#I might make a more general update as to re: what the hell I'm doing next pretty soon

[samisnotlegend]

New Fic!

Bakugou Katsuki might be a Mandalorian and a bounty hunter, but he's not cool with cashing in on kids. So naturally, he kidnaps the little bounty instad.

On the other side of the galaxy, Midoriya Izuku recovers from a severe injury while also hunting down the mistakes of his past...

-

This fic was written for the "Same Sky, Different Worlds" discord zine! You can download the full zine for free here!

[thessalian]

Thess vs A Return to Normalcy

Updates from the workplace, and the news is ... for once, not terrible.

See, turns out that Scruffman came in on Sunday, along with the other part-timer (who has been petitioning for more hours and I think she's going to get them at this rate), and really registered the massive dent I made in the backlog. Because seriously, that whole week we went from just under 300 to just under 150 and that was about 95% me. So we're finally back down to the low-mid double digits in terms of the size of the typing queue, and I have a feeling Scruffman had a general sense of, "Ooh. [Thess] did a lot. [Thess] should not have been doing that much, I know that."

Scruffman does not have the best communication skills, mind - especially not over email. He sent an email going, "Give me a bell ASAP" and actually included his number, which I have had stored on my phone for literally years, so I thought there was going to be something urgent and horrible. Because, you may recall, he was going to touch base with me today about potentially having to drag my poor fibro-riddled carcass over to fucking Hampstead owing to lack of bums in seats. I was concerned that this was going to be a call where Issues were brought up.

However, no, this was his way of saying, "I has a concern and want to make sure you're okay after the hours you put in last week". I didn't pull punches, either. He asked how I was doing, which is how he starts all telephone conversations, really, and I just told him, "I seriously overdid it last week". I could hear the gears turning as he was going, "Oh. Yeah. Oh, right" before moving on to the whole thing about the various unexpected absences.

So ... turns out that Violet, Goblin, and Temp are all out at the moment, though Goblin and Temp are apparently coming back on Friday. He's got Other Part-Timer coming in tomorrow, so it's really only Thursday where there might be a requirement for me to come in. But apparently that's only if Scruffman himself takes ill or something else goes entirely to hell. It was pretty clear that he was trying desperately hard not to make me go into the office, particularly after the couple of weeks I've already put in. He also recognised that I do more typing when I'm at home than I do at the office, and then surprised me further by going, "I don't necessarily mean overtime or anything!" like he very much doesn't want me to have to do any more of that either.

So the overall gist is, "Things are back to normal, we will try to manage things without forcing you on to public transport, thank you for all the help and we promise we're not going to make you do too much more of that!" I'm not sure what happens with my overtime - whether it's Time Off In Lieu or actual money, but I think I'll find that out when Head Honcho comes back from his own holidays ... or rather, when I come back from mine because he's away until next week and I'm off next week.

I very much need to be off next week. I haven't fully recovered yet. But at the very least my house is full of nice foods to have that don't require too much in the way of cookery. I did up a pork roast last night so I have leftovers from that. There's a roast chicken that's good in the fridge until Friday, which gives me time to do things with the leftover pork roast and with the duck legs and pork chops I got on sale with this month's grocery shop. But tonight, since I am exhausted (whoever was typing with me today also left me with the longer bullshit - thankfully there were no ten-minute atrocities but if I see one more placenta report this week I'm going to lose my damn mind), it will be leftover roast pork with mashed potato and an asparagus/tenderstem broccoli medley, with an appetiser of gluten-free mozzarella sticks (which, yes, still have the lactose issue but I have Lactaid so I can still have my breaded hot cheese) and possibly a salad. I did actually eat today! Okay, not lunch, but two pieces of gingerbread as breakfast went really well with my morning coffee.

[meditating-dog-lover]

Health Update

I had a phone call with my functional medicine doctor and it went well. I know we focused a lot on gut and hormone health (primarily insulin and cortisol), which can cause skin inflammation. But what ultimately causes both these issues is an inflammatory high sugar diet and stress. They don't just happen on their own (maybe in rare cases but I'm not going to claim that's my case). Stress and a bad diet make you more susceptible to gut inflammation and microbiome imbalances and high cortisol/insulin resistance.

The goal here is just to follow an anti-inflammatory diet and reduce stress. Every other goal is secondary. My diet has been good recently and I've been adding a lot of key anti-inflammatory foods like green tea, turmeric, black pepper, sweet potatoes, and fish. I've been eating less inflammatory foods as well. Of course I want to find a balance, I just want to establish that eventually. But I've been eating pretty anti-inflammatory. I did go out for some coffee and chocolate today and got some sweet potato chips. I might want to look into a less inflammatory savory snack. They're going to be having ice cream and hot dogs/burgers/fries/mozzarella sticks at work. I'm not big on ice cream, nor hot dogs/burgers, but I love mozzarella sticks. I might have some and it's going to be on a Friday which is when I normally have a treat. Again I'm going to find a balance. I'm just happy I know the type of diet to follow and what foods to add and the fact that I've been adding foods.

Despite my diet, however, I've had some skin inflammation. I know it's due to stress. Since I went back to work and started to be productive, that puts me in a much better mood. So I was less stressed in general, and my skin looks better. I know stress management is so important and I know it's something I need to work on. My flareups started in college when I was very stressed, and they recently got so bad since the war in Gaza started. Even worse since the start of this year. So I've been in a better mood this week thankfully. I've always been so bad at managing my stress, but if it means it's going to prevent me from a horrible flareup and re-experiencing the hell I've been going through since January, then I'm going to start now.

My doctor and I spoke about some supplements for gut healing and cortisol reduction. I know I want to reduce my cortisol, but I feel general stress management would be a much better approach than popping a pill. I can use something for anxiety relief if it goes through the roof. For gut health, again the main cause of gut inflammation in my case is an inflammatory diet and severe stress. I know some people have a microbiome imbalance because they were on multiple rounds of antibiotics, were not breastfed, were born via c-section, etc... But that doesn't apply to me and it's due to something that's 100% within my control. I did want a thing I can drink to help my gut, but not a supplement and doing so while knowing that diet and stress management are way more important. So I bought some unsweetened aloe juice. Aloe vera is great for gut inflammation. I had some in a shotglass and it tastes fine. A bit sour, but not awful. It's a nice addition to my anti-inflammatory diet and I don't mind the taste and it's great for the gut lining and general inflammation. I don't know if it's safe to consume in prolonged large doses, though.

I also bought some dental tape because it's apparently better than dental floss at cleaning between wider spaced teeth. I used the generic Walgreens brand and it feels like it cleans well. It scrubs. I use woven floss but this might actually be better. Fro my experience Glide floss does not clean well at all. I have some teeth that need to be scrubbed more than others, so this thick scrubby tape can help. I need heavy duty stuff for my teeth, along with my 300$ Sonicare toothbrush. Otherwise nothing else does the trick. It might be the spacing, it might be that I have genetically more porous teeth. But it's worth trying the tape out.

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

Gr- the fuck why is there no yellow letter???-emlin [:(((] update February 18th 2024

-_- Tired and sore. Didn't do much between last update and yesterday. I wanted to clean and organize more but my joints are really fucked up, and the neighbour is a little bitch man. But today I re-organized some of the totes under the bed so I can start going through them one at a time, and so I can get some of the random other totes, tool boxes, furniture pieces etc under the bed... And then I put a bunch of the other stuff under the bed.

I emptied out at least 5.5 totes through all of this, and emptied about half of the stuff out of the rest of the apartment by getting it all in there.

I wanted to have more done by the end of this weekend because I wanted to be on form tomorrow morning to go replace my health card, but I still don't know where my birth certificate is, I still haven't found clear instructions about it online and etc...

I think I'm done for today if I want any chance in hell of getting out there tomorrow, but like, I would also like to get more done?

It's approaching 6pm though and if I make noise after that time, my neighbour might complain again.

The main goal right now is less to go through everything in detail and more to just get things either fully unpacked or condensed into fewer bins so I can get the apartment as empty looking as possible by having as much as I can either put away or in what is now effectively a closet area.

I'm kind of just mostly chilly and sore and have a headache and about 101 food cravings.

~*~ February 26th

I watched all of the wheel of time, all of the witcher and all 4 episodes of blood origins or what have you... In like 2? 3? maybe 7 days idk.

Mostly I needed rest and there's little point in rushing to get my card because whatever was in my wrist seemed to have torn open again, and the swelling was minimal and hiding the bump, and now that the swelling is going down I am not sure if the bump is still there, and cancer doesn't generally drain and go away. If it comes back I'll go in, but for now the main goal is still getting to full code purple.

I did some more cleaning and organizing today, but my brain feels super scattered and I'm extra tired.

~*~

March 18th

So it certainly feels like it's been over a month, keep coming on to update and then forgetting what I was even going to write.

I started being so sleepy and exhausted again that I was sleeping all day, then had that dream about a vampire or something telling me my adenosine levels were high, started eating more sugar and more phosphorus... And then had the energy to wash all the dishes I had fallen behind on while organizing and then mostly sleeping and watching tv since.

The problem was though that I then ran out of cream for my tea, and 3 days into that I woke up to the worst case of bulging fucking goiter I have ever had...

Because apparently I was -so- successfully avoiding any extra dietary iodine that 3 days in to no cream [my main source] my thyroid was swelling to try to get more iodine... Easy fix though, started eating ice-cream daily and canned tuna, etc... The problem is my tummy isn't the most happy because I have stopped eating the lactase in the de-lactosed cream and the ice-cream is just straight up dairy.

So on the bright side I am back to sleeping mostly just 8 hours a day by increasing my caloric intake and having more phosphorus, and I am *staying* caught up on dishes, but I really need to get cream and I am out of alcohol for disinfecting my teeth.

I don't know if I have ever been this consistently on top of dishes because before the plague I had roommates or partners constantly filling the kitchen with more and not washing their share. That had been a consistent fixture since I left home, starting with my first 'husband'. I was putting in the work and getting nowhere. The past 5 years have been overshadowed with recovery from fuckery, mostly said plague, and I have been in a cycle of catching up and falling behind again on damn near everything except laundry.

Now though, I wash the dishes from the previous day while I am cooking my breakfast at 5 am.

I am up to two big loads of laundry that I will probably wash in 4 batches [Or in the sink?], but that was mostly due to running myself down arranging all the totes and the bed and then being smacked down with chronic fatigue really bad, even before the goiter. First time I have had more than one load of laundry in like 3 years now.

If living alone means simply staying on top of all regular chores without much issue, then once I have this place fully set up, that -should- mean no longer struggling daily just to maintain my living space and getting back to creative hobbies like writing and painting, drawing etc... And finishing all my projects, if very slowly and around sleeping 10-12 hours every day.

Mostly, it's a relief to see that left to my own devices, even with long covid on top of CFS I can still manage to -if barely- take care of myself under normal circumstances and have a clean enough apartment. Even if that means doing nothing all day except making food, eating it and cleaning up. I just have to get past the added strain of moving in.

I'm also starting to notice that the whole "I'm less a 'needs a strict routine' autistic and more a 'I need to be controlling what I am doing at any given moment' autistic" thing might be in part due to chronic fatigue and having to live around other people.

See, I can't skip sleep or force myself awake without horrid migraines and narcolepsy & seizure-like symptoms, and everything wakes me up really easy or keeps me awake, so having to live around other people even existing -but especially making demands of me that might leave me exhausted mid-day or sore, or having allergy attacks, or otherwise stressed or run down, etc...- kind of means not being able to sleep at consistent times ever, or rest at consistent times, which makes having to do anything else on a strict schedule impossible to do without it interrupting me when I am trying to sleep or rest, which is rage-inducing, because I am exhausted, so I always hated the demands of a strict routine because it was always demanding I be awake while exhausted and demanding I sleep when I just got the energy to clean, and stuff like that, there was just no accounting for a regular schedule no matter what I tried... But now that I am actually 95% in control of my environment, I am finding more and more that I fall naturally into certain routines and would be upset if someone tried to demand I break them. I have been brushing my teeth more consistently because I do it before any time I lay down, and I have been doing the dishes every morning and cooking breakfast at a -mostly- set time, right when I get up and early enough to eat before low blood sugar makes me sleepy again. There are still days where I sleep in, or nap, but I know that as I recover that will happen less and if I need extra sleep I'll end up going to bed early instead of interrupting other routines that are helping me.

I am still trying to get myself to re-organize the bathroom again after the business with the totes, and still staring down cleaning the floors again, and still quite bloody exhausted, but I am starting to do little chunks of organizing or cleaning each day and having been eating and doing the dishes pretty forking consistently.

I need to go out soon for fresh veggies and cream. Though, tbh, if it wasn't for the cream thing, I would stay in hibernation for another 1-2 months.

~*~

March 20th 2024

I halfway reorganized the bathroom, cleaned around the sink, finally got to mostly cleaning off my floor, etc and so on and have been washing dishes daily and cooking 2 meals a day. That's progress.

I blame the increase in sugar and phosphorus. I keep finding myself standing in front of messes and automatically cleaning up the way I do when I actually have energy. I get really ADHD about cleaning randomly whenever things happen to be in front of me, and when I have enough energy overall things just get done at some point on a good enough schedule even if the way I am cleaning lacks any system or order. This is good.

I need to actually wash the floors with cleaner next, and wash some things and some laundry in the bathroom so I can finish tidying in there. Then there's still the business of finishing the re-organizing I left off at "good enough for now" when my neighbour last complained to the landlord about the noise of me cleaning my apartment.

Then I order alcohol, do some small groceries and get my health card renewed and then make an appointment for my wrist, where the lump is back again.

I found 4 games I wanted on super sale on steam and got them. one was 2$ one was about 7 one was around 12 and one was 25. I have plenty to play and stream for a long time now while I wait for the next zero dawn game to actually go on sale.

~*~

March 27th

Got some more organizing and resting done and then playing Sons Of The Forest became my entire life for a week. They did the peaceful mode well, there was actually no combat, just cut scenes. My only note is there was still jump scares that were intentional jump scares. I would personally include an option to turn those off, since some people may be playing peaceful due to heart problems etc...

Really pecking away at cleaning and organizing in a more sustainable way and starting to feel like I am getting some energy back since increasing the phosphorus and sugar/calories in my diet. Thank the psychic vampire in my dream who told me my blood/body levels of adenosine where high?

I did then promptly run out of cream, my main source of moderated iodine, and within 3 days developed goiter, severely. I manage graves disease-like symptoms of my immune system constantly tearing open my thyroid gland without actually killing it by restricting iodine to control the excess hormones that would otherwise release [T4, T3 mostly], and apparently I was doing a good job keeping my levels just high enough to avoid goiter because within 3 days of running out of cream, my neck was a puffy mess.

Now I still have pain in my neck and chest when I breathe or breathe too deeply, but I think it's residual swelling and autoimmune agitation left from the goiter. I immediately increased my iodine intake until the visible swelling all went away, and now I have done my first groceries for the year, including 4 things of cream and a bunch of dairy whipped topping.

It is 11 am and I have been awake since midnight, done my daily dishes, groceries, changed the "cycles" on a sink of laundry and cleaned the cat puke out of the window.

I also re-organized just enough this morning to have my living area back out of the storage pile, for now, because I knew I would come home with donuts and treats and want to play TOTK and eat them. I haven't played TOTK in months now, and then I couldn't because of the last re-organizings dumping everything into my little living area.

The grocery store renovated itself while I was in hibernation. The lady there was cheery and personable with me and says they did it last year. Their machines hate me. It wants everything in the bagging area untouched but they never make the bagging area big enough to hold your stuff, so the machine kept yelling at me :( The lady kept encouraging me to just ignore it and hit the button, which made it less stressful than usual.

Yesterday I cleaned some cupboard fronts etc... and ordered new whisky. Later this week I am hoping to organize more and procure a recycling bin. I'm developing a system for laundry that should be easier on my back than washing my clothes in a tote in the shower stall.

I'd be playing TOTK now except the red joycon isn't charged, I am hoping just because it wasn't clicked down all the way. But I have my living area back, treats, a clean kitchen, fresh veggies and fruits :)

~*~

April 5th 2024

It just didn't click down and charge properly. Joy!

So 'dishes caught up' now means daily. Daily. Not weekly. Joy of joy of not having roommates is when I do all my dishes all the dishes are done and no one else is in my way of there being no dishes or in my way of maintaining my health as best I can.

Been doing a little sink load of laundry daily, almost caught up. Now if I do a little sink load of laundry here and there... There will be no laundry. Ever. "caught up" had meant no more than 1-2 washer loads at any given time, and has for at least the last 3 years, but now "caught up" will mean all clothing hand washes within the week, whether or not a landlord provides me with functional washing facilities.

Today was garbage day. And recycling. Let myself sleep through garbage and recycling for the first time last recycling week because I was so exhausted and it just wasn't in the cards. I make so little garbage, but my tiny recycle bin was distressingly full. Now it is gone.

There is only the floor... Again. Again. Again, the floor. But that will be weekly soon now too. The floor cannot be more than weekly, I haven't the health for it.

And then there's the last bit of organizing.

And then my health card, and my taxes, and re-applying for COHB because apparently you have to re-apply yearly even though it's supposed to last 6 years? gee I hope they don't bone me on rent, haha.

And then there is the beginning of the donation purge.

I have been trying to play games on stream lately. Puzzle games and stuff with a creative peaceful mode.

I feel like I did nothing today, yet I did the weekly chores, laundry, dishes and made a big pot of soup I will be eating for days.

I want to spend time writing but I don't have the energy today, not just yet, but it does feel like I am catching up and recovering at the same time because I am taking things slow enough.

~*~

April 12th

I have filed my stupid taxes, done my stupid little laundry, washed my stupid little dishes and taken out my stupid little garbage >:(

Next I mayhaps wash my stupid little floor and cook a stupid little meal...

The weather is nice though, it's raining and I love that

~*~

Uh... April 29th 2024

8:20 am

Errrr I have been trying to sleep at regular times and that is going uh... Listen I have said before i have all the symptoms of narcolepsy, but now also I have horrible insomnia and am starting to get night terrors and sleep paralysis in ways that haven't been an issue for me since I had parents forcing me on a daily schedule for school... I'm going to follow this until I see how deep/bad it goes, and then try to assess from there how to manage my sleep "cycles"...

It's just, when you also have chronic fatigue it can be hard to define to doctors that sometimes the sleepiness comes on in a really sudden episode and is impossible to resist without getting a migraine... without them just brushing it off as part of the chronic fatigue. But I get these sudden sleepy episodes at random in addition to general fatigue, and I experience having fatigue or being sleepy as two completely separate phenomenons. Sometimes I am exhausted but just cannot fall asleep at all, and sometimes I'm not tired really at all but I am stupidly sleepy and just can't do anything to feel alert. Not sure what to do about it though because my metabolism issues makes taking any medication a challenge or outright dangerous.

I'm only sleeping 3-4 hours at night now though, and just lay there awake no matter what I try until after my morning alarm, so I eventually gave up and started napping during the day because otherwise I am useless for weeks at a time.

I am now doing dishes every other day and laundry in the sink every alternate day, and that's going well, and so long as I let myself nap I keep slowly chipping away at everything else.

I had gotten the groceries done but I need to go out again because I am out of cat treats and Pumpkin is refusing to eat without them.

I also had to get on putting up a kind of tent wall on the open side of my bed because Pumpkin decided to pee on my bed when he got mad at me. Now I have bedding to wash added to the pile :(

The mass in my wrist is pretty clearly fluid filled, and there's only one kind of tumour that can be soft and still be cancerous, and this seriously doesn't seem like it could be that. I still need to deal with it, but I think I have to get my health card after the next time I do groceries. The chest pain has fully cleared up now that my thyroid has been managed for a while.

I got the bathroom all the way clean and organized except a box I can't move out of there, 2 log ends and the shop vac and laundry. And then I spilled soil all over my toilet and had to clean it up. After a bit more arranging the shop vac will go next to my fridge... Sort of on my fridge, because that's the corner I keep the mop and broom, filters etc and the best place I have to put it.

Slowly I am handling one detail after another and I guess if I keep this up the apartment will be in code purple some time this year. The goal I guess is to get the storage downsized to just what supplies or extra furniture etc fits under the bunk bed and in behind my clothing rack so everything else can be open space. That would make this place livable long term and actually nice looking. Then I can worry about decorating etc... I do also want to bump the desks over toward the window up onto the wall bump though, so the bunk bed has room to actually rest on the floor, or otherwise make 4 proper feet for it instead of it being rested up on furniture to keep it a foot off the floor.

The big three next projects to fix the place up are:

-fix the chair frame and upholster it, in doing so use up the old mattress cover, some foam and the two sleeping bags

-use spare fabric and all the fluff I have to make a truly boyfriend/girlfriend shaped pillow and in doing so use up all the old spare pillows and batting.

-Repair and stabilize both my book cases and in doing so use up a bunch of scrap particle board so I can throw the rest out and get those painted.

Between that and moving my power tools into my green chest that should actually free up a lot of clutter. The next step then is designing a vest pattern and using up all the clothes and material I was going to make vests out of, going through my t-shirts and making 18th century style men's shirts out of that fabric, etc and so on until I don't have any bins of clothes or fabric left and actually have clothes I want to wear. I have started designing the vest pattern but I want to drape it in addition to making a block pattern, and see what the difference is, and then tweak the final pattern on my body before starting to make multiples. etc...

I am still using all of my time an energy to clean, organize and cook though. All day every day.

Also it turns out I can't have an RDSP at all unless I get 'officially' qualified for the disability tax credit. I ought to qualify, but if they deny me, it means I cannot save up more than 40k for a house without losing it or my pension, and so I'll have to mortgage a house in a way that is liable to turn predatory and could just mean going through all of that only to lose the house and end up with nothing after 10-20 years of saving, scrounging and work.

They really probably will try to argue that even though I am too disabled to ever employ, I'm not disabled enough to be granted the ability to plan for my future without employment... Because our government is like that. As official policy there's a huge gap there you can fit into where they just deny you future planning.

Covid is also fucking me over, because as much as I am disabled enough that having a care worker would mean a vastly improved quality of life, I cannot be risking my life every time they come over, and if I am not going to use services like that, it's very hard to demonstrate to my doctors that I need them, and that is mostly how you qualify for the tax credit.

So because I need to be left alone in order to be at my healthiest, I end up needing to spend my every spare moment just maintaining myself and my environment, and then also I don't qualify to be legally allowed to save up enough to try to mortgage a house ever. This means I have to be able to pay rent forever and if I ever do need a care worker, that will be the year I die of covid.

I can only hope that my health continues to improve a bit, that I get better once I am on top of everything, and that maybe the government increases our pensions enough to actually cover rent or a mortgage payment properly for a fixed rate 10-20 year mortgage. Basic income could save me, or maybe selling a book for enough money?

Otherwise I have no long term plan or ability to provide for my own future because they won't allow it and if I ever get forced into the wrong kind of rental situation I'll just be forced to die a slow horrible death from corona exposure. Our government is doing such a good job [sarcasm]. Everything is in shambles.

On the other hand if I do qualify officially for the tax credit, I'd get extra money and I'd be approved for an RDSP. I meet the criteria, it's just a question of whether a doctor will back me up on paper. I am already having flashbacks to being rejected for my disability pension twice over the span of 10 years of living on welfare.

But hey.... My dishes are done and my laundry fits in a tote, so... yay

~*~ May 23rd 2024

I've been rather distracted making sure my laundry and dishes stay caught up and that I try to get through everything else.

I was expecting to make more progress a lot faster and was hoping to be in full code purple by now.

Had the bright idea to try to fix my sleep schedule and put it to the ultimate test whether I could get regularly scheduled sleep if I really fucking tried to force it... I have been making separate updates for that and the impact it's had on what I am able to do in a day: The great regular sleep experiment of 2024... Mixed results. Ended up doing groceries for the past two Monday/Tuesdays.. or past 3? Whatever, I needed food. Next week is trying to get across town for my health card for sure. I'm too tired to even think, really. Maybe by next update for real I'll be properly settled into my apartment enough that the main priority can be donating a bunch of stuff and then diving headlong into physical projects to downsize the rest. I'd like to get you the shocking before and after photos.

I've been doing as much cleaning or organizing as I have had energy for.

[norcalbruja]

Laptop issues averted, thanks to... Tony Stark?

My laptop got fixed in half an hour yesterday, so I didn't have to drop it off at the store or pay anything!

This folds into my delayed updates, because you know how Loki keeps telling me he has "Marvel connections" because HE is a character in Marvel? Iron Man / Tony Stark showed up around the first week of March and he's just... hanging out with Mythical-Loki.

Either Tony was called up by me listening to "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath for a while (because I don't mind pop music in general, but there's only so many times I can listen to THE SAME FIFTY pop songs from some CEO's nightclub playlist for eight hours a day), or Loki intentionally called him over.

--

I have met Tony and the other Avengers before, but I haven't actually asked them for HELP before (what with... being normal and not needing any life-threatening emergencies). But around the 10th, I was just REALLY fed up with work and its inconsistencies, so I was like "Oh mannnnn, I hate this place really bad today. Tony or whoever has the necessary skills, do you think you can get me off work ON TIME instead of 30-40 minutes late?"

He was like "SWEET, you're asking for things!"

GUESS WHAT, I was only about fifteen minutes late when I left work! Considering my workplace can never figure out whether I'm actually supposed to help close or not, 15 minutes is extremely quick.

Unfortunately the next day, my cash register at work started glitching out and rebooted for no reason.

I can put the cash register down to "the workplace computers are ancient, and it's not a secret that they don't work right half the time," but then MY electronics started getting buggy.

My laptop wouldn't turn off until I held down the power button, and then it wouldn't turn back on properly. My phone was also lagging a lot and tended to freeze sometimes.

I was like "Tony!!! If this is you, please stop messing with my electronics!!! If this is someone ELSE, same thing--please don't wreck my stuff JUST YET! I paid $700 for the laptop!"

--

The next day was Monday, and the bowling alley was basically a ghost town, since weekends and holidays are our busiest times. I was doing unnecessary checks on the lanes just to WALK AROUND because I only made about three transactions that weren't paying for my own lunch, so I was like "Fucking hell, they don't even need me here. ...Tony? Can you get me off EARLY this time?"

So Tony went, "Ohhhhhhh yeah, time to turn up the juice!"

In the most Iron Man way of getting me out of work, the managers had me finish my ALCOHOL SERVING TRAINING after lunch. So I officially got off an hour early, but I also spent the hour before that just legally stuck in the office. I love wasting company time, lol.

So I was like "Thanks Tony, you alcoholic motherfucker. But now I’m done with all my employee training!"

He went, "Honey, you know I’m a SMART alcoholic, right? This place is a mess! The possibilities for getting you out of this joint are endless!" And now I need to make a note to BE VERY SPECIFIC about those possibilities. Eek.

While I was panicking about my laptop on Facebook, I wrote "Tony Stark, please make sure I don’t need to get a new laptop JUST yet."

I make a lot of sarcastic pop-culture "prayers" on social media, so I don't think more than like, two people who already know about my pop-culture paganism would realize that I have ACTUALLY been talking to Tony Stark (or "a spirit who identifies as him," for my followers who might find pop-culture paganism weird).

And uhhhhhh... yesterday, my laptop got fixed in half an hour for free.

Granted, my original Windows OS got corrupted somehow, so they had to wipe everything and re-install a new OS, but my important stuff is backed up to Dropbox and Microsoft! All I really need to do is log back into my main websites and re-upload my games and programs. I'll definitely take needing a few days to "refurnish" the laptop in exchange for not buying a new laptop, or paying for repairs.

THE KICKER: While I was driving home with my Fixed Laptop, I saw some huge graffiti on a billboard with MY FIRST NAME ON IT. It is specifically only visible when I'm driving HOME that way, so that gave me a small heart attack.

Tony and Loki thought it was hilarious.

Now, aside from the snarkiness, Tony is actually pretty fatherly towards me and like... he HAS been asking me to ask him for help since he came around.

I think part of it's because he knows I'm ALSO depressed, and I have a complicated relationship with alcohol/drugs because... you know, I'm depressed AND anxious. I don't want to end up self-medicating, especially since I REALLY like the taste of cider and mead and wine.

This one time, Tony told me, "Look honey, I am NOT a god. I am a person. When someone asks for help, I help them. More importantly, I try to help them in the WAY THEY ASK. You asked the gods for help a million times already! DEAD PEOPLE hear it! The FOREST hears it! Sure, the gods tried their best, but it was not the help you need. And most of your own people's gods just aren't showing up. All you want is a house and an art career, and I'M FUCKING RICH. If I can't help you myself, I can find someone who does!"

And then he was like "New laptop, new year, new life! As His Highness keeps telling you."

Anyway: Thank you again for helping with my laptop, Iron Man. I shall keep away from spiders for the near future.

[csykora]

hi! i'm sorry to bother you, i was wondering if you could rec a few books on the russian 5 / soviet hockey in general? language does not matter, english or russian is fine (pref. english so i can throw them at friends but either work). your posts are the best thing on this site.

Thank you, that’s a great question! I go back to first-person accounts for stories about the players themselves and use a lot of non-book materials for facts like tournaments and statistics, so most of the these will be autobiographies, but there are a couple more general books too.

Please let me know which if any of them you read and what you and your friends think!

I'd recommend anybody start with Igor Larionov’s 1990 book, “Larionov” (originally written in English, but I believe also available in Russian).

It’s a fast read (150 pages). You can dive in, spend an hour with your new best friend Igor in the bathroom at a party listening to him spilling his feelings and relationship drama, and get up to speed on what/who you need to know.

Igor at that age is funny, insecure, over the top, and telling (sometimes on purpose, sometimes not) about his pain. There are bits that might make you want to hold up a finger and ask if he’s sure a conversation went down like that or if maybe his friends remember some things differently--those are some of the bits that made me look for more books.

He writes more on the psychological weight of his experiences, but does discuss some of the physical abuses (more of that is in Fetisov’s book, which I’ll get to below.) It’s one of the most intimate portraits of Viktor Tikhonov—Larionov admits to taking notes on his coach just like his coach did on him. In that sense, it is radically different than the books and articles I’ve read by North Americans.

(Note that he talks about disordered eating, from the perspective of someone who at that time believed this was positive. The passages where he describes his own and his teammates’ diets can be difficult to read. Consider reading Alyonka Larionova’s essay in the Athletic after; it’s not an easy read either, but I found it reminded me there’s the possibility of change and healng even for older people from generational trauma.)

Then try either:

Home Game, Ken Dryden, 1989 (English), the chapter “No Final Victories”

A lot of Canadian men have read Ken Dryden books and thought, ’if I’m looking down anyway, why not navel-gaze about the meaning of life and measure my dick?’ This is, I think, not his fault. He’s writing from a very Canadian perspective, but he’s quite good at writing about that perspective and its gaps.

In this chapter he talks about what Canadian players or the public thought they knew about the Soviets between the 70s and ’89. It lays out a thorough, engaging play-by-play of how Larionov, Fetisov, and others worked toward leaving, and is a nice balance for the raw Igor experience.

This is one of the most popular all-time hockey books, so it’s worth looking for it in your library if you want to just read that chapter.

or

The Russian Five, Keith Gave, 2018, about 300 pages

I like the heart behind this book. There’s good information in it. Keith Gave wrote short, quick, newspaper and radio sports-news for 15 years—he has a deep knowledge of the Red Wings not just on the ice but as an organization, a very interesting personal adventure story, and a sort of eagerness to understand and empathize with the Russian players.

It’s his first time doing historical research or writing a book, so I do think he has trouble telling the things you need to know in the order you need to know them in order to care about them, if you don’t already have a good sense of the timeline.

Hard to find but keep an eye out for:

The Red Machine, Lawrence Martin, 1990

A much longer discussion of Soviet hockey focused on the national team from the early twentieth century to 1989. Has more context, vignettes, and details on the backstory of the ’70s/early 80s team and life at the Soviet training compound than many other books in English.

It’s widely cited by other books but it’s out of print and a bit rare—I think I might have just bought the only copy that was up for sale this year, so I’ll post about it in more detail when I can!

Russian options:

Овертайм, Slava Fetisov, 1998, reprinted in 2016 (Russian), about 400 pages

This is where the really rough details are. Fetisov writes about his childhood, life in CSKA, and leaving. He mostly talks about his own life, rather than saying much about other players, but includes lots of little details about daily life and how it was intertwined with his friends. He has time to get a lot more detailed about the physical strain of training than Larionov’s book, including injuries, players who died in training, the deaths of his brother and injury of Konstantiov in car accidents, and the corporal punishments and other violence, including the time he alleges Tikhonov arranged to have him tortured by police.

I think his writing is very evocative and enjoyable to read, so that helps, at least.

(It’s a bit hard to find, but if you have access to a Russian library or second-hand store, keep an eye out. It was re-released as part of a series in 2016, which is after he talked with Alexei Kasatonov and became official BFFs again, so I don’t know if the text was updated at that point.)

Tretiak: the Legend, Vladislav Tretiak, 1987 (originally written in Russian, but widely available in English!)

This one’s very interesting to think about the psychology/culture of Soviet players. Tretiak writes heartbreakingly about his own personal experiences, especially his relationships with older players and his relief at retirement. But there are also a lot of ‘missing’ details that probably reflect how he wrote it before Larionov publicly discredited the system—he only writes quite vague positive things about Coach Tikhonov, which are completely different from how he speaks now.

Хоккей в моем сердце, Boris Mikhailov, reprinted 2016 (Russian)

I will never come up with a book title as good as Boris Mikhailov’s ‘Hockey In My Heart’.

Mikhailov is very witty and sharp. While he doesn’t tend to talk about the details of his conflicts with Tikhonov, he has great little stories about lots of the people in Soviet hockey. He also played and coached in St. Petersburg and smaller regions as well as Moscow, so he has some interesting information on the contrasts.

Viktor Tikhonov: Life in the name of hockey by Tatiana Tikhonova

Sasha Mogilny once commented that the only people who could stand Tikhonov were his wife and his dog, “and I don’t know how they do.” Would you like to read his wife’s book of pictures of him with the dog? Would you like to read about how she thinks Tatiana Mikhailova is a bitch, which immediately makes Mikhailova seem cool as hell? Try this book.

Xрустальные люди/ Crystal People, Stanislav Gridasov

A detailed portrait of the hockey community in Saratov (where the young Boris Mikhailov played before CSKA). Completely different than the rich Moscow system, it seems like a great counterpoint, showing the regional tensions in the Soviet Union. I was just recently tipped off to this, but you can find excerpts of in English in Bruce Berglund’s new 2020 book The Fastest Game in the World: Hockey and the Globalization of Sports, which itself looks pretty good.

[niobiumao3]

As the blog name indicates, I am Niobium from AO3 and SquidgeWorld. Likes will show from @staypuftmarshmallowqueen.

Here you will find links to most of my stories (crossposted to SW) ,the occasional excerpt, my complaints thoughts about writing in general and fanfiction in particular, and anything I might want to reblog from the various fandoms I write in.

Specifics below the cut.

Me: I am disinclined to share personal info. Sorry, that's just how I roll. If that means you'll avoid the blog, no worries. Everyone should curate their experience as they see fit.

Blog rating: I sometimes post/reblog nsfw stuff. I try to make sure to tag it all for easy filtering (#nsfw or #adult) but see below re: tagging.

My fic: I post on AO3. I crosspost to SquidgeWorld when I can, and post links here, particularly if someone from Tumblr said something which inspired a fic. Most of my fic is Gen/Teen, with the rare Mature/Explicit.

Fandoms: Most of what you'll see is Star Wars*, MCU, Star Trek, some DC animated and film, some comics stuff. A wide range of others like Narnia, PacRim, and more will show up as things release.

Tagging: I stopped tagging stuff a while ago, am trying to get back into doing so. Apologies, I just lack the energy some days. I'll occasionally do a quick sweep and try to catch up. I will always tag current spoilers as #spoilers and the fandom in question, plus anything relevant (eg. episode number or movie name). I'll keep tagging them for about a month or so.

Shipping: I'm largely ambivalent about shipping and such these days. I have pairings I like and those I don't, but I just ignore the ones I don't.

Who I reblog from: I do not vet everyone I reblog from nor am I going to. I'm too old and tired for that sort of thing.

Anon Asks: Fuck around and find out.

Fanart and Commissions I've received

Possibly useful posts you might be looking for:

Havoc Marauder Interior Layout - updated 2023/11/03

Tags you might care about (as noted above I suck at tagging):

fanfic (mine)

Lego stuff (mine)

fanart (other people's)

cosplay (other people's)

* I am way on my SW bullshit right now because TBB but it will probably pass once we're a few months into the Year of Hell waiting for S3. Probably. Maybe. Look, no promises. lol what was I thinking

[mkstrigidae]

hi, just a random APWH question! do sansa and robin have a different birthday than their actual birthday? like does sansa think she’s a libra when she’s actually a capricorn (imagine the adjustment she’d have to make whenever she checks her horoscope — the horror @_@)? i’m wondering just how devious petyr was and if he went to those lengths when falsifying the birth certificates. wow this is a long ask but i wanted to let you know that i’m rereading APWH again and loving it more and more. thank you for sharing this fic with us!!

Hi friend!

Omg- I genuinely hadn't even considered the horoscope implications 😂 I'm not super into astrology, but I would imagine that Westeros might have a different horoscope system than any of the ones we have in our world. For simplicity's sake, though, I think Sansa's actually a Capricorn. Anyways, her actual birthday I think I decided would be in January, but the day she thinks is her birthday is in late summer at some point- Robin's is different as well, but I can't remember the details 😂

Petyr Baelish is a wildly devious human in general, which is part of why it took so damn long for anyone to figure out what happened to Sansa, and there's very little I wouldn't put past him. There's some writing I've been doing for a future APWH chapter where we get some insight into his thought process, his motivations, and kind of where his moral limits are over the years (and how he got to where he is now, and how he came to be the person he currently is), so readers will get some insight into that in the future.

Whenever, that is, I have the time to get my shit together and update😭😭😭 (I know it's been about a year and I am MORTIFIED about that, but like, it's been a hell of a year for me tbh so we're all just doing our best).

Anyways I'm so glad you like the story!!! I hope you enjoy your re-read, and don't try to do it all in one night! (Occasionally I get comments that suggest people do this, and while I get it, believe me, that's a one-way ticket to sleep-deprivation).

[falling-rivers]

The Year Of The Sun

Hi I'm here to explain the weird new hashtag you might have seen on my last post.

Something you might need to know about me is that in the last few years, I've turned to and have been studying different practices of paganism. A lot of it stemmed from one of my followers letting me know that something I'd written about was a closed practice and I realized more research was needed so that I didn’t offend anyone. That’s the last thing I want to do, of course, so I delved into discord servers, podcasts, reading books, visiting metaphysical stores, buying crystals, pendulums, tarot cards… and learning as much as I possibly could about all of this. All of this really did start as research, but the more I learned, the more I connected with it, and here I am, almost two years later, really, with the decision to just own it. It is part of who I am now.

My parents were less than thrilled about this. I’m pretty sure my mom is still convinced I'm summoning demons, even though the most I've done is read tarot daily to get a feel for what problems I might encounter during the day (kind of like a morning “heads up, this is the mood of the day" kind of thing), and leaving out offerings for a couple deities I've felt drawn to (as well as our house spirits!) And warded the house because protection is important always.

Which is where we come to that new hashing you might have noticed: “The Year of the Sun.” The Sun is one of the Major Arcana of the Tarot (so one of the overarching theme cards of the deck). It’s a card that, upright, represents positivity, joy, success, and celebration (among other similar concepts). Each deck has similar meanings for this card, but the general idea is that it is the card, when upright, represents positive, good things. (Side note, reversed, or upside down meanings of this card are somewhat opposite meanings, like negativity and depression. I don’t want those things for my year).

Am including below a picture of the imagery from the deck I use most often to give you all a visual representation of what I'm talking about. (Side note: the Rider Waite Smith deck, which is one of the better recognized and more widely known decks, depicts a small child riding a white horse underneath a smiling sun on their Sun card. I dont use that deck so I dont connect with that imagery).

For this year, I want the positive meanings that the Sun represents. I intend to make it happen, come hell or high water. I’ve started a gratitude journal. I'm recognizing my negative thoughts and mentally poking them apart to self diagnose why I think that specific thing, and try to reframe my thoughts in a more positive way. For example: where I live, we have a lot of rain and gray skies throughout the year, which has like likely contributed to me sinking into a comfortable, angsty sad over the years. Now, trying to stay more positive, trying to think more positively, yeah, it might be raining, but plants are being watered. And heavy rain is soothing and means hot chocolate and cuddles with people I care about.

I realize none of this has to do with writing, and is more of a personal update into my own life. If you feel uncomfortable because of this post and the spiritual aspects I've mentioned, you are welcome to unfollow me, because again, the last thing I want to do is offend people or make them uncomfortable with my personal life. And if you don’t want to see any of the updates from this year, you can block the hashing I've added to personal posts for the year.

Update re: absence will be out within the week. It’s a long one and I’m still in the process of redrafting it. Thanks for being awesome, everyone.

[calicotomcat]

hello! I just finished re-reading 'stardust, silk and steel' and wanted to let you know how beautiful it was! Seriously one of the best Voltron fics I've ever read, if not one of the best fanfics in general! I'm practically obsessed with it, and take great inspiration from it! Its amazing and so are you! I just wanted to ask, if its not too annoying- are you planning on updating? I just want to know so I can stop obsessively checking- I have it bookmarked on Archive, but I still check regularly

I apologize for my embarrassing rambling in advance and I hope it comes across at least mildly coherent. 

I have a couple of messages like this sitting in my inbox that I’ve picked up over the past few years and I keep meaning to answer them when they arrive, but I never quite know what to say.

Apart from holy shit thank you thank you thank you, anyway.

Because until someone says something I kind of forget that people actually not only remember but apparently really enjoy my writing and want to see how the hell it all turns out. It’s weird and thrilling that you love it, that you still love it after all this time. It’s weird and thrilling that the impact some of my favorite writers and fanfics have had on me over the years is apparently something I’ve had in turn on other people. It’s genuinely surreal.

I still go back and play with all the scenes and chapters and drafts (the many, many, many scenes) I have from time to time because I still enjoy the story but I keep thinking that I’ve waited too long to do anything with it or that nothing good will come from it. 

But apparently not.

I really truly do intend to update at some point, and eventually take the story to it’s conclusion, but I honestly don’t know when that’s going to be. So much has happened in the past vague mumble couple of years that even though I’ve recently (finally) been getting back into writing as a consistent habit and getting better I genuinely don’t know when I’ll have chapters that I’m fully satisfied with. Plus, I think I might need to reread what’s already up so I can remember what the hell I was thinking back then.

(And edit, oh stars I will need to edit won’t I...)

But, regardless, by way of apology or whatever you want to call it, mayhaps you would like a small preview for a flashback I’ve planned for a chapter somewhere between 34-40 that shows us exactly what happened to the Altean Queen ten thousand years ago? 

Something to at least show you I haven’t completely abandoned ship yet, anyway.

A statuesque woman with long, flowing midnight curls tugs gently at the gauzy shawl across her shoulders, shuddering at the sharp chill in the air. The flowing white and gold gown she had chosen for today’s observation is more of an outdoor garment for this shared moon- the climate outside is almost Altean, arid and comfortably warm, while the climate inside is tailor-made for Galra soldiers and caters to a preference for cooler, more humid air. She can’t wait to leave the internal observation deck to survey the exercises properly, even if that means she has to listen to the complaints of her Black Paladin for every moment he is away from the air conditioning.

He never did care for the dry heat of Altea.

Maybe she’ll finally be able to convince him to come back to the Castle. Or at least tell her why he left. Explain why he’s stayed away. It’s been three years. She’s given him his space. Surely she deserves an answer- not even as the Queen of Altea, or as the Star of Voltron, but simply as his friend, as Eris. Certainly after all they’ve been through she deserves that much.

She’s heard… whispers, stories about attacks on Galran outposts, stories that make her suspect she knows why he left them, but even that is something that people have only heard rumors about rumors for. Even that is wild speculation.

All she wants now is the truth.

She brushes a long curl back over her shoulder, pausing when the back of her hand skims the cool surface of only one delicate jewel earring- ah, right, she left the second pair in her daughter’s care. An old tradition Allura had complained about when Eris had yet again presented the young Princess with the box, but that she knew her daughter still appreciated all the same. As a little girl the Princess had hated when her mother would leave for diplomatic events without her and Eris thought that maybe giving her daughter a responsibility (take care of these for me, I’ll be back for them soon) would help. It did, when Allura was tiny. She took her responsibilities very seriously even as a young child.

Now she groans with exasperation because she’s not a child any more, mother, she’s an Apprentice now, but no, wait, she’ll still take them, a tradition is a tradition after all, and are we truly Altean if we abandon our ways so easily. Eris shakes her head fondly. For all Allura claims to be a warrior, there’s still the makings of a diplomat inside of her yet.

She watches as soldiers mill through the hangar, from Galra and Altea in equal measure talking, joking, a few of the younger ones roughhousing off in a corner where their officers can’t see.

The door slides open behind her and her shoulders loosen. A tender smile paints across her face as she turns from the window to the doorway. “Zarkon, my dear friend, I was beginning to wonder if you would show up at all, I certainly wouldn’t want to do all of the day’s surveys by myself-”

[zarekthelordofthefries]

Any tips for putting together a Monster Of The Week game? I'm making a campaign and haven't ever played before 😅

Oh, sure! Some of this might be kind of basic stuff that you might’ve covered already but since I don’t know where you’re at in the process yet I’ll try to give some general starting stuff advice. (From your phrasing I’m gonna assume you’re the GM for this.) (Also, uh, some of this got kind of long-winded, but mostly it’s stuff I feel is really important)

Initial thing to consider: Have you played a Powered By The Apocalypse game like MotW before? If not, it’s important to get into the right headspace for it, especially if you’re coming into it off of playing another game, like D&D. D&D and MotW have pretty different design philosophies. Getting into things like “You as the GM don’t plan scenes, you plan a situation” and “You literally never roll, only the players do, you just make your moves” – or hell, the entire concept of GM moves – can be difficult to grasp if you’re like most roleplayers and are coming off a background primarily of D&D, where the GM plans dungeon setpieces and is encouraged to make a ton of rolls and doesn’t really have a system of responding to players’ roll failures in the way GM moves function. I don’t really have any particular advice for this, it’s just kind of a mental unlearning-relearning process anyone has to go through when they pick up a new game. But again, I don’t know your gaming background – you might’ve already cleared this step, it’s just something to keep in mind!

So, I think an important early step in ANY game is having an in-depth conversation with your group about what you want to get out of the game. In fact, I would say the most important early thing in MotW, moreso than the players picking their playbooks, is to have a group discussion of what style of game you want. MotW supports several styles of play that can give you very different-feeling games. You can use MotW to play Supernatural, Buffy, The X-Files, Scooby-Doo, The Dresden Files, or something in between two or more of those – and it’s not gonna be fun if you start playing what you want to be Supernatural and the players want to be Buffy. Talk to your players about tone first and foremost – do you, as a group, prefer something very silly (Scooby-Doo), something grim and brutal (Supernatural), or something in the middle (Buffy)? The MOST IMPORTANT part of this is talking to your players about boundaries. MotW is an action-horror game, and horror comes in many forms that can be touchy for some folks. Talk about what might or might not be comfortable for everyone at the table when it comes to serious subjects that might come up in the game.

Another aspect of that early discussion, less important than boundary-setting but definitely important for the type of story you want to build together, is what kind of setting and style you want for the game. I think it can be useful to establish early on what ties the player characters together. It could just be a location, maybe all the characters just happen to live together in the same weird monster-heavy town and happen to work together, but it can be stabilizing to have something more concrete. The book goes over some of these ideas (I believe it mentions the idea of belonging to the same organization investigating monsters or all the player characters being family members). An important aspect of this is also deciding whether you want the game to be mobile, with the PC hunters traveling from location to location to deal with monsters (this is, funnily enough, both Scooby-Doo and Supernatural style), or centralized in one location with repeated monster attacks (this is more Buffy style). I technically only have direct experience with the latter, but I think both require roughly the same investment on your part, just in different ways (you don’t have to map out every town you go to every session in a mobile game, but you may want to sketch out a map of town in an immobile game, or just use an existing real town and see if you can find a map online – rule 1 of GMing is knowing when and what to steal!).

I think this initial conversation may be more important than playbook-picks, but it shouldn’t be a huge deal if your players already have an idea of what they want to play, as long as you make sure to get on the same page re: tone and style. Additionally, I assume you’re using the updated ruleset from the revised edition of the game, but I’d advise you to check out the old MotW site and its free downloads of other classes that didn’t get added to the revised edition: Here. You’re not obligated to allow any playbooks in particular in the game, of course, but I’d at least say check ‘em out and if you think they work for you, let your players see them too. (You might be discouraged from some of them by tone, and that’s totally fair, some of them are definitely built for sillier games, but keep in mind that can be changed by the right player. My group has both a Luchador and a Meddling Kid that are really human, multidimensional characters, so if that’s what you want and it’s what your players want to do with them, that can work. Of course, if you want cartoon characters, they’re also very good classes for playing cartoon characters.)

As for, y’know, playing the actual game, I would advise you to avoid my mistakes and try to really follow the book’s advice when it comes to early mysteries. Try to make fairly simple, straightforward hunts at first before you start getting complex or esoteric. If you’re like me you might get excited to try to mess with the formula before you even establish a formula for your players, and in a game you’re new to, that can be overly ambitious. (Although you can, of course, get really creative within the formula. Just look at the two example mysteries in the book – in their STRUCTURE they’re very standard, one big monster with a handful of minions that the players have to find a kill, but with radically different styles.)

Remember you aren’t making scenes for your players to run through, you’re making a situation with many dangers (not just the monsters – remember locations and NPCs are dangers, too!) and a ticking clock that the players have to figure out their own clever ways to overcome. It’s their job to be proactive and your job to put things in their way, but let them shove the things out of their way if they figure out how. (Also keep in mind the players can always prevent things on the countdown clock! This is a minor point that I think the game states directly, but don’t start your countdown clocks at something the players have no chance of stopping and/or already happened.)

Don’t worry too much right now about setting up arcs – your players, through their choices in character creation, are likely to give you a ton of fodder for that stuff. IIRC the book advises to start thinking about arcs after you’ve already had the first session, and that’s good advice, but you can probably wait even later than that if you can’t think of anything yet.

Some advice on magic: Let cool stuff happen, but keep in mind the tone and style you set up with your players before allowing something. Magic is flexible in the game, but don’t let clever magic-using players walk all over you. Like I do. A lot. But uh yeah, keep in mind you get to pick the restrictions on a spell. This is one case where GM fiat kinda has to come in to regulate things slightly and you have to decide what makes sense narratively as a cost for the action being attempted. Some characters, like the Monstrous or the Spooky, will logically in the fiction be (super?)naturally magical, so they can get away with fewer of the material-component-type stuff for Use Magic rolls that seem like they should be part of the characters’ natural abilities, especially if you’re going for more of a high-magic game where magic is a little less limited, but you can still put restrictions on things like time in those cases.

Lastly, I don’t want to overwhelm you with options, but I’d advise you to give this PDF a look-see if you haven’t already. It’s about introducing other forms of the supernatural into MotW in addition to the basic magic stuff that the game assumes by default. It adds new “monster” types that are built to emulate threats posed from weird happenings or alien phenomena, to give more of an X-Files or Warehouse 13 feeling where instead of hunting a physical monster, the players are unravelling a strange circumstance and trying to prevent the phenomenon from hurting more people. It also adds options for characters replacing the Use Magic basic move with some other different Weird-based move, which might be near-superhuman physical feats, mundane gut instinct, psychic powers, etc. You don’t have to allow or use these options in your game, but it can make more sense for specific styles of game if you and your players don’t want a setting where everybody can use magic, and/or your players want more thematically appropriate Weird powers for their character if they don’t see themselves using magic often. It can be a good incentive to avoid Weird being a dump-stat for players who don’t want to play a magic-user, but the game is perfectly playable and fun in either style. Again, don’t want to overwhelm you or your players, but I really like the More Weirdness rules and remember how I could’ve used them in some of my earlier sessions, so I want to make sure you’re at least aware of them even if you want to play a more Buffy/Supernatural-style “everybody can use magic fairly easily if they know the rituals” type of setting.

(Okay, actually-lastly, one more minor thing: This isn’t really advice on playing the game, but I would advise you and your group to come up with a title and theme song for the monster-of-the-week TV show that your game is telling the stories of, purely because I found that really fun in my own game. Our theme song is “Stone Cold Sober” by Paloma Faith, if you’re curious. I link the music video in our game chat every time we start a game, after I narrate a cold open.)

I think that covers all the basic stuff I can give advice on off the top of my head. If there’s something I haven’t covered here that you’d like more detail on, or you have a more specific question about how the game is played, feel free to ask! Happy to see more folks playing the game and happy to help out!

[jarchieriverdale]

I'm writing a Riverdale fanfic (Jarchie mainly, with Beronica on the side) which is one of my first proper fanfics ever. Any general tips or maybe even just tips for being brave enough to actually, you know, share it? I'm feeling so awkward about this entire thing!

Can I first start of with saying: so much kudos to you for wanting to put your fic up! Fandoms getting new fics and writers is always a huge YES because we always need more & definitely welcome it ^_^(This definitely ended up being really long, but I made a list further down if you don’t wanna read all my rambling. I’m not sure what specifically you’re feeling awkward about, but I covered a bunch of stuff :))

Reading this I was like, I’m probably not the best person to ask because I have really bad anxiety ?? but then I was like, actually, you know, that’s why I’m probably one of the best people to ask because HOW the HELL do I manage to do this despite that? And honestly it involves a lot of self-talk + bravery + a fuck-it-I’m-gonna-do-it-who-cares mood. And I have a feeling this post is going to be rather long, but I’ll just talk through my own experience and what I’ve told myself, and maybe it’ll help you (or someone else) as well. :D

(I decided to put this under cut IT’S SO LONG IM SORRY (& if you’re on mobile I’m even more sorry t_t) 

I’ve actually been writing stuff for YEARS. I started fanfics in middle school, before that I was writing my own little stories. Little me in primary school and early middle school, so badly wanting to be a writer (I RP’d a lot between 07-10 as well). But I never shared my writing. SOMETIMES with close friends, if I bought up an original story and they were interested I would send it to them. Otherwise, I wasn’t about to share it with anyone. ESPECIALLY not my fanfics when I started. A lot of my earliest have gone unseen by the world (and myself for years). I’m sure this may apply to a lot of people if you’ve written stuff for years, regardless what type of writing it is. I don’t know if you’ve written other stuff before anon, but if you haven’t that’s okay because we all gotta start somewhere & if you want to share it right away that’s one hell of an achievement and damned awesome. On the other hand, if it’s taken a while, that’s great too. Either way, sharing can be one hell of an anxiety inducing situation.

Okay, so when it came to finally posting stuff up, I’d definitely been writing a while, but at this point I knew I really wanted feedback on my writing, and to see if people enjoyed it, so that was a huge factor in me sharing it online. I’d never find out what people thought if I kept it to myself forever. Critique can sometimes be tough (just before my ImperialRemnant account on AO3 I wrote fanfic elsewhere and definitely had “this sucks” reviews - which isn’t so much a critique, but actually being a dick because they weren’t helpful - and definitely had fics that did rather terribly - still do - but it’s all a learning process & you eventually get used to it).

It’s also important where you post it, AO3 would be best of jarchie and beronica, as well as tumblr. Fanfic.net usually does better with gen fics. They’re the only ones I use, although I have accounts on some other sites I still gotta go on.

So I’ll go through things you should remember if you’re nervous about putting up fics (and things I have to remind/tell myself constantly):: 

1. I’ll start with the fact you’ll definitely get reviews/comments/critique like I said previously. But most people are REALLY REALLY nice, so don’t freak out (I tell myself, as I’m trying to rationalise), and I haven’t had anything terrible since making my ImperialRemnant account on AO3 or fanfic.net. And there are always times your fics won’t get any comments at all– and that’s fine too! I’ve had that happen to me, and in the long run, it doesn’t feel like a huge biggy??Also, sometimes people aren’t gonna like what you do and they’ll say that, but that takes me to a second point–

2. It’s not your problem if somebody doesn’t like something. This is really important to know. You wrote the fic because it’s a concept you wanted to write, and something you really wanted to share and that’s amazing. You put tags on everything in your fic, so the person will go in and know what to expect, so if somebody does say something, then it’s like… “it was in the tags/summary? Why did you read this then? Wtf?” then 0% your fault. (Tagging’s important guys! I do find it hard so if you do too then try! You’ll usually be fine). 

3. In regards to quality of fic, there’s definitely is a lot of amazing stuff out there, and that’s overwhelming. But you gotta know, there’s a lot of bad stuff too. I hate to say it, because it’s the nice thing to say all fic is good, but the reality is that’s not true. Your fic may not be the best (hey it may be damn amazing I haven’t seen it xD), but there’s a damn good chance it’s not going to be the worst either. Say to yourself this fic isn’t terrible, it’s fine. Your quality will improve over time anyway when you grow as a writer (Lord forbid there’s stuff from a year ago I published and I’m like… why did I do that…but that brings me to the next point).

4. SOMEBODY WILL LOVE YOUR FIC, I GUARANTEE THIS. I didn’t know this at first but learnt it quickly and have to remind myself EVERY TIME. Even if, later, you’re going “oh god that fic was a dumb idea”, there will be someone, at some point, who will have loved it and enjoyed it and wished there was more. It may just be one or two people but goddammit your audience is always gonna start small, and if it stays that way it will always be worth it for someone (that someone can be yourself too!). The best feeling is when somebody gets excited from your updates (HUGE reason why people should leave comments if they love a fic, because there’s a lot of people who are passive readers even when they love love LOVE a fic & just leave a kudos, definite issue. But I hope as a fandom we can not be like that?).

5. Your writing is not going to be perfect to you, it’ll never be perfect, you’ll be sure there’s a way something could be written better, but maybe you don’t know how to make it better (especially if you don’t have a beta!). I never expect fics, when I go in to read them, to be perfect. No writer is perfect, even properly published writers. You’re going to have to tell yourself it’s the best you can do RIGHT NOW for THIS fic. Put it through an editing program maybe if it’ll make you feel better (I use prowritingaid sometimes?) or leave the fic and go through it later. It’s gonna be fine.

6. Don’t expect much at first. Sometimes first fics can be very successful for people, but there’s a shit-ton of people where this doesn’t happen and it takes a while. When I first put fics up on AO3 they only got less than 10 kudos or something? You will eventually write something that a lot of people may love, but it can take a while. I think… well I’ll give you an example with the Star Wars fandom– I first wrote TFA & Kylux on AO3 before The Force Awakens had even come out, so obviously I didn’t get a lot of attention. When the movie came out, there was few fanfics but I was already there so a lot of people would read my fics (dunno if they liked them, but since they were some of the ONLY ones that existed they didn’t have much choice ;P). If you’re writing fics in a growing fandom you might be more likely get more attention later on your fics, if only because there’s few choices. Some of my fics still have barely any kudos, but I have nearly 60 fics and they’re gonna be a hit or a miss (& they eventually gather more kudos overtime, so even the worst fics have at least a few). With Jarchie, I was actually surprised I got as many as I did, but this fandom’s in the process of growing and I assume a lot of people are reading all the new fics?? It’s probably good for you actually, to right now put a fic when people are reading it and into it. 

6. It gets easier. Man, I ain’t even kidding, the first time I was putting up a fic I was freaking out like mad, going back and forth between the tag, mouse hovering over the publish button, re-reading a billion and ten times. It was ~kinda~ easier in a fandom where nobody was reading the fics because you definitely don’t expect much, but there were a couple of people who definitely enjoyed the series I was writing once I’d put some stuff up. And as time went on, it got much more easier. There’s a huge gap of time I didn’t put any fics up and it was hard to update again, but now that I did it, it’s once again easier to do it. I still have internal battles with myself over it, but it’s quicker to get over it and much easier to win. 

7. I forgot a note so I’m just gonna add it quickly. But if you’re really weird about it, you can first send it to a friend to look over, or a mutual or something. Or, since I myself never could do that, just tell someone about the idea– and I suggest telling someone you know won’t make a negative comment about it. Sometimes a “that sounds interesting” or “that sounds cool” can be even a little helpful. If you’re lucky, might even go a long way.

Honestly, my mind goes through a whole lot of panic, and sometimes it just takes a good mental day, and some excitement about the concept of my fic, to be able to be brave enough to finally put something up. I usually have low expectations when I share it (being a pessimistic person by nature, so as not to disappoint myself), but I’m like… somebody’s gonna like it at some point, it’s not the worst fic I’ve ever seen, it’ll be okay. And if a fic doesn’t do well, then you just need to put it behind and move on (repress memories haha). Leave it up, don’t take it down, somebody may eventually come across it and love it, but there’s no harm done having fics that don’t do well. It might just be that it’s not gonna appeal to most people, and that’s okay.

At the end of the day your fic’s gonna be okay. There’s a bunch of amazing, unique, horrendously weird, terrible, awful fics out there and the last thing you need to feel is awkward. I know this ended up being a monster of an essay but I hope it’s helped, even a little.

tl;dr? No need to feel awkward, sit yo ass down and just fuckin’ do it. Shit’s crazy.