#I want to write more of my own

[waytooinvested]

How it feels diving into the vast Supercorp tag on AO3 trying to decide what to read next. You're all just too good.

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[composeregg]

edit (10/23/2024) now that the poll is over: Original version, with 10 questions, from April 2023 here

And, given that the original is from April 2023, that means I can very easily say:

No, this was not an ISAT reference!

Just because I use parentheses and 2nd person pov and love the same concepts of what a time loop can do to a person doesn't mean it's ISAT

(Yes, I like ISAT, the original poll is why I was recommended the game! But if you look at the original, you can see all the origins of the options to choose from, including what spurred me on with the moss option from the replies)

If I were going to make something for ISAT, I would never be so vague, you can simply look at my ao3 for proof of that

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Normal boy spotted.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[krazieka2]

I've played the Fire Emblem Husbando Dating Simulator Games

[choccy-milky]

im finally playing HL again after only playing it once when it first came out, and thanks to mods (especially @silverxstardust's clothing mod) i finally made clora how i like her...LOOK AT HER.....my baby angel darling👼💖💖

seriously tho playing the game again after all this time (especially now that im playing as CLORA clora, and not just clora that was a random chara i made) is so different, but its also taking me back so much🥹😭💖

[tremordusk]

Lilia, done hearing Rio talk in her ear: Fine you girls want a fight?

Agatha, readying her magic: I can drain you easily

Rio: In more ways than one

Lilia: Not the fight I was foreseeing

Rio: Madre dios

Agatha: Am I- I mean yes, my wife and I can take you in a fight *slaps Rio on shoulder to get her attention*

Rio: Mommy, break me, choke me, use me—

Agatha, covering her mouth: Too soon, dear

Lilia: I’ll teach you both a lesson

Agatha, let out a light moan: Oh, yes teach us—

Rio, shoving Agatha: Spit in my mouth, and RIDE ME—

Lilia, tired sigh: I have a long night ahead of me…

[redbean-nom]

Cadets

(aka trash children, chaos children, and children who understand 98 is getting graded on this)

Inspired by @thefoundationproject! Closeups under the cut:

jesse got this pic from jangotat:

[thresholdbb]

I'm a Kai Winn apologist but not because I think she's a good person. She's a compelling tragic character

[izzystizzys]

When the 212th collaborates with the 501st, chaos is sure to follow in their footsteps. This has been largely true of every engagement since the start of the war, in Cody’s experience. Had he even an ounce more of a rebellious streak, he might question why and whether the success rate is worth the feral instinct for mayhem his battalion and Rex’ awaken in each other - as it is, he simply fills out the after action reports and then screams into his pillow, which is hard as durasteel and doesn’t warrant the name.

Or, on some days, he steps into the training rooms to work off some nervous jitters only for his foot to catch on someone’s armoured shoulder and faceplant straight into what looks like the entirety of both battalions piled together in a massive cuddle pile.

“What”, he manages between gritted teeth, heaving himself up with one hand supported on Crys’ arm and the other planted in places that make Boil jackknife up with a strangled yelp, “the kriff is this?!”

“We’re watching the Corrie Reality Special, sir”, his own voice calls from somewhere across the room. “The 91st is passing by, so we have satellite access to the Coruscant Broadcast network for a few hours, and we couldn’t settle on a specific show -“

“- so we decided to watch them all”, Rex finishes, sheepishly, where he’s fought his way through wiggling piles, hoots and badly imitated monkey lizard noises. The thought that he shares DNA with these degenerates is enough to drive Cody to the brink of a nervous breakdown some days. “Spopcorn?”

Ah. The Corrie Reality Circuit. When Cody first heard of it, he’d thought it was a prank. Then, they were deployed to the middle of bumkriff nowhere on the edges of Midrim space edging on Outer Rim, with a connection so spotty even classified military intel only got through about half the time, and the whole idea got shelved in favour of clankers and keeping his General’s lightsaber in his General’s hand where it belonged.

Now, a gaudy, glittery monstrosity of a logo announcing a Coruscant Rotational special appears on a rigged up screen, which means one of two things: either Fox is pulling the Galaxy’s greatest long con on all of them, or he’s been murdered and replaced with an evil clone (ha!), because there are no circumstances in which he would agree to star on Coruscant Reality TV.

Cody tilts his head consideringly. Rex smiles at him sheepishly. Tilts the spopcorn bowl at him, invitingly.

“Oh, dank farrik, sit your shebs down!”, someone (Fives, probably) yells out, fed-up…ly.

Cody sits his shebs down.

“Good morning and welcome all of Coruscant to the Great Coruscant Rotational Special: Our Boys in Red Edition!”, a bright red Twi’leki man announces on the screen amidst cheerful jizz music and loud hooting from the training room. “My name is Braham Horton, and I will be your exalted host for this fine, fine late night cycle!”

“And now, gentlebeings of the metropolis, I present to you the images that have driven us all to laughter, joy, and even tears at times over these past few weeks - whodathunkit, that the CSF media project would enthrall a whole Galaxy of viewers and cause the largest recorded peaceful civil protest of all time?!”

“The sorry what now”, says Cody, suddenly thinking back to the urgent meeting General Kenobi was currently in with Generals Windu and Yoda - passing by on the Venator in orbit. “Uhm”, says Rex. Braham Horton, unfazed by the commotion he’s causing lightyears away, chatters on.

“- many hours, so we’ve compiled an introductory little best-of for you, exalted viewers! And what better best of to start off on than the hottest entry of the most explosive bombshell into the villa - please give it up for Commander Thorn and how he stole all of our hearts on Love Island!”

A garish, club-tech jingle Cody has so far only heard buzz through the walls of establishments that generally didn’t allow clones thrums through the training room, followed by what can only be described as the sort of noises spiced up banthas might make. Thorn appears on screen, more oiled up and half-naked than Cody remembers, though just as bleach-blond, hair slightly longer than regulation and smile blindingly perfect.

“I’m Commander Thorn, baseline twenty-four years humanoid - during daytime I might be the scourge of Coruscant’s criminal underworld, but at night I don’t mind playing good cop for you!” He punctuates it woth a sleazy wink and fingerblasters that have Rex honest-to-god gagging, and Cody seeing his life flash before his eyes. If Alpha-17 finds out about this…

Suddenly, Thorn’s smile drops in favour of what might almost be called a scowl on even his handsome face, and the music cuts out. “There, got your soundbyte. Can I go back now? I’m supposed to be on shift.” Indistinct, off-screen chatter and a captioned oopsie… appear in a shower of glitter. Thorn’s face does something complicated. “For HOW MANY MONTHS?!”

Cut to a montage of what Cody can only describe as beaches, oil and abs galore, Braham Horton narrates and extremely close-up shot of what Cody tries very hard not to identify as Thorn’s crotch. His own crotch, in a way. Oh no, that’s weird, stop that train of thought immediately-

“Although our favourite bombshell’s entry into the villa wasn’t without its hitches and hurdles-“, emphasized by a zoom-in on Thorn’s form in a speedo huddled away from a partying crowd of softcore-kriffing contestants on a yacht, “- as well as all know, he would soon find his place in the villa - or places, rather!”

Two crying humanoid women appear on screen, with eyeliner smudges down to their knees. A hoot goes through the room. Cody watches with a sense of impeding doom. “You slept with her after I chose to match up with you instead of Chad?! How could you!”

Thorn, still oiled up with both blasters out for the world to see, winces. “I didn’t me-“

A hysterical gasp, a camera swerve. Three more people stand by the doorway, all clutching their chests with wide eyes. A broad, green Twi’leki man raises a finger to point accusingly. “You were sleeping with them too?! I thought I was the only one!”

“Dear Force”, Cody murmurs, unable to look away from the building speeder wreck on screen. Braham Horton laughs good-naturedly at his misery. “Ah, good times! And who could forget the all-out brawl of the following matching night, where a record number of every single other contestant attempted to physically fight the others for the right to match up with Commander Thorn! Including a somehow returned Chad, who nearly won thanks to the element of surprise. I wish we could show the footage, but then we’d have to slap several warnings on it and probably still get taken off the air.”

“I didn’t know Corries kriffed like that!”, someone (Fives, let’s be honest, it was definitely Fives) calls out into the room, receiving snickers and a well-aimed pillow to the throat for his trouble. He goes down with a choking scream.

“Someone who was less impressed by the hot’n bothered beach weather was Commander Thire, who found himself Less than Impressed by his co-contestants inability to keep it in their pants on Too Hot To Handle!”

Thire’s face, identical to Thorn’s in every way except the ones that matter, appears on screen. His black hair is cut in a cropped mohawk, arms folded over a button-up he’s carefully pieced together with… safety pins? Where are the buttons on it?

“These people are pathological and pathetic and I will spend not a second longer on this farce of an attempt at ‘entertainment show’”, says Thire, air-quotes so sharp they could cut stone. His scowl might be permanently etched into his face, Cody can’t tell. “Unlike literally everyone else, I have an actual job to do. Now move.”

A brief pause, in which cheerful jizz music plays over what is obviously a producer begging off-camera, followed by an eyeroll so hard it hurts Cody’s brain to watch. Thire throws his hands into the air in defeat, marching off into the sea behind him still fully clothed.

“When they didn’t find him until the last episode, I’ll admit, I thought he’d died too!”, Braham Horton cuts in cheerfully. “But would you look at his little lonely island lair - now that’s a fulfilled man, and too many coconuts for my taste! We’ve had to blur his hands out as he discovered the cameras just moments before these holos were taken, unfortunately. And, dear viewer, who could forget this exit-interview for the ages!”

A considerably more clothed Thire appears on screen, eyeing a microphone like he’s about to use it to stab out his own eyes. The reporter clears their throat in audible anxiety. “C-commander, how would you describe your reality experience in one word?”

“Demeaning”, says Thire, blandly.

Silence.

“Um, o-okay”, squeaks the reporter.

“Would you like some more words?”, asks a dead-eyed Thire.

“No, um, I think - I think we’re alright.”

“Because I have many words. Mostly for whoever the *bleep* thought this was a *bleep* good idea, and *bleeeeeeee-*”

“We’ve had to censor most of the Commander’s on-screen appearance, dear viewer, for your sensibilities”, says Braham Horton, eternally and painfully cheerful. “And speaking of sensibilities, who could forget Commander Stone honouring his name in several challenges on ‘I’m A Holostar - Get Me Out Of Here!’”

Soulful violin music fills the gym, overlaid with images of a bald vod Cody surmises must be Stone. Stone stares stonily into the void, glass of bright green something raised to his lips and already half-empty.

“Memorably, he downed a pint of acklay urine within seconds-“

Horrified screams are followed by an image of Stone chewing, yet another thousand-klick stare.

“- or when he ate Tauntaun anus -“

Rex doubles over gagging, and Cody slowly puts his handful of Spopcorn back down.

“- of course the ten minute worm-bath challenge cannot go unmentioned -“

“FORCE PLEASE NO!”, screams someone (Echo) tearfully. Commander Stone, buried to the chin in wiggling orange worms, looks less impressed.

“ - and who could forget his encounter with a horde of ginntho spiders and nests of vexis snakes!”

A remote goes sailing past the screen, missing by a mile, as images of Stone with his whole arm stuck in various boxes fly past. Someone is retching. It might be Cody.

“We would show the infamous butchery challenge wherein the Commander found himself drenched in nexu guts and sandworm brains, but once again, this is family friendly programming and we are not allowed. Nevertheless, a win well-deserved. And now, please welcome the one, the only, the awe-inspiring, the unbelievable: Marshall Commander Fox!”

Another Force-awful jingle, big, blocky letters, and Cody chokes on his own spit when Fox’s scowling face appears on screen. He’s thinner, greyer and angrier than the last time they saw eachother in person. Only the last one is really a surprise.

“I am neither naked nor afraid”, says Fox, arms crossed firmly, foot tapping impatiently on the ground. “I am, however, quickly losing my patience. Explain to me again the point of spending my valuable time undressing in the middle of bum-*bleep* nowhere on the Midrim instead of doing my job as the head of planetary security in the middle of a Galaxy-wide war?”

Several beats of silence follow. Fox grows less impressed with each. Cody knows that look well. Usually, it precedes handcuffs and a cold sonic blast to the face.

“Um… you signed a contract?”, says a producer’s voice uncertainly off-screen. Fox barks out a harsh laugh. “I’m legally classified as military property, my signature holds less weight than if I’d had one of the Guard’s massiffs shit on that contract for me.”

“Ouch!”, calls Crys.

“Gettim!”, adds Longshot.

“But… don’t you sign off military documents all the time for the Senate?”, sputters the producer.

Fox smiles with far to many teeth. It’s also a look Cody knows far too well, and even lightyears away it has a shudder going down his spine.

“Really makes you think about the technicalities of that definitely-not-slave-army, doesn’t it?”, he says, dryly.

“Although considerably less naked and afraid than all other contestants, Commander Fox left us with many memorable moments - such as when he saved the entire crew from an angry Acklay!”

Most of the next holovid is blurred out, though Cody can (unfortunately) guess at the why and how. So can most everyone else, judging by the collective groan.

“Down, boy”, says Fox, flatly, to a hissing Acklay twice his size. It rears its fanged head, and a shudder goes through the room. Fox simply crosses his arms and nails the beast with an unimpressed look. “You are making a fool of both of us. Cut it out.”

Chastised, the Acklay blinks at him, slowly lowering itself back down with a confused hiss.

“No kriffing wonder all the Corrie shinies are such hardasses”, mutters Rex, whom Cody is hard pressed to agree with. “I came from a tube and that look gave me daddy issues.”

“Yes, dear viewer, who could forget these heart-warming moments of good, quality television!”, sighs Braham Horton, dreamily. “Not Coruscant anytime soon, that’s for sure! We are now entering the twentieth rotation of the sit-in protest of a petition to allow the Commanders of the Coruscant Guard to compete on Dancing With The Planets, Coruscant Rotational’s epic dance competition!”

“Dear bum-kriffing Force”, whispers Rex, wide-eyed and awe-struck. “Does Fox know about this?!”

Cody, who’s already dialing the kriffer’s comm-code, wipes a singular tear from his eye. “Not a clue, but kriff, am I going to enjoy telling him.”

[lemongogo]

they should get to kill each other at least twice .i think

[inkskinned]

you wanted to be a good friend, because you loved your friends, but the truth was that everyone else somehow had a pamphlet on being normal that you never received. most of the time you learn by trial-and-error. you are terrified of the next big mistake you make, because it seems like the rules are completely arbitrary.

you've learned to keep the prickly parts of your personality in a stormcloud under your bed - as if they're a second version of you; one that will make your friends hate you. it feels feral, burning, ugly.

instead, you have assembled habits based on the statistical likelihood of pleasing others. you're a good listener, which is to say - if you do speak up, you might end up saying the wrong thing and scaring off someone, but people tend to like someone-who-listens. or you've got no true desires or goals, because people like it when you're passive, mutable. you're "not easy to fluster" which is to say - your emotions are fundamentally uninteresting to others around you; so you've learned to control them to a degree that you can no longer really feel them happening.

you have long suspected something is wrong with you, but most of the time, googling doesn't help. you are so-used to helping-yourself, alone and with no handbook. the reek of your real self feels more like a horrible joke - you wake up, and, despite all your preparations, suddenly the whole house is full of smoke. the real you is someone waiting to ruin your other-life, the one where you're normal and happy. the real-self is unpredictable, angry.

your real self snarls when people infantilize the whole situation. because if you were really suffering, everyone seems to think you'd be completely unable to cope. but you already learned the rules, so you do know how to cope, and you have fucking been coping. it's not black-and-white. it's not that you are healed during the other times - it's just that you're able to fucking try. and honestly, whenever you show symptoms, it's a really fucking bad sign.

because the symptoms you have are ugly and unmanageable for others. your symptoms aren't waifish white girl things. they're annoying and complicated. they will be the subject of so many pretentious instagram reels. if they cared about you, they'd just show up on time. you care, a lot, so deeply it burns you. you like to picture a world where the comments read if they loved you, they'd never need glasses to see. but since that's a rule you've seen repeated - "one must never be late or you are a bad friend" - you constantly worry about being late and leave agonizingly early. there are no words for how you feel when you're still late; no matter how hard you were trying.

so you have to make up for it. you have to make up for that little horrible real you that you keep locked in a cabinet. you are bad at answering emails so every project you make has to be perfect. you are weird and sensitive so you have to learn to be funny and interesting. you are an inconvenience to others, so you become as smooth as possible, buffing out all the rough parts.

all this. all this. so people can pass their hands over you and just tell you just the once -how good you are. you're a good friend. you're loveable.

[vanhelsingapologist]

Publishing has always been a fucking nightmare, but now it’s a layer of hell. It’s not enough that writers be good at what they do. Writers have to maintain an active social media presence and cultivate a following. Be available.

They have to be conventionally attractive enough to look good enough to see on a screen, aesthetically pleasing, kind, funny, up-to-date on trends, socially aware but not so controversial that they turn off a brand from California from slapping their discount code on a video promoting a book.

They have to do all of this with no media training, with little help from the companies that are supposed to be doing this for them.

Of course, a lot of this isn't possible for say, the 40-something mother of two who teaches English at a school and writes on the side. She’s boxed out of an already complex industry that already has enough walls.

On some level, I think authors have always marketed themselves a little, but we’ve reached such a crazy point where we’re demanding the author become the influencer. Accessibility in publishing has narrowed from an inch to a sliver. And that inch was hard enough to get in as is.

[muffinlance]

Wait, what’s going on with Embers???? That fic has been on my read later list since 2021, what’s happened with it???

Brief overview, then I'm likely never touching this topic again, because this is not a Drama Blog:

Context: Embers is a super old AtLA fic that was written during the early fandom days, read widely at the time, and was the origin of the widely-used fanon name of "Wani" for Zuko's ship (kind of by default that it was one of the first popular fics to give his ship a name, I think?), even though most fic writers don't seem to realize it's from there anymore.

"What's Going On": I used to include a link in all my stories to it, because I believe in crediting other writers for borrowed elements, and I was using "Wani" in all my fics. But BOY did I not want to be sending readers that way anymore, so I've adopted a new name for Zuko's ship, and removed all Embers links.

None of the criticisms about Embers itself are new; I'm assuming they date back to when the fic was being written, because this isn't an "it aged badly" thing, this is an "actually yeah this gets worse the longer you think about it and I shouldn't have ignored my bad feelings just because some of the worldbuilding was interesting" thing.

An Incomplete List of Why I Made the Change:

I don't actually like the story that much anymore, and don't want to rec it

I tried to re-read it recently to see if some things were as bad as I remembered and it turns out they were So Much Worse Oh Yikes. More specifically, the treatment of Katara and Aang and their respective cultures has... rather a lot going on. One example: The Fire Nation and Air Nomads are both given multiple backstory elements in an attempt to make the average Fire Nation soldier's participation in the genocide/war in large part the fault of the Avatar and the Air Nomads themselves, and also fully justified from the Fire Nation perspective. And I do mean fully. One of its core tenants is "People from the Fire Nation (and only people from the Fire Nation) who don't follow orders Literally Die, therefore murdering pacifists and babies and continuing the war (and their regularly scheduled war crimes) is the only thing it is physically possible for them to do". I cannot emphasize enough how literal that is.

Also the name "Wani" means "Alligator" and is... objectively a pretty lame name for Zuko's ship? Where's the personality, where's the deeper meaning, where's the resonance with Zuko's themes? @tuktukpodfics initially thought I was calling the ship "Wanyi", and that's what I've switched to, because it is Objectively So Much Better. In their words: “Wànyī (萬一): Literally ‘one in ten thousand,’ ‘perchance.’ Used grammatically in Chinese to mean ‘what if’ or ‘just in case.’ I think a ship called ‘The Perchance’ is perfect for a boy clinging to false hope.”

TL:DR; I don't rec Embers anymore, because I don't actually like the story anymore, and there are things about it that get worse the more I think on them. I've removed links to it and renamed Zuko's ship to "Wanyi" ("The Perchance") because our boy deserves a ship name that reflects his character arc.

[macdenlover]

we don’t acknowledge enough how dee used to be a pageant winner when she was a kid and how much damage it did to her. she worked her ass off and got recognition for being pretty and talented at a young age and it was the only source of self esteem she could garner in a family that constantly berated and talked down to her. she sought after that external approval because it was the only way she could prove everyone around her wrong. her dream of being a performer didn’t come from a self-aggrandizing delusion— she genuinely showed a lot of potential when she was younger. but she went through an unflattering puberty and her spinal condition got worse and that natural talent she had as a kid plateaued way too early. the “former gifted kid” dilemma. she slowly lost the thing that promised her that she was good, but she was so desperate to keep holding onto it that she tried anyway. again and again and again no matter how much people made fun of her because it was always about proving them wrong. but after a while she couldn’t jump anymore without anticipating the way it feels when she hits the ground face first. self-sabotage became her way out, choosing to rather live in the fantasy of her own unrealized potential and blaming those around her for her lack of success, than having tried and crashed again. she’d rather buy lottery tickets over and over and never scratch off the numbers than to see that she lost. that self-sabotaging behavior bled into other aspects of her life too, from friendships to relationships to therapy. her own short lived success is what made her grow into embodying the cycle of failure.

[liauditore]

Equally Invalid