or something else (though Something Else doesn’t quite occur to him until he starts doing the other stuff). This will heavily feature at least one of my old OCs, and probably a few others (and likely one or two new ones), especially during the first two years. I’ve got things more or less worked out up until Aang resurfaces and Zuko’s plans have to shift/he has to cut his earthbending year short (much to Toph’s annoyance). Because once Aang is awake, everyone thinks he’s the Avatar (he’s not; there’s another explanation for how he iceberg’d for a century), and that fact just escalates All Of The Things.

((I’ve mentioned before that I am Pathologically Incapable of not creating a bunch of OCs and AtLA is a particularly strong example of that, so...yeah, that’ll be a Thing in pretty much anything I write in this fandom))

…anyway, this should be fun, once I actually get actual text down XD

Original Fic:

I did write one thing last month! Which was nice. Hopefully, I’ll get a bit done this month, too. For those of you who don’t know, most of my original stuff is posted on rainbowfic, which is a great community and if you guys do original stuff you post online, you should come join.

I’ve also started poking at a couple of new concepts, because that is how my brain do. Including one Arthuriana story despite the fact that I’m not super into Arthuriana but then my brain was like “what if Mordred was a girl?” and welp. Here I am.

NaNo:

I’m proooooooobably going to do a similar setup to what I had the past couple years--set myself a wordcount goal, but not bind myself to any single project. Depending on how things go this month, either with Precipice!verse or SWBB or my AtLA stuff, or if that Mordred thing catches on, I might try to prioritize one or more things (like, have my goal be 20k on X project, and 30k on other stuff), but I’ll decide that closer to the date.

…I think that’s everything! What are you guys up to lately? Does anyone have NaNo plans? Any thoughts on stuff I mentioned on my docket, so to speak? What’s on your mind?

[ladynestaarcheron]

Like Pristine Glass - Chapter Eleven

ao3 - ff.net - masterpost (ff.net isn’t working for me rn, so i’ll update chapter eleven there probably tomorrow)

(tagging these cuties: @humanexile @skychild29 @rhysandsdarlingfeyre @candid-confetti ​ @rhysandsrightknee @missing-merlin @azriels-forgotten-shadow @books-and-cocos @sezkins79 @city-of-fae @someonemagical @dusty-lightbulb @messyhairday-me)

hey hey hey!! i’m back with chapter eleven after only two weeks!! i was actually procrastinating writing my poetry essay and working on my novel by writing this, so that counts as productivity, right?

thanks to my fantabulous beta @thestarwhowishes and thank to you all for reading!! i am just floored by all of your support, it means so much to me!!

(and psst!! if you like my writing maybe try out my sideblog where i post original content @liorzoewrites)

anyway, chapter eleven! enjoy!

---

November 2 - 4 years after

 When Hazar finally arrives at the shop, Maz, Amir, and Xeyale start to tell the whole staff what happened at Amalike Orchards’ berry fair.

“Chokecherry already had booths set up when we got there,” Maz says, grimacing. “With Morrisey’s new novel.”

“And they had agents with them,” Xeyale adds.

Adil frowns. “What do you mean, agents?”

“Publishing agents.”

“They were signing authors at the fair?” Hazar asks, disbelief all over his normally cheerful face.

“Not exactly,” Xeyale says.

“They were taking in manuscripts,” Amir says. “For short stories, we think. We think their plan is to publish a collection of them.”

“And that’s their brilliant archiving strategy?” Nesta says. “Just taking any short story from any writer who shows up at the berry fair and tying it all together into a book?” She shares a look with Adil.  No one appreciates the art of literature anymore.

“It is a brilliant strategy,” Hazar says, reluctant to admit it.

“We think so, too,” Amir says, and Xeyale nods behind them. Before any of them can protest, Amir raises their hands in surrender. “Look, you’re all archivists. Readers. Some of you are writers. But from publishing and marketing standpoints...it goes faster. If one author writes a three hundred page novel, that one author has to have a good idea and a good execution. Or people won’t buy it. But if you get ten authors each writing thirty pages...even if four of them aren’t that great, people will still buy it for the sixth.”

“Or one big name author with a few other smaller ones,” Hazar says. “That’ll sell just the same.”

“But the same number of books get sold,” Adil says. “Don’t they lose money, with all the authors they have to pay per book?”

“More books get sold,” Hazar says.

“It suits a larger audience,” Nesta realizes. “So more people buy it.” Because those six authors they’ll buy the book for are different authors for everyone.

Sometimes Nesta hates individual taste. Especially if it’s poor.

Adil puts his head in his hands. “How many publishing agents do they have?”

“Not many,” Maz says. “We only saw three at the fair.”

“For all those new authors?”

“I imagine the authors aren’t treated very well,” Hazar says, frowning slightly. “But they might not care, if they get published quickly.”

“That’ll be bad for them in the long run, though,” Leyla says, speaking up.

“I agree with you, but again, they might not care.”

“Do we have to start publishing short story collections?” Zeyn asks.

Nesta thinks about what would go into that. They would need to find so many new authors. Sugar Books--and Adil--believes in the separation of genre, so they couldn’t just cram any random ten stories together. It would go against their idea of what the literary world should be. What would that take, to find a variety of authors who write on the same subject, with the enough of the same general style to create harmony, but each unique enough to justify its presence in the book?

She shivers involuntarily, very thankful for Cassian’s shared account.

"We’ll definitely have to start signing more authors,” Adil decides. “We’ll...send out scouts.”

“To Chokecherry?” Maz says.

“No,” Adil says. “But everywhere else. Where authors frequent. We’ll have to go overtime on reading manuscripts. But we will not--” he slams his hand down on the table quite suddenly, startling them all “--compromise on the integrity and quality of literature.”

“Hear, hear!” Zeyn calls, and Nesta suppresses a smile. He catches it and winks at her.

“We’ll split up. Xeyale, Amir, and Nesta, you’ll stay and run the shop. Hazar, you stay here, too, and wait for our new clients. Miri and I will go to Berries’ Rivers, Maz, you go to Privet Falls, Leyla, Wintergreen Glen, and Zeyn, Juniper Hills. We’re talent scouting. Find places authors frequent, approach them, if they’re any good, send them here.” He looks at them all intently.

Zeyn and Nesta exchange a glance.

“Ah, Adil,” Zeyn says, rather timid. “You do know that that’s insane, don’t you?”

“I don’t want to hear it,” he says, already making to leave the room and go back to his office.

“All the gods,” Hazar says, standing up. “I’ve got to go get a cup of coffee.” And he leaves too.

“I mean, that’s insane, right?” Zeyn says.

“I think we’re all in agreement of that, yes,” Leyla says, nodding.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Miri says.

They all look at her.

"Maybe it’s time for a change,” she defends. “Maybe this is the way to do it. This is what they do in the acting industry, right?”

“But this isn’t the acting industry.”

“He’s really stressed about this,” Miri says. “He doesn’t want this place to lose anymore than Chokecherry has already taken from it.”  He doesn’t want any of you to lose anymore than Chokecherry has taken, she doesn’t say, but they all see it in her eyes. “I think it will work.” She stands. “And at any rate...it’s what we’re doing.” She leaves.

“I hate what this is doing to everyone,” Maz complains, and Nesta hates to agree with him, but she does too.

“I can’t believe I’m going to be the only archivist while you’re all off turning into the acting industry,” she says, shaking her head.

Zeyn and Leyla laugh.

"Don’t worry,” Xeyale says, grinning at her. “We’ll be here to keep you company.”

“A real comfort,” she says dryly. She stands too. “Well, I suppose we’ve got work to do. We need to find all the places...authors frequent.” She rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, in a fifty mile radius,” Maz grumbles. “This is never going to work.”

“Don’t say that,” Zeyn says lightly. “It might. And wouldn’t it be great? To discover new talent like that?”

Nesta knows the question isn’t directed at her, but she wonders anyway--what would it be like? In publishing? She didn’t think she’d like archiving before she started; she thought reading was the only thing she enjoyed.

That’s not something she can explore now, though, and that’s why Adil is having her stay here. So she shakes herself and goes to find maps of the surrounding towns.

---

November 20 - Year of

 She avoided him for days after she snapped. He caught her in the living room when she came back from work one day.

“Wait, Nesta,” he said, jumping to his feet as soon as she walked in.

Nesta stifled a groan. She didn’t want to have this conversation.

She didn’t like that tentative, detached politeness. She was angry.

(And Cassian was anything but tentative and detached. It felt abnormal sharing that with him.)

“Please,” he said. “I just wanted to apologize.”

Nesta said stiffly, “Don’t worry about it,” and tried to push past him.

“No, Nesta,” he said, raising his hands and blocking her path to the hallway. “Not for breakfast. I mean, yes for breakfast, but also...for everything. For bringing you here. For...leaving  you here.”

She froze. He did too.

She moved her eyes from his face. She couldn’t look at him.

Why was everything so hot all of a sudden?

“I...should have known this wasn’t the right thing to do,” he said, slowly, carefully. Nesta could tell he was thinking hard about each word before he said it. “To bring you here and leave you alone. Here, of all places. We thought...I thought it would be good for you. I thought...you would have space and maybe you would want to train and that would be a good outlet for you the same way it is for me and you’d get....”

Better, he didn’t say.

“I’m sorry,” he said. His voice was hoarse and Nesta was scared to look at him so she didn’t.

He sat back down. “That’s...all I wanted to say,” he said lamely.

Nesta kept her eyes averted as she nodded slightly and ducked into the hall, into her room, shutting the door behind her.

He apologized. 

She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but it wasn’t that.

And he certainly seemed sorry--just by his voice, of course, because she hadn’t seen his face.

He’d thought she might want to train...he didn’t know her at all, clearly. And he hadn’t mentioned all of it; not all that happened in Velaris and the fact that  she was this thing now, but she was glad of it, because all he did say was nearly too much to bear.

And she couldn’t spend the rest of her night going over everything, playing it all back in her head until she knew the words by heart, so she tried to best to put it all out of her mind.

Because...was she supposed to forgive him now?

---

November 2 - 4 years after

 The staff is gone later that day, as Adil is determined to discover five brilliant new authors before the month is over. Nesta is glad Miri is going with him; she might talk some sense into him.

“Does he actually think Gilameyva’s just bleeding ingenious writers?” Leyla had muttered to her before they all left.

Nesta laughed a little. “He’s just anxious,” she said, echoing Miri.

"I can’t believe I have to go to Wintergreen Glen. It’s so boring.”

"Well, maybe you’ll find a whole new world to fall into.”

"Right. I’m sure we’ll find the next Morrissey in Wintergreen Glen.”

"Why not?” Zeyn had said, appearing next to them. “Morrisey’s from Privet Falls.”

And Morrissey, Nesta thinks to herself as she walks back home, isn’t even that great of a writer.

She doesn’t have to pick up the children from nursery because Cassian’s already got them. It’s quite nice, actually, to be able to spend a little while longer at work locking up and stop for a coffee from Jamal’s without worrying too much.

Aysel is there, too, and she walks back with her. “So,” she says to her, eager to get to the point after what was surely a painful exchange of pleasantries for the town’s resident busybody, “I hear that Cassian of yours has been staying for quite some time.”

"He comes and goes.”

"He’s been here a week.”

“That’s true,” she says.

“I saw him today. He picked the children up. Oh, they’re so cute, you know. Just the sweetest little things.”

“I agree with you.”

“You do such a good job with them!”

“Thank you, Aysel.”

“I remember when they were born. Ooh, Ollie was so tiny, do you remember?”

“Their birth?” Nesta laughs. “Vividly.”

Aysel laughs too, in that hurried way she always does. “Of course, of course. He’s so big now.”

“He is,” she agrees. She can’t believe it, sometimes, how much they have grown in three years. Especially Ollie; he had been so small.

“And his father,” Aysel says, in a tone she thinks is supposed to be sly. “Well, he’s not small, is he?”

“He’s tall,” Nesta says neutrally.

“ Very  tall. Probably the tallest person in Sugar Valley, ever.”

“We had some tall people in for the last Berry Fair.”

“Tallest one now.”

“Probably.”

“How tall do you think your boys are going to be?”

“I don’t know.”

“And Ava?”

“Taller than I am, I hope.”

“Oh, don’t say that, dearie. You’re such a darling height.”

They reach their street then, and Nesta might’ve invited her for strawberry tea and jam, but she’s not going to. Confirming personally that Cassian is her children’s father to Aysel is one thing, inviting her inside to meet him is quite another.

“Well, have a good evening, Aysel,” she says.

“You too, dearie. Kisses to the babies!”

 She waves at her over her shoulder and strides up to her porch.

She might’ve guessed something is wrong by the fact that she can’t hear any noise from the inside, but she knows for sure because Cassian rips the door open as soon as she reaches it. His face is pale.

Nesta’s heart drops. “What is it?” A million different scenarios run through her mind, each one worse than the last.

“Come inside,” is all he says.

They rush up the stairs, Nesta’s pulse going faster than it ever has before when he leads her up the stairs and to her children’s bedroom. She braces herself as best she can for when she goes inside, but she knows there isn’t a good way to prepare.

But they’re all there...whole. In three perfect pieces. Nicky and Ollie laying in the beds, Avery standing in between them, her hand on Nicky’s form.

She looks at Cassian, his face still ashen. “What?” she asks.

His eyes widen. “They’re sick!”

Nesta throws a hand to her forehead. For mercy’s sake. “Don’t,” she says, rubbing her temples, “ever deliver news to me that way.”

Her heartbeat back to normal, she joins Avery in the middle of her sons’ beds. She settles herself on her knees and pulls her close. She doesn’t feel hot.

"How are you feeling, ladybug?”

"Good,” she says, slightly muffled against Nesta’s body. She looks up at her. “Nicky and Ollie are sick.”

"Yes,” she says, nodding. Then she looks at Cassian. “It’s flu season.”

"Emilia’s sick, too.”

"Yes,” she says, still looking pointedly at Cassian. “Probably the flu, poor thing.”

He glares at her, but she can see his coloring darkens slightly, which probably would have delighted her once.

She doesn’t hate it, now.

She puts her hand on Nicky’s forehead and then Ollie’s. A fever, each of them. Ollie is sleeping soundly, and Nicky seems like he’ll fall asleep soon.

"Mummy will bring you something to drink,” she whispers to him, dropping a kiss on his forehead.

She leads Avery and Cassian out of the room.

“I don’t want to be sick.”

“You won’t,” she assures her. “You’ll be fine.”

“I don’t want my brothers to be sick.”

Nesta feels the same rush of overwhelming emotion she always does when her children express how much they love each other. “Don’t worry,” she says to her, smiling. “They’ll be better soon. Why don’t you go play outside for a bit?”

“Are you out of your mind?” she says to Cassian when she’s gone. “Do you know what went through my head?”

"They’re sick!”

“Children get sick! People get sick! They’ll get better!”

“Well, I’ve never had children get sick before!”

Nesta softens at the fear in his voice, shining through his eyes as well. “They’ll be fine,” she says in a more gentle tone. “It’ll be a few days...it’s properly miserable to see them, but they’ll be fine. I only don’t want to keep Avery here...I don’t want her to get sick, too. Normally I’d ask Miri and Adil,” she says, talking more to herself. “But they’re gone, and I can’t ask Amorette. I guess I’ll keep her in my room. Oh, and I’ll have to stay here. Oh, but I’m alone at the store....”

"You’re alone at the store?”

"Yes, Adil’s got everyone traipsing around the country, looking for authors,” she says, waving a hand. “Unless...when are you going back?”

“Not before they’re better.”

Nesta straightens. That was the right answer. “Well, could you watch them during the day?”He nods, his expression casual, but Nesta can tell he’s terrified.

"It’s really not that big of a deal,” she says. “I’ll show you which medication to give them, how often. I’ll make soup. They’ll need fluids. Oh, and Nicky can’t have plain water when he’s sick, he’ll need tea...I’ll write this down for you...but it’s not like I’m going to be leaving you alone,” she adds at the sight of him. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere. Just work.”

“I know,” he says. Hesitates. “I just...”

“What?”

“I’m...worried.”

Nesta puts down the pen she’s picked up and crosses the room to his side. She moves her hand to take his, but thinks better of it. “You don’t need to. They’ll be fine. So will you. You’ve been...” her eyes dart around the room, but she meets his gaze when she says, “very helpful. This week.”

His head lifts slightly, and that all-too-familiar cocky grin appears. “Yeah?”

“Yes. In fact...” Now Nesta hesitates. “Maybe...if you would feel comfortable...you could spend the night with Avery at Miri’s house?”

His grin slides off his face.

“If it’s too soon,” she says quickly, “then--you know what? Forget--”

“No!” he says. “No, I can! I can--sure. At Miri’s...yes. I can. I know what she needs. I can...yes.”

“All right,” she says, relieved somewhat. “I’ll...make you a list.”

“Okay.”

“And...she’ll have flying lessons tomorrow. Maybe you’d like to go with her? And I’ll stay home with the boys?”

Nesta’s never seen his eyes light up the way they do now.

---

November 12 - 1 year after

 She didn’t feel exactly ill, but she felt off. Like the world had been tilted a few degrees. She had been hungrier than normal for her the past week or so, but it’s not till that day she wondered if something was wrong with her.

Only briefly. Then she pushed the thought aside. Things were going well, and she didn’t need to look for something to be upset about.

"Good morning, Nesta,” Zeyn greeted her cheerfully. How was he always so happy all the time? It was jarring.

"Hello, Zeyn,” she said, rubbing her temples.

“Headache?”

“No...” she said, because her head didn’t hurt, it just felt...weird. “Just tired.” Perhaps that was it.

“I’ve got a lot of new books today. Maybe you’d like to read one. Do you like mystery?”

“It’s all right,” she said. Most mystery novels were predictable to her. “I’ve got to finish mine, though.”

“How have you been with all those?” he asked, following her to the back room.

All that is Holy, she thought. “It’s going well, thanks.” It was reading. And fixing up books. And setting a price. As long as you could read, it wasn’t hard.

“I just get so overwhelmed sometimes,” he said. “You know, all those books. In such a short amount of time. And how do you set a price!”

“Length and demand,” she said, frowning slightly. How else would you set a price?

“Yes, but it’s hard to foresee demand at a store that sells used books,” he said. “I imagine it’s even more so for you, because human-authored books are so unpopular. Not that they aren’t good! Just so, I guess, uncommon. Yes, that’s the word. It’s rare to come across one. But now that the Wall is down, we might trade more. It’d be really fascinating, don’t you think, to see what books are popular with humans. Don’t you think? Nesta?”

“Just...” Nesta said, “I. Oh. Oh, I have to...” she trailed off, not being able to hear herself suddenly.

“Here, lie down.” She could feel a pair of warm, strong hands lower her gently to the ground. Oh, it felt so-- wrong , to be touched like that. By another male’s hands. Oh, she didn’t like it...

The room was spinning. She could hear more voices. Emerie was yelling. No, not Emerie. Not Emerie, right? Who was that? Who was speaking?

Someone was saying her name. Someone...but she couldn’t hear.

And then she couldn’t see.

---

November 2 - 4 years after

 Cassian’s still has yet to regain his power of speech, but it doesn’t matter, because Ava keeps the conversation going on her own.

“And I will put my horse here, and I will put my dog here, and I will put my owl here...” she sing-songs, placing her stuffed animals in various spots on the bed he has set up for her in Miri’s house.

She’s ready to go to sleep, after being fed  and bathed at Nesta’s house. But she wants to set up the room the way she likes it first.

"And I want...my giraffe.”

“Your giraffe?” Cassian repeats, looking around. “I don’t see...”

“Nicky has it.”

“Nicky has it?”

“Yes.”

“But Nicky’s at home.”

“Let’s go get it.”

“Well,” he says, wishing Nesta were here, “we’ll go home tomorrow morning, and we’ll bring your giraffe then.”

Ava looks outraged. “I want it now!”

She hadn’t mentioned this. Nesta didn’t say anything about a giraffe. And he’s never been out with Ava before; how was he supposed to know? “But...we’ll let Nicky have it. Because he’s sick. Just for tonight.” Maybe that tactic will work?

Ava considers it. “Tomorrow I will get my giraffe?”

He’s nothing if not strategic. “Yes. Tomorrow.”

“Not tonight?”

“No, not tonight.”

Ava thinks some more. “All right, tomorrow.”

Cassian breathes a sigh of relief. Ava’s been throwing crisis after crisis at him. He feels like a novice, back when he did simulations. When his commanders had given them every possible thing that could go wrong, all at the same time. There was an Illyrian expression that loosely translated into “difficult training makes for an easy battle”--but there is no training for parenting and it is by no definition an easy battle.

“Tell me a story,” she orders him when he finally convinces her to get into bed.

Cassian nods. Nesta had told him one as they packed, reciting the important lines a few times over for him to memorize. “I’ll tell you the one about Jack,” he says.

“No, I don’t want Jack.”

Fantastic.

"Well,” he says, trying to keep a level head. “What...story do you want?”

“Not a Mummy story.”

“What’s a Mummy story? Oh, not one of Mummy’s stories.” She wants one of his? Nesta wouldn’t like him telling any Illyrian tales...and he doesn’t think it’s a particularly good idea either. “Maybe...” Cassian rack his brain.  He has stories, doesn’t he? One of them must be child-friendly. Or he can edit it to make it so.

Had he ever gone on some sort of quest that didn’t end in bloodshed?

“Not too long ago,” he says, in the way Illyrian tales always start, realizing as he begins that it’s quite eerie, but no matter, “there was a male who loved a female very much. And the female loved...very much...more than anything in the world...chocolate.”

Ava laughs. “I love chocolate!”

“You do? Well, the female loved chocolate so much, but there was one type of chocolate she loved more than all the others. But she hadn’t had it since she was a little girl, and she now lived very far away from the place where they made it. One day, she was very sad...and he knew only that chocolate would make her happy again. So he decided he would travel to find it.

“He had to cross an ocean and many lands, for only one tiny little town across the world made this exact kind of chocolate. When he got to the tiny town, he searched and searched for the chocolate shop. And then...he found it. And he bought some chocolate...and he brought it home...and then the female was happy again,” he finishes lamely.

Ava looks at him, unimpressed. He doesn’t blame her. Although in his defense, it had been more exciting when it had actually happened.

“Tell it again!” she says.

He does, trying to make it sound better this time around, but he isn’t very good at it. He might’ve laced the story with bits and pieces of other (real) quests he had been on, but he isn’t sure what he’s allowed to say.

After the second time, Ava looks at him thoughtfully. “That was not a good story,” she tells him.

He laughs a little. “I’m sorry. Should I tell you the story about Jack?”

“Yes!”

He recites the story Nesta had told him, exactly the way she had instructed, and Ava is thrilled. She laughs and claps along.

"Again!” she says when he finishes. And again and again.

Until he says, “It’s time for you to go to sleep, now, Ava.”

"So let’s go home.”

“We’re sleeping here tonight, Ava, remember?”

To his horror, her eyes well up with tears. “I want to go home with Mummy and Nicky and Ollie.”

“Don’t cry,” he says, fretting. “Don’t--it’s okay, don’t--oh....”

“I don’t--want--to stay here,” she sobs. “I want to go home!”

“I’m sorry...we’ll go home tomorrow, Ava.”

“I want my giraffe!”

“But we said we’d let Nicky have the giraffe tonight, don’t you remember?” he says desperately. But Ava doesn’t care. He can’t quite make out exactly what she’s saying and he doesn’t know what to do.

So he picks her up out of bed and lays her against his shoulder. “It’s okay,” he says, trying to bounce her. That’s how to calm children down, right?

“I don’t want to stay here all by myself!” Her cries are muffled against him.

“Well, you’re not all by yourself,” he says. “I’m here. I’m staying with you.” Would that be enough?  Please let that be enough. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if that’s not good enough for her. Just for one night.

She sniffles a little and lifts her head, looking up at him with his own eyes. Except so innocent, so pure. “Can I sleep in your bed?” she asks, voice still wavering.

Relief crashes over him. “Sure,” he says. “Of course.”

The smile she gives him is vibrant, and he marvels at how little he loved her at the beginning of the week compared to now.

---

November 30 - Year of

 She’d told her sister, once, that the last thing she would want would be to be remembered as a coward. She felt like one now.

Like a coward and angry and hurt, perhaps, more than anything. Which made her feel stupid.

Sometimes Nesta thought she felt too much.

After Cassian had apologized, she’d fled to her room and avoided him successfully for over a week. It was made easier by the fact that he did have to leave a few times during the week, to one of those neighboring camps he always went off to.

She didn’t want to think about it. Especially the pain. Because if he had hurt her...she didn’t let herself finish the thought.

But one afternoon, at work, while counting out jackets in the back, she heard Emerie say, “What are you doing here?”

And then she heard him reply, “I came to see Nesta.”

She nearly dropped the jacket she was holding. She normally felt him before she heard him. Where had that gone? It was of no use to her when they were both in the house, and now it was too late to sneak out the back, because he was coming.

"Nesta,” he said, pushing open the door.

“The sign says ‘employees only’,” she blurted out, which she knew was the stupidest thing she could have said, but it was too late.

“Emerie said I could go in.”

Traitor.

“I needed to talk to you.”

“It couldn’t wait? I’m working.” Perhaps he’d make some snide comment about working in a clothier as opposed to being the Night Court’s Emissary and then she could pick a fight over that and kick him out of the shop and they’d go back to the way things were when she got here. Except she’d have Emerie and her drinking habit more under control, so it’d be better. 

But he just said, “I know. I’m sorry, it couldn’t wait. I’ll be leaving again soon. For about five days, I think. Maybe longer. And I couldn’t go without...” he trailed off. Ran a hand through his hair and let out a frustrated sound. “I keep doing things wrong with you, Nesta. 

She averted her gaze. She couldn’t do this. This was too much. And if he mentioned...that day...the battlefield...she didn’t know what she would do.

But he did.

“I promised you time, once,” he said softly.

No. No, she could not do this.

“I have to go,” she managed. She pushed past him, quickly, careful not to touch him.

“Wait, Nesta, please--”

“Nesta,” Emerie said, turning as she entered the room. “Where are you--?”

But Nesta didn’t stay to hear her finish. Instead, she ran.

---

November 3 - 4 years after

 This time it is Nesta who rips open the door as soon as she hears Cassian approaching.

“Mummy!” Avery calls, reaching her arms out for her.

“Hi, ladybug,” Nesta croons. She holds her tightly against herself. “I missed you so much.”

She had regretted sending Cassian out with her the moment they had gone. She hadn’t spent a night away from them, ever. She had never not tucked them into bed. And now...Avery had had a night without her. It felt like she should look different. There should be some mark upon her face.

But her daughter looks just as she did last night, just as cheerful and chattery. Cassian looks relatively unscathed, too, if a bit tired.

“Did you have fun?” she asks her as she ushers them inside.

“Appa told me a boring story,” Avery says, and wiggles out of Nesta’s arm onto the ground. “I want some orange juice in my purple cup, please.”

“Boring story?” Nesta says to Cassian.

“She didn’t want yours. And I didn’t want to tell her something you wouldn’t approve of. She still asked for it again, anyway,” he says defensively.

Nesta looks at him. “And you told it to her?”

“Yes.” Now he looks unsure. “And then she wanted yours...so I told that one, like, three times.”

Nesta shakes her head. She looks at Avery. Her daughter knows how to get what she wants, that’s for sure. “Did she ask to sleep in your bed, too?”

“...is that bad?”

Nesta rolls her eyes. Avery wraps everyone she meets around her little finger. Why should her father be any different?

“How are Nicky and Ollie?” he asks.

"Still ill,” she says. “The main thing is just to keep them on a constant stream of fluids so they don't dehydrate. Soup, if they feel up for it. Talk to them if you can, but they might be too tired.”

“Shouldn’t we take them to a healer?”

She hadn’t realized how much she’d appreciate hearing him say  we . “We don’t need to,” she says. “It’s the common flu. They’ll be fine.”

“So...you never take them to the healer? If they have the flu?”

“It’s not necessary if it lasts only a couple of days,” she reminds him, “for adults and children both.”

“Infants--”

“Not the same,” she explains patiently. “They can digest medication. Infants can’t.”

She finishes putting Avery’s breakfast in front of her. “When you’re done, Mummy will take you to nursery.”

“I want to say hello to Nicky and Ollie.”

“Finish your breakfast and then go,” she says to her. Then she says to Cassian, “Well, other than that...how was it?”

“She cried,” he admits. Then he grins. “But I calmed her down.”

“By letting her sleep in your bed.”

“Why is that not allowed?”

Nesta shakes her head again. “You were only with her. What if they all wanted to sleep in your bed?”

“What then?”

“They would kick you out and you would end up on the floor.” Nesta had thought moving them into their own beds would be a hard step, and it was, but as soon as she woke up from her first night alone in over two years, she didn’t miss it anymore.

Cassian laughs. “I can take them.”

Nesta hides a smile. “Finish up, Avery,” she says. “It’s almost time to go.”

She busies herself around the kitchen with nothing in particular, just feeling his eyes on her.

---

November 12 - 1 year after

 She could hear everyone around her before she could see them. Low, hushed voices. Some whirring sound, too. She shivered from the cold and from something else.

“Oh, she’s waking up,” she heard someone whisper.

“Nesta?” another voice said. Miri, from Sugar Books. What was she doing here?

Nesta opened her eyes. Where was here, exactly?

Here was a small room Nesta didn’t recognize. Pale blue walls decorated with tiny sugar berries; the sheets on the bed she was lying on the same design. The curtains on the window were a cheerful yellow and the expressions on Zeyn and Miri’s faces were anything but.

“Can you hear us, Nesta?”

Nesta struggled to sit upright. “Of course I can hear you,” she said, grumbling slightly. “What are these?” She shook her arm as she spoke, at the needles prodded inside her. She was in an infirmary of some kind. She vaguely remembered blacking out at the store, but since she could feel no pain, she assumed she was fine. Probably just dehydrated. After all, she had been Made. The epitome of perfection, was she not? She didn’t get sick anymore.

“Fluids,” Zeyn said unhelpfully.

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Of course they were fluids. But Zeyn was harmless, if annoying, and she didn’t want to start an antagonistic relationship with the coworker who clearly liked her best.

“You blacked out,” Miri said, her wide dark eyes searching Nesta’s face. “We brought you to the clinic. A healer is seeing to you. Her name’s Amorette. She’s fairly new here, but I’ve been told she’s very good.”

Nesta nodded. “Thank you for bringing me here,” she said, hoping they’ll hear the dismissal.

They do. “Feel better, Nesta,” Zeyn said, reaching her hand to squeeze it. She tried not to flinch.

“We’ll be by to check in on you,” Miri said.

Oh, for the love of all things Holy. “That’s very kind of you, but I’m sure I’ll be fine.” She smiled as she spoke, hoping she did so normally.

Cassian used to make fun of her forced smiles. You look like you’re in pain.

Why was she thinking of him all of a sudden?

They left as the healer stood in the room. She looked to be about Nesta’s age--although with Fae, you couldn’t really tell, could you? But at any rate, a pretty, High Fae female, with light blue eyes and blond hair that kept tied at the nape of her neck.

“Good afternoon, Miss Archeron,” the healer said. “I’m Amorette Dadashov. I’ll be your healer today. May I come in?”

Nesta raised an eyebrow. “Sure,” she said, pleasantly surprised at the healer asking permission.

Healer Dadashov closed the door behind her. She was holding a notebook in her hand. “I can see all your vitals have returned to normal,” she said, without checking them like a mortal nurse would have to. “All things considered.”

"All things considered?”

“Yes,” she said, flipping through the pages of her book. “I understand you’re new in town?”

What on Earth did that have to do with anything? “Yes.”

“And, forgive me, you’re here alone?”

Nesta’s eyes narrowed. “Yes.”

“And you’ve not been to our clinic yet, correct?”

“Correct.” Shouldn’t that all be in her book? Why is she asking all this?

“So your options have not yet been explained to you?” Dadashov looked Nesta in the eye as she spoke.

Nesta’s patience was wearing thin. “Look,” she snapped, “I really don’t know what you’re talking about, and I’d very much like if you could just tell me what happened and what I have to do so it doesn’t happen again and let me go. Please,” she added as an afterthought. It didn’t sound very gracious.

Dadashov’s eyes widened. “Miss Archeron,” she said, not quite stuttering but certainly with none of the confidence she’d had before. “You do...I mean...you know that you’re pregnant?”

Nesta’s favorite book as a child was about magic. It wasn’t called magic, of course, for in the tiny human section of their island, magic was shunned. But that power to manipulate nature; that was what it was. The heroine was a girl named Avery, and Avery’s villain was a woman who could make things vanish. The most terrifying part of the story, in eight-year-old Nesta’s opinion, was the part where the villain made the floor vanish right from underneath Avery, and she fell and fell for miles until she could get her magic working to pull herself back up.

Nesta felt that. But there was no one to pull her back up. Because she was alone. There was only falling.

“I...can see you did not know,” Dadashov said softly. “All right, well...” She pulled a chair towards the bed and sat down. She gripped Nesta’s hands, hers a warm peach next to Nesta’s stark white. “It’s going to be all right,” she said soothingly. “The clinic is very well prepared for any option you choose. We have three healer’s for female reproduction, myself included. We’re all more than capable of treating you in whatever...oh, dear. Here,” she said, passing her a wad of tissue paper.

“Oh,” Nesta said, taking some and wiping her eyes. “Oh, er, tha--” 

But she choked on her words.

What was she supposed to do?

“I can’t be pregnant,” she whispered aloud. Because she couldn’t. Then she realized--she truly couldn’t. “This...can't be possible. I haven’t...been with anyone in months.” Even with the gravity of the situation, Nesta still felt a slight blush creep up on her cheeks. Perhaps she had not entirely thrown out the excessive modesty of her upbringing with her few months of numerous partners in Velaris, and the few months living with Cassian.

Oh,  Mother.  Cassian.

“It’s...possible for a female to get pregnant months after intercourse,” the healer said slowly, carefully, like Nesta was an idiot.

“It is?” she replied, feeling like one.

“Yes.”

Of course, Nesta thought, thinking it through. Because her cycle was so slow...and that meant her whole system was so slow...and if pregnancy once would have occurred a few days after sex, now it happened months.

And she had stopped taking the potion. Because she had stopped sleeping with people. But that didn’t matter, because it had only been...Nesta counted backwards in her head...a month since she had last slept with Cassian.

(A month? Had it really only been a month?)

Nesta put her head in her hands. “All right,” she said, summoning her nerve. “Tell me about the other two healers.”

“Well,” Dadashov said, slightly taken aback, “there’s Huseyn Por--”

“Male.”

“Er, yes.”

“No. The other one.”

"Marya Kamal. She’s brilliant, one of the best in the field. We’re lucky to have her. Her studies--”

“How old is she?”

“Er,” Dadashov said, eyes darting around. “I believe...twelve-hundred, or so?”

“No. You, then. All right.” Nesta paused to take a deep breath. “I don’t know anything about faerie reproduction. I wasn’t born faerie. And I...can’t have this baby.”

Eugh, why did she say baby?

Dadashov’s eyes go even wider.

She’s a patient from Hell, she imagined. But Healers liked a challenge, didn’t they?

---

November 3 - 4 years after

 The day spent with his sons is miserable. He sits with them all day, talking to them while they’re awake and running his hands down their backs while they sleep. Nicky seems to be doing a little better towards the late afternoon, and sits up to have soup, but Ollie barely takes the water Cassian makes him drink.

He’s beyond relieved when Nesta and Ava come home.

Ava rushes up the stairs ahead of Nesta. “We’re going to flying lessons now, Appa,” she sing-songs. “We’re going now, we’re going now, we’re going now.”

"Hi, angels,” Nesta says, coming into the room and sitting by Nicky. “How are you feeling?” she asks him, putting a hand on his forehead.

“Better,” he says, but his voice is still so weak.

Nesta kisses the top of his head and hugs him. “What about a bath? Would that make you feel better.”

He shrugs into her.

“I think it would,” she says, standing up. “How’s Ollie?”

“Sleeping, mostly.”

“Poor angel,” she sighs. “All right, you go on to flying lessons. Have fun, Avery. Say hello to Madam Sabina for me.”

“Bye-bye, Nicky! Bye-bye, Mummy! Let’s go now, Appa!”

Ava takes his hand and starts dragging him towards the door. “Bye,” he says over his shoulder. “We’ll come back soon.”

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go now!”

Ava keeps up variations of her chant until they arrive at one of the parks where flying lessons commence. The children all look to be around her age, accompanied by a parent or two. They’re all various types of lesser fae, none of the likes of which he’s seen in the Night Court.

Madam Sabina is a round, pink female with large, feathery wings. 

“Hello,” he says, introducing himself. “I’m here with Ava.”

“You’re her father?”

“Yes. Nesta’s at home. With the boys. They’re sick.”

“Ah, flu’s going around. All right, then. Normally I fly with the triplets, but good. You’ll do it. Wonderful. Are you excited to fly with your Daddy, Ava?”

“He’s my Appa,” she says. And then she starts singing again, “We’re at flying lessons now, we’re at flying lessons now.”

Madam Sabina shrugs. “Excited enough, I guess. All right, students!” she cries, clapping her hands. Let’s all gather around in a circle--mummies, daddies, uncles, let’s get behind them. Let’s start our stretching exercises.”

"Hi,” says the female next to him in the parents’ circle. “I’m Nuray, Zehra’s mother. I’m a friend of Nesta’s. You’re the triplets’ father, right?”

He nods. “Cassian,” he says.

“Nicky looks so much like you,” she says. “Where are the boys?”

“They’re sick,” he says, wondering how many friends Nesta has here, or if everyone who has a child in the same age group counts as a friend. “The flu.”

“Oh,” she says, clucking. “Poor dears. Well, it’s going around. Nice that Nesta’s got you here now, to help out. Especially with Zeyn gone.”

“Oh, yeah,” he says, struggling to maintain a casual tone. “Good stretching, Ava,” he says to her.

“All right, now, let’s just flap our wings. Just like that. No, Fidan, not too fast! We’re just flapping, we’re not flying! All right, good!”

Ava grins up at him. “I already know how to fly,” she tells him.

“Oh, do you?”

“I’m so good at it.”

“I bet you are.”

“We’re not allowed to fly until Madam Sabina says it’s okay.”

“That’s right.”

“Because we have to stretch first because it’s very important.”

“It is very important, you’re right.”

“And, now we’re going to run all the way over there and then back again, all right? Go!”

Ava shoots off as fast as she can, making him laugh in delight. He feels a rush of gratitude towards Nesta for giving them such a beautiful, quiet place to learn to fly.

"I think it’s great that you’ve moved back in,” Nuray says. “In a town like this, people talk, but they’re good. People talked when my wife and I separated, but now we’re back, and people stop talking, you know?”

"Er,” Cassian says. “We’re not--I mean, I’m not--I don’t...live...here.”

“Oh!” Nuray brings a hand to her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry! I just...assumed. I’m sorry.”

“No, that’s all right,” he says, eyes darting around. This is so--weird. Sugar Valley is so weird. People he doesn’t even know congratulating him on moving back in with Nesta. No one here knows who he is. No one here has served in any military. He’s not even sure Gilameyva has a military. It’s so detached from Prythian, so different.

“Well, at any rate...I think it’s great that you’re stepping up.”

“Thanks.” Is this a normal conversation?

Thankfully, Ava comes back then.

“All right, everyone,” Madam Sabina announces. “Pair up, pair up. We’re going to go up! Stand by your partner!”

Ava stands in front of Cassian, beaming up at him.

“Okay, just high enough to their heads. Now...up!”

Ava kicks herself off the ground--it isn’t graceful in the least, but he’s so proud, prouder than he’s ever been in his life.

“And now we’re all going to do a lap around the park together. No higher than six feet, parents! And uncle!”

Ava takes his hand as they fly together. He’s going abnormally slow, but he doesn’t care at all.

---

Chapter Twelve

[functionalasfuck]

Tag: Post 5 of your favorite actors/actresses from dramas.

Tagged by @lostinbl​ (thanks ❤️❤️❤️!!!!) over on my main blog ( @whyismybigsistersocool ), but I wanted to put it on my sideblog since this is where I put most of my fandom stuff.

Here are my 5 in no particular order

1. Saint Suppapong

For some reason, I have fallen in love with every single role I’ve seen him in. My two ride or die bl ships are AePete and TutorFighter and I have no idea how Saint did that, but I guess we are unworthy of knowing.

2. Joshua Rush

Okay, I don’t know if this counts as an actor from a drama (are Disney Channel shows dramas?), but I’m putting my boy up here. This boy is absolutely amazing. I first saw him in Andy Mack, where he plays the first ever out gay main character on a Disney TV show. But he is also an activist and posts about politics and is extremely passionate about the world. And very open about his bisexuality and, despite being a literal child and younger than me, I look up to him. We need more Joshua Rushes in the world.

3. Jameela Jamil

I feel like I don’t need to say much about why I love her. She is not only hilarious as Tahani in The Good Place, but an activist. I can only hope I can emulate the amount of integrity this woman has. She is a body positive trailblazer who inspires me every single day. AND SHE’S AN AMAZING ACTRESS! How can someone be so moral, talented, and wonderful all at the same time?

4. Chella Man

A trans deaf genderqueer jewish poc artist who is an advocate for disabled people and ALSO AN AMAZING ACTOR. Istg how are there so many talented activists out there? He plays Jericho on Titans and I was blown away by his performance. Jericho is now one of my favorite characters on the show (I also love Gar Logan, he is my baby).

(I’m noticing a pattern in these actors... 🤔)

5. Freema Agyeman

So, she is just beautiful. And talented. And a glowing person. She played Amanita in Sense8 (literal favorite character and amazing show). And I want a love like her and Nomi have. Where can I get an Amanita? I’ve also seen her as Martha Jones in Doctor Who and Larissa Laughlin in The Carrie Diaries. She just has an energy about her that makes me love everything she is in. So I had to put her on here. 

I feel like there is definitely more, and definitely people I forgot. But here are my 5 as of right now.