#I’m writing much slower than I’m used to but I’m also putting a lot more effort than is warranted

[imanes]

i feel like I should just have a mental breakdown and get it over with you know?? but I’m like stuck in a stress limbo where I have to take melatonin to sleep and I’m sweating weirdly and I’m short tempered but other than that… she’s holding steady. but I just wanna have a good cry and then move tf on. Or eat a fat ass plate of pasta it truly is what I deserve. anyway I met word count for the day and then I proceeded to remove a whole section to rework in another document I’ll do that tomorrow it’s like 8:40pm I’m going to sleep

[citrusandcyanide]

Can't Lose You | L.G.

Part 2

Pairing: Lip Gallagher x f!Reader

an. Okay this part is a lot shorter than I expected just cause I think it was a good place to end the scene. I got more coming, but this had to stand on its own. I forgot to mention in the last part that I changed Lips college to UChicago instead of Chicago Polytechnic. Also Thank you for the kind messages and reblogs!!! They really motivate me to write and put out chapters quicker. Thank you for the love <3333

Synopsis. Lip doesn't want to go to college unlike his best friend who has her mind set on leaving Chicago and her feelings for Lip behind. Lip won't let her leave so easily.

words. 1.2k

Warnings. Drinking. angst, swearing. idk clutch your pearls.

Part 1 Part 3 (Final)

“Berkeley…” Lip said as he held the acceptance letter in his hand. “California.” 

“Cali-fucking-fornia,” You said with a grin, giggling a bit from the beers. You had gone through more than a few. You were tipping over the edge of tipsy. Lip was going at a much slower pace. You were laying down on his bed while he was sitting on the edge of it. His eyes kept scanning over the paper. His expression was bare. You were too gone to care what he was thinking. “I fucking did it. I’m fucking out of here. All that work, fuck… I was hoping it would do something but I didn’t think it would.I got in. to BERKELEY. THE UC BERKELEY.”

“I’m proud of you, kid,” Lip applauded, but his voice didn’t show any enthusiasm . You stood up to grab the letter from him. Only then did you notice his clenched jaw and dissociated expression. You stared at him until he looked over. He straightened his back and handed you the letter. “I’m sorry it’s just far.” 

“Yeah that’s the point: Far. Away. Not here,” You replied, rolling your eyes. You knew he would do this, but you thought he would at least try and pretend to be happy for you. This was all you had been wanting, a life outside of Chicago. But he couldn’t bring himself to entertain the idea for a moment. He wasn’t going to let you leave easy. 

“What about the, uh–what’s it called? The institute. ISA something,” Lip asked. You interrupted him briefly to correct him before he continued.  “That’s a perfectly good option.” 

“Why? I told you I don’t want to stay here,” You sighed and fixed your position on the bed so you were fully facing him. 

“Yeah but is it really that bad here? It’s not sunshine and rainbows but it’s fine. It’s not like Berkeley is gonna be any different,” He said, looking at you fully. There was something behind his eyes you couldn’t quite place. Like a part of him was offended you wanted to leave. You didn’t like it. 

“There isn’t anything left for me here.” The excitement left your voice. You stated it plainly. It was a fact. There wasn’t. Lip wasn’t yours. Lip had never been and never would be. You had no other attachment to Chicago than him. You waited long enough for something that wouldn’t happen. Lip scoffed. 

“We’re here. Our friendship, us,” Lip said, pain evident in his voice. He was taking it personally that you were ignoring the fact he was here. He didn’t realize he was exactly the reason you needed to leave. “Is it selfish of me to say that I don’t want you to leave me behind?”

“You have your own ticket out. You are personally capable of leaving on your own,” You quickly replied. It hurt you having to justify your reason for leaving to your best friend when he’s known how important it’s meant for you this whole time. He couldn’t be happy for you for a moment without thinking of what it meant for himself and his life. 

“I’m not going to fucking Boston,” He replied offended, shaking his head in disgust. 

“There’s nothing keeping you here. That’s your choice,” You argued back. You weren’t going to let him paint himself out to be the victim. He had equal the chance to leave Chicago behind and start something good for himself. You wanted that for him. You desperately wanted to see him succeed and find happiness outside of what your current life had to offer. He just couldnt see the same for you.

“You’re keeping me here. We– Us,” Lip turned fully to face you. His eyes pierced deep into yours. It didn’t sound like an excuse. He said it and you could tell he actually believed it. It was the first time in years that he was admitting that a part of him needs you in his life. He cared about having you with him. He cared that you grew up together. That you were his other half, but it was delusional to believe the two of you hadn’t been growing apart. And whatever this is was a plea to hold on to what was left. 

“Stop repeating that as if it was a thing. There hasn’t been an us in years,” Your voice was stern. 

“But there can be. Me at UChicago, you at SAIC. a few miles away from eachother,” Lip put a hand on your knee. “I haven’t been fair to you or your feelings and I know what I said before but not having you here is so much worse—” 

“Don’t bring my feelings into this.” You winced. You shut your eyes in an attempt to control your emotions. 

“It’s not just yours,” He argued. 

“Stop.” You kept your eyes closed. 

“They’re mine too.” You felt the bed move under you as he inched closer to where you were sitting. 

“Stop.” 

 “I love you–” You cut him off before he could finish. 

“Don’t say that. You don’t want me. I know how this will go,” You said opening your eyes. The alcohol had made you dizzy but your head was as clear as day. You’re heart was pulling you towards him and it made you angry. “ You’ll keep me here and play with someone else’s heart instead cause you think it’s kinder than to do it to me, but you are playing with my heart. All of this is hurting me. You’re hurting me.” 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” He reached his hand out towards you. You quickly pulled it away. 

“You can’t help it,” You spat back. Tears threatened to fall from your eyes as your rage began bubbling instead you. 

“You don’t know what you’re saying.” He shook his head and tried to reach for your hand again. You held your own close to your chest. Clenching your shirt over your pounding heart.

“You don’t love me.” With each of his words you felt your walls being chipped away. 

“I do,” His voice sounded like he was pleading. 

“You don’t want me.” You were convincing yourself, not Lip. He was your weakness. He always was.  

“Y/n, if you stay I’m yours.” 

The world stopped. As you looked at the boy in front of you, your walls broke. He won. Lip gets what he wants and he wants you to stay. To give up the dream you had been working so hard for and you were about to. He was offering you another dream.

“Let me be yours… please,” He pleaded, his voice barely above a whisper. Your hand fell into his. He gently pulled you forward to him, closer and closer until your noses touched. You closed your eyes. His lips touched yours. How could you ever say no to Lip Gallagher?

~~~~

an. poor Mandy lol

[ov105]

Nighthawk

This took a lot longer to write, again, Though it just made the deadline for OEC’s (re)debut(?) so that counts as a win. Probably one of the more difficult ones to write for some reason, despite the simple premise. Maybe I’m just a bit burnt out, so I’m very glad it finished itself. Just on time, just on time...

2,125 words of Jeong Jinsol. Enjoy!

Seoul. Thursday. The banks of the Han were a reminder of an average existence. After filling ourselves to the brim with samgyeopsal and two bottles of soju, we were neither drunk nor fully sober. I didn't see doubles, nor was she, sans the headache, rubbing the side of my forehead, and maybe the more sluggish pace of walking. Time also seemed to go by quickly but much slower if it indicated being genuinely drunk. Steering clear of needing hangover drinks when we brought our snacks. We just laid out our jackets, having not needed to use them with how humid it was, instead using them in unorthodox employment.

So we sat far from the populated spots where many people were, but not exactly secluded to become another statistic; A trough alongside the usual path, not too steep for anybody with a mat to lay down on. Fingers jammed halfway deep in a snack bag of whatever flavor to wash out the taste of alcohol, chatting about what looking far along the breadth of the Han gave us to talk about.

In any case, it was a proper waste of time for either of us. 

One thing she had a knack for when she was intoxicated—doing something stupid. Chuckling at the mention of me not wanting to venture into the woods at night, she asked. 

"Hey, wanna go into those?" 

Jinsol, with a naughty smile, pointed to the grove, a small one that an elevated highway passed above through. 

"You're not gonna find anything there," I asked. 

"I know." 

Moving closer, she reached for something, placing her hand on my thigh. Her breathing slowed, and her eyes, looking around, signaled a pursuit, a need for pleasure, so much for treasure hunting, as she leaned closer. I did the same and kissed her, so much as an agreement, her hand slipping between my thighs. Mine came to her neck and slid into her shirt, groping her as she deepened her kiss before sliding it out and pulling her by her thighs, making her slide closer as she grabbed my crotch, with my hands squeezing at her tits. Tucking our hands away when we thought we heard a bike coming, she told me. 

"Fuck, now I want to go home."

I didn't want to wait for home. Jinsol did too. It was too late now. Though nobody wanted to say it first, I remembered the grove she wanted to go to. One glance and the bushes and tree trunks seemed thick enough to hide behind. 

"Psst, wanna do a quickie over there?" 

"Do you?"

I just huffed and stood up, walking up the crest and not more than five steps later. 

"Ya, wait up."

Briskly matching my pace, she grabbed onto my shoulders. I was looking around, trying to be confident in our quick hideaway. I told her to dart into the brush, following as I broke into a jog and charged behind the bush.

Quickly finding a tree, she pushed me up against it, putting her lips on me again though now with much the same shamelessness she displayed in the bedroom. Barely seeing anything, it was a guessing game of touch, rummaging amongst ourselves. Our hands found their way on our crotches again, lightly grabbing where we could as we aroused ourselves. 

Though I was the one pushed, I knew where to touch Jinsol, feeling herself becoming much warmer as her flesh slid past my fingers—cursing myself for being unable to take off her shirt and suck on her nipples, which she always liked since I tugged at it so gently. My case was more straightforward. I liked the way they felt in my mouth. Not wanting to dwell on what couldn't be, I slid my hand out of her shirt and onto her ass, grabbing and squeezing it, and for the first time, she pulled away, shakily breathing as we reversed our positions.

Kissing deeper this time, I was already hardening on her grip, sliding her fingers along its length. Whispering into my ear as she teased me, though I tried not to be too distracted. Giving myself some reassurance that this would be worth it, I gave a few more smooches, pressing my fingers on her pussy, drawing a small circle, before pulling away, whispering. 

"Take your pants off."

Taking her hands off me, Jinsol did so, following after her zipper as now I pressed against her panties. Feeling her warmth through my fingers as her body relaxed, she sighed as her palm let go of my neck and landed on my shoulder. Pulling back, I saw where my lips were due next, putting them low on her neck as I sucked hard. Her jacket's collar always rose higher than where I struck. 

The only thing worth listening to by then was her to stifle her moans. Rubbing on her clit, damning foreplay as I just needed to get her wet. Thinking that was enough, I slipped into her panties, feeling her folds getting wet as I slid my finger over them, going through all the motions as I played to her tune. I closed my eyes as we kissed, letting our guard down as she writhed, her legs shaking, hips even bucking when I pressed my finger between her folds—all while trying to keep quiet and not give us away. I almost forgot we were supposed to be quick. But after one close brush with breaking our silence, I stopped. 

"Your turn?" Jinsoul asked. 

"No need for that," I replied as I undid my zipper.

"Why's that?" 

Reaching her hand forward, she then slid it into my pants. Seeing her smile through the dark as she felt my stiff shaft waiting, that curious chuckle as she turned around and slid her panties down. I undid mine in turn, sliding my boxers off my cock. I knew what was in front of me. Every time, I simply couldn't help myself with her bare fat ass just left alone—slap!—Jinsol snapped her neck at me. Tsk! Shrugging, I put my hands on her hips and put my tip against that soft opening to push past. 

Deep breath, hips forward, I slide into Jinsol, clenching my ass as her tightness beckoned me further inside. Departing from the usual ruse de guerre of slow, short thrusts, I bucked my hips forward. I gritted my teeth, a wave of pleasure rolling me over. Seeing her turn her head as my second thrust made her whimper, the squelch of her walls making me stop for a second. 

Pressing my fingers in, I continued to thrust. If it was already difficult to keep herself hush earlier, it was near impossible now. Almost feeling Jinsol's weight shift as she began to shudder. Her legs shook, and I knew I could stay still, but she was always easy to take down with a few thrusts. Feeling so much tighter with her legs closed that it felt like I was pushing with my hip, not just merely thrusting. 

"Fuck," she huffed, mouthing a cuss I couldn't make out, following with a muted order. 

"Deeper." 

Then I remembered how I was fucking her. She wasn't bent down all the way, sliding a palm forward and pressing just below her tummy as I complied. That did the trick. She slipped a moan between her lips, shooting back at me as she put her fingers over it. Unfortunately, my eyes failed to catch hers, but I felt her stare all the same. I just knew the look on her face as I grabbed her ass and kept going.

By now, if we'd taken our time, she would've been moaning loudly, making a mess on the sheets, and starting to talk it up until she'd cum. I was losing myself inside her, as I always did. Watching myself plunge into the deep warmth that left me wanting for more, leaving me throbbing, wanting every time I pulled. Velvety is how I always described it. The only thing not obscured was her fingers on the wood, which were a bit bent, and with her moaning earlier, I knew I was doing alright.

Pulling her a little closer to me, the shuffle of her steps gave me a better view of her ass, bouncing lightly even when my pace wasn't that fast, a perfect angle for us to lead things to the end. 

I just knew Jinsol's body enough by now. I should've, really, her slim torso that spread out onto her wide hips and plump ass. Giving me the leverage and pleasure we both wanted every time we fucked one another—never a one-time event—but always ending as a messy affair. She was tall enough, her legs long to wrap me around when she didn't want to let me go and always tighter when she closed her legs and squeezed me. Right now, it made for an easy fuck. 

"Faster."

She whispered. Keeping up with her as I tightened my grip and sped up, letting out another moan with how quickly I sped up, which until then, I thought she disliked. Listening to her, she was whimpering and biting her lip as she moaned through her teeth. Picturing her face, that lewd expression of her eyes shut, her breath shaking, and her lips doing all they could to keep her quiet. 

Being almost bent flat, she had put herself in a tough spot. There was no bed to plop her face down on, no pillows to scream or moan into, nor four walls to bounce back whatever expression of moan she had in her throat. She was on her own, out in public, being fucked, ever closer to orgasm behind a tree, forced to keep quiet as an echo spelled doom. What was constant, however, was that she was being railed deep.

Feeling her legs weaken, I needed to turn it up just by a notch. The sliding action of her wet pussy grinding against my shaft lets me know we're close. So I pushed her forward with my hips, telling her to raise where her hand had been as my left hand slipped back into her shirt, grabbing me by my wrists as I sped up, with shorter and quicker thrusts as I twitched. Returning to the closer position we had been when we started. Stopping to catch my breath, I leaned in and whispered. 

"You're close?"

Jinsol was too tired to talk, nodding as she leaned to kiss me.

"You too?"

I nodded in reply before starting to move again. Hearing a whine as Jinsol turned her head away, I felt that numbing sensation, a tensioned string, build within my hips, my shaft becoming as sensitive as hers. Giving it my all, I thrust where she shuddered the most, repeatedly rubbing the spot as it did with me, biting my lip as I was becoming overrun by my orgasm. Gripping her harder as she was beginning to tighten around me, threatening to squeeze me before her, moans rising in pitch, legs becoming weaker as she tried to stand and keep herself shushed with whatever she had left. A breathy voice came from Jinsol, near inaudible, though I knew what it meant.

So then again, sex was never the same twice with Jinsol.

Going first, she suddenly tightened, throwing her ass back with a jiggle onto my crotch as she spilled over herself. At the same time, thrusting her forward as I came, spilling freely into Jinsol as the first shot deep inside, with it the only moan from me, releasing a load that had been waiting for a while so freely and without as much regret. We reduced into squirming bodies holding each other as we finished. Both of us had little idea of how quick, or if we were even fast enough, inside the grove—collapsing into an embrace as we caught our breath. Sharing a kiss with me, she always had something to say. 

"That was nice." 

I couldn't think of a reply, dead tired, so I kissed her. 

Pulling out of her, my cum spilled, both of us giggling as it dripped out onto the grass. She could not wipe it. The tissues were back in our makeshift blanket, so thinking she'd spilled enough, she pulled her underwear back up while I fixed myself. But the sweat on our foreheads didn't hide anything, though that was much easier to write off. Sneaking back into the path, two scans of the horizon lent us nothing. We walked back with hands linked as we sat down, wiped ourselves off, and grabbed whatever drink we had.

I wasn't even two sips in when Jinsol stepped in.

"So, another round at your place?"

Always more than twice, but never once.

[kib-ble]

medical leave

(simon ‘ghost’ riley x gn! reader)

summary: simon comes home from a long mission on medical leave and he doesn’t tell you because it will worry you

*i tried to write simon where he’s kinda clueless on how to comfort the reader, but kinda made it not like that, idk, enjoy!*

when simon arrived home the lights were off, a few notable changes were made, and you were fast asleep on the couch. a quiet movie lit up the room, showing how comfy your make-shift bed was. he smiled at this. you didn’t know he was coming home this early but you also didn’t know he was gonna be gone this long.

‘it’s only three months,’ simon promised the night before he left. his hands on your waist. your hands on his face, holding his jaw. your thumb brushed against the spikes of stubble on his jaw, he never had the chance to shave. the two of you held each other close, allowing your scents to waft to each other. it was relaxing.

it was five months later when he returned. he knew it would’ve been more if price didn’t put him on medical leave, you didn’t have to know that.

“oh love..” simon dropped his bag full of equipment and slowly walked over to your sleep form. his hand softly pushed the hair out of your face before lifting his mask and giving you a kiss on your cheek. he pulled the covers up on you more and moved to walk to the bathroom.

once he successfully got his gear off, with not much sound, he carefully took of his shirt to show the bloody bandage on his lower abdomen. he had just got it changed before he left but the stab was deep to continue to bleed even after it was stitched up.

he gently peeled off the tape and replaced the padded bandage. the wound stung as the bandage was pressed against it, but atleast is wasn’t infected.

when he had finished washing his body with a loofa, as to not get water in the bandage, he got changed and went to go get you from the couch.

he carefully kneeled down next to the couch and rubbed your shoulder to gently wake you up. when your eyes slowly opened and your mind was cleared of all delusions, you finally realized that it was simon infront of you, not a total stranger.

the shocked face you apparently made got a soft chuckle out him before you jumped into his arms. an ‘oof’ like noise came out of him as he fell back to the ground. your legs wrapped around his waist and pressed against his bandage earning a quiet hiss out of him as well. concerned moved through your body as you looked at him.

“what happened?” you hands cupped his face as you looked into his eyes. his hands held your waist as he gently squeezed it.

“i’m fine, just sore” he promised. you nodded and continued to hug him. your arms tighten around his neck as his arms tighten around your waist. he carefully, and somehow successfully, picked you off the ground and took you to your bedroom. simon gently set you down on the bed, then he got into the other side, cuddling up with you.

“i’m sorry i was gone so long, baby.” his hand came up to play with your hair as you laid on his chest. you looked up at him and smiled. you were always understandable about how much simon worked. it was his job and you were used to it. you did hate the thought of him getting hurt though, which is why he didn’t tell you about his injury.

your arm that laid across his abdomen, your hand softly rubbed his side. of course, it was the side with the obvious, bulky bandage on it. your hand slid across the tape before fully extending to land on the bandage itself, resulting in simon wincing once again.

you sat up abruptly, looking down at simon, who was still slightly recovering from the pain. “whats wrong?”

“nothing, love.. it’s nothing.” simon followed suit, sitting up as well. just a lot slower than you. “i promise.”

“simon,” you spoke firmly, “are you injured?”

he looked into your eyes, deciding it was best not to lie. he sighed and nodded, “yes, i got injured on my last mission, but i’m fine.”

“simon, are you kidding me?” you leaned your head back, eyes screwed shut. “what happened?”

“i got stabbed..” your eyes widened, which simon noticed very quickly, “love, i promise i’m fine.” he quickly spoke.

“simon, you got stabbed! how are you fine with that!?”

“obviously i’m not fine with it, but i handled it. i always do. you’re so worried over nothing..” he knew why you were worried. there would be a time when he didn’t come home from his job. a time where the 141 would show up at your home, carrying the rest of your boyfriends stuff, giving it to you and telling you the news. ‘we regret to inform you that simon ‘ghost’ riley has been killed in action. without his heroic selflessness, we could say that we would not be here to deliver you the flag of our country that ghost had fought so hard for.’

the thought of them showing up at your door had you in tears. you got out of bed and headed to the bathroom to wipe your eyes. you’re sniffling could be heard were simon sat, watching you. he felt terrible but he never meant to get injured and he never wanted to tell you.

“lovie, im sorry. i didn’t want to tell you cause i knew you’d feel terrible..” his soft words could barely be heard in the bathroom, but you understood. you looked over at him, wiping your remaining tears with your hand. “come here, lovie..”

his hand patted the spot next to him, where you were just laying with him. to no avail, you sat back down, not looking at him. “how bad is it?”

“it’s stitched up, but it bled a lot. not enough to make me loose consciousness though.” you nodded, moving your eyes to where his hand sat, which you could assume was right over the wound. simon noticed your staring, “it’s not a big wound, i got the son of a bitch before he could drag the knife.” he once again assured you.

another nod and you silently laid down, looking up at the ceiling. “i’m scared simon.” you whimpered.

“about what love?” simon looked down at you. your eyes closed once again and he noticed the few tears fall down your cheeks again. “oh, baby.”

he laid down next to you as your hugged him tight, you face mushed into his neck, arms carefully wrapping around his abdomen. “baby, it takes a lot to kill me.”

“i know, but-“

“no ‘buts’, im okay. i’ll be okay. i promise you. i’m not reckless and i would never try to get purposely get myself killed.” he held your face, focusing you on his words. “i promise..”

a small smile grew on your face, indicating you understood. a smile also grew on simons, which was just pure happiness and love for you. he hugged you close and you managed to fall asleep in his arms. it was late and he had woken you up from your nap before so you were still undoubtedly tired. your soft breathes managed to lull simon to sleep, too. which, again, wasn’t too hard since he was tired.

[chickenleafs-world]

Rewatching the original animated X-men series in preparation for 97, so of course I’ve also been seeing a lot of X-men posts. And, as always, I have strong opinions on what people on the internet say. Most of the time those opinions are “how did these people read/watch X-men growing up and not get that they’re the villains” because people are being bigots and are upset that their favorite heroes aren’t. But sometimes I’m stuck being frustratingly close to agreeing and my strong opinions are much harder to voice. In part because you don’t want to walk into the Discourse Landmine, but also in part because there’s so much to go over on the take.

Case in point: the “Magneto is right, Xavier is wrong” take, where my main problem with people is more the lack of nuance than the base take. And I know most of the people saying it are also doing it in part as a joke and get the nuance is there, but it still irks me.

Let’s be clear, in general, Magneto is not right, but he isn’t wrong either. Xavier isn’t wrong, but he isn’t right either. Obviously it’s partly dependent on whoever is writing at the moment, but also depending on which individual take of Magneto’s or Xavier’s you’re talking about. Yes, sometimes Xavier is frustratingly, harmfully liberal. Yes, sometimes Erik is doing the best possible for mutant well being. But there’s a lot of wiggle room with individual portrayals, and I think Xavier deserves justice for it. I’m not saying Magneto is just a villain, Stan Lee himself didn’t see him as such, but depending on the writers he can certainly be wrong.

Xavier is wrong when he focuses just on mutants with “useful” powers or conventionally attractive and human looks. He’s wrong when he puts the safety of bigots over the safety of the mutants they’re oppressing. He’s wrong when his only way of helping mutants is through the system. He’s wrong when he’s sending the X-men out to fight mutants more than bigots. He’s wrong when he hides he’s a mutant to avoid the stigma, even when the reveal would help solidarity and public trust. He’s wrong a lot.

But Xavier is right when he focuses on teaching mutants to love themselves and teaches them to control their powers and use them for good. He’s right when he says mutants and non-mutants can live in harmony. He’s right when he send the X-men out to destroy government/private property that’s being used to hurt mutants. He’s right when he takes out all his students, “attractive” or not, to speak up for mutant rights. He’s right when he sends the X-men to break innocent mutants out of prison/jail/unlawful containment. He’s right when he opens his institute to all mutants, so they have a safe place to go to. He’s right when he gives X-men choice and training for hard experiences, be it the choice to hide their powers or be open with them, to break out of jail/avoid arrest, or wait and go through an unfair trial for the sake of mutant visibility and legal precedent. He’s right when he finds places like the institute around the world. He’s right when he himself is on good terms with Magneto and works with him when it’s necessary for mutant good.

Don’t get me wrong, a lot of writers put Professor X as a filthy liberal. It sucks. Focuses on performative acts, letting fascists take ground for the sake of “civility,” and putting minorities at risk for the sake of optics, those are all bad. But sometimes liberal acts can be tools in the tool box. Voting isn’t gonna solve shit, but it can make it go downhill slower. Putting gay people in media isn’t going to end homophobia, but it will normalize gay people. Testifying before Congress for mutant rights might not be the flashiest or most effective way to get mutants’ rights, but it is a way to advance public opinion and slow anti-mutant laws. Just that isn’t good enough to beat the liberal accusations, but combined with the actions of some incarnations it genuinely changes their context. We can’t ignore all the times that Xavier has actively sent the X-men out to break laws and destroy government property for the sake of mutant well being. As much as we joke about the X-men being liberals, they usually aren’t afraid to break laws, break property, and raise hell for the sake of their people. And don’t forget that lot’s of “peaceful” acts of protest still cause disruption and still make a difference, even when it seems liberal on the surface, and can be organized by genuinely leftist people. Lots of Professor X’s portrayals could be genuinely leftist.

Likewise, Magneto is right a lot. He’s right when he says mutants shouldn’t be forced to stay in places where they’re being violently persecuted. He’s right when he advocates mutants fight back when bigots attack instead of just taking it. He’s right when he takes in mutants despite how palatable or useful they are. He’s right to actively fight fascists rising to exterminate his people. He’s right when he gives no fucks about the law when it comes to protecting minorities. He’s right when he creates a safe haven for mutants.

But boy, Magneto is also wrong a lot. He’s wrong when he says mutants and non-mutants can’t live together. He’s wrong when he says non-mutants are inferior. He’s wrong when he gets upset at mutants for wanting to live in harmony with humans. He’s wrong when he invalidates mutants who are upset with where being a mutant has gotten them, without helping them through the complicated feelings it brings. He’s wrong when he frames the X-men, a fellow mutant group, for his crimes. He’s wrong when he says mutants should exterminate non-mutants. He’s wrong when he thinks a mutant ethnostate is the end-all-be-all of mutant rights.

Erik is the kind of antagonist you get. He’s right on a lot of things. He has a lot of emotional appeal. As a (let’s be honest, gay) Jewish holocaust survivor, you know he’s coming from experience with his tactics. He genuinely doesn’t hate Xavier in most incarnations. But that doesn’t mean that in the incarnations where he literally calls for genocide, he should be let off the hook. Violence and resistance are important to most leftists movements, or even just mildly progressive ones. Be it a civil war to end US slavery, the riots at Stonewall, slave rebellions, or any number of revolutionary wars, sometimes active violence is necessary to stop the passive violence that minorities go through while oppressed. At the same time, it’s a fundamentally leftist ideal to believe in rehabilitation and the importance of people changing. And it’s also important to remember that genocide is bad no matter who’s doing it. Letting the genocidal versions of Magneto off the hook because it was “for mutants” is the same logic that lets Israel get away with how it treats Palestine.

I know that’s a lot of rambling to say something a lot of people already know, but as much as I love the “magneto was right” memes and the posts making fun of liberal X-men, I don’t want the genuinely leftists parts of the X-men to go unappreciated, nor the genuinely harmful parts of Magneto’s ideology excused.

[breannasfluff]

Quick question, how do you write so much? I fight the words for an hour and have maybe 2 paragraphs of garbage but you pump out really nice work almost every day??? I have so many ideas but I can’t write them for love nor money

I write almost every day, or I take a break and switch it out for drawing. I generally can write a chapter in one go, so usually stock up some backlog to cover days I’m busy. Having multiple stories now means I don’t have that backlog of some, so updates are a bit slower.

As for writing tips:

1. Remove distractions. Shut discord, exit out of tumblr, mute your phone. When you are stuck, don’t go scroll social media. When writing, the only thing I touch the internet for is if I need to check a story item, like a character name, item history, etc. I cannot overstate how important this is. If you are talking to your friends, you won’t have a writing flow.

2. Do not edit as you write. Writing and editing are two different tasks. You switch between creative and critical thinking and it breaks flow. This is a scientific process and you can read more about it here.

Research electroencephalogram (EEG) suggests both heightened electrical brain wave activity and elevated dopamine levels during flow. In other words, your brain experiences both electrical and chemical changes when you’re “in the zone.”

But once you switch to self-editing mode, you move to the critical thinking side of your brain. You halt all of freewriting’s creative electrical impulses and pleasure-sensing dopamine levels. Your mind flips off one switch and turns on another.

3. Set a time, then be done. Give yourself 20 minutes and write as much as you can. Doesn’t matter if it’s garbage. You can edit garbage into something useful or you can chuck it in a bin. Just try to write, then take a break. Staring at a blank document for two hours isn’t going to make words appear and it just stressed out your brain.

4. Have an outline. Sometimes a magical idea just flows when you sit down to write, but generally not. Have an outline of what you want to have happen in your story or chapter. It doesn’t need to be in depth; for most of my oneshots I literally have a sentence or two at the top of the page. The story needs to have a goal. For example: Wild tries to teach Hyrule cooking. It doesn’t go well. Bouncing ideas off friends can be a big help! It’s why you’ve probably seen me post about prompts and suggestions, and sometimes stories are gifted to people. Talking through plot ideas can help you get a better outline or idea of action.

Misc notes:

Hate to say, but some of it is just practice. I’ve been actively writing for a little over a year with some breaks on and off. Making it a habit is a big thing for making it easy. It’s harder to restart after a break.

When I first started writing I tried to pick one aspect to improve for each story. Filter words, pacing, varying sentence starters, story arcs, etc. Fixing multiple things at once was too much work, but one item at a time was doable.

Filter words make such a huge difference in writing; I encourage you to look them up. It’s a PAIN to remove them in post, but it also taught me to cut them out. Now it’s unconscious and while some still show up, I tend to write them out automatically.

You can learn to write quickly, but if you don’t also work on quality you’ll just…write a lot. That said, it’s fanfic. Sometimes it’s just for fun and quality doesn’t matter. I’ve got plenty of stories that will never be posted because they are just for fun.

Some of it could be writing speed, too? I use a bot a lot of times for timing and tracking and generally average 30-35 words/min. Harder story topics are slower to write, like angst and emotional scenes.

I’m actually writing less this year than last, but I don’t put as much time into it. It also keeps it sustainable as a hobby, although I definitely hit periods of frustration. It can get overwhelming.

If you search my blog for the tag #writing advice or #writing tips, you should fine some other things as well.

This was rather frank, but hopefully helpful! Feel free to drop further questions and I’ll do my best to answer 💜

[starbeltconstellation]

hiiiii i hope you have been having an amazing summer! i hope this isnt that bothersome to ask since you’re still writing it out but i would like to ask around what month do you think you would be able to get the chapter that you are writing to come out? i also saw that you were saying that you were at around 40k words for this chapter so i don’t want it to seem like i’m trying to rush or anything, just genially curious. also hope that the fix doesnt end up being dropped for what ver reason since i think it might just be the only fic for the SW fandom that actually has me going back and re-reading and still able to enjoy it(which is a bit of a rare thing these days since i’m always surrounded by smut having fics, which is not a bad thing, but it can get old quite quickly).

also i have to say that this is the first time where the slow burn has actually been a slow burn and not just a lazy thing written out and having been given much thought. i really like how you have so far made each encounter between the oc and anakin not a copy and paste of their first encounter (with the oc being afraid of her life and anakin being just confused but both of them trying to figure out and work out their problems as each chapter comes out). this is all i have to say for now ig so again i hope you have an amazing day!!! 💕

Helloooo! 😊💕

Thank you so very much for the lovely ask and well wishes, dear reader duckling! 😁❤️✨ It truly made my day to see a new ask in my inbox . Hehe. ❤️❤️✨

And I’m soooo sorry for the late response! 😭❤️💔 It just takes me a while to get to asks sometimes with my life problems going on, especially because I want to dedicate the right amount of attention to giving my thoughts. But I just wanted you and all my other readers to know that I’m never ignoring you. 💕💕

It’s completely fine for you to check in and ask me about my chapter progress, dear! 💕✨ Makes me at least know someone’s still out there excited to see it. Haha.

I’ll put the rest of my answer under a read more:

Well, what I do for my Fic chapters is I try to split up the scenes from scenes from the actual EPISODES from The Clone Wars, and then write the other scenes from my own planned storyline in between everything else. What I had ORIGINALLY planned was to have each chapter be one episode of TCW, or another original storyline arc that I had chosen to add (ie; the Kudon III storyline). However, I very quickly realized that writing out a completely original storyline takes a lot fucking longer and more brain power than expected. 😭😖🫠 And not only that—the 🔥sensual Melakin scenes 🔥 take even TWICE as long as that. Lol. 😭 And so—QUITE sadly—I have had to admit to myself that it just isn’t feasible for my chapters to be that long, even though cutting TCW episodes in multiple chapters might break the flow of the story.

And so, after I FINALLY get out this whopper of a chapter (which I HOPE to have completed by the first weeks of August), I am NEVERRRR writing a chapter this long again. Lol. 😭🤦‍♀️

So rest easy with that, in the sense that hopefully a hiatus will never be this long again. I think the problem with writing chapters this long is that—for one—my SW hyperfixation is gone, which makes my writing way slower that it used to be (which I fucking HATE 😭🙃). For another, the problem is my depression steals my energy and motivation, and while the 25% of lovely reader comments I get out of the 70% silent ghost readers that I try to “pspspsps” into my comment feed, give me boosts of that good ol’ serotonin—at the same time: I think the problem is that, with the shorter chapters beforehand, I could write so much in one day, because in doing so, I would already get halfway done in only a few hours. But with such a long chapter, it makes me kind of dread writing for so long, to not even have the satisfaction of pressing “post” at the end of it all in reward. Lol. 😭💔🫠

And so, this chapter has gone at about a snails pace for that very reason. 😭😅

So, what I NOW am planning to do is to split each TCW episode and original storyline I come up with into probably a three arc format (ie; three chapters), which will make it much easier for me to write without getting exhausted. That way, the chapters should only be at the most 10 to 15,000 words (hopefully. Lol). 😅😂❤️

BUT! I will ease your mind by saying that no matter WHAT—I am NEVER abandoning this story. ✊😖❤️ It’s literally going to be my magnum opus. Now—I KNOW authors say that all the time and then become little lying liars who lie—BUT unlike them, I am writing this dream fix it fic specifically for ME. 😂❤️ So the only way I can have the story of my dreams is to FINISH this things someday. So I hope that eases your worries. Lol. 💕

And awwwww! 🥰🥰🥰💕💕💕 Thank you SO, so much for your kind words about my story and writing! It means the world to me that my fic seems to stand out on A03 and Wattpad to a lot of SW fans. Haha.

And thank you SO much for your compliments on how I’m writing Melakin’s developing slow burn/relationship and in their separate character arcs. It was really important to me that Anakin and Melanie weren’t just getting together to get TOGETHER. I like my stories to mean something, and if you’ve read my other meta posts, then you’ll know that Melakin’s romantic relationship has actually been PURPOSEFULLY paralleled with Anidala, to show the difference between how someone you love can actually make you grow to be BETTER, instead of a relationship where they both enable each other’s worst tendencies (even though the love may have been genuine).

But yeah, it was REALLY important to me that their slow burn was actually REALISTIC, because yes, I’ll admit some slow burns keep the two people apart for way longer than necessary just to have drama. But for Melakin, there’s just SO many reasons they can’t get together yet (ie; the Anidala secret marriage, Melanie’s lingering terror of Anakin, Anakin and Melanie still being barely even friends, and also Anakin’s future moral decay that Melanie remains at the same time disgusted by while trying to stop it from happening), so it makes the slow burn more genuine to me. Their relationship develops the more their CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT develops.

But anyway! You’ll be happy to know that I’ve COMPLETELY FINISHED all of my original scenes for my next chapter! 😊💕 So now—I only have to follow the transcript of TCW episode and write out the actual EPISODE STORYLINE—which will be WAY easier and shouldn’t take as long as before.

I’m not making any promises—but I’m AIMING for a new posted chapter in sometime in the next two weeks. So… just a heads up with that. ❤️❤️💕✨

Thanks so very much again for the ask, dear reader! 😊✨💕 It made my week. Haha.

Until next time! ✨❤️

-

To any new readers that stumble across this and are curious enough to check out my fic:

Tags:

@ensomniaa

@heartfairy

@fangirlteallie

@lemons-2-limes

@shoniwake

[greentrickster]

Canceling Internal Cringe Culture to Start Writing

Okay, I just got asked on AO3 about how to start writing in the face of cringe culture, especially the internalized sort, and I have a feeling this might be applicable to more than one person. So I’m gonna share what I told them with all of you as well! Here it goes:

Hmmm, this one's actually a little hard? Just because I've been writing for over twenty years now, and when I started, cringe culture just... high-key didn't exist. Neither did AO3. Tumblr was Right Out.

All that said... hmm... well first? Instead of using any sort of app or program, get a notebook - whatever floats your boat (I like to use ones with nice pictures on the front, but my sister uses those little pocket-sized ones) - and write in that instead. Even if you're not used to writing like that, give it a try anyway, because writing in a book makes it private, makes it personal, makes it just for you. And if it's just for you, then who cares if it's cringe? It's for you, no one else, and it's makes you happy, which is much more important! I like to use pens with green ink in my writing books. It sparks joy and adds an extra layer of good to the process. It may be slower, but it’s also an activity and movement that’s completely disconnected from all the nonsense on the internet, which can hopefully make it easier to ignore all that.

(If the page looks too big and blank and intimidating, I suggest adding stickers or a silly sketch or something. You can write around them, it’s fine.)

Just as important? Love what you're writing. This isn't 'content' or a product, this is a story or a poem or a memory. This is something you're writing down because you want to remember it. So love it. Indulge yourself, then indulge yourself more. Put everything you want to see into this, because you're also sitting in the audience, a very eager audience member and- hey, what do you know? The audience-member-who-is-you also just happens to be an up-and-coming new producer, everything they touch has been a hit so far, and they're taking an interest in your work. They think there could be something special there, that you, yes you, could be the next big thing. So be super sure to cater directly to this audience-member-who-is-also-you, it could lead places in the future.

Another thing that I find surprisingly helpful? The concept that there are no original ideas left in the world. A lot of creatives find this one super demoralizing or depressing, but I find it encouraging. Because it means, if I've had an idea, then someone else has had it, too. And that someone else probably wants to see it, even if they've made their own version of the idea. Heck, there could be a lot of someones! And they're cheering for you, so go for it!

And finally, the hardest part... you have to make a choice. Which do you care about more: listening to the part that cringes or writing? You can't care about both equally. You just can't. Writing is a lot of fun, but, like any creative form, it's also a lot of work. I didn't sit down and start writing at my current skill level, this is the result of two decades of practice, polishing, and honing my abilities. Looking back, the amount of work I put into all this is kind of staggering. But I didn't do it because 'I have to' or 'it's necessary.' I did it because I love writing, because I knew I could get better and I wanted to. And yeah, sometimes that involved doing stuff that was scary. There will always be aspects of it that are scary. I still get scared when I introduce certain new aspects to this fic, or enter new fandoms, or try something different. Writing can be hard and scary, that's just part of it. But the idea of not writing... that's so much worse.

You're starting in a really rough time for beginner creatives. Cringe culture, purity culture, cancel culture... all disgusting trends that need to end yesterday, if not sooner. It can be hard and scary to try because of all that. So step away from all that, take a chance somewhere private and safe that's just for you, and be brave. Choose to please yourself before anyone else. Love your stories, your characters, and the part of you that loves them, and take that first step. The best time to start a new project was probably yesterday, but the second best time to start one is always now. ;)

[dreamerwriternstargazer]

Something that really irritates me is nights like tonight

Where something small and innocuous to anyone else just gets into my head

I was a lot slower cleaning and recipe testing and even now showering and getting ready for bed because

After dinner while cleaning up I dropped a ladle and got some stains on my trousers

Tiny stains, no one else would even notice them

But I kept stopping to try to see them, cleaned it off, kept stopping to sniff and debate whether I should change my clothes now because I had JUST changed into new clothes today and now it’s stained

And it’s tiny. It’s nothing. This is not something that would typically bother a person I know that

But it kept slowing me down. Because then I was doing my tasks while thinking of whether I should change, pro con list, can I find clothes that coordinate with the colours of my underwear as well and will it be an outfit that matches and will it be practical for going out tomorrow and how much does practical weigh against coordinated colours and clean clothes and wait I’m changing clothes tomorrow anyway couldn’t I be patient and just deal with it til tomorrow

And around and around

For the past…. 4 hours.

But this is just… one of the things I obsess over on a daily basis. Why I used to think I was OCD when I was younger, germaphobic etc but it would be over things that weren’t about germs just neatness and cleanliness. I also don’t have any rituals it’s very much like

Specific things have to be a specific way

Not OCD, more likely autism.

And I think this is where I start to see how autism is disabling.

Not too severe, it doesn’t hurt me, but it gets in the way. It’s like trying to walk fast somewhere but there’s someone walking very slowly in front of you and every time you try to move around them they walk in front of you

Now I’m overstimulated and overwhelmed. I came to a decision, but I kept pausing on my tasks, staring off into space or looking at my phone without really…. Looking at it, just essentially stimming I think because I kept opening the apps and closing them again, while trying to think of what to do

Even though I knew I was tired and I need to get up early

And even now I’ve made my decision but I have this nagging feeling that I didn’t consider something and did not make the best possible decision

So I decided to write this post venting about it, and maybe getting some thoughts from other autistic people (like whether it’s autism or more trauma related broken brain things, which I don’t know how it could be but the possibility exists) about their experiences

And I just needed to… to express all this somewhere. I don’t often think too much about how my quirks and idiosyncrasies are… disabling. My social autistic behaviour, yes I do consider because it’s the main way I feel it, the isolation for years and the effort I put in to comprehend and adjust to situations and people. It’s not as direct however, the autism means I need to put more effort in when socialising, to mask or to connect, but the toll it takes is after the fact

In this case, my quirk of obsessive tidiness directly gets in the way of my main tasks. My focus.

Perhaps this is why it was and is so easy for me to slip into an eating disorder. I don’t necessarily like rules, but I like following rules. I like following my rules, and an eating disorder is just a set of rules constantly cycling through your head. What better rules than rules for a ‘perfect body’, of course I’d follow them to the letter

I guess if that’s true and my more stringent behaviours led to my ED then… even more clarity on how these traits can be disabling it seems.

*sighs*

*sinks into bed*

[snowandwolves]

yooyoyo it's the lengthy ask anon (i nearly typed "ass anon" and that should give you a clue as to how crazy this week has been jfc) back again with some qs because the lighthouse au will forever be in my heart 💕

is there anything you learned about Ava through writing this fic, particularly being in her pov?

uh do you think they ever revisited that conversation about public acts?

is there any particular places you see them visiting together? places Ava visits by herself?

what made you pick "Somebody to Love" as the heartbreak of the century?

did they ever play with the ouija board or the um other things they found in the everything shed?

how did you come up with the idea of Suzanne restoring the truck?

do you think Bea ever gets good enough at cooking that she has dishes she confidently makes for Ava?

which martial arts does Bea have proficiency in?

do you have an idea as to what distracted Bea to leave the rations storage door open?

also after that, when Ava went into town and showed Mary, Cam, and Lilith that "proof of life" pic, just how much shit did they give Bea?

as always, pick and choose or ignore, i totally don't mind - i hope your week has been good and if not, that the weekend gives you some respite! (or at the minimum some yummy veggies? lol'd hard at your tags about broccoli bc i couldn't help but think about Ava making that comment about her asshole in chapter two lololol)

hard relate on the crazy week because that has been me this past week and this is genuinely the first day i feel like i have room to breathe lmao i hope you’ve been having a gentler, slower time this week though! 🥺 right, ok, on to the questions 😂

1. just like,,, how complex of a character she is. in the show, you know she loves life, you know that she’s a glutton for experiences, you know that she wants to live more than anyone else. but when you really get down to how much she’s had to survive to get to that point—all the pain and suffering and grief—you can’t help but love her more. especially, when i had to ask myself how she must’ve felt. that… was an experience lmao

2. yes. ava had to shop for underwear at some point…?

3. GRANDPOP OLIVER! i was genuinely so sad i couldn’t find a way to get him into the story, but in my head, he’s alive and kicking and prone to bursting into tears in the presence of his pseudo-granddaughter. ugh, i wanted to write that reunion 😭

4. this is gonna sound nerdy, but with ava’s age and her mom’s, i figured it was the song that would make the most sense considering what music was like at the time. I Will by The Beatles was also a contender though.

5. ouija board is a horrible idea in a huge ass compound where there’s no other person for miles and miles 😂 as for the uh other things, i’d say they’d have a conversation about it but bea would prolly be like “who knows whose bodily fluids that leather has soaked up”

6. genuinely have no idea 💀 i was like “oh they prolly need a car but also no one to do maintenance here so,,, maybe suzanne knows how” and just went with it 😂

7. yes!!! ava would teach her how and they have fun with it while they google recipes and the cultural background of each dish together. i’m thinking bea would make her waffles from scratch and ava cries into it because she used to have it with her mom 🥹

8. aikido is one. i remember doing research for that for sixth to the ninth hour lmao as for the others, imma say she’s prolly a jack of all trades type (though this is more because i don’t know which to pick. she seems like she could do it all)

9. actually i did think about this 😂 bea definitely didn’t mean to. it’s just the door gave up being a door and it didn’t close properly. she didn’t think to check because she didn’t expect the door to… not door 💀

10. a hell of a lot. so much so that bea put her phone on do not disturb as soon as ava got back with the groceries 😂

ok but what are your thoughts on celery 😭 jk, thank you again for this anon!!! 💙

[married-2-the-music]

K-pop Discography Deep Dives: The Rose (Supplemental)

A Disclaimer: I was planning, when I first started Tumblr, to be a lurker, but then I began an office job and needed something to listen to to keep myself occupied. And then, I started going through entire K-pop groups’ repertoires, album by album, and jotting down my thoughts. And then, I stumbled into K-pop tumblr and decided, you know what, there’s at least four people on this hell site who would read in depth rants about these discographies and at least five who wouldn’t read it and then get mad because it’s kind of our job as K-pop fans. My lukewarm takes should be taken with an entire silo of salt and the knowledge that this is completely for fun and occupying my very bored, very neurodivergent brain. All this to say, for the love of god, I’m a sleep-deprived student and I don’t have time for internet hate, so don’t kill me. With that being said, enjoy!

So, since I’ll probably be tackling some groups with large discographies, both now and in the future, I thought it’d be good to shine lights on some smaller groups and soloists who either aren’t as popular and/or have much smaller repertoires, so that’s what we’re doing today! These are going to be a lot more chill than my deep dives because they’re really more of a fun break than anything else.

Here are my credentials: I’m absolutely a fan of The Rose, enough to consider myself a Black Rose (their fandom name), although I’ve only been one for four months or so. I’ve heard most of their songs, and liked basically all of them, but since I’m going to see them in concert soon, I figured I should get to know their b-sides and so they’d be a good choice to be my first supplemental. Two birds, one stone, sort of thing. Let’s get started!

The Rose was formed a bit differently to most K-pop groups, because they aren’t exactly K-pop. They fall more in the category of an indie-rock band, with Woosung doing vocals and guitar, Dojoon on keyboard, Hajoon on drums, and Jaehyeong on bass. They also met organically while busking and then joined a company already formed, rather than the company putting them together. They later left that company and began their own, which they still work under.

They were a band for a few years before, but officially debuted in mid-2017, with the song Sorry. Sorry is different from many k-pop songs of the time; it’s slower and feels more grown-up, not in the least because it’s an apology, which, contrary to public opinion, is one of the most grown-up things a person can do. By the time everyone’s voices came in in the last chorus, I was completely invested. The combination of the guitar and very obvious piano was lovely, and I especially liked the piano solo at the end.

Like We Used To, the other song from this first single, also falls into the emotional indie rock category, but focuses more on the electric guitar and is a little more upbeat. I like them both, but this one just a little bit more. Also, I love Woosung’s voice. It’s not a “usual” k-pop voice at all; it’s a little raspy and incredibly emotive, and doesn’t sound the same in every song, which, speaking as someone who sings (albeit not this publicly), is harder than you’d think

For another quick digression…The clear emotion on display here in both of these songs is precisely one of the reasons that I think more k-pop idols should be given the ability to write their own songs, because when they sing them, it feels so much more genuine and they can bring their own thoughts to life in exactly the way that they want to.

I.L.Y starts much slower than the other singles so far, which makes sense given the subject matter and the very careful vulnerability portrayed. For an indie rock band, I really appreciate how much they use and center their piano and the quiet guitar plucking and a-capella in the last verse. I liked it, but didn’t love it.

From Void, the EP, I had trouble choosing between Candy and Baby, so I’ll talk about them both. Candy is chill and the guitar gives me gentle surf rock vibes. Baby, meanwhile, is also emotional rock, although leans more into the outright rock than the other songs have before, to great effect. Unlike a lot of rock songs, it has time to breathe between those great choruses.

Red feels more like a K-pop song than the others before (which I want to stress isn’t a bad thing). I liked this one right away, from the more electronic production to the clapping in the background to the anthemic nature of the chorus. I especially enjoyed how pared back the instrumental is in the verses, how it builds in the pre-chorus, and how it lets loose in the chorus, especially the last one. California, the b-side, is a bit more calm, and feels like a road trip song.

It’s not technically a single, but I wanted to give a shoutout to Strangers, their OST for the k-drama Strangers From Hell, because its tense building fits perfectly, and I had no idea when I watched it the first time, which is quite funny in hindsight.

She’s In The Rain has an acoustic background that I wasn’t expecting after the electric driven ones before, and I really liked how it kept their central sound but expanded upon it, using the same components but in such a different way. It’s such a lovely message of solidarity to anyone going through a difficult time and the change in the choruses between “I’m in to the rain” to “she’s in the rain” to “we’re in the rain” really affected me, especially as they all start to sing. I loved this one. My favorite b-side from Dawn, the EP, was definitely Take Me Down, which was actually the first song I ever heard of theirs. I love the melodic vocalizing that bookends it and especially the last chorus.

Black Rose is a special song for their fans that they made right before Dojoon, Hajoon, and Jaehyeong enlisted for military service. Song-wise it actually isn’t one of my favorites, but meaning-wise it never fails to touch me. Plus, the movie video is so sweet that it won me over. Basically, it’s not a song I’ll search for on my own, but if it comes up on my playlist, I’m not going to skip it. I quite like the “love is the way” ending too.

Beauty & The Beast is their first song after their return from military service and I think it’s one of their best combinations of melancholy vocals, guitar, and piano. It has an excellent build-up (that’s earned), with each verse and chorus just a little brighter and happier than the one before, and just like the original fairytale, it feels like it pulls you out of the darkness.

Cure is backed by a sunny piano and thundering drums, and its message of enjoying the world wholeheartedly, whatever the context, really touched me. It’s a way of life that I try to embrace when I can. I enjoy the gentle acoustic guitar in the chorus and of course, the anthemic vocalizing, especially towards the end. It’s probably one of the ones I’m most excited to see live.

Childhood is a gut punch of a song that, despite being so quiet with such minimal instrumentation, had me hooked from the first verse. By the time of the bridge, I had stopped my multitasking and just sat there for a minute to think about it and process, which in my view is the mark of an excellent song. As has been clear since the beginning of my time reviewing, I am, first and foremost, a sap. Give me a song about friendship or growing up and I’m a mess on the floor.

Sour is almost ethereal in its blurred blend of guitar, vocals, and drums, and I liked it more than I thought I would. It’s the lead single from the album and I admit I liked the other two singles better. That doesn’t mean I don’t like this one, which I did, especially the breakdown and the ending, but it feels like it’s in the middle of the quietness of Childhood and the loudness of Cure and it doesn’t quite find the right path to take.

Hidden gems from Heal are definitely Yes (whose feature I enjoyed more than I thought I would) and Time (which balances sadness and maturity so well) , with a special shoutout to the a-capella section in Definition Of Ugly Is. Shoutout to the intros and outros from both Heal and Dual by the way, they really help give them balance.

Clearly I didn’t know what I was talking about when I called Sour ethereal because You’re Beautiful is practically the dictionary definition of the word. It’s so atmospheric that it feels like floating, and the lyrics add to it perfectly. This is a perfect example of a song that achieves exactly what it sets out to do, knows exactly what it is, and is still exactly not for me. I enjoy songs like this in certain contexts, but I have to remember that they exist when I’m in a certain state of mind or I won’t enjoy them the right way. So this is more of a personal preference thing.

Alive, like Sour, fits right in between the softer, slower track of You’re Beautiful and the jump-up-and-down rock of Back To Me, but I feel like it still manages to carve out its own route that sets it apart. It’s…how can I say this without making myself sound five hundred years old…groovy? Well that didn’t work. But I don’t know a better word to describe it. It had me nodding my head and feeling like I should be listening to it walking down a city street in a party dress. I especially liked how odd it is, with the off-beat instrumental, chopped vocals, and electronic breakdown before the end.

Back To Me is my favorite song from this album, and despite not being the first song I listened to of theirs, is the one that made me a Black Rose and the one that made me immediately think of buying tickets and phoning my friend to make him come along when I heard that they were doing a tour. I’ve called so many of their songs anthemic, but like “ethereal” with Sour and You’re Beautiful, the word has no meaning until you hear this song.

It got stuck in my head from my first listen, then made its way onto my running playlist, and then just became an absolute favorite. That chorus is golden, and they all sound like they’re having the time of their lives when performing it, which only makes me like it more. Hidden gems from the album are Lifeline (which has a more understated catchiness), Eclipse (for its sense of grandeur and classical background), and Nauseous, (for making me genuinely laugh.)

So, as is becoming a theme here, I’m very glad I did this. I’m surprised by how many songs I actually hadn’t heard of theirs, so it’s good that I know them now, and it made me both appreciate the diversity in their work more, and appreciate the evolution of their sound. It’s hard to keep every song feeling like “yours” while also diversifying, but I would say they did a pretty great job.

My top 5 songs of theirs are Back To Me (shocking I know), Cure, Red, Childhood, and She’s In The Rain. Honorable mention goes to Eclipse. The Rose gets a 9/10 from me, which I can acknowledge is personal bias. But, I think that everyone should check them out. If nothing else, I’d wager you’d find yourself at least one new song to enjoy. As for me, I’m watching their Mindset series for Dive studios, and I have a couple more singles to memorize since I’m now even more excited to see them live (with, of course, the friend that I dragged along).

Next week I’ll be doing a female soloist supplemental and Part 2 of the BTS deep dive, so stay tuned. Tschüss!

[feverinfeveroutfic]

why it seems like i've been going slower lately

been meaning to elaborate on this but... eh, what're you going to do. i've been writing since i was a kid: literally, i wrote my first short story when i was six years old (so i am as old as time itself in comparison to this site). there are troughs and peaks with anything and everything that comes out of me, and writing is no exception. 2023 has been exhibit a of a trough for me (which was kind of my worry as 2022 was ending, like i’m going to have to hit the brakes at some point) and there’s a few reasons.

i'm not an alcoholic, but i come from a family that's been stricken by alcoholism and addiction. my dad's been in recovery nearly 10 years as of writing, and my mom hasn't used anything in about 7 years. though i don't have "the disease" (and the taste of alcohol makes me urp as well), i do have some inflictions of it: i get obsessed with things easily and i tend to put a lot of energy into something that i'm really obsessed with it, be it a book or a crush. writing has allow me to explore myself and what i love, as well as be an escape from the skeletons in my closet. at this point, it's sort of lost its luster. if i walk away from my laptop for a day or two, i come back refreshed, like i’m not dreading it or hating it.

with testament, anything alex touches, and the less-popular corners of the bay area, i'm always excited, which has never happened to me before in all my fannish ways, not even when i was hanging out with soundgarden and the grunge scene as they kind of me hanging in 2016. metallica wore me out after a while (though i'm still very much a fan and lars is still my dark knight) and anthrax gave me that totally lovely drama from the back half of 2020, even though i'm still more than happy to write about them and about joey in particular. however this comes with a price: i'm getting pulled in different directions. i've got my wips and tbh, i'm in no hurry to finish them, especially now that we have an income now after going most of the year without one and nearly losing our house as a result. it's for this reason i've often wondered if i have a.d.h.d. or if i'm neurodivergent. i like novelty. i like surprises. i like to be kept on my toes.

i have a long history with mental illness, financial trouble, and weight problems, as well as often extreme discomfort with my sexuality. at 18 years old, i was almost homeless. at 19 years old, i was suicidal and my eating disorder was at its worst. at 20 years old, i was suffering from extreme anxiety to the point it would keep me awake at night. this past summer, i was so worried about our losing the house, that i thought i was going to have a mental breakdown. also this past summer, at my heaviest weight ever of 268 pounds, i was starting to have problems with my circulation and my blood pressure. though i'm steadily getting healthier, and as of writing (11/21/23), i've lost nearly 50 pounds since july, i won't fully parse into it, but the one bugaboo that keeps haranguing me (and often to the point of wanting to rip myself apart) is my sexuality. look no further than this year's kinktober: i had to end it a little after halfway because i was getting humiliated. i would post for the day and no one on ao3 would read it... but oh, they would flock in droves to other writers who either can’t write worth shit (sorry, but someone needs to say it) or the kink involved either doesn't feel like kink because it's so commonplace or it just doesn't hit right, like it's not hot at all. it's like it's hot for the sake of being hot. plus, i literally hate the second person perspective now, the ____ x reader trope; speaking of commonplace. i remember doing a couple of those when i returned to fic, but it was back when it was fresh and unusual back in 2018 and 2019: now it seems like it's every other fic in existence. it's lonely as hell on my end, especially when you get a wide array of kinks involved. and it's unoriginal, too, like there's no creativity to be found whatsoever.

so, it's not the popularity of the trope that gets me: it's the fact that it's never written correctly and it's so one-note now, and more often than not, i just think, "god, why not just invent an original character?" i can literally put up with kinks i don't like unless it's written well, and this is never the case now. and it's so weird because ao3 has no algorithm and yet people treat it as such. when you share a kink with the world, the expectation is to have others step out of the shadows and relate to it and that's how you normalize it and get comfortable with it... at least that's how it works for me. so, that wasn't happening with kinktober this year and as a result, i took it out on myself (i got some serious beef with the metallica fandom again, too: "just when i thought i was out, they pull me right back in"). i started to question my future in any kind of writing now, because it seems like in 2023, original fiction is just fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off: yeah, so much for sharing originals anymore. is it even worth it in fic when i feel like such an island? *i mention mental health and weight because the three—should, anyways—go in sync with each other. in general, as i'm losing weight, my anxiety is disappearing, but mention anything sexual and it comes roaring right back again. i'm trying to make peace with the three. when you lose a ton of weight like i have—and i think i’m gonna keep going with it, too, my waist-to-hip and waist-to-height ratios are still high, plus i feel better after a good workout—it not only changes you physically but emotionally and mentally. there’s a lot of adjustment that goes into all of this.

i have other things i like to do. i'm an artist (say no to ai, please, i beg you: you're killing me here). with my weight loss, i have rediscovered my athletic ways. recently, i got into baking and cooking: don't know if i want to bother with pastry school or any kind of school in the future, especially with how much i really dislike our education system here in the states, but i'm into making bread and sweet stuff among other things, though.

baking is, i wouldn't say it's time consuming but it definitely takes time, especially if you're making bread: you have to make the dough, and you have to knead it enough to where it's smooth and elastic, and then you have to let it rest or "prove" for a couple of hours depending on the flour you use (4 hours, if it’s rye flour or oats or barley; overnight with spelt), and then you have to knock the air out of it and shape it and let it prove a second time for an hour or 90 minutes, and you really only bake it for a short time, like 25 minutes. i like to set aside a whole afternoon to make a loaf of bread or a cake or something. plus, the internet as a whole has gotten increasingly anti-art and treats everything as “content” rather than human expression and as just another trend (i give “free palestine” another couple of months maybe before the uneducated masses move onto the next trendy thing and the conflict over there persists because none of you “activists” are truly activists). corollary of this: no more quarantine. all the time in the world, yeah, i got quick and i was updating all the time. quarantine ended with the irreversible damage done to the world, i had to adapt.

i also just tend to write more when i go slower? i wrote that one shot from back in may, "porcelain" over the course of a few days and it clocked in at more than 8k. i wrote that merman!alex story last year over a few days and that came out at over 9k. i'm speaking as someone who participated in nanowrimo from 2018-2021 and then again this year (i sat out last year because i didn't feel like it): i write more, and i feel like i write better when i don't write every day now.

i’ve always been miss independent, anyway. it’s my strongpoint and my curse. writing, along with art, is a very lonely craft. even i, someone who enjoys her alone time, still get lonely at times.

i live in a cultural desert here in the california mountains. a piss poor art scene, there’s no music here (at least not anymore), the theater scene here comes and goes, and the one bakery we have here sucks. “don’t let them take you down, leave a better world than you found”, as chris once said. if that means i have to take my time, i’ll take it.

and finally, it’s not that these stories make me cringe (quite the contrary! on my days off, i think about them all the time) but… it’s going to take very specific circumstances for me to write something on the level of fever again, like i’m going to need the world to shut down again (and knowing how cowardly everyone is, i don’t see it happening unless it’s really bad like a war breaks out). and i’m literally doing what i can to improve things on a sexual level.

[arkus-rhapsode]

So Fire Emblem Engage is just around the corner

And as you all remember I was more than hyped for a brand new Fire Emblem after almost three years of waiting. Hell, I even defended it after a lot of the initial backlash for its design and use of legacy characters.

Now I still standby I think a lot of the backlash was overblown and showed more of a trend in theFE development to often pivot vastly after an entry going for a different tone or story element. The reason I am writing this down now is I want to talk about my expectations for it as well as maybe how it can be managed. It’s no secret that the FE community has certain camps of how they’d like the direction of the series to go, weather you have older Kaga era fans wanting to keep it the romantic high fantasy of Genealogy, fans who want FE to be more political and nuanced like Tellius era fans, or just to keep the robust dating sim like character interactions of 3DS era fans.

When it comes to Engage one would think the meter stick that should be used is Three Houses. Afterall, it is the predecessor. But given all the information we have on how Engage is moving away from some of the mechanical beats like the branching paths into separate routes or the handing of every character in a customizable state to the player early on, as well as how it was meant to be an anniversary title, I think the title I am personally using to measure it will be Awakening. And let me just say as FE Awakening has had a look back by some as being a mostly fine entry that’s ultimately just a highly archetypical story with the most supports in a cast, it can not be understated both important it was for the franchise while also homaging and respecting everything that came before it. To put in a streamlined way, Awakening is the greatest hits of Fire Emblem: reminding old fans of the stuff they like about the franchise while creating new fans to see why this is a franchise worth keeping around. I think that context is also why many FE reviewers still are very fond of Awakening even when trying to look critically over it, whereas it’s successor, Fates would try to recapture Awakening but without that same tributary element to it tended to be seen as more bloated and harsher judged entry. But with the context of Engage’s development and what it’s aiming to do for FE’s 30 year history, I believe it should aim to be a Awakening level of experience. Doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel of the franchise, but rather an experience that both older and newer fans can enjoy.

There’s also no doubt that the animation style has changed from the intentionally slower FPS cut scenes from Echoes and 3H, to a more smoother matching the engine style cut scene. And frankly I find it beautiful, this is some of the most fluid 3D animations FE has had and I’m excited for this going forward with other games. I understand some found the older style more… stylized and giving it an identity, but honestly the fact the animations improved this much from the lambasting 3H had for its animations is a real show of improvement in my opinion. Also fully voice acting returns and as well as allowing our avatar characters to speak freely even as we control them is a welcome return.

And lastly for this blog, I know if you’ve been following for awhile you know the FE live blogs and original FE content have been a staple of this blog. I do hope to continue that, though it might not be to the essay level as FE3H provided me with. But for followers who have felt I’ve mostly let this channel be inactive, I will be likely posting here more In the coming weeks.

[inkpenparker]

hi!! i’ve been rereading iutwtbahuiftehd a lot recently and thinking of you often. I remember you disclosing that you’ve been going through a tough time with work/family since COVID so I wanted to send you a quick message saying I hope things are getting better for you, and that life has gotten easier… and if not then I thought you should know that unfinished or not iutwtbahuiftehd is one of my favourite stories ever on Ao3, and I truly thank you for all the work you put into it ❤️

this is a lil messy but basically what i’m trying to say is that you’re in my thoughts and I hope you’re okay 😊

Hi 😊

You’re very kind, very very kind, and I appreciate it.

I unfortunately still am going through a really rough time. I know it’s a meme right now that every time a fanfiction author disappears from writing you know that it involves death but, a couple of months ago, I lost another family member. It wasn’t from COVID while already immunocompromised this time, but it was my favorite uncle and it was very sudden. (If I had a nickel for every uncle I lost in less than ten months who also had cancer, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it is weird that it happened twice). And for lots of reasons that I’m sure I don’t have to spell out, that made writing within the spider-man fandom… A little too difficult for a while 😅.

But as I told another friend of mine a few weeks ago, I am actually writing again. And weirdly enough after a time it became cathartic. Which is what this story started out being over a year ago when I first start writing it to get through another really hard time. I’d lost Penny’s voice somehow in my own tribulations and it’s been a really hard time trying to find it again. But sometimes when you come to a place where you truly feel like you have nothing, the stuff you love the most become more obvious. Easier to identify. And I love writing, even stuff that’s not my own.

I don’t have a definitive update time, I wish I did. When I started posting that series, I had nearly 80,000 words written already, and I got ahead of myself. In a lot of ways, continuing as I am, trying to build it back up feels like I’m starting from scratch again, and I have a small fraction of that done and chapter ten needs many transitional scenes. However, my free time is limited to a few hours a day at work where I have nothing to do, so it’s much slower than it used to be. But, where there was no progress before- I can tell you that we are definitely moving along.

Thank you, again, believe me when I say it means a lot to writers and artists when comments and asks and stuff are left when hiatus comes along. It means the world to know that even when we are struggling to come up with the phrases to say more, what’s already there still holds it’s worth and meaning to others like it does us. Logically, I know that as a rereader myself, but you’re always more critical when the work is your own.

Thank you. 🥲

[aro-with-bad-aim]

Anna Karenina part 6:

firstly, I’m honestly finding it hard to believe it nearly finished, it’s the longest book I’ve ever read and it’s only been a month and a half. anyways-

I forgot to mention in part 5, but I find countess Lydia’s character very interesting. Firstly, she’s a polyamorous bisexual, which is amazing for the time the books written (“she was always in love with someone, both men and women, even multiple people at once”). She’s an interesting addition to Anna’s husbands life and I haven’t decided whether she’s a good or bad influence, but she’s currently making him happy which is good.

Part 6 was a lot slower paced, with more focus put on smaller and more mundane parts of life. This is a really interesting writing choice that Tolstoy does throughout the novel, and I like how it’s used to develop characters, even though it can get a little dull. I think that Dolly got a lot of well deserved character development. She’s portrayed as the loving wife, the one who forgave her husbands affair and stayed with him despite his flaws, making her an amazing foil for Anna, and their interactions in this part are really insightful into both of their characters. Dolly is unsatisfied with her life and her disloyal husband (understandably, he sucks). She envy’s Anna’s freedom and wishes to do the same. This originally made me question whether Dolly really is a foil for Anna, however it solidifies it. Anna has an affair because she’s unhappy with her stable life and seeks adrenaline and excitement. She wants more than she has. Dolly wants an affair because she’s unhappy with the unfair way she’s being treated in her relationship and wants an escape. I can honestly understand why Dolly would want to have an affair, she deserves so much better. Anna also got a lot of development. I love how well written and developed her character is. Yes, she loves vronsky and a large part of her identity is him, but it’s explored so well, and she has interests and relationships outside of him. I loved how it showed her passion for architecture, especially as it presented her and well educated, capable and intelligent, which would have been very uncommon for the time the book was written. Through this part, I could see Anna’s relationship with vronsky slowly turning into an unhealthy codependency. She’s terrified he will get bored and leave her, like Stepan did to Dolly, and like she did to her husband. I think she’s this anxious because she left her husband, and almost feels guilt and expects everyone else to think and behave like her. I think vronsky is slowly growing bored of her and is longing for the next adrenaline rush. He doesn’t want to settle down, he feels trapped in the relationship. He enjoyed the chase and the excitement, and now that’s gone he’s bored. Levin and kitty’s relationship was also explored in this part. They both feel overwhelmed by the amount of people in their house and want to be together alone, contrasting Anna and vronsky. The hunting trip was honestly a little boring, however it did go deeper into levins jealous and competitive characteristics. Kittys character is also explored, and I think she’s under a lot of pressure from her mum to behave and do things a certain way. I think it’s interesting that she still spites Anna, even though she’s happily married and didn’t really like vronsky anyway. I’m excited to finish and see how the story ends :D

[ossifer]

7, 13, 15 for the fic writer asks

7) How do you edit your fics? What do you look for in your edits? When I edit my fics I’ll read through them slower than my usual reading pace, making pains to try and pick up on any grammar errors or the like that I’ve missed. Editing is also the stage I’ll play around with word order, rewording sentences to see if I can convey things better or make a sentence more impactful by rearranging it.

One of the main things I look for in my edits is stuff I can trim: adjectives I use too frequently, repreated words or phrases, fatty bits that make it unnecessarily longer. I aim for a style that is unafraid to be wordy, but also has a bluntness to it, ‘get to the point but don’t skim on detail’, so streamlining it is important to me.

13) Are you a fast or slow writer?

I’m a decently fast writer when I’m adequately inspired, people I know can attest to how quickly I can churn out snippets or paragraphs when I’m spitballing ideas, but I overall tend to be slow because my inspiration comes in fits and starts: I’m very slow to put out new works and chapters because I’m a perfectionist whose creativity is sporadic. I think the most I’ve ever wrote in one sitting was 3k over the course of just over an hour, not counting breaks, which was for my fic long as amber of ember glows, and that fic is really not my best piece of writing.

15) If you could only write one type of fic (angst, fluff, etc.) for the rest of your life what would it be?

Angst, angst, angst. I write a lot of fluff because I enjoy having characters in sappy romantic scenarios, but my angsty writing is the stuff I live for. I want to write things that have an impact, that inspire the sort of feelings I have about whatever piece of media/characters I’m writing for, and while you can inspire an emotional reaction wth fluff I always think that angst encompasses a more broad spectrum of emotion. Writing nothing but fluff would feel so much more limiting to me.